Thursday, May 02, 2013

  • Thursday, May 02, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
The resignation theatre continues...

Mahmoud Abbas told an Austrian newspaper that Salam Fayyad, who attempted to resign last month, might be the head of the next PA government anyway.

According to Arabic translations of the interview, Abbas said "The [unity] government will be composed of independent experts and should not be an alliance between Fatah and Hamas, and Salam Fayyad has the right to keep his job in the next government."

As far as I can tell, Fayyad is still "caretaker" prime minister while Fatah and Hamas bicker over how to pretend they are working towards the next government.

The next moves will be an outcry from Fatah and Hamas who hate Fayyad, with quiet backroom deals to keep Fayyad in office to keep Western aid dollars flowing.

As usual, all Palestinian Arab politicians try to put on a progressive face while speaking to the West and when they speak to each other it is an entirely different universe. The West has far more influence on them than it realizes - after all, they need Western money - but diplomats shrink back from outright hostility, which is the Arab game to keep pressure at bay. This is why we haven't made any progress towards a real peace since Oslo.

Both Abbas and Hamas' prime minister Ismail Haniyeh are now past their four-year terms from previous elections, and Fayyad was never elected to any position. But Jimmy Carter certified that "Palestine" has a vibrant democracy so everything is fine.
  • Thursday, May 02, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
Arabic media are reporting that Hamas is drafting a new penal code for Gaza, separate from the one under the PA, and plans to adhere more closely to Sharia punishments.

According to the (anti-Hamas) Palestine Press Agency and others, the proposed penal code Article 290 says that if someone steals goods worth more than 100 Jordanian dinars (about $140) they will have their right hand chopped off. A second offense brings an automatic jail sentence of at least seven years.

The proposed code is also said to enforce a literal interpretation to "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," meaning that the court system will be inflicting injuries. In addition, it is said to punish adultery with lashes.

The report adds that human rights institutions in  Gaza have been silent about this matter so far.



  • Thursday, May 02, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
Two days ago I revealed that an Egyptian newspaper published two articles claiming, in lurid detail, the charges that Jews ritually drink Christian (and Muslim) blood on Passover and Purim.

This is hardly the first time Arab newspapers descend to pure Jew-hatred.

Exposing their hate is important, but unlike doing that for English-language articles, it rarely would cause a change in behavior. Ultimately, the goal is to shame the haters into not wanting to publicize their hate and poison the next generation, even if only a little.

I managed to embarrass the Palestinian NGO Miftah into removing a similarly offensive article, even if they attacked me for pointing out their hate. How can we do the same for an Egyptian newspaper?

Some six  years ago, I routinely highlighted Jew-hatred in a bizarre ultra-left wing site called The People's Voice. I asked my (then much smaller) audience to complain to Google News, because their site was indexed there as a legitimate "news" organization, and Google News has a policy not to link to offensive articles.

Complaints to Google News causes Google to contact the publisher of the sites asking them to remove the offensive article, and if they make a habit of it, Google will pull the source altogether from Google News.

The People's Voice freaked out over this, much like Miftah did, attacking me in a long rambling article claiming I was "censoring" them.

But, in some ways, they changed their behavior. Some articles were silently removed. While they still routinely publish crazed anti-Zionist articles, 9/11 conspiracy theories and the like, they generally stay away from direct attacks on Jews and Judaism as they had been doing, or they at least mask their Jew-hatred by replacing the word "Jew" with "Zionist." Even though this is only a small step, it is an important one.

There is no reason this would not work for Arabic-language hate as well. Letters to the editor would be ignored, but Google has clout. (Chances are, as with The People's Voice, they will misinterpret contact from Google into thinking that Google will stop linking to them even in its general search engine, not only Google News. This will scare them.)

So whenever I highlight Arab anti-semitism - generally from newspapers indexed in Google News - the proper thing to do is to go to this Google News complaint page. This page is not easy to find, so bookmark it. From previous experience, one complaint is not always enough to get Google to act.

In this case, you would need to note the offending article's URL (in this case, http://www.misrelgdida.com/Investigations/112946.html)  and the name of the news source, which in Arabic is  جريدة مصر الجديدة . 


Wednesday, May 01, 2013

  • Wednesday, May 01, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
From EJP:
Britain's Zionist Federation (ZF) has launched a petition aimed at rallying its activists to lobby the British and EU institutions to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) as a terrorist organisation.

According to Paul Charney, Chairman of the UK-based ZF, “the EU and the UK must take practical steps to deal with international terrorism. By proscribing the IRG, it would show its commitment to fighting terrorism and protecting the security of EU citizens”.

The ZF calls on its activists to use its campaign to directly lobby EU institution heads including foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, EU Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, European Parliament President Martin Schulz and EU Council head Herman Van Rompuy, based on the reasoning that by employing such a united and uncompromising action, “Iran will find it much harder to ignore efforts by both the EU and the US to stop Iran gaining nuclear weapons”.
Iran's PressTV noticed it, and if they are ticked off, then you know you are doing something right:
The IRGC, which was formed by the late Imam Khomeini after the victory of Islamic Revolution in 1979, is internationally popular for its expertise in defending the ideals of the Revolution.

The IRGC’s growing and modern capabilities to defend Iran’s territorial integrity have made Zionist regime and its western allies furious.

For the same reason, Zionist regime’s patrons in the UK are pushing their respective governments to impose unilateral sanctions against Iran’s security forces on the pretext that the force is defending the Islamic Revolution.

Zionist Federation of Britain, which is a staunch supporter of Israeli regime’s atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories, has demanded that the EU and UK blacklist an official force of a sovereign country on unfounded, baseless allegation of posing a threat to international security.

This is while that Iran’s IRGC forces have been engaged in various humanitarian operations both domestically and internationally whenever they have been required in cases of killer quakes, storms and other humanitarian catastrophes.
Ah, so the Revolutionary Guards is a human rights organization!

Harry's Place has more:
The IRG (Iranian Revolutionary Guards) is a vile terrorist organisation, which exports terrorism abroad including attacks on UK soldiers in Afghanistan. It brutally oppresses the Iranian people at home including the crushing of The Green Revolution. I wouldn’t exactly call that humanitarian!

The Guards helps fund Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah-, and helped them carry out suicide bombings, car bombs, rockets and mortar attacks and much more against innocent Israelis. The IRG helped provide Hezbollah with the expertise for the killing of five Israelis and 1 Bulgarian in the Bulgarian sea resort of Burgas. Yet according to Press TV the IRG is just a poor humanitarian group targeted by the big bad West.

The IRG is a vicious terrorist organisation that is one of the major protagonists of global terrorism. The group and all its associates are awash with the blood of innocent civilians. It operates worldwide including in Europe, The USA and Asia. It simply cannot be ignored and yet that has been the policy of the UK Government and the EU in recent years. For all their harsh words against the Iranian Regime, somehow the IRG has escaped censure. It is almost as though, to the EU and UK Government, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards is invisible. Whether the EU and UK like it or not, to deal with international terrorism means dealing with its sources, whether it is Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards or both. One of the best ways of doing this is through cutting off the financing and support to the IRG through listing it as a terror group across the UK and EU. In doing so, the UK and the EU would be putting their words on fighting International terrorism into action.

If like me you believe we need to stand up to terrorism sign the ZF’s campaign petition on the IRG here and for further information on the IRG read this campaign briefing here.

The article also points out that the IRGC, rather than helping earthquake victims, tried to confiscate aid and arrested Red Crescent workers trying to help quake victims.
  • Wednesday, May 01, 2013
From Ian:

Opposing radical Islamist terrorism is a moral duty
Terrorism will only cease to be a threat when extremist ideology is marginalised.
Meanwhile, some are now arguing that terrorism should be accepted as a normal hazard of modern life, like traffic accidents. Others draw false comparisons between terrorist acts and the rampages of mentally ill gunmen tragically endemic in the US. These sentiments fail to acknowledge the unique characteristics and goals of terrorism. Terror attacks are perpetrated by immoral ideologues, not the mentally ill. This is true whether the terrorist is acting alone or as an operative in an organised network.
As the instigator for terrorism, radical Islamism is not the only global actor, but it is a major player, and to deny this is to deny reality.
A terror attack is intended to send a message that civilians are not safe in public places. The fear that is created by terrorism is leveraged by the indiscriminate nature of the attacks. More than an atrocity, it is an assault on the social contract underpinning society. Moreover, successful terrorist attacks tend to encourage others and touch off a savage game of one-upmanship in a drive to capture global media attention.
Daniel Pipes: Lessons from the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of "Ten Most Wanted" fugitives dates back to 1950 but the list of "Most Wanted Terrorists" dates back to just after 9/11 and a sense that terrorism had become a strategic threat. Today, the list includes 31 individuals, all of them male and with a single exception (Daniel Andreas San Diego, an animal rights extremist), all of them Muslim:
Brendan O'Neill: The 10 stupidest Islamic terrorists
The atrocious Boston marathon bombing was a reminder of the hurt and sorrow that can be caused by Islamic terrorists. It was also a reminder of how fantastically stupid and inept such terrorists can be. Who are the stupidest Islamic terrorists of all?
Saudis said to have warned US of Boston bombing
Saudi Arabia in 2012 sent the United States a written warning naming alleged Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a security threat, a British newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Bolton: US Should Resign from 'Clown Convention' at UN
Bolton said that simply firing Falk, who was appointed in 2008 to a six-year term as U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Palestinian territories, wouldn’t solve the problem.
“I’m all in favor of firing him sooner rather than later. But here’s the sad news: He will be replaced with somebody else and it won’t make a bit of difference,” Bolton said. “I think the culture at the United Nations is such that merely firing one guy will not change anything.”
Bolton said the problem is that the entire U.N. human rights mechanism is fundamentally directed against Israel, adding that more resolutions are passed dealing with Israeli human rights violations than “the rest of the world combined.”
Max Brenner exposes the haters to the light
There was a pleasingly vigorous response to recent BDS supported activity to boycott a new Max Brenner chocolate shop at UNSW. Julia Gilard was very clear in her condemnation – as reported in the Australian
“Julia Gillard has denounced the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement ahead of anti-Israeli protest action planned at the University of NSW today.
The Prime Minister said yesterday through a spokeswoman that the government had always been firm in its opposition of the BDS movement, which equates Israel with apartheid-era South Africa.
Israel ads perverted in battle for public opinion in Ireland
An advertising campaign in the Irish city of Cork urging people to visit Israel was defaced almost immediately on its unveiling by anti-Israeli activists. The ad campaign, which featured colourful images of Israeli society with the slogan “Visit Israel,” was overwritten with the slogan “Boycott Israel” and other messages critical of Israeli policy. The vandalism was clearly well organized and photos of the defacement were posted on the Internet and the Facebook page of the Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
UN Watch: Tweets for Terror: Mona Seif, Nominee for 2013 Martin Ennals Human Rights Award
UN Watch today called on the jury of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, comprised of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and eight other NGOs, and chaired by Hans Thoolen, to cancel its nomination of Mona Seif, an Egyptian activist who openly advocates terrorism and war crimes, as a top contender for the 2013 prize. She openly incites to violence against civilians, terrorism and war crimes:
Anti-Semite and war criminal Dr. Erik Fosse awarded commandership of the Order of St. Olav
This is the same Dr. Fosse who allowed armed combatants to take refuge at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza in the Cast Lead operation in December 2008/January 2009. At no point did he protest how the same combatants put the lives of the patients in his care in further damage, but also tolerated that acts of terror and war crimes were planned and executed from this compound.
Pope Francis Accepts Peres’s Invitation to Visit Israel
Israeli President Shimon Peres formally invited Pope Francis to visit Israel during a meeting between the two leaders at the Vatican.
Pope Francis accepted the invitation “with willingness and joy,” a Vatican spokesman said, Reuters reported.
Old Spice Ad Man Finds Hit in Israel With Maccabee Beer Commercial (VIDEO)
Isaiah Mustafa, recognizable as The Man Your Man Could Smell Like in Old Spice deodorant ads, is also making a name for himself pitching beer in Israel.
Regina Spektor coming Israel’s way
Acclaimed alternative folk singer, who can list the Obamas among her fans, to perform in August
From Iraq to Israel, for life saving heart surgery
Three Iraqi children have arrived in Israel for life-saving heart surgery and were received by representatives of the Ministry for Regional Cooperation and members of Save a Child’s Heart charity.
Although Iraq is defined as an ‘enemy state’ to Israel, the Knesset approved the entry of the three children and their mothers on humanitarian grounds.
Based on the Pew survey I mentioned yesterday.





  • Wednesday, May 01, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Gothamist reports:
It seems that a rumored deal to bring a soccer stadium to Queens is closer to reality, with the NY Times reporting what Bloomberg News, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other publications had noted: Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is close to paying $100 million to bring professional soccer to Queens.

While Sheik Mansour, deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, has a personal net worth of $4.9 billion—a.k.a. money to burn—critics of the MLS stadium-in-Queens plan are pointing out his country's human rights failings. City Councilman Daniel Dromm said, "I was shocked to read in the New York Times that the Bloomberg Administration is negotiating to give NYC parkland away to Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, an oil billionaire that helps rule a country where gays or lesbians is a crime punishable by death. This is outrageous. This is also a country where gay and lesbian people could be subject to chemical castration. It is totally unacceptable. I urge my colleagues in the City Council and elected officials across the state to join me in saying that New Yorkers won’t do business with a murderous regime and we won’t sell, trade or giveaway our public assets to those who discriminate and participate in human rights abuses."
If allowing a prince to invest in the US is unacceptable because of his country's anti-gay policies, shouldn't there be at least as much opposition to music artists playing in that country itself?

Yet this weekend Justin Bieber is playing in Dubai. Florence and the Machine follows a week later, a rock festival in June and a jazz festival every year. Other performers include David Guetta, John Cleese, Italian opera singers (sponsored by the Italian embassy) singing La Traviata, and the Wayans Brothers.

How come nobody calls for these artists to boycott Dubai? Indeed, why aren't artists themselves in the forefront of boycotting the UAE?

Funny how selective "moral" outrage can be, isn't it?

(I leave it to my readers to find any artists who boycott the one nation in the region that prioritizes human rights and yet play in Dubai, or Lebanon, without any qualms whatsoever.)

(h/t Ronald)
  • Wednesday, May 01, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
Al Quds makes up some history:

Today marks the first of May, the anniversary of the outbreak of the Jaffa uprising, where clashes between Palestinians and Jews, who were backed by the British occupation forces, lasted for 14 days.

The uprising started when a group of Jews on May 1 assaulted the Muslims living in Manshiya in Jaffa, where a massive march of Jews was launched from Tel Aviv towards Manshiya, demanding that British troops "avenge the blood of Jews who were killed in the Nebi Musa revolution in the previous year."

Marchers shot Arab passers-by, and Palestinians attacked the home for Jewish immigrants in the region, and killed 13 Jews and wounded 24 others out of a hundred who lived there, mostly young people, then they widened the clashes and events to cover many parts of the north of Palestine, but continued to peak until mid-May 1921.

Palestinians attacked a number of Israeli settlements, such as Hadera and Kfar Saba and Petah Tikva....47 Jews were killed and 146 injured.

The medical reports proved then, that among the dead Muslims were some killed by boiling (silver?) water, and cutting machines, and they were maimed and tortured before being killed, and among the martyrs were women whose beliies were split open and girls violated.
Now, here's what really happened, from Wikipedia:

The Jaffa riots (Hebrew: מאורעות תרפ"א ‎) were a series of violent riots in Palestine on May 1–7, 1921, which began as a fight between two Jewish groups but developed into an attack by Arabs on Jews during which many were killed. The rioting began in Jaffa and spread to other places.

On the night of 1 May 1921, the Jewish Communist Party (precursor of the Palestine Communist Party) distributed Arabic and Yiddish fliers calling for the toppling of British rule and the establishing a "Soviet Palestine". The party announced its intention to parade from Jaffa to neighbouring Tel Aviv to commemorate May Day. ...The march headed from Jaffa to Tel Aviv through the mixed Jewish-Arab border neighbourhood of Manshiyya.

Another large May Day parade had also been organized for Tel Aviv by the rival socialist Ahdut HaAvoda group, with official authorization. When the two processions met, a fistfight erupted. Police attempted to disperse the about 50 communist protestors, and Muslims and Christians intervened to help the police against the Jews. A general disturbance quickly ensued and spread to the southern part of town.

Hearing of the fighting and believing that Arabs were being attacked, the Arabs of Jaffa went on the offensive. Dozens of British, Arab, and Jewish witnesses all reported that Arab men bearing clubs, knives, swords, and some pistols broke into Jewish buildings and murdered their inhabitants, while women followed to loot. They attacked Jewish pedestrians and destroyed Jewish homes and stores. They beat and killed Jews in their homes, including children, and in some cases split open the victims' skulls.[1]

At 1:00 pm, an immigrant hostel run by the Zionist Commission and home to a hundred people who had arrived in recent weeks and days was attacked by the mob, and though the residents tried to barricade the gate, it was rammed open and Arabs attackers poured in. The stone-throwing was followed by bombs and gunfire, and the Jewish hostel residents hid in various rooms. When the police arrived, it was reported that they weren't shooting to disperse the crowd, but were actually aiming at the building. In the courtyard one immigrant was felled by a policeman's bullet at short-range, and others were stabbed and beaten with sticks. Five women fled a policeman firing his pistol; three escaped. A policeman cornered two women and tried to rape them, but they escaped him despite his shooting at them. A fourteen-year old girl and some men managed to escape the building, but each was in turn chased down and beaten to death with iron rods or wooden boards.

The violence reached as far as Abu Kabir. The Jewish Yitzker family owned a dairy farm on the outskirts of the neighbourhood, in which they rented out rooms. At the time of the riots, Yosef Haim Brenner, one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature was living at the site. On May 2, 1921, despite warnings Yitzker and Brenner refused to leave the farm and were murdered, along with Yitzker's teenaged son, his son-in-law and two other renters.

As in the previous year's Nebi Musa riots, the mob tore open their victims' quilts and pillows, sending up clouds of feathers. Some Arabs defended Jews and offered them refuge in their homes; many witnesses identified their attackers and murderers as their neighbours. Several witnesses said that Arab policemen had participated.

High Commissioner Herbert Samuel declared a state of emergency, imposed press censorship, and called for reinforcements from Egypt. General Allenby sent two destroyers to Jaffa and one to Haifa. Samuel met with and tried to calm Arab representatives. Musa Kazim al-Husseini, who had been dismissed as Jerusalem's mayor on account of his involvement in the previous year's Nebi Musa riots, demanded a suspension of Jewish immigration. Samuel assented, and two or three small boats holding 300 Jews were refused permission to land, and were forced to return to Istanbul. At the same time, al-Husseini's nephew, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a decision that later faced much criticism.

Fighting went on for several days and spread to nearby Rehovot, Kfar Saba, Petah Tikva, and Hadera.

The riot resulted in the deaths of 47 Jews and 48 Arabs. 146 Jews and 73 Arabs were wounded. Most Arab casualties resulted from clashes with British forces attempting to restore order. Thousands of Jewish residents of Jaffa fled for Tel Aviv and were temporarily housed in tent camps on the beach. Tel Aviv, which had been previously lobbying for independent status, became a separate city due in part to the riots.
The spineless British decided after these riots that Jewish immigration was the real cause of the Arab murder spree and they started restricting immigration - a decision that would end up costing untold thousands of Jews their lives during the Holocaust.

No wonder the Arab media is celebrating it. It was one of the first times they found out that the West will often abandon all morality, principles and even written promises in order to try to appease Arab anger. Which, of course, teaches the Arabs that threats, violence and terror are effective in getting their goals accomplished.

A lesson that continues to this very day.
  • Wednesday, May 01, 2013
From Ian:

Barry Rubin: Why the "Arab Peace Initiative" is Both a Good Thing and a Scam
Only a vote of the Arab League’s almost two dozen members can establish an official position. So this was not an Arab League plan at all. To represent it as an official Arab position is, then, untrue.
Indeed, we already know that the Palestinian Authority (PA) opposes this formula. At any rate, the United States cannot even get the PA to negotiate with Israel and yet fantasies of comprehensive peace are spread around by it. The mass media is cooperating in this theme, seeking to make Kerry look good at least.
Netanyahu: Conflict is Over Israel’s Existence, Not Land
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is not over land, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, speaking in a meeting with senior officials in the Foreign Ministry.
The conflict, he said, is over Israel’s very existence. In proof, he pointed to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which included the forced removal of thousands of Jewish residents of the area.
‘Your grand finale, Evyatar’
31- year-old Evyatar Borovsky, stabbed to death in a terror attack, was the father of five and a stage actor remembered for always having a smile on his face.
Leaders Urge, ‘Stop Playing with Terrorists’
Samaria Regional Council head Gershon Mesika criticized the Israeli government following the fatal terrorist attack Tuesday at a junction in Samaria (Shomron).
“This despicable murder was the direct result of inadequate action on rock-throwing terrorism, of opening the checkpoints, and of treating daily terrorist attacks as ‘disturbances,’” Mesika accused.
BBC claims attacks on Israelis in Judea & Samaria are “rare”
That means that in the one hundred and fifty-one days from the beginning of November 2012 until the end of March 2013, four hundred and sixty terror attacks took place in Judea and Samaria. That is an average of over three a day.
PMW: Fatah: Murderer of father of five is "The hero, the released prisoner"
Fatah's Facebook page is celebrating the murder and glorifying the murderer. Pictures of the terrorist and the victim were posted by Fatah's Facebook administrator and the text calls the murderer: "The hero, the released prisoner, Salam Al-Zaghal."
British Ambassador Praises Palestinian Police Accused of Torture, Urges More Funding
On this point, too, the Daily Mail is explicit. "Our taxpayers give £33 million direct to the PA, while £53 million is donated by Britain for various aid projects – more UK aid per head than we give any other nation... The UK also provides and pays for the training of middle and senior ranking officers from every PA security agency... The reason why a territory with fewer than 2.5 million inhabitants gets so much money is political.
Jordanians oppose confederation with Palestinians By Khaled Abu Toameh
The petition was signed by retired army officers and representatives of various political parties, parliamentarians and professional unions in Jordan.
It came in response to reports that the Palestinian Authority leadership and Jordan were conducting secret talks about forming a future confederation.
The petition accused US President Barack Obama, who visited Israel, Ramallah and Jordan last month, of working toward “dividing the region so as to serve Western-Zionist interests.” It said that both Palestinians and Jordanians were opposed to the confederation “conspiracy.”
Nasrallah: We will not let Assad fall
Hizbullah leader gives clearest statement yet that the Shi'ite terror group is actively supporting Assad regime
‘Hamas used metal darts to kill protesters during Egypt’s revolution’
Islamist movement also stole police cars and, with Hezbollah fighters, helped political prisoners break out of jail, Cairo’s ex-interior minister claims
Fear and fundamentalism as the 'modesty police' patrol Gaza
Police in Gaza have arrested at least 41 men on charges of immodesty this April, writes Phoebe Greenwood. And now the city is gripped with fear that Hamas is driving the population towards militant Islamic fundamentalism.
Italian police arrest four suspected Islamist militants
Italian police on Tuesday arrested four of six men they suspect are members of an Islamist militant cell which was planning attacks in the United States, Israel and Italy, though no specific targets were named by police.
Scandinavia: No one bid anti-Semitism farewell
A curious question for the amateur historian: Why did the countries of Scandinavia, a democratic region whose people share close ethnic and cultural ties, have such conflicting attitudes toward the Jews during World War II? While Denmark later earned a place card at the table of the “Righteous Among Nations” for saving nearly all its Jews, Sweden prioritized its interests over righteousness, upholding strict immigration policies that prevented Jews from readily entering the country as they sought to escape Nazi terror.
This is an updated and improved graph of Gaza rocket and mortar attacks against Israel, by month, for 2013:


It would be bigger news if this hadn't happened:
Chairman of the Cultural Palaces Authority, Saad Abdel Rahman, said that the authority did not ban the play ‘Diwan Al-Baqar’ (Salon of the Cows) by Mohamed Aboulela El-Salamooni, as was reported in the media, but rather decided to "relocate the show, to avoid problems."

The play, which was scheduled to run for seven nights at the Hurghada Cultural Palace, reportedly satirises Islamists and pokes fun at the wardrobe and beards of members of the trend.

Abdel Rahman said that following two nights of the show, it was brought to the attention of Islamist figures that the play was critical of them, "which led them to threaten to stop the show and destroy the theatre."

"In response, the play's troupe called for help from members of the 6 April Youth Movement and the anonymous Black Bloc, which was when we decided to move the show to a different location, to avoid violence," said Abdel Rahman.

Abdel Rahman admits that the director of the Red Sea Cultural Centre called him to deliberate over the situation, and together they decided to relocate the show.
sounds exactly like how Scotland's "pro-Palestinian" crowd acts, doesn't it?

Notice who the people behind the play didn't call for protection - the Egyptian police. That says a lot about how much people trust Egyptian security authorities to protect their remaining freedoms.
  • Wednesday, May 01, 2013
  • Elder of Ziyon
During Operation Pillar of Defense, Western media uniformly reported that Omar Mishrawi, the baby son of BBC reporter Jihad Mishrawi, was killed by an Israeli airstrike. This iconic photo was reproduced all over the media of the father's grief.

I was the first to cast doubt on the idea that this was an Israeli airstrike, based my own observations of the damage to his home, knowledge of the frequency of Gaza rockets that fall short as well as expert military testimony by JE Dyer. The BBC claimed that my evidence was not enough, and continued to say that the baby was "most likely" murdered by Israel.

I was also the first to report that a UN report released in March verified that Mishrawi was killed by a Hamas rocket. The BBC, however - which has no expertise in munitions or forensics - continued to claim that it was an Israeli airstrike responsible, saying that there were no Hamas rocket attacks at the time the Mishrawi home was hit.

Now, of all places, Electronic Intifada - attempting to prove that Omar Mishrawi was killed by Israel - finds more evidence that he was killed by a Gaza rocket, and that the BBC is not telling the truth:

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights published a report on 22 November stating that Omar was killed when an Israeli missile struck the family home, and hasn’t published anything on the case since then. (PCHR did not reply to queries from The Electronic Intifada on the Masharawi case.) But the Gaza-based rights group Al-Mezan says that the UN report is based on its own investigation into the incident.

I spoke with Mohammed Suliman, who works with Al-Mezan, about Omar Masharawi’s case. (Disclosure: Suliman is an occasional contributor to The Electronic Intifada and has blogged for us in the past. Readers may also recognize Suliman from a viral video of an Israeli missile strike dramatically cutting him off during a debate with an Israeli in Ashkelon on CNN during the November attacks.)

The UN fact-finding mission’s conclusions were largely based on Al-Mezan’s fieldwork, though this is not mentioned in its report, Suliman said. Suliman explained to me that Al-Mezan’s fieldworker visited the Masharawi home in the wake of the strike and conducted interviews with people in the area. Its findings at the time were that baby Omar was most likely killed as a result of a Palestinian-fired rocket.

Al Mezan’s findings are based on the type of damage caused to the family home, which it says is not characteristic of an Israeli F-16, Apache helicopter or drone strike. Meanwhile, Palestinian armed groups were firing rockets towards Israel half a kilometer from the Masharawi home and Israeli strikes were targeting the sites of the rocket-launchers at the time of the incident, he said.

“Now, what happened is that during this short period of exchange of fire between Palestinian groups and Israeli war planes, Masharawi’s house was hit. So it was very ambiguous what the cause of that attack was — it could be Palestinian rocket fire or Israeli war planes,” Suliman explained.

“I understand from our fieldworker that the course or the direction of the rocket which hit Masharawi’s house [indicates] that it was Palestinian rocket fire,” in addition to the damage not being characteristic of an Israeli strike.
Of course, Al Mezan (and EI) then try to spin this incident into saying that baby Omar's death is really Israel's fault anyway using their usual tortured logic and sickening spin to absolve terrorist rockets in civilian neighborhoods. They ignore that Omar was not the only child killed by Hamas rockets that was publicly and loudly blamed on Israel.

When looking at actual facts, however, it is increasingly clear that I was right and the BBC was wrong - and that the BBC has been purposefully shading the truth about this case for the past five months. So has Human Rights Watch and other media and organizations that are reflexively anti-Israel whenever possible, even though the evidence on the ground from OCHA-OPT as early as late November indicated that Hamas rockets killed civilians in Gaza including Omar.

When will the BBC apologize for choosing the pathos of its employee's tragedy over accurate reporting? When will Human Rights Watch correct the record?

(big h/t to Anne)


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