30-Sep-12: While Abbas regime sends protestors into streets to decry Israeli imprisonment of terrorists, they quietly arrest Abbas' opponents

Mahmoud Abbas: Two-faced [Image Source]

The invaluable reporting of Khaled Abu Toameh, a Palestinian Arab journalist with the professional integrity and the personal courage to report what so many others prefer not to see or report, makes an ongoing difference to what the world knows - or ought to know - about what goes on inside Palestinian Arab society. That his analysis and disclosures receive relatively little coverage speaks volumes for the duplicity and dishonesty of so many major news channels. They and many of their consumers prefer not to have to grapple with a reality that so utterly contradicts the dominant themes of their Middle East coverage. His articles are often the sole source of information on the subjects he chooses to address.

This past Friday, Abu Toameh filed a report ["The Palestinian Authority's Policy of Duplicity"] about the suppression of dissenting voices in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The PA's chutzpah - Abu Toameh calls it something else - can be seen in the way it sends Palestinian Arabs into the streets to mark a "day of solidarity" with Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails while, at the very same time, its security forces carry out a campaign of detention and imprisonment in which dozens of Palestinians suspected of being affiliated with Hamas and other dissenting groups are taken into PA custody.

While it is good of course, that the Palestinian Authority is arresting Palestinians affiliated with Hamas, the problem is that the Authority is also using this as an excuse to crack down on other political opponents, as well as journalists. Lawyers, human rights activists and families of those detained by the Palestinian Authority say they do not know why the Palestinian leadership ordered the clampdown.
 The timing of the arrests also seems problematic, especially as it came on the eve of of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's new bid for statehood at the UN General Assembly... The Palestinian Authority's conduct should raise alarm bells in Western capitals. If anything these latest occurrences show once again that the Palestinian Authority's credibility remains questionable. According to Palestinian sources, more than 100 Palestinians, among them journalists, researchers and political activists were rounded up by Palestinian security forces in less than 48 hours... As [an Abbas aide] was speaking [against Israel], his security forces were also detaining 35 Palestinians who had just been released from Israeli prison.

Abu Toameh observes as well that Palestinians who are detained by Israel enjoy more rights than those incarcerated by the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank. The men of the PA know this better than anyone, and arguably the journalists in the area do too, but you will not see this reported.

Human rights activists say that many of the Palestinians held in Palestinian Authority detention centers are denied most of their basic rights, including seeing a lawyer and family visitations.
.. Many Palestinians are convinced that the Palestinian Authority called for a "day of solidarity" with prisoners in Israeli jails to divert attention from its own detention campaign... Each time Palestinian Authority leaders seek to avoid problems at home, they call for demonstrations against Israel, using the issue of settlements or prisoners as an excuse. This is done in the context of a long-standing policy of blaming Israel for all the miseries of the Palestinians...

It's also hard to forget ["4-Sep-12: Where's the shame? How much of your tax dollars went to fund the pension of our child's murderer? More than you probably thought"] the duplicity of the two-faced mendicant Abbas bleating about how out of cash his government is while it hands millions of donor-supplied dollars each month to murderers affiliated with his party who are serving life/lengthy sentences in Israeli prisons for unspeakably brutal crimes of terror.

30-Sep-12: More questions without answers in Sweden

Malmo March 27, 2009

We reported here on Friday ["28-Sep-12: Malmo's beleaguered Jews have more to worry about this morning"] about an attack - evidently a bombing - on the Jewish community center in Malmö, Sweden's third largest city. It's the latest incident in a long and troubling line of them.

The Local ("Sweden's news in English") published a wrap-up on Friday evening in which it analyzes the attack from multiple angles. It  quotes Fred Kahn, head of the Jewish community in Malmö, saying the Jews in Malmö remain under threat (but not by whom) "and have suffered as a result":

"We need to heighten our security, but we don't have the money for things like that..." However, Kahn remained at a loss as to why Jews in Malmö appear to be subject to more threats and violence than Jews elsewhere in the country. "More attacks are directed at Jews in Malmö. I haven't heard about it happening in other places in Sweden.."

Truly a mystery. What on earth could be a possible explanation? Heaven only knows. Note for the observant: the only religion referred to directly or indirectly in The Local's report is Judaism.

The same article reports on a statement made by Lena Posner-Körösi, head of Sweden's Judiska centralrådet or Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities. She says (and we have not seen this reported elsewhere) that the local planning board has twice rejected applications by Malmö's Jewish community to install surveillance cameras on the street outside the building that was attacked:

"We've been rejected because they think it's a quiet street... Posner-Körösi said there was no doubt in her mind that the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism. "It's obvious when you consider everything that's happened in Malmö in recent years. It's unthinkable that it could be something else," she said...

Planning permission can be a tricky and dynamic thing in Sweden. Three days before the bombing of the Malmö community, a different Swedish planning committee approved a request from an Islamic group for permission to allow prayer calls at one of Sweden's numerous mosques. Here again is The Local:

The matter was put to a vote after Ismail Okur, chair of the Botkyrka Islamic Association (Islamiska föreningen i Botkyrka) filed a citizens' petition with the local council in January seeking permission to allow prayer calls at the mosque. He told Dagen that members of the association decided it was time they took steps to exercise their right to religious freedom in Sweden. "We've lived our whole lives in Sweden; we've paid taxes; we've been exemplary citizens; we've given a lot to Sweden," he said. "Now we want to get a little back. Now we want to have religious freedom."
While it remains unclear exactly when, if ever, prayer calls may be heard emanating from the mosque in Fittja, Okur of the Islamic Association welcomed the city planning committee's decision. "It's great! The prayer call for us is like ringing bells is for churches. It's important," he told Dagen. "There are more than 100,000 Muslims in Sweden. Shouldn't we also have our religious freedom?" Okur stressed, however, that the Islamic Association's initial request was to have a call to prayer once a week, rather than five times a day. "We have to start somewhere," he said.

Islam is the religion of about 5% of Sweden's population [source]. In Malmö, the numbers are more definitive, as we noted on Friday: about a fifth of Malmo’s 300,000 residents are Moslem immigrants, a large proportion of whom describe themselves as Palestinian, and most of whom, according to Wikipedia, are there illegally. Its percentage of Moslems is the highest in all of Scandinavia. Not that we're suggesting this has anything to do with attacks on the local Jewish community. We're too far away from events to be able to understand matters better than the locals (and The Local) do.

But we confess we're puzzled as to why - given a history of physical, life-threatening attacks on Jews and Jewish community property - the city fathers in Malmö think the security of the city's tiny Jewish community does not warrant something as harmless as security cameras. 

Three years ago, Malmö hosted the Davis Cup tennis match between Israel and Sweden. No fans were allowed into the stadium to watch the games for 'security' reasons. But as Reuters reported, some 6,000 protesters turned up outside the audience-less stadium and clashed with the 1,000 policemen on guard duty. Malmö was subsequently banned from hosting any further Davis Cup matches, and Israel defeated Sweden 3-2.

And by the way, Malmö is due to host the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013.

29-Sep-12: How worried should we be if some of the world's smartest banks are reeling from this week's on-line terror attacks?

Without attracting major headlines, some of the world's largest banks have been targeted this week by a series of coordinated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, bringing havoc to commerce and threatening worse to come. Far from being defeated, the attacks were called off by the attackers themselves on Thursday [source].

The attacked banks that we know about from news reports include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and PNC Bank. What happens in these incidents is that massive amounts of traffic including malware are channeled to the websites and non-consumer web-servers until they are overwhelmed and are forced to shut down until the attack is repelled, or it passes. 

How serious is it all? "No bullets have been fired, but rest assured, this is truly a terrorist strike at the United States", says a security expert, Paul Rothman, writing ["Cyber Terror Rages In The Banking Sector"] on the Security Infowatch website yesterday. A CNN article ["Major banks hit with biggest cyberattacks in history"] puts into perspective this way:

"The volume of traffic sent to these sites is frankly unprecedented," said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike, a security firm that has been investigating the attacks. "It's 10 to 20 times the volume that we normally see, and twice the previous record for a denial of service attack." [More]

In the Chicago Tribune (and also the LA Times), an article this past Wednesday was headlined "Banks fail to repel cyber threat: Attacks that have tied up bank websites show U.S. financial institutions' vulnerability to electronic terrorism". It describes how "a shadowy but well organized hacker group in the Middle East has disrupted the electronic banking operations of America's largest financial institutions in recent days, underscoring U.S. vulnerability to online terrorism..."

You may have been thinking this was the work of the usual suspects: Chinese or Bulgarian hackers, out to steal whatever low-hanging fruit is out there. So allow us to tell you that a unit of Hamas called Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has already claimed 'credit' and calls the attacks "Operation Ababil". They have launched similar attacks in the past but, if it's them, this is their largest by far. 

We don't know (of course) but Alperovitch of CrowdStrike says the Hamas group has credibility: they announced the attack ahead of time [source], and listed the banks that were going to be hit next. He says that technologically what they was "not that sophisticated -- it just took significant planning". On the other side of the ledger, Hamas also claimed they would attack the New York Stock Exchange but it appears trading has continued there without interruption [source].

Another source says this is the work of something called Arab Electronic Army [source] while the chairman of the US Senate's Homeland Security committee said Tuesday it's being done by Iran (who deny it) and specifically a body called the Quds Force, a "secretive Iran military unit blamed for terrorist activity". Their involvement, he said, is a response to U.S. sanctions placed on Iran in connection with its nuclear program, according to the LA Times. And attacks are "a powerful example of our vulnerability". Not exactly what we want to hear in these dangerous times.

What the rest of us might be thinking at this point is, if this is going so badly (and evidently it is), and major banks can be impacted despite their substantial investment in security systems, what else is at risk? Air traffic control systems? Electric power grid networks? The Security Infowatch article we quoted above says "The prospects are mind-numbing, and frankly, scary. Are we ready for them?"

Are we ever ready for terrorism?

28-Sep-12: Malmo's beleaguered Jews have more to worry about this morning

Malmo's one and only synagogue [Image Source]

A report from Sweden in the past hour (it's now 9 am Friday here in Jerusalem) says there has been an explosion at the entrance to one of the Jewish community's buildings in Malmo.

A police spokesperson is careful: “There as been an explosion. Something has detonated – we are certain of that” but not much more by way of detail. Witnesses report that blasts were heard some blocks away.

Malmo's 1,500 person Jewish community is under siege. As it happens, the Jewish Chronicle in London published a worrying report yesterday, prior to this morning's bombing. The headline captures the sense well: "Fear stalks the streets of Malmo and council has no answer". Excerpts:

“You don’t wear a kippah in this city. That would be suicide,” said the head of Malmo’s voluntary security team guarding the gates of the city’s Jewish cemetery.
The security service was established in the wake of a peace demonstration by the Jewish community after the 2008-2009 Gaza war in which the crowd was firebombed and a Holocaust survivor assaulted.
The past 70 years have seen a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Jews in Sweden’s third-largest city.
In 1943, thousands of Jews were smuggled to Malmo out of Nazi-occupied Denmark on kayaks, ferries and fishing boats. Today, the city’s Jewish population of around 1,500 are regularly met with cries of “Heil Hitler” and “f**king Jews” as they walk the streets — and over the past ten years they have slowly but steadily been leaving for Stockholm, Israel and the US. “When young Jews leave Malmo now, they don’t come back,” said Fred Kahn, Chairman of the Board of Malmo’s Jewish community.
“The problems for us derive from the Muslims in the city,” said the security head, who did not wish to be named.
Roughly a fifth of Malmo’s population of 300,000 are Muslim immigrants, a large proportion of which are Palestinian. Many live hived off in Rosengard, a district blighted by gang wars and drug crime.
It is a sign of how bad things have got in Malmo that British businessman and philanthropist Martin Stern decided to help fund a visit to Malmo by Copenhagen’s Jewish community to show solidarity with the Jews on the other side of the Oresund Strait.
“Three years ago I spoke to Malmo’s Rabbi Kesselman and he told me the situation was dire,” said Mr Stern. “The situation is terribly dangerous and they have no money to do anything about it.”

A taste of what goes on inside the Rosengard nieghbourhood can be had from watching the Israeli television series "Allah Islam". We wrote about it this past week: "23-Sep-12: A new TV series that challenges how you think about Europe's Moslems". Some of its most disturbing interviews were conducted in Malmo, a city undergoing wrenching change of a kind that is becoming more common in other parts of Europe.

"Mayor Reepalu [some background here] is undoubtedly one of the problems facing Malmo’s Jews. He has said that if Jews want to avoid being attacked they should denounce Israel’s policies, and in March he told a Swedish magazine that the far-right Sweden Democrat party had “infiltrated the Jewish community in order to push its hatred of Muslims”.
Feelings about Reepalu are running high. Mr Niemann said: “Thank god he wasn’t mayor of Malmo in 1943 because had he been, we wouldn’t be here.”
Despite repeated requests for information, Malmo City Council refused to say whether or not it had a policy to tackle the situation and its head of integration, Jesper Theander, would not offer any comment.
For Rabbi Kesselman, and many others, official indifference is merely a symptom of the fact that the Muslims are now a key electoral constituency for the mayor. “This is about demographics, and the problem we have here will happen soon in other cities in Europe,” said Rabbi Kesselman.
Abandoned by the council, the community have taken matters — peacefully — into their own hands. Psychologist Yehoshua Kaufman came up with the idea of “kippah walks” for Jews to join together and stroll through the centre of the city wearing kippot, which has become a monthly event.
“It is much more dangerous to continue being afraid and hide away than confront your fear,” said Mr Kaufman. [More]

There's additional background at "Losing Malmo", a August 2011 essay by Andrew McCarthy over at the Family Security Matters blog.

No doubt that kippah walks are nice. But being genuinely safe and secure in your home town would be nicer.

28-Sep-12: In Gaza, children die and families are outraged; their anger is channeled at Hamas

Children in Gaza protesting against the tyranny and incompetence that
embitters and endangers their lives [Image Source]  

We spent most of Thursday in the south of Israel, touring two of the Gaza crossings - Kerem Shalom and the Erez terminal - and hearing from military and civilian officials about the up-close experience of maintaining a vast humanitarian structure, complete with two-way crossings, inspection points and security technology that mostly cannot be written about. It was an extraordinary experience - for the most part made up of ordinary events that sometimes become unpredictable and always with the threat of the truly dangerous somewhere in the near-background. We will write more about this in the coming days.

Two of the officials we met spoke about a tragic event that happened just two days ago in Bureij, one of the teeming 'refugee' camps (population: 35,000) in the center of the Gaza Strip, and what happened in its aftermath. We went looking and found a Reuters report that captures the salient facts:

Boy's death ignites rare anti-Hamas protests in Gaza           
September 26, 2012 | By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - At least 500 protesters in the Gaza Strip have called for the overthrow of the ruling Islamist Hamas group in a rare demonstration triggered by the death of a three-year-old boy in a fire during a power outage. Protesters in the Bureij refugee camp, where the boy's family live, called for Hamas to be toppled and chanted "The people want to down the regime" late on Tuesday night, echoing slogans adopted in Arab revolutions in neighbouring countries. The police swiftly dispersed the crowd. Demonstrators took to the streets as the boy's body was being moved to a hospital, saying they were protesting against the incompetent way Hamas ruled Gaza. Anger spilled over after the boy died and his infant sister suffered critical burns when a candle lit amid a power outage burnt their house down.
Anti-Hamas protests in Gaza, where power failures have left households with just six hours of electricity a day since February, are extremely rare. Three children were killed earlier in the year by similar fires during an outage.Hamas blames the electricity shortages on Egypt which it says is restricting the flow of fuel, and on Israel, which imposed a blockade on the coastal enclave in 2007 when Hamas seized control from the Western-backed Palestinian Fatah party.
The dead boy's father called for more protests, saying he hoped a healing of internal Palestinian political rifts could ease the Strip's problems. "I call on people to take to the streets and not to fear being clubbed by policemen," Abdel-Fattah Al-Baghdadi, 23, told Reuters. "I hold both the governments in Gaza and in the West Bank responsible for what happened to us," he said. Earning 1,250 shekels ($318) a month from working as a civil guard at the Religious Affairs Ministry, he said he had been using candles to light his house during blackouts because he could not afford to buy a generator or fuel. "Besides my wife and two children, I had to spend money to help my bigger family," he said.
Taher Al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, said the death of Baghdadi's son was a message to Egypt that it had to speed up its promised efforts to help solve the power crisis in Gaza. "The international community's silence is an accomplice in the crime of blockading Gaza," Nono said in a statement.
Hamas is sensitive to criticism and has looked on with concern as protests in the Israeli-controlled West Bank against high prices have spread in the past few weeks, fearing they may spill over into its own territory. Hamas has banned protests, including any demonstrations calling for an end to divisions between it and Fatah...

Hamas-controlled Gaza is one of the world's most repressive regimes. The levels of fear and intimidation there are well-known to people who come into contact with ordinary Palestinian Arab Gazans, as we heard today from people who interact with Gaza and Gazans every day.

The willingness of the 1.7 million population to continue to be cowed and held captive to a messianic-Islamist vision of over-running the hated Israelis and destroying their state at huge cost to the Gazans has limits. And as with communities elsewhere, sometimes it's the wanton death of a child that serves as the spark to ignite the kind of outrage that throws the thugs onto the scrap-pile of history where they so deservedly belong.

This has not happened yet, but whenever people take to the streets and scream their anger at the Islamist thugs of Hamas, there's hope for some degree of change in the future.

26-Sep-12: Dubai, Dubai, Dubai

Happy, busy, rich Dubai

The connection to terrorism (which is the underlying theme of our blog) is not direct, and perhaps does not exist at all. And we are certainly fans of Qantas, one of the most pleasant of the world's major airlines.

But to us there is something disturbing about the reports emerging from, and about, Dubai and the United Arab Emirates (Dubai is one of those emirates) in light of the extraordinary story of Prof. Cyril Karabus, the distinguished South African medical specialist. We report briefly on it below.

We have not yet seen any of the mainstream media put the quite shocking treatment of 77 year-old Prof. Karabus into a meaningful context. So we offer the following blog post as a contribution to the search for a better understanding of recent events.

From a quick survey of the web, it appears the authorities in Dubai are happy for it to be known [source] as "the shopping capital of the Middle East". But in truth, it has several other characteristics that make it unusual and noteworthy, starting with the fact that its population of 1,771,000 (2009) is made up of 1,370,000 males... and 401,000 females. By the way, only 17% of the population are UAE nationals. Embattled Syrian tyrant and president Bashar al-Assad's only sister, Bushra, whose husband was killed in a July bombing, was reported a few weeks ago to be now living in Dubai with her children according to AFP... but why trouble ourselves with messy Middle East politics? Let the reports speak for themselves.

From the Qantas/Emirates link-up announcement [Image Source]

Global Outrage at Arrest of Prof in Abu Dhabi     

September 24 2012 at 03:23pm | Independent Online, South Africa
By Nontando Mposo
Medical professionals and organisations from around the world have expressed outrage at the arrest of Cape Town’s Professor Cyril Karabus. Karabus, 77, of Claremont, is imprisoned in Abu Dhabi on charges of manslaughter. He was arrested on August 18, while in transit in Dubai to South Africa, from his son’s wedding in Canada. A former professor of paediatrics at UCT, Karabus is an internationally “well-respected medical figure” who specialises in paediatrics and medical oncology. He also headed the oncology and haematology unit at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.
While working as a locum 12 years ago at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, he operated on a three-year-old cancer patient who later died of leukaemia. In his absence he was tried and found guilty of manslaughter. His lawyer, Michael Bagraim, said no attempt was made to contact Karabus.
A family member said yesterday letters and e-mails expressing “outrage and support for Karabus’s integrity and reputation” had been received from organisations such as the World Medical Association, the SA Haemophilia Federation, the SA Medical Association, the Western Province blood transfusion service and the School of Child and Adolescent Health at UCT.

Qantas, Emirates seal 'extensive' alliance

Sydney Morning Herald | September 6, 2012
Matt O'Sullivan - Business Reporter
Qantas has inked an alliance agreement with Middle Eastern rival Emirates aimed at stemming the Australian airline's losses on the highly competitive route between Australia and Europe.
After months of negotiations and endless speculation, Qantas today unveiled the terms of a 10-year alliance with Emirates on routes to Europe via Dubai, due to begin next April.
The two carriers plan "a new global aviation partnership", promising customers "a seamless international and Australian network, exclusive frequent flyer benefits and world‐class travel experiences."
"This is the most significant partnership the Qantas Group has ever formed with another airline...

Qantas to call Dubai second home   

By ABC online business reporter Michael Janda
Updated Thu Sep 6, 2012 8:19pm AEST
Qantas and Emirates have confirmed a deal that will see the Australian airline fly to London via Dubai. The 10-year deal will see Qantas shift its hub for European flights from Singapore to Dubai, including the 'Kangaroo Route', with Qantas to operate daily Airbus A380 flights from Sydney and Melbourne to London via Dubai. Qantas flights will also link up in Dubai with Emirates connections to more than 70 other cities in Europe.

Emirates-Qantas deal: warning over tough justice in stopover city

Sydney Morning Herald | September 20, 2012
More Australians could face tough justice in the United Arab Emirates after a new agreement between Qantas and Dubai-based Emirates airline, a Liberal MP warns. Senator Helen Kroger says the British charity group Detained in Dubai [website] has reported a number of arbitrary arrests in Dubai airport. They include an Australian man detained for a number of months and two Canadians who were locked up for a month after they were found in possession of the arthritis drug Celebrex. "It is because of these random events that I ... express concern about possible dangers for Qantas passengers transiting through Dubai, but unfortunately they do not stop at the airport," she told the Senate yesterday... 

FCO London Travel Advisory: United Arab Emirates

Still current at: 24 September 2012
Updated: 13 September 2012
UAE laws and customs are very different to those in the UK. There may be serious penalties for doing something that might not be illegal in the UK. You are therefore strongly advised to familiarise yourself with, and respect local laws and customs... There is a high threat from terrorism. We believe terrorists may be planning to carry out attacks in the UAE. Attacks could be indiscriminate and could happen at any time, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers. You should maintain a high level of security awareness, particularly in public places...

26-Sep-12: Fourth (and final) part of the "Allah Islam" TV documentary went to air tonight

If you saw our posting [here] about the thoughtful Israeli television series that takes a remarkably close look at Europe's Moslems, you may be interested to know that the fourth episode of the four-part series went to air tonight on Israel's Channel 2, and is posted in full on the web.

Click the image below to view. Tonight's episode looks at Europe's Jewish communities and their experiences with Europe's fast-growing Moslem population. Again, few conclusions, and as with the first three parts, the audience is left to draw their own conclusions from what they see and hear.

Unfortunately there are no English subtitles. At this stage, the series is intended for an Israeli audience. But to judge from the impact and the responses we have seen, it's very likely to be repackaged for non-Israeli audiences very soon.

26-Sep-12 [UPDATED]: Golan Heights - an incoming rocket today after yesterday's three mortars

Syria's leader: Tuned in to other things

We reported here on Tuesday [25-Sep-12: Incoming fire on the northern border] about three mortars that were fired from Syria and crashed and exploded inside Israel on the Golan Heights plateau. Today, Yom Kippur (which ended at sundown about two hours ago), a Syrian rocket exploded in the same general area.

AFP says today's rocket was fired during clashes between forces of Syria's al-Assad regime and rebel anti-Assad fighters. It quotes an IDF source saying that today's rocket was "fired in the morning during fighting inside Syria exploded on the Golan, without causing casualties or damage". The same AFP report also quotes the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in the UK saying that at least five Syrian troops and two rebels were killed after insurgents attacked army checkpoints near the Golan. The fighting was close to the Syrian villages of Hamidiyeh and Horriyeh in Quneitra province, located in the small part of the Golan that is not held by Israel.

AP has a report today ["Syrian fighting spills over into Golan Heights" | Bassem Mroue / The Associated Press] that serves as a reminder of the ethics and military doctrine of the blood-soaked al-Assad regime. In the course of a news story dealing with the 'spillover' rockets that hit Israel yesterday, it mentions in passing  that

"several bombs went off inside a school in the Syrian capital that activists say was being used by regime forces as a security headquarters. Ambulances rushed to the area and an initial report on state media said seven people were wounded."

To those of our readers who observe Yom Kippur, we wish you a Gmar Hatima Tova and a good new year. Let's take a moment to reflect on the fact that, while we were praying in our synagogues all day today, the death toll for Wednesday alone in the ongoing Syrian massacres reached 192 people [source].

UPDATE Wednesday night 11:30 pm: Walla News says the explosive projectile that crashed into the Golan today was a mortar.

25-Sep-12: Incoming fire on the northern border

Syrian woman takes a picture of an Israeli community located on the Golan Heights [Image Source] 

It's the eve of Yom Kippur and though the mood here in Jerusalem is calm (thankfully) and the weather glorious (of course), the reverberations of the war that broke out on that day in 1973 are in the air (inevitably).

In the past hour, mortar fire erupted on Israel's northern border, causing explosions in what appear, for now, to be open fields. No injuries, but some property damage that's not yet detailed in the news here. It's reported that the fire is a kind of spillover from the barbarism unfolding over the past year inside Syria: the source is believed to be forces of the Syrian army "engaged" - as the journalists like to put it - with rebel forces near Syria's border with Israel. AFP says the mortars crashed into Israel "by accident". They were intended to hit civilian villages inside Syria.

That ongoing engagement has caused thousands of deaths since it broke out in March 2011. Wikipedia says various sources, including the UN, place the rising death toll at between 26,000 [source] and 39,120 [source] people killed, about half of them civilians. Where is the outrage?

This is not the time to go into the vast difference in response by the international community to the massacre of Arabs by Arabs compared with the constant condemnation of Israel in international forums. But if we're discussing it, where are the effective steps taken until now by the UN Security Council relating to the Syrian barbarism and calculated to prevent even more people from being killed? Ban Ki-Moon knows and has expressed himself [here for instance]. The torrent of blood continues.

This morning, representatives of Israel's government filed a complaint with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) operating in the area [report] since 1974. But that's almost certainly done as a formality rather than out of any expectation that something will result. There are 1,036 UNDOF troops (from Austria, Canada, Croatia, India, Japan and Philippines) in the area as of today, plus 41 non military international staff and 102 local civilian staff members. Multiplied by 38 years, and that amounts to a massive financial outlay. The embattled Syrian villagers who are bombarded daily by the tanks and air force of their own armed forces must be wondering if there wasn't a better place for that money to be spent all these years.

About the photograph at the top of this post: people outside the area hear the name "Golan Heights" and the bitter demands of the Syrians who want the area back under their control... and think that the Golan is an elevated vantage point that looms over Syria and gives Israel some sort of strategic advantage. The opposite is true. They're called "Heights" because the ridge looms over northern Israel. But on the Syrian side, they're not heights at all, as the photo illustrates.

Between 1948, when Israel won back its independence, and 1967 when the Six Day War was fought, the Syrian military was arrayed all along 8 to 12 mile long Golan Heights ridge overlooking Israel and used it as a base for attacks on Israeli farmers and fisherman. Israeli towns below the Golan were routinely bombed from above, and sniper fire was a constant. During those 19 years, some 140 Israelis were killed and many more were injured. Today, many Israelis know the Golan Heights best because of the outstanding world-class wines that are now produced there.

24-Sep-12: Here's what we plan to do with some of our Star Alliance frequent flyer miles

Attention, members of Turkish Airlines' Miles&Smiles frequent flyer program.

Michael Rubin reveals some aspects of the airline's charitable activities in an article published today on the Commentary Magazine website, called Turkish Air Sponsoring Anti-Israel Hatefest. He describes some of the more unlovely aspects of Turkey's recent political moves and then says that...

Turkish Airlines—Turkey’s state carrier and a member of the Star Alliance—is getting in on the action. While American Muslims for Palestine’s list of sponsors is not online, according to literature at the group’s booth at the recent Islamic Society for North America conference, Turkish Airlines is a major corporate sponsor of American Muslims for Palestine’s forthcoming conference, in addition to which it is encouraging attendance by announcing that the “first 200 Registrants will be entered into a raffle to win an international airline ticket from Turkish Airlines.” American Muslims for Palestine is not any ordinary organization. Its home page depicts the conference logo—a map of Palestine made from birds showing the Palestinian state encompassing all of Israel. So much for the two-state solution. The AMP conference is due to feature Fadwa Barghouti, wife of imprisoned terrorist Marwan Barghouti, currently serving five life sentences for murder. The AMP has for several years worked to promote nakba (catastrophe) commemorations on college campuses, with a goal to delegitimize Israel’s existence. The group’s national campus coordinator moved to disrupt a speech by the Israeli ambassador at UC-Irvine back in 2010... Lest Turkish Airlines support of the AMP conference be dismissed on the grounds that the AMP is merely anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic, the media coordinator for AMP earlier this month claimed that “The film was financed by 100 Jews, according to the Israeli. Let this be a lesson to our Muslim organizations that still insist it is in our best interest to work with Zionist organizations.” ...How strange it is that Turkish Airlines’ charity of choice is a group that seeks to pump money into a group which apologizes, if not expresses sympathy, for terrorists.

We wrote to Miles&Smiles five minutes before posting this blog entry to terminate our membership. There was a time, not so long ago, when it was a pleasure for us - and for many other Israelis - to visit Istanbul and to travel with Turkey's national airline. Sadly, that chapter is receding into the distance.

23-Sep-12: In Jerusalem this morning

Bethphage, Jerusalem: August 20, 2012 [Image Source]

It's a not-so-unusual morning here in sunny and warm Jerusalem.

An Arab woman from the Silwan neighbourhood of Jerusalem was arrested and will be charged with the attempted stabbing this morning (Sunday) of a police officer in the parking lot of East Jerusalem's Shalem police station. The alleged stabber is said [Ynet] to have been engaging in a form of movie criticism pertaining to a made-in-USA film demeaning the founder of the Islamic religion. The police officer, unconnected to the making of the film (which is actually the work of an Egyptian Copt with a history), managed to fight off the attacker and is unharmed.

A short distance away, and some hours earlier, three firebombs were hurled at Israeli police patroling the Shuafat neighbourhood. Reports say no injuries.

An IDF patrol came under separate firebomb attack during the night (Saturday/Sunday) in the sensitive Ir David (City of David) neighbourhood, just outside the Old City walls. Again no reports of injuries.

None of these attacks is covered at all, as far as we can tell, by non-Israeli news channels. Neither was an attack by marauding Moslem youths (their religion is important to this story) on a Jerusalem Arab housing development last month, and reported just this weekend by CAMERA. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem's newsletter has the details: the attackers were some fifty youths, and their target was a new housing development in Bethphage undertaken by the Franciscans of the Holy Land, and home to 79 non-Moslem Arab families. Windows were shattered, cars were damaged by boulders and rocks, residents were terrorized, and several were injured and required hospitalization. A resident quoted in the report says this was the third such riot in two years. The area is an easy walk from the scene of all the other acts of Arab violence from this morning.

In this ongoing war, Arab-on-Arab violence rarely rates a mention other than in Israeli news channels.

23-Sep-12 [UPDATED]: A new TV series that challenges how you think about Europe's Moslems

Yehezkeli (not in the screen shot above), posing as a Palestinian film-maker,
has a frank interview with firebrand British Islamist preacher,
Anjem Choudary. The caption reads:
"When his words are directed at a Palestinian audience, he feels very much freer".

There's an extraordinary four part television series unfolding here that deals in a unique and extremely effective way with the mutual interaction of European society and Islamic immigrants. 

This is a tense and highly loaded subject, one that can easily be ruined by an overdose of political commentary or pandering to prejudices. Only three of the four parts have so far gone to air, so it's unfair to judge the whole work yet. But for us, what we have seen so far constitutes a compelling instance of first-rate reality television. Unfortunately, it exists only in a made-for-Israel television version. So there are no English or other sub-titles, and the audience is assumed to have a basic grasp of an Israeli viewpoint. 

The series, "Allah Islam", is a collaboration between Israeli film director and journalist David Deri [he's interviewed at length in this Haaretz article from September 12, 2012], and Zvi Yehezkeli who is Israeli Channel 10's senior news reporter on Arab affairs. 

Yehezkeli speaks Arabic well, and the series follows him as he meets - from very close up - Moslems on their European home turf. His interview subjects appear to be at ease in his company, believing he is a fellow Moslem, a Palestinian film-maker, and providing him with access to their candid opinions in ways that it is hard to imagine European or American film-makers ever achieving. 

What emerges can be startling - even shocking - to those of us accustomed to smooth-talking community representatives explaining the disturbing aspects of what passes for everyday life in today's Europe.

Even for viewers lacking familiarity with the Hebrew language, the scenes of Yehezkeli doing street interviews in Malmo, Sweden, in Paris, in Brussels, in London and especially in Luton will be understandable enough. He goes into mosques, is invited into private homes, walks around with young Moslems who open up to him and to the viewers. Once the series is repackaged with subtitles in European languages, it's likely to have a significant impact on the public discourse about the effects on European life of the massive, and growing, immigration of Moslems and the wrenching changes this is causing in Europe's cities.

Those who want to see Islamophobia in these programs will find it. But for our taste, the film-makers have done a serious job of allowing the street and its people to speak for themselves without imposing their judgments or clear conclusions. To be direct about this - overall it delivers a very deeply disturbing picture: Yehezkeli finds no shortage of immigrant Moslems who heap scorn on the societies that have granted them shelter, unemployment payments, lives immeasurably more safe and comfortable than those they left behind.

There are religious leaders here, not suspecting the man with the microphone is an Israeli, who speak directly into the camera in support of terrorism and terrorists. Even some of the migrants for whom Yehezkeli has obvious feelings of sympathy confess without embarrassment to lying and subterfuge in order to get what they need from their European neighbours.

Two small vignettes to watch for:

• A young Belgian Moslem describes (Episode 3, 23m20s) with utter disdain the education he received at a Belgian Catholic school. To the appreciation of his buddies sitting in on the interview, he mentions some of the totally useless pieces of learning ("stupid things", he calls them) the system forced him to accept: washing hands after going to the toilet, for instance. He was born in Belgium. So were both of his parents. It was the grandparents who made the transition from Morocco to give their children a better shot at a good life. Three generations into the process of European acculturation and the grandson - disenfranchised, alienated in his native land - burns with zeal and indignation. He seeks to bring his parents back to the true religion.
• Another young Belgian Moslem describes (Episode 3, 22m15s) in good English how he and his friends seek to provoke anger among their non-Islamic neighbours by very publicly praying in the street or in front of the famous Belgian Atomium monument. Provocation, he calls it - over and again. They do this because of the effect, he tells the camera.

Below are links to the Hebrew-only versions (we don't know of any others at this point) of the first three programs in this excellent series. They might not remain online much longer, so we want to recommend to view them while you can. Each runs for about 45 minutes.

Episode 1: East and West

Episode 2: Women

Episode 3: Terror

UPDATE 23-Oct-12:
Episodes One and Two of the "Allah Islam" television series have now been given English-language subtitles. Our understanding is that the work of translating to English was done by enthusiastic volunteers, and not by the series' producers. They can be found online here:

• Episode 1 East and West
• Episode 2 Women

Seems we are likely to see English-subtitled Episodes 3 and 4 sometime soon. We will add the links here.  

22-Sep-12: Here's what the Israeli soldiers were doing when they came under terrorist attack Friday

[Image Source] 

On Friday afternoon, we reported ["21-Sep-12: Major mid-day attack on Israel from Sinai thwarted today, but no one thinks the problems are going away"] on an attack by heavily armed terrorist gunmen on Israel's Egyptian border.

Three terrorists, at least one of them wearing an explosive belt, were killed in the ensuing firefight and deaths and injuries on a much larger scale were averted. Unfortunately, a young IDF artillery corps soldier, 20-year-old Private Netanel Yahalomi from the Nof Ayalon community, serving the military portion of his Hesder service, was killed. (His rank was raised to corporal, posthumously.) Two terrorists escaped and it's reported that the Egyptians are searching for them.

Netanel Yahalomi z"l with mother
in a family picture

The terror attack began as the IDF soldiers were giving water to dehydrated Sudanese refugees at a border fence construction. The IDF Spokesperson's Office said the terrorists were dressed in civilian clothing, and used the Sudanese - who were making the dangerous crossing from Sinai into Israel - as human shields to mount their attack.

The background, as the New York Times reported two weeks ago, is that Israel has been forced to deal with a massive influx of sub-Saharan Africans, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan - more than 60,000 of them in the past two years. While Israel believes some are genuine refugees from war-torn countries, most are economic migrants seeking work and ready to make the perilous crossing of countries - notably Egypt - where the military shoot to kill (many have been killed trying to reach the Promised Land). Israel provides temporary protection for all who arrive from Sudan and Eritrea.

Times of Israel quotes a member of Egypt’s Supreme Military Council saying the attack on the Israelis was carried out by members of the terror group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdes that is affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

21-Sep-12: Exactly as expected, the Shalit deal continues to deliver up life-threatening problems to ordinary Israelis

Shalit deal prisoner, one of the 1,027, heads to freedom.
Convicted, unrepentant, ideologically and sociologically motivated:
is there any basis at all for being surprised at the outcome? [Image Source]

From Israel National News today

A terrorist who was among the 1,027 freed in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was recently arrested for further terror-related crimes, making him the eighth Shalit deal prisoner to be rearrested. MK Danny Danon (Likud) is not surprised.
“More than fifty percent of those who are released return to terrorism,” he told Arutz Sheva. “The defense establishment knows this, we warned about it before the deal.”
Danon called on security forces to re-arrest the freed terrorists. “Those terrorists signed a document in which they committed not to return to terrorist activity, but they forget their promises the minute they step off the bus,” he said.
“That’s why I hope the military catches them, alive or dead, and does not let them continue to walk free,” he added.
Danon was behind a new law under which freed terrorists who are subsequently convicted of new involvement in terrorism will need to serve not only their new prison sentence, but the end of the sentence they were released from early, as well.
The law was recently put into effect for the first time in the case of Ali Juma Ali-Zidat, a terrorist from the Hevron region who was freed in the Shalit deal eight months before his prison term was to end. Ali-Zidat was arrested and sentenced to another year in jail for new offenses, and will now serve one year and eight months before release.
Among the offenses committed by freed Shalit deal terrorists have been attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians to use as bargaining chips for further prisoner release.

21-Sep-12: Speaking of troublesome neighbours: Iran

Iranian army troops march in a military parade commemorating the start of the Iraq-Iran war 32 years ago
just outside Tehran, Iran, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) [Image Source]  

A brief round-up of latest developments in Iran.

Iran Says It Gave False Nuclear Data to IAEA 

New York Times - Rick Gladstone and Christine Hauser

Fereydoon Abbasi, who heads Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said in an article published Thursday in Al Hayat: "We presented false information sometimes in order to protect our nuclear position and our achievements, as there is no other choice but to mislead foreign intelligence... Sometimes we present a weakness that we do not in fact really have, and sometimes we appear to have power without having it." 

Iran Seen Behind Cyber Attacks on U.S. Banks 

NBC News - Robert Windrem and Jim Miklaszewski

National security officials told NBC News that the continuing cyber attacks this week that slowed the websites of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are being carried out by the government of Iran. Senior U.S. officials acknowledge that Iranian attacks have been the subject of intense interest by U.S. intelligence for several weeks. Last week, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Intelligence Directorate confirmed continuing Iranian cyber attacks against U.S. financial institutions in a report described as "highly classified." 

Israel root cause of all world problems: Iran envoy

PressTV Iranian news agency

Iran’s Ambassador to Beirut Ghazanfar Roknabadi says although Israel is the main reason behind all international problems, Washington continues to support the Zionist regime... 

We wonder whether he has the following challenges in mind when he refers to "all international problems"...


Unemployment mounts as Iran's economy falters | Inflation running at 25 percent officially, hundreds of thousands have lost jobs
Reuters - September 19, 2012

Iranians are reeling under tough economic sanctions imposed by Western countries since the start of the year over the Islamic Republic's pursuit of its nuclear program, which Washington says is a drive to develop a weapons capability. Inflation is running at 25 percent officially, and could in reality be double that, economists say, and hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs as trade embargoes have curbed export prospects and made it difficult for many Iranian companies to obtain vital raw materials. Even when they do so, a plunge in the rial currency - which has halved in value over the last 12 months - has pushed up overheads, forcing employers to cut payrolls. "We're close to seeing mass unemployment in cities and queues for social handouts. There are few alternatives for those people and many will end up on the bread line," said Mehrdad Emadi, an Iranian-born economic adviser to the European Union, who is based in the U.K. A series of conversations conducted by Reuters with Iranians by telephone reveal how widespread unemployment is becoming. They requested that their identities or the names of their employers not be revealed because of the sensitivity of the issue...

21-Sep-12: [UPDATED] Major mid-day attack on Israel from Sinai thwarted today, but no one thinks the problems are going away

From the Haaretz report [Source] 

There has been a news blackout on developments taking place since about noon today on Israel's Egyptian border. It has just been lifted.

Ynet's report: IDF kills 3 terrorists on Egypt border

Terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula opened fire on an IDF patrol in the Mount Sagi area, on the Israel-Egypt border, at around noon Friday. Heavy exchanges of fire ensued, during which the terrorists were killed. According to an initial investigation, three terrorists approached the border with Israel near the Carmit outpost, situated south of Mount Sagi, at a point where the border fence remains incomplete. The terrorists were equipped with explosive belts and assault rifles. The three opened fire on Artillery Corps soldiers who were securing civilians building the new border fence. Soldiers from the Caracal Battalion, in which both male and female combat soldiers serve, rushed to the scene and killed the terrorists, but not before a large explosive device the terrorists were carrying detonated. They terrorists were also carrying a rocket-propelled grenade, the army said.

Times of Israel: Terrorists engage IDF in heavy gunfire along Egyptian border | Gunmen opened fire on Israeli patrol; two terrorists killed

Gunmen opened fire on an IDF patrol near the Israel-Egypt border on Friday, engaging the Israeli military in a prolonged exchange that left two terrorists dead. Channel 10 news reported that the terrorists had detonated an explosive in the direction of the IDF troops, who were monitoring progress on the border fence, before opening fire.

Haaretz: Sinai terrorists fire at IDF soldiers on Israel-Egypt border | Terrorists from Sinai detonate explosive device on border near Arif Mountain, Israeli soldiers kill three of them

IDF soldiers engaged in heavy clashes with terrorists from Sinai on the Israel-Egypt border on Friday. According to initial reports, a terrorist cell approached the border from Sinai and opened fire toward IDF soldiers, who were stationed there to oversee construction work on the border fence. Additional IDF forces were called to the scene and three terrorists were shot and killed. Initial reports indicate that the terrorists were also armed with explosive belts and ammunition. IDF officials said that the quantity of weapons that were found on the terrorists indicate they were planning a large terror attack... The incident occurred near Arif Mountain in the Ramat Negev Regional Council, an area where Israel has yet to have erected a fence. Defense officials believe that the construction on the border fence in that area is due to conclude within two months. The officials said that work on that portion of the fence has been delayed since it was a mountainous region which is complex for construction.

Meanwhile, the BBC World Service, unaffected by Israeli censorship, reports what we dread hearing

A number of Israeli soldiers have been injured in a clash with armed militants on the Israel-Egypt border, Israeli medics have told the BBC.

The emergence of a Moslem Brotherhood government in Egypt and the evident ambivalence it applies to its dealings with the terrorist regime (ideological siblings of the new ruling party in Cairo) who control the Gaza Strip have left Israelis in little doubt that, however dangerous the southern part of our small country already was (with thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilians by the jihadists of Gaza since 2005), watchfulness and caution are essential. We have watched, and blogged, as the dangerous emanating from the Sinai desert have gotten bad, worse and worse still. A selection of some our recent posts points the way...

• 30-Aug-11: Dark clouds over Israel's south - hard to see from most newspapers, TVs and web pages 
• 27-Sep-11: Egypt-to-Israel gas pipeline sabotaged for sixth time this year 
• 5-Oct-11: Quote of the day: Sinai is 100% safe [The source, of course, was not Israeli, but Egypt's then military ruler, the now deposed Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi]
• 28-Feb-12: Israel's relations with Egypt: The good, the bad and the ugly
• 7-May-12: The trouble with Sinai
• 17-Jul-12: Sinai used to be seen as a paradise

Stay tuned as we get updated on what's happening down south.

UPDATE Friday 4:00 pm

• Al Jazeera says "One Israeli soldier and three armed men have been killed in clashes along the Israel-Egypt border."
• Reuters says "Israeli troops on Friday killed three militants who infiltrated over the border from Egypt to launch an attack and an Israeli soldier also died in the clash, an Israeli army spokeswoman and Israeli media said. The Israeli military declined immediate comment on reports of Israeli casualties."

19-Sep-12: No one can say the jihadists are making a secret of their ambitions

Ruqaya, the 8 year-old Sydney girl, praising and advocating jihad.
The appalling message placed in her mouth
by the adults manipulating her: "Nobody is too young" [Image Source]

This past weekend, we blogged here about foaming-at-the-mouth proponents of jihad rampaging through the streets of Australia's largest city, Sydney [see our blog post here].

Today, the mainstream Australian media are reporting with astonishment on the sight of elementary school children being pushed front and center by radical adults to embody the lust for Islamist jihad and to advocate the killing of unbelievers.

• An eight year-old Australian girl called Ruqaya, reading a prepared speech promoting jihad at a Hizb ut-Tahrir ("Party of Liberation" in Arabic) conference for "Islamic fundamentalists" in the western Sydney community of Bankstown this past Sunday, a day after the riot. [The video is here - she starts in Arabic, and then switches between English and Arabic.] The name of the conference: Muslims Rise. More than 600 people took part.
• A second child, probably younger than the girl, is photographed today in several Australian papers, holding a placard that reads "Behead all those that insult the prophet". It's unlikely he has the ability to read the sign, let alone write it. 

"Behead all those who insult
the prophet" [Image Source]  says the toddler

Jared Owens writing in The Australian [here] says, without much evident conviction, that these unsettling developments amount to a challenge for moderate Australian Moslems to stand up and speak out. Speaking in customarily measured and moderate Australian tones, he uses the word 'set-back' in describing the general mood among Australians exposed to the events of the past four days.

Our familiarity with Australia gives us the sense that, after showing considerable tolerance and exemplary patience to their newly arrived Islamic neighbours over several decades, a sense of alarm and dismay at what these people are ready to do to their own children has begun setting in, along with a sense of dread about what they are willing to do to other people's children

We wonder how much Australians in general know about the emerging calls to restore this thing called a caliphate. Following is a brief extract from Wikipedia's "Caliphate" entry:

"Al-Qaeda has as one of its clearly stated goals the re-establishment of a caliphate. The late al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, called for Muslims to "establish the righteous caliphate of our umma." ...Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Laden's mentor and al-Qaeda second-in-command until 2011), once "sought to restore the caliphate...which had formally ended in 1924 following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire but which had not exercised real power since the thirteenth century." Once the caliphate is re-established, Zawahiri believes, Egypt would become a rallying point for the rest of the Islamic world, leading the jihad against the West. "Then history would make a new turn, God willing," Zawahiri later wrote, "in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government."

In the videos of Saturday's Sydney Islamist riots, the clearly-heard rallying cry of the men bashing the police was "Obama, Obama, we love Osama" [check it on the RT (Russia Today) video here]. Understanding what they mean is child's play.