Mossad’s zoological warfare roiling Muslim world

Readers disappointed by a recent BBC poll indicating that Israel is widely perceived to have a negative influence in the world (Israel tied North Korea for third place, behind only Pakistan and Iran) can take comfort in knowing that in the animal kingdom, at least, the Jewish State is increasingly popular — at least if reports from senior officials in the Muslim world are to be believed (and why wouldn’t they?).

The latest such report comes from Turkey, where authorities are investigating whether a dead bird found by a local farmer was, in fact, an Israeli spy.  The late Merops Apiaster, more commonly known as the “European Bee-Eater”, aroused suspicions due to its oversized left nostril, in which “presumably, anything could have been placed” (according to the president of the local beekeepers’ association, who first inspected the avian).

Additionally, experts were tipped off by the presence of a highly visible red tag on the bird with the words “Tel Aviv, Israel” — clearly a devious “hidden in plain sight” ruse by the Mossad that appears to have backfired spectacularly.  Not fooled by the Zionists’ too-clever-by-half ploy, a senior official in the regional Agriculture Directorate said that the bird “might be used for audio or video” surveillance and that “Israel can do such things.”  Having reached the limit of its investigative capabilities, the Directorate has turned the alleged spy over to Turkey’s national counter intelligence agency for further expert analysis.

The Turkish debacle comes on the heels of two other incidents in which the Mossad allegedly used animals to do its dirty work.  Two years ago, after a spate of shark attacks on European tourists basking off the coast of Sharm-el-Sheikh, the Governor of South Sinai said that “the Mossad is trying to hurt Egyptian tourism in any way possible, and the shark is one way for it to realize its plan.”  And last year, Saudi Arabia arrested a vulture that it suspected of spying for Israel because it had a GPS tracker from Tel Aviv University (the vulture was later acquitted of all charges).

Skeptics might laugh at these reports and see them as reflective of a mentally debilitating, self-destructive worldview in the Muslim world characterized by an obsession with wild conspiracy theories and unbridled Jewish power. 

Then again, that’s exactly what the Zionists want you to think.

Palestinian censorship on the rise

Judging by his increased efforts to censor his critics, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (now in the 88th month of his 48-month term) must be worried about his political popularity.  In the last few weeks alone, the PA has:

• Blocked access to 8 websites critical of Abbas and supportive of his longtime rival, Mohammed Dahlan
• Arrested journalists Ismat Abdul-Khaleq (who is being held in solitary confinement) and Tarek Khemis for insulting Abbas on Facebook, as well as journalist Youssef al Sahyeb for making allegations of corruption in the PA
• Interrogated and arrested university student Hasan Abbadi for “sowing disunity” with his political cartoons, as well as political activist Jamal Abu-Rihan for posting comments on Facebook highlighting government corruption

Abbas’s clampdown on dissent has elicited rare criticism from a veteran senior Palestinian official, Hanan Ashrawi, and has led the PA Communications Minister, Mashour Abu Daka, to resign in protest.

For pro-Israel activists seeking to highlight the sharp differences between the democratic Jewish State and its illiberal enemies, our job just got a little easier.

Winner of latest round of Gaza war: Iron Dome

Since Friday, when Israel assassinated a leader of the Popular Resistance Committee who was in the final stages of preparing a major terrorist attack on Israel (similar to the one in August 2011 that took 8 Israeli lives near Eilat), the PRC and Islamic Jihad fired over 220 rockets at cities in southern Israel.  A tentative ceasefire announced last night appears to be taking hold as of this morning.

On balance, Israel seems to have “won” the latest round in the Gaza war: 35 people in Israel required medical treatment due to the attacks (one seriously injured, one moderately wounded and the remainder lightly injured or suffering from shock), while IDF counter-strikes killed 25 Arabs in Gaza (the vast majority of them terrorists either launching or on their way to launching rockets at Israel).  Nevertheless, with life in southern Israel coming to a standstill for 4 days, it’s clear that the terrorists managed to extract a major economic and psychological toll on 1 million Israelis. 

In any case, the real winner in this round of fighting was Israel’s Iron Dome, a missile defense system that intercepts short-range rockets headed towards inhabited areas (rockets destined for unpopulated fields are allowed to land).  In anticipation of the rocket fire, Israel moved all 3 of its Iron Dome batteries to southern Israel, where they proved invaluable in protecting the major urban centers of Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheba.  Since Friday, Iron Dome knocked out at least 50 Kassam and Grad missiles in flight, representing an 85% hit rate.

Iron Dome firing interceptor missile (Dan Balilty/AP)

Israel will install a 4th Iron Dome battery in July 2011 and two additional ones in the first half of 2013.  Given its recent successes, however, one can expect that the Israeli government will accelerate the allocation of funds to produce additional systems quickly.

Israeli civilians and political leaders (who have greater military decision-making flexibility as a result of the missile defense system) are not the only beneficiaries of the Iron Dome.  Although the system was developed entirely by Israel, the US provided Israel with critical funding last year to produce additional batteries, and the US army has expressed interest in using the Iron Dome to protect its military bases from rocket fire.

IDF saving lives in peacetime

This article in The Times of Israel describes a remarkable initiative to have Israeli soldiers register themselves as bone marrow donors when they are inducted into the IDF.  Approximately 70% of inductees agree to do so (the rate is highest in the most skilled units), which is particularly noteworthy given that soldiers appear to be 1.5x as likely as civilians to be suitable matches for those in need of bone marrow transplants.  In total, over 166,000 IDF recruits have already joined the registry.

The program is a partnership between the IDF and Ezer Mizion, the world’s largest bone marrow registry for Jewish patients (bone marrow matches are exceedingly rare outside of one’s ethnic group) and the 4th largest registry internationally.  As a result of this collaboration, Israel has the highest per capita bone marrow registry rate in the world.

Based on Ezer Mizion’s public data, roughly 15 life-saving transplants have been made for every 10,000 donors in the registry.  Assuming the IDF recruits 35,000 people per year (Israel does not publish this information, but I think this is a conservative estimate based on public sources) and that the inductee donation rate remains at 70%, then over the next 10 years, the IDF/Ezer Mizion partnership will save more than 360 lives.

All without firing a single shot.

Three positive developments for Israel

The past week saw three developments that contribute positively to Israel’s diplomatic situation:

• Warmer relations with Cyprus: On February 16, Netanyahu became the first Israeli Prime Minister in history to visit Cyprus.  The island nation is less than an hour’s flight from Tel Aviv, but has historically been one of Israel’s fiercest European critics.  Recently, however, ties between the two countries improved dramatically when Turkey’s Islamist regime turned against Israel and threatened Cyprus for conducting offshore natural gas exploration (roughly half of Cyprus has been occupied by Turkey since 1974).  That makes Cyprus the latest “diplomatic dividend” from Turkey’s growing hostility to Israel; other countries that have drawn closer to Israel after Turkey’s about-face include Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. 

Netanyahu and Cypriot President Demetris Christofias

 

 

 

 

 

 

• The fight against oil: Better Place, an Israeli startup focused on installing and operating the infrastructure necessary for electric cars, launched its first nationwide network — in Israel, of course.  The network currently features 33 battery-switching stations that enable electric-only vehicle drivers to travel easily across the entire country.  Better Place hopes to launch its next nationwide network in Denmark later this year, with Australia soon to follow.  The effort to unseat oil as the world’s dominant fuel source will take decades, but initiatives such as Better Place are a step in the right direction.
   

  

  Better Place battery-switching station in Israel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Public relations victory: A French court acquitted Dr. Yehuda David, a French immigrant to Israel, of libelling Jamal al-Dura, the father of Mohammad al-Dura.  In 2000, the al-Duras were caught in the crossfire of a gunfight in Gaza, resulting in the death of the 12-year old boy.  French TV broadcast images from the scene and claimed that the IDF targeted the al-Duras, inflaming Arab public opinion worldwide.  After the broadcast, Jamal claimed that he sustained injuries to his hand in the incident — a claim that Dr. David publicly stated was false, as in reality Jamal’s scars came from surgery that Dr. David performed on him in 1992.  The French court’s acquittal of Dr. David is one more count in favor of the proposition that the “al-Dura affair” was nothing more than a  hoax designed to cast the IDF in a negative light — a proposition that has been proven in exhaustive detail by another French Jew on a one-man mission to clear Israel’s name, Philippe Karsenty. 

Dr. Yehuda David

 

Meet the new Mufti. Same as the old Mufti.

2012: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (and Palestinian Authority representative) Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, in a public speech, quotes the Hadith (an Islamic book believed to be a record of Mohammed’s words):*

“The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: ‘O Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent].’ Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees] surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Note: this same quote appears in the Hamas Charter (Article VII).

March 1944: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, on Radio Berlin:

“Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.”

Diplomatic vision

A team of Israeli ophthalmologists recently completed a trip to 7 countries (Cambodia, Ethiopia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) in which they restored eyesight to over 2,000 people.  The “Eye Camps” mission is part of an Israeli project to visit developing countries that lack the facilities and resources necessary to perform eye surgeries, such as cataract removal and oculoplastics, and not only perform these operations on hundreds of patients but also train local doctors to perform them as well.  The trip was organized by a combination of charitable organizations and Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Israel has launched other, similar initiatives in recent years, such as dispatching medical teams and aid to earthquake victims in Haiti, Turkey, India, El Salvador and Greece, as well as to refugees in Kosovo and Rwanda.

Beyond the obvious humanitarian benefits, these efforts promote Israeli diplomacy (six out of the seven nations visited in the Eye Camps project are members of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of countries that often votes as a bloc in favor of UN resolutions condemning Israel) and provide a major boost to Israel’s public image abroad.  You can bet that the vast majority of the 2,000+ patients participating in Eye Camps had never met an Israeli or a Jew before and that whatever impressions they had of the Jewish State were probably quite negative.

Now they can see more clearly, in more ways than one.