Friday, February 04, 2005

  • Friday, February 04, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
While the Palestinian Authority may come down clearly on the side of killing Jews for divine Islamic reward, other Muslims think converting Jews is even better. Although, they'll agree, killing Jews is still good.

Speaking on Saudi Arabia's Iqra TV last month, Sheikh 'Aed Al-Karni expounded:

'The Prophet Muhammad, as is said in the Hadith [post-Koranic instructions for behavior and belief - ed.], sent Ali to the Jews - to the Jews, the brothers of apes and pigs - to fight them. Ali, being so brave and daring, thought he was sent to behead them. The Prophet Muhammad told him that it was better to guide them to the righteous path than to kill them....'

Adding elucidation of the founder of Islam's instruction, Al-Karni concluded, 'By Allah, if you guide a Jew or a Christian to the righteous path, it is better than slaughtering one or two thousand of them on the battlefield.'

A London-based Islamic preacher, however, has a different view. Appearing on Iranian television's Arabic broadcast on December 30, Sa'id Radhwan declared:

'The only option with these Jews is Jihad. Jihad is the only option that the [Palestinian] resistance should employ and maintain against the Jews. It is impossible for [the Palestinians] to regain their lands and their holy places in any way but Jihad, because Jihad is the only way to liberate the Palestinian lands and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.'

[Translations produced by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East.]"
  • Friday, February 04, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
Very interesting editorial from left-leaning Yediot:

Support for a national referendum is a sharp change in the position
expressed here in the past. But things that happened in the last months require a reevaluation of prior positions.

It will force Sharon to roll up his sleeves, leave the controlled atmosphere of the Cabinet and go out to the citizens of Israel in order to address their questions, get rid of their doubts and convince them that his path is correct. Ariel Sharon will discover in his campaign that a considerable number of Likud supporters feel that he personally deceived them. They will demand an explanation for the dramatic change from his traditional positions and he will have to provide them. Sharon won't have a hard time doing it;
the new reality will speak for itself. If Sharon applies himself to the campaign he will cause 65% of the participants in a national referendum to say 'yes'.

Thus the carrying out of a national referendum should not be conditioned on the a priori commitment of the disengagement opponents to forego their protest. Protest within the bounds of the law is the very lifeblood of a liberal regime and the backbone of civil rights. The results of the national referendum must be so convincing and so overwhelming that the disengagement opponents will accept them as a clear expression of the will of the People and will themselves give up.'

Yediot Ahronot editorial written by Sever Plotzker 3 February 2005
[Translated from the original Hebrew]
  • Friday, February 04, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
I like(d) Condi, but what the hell is she thinking? Is the water at Foggy Bottom spiked or something?

Could you imagine the US giving criminals in our country $100 a month if they would only agree not to kill anyone?


U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has proposed a $100 monthly allowance to terrorists who agree to lay down their arms and retire or find another profession.

The money would be part of a $350 million package deal announced by U.S. President George Bush this past week. The Bush administration suggested that Congress consent to send $41 million immediately for an “immediate impact in support of democratic transition.” Under Congressional rules, the money would go for specific projects, and not directly to the Palestinian Administration (PA).

Rice, about to pay her first visit to the Middle East in her new position as successor to Colin Powell, wants part of the money to go directly to “retired” terrorists. Speaking between visits to European countries, she proposed a pension fund for at least 1,000 terrorists.

President Bush's offer of $350 million came after American disappointment at assistance that Arab states have offered. ("Shame, shame, Prince Faisal, as punishment for you not giving any money to help Palestinians' lives...we'll just do it ourselves!") The American aid is to be earmarked for new and modern border crossings, road and water infrastructure, and education and health programs.

UPDATE: Great comments on this from OceanGuy:

  • If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over while expecting different results, then the policies of the entire non-Arab world are absolutely insane. The Arabs, on the other hand, stick to their proven formula. Fight the Jews, lose, promise peace [in exchange for land, arms, legitimacy, cash] then declare it's not enough and resume their fighting.

  • Friday, February 04, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
Back in the seventies, Doonesbury was funny. But nowadays it is just mean and sad.

The current series of strips shows BD, the football coach turned injured Iraqi soldier, telling his shrink that he wants to kill every cab driver who looks Arab. That as an instinctive reaction to his fighting in Iraq, that everyone who looks different is the enemy.

What an incredible insult to the US military! In one stroke Trudeau has slimed all soldiers as bigots. And, one may add, without a shred of evidence. I have yet to see a soldier in downtown Bagdhad shooting everyone on the street who looks Arab.

Shameful.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

  • Thursday, February 03, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
By CINNAMON STILLWELL

A remarkable thing happened in the Bay Area last month. San Francisco and Berkeley, two cities known for their anti-American, anti-Israel, and increasingly anti-Semitic character, hosted rallies against global terrorism. The mangled wreckage of the Jerusalem #19 bus, destroyed in a suicide bombing and displayed at both events, brought the reality of terrorism closer to home. It was a powerful reminder of what too many, especially in the Bay Area, still label acceptable.

One could be forgiven for assuming that these rallies had enjoyed the support of the Jewish community, but instead the opposite was true. An inordinate amount of disdain was directed at rally supporters, the bulk of it from Jews. Jewish organizations, individuals, and even rabbis did everything in their power to either ignore the rallies, urge people not to attend, or to condemn those who took part. But their hostility was misplaced, to say the least.

Although the rallies were all encompassing, it was obvious that at the heart of the matter were Jews and those that hate them. After all, what else motivated the suicide bomber of bus #19? Or the Arab protesters across the street from the rally in Berkeley screaming, “Go back to Germany”? Why else were their children carrying signs accusing Jews of “organ thievery,” the modern blood libel? The Nazi-like hatred for Jews indoctrinated in Palestinian youth from the moment they’re born is undeniable, and peace in the Middle East will not be achieved until that changes. The results were clear for all to see on the streets of Berkeley and San Francisco. And yet it was those in the anti-terror crowd who were labeled “hatemongers.”

One of the most spurious accusations leveled against rally supporters was that somehow they had "incited" violence by their mere presence. Violence was indeed the goal of a mob of keffiyeh-clad youth who disrupted the peaceful rally in “free speech” bastion Berkeley. And in San Francisco, the same group was thwarted. No doubt the disapproving Jewish community felt a certain “I told you so” at the news. But does it follow that it was the rally-goers’ fault that they were attacked? Unscrupulous lawyers accusing rape victims of “asking for it” have used the same argument. It’s called blaming the victim.

If holding a rally against global terrorism and commemorating the victims of suicide bombings is inciting others to violence, then so be it. Jews should not have to feel guilty for condemning terrorism or cower in fear of those who oppose their very existence. The day they do is the day they surrender that existence.

Unfortunately, not everyone feels that way. In a strange psychological case of identification, some Jews throw in their lot with the opposition. They have bought into their own demonization and are in effect Jewish anti-Semites. It appears they would rather assist in their own annihilation than come to grips with the hatred directed toward them. This propensity for self-loathing is well known. Why else would openly anti-Semitic, self-styled “pro-Palestinian” organizations make recruiting Jewish members their main focus? Just ask the members of “Jews for a Free Palestine” who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Jew-haters in Berkeley.

In the wake of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it’s instructive to look back and see how this disunity has harmed Jews in the past. During the Holocaust, Jews were used by the Nazis to calm their co-religionists and help make them more docile for the trip to the gas chambers. There were Jewish prisoners (among others) who worked as guards in the concentration camps, often treating their fellow Jews as brutally as the SS. They were called “kapos,” a term gaining currency once again as old wounds are reopened.

When you hear leaders in the French Jewish community telling others to “remain calm” amidst a backdrop of anti-Semitic attacks and vandalism, echoes of the past can be heard. Similarly, when fellow Jews told those who supported the anti-terrorism rallies that they should “be quiet,” “not make waves,” and, most outrageously, that they “incited” hatred, it seemed as if history was repeating itself all over again.

Yet even in their darkest moments, Jews managed to fight back. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, when Jews of all political stripes — facing certain death at the concentration camp in Treblinka — banded together to form the Jewish Resistance Organization, was a shining example. They dealt a severe blow to the Nazis, forcing propaganda chief Josef Goebbels to concede in his diary: "The Jews have actually succeeded in making a defensive position of the Ghetto. Heavy engagements are being fought…this just shows what you can expect from Jews if they lay hands on weapons."

A year later, in 1944, Jews living in what the British called Palestine formed the Jewish Brigade, an all-Jewish fighting force. They fought with the allies against the German army in Italy, and after the war ended, did everything they could to smuggle Holocaust survivors out of Europe and into Palestine. Later in 1948, these veterans fought bravely in Israel’s War of Independence. Member Jonathan Peltz summed up the Brigade’s main achievement: “We proved to the world that we can fight. We proved to ourselves that we can fight."

The story of the Jews themselves is one of triumph over adversity and the quest to reclaim or hold onto the Jewish homeland. Israel’s (or Judea’s) ancient history is that of a nation constantly besieged by enemies. But no matter the hardships, the Jews never gave up. The founding of the nation of Israel in 1948 speaks to this tenacity, as does the Six-Day War of 1967, which was a further triumph of which Jews should be proud.

This is why Israel is so resented in the world — because it represents Jewish strength. The current disengagement plan and the resurgence of Oslo-like naivete are not examples of such strength, but rather the capitulation without cause that seems to plague the country in moments of doubt. The path Israel takes will help determine the fate of Jews in the years to come.

One thing is certain: It’s time for Jews to stop apologizing for being Zionists. At a time of rising worldwide anti-Semitism and an increase in Jews making aliyah, it should be painfully obvious why the State of Israel is so important.

My mother once told me about an encounter she had in “liberal” Marin County (where I grew up) with a Jewish family she knew. During one conversation, she let drop casually that she was a Zionist. “You’re a Zionist?” the man asked in horror. “Of course” she answered. “How can you be a Jew and not be a Zionist?”

A better question I couldn’t have asked myself.


Cinnamon Stillwell is contributing editor to ChronWatch.com and also writes for SFGate.com, Frontpagemagazine.com, and Israel National News. She lives in San Francisco and can be reached at cinnamons@earthlink.net.
  • Thursday, February 03, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
How often do you hear European heads of state make this much sense about Israel?

Israel finds a defender in Denmark
Since Denmark has only a tiny Jewish community, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen can't be accused of pandering to the Jewish vote when he launched a spirited defense of Israel on the campaign stump earlier this week.

During an appearance at the University of Aarhus, Rasmussen was challenged over his support for the US and asked why Iraq was attacked for violating UN Security Council resolutions while Israel was able to do so with impunity.

Rasmussen, whose country began a two-year rotating stint on the Security Council on January 1, said that whereas Israel was not completely implementing all the Security Council resolutions, 'it is not run by a dictator without a conscience, and that is an essential difference.'

'Moreover,' he said, 'Israel is surrounded by enemies that want to throw it into the sea, and we should recognize that it has a special history. Israel must use somewhat tough measures to defend itself.'
  • Thursday, February 03, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
All the gestures that Palestinians do for "peace" can be taken away in a blink of an eye. They deploy troops and make a couple of arrests today; tomorrow they start shooting at schoolbuses.

All the gestures Israel is doing for peace are either permanent or very, very expensive to undo. Releasing prisoners, ceding land and control, agreeing to not defend herself - all of these things can (and, historically, have) resulted in less security and more death.

We are witnessing Oslo II, and I fail to see how the Israeli government has shown that it learned the lessons of Oslo I.
  • Thursday, February 03, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
Everything can be solved by negotiation, right?

Iran Says It Will Never Scrap Nuke Program
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran will never scrap its nuclear program, and talks with Europeans are intended to protect the country's nuclear achievements, not negotiate an end to them, an Iranian official said Wednesday.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

  • Wednesday, February 02, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
Take the thing that scare people about visiting Israel and make it the reason to visit!
Israel's international reputation as a target for suicide bombings and terrorist infiltrations has scared off tourists for years. But now, that might be what brings them back.

The Israel Challenge Experience's (ICE) army fantasy camp, to open in May, lets tourists spend a week getting "anti-terror training" from the IDF experts.

"Unfortunately Israel has become the world leader in fighting terrorism. Who better to train with than the people who have written the book on antiterror warfare?" asks ICE president Ben Goldstein, a Memphis native who made aliya and served in the Givati Brigade.

So while Israelis jet off to Istanbul and Goa to get away from it all, foreigners can plunk down $3,600, plus air fare, and take a relaxing break in the thick of terrorist warfare.

In seven days, participants are trained in shooting, hand-to-hand fighting, surveillance, hostage rescue and more, culminating in a staged battle on the final day.

While other fantasy camp vacations let you break the sound barrier on Russian MiGs or herd cattle a la Billy Crystal in City Slickers, this mock adventure offers much more practical experience for the post-9/11 world.

Goldstein estimates that the daily training in hand-to-hand combat, for instance, could help you ward off a mugger if confronted by one. And, he says, "If you find yourself on a hijacked bus and you just happen to have a mini-Uzi on you, then, yeah, you definitely have an advantage over somebody who didn't come on this program."

He adds, "That's why we call it fantasy. Because most likely you'll never never have to storm a house full of terrorists or rescue hostages on a bus."

That's apparently a disappointing thought to the 275 people, from Australia to Switzerland, who have e-mailed Goldstein with inquiries about the program. On the first day of registration alone, six people signed up to spend their May holiday in the training camp, located near Netanya.

"Most of your friends were sitting in a cubicle all week, and here you were leading a unit into an attack on a terrorist camp," said Goldstein, explaining the program's appeal. "I run across very few people who wouldn't like to spend some time being James Bond."
  • Wednesday, February 02, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon

European yardsticks for Turkey, a peaceful country, joining the EU – demand [of Turkey] far-reaching political and social reform “on the ground”, and 10 to 15 years of negotiations while Turks prove democratic change is “irreversible.”

European yardsticks for Palestinians, a hostile society, joining the Family of Nations - amounts to praise for fabricated non-existent reforms and calls to drop the required incremental progress from the Road Map. End to violence and democratic reform, that Palestinians haven’t even begun is tolerable – all in order to forge the way for immediate establishment of a Palestinian state, one which will endanger the very survival of a free and democratic Israel.

The historic decision of the European Commission in mid-December 2004 that Turkey is now ready to begin full negotiations on joining the European Union is an excellent opportunity to benchmark the way Europeans judge Turks, and how they judge Palestinians.

Keep in mind the goals and the ramifications of each: The Turks’ goal is membership in the European Union – a political union that the Europeans already say will have an iron-clad reversibility clause for Turkey if it fails to live up to its promises. The Palestinians’ goal[1] is sovereignty as a State – status for which there is no reversibility mechanism if Palestine turns into a rogue state. Logically, the yardsticks of judging readiness should be at least equal, if not more stringent for Palestinians, a society that consciously and purposely sacrifices its own youth for political gain and tactical advantage, with a leadership that champions suicide bombers.

Alas, nothing could be farther from the truth.


Read the whole thing. -EoZ
  • Wednesday, February 02, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
A society that celebrates by firing guns in the air does not have the right to tell others about the value of life. -EoZ.

The Palestinians arrested a suspect in Monday's murder of Nuran Dib, on Tuesday evening.

The man reportedly fired shots into the air; one of those shots hit the girl.

The suspect is being questioned regarding the shooting.

The IDF said on Monday night that following an initial investigation, it did not seem that the 10-year-old from Rafah was hit by IDF tank fire.

Palestinians had originally claimed that the girl was killed by shrapnel fired from an IDF tank shell at an UNWRA schoolyard in Rafah, where Dib was playing.

The Palestinians used the supposed killing as a pretext to resume firing mortars at Gaza Strip settlements.

During the day Monday, soldiers positioned in posts located along the Philadelphi Route fired twice from light weapons into areas far from where the girl was hit, security officials said.

The officials said that at the time the girl was killed, officials at the District Coordinating Office received reports that in the same area Muslim worshippers returning from the Hajj in Mecca fired warning shots in the air to celebrate their return.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

  • Tuesday, February 01, 2005
  • Elder of Ziyon
Like a perpetual memory machine, the tomb of Yasser Arafat grows more elaborate with each passing day.

Just 11 weeks ago, as Arafat lay dying in a hospital bed outside Paris, this bare-dirt corner of the iconic Palestinian leader's debris-strewn Mukata headquarters was one of the most blighted sights in the entire West Bank.

Today, a national shrine is rising from the rubble, replete with landscaped gardens, newly transplanted mature olive trees and Palestinian flags framing a steel-and-glass burial chamber whose doors open toward the holy city of Mecca.

With all eyes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict focused on the prospects of a long-overdue ceasefire, the high-speed deification of Arafat's wreath-strewn gravesite has passed almost unnoticed. But it is nonetheless fascinating to watch the almost daily adornments accrue.

However much Palestinians promise that, in the fullness of time, Arafat will make one last journey to be reburied in his beloved Jerusalem, the embellishments underway at this supposedly temporary gravesite come with a sense of permanence.

... Habash is now executive director of the National Committee for Immortalizing the Symbol of the Immortal Leader Yasser Arafat.

The astonishingly fanciful title means he oversees a 50-person committee charged with reinventing the Mukata compound as a kind of Arafat theme park.

What exists today, he says, is just the beginning. Plans are being hatched for a mosque, a library and a national archive on the grounds of this former British police headquarters.

The partially destroyed apartment complex nearby, where Arafat spent his final three years, has been under 24-hour guard since the former leader's death.

Habash's committee is viewing it as a future museum.

Habash, who has been at Arafat's side since their days of exile in Beirut in the 1980s, admits to being something of a packrat.

From reel-to-reel tapes of early Palestinian Liberation Organization meetings to the tiniest scraps of paper initialled by Arafat, he calculates some 5 million pieces of Araphernalia have been preserved for future historians.

"Even those (Palestinians) who didn't like Arafat feel that they have lost something very important," says Habash.

"What we want to do is turn the Mukata into the permanent symbol of the Palestinian people — a symbol that will be as great as the symbol of George Washington."

National symbols are no less important to neighbouring Israel.

Yet none of the tombs of that nation's founding fathers — from Theodore Hertz to David Ben Gurion to Yitzhak Rabin — can be described as anything but modest, compared with the shrine evolving around Arafat.

"That is one big different between our cultures," notes professor Yehuda Gradus, director of the Ben Gurion Institute and overseer of the former prime minister's gravesite in Israel's southern Negev desert.

"Arafat to them was almost like a ghost. He was built into this enormous figure, which is a very common phenomenon throughout the Third World.

"It doesn't surprise me at all that there will be such a spectacular site."

Gradus says the Israeli inclination is to construct national memories focusing less on its leaders and more on the ideas they represented.

Consequently, while Ben Gurion lies in a rather ordinary grave, Israel has invested heavily in the nearby Ben Gurion Institute for Desert Research, where some 85 scientists live and work to this day, advancing the former leader's trailblazing ideas about reclaiming the desert as a habitat for humanity.

"Ben Gurion was a very modest man," says Gradus. "And so he has a modest grave.

"But he also was a visionary. He believed that by leading the world in this field, Israel would be a light unto other nations, achieving scientific advancements and exporting this knowledge of desert development for the benefit of all."

Such separation of man and motive appears unlikely to ever apply to Arafat.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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