Israellycool

Down Under Punditry in the Middle East

Archive for August, 2007

Separated at Birth

Friday, August 24th, 2007

A member of Mahmoud Abbas’ security forces, and an Aborigine with a didgeridoo (with apologies to my Aborigine readers).

Reutersdidgeridoo Separated at Birth

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I Take Back My Last Post..

Friday, August 24th, 2007

This is the joke of the day.

Despite its numerous calls for Israel’s destruction, and repeated denials of the Holocaust, Iran has been selected by the United Nations for a leading position in a committee that will plan the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism.

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Tags: UN

Joke of the Day

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

I can’t resist this joke (hat tip: my mom).

Why the Brits wear red

A long time ago, Britain and France were at war. During one battle, the French captured an English colonel. They took him to their headquarters, and the French general began to question him.

french-soldier Joke of the DayFinally, as an afterthought, the French general asked, “Why do you English officers all wear red coats? Don’t you know the red material makes you easier targets for us to shoot at?”

In his bland English way, the officer informed the general that the reason English officers wear red coats is if they are shot the blood won’t show, and the men they are leading won’t panic.

And that is why, from that day to this, all French Army officers wear brown pants.

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Sonic the Hedgehog Deathbomb

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

Introducing our latest weapon: Zionist Sonic DeathbombTM

The head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, was injured on Wednesday evening when Israeli soldiers attacked him as he attended a dinner at the home of the Jerusalem Mufti.

In a statement Salah said “We were having meal on the roof of Jerusalem Mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein’s house when the Israeli soldiers attacked us using sonic bombs. I was hit in the elbow. I have been treated in the Al-Maqasid Hospital in East Jerusalem but I am well now.”

After it was discovered that the previous version caused only dizziness, nausea, and potential auditory damage, our diabolical scientists were able to develop this latest version which emits sounds so powerful, they cause actual physical wounds.

I know it sounds practically impossible, but Sheikh Salah confirmed it, and he wouldn’t lie.

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Tags: Middle East Conflict

Training the Enemy

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

From the Department of Told You So. (hat tip: LGF).

American-run programs that train Fatah militias were instrumental in the “success” of the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000, a senior Fatah militant told The New York Sun.

“I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings,” a senior officer of President Abbas’s Force 17 Presidential Guard unit, Abu Yousuf, said.

Here’s the punchline.

Under an agreement signed this month by Secretary of State Rice and Palestinian Arab Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Force 17 officers are slated to take course work and conduct VIP protection exercises under the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

The new training program aims to help the Palestinian Authority “deliver security for the Palestinian people and fight terrorism, build confidence between the parties, and ultimately help to meet the security needs of Palestinians and Israelis alike,” a State Department press release said.

Only I’m not laughing.

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Tags: Palestinian

Color War

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

Reuters

Palestinian girls attend a summer camp organised by the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip in this picture taken August 14, 2007. Colour war has taken on a special meaning for Palestinian children attending summer camp in the Gaza Strip. To match feature PALESTINIAN-CAMPS/ REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

Color war indeed, especially considering where we have seen orange before.

disengagement1 Color War

OPPOSITION: In Tel Aviv, Tamar Velner hands out orange ribbons to show solidarity with settlers opposed to leaving Gaza. JOSH MITNICK

Update: Another example that comes to mind..

abu%20tir Color Wargreencap2 Color War

Muhammad Abu Tir of Hamas, and Nadia Matar of Women in Green

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Tags: Middle East Conflict

They Like Us for Something

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

Surfin’ Porni-A (sung to the tune of Surfin’ USA)

If everybody had a laptop

Across the Arab states

Then everybodyd be surfin

For porni-a

Youd seem em wearing their jammies

Keffiyehs too

A bushy bushy black mustache

Surfin for hot Jews

I guess you could call it a “monkey and pig” fetish:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict apparently does not disturb and even encourages Arab internet users from consuming kosher Hebrew porn. Operators of a number of porn sites report that between two and 10% of their users arrive from Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. Some websites even go as far as offering services in Arabic.

Nir Shahar, who manages the Israeli porn website, ‘Ratuv’ (wet), said that his company produced porn movies that have typical Israeli themes featuring female soldiers, female Mossad agents and policewomen.

It turns out there is a high demand for such content even in countries that are defined as “enemy sates.” (Freudian slip? - Aussie Dave) The most popular video clip among Arabs, “Code name: Deep investigation,” is described as “a parody dealing with the Vanunu affair with agents investigating the affair using erotic means.”

In the past several months we see an increase in traffic from countries that have no diplomatic ties with Israel including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt,” Shahar said.

Due to the demand, Shahar added an Arabic version of the site. “We received many thank you messages from Arab surfers. Many of whom asked if the female soldiers really serve in the IDF,” he said.

“We get hundreds of hits from surfers that live in countries where porn is prohibited,” said Gil Naftali owner and operator of another Hebrew sex site, SexV. “We don’t have an Arabic version because users log in to watch photos and video clips that require no explanations.”

According to site statistics, last month there were over 2,000 hits from Riad, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The average time a Saudi surfer spends on SexV is 17:23 minutes.

Data also shows that 10 percent of the visitors to the most popular sex site in Israel, Domina, are Arabic speakers. “That is because we offer content in their language,” said Tzahi who operates the site.

Nothing seems to stop the porn-consuming Saudi, not even technical difficulties: “In many places Israel is blocked, at times the entire suffix “.co.il” is blocked. Users connect through proxy servers and reach us that way,” he said.

The motive behind these initiatives is purely economical, and by means the desire to connect people through the international language of porn.

“Israeli and Arab surfers do not communicate on the website. Ideology? No, it’s purely business,” Tzahi laughed. “Porn will not bring about peace but at least we get some money out of our enemies’ pockets.”

Color me not surprised.

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The Announcement

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

Fresh from the oven:

Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, announced Tuesday it would no longer honor understandings reached with Israel, and called on its members to carry weapons to defend themselves against the IDF.

“We call on all our members who handed over their weapons to the Palestinian security forces to report to their commanders so that they can be issued new weapons,” said a leaflet distributed in Ramallah.

The group said the decision was made after the IDF arrested two Fatah gunmen who had been given amnesty by Israel in line with understandings reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Israel agreed last month to stop pursuing some 270 Fatah fugitives on condition that they surrender their weapons and sign a pledge to refrain from terrorist activities.

Earlier this week, the PA said Israel had “pardoned” another 110 Fatah fugitives in the West Bank - a claim that Israel denied.

The latest leaflet is seen as a challenge to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s efforts to dismantle the Aksa Martyrs Brigades and other Fatah-linked armed groups in the West Bank.

According to the group, Israel on Monday night arrested Iyad Bisharat and Ahmed Abu Jalboush, two Fatah gunmen whose names had appeared on the first list of pardoned fugitives.

“We call on all our members to display caution and not to be deceived by the so-called amnesty from Israel,” the leaflet read. “We will no longer honor the agreements that were reached with Israel over the issue of the wanted men. We won’t hand over our guns. This is a lie designed to split the Palestinian resistance.”

In other news, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades (and Fatah, for that matter) have honored agreements reached with Israel??

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Tags: Palestinian

Today’s Example of Mainstream Media Bias

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Israeli forces kill 2 children in Gaza, screams out today’s AP headline.

You have to go down a few paragraphs to get a better perspective of what probably happened.

The Israeli army said ground forces fired at two Palestinians who were spotted near a rocket launcher in an area of northern Gaza where a rocket was fired into Israel earlier. An army statement said Palestinian rocket teams have been known to send young children to retrieve rocket launchers after firing.

“In light of the reports, it seems likely that this was the case here,” the army said.

It seems even more likely when considering how these children are educated. Just take a look at Farfur and Nahoul for recent examples.

Meanwhile, palestinian terrorists deliberately firing rockets at civilian targets, today hit a daycare center, which luckily happened to be vacant. A mere two lines right near the end of the AP report were devoted to this occurrence.

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Tags: Media Bias

Catmeathead, Trad, and the Art of Litigiousness

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Sheikh Taj Din “Catmeathead” Hilaly is back in the news. But this time it is because of unpaid wages, not uncovered meat.

catmeat Catmeathead, Trad, and the Art of Litigiousness A year after splitting from the nation’s leading Muslim group, declaring he would no longer accept money to be its spiritual adviser, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali has done an extraordinary about-face by insisting on back pay and demanding to be put back on the payroll.

The once powerful religious leader is also threatening to sue the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils — the body that appointed him mufti — for more than $40,000 in unpaid wages that he says he is owed.

The fallen mufti — famous for a string of injudicious remarks, most notably comparing scantily dressed women to uncovered meat — has sent a letter to AFIC, his former employer, demanding back-payment on his clerical allowance owed from June last year when the body suspended his annual stipend.

It is a change of tune for Sheik Hilali, who last year declared: “I have taken the decision to take my stipend from God and will not accept a salary from any organisation.”

And after the uncovered meat scandal, he added: “Whoever wants to terminate my wages, let them terminate it.

I found this story, and the hilarious picture, from the Australian Islamist Monitor, who have also drawn my attention to some alleged statements from the Sheikh’s spokesperson Keysar Trad, considered by many to be a “moderate”.

“Our ideology is the best salvation for the people of Australia, and the people of the world in general. Yes, we are a threat to the culture of drunkenness, paedophilia, and mostly we are a big threat to the culture of ELITISM…In a way, they feel safe because of the quantity of water which surrounds this country, so they feel fortified behind this great body, it gives them a feeling of security. But the reality is, the land belongs to God, not to them, and if those foreigners, whom they fear as migrants are not permitted to enter as migrants, they will come as settlers, in numbers so large that they will not be able to process them, hold them, or stop them. What will they do then?”

- Keysar Trad, first published in the 16th issue of Nida’ul Islam magazine (http://www.islam.org.au), December - January 1996-97 (no longer online), according to this site.

Trad just recently won a defamation case against Sydney radio station 2GB, whose broadcaster Jason Morrison painted Trad as a person who incites others to have racist attitudes and as someone who incites others to commit acts of violence.

I’m guessing the court did not have the aforementioned statements of Trad admitted as evidence.

Update: Come to think of it, assuming there was proof on the Nida’ul Islam magazine site of these statements having been made by Trad, I wonder if the site was taken offline to protect him.

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Tags: Australasia

Hamass

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Hamas has removed the image of “the big chicken” from the front page of its website, and replaced it with this image:

alqassam Hamass

In case your vision fails you, the text reads: from surgeon depth ALQASSAM INCOMING.

No, I do not know what that means. All I see is a horse’s behind.

And he seems to be riding on a horse.

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Tags: Palestinian

The Targets

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

 Al-Qaeda has reportedly set their sights on some famous infidels.

David Beckham and Justin Timberlake are the targets of an alleged Al-Qaeda murder plot.

An internet video, which has been posted on YouTube, brands Becks, 32, and JT, 26, as criminal influences on young Muslims.

Fellow footballers Wayne Rooney and Thierry Henry, as well as rapper P Diddy are also mentioned.

The warning footage was posted by a Glasgow-based website named after Al-Qaeda that encourages attacks on Westerners.

In the clip, an image of David is shown under the caption: ‘What made u among the losers?’ reports the News Of The World.

A caption across the screen threatens: ‘Every soul shall taste death.’

And just as Bobby Brown was beginning to feel special.

What I want to know is whether this is really a murder plot, or just a way for Al Qaeda to garner more support from Westerners.

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Tags: Terrorism