I don’t know about you, but I feel that giving back the Sinai really paid dividends.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:40PM: A few months ago, this video from northern Israel of a horse trampling a car was making the rounds.

Now comes this video from southern Israel, in which the horse comes off second best.

11:30PM: Another case of premature explodation.

8:40PM: Terrorists fired a Katyusha-type rocket into Israel earlier this evening, in what the IDF called “a grave incident.” A fire broke out at the rocket’s impact site, near the northern town of Kiryat Shmona, but there were thankfully no casualties.

Channel 2 reported that IAF planes carried out strikes in southern Lebanon within an hour of the rocket being fired.

While there has been no claim of responsibility, Israeli security sources believe the rocket was not fired by Hizbullah, but rather by a small palestinian organization.

8:32PM: Here’s a firsthand account of events from the blogger whom Richard Silverstein attempted to have kicked out of his panel discussion.

“We know that there are people here who disagree with what we believe, but we welcome them to our conference.”  — Jeremy Ben Ami in his opening remarks to the “Driving Change” Conference

This is not the first blog to accuse J Street of duplicity in ballyhooing its”Pro Israel” brand.  But today at its gala conference in Washington, I saw the real face of diversity J Street style.  I registered with my real name and paid the admission price and actually believed what Jeremy Ben Ami declared in his welcoming speech.

At 12:45 on Monday, the “Bloggers’” panel convened at the Grand Hyatt to a packed- to- overflowing room to hear the stars of the ultra-left blogosphere – including the inimitable Richard Silverstein of Tikkun Olam.  Just as his fellow bloggers were finishing up their  vilification of Jeffrey Goldberg, whose less-than-hard-hitting interview of Jeremy Ben Ami apparently enraged the leftosphere,  Silverstein leapt up from his seat, pushed his way frantically past the audience and said to a J Streeter, “Get security.  We’re going to kick this guy out.”  I, like many others in the crowd, were filming the event.  No notification was given to participants that filming or recording was not allowed.  Later, I was told by a security guard that anyone could film any event and that he had received no instructions to bar recording devices.  Much of the conference was live-streamed, as a matter of fact.

The next thing I knew was that two J Street officials were dragging me out of the room demanding that I stop filming.  I complied with their request and asked them why they were singling me out.  Amy Spitalnick, J Street’s chief spokesperson then told me that only authorized persons could film a discussion.  I expressed surprise and suggested that they were singling me out at the behest of one of their bloggers (Richard verified later that he was on a panel for J Street).  I asked for an apology from Amy, but she refused, saying that no one except for authorized persons could photograph the discussions (I witnessed many audience members photographing sessions – no one was dragged from the room and chastised).

As the late, lamented TV pitchman, Billy Mays was wont to say, “But wait, we’re not through yet!”  Later in the day I happened to be seated near Mr. Silverstein at a panel on Iran.  When the session broke I went up to him and said, “Richard, let me buy you a cup of coffee and we’ll sit down and discuss this like adults” whereupon he literally ran over to a security guard who then proceeded to demand identification from me.  It seems that Richard told the guard that I was at the conference under an alias and that I did not pay to attend.  I produced the necessary identification which satisfied the put upon man.  At that point I had had just about enough from the hysterical Mr. Silverstein.  As I mentioned, the guard told Mr. Silverstein that anyone could film the conference as he had received no instructions to the contrary.

The harassment didn’t end there.  I was brought to the J Street desk by the guard with Richard leading us demanding that I be ejected because, “I didn’t belong here.” He continued harassing me by telling the guard that I had registered under a false name, a charge that was quickly proved false.

I recounted the events to Amy Spitalnick of J Street and demanded an apology for J Street’s harassing and embarrassing behavior.  She refused.  I then asked if she would speak to Mr. Silverstein, who was at the conference at J Street’s invitation.  She replied that she would.  Finis.

Yes, I disagree with many of J Street’s  positions and statements.  I also agree with some of them, especially their condemnation of terror as the state policy of Hamas.  Jeremy Ben Ami set a welcoming tone for people who disagree with J Street’s agenda at the outset.  That that tone was betrayed by the uncivil and harassing conduct of his chief spokesperson reveals the darker side of J Street’s view of freedom of speech.

5:50PM: Here is an open letter to Richard Goldstone, written by Israeli doctor David Zangen (hat tip: Richard)

Dear Judge Goldstone,

My name is Dr. David Zangen, I am a consultant in Pediatric Endocrinology and diabetes at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Over 50% of my patient population is Palestinian from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. I speak Arabic and initiated the first training program for Palestinian physicians in the field of Pediatric Endocrinology. The trained physicians were fully respected and were included as first authors on our studies that are published in world leading professional journals.

But, at the same time I happened to be the chief medical officer of my brigade during the Defensive Shield Operation in Jenin 2002. I was responsible for the medical treatment of our soldiers but also for enabling the hospital in Jenin to provide full medical services to the civilian population and I was personally involved in numerous medical treatments that Palestinians (including warriors) received from Israeli physicians.

During and after the operation the director of Jenin hospital was a source to what has been falsely called the “Massacre in Jenin where 5000 people were massacred” this same person Dr. Abu Rali has also claimed that one part of the Jenin hospital was destroyed by Israeli tank missiles “12 tank rockets were shot at the hospital …” etc

You should know, honored Judge that these statements have been proved and documented as straight lies not only by Israeli sources but also by the Human Rights Watch and the UN organizations counting only 52 dead people on the Palestinian side (23 on the Israeli side). These organizations and photographs of Jenin hospital following the operation showed no evidence for any destruction at the hospital buildings etc.

This Dr. Abu Rali a director of a hospital, a physician, lies and incites in the service of the Shahids. It is hard to believe that a director of a hospital can give such an obvious false testimony. I can’t understand it and you can’t understand it but unfortunately this is what has happened. Even persons who would usually be considered reliable sources become advocates of straight lies.

Tragically, moral misbehavior of doctors in the Palestinian Authority is not new. The Pediatrician George Habash sent his terrorists to kill children in Israeli schools and so did the Hamas leader the pediatrician Dr. Rantisi…and so continues to do the Pediatrician encouraging the sending of rockets from Gaza on innocent Israeli schools Dr Mahmud Zaher.

Please judge Goldstone, you should really be careful when such straight liars serve as the basis for your report. I am sure that you mean well but being an eye witness both to the events in Jenin and to the subsequent media and initial false UN reporting I do understand what happened to you. How a person of such stature and integrity could become associated with such a faulted report.
Look Judge Goldstone at your report on the Al Fakhura event on January 5-6th 2009 (paragraphs 651-688). You do report how Israel was accused for directly bombing the UNRWA school. It took 2 weeks to withdraw from this accusation but you, honored Judge, went back to get your testimony only from the same people who spread the blood libel of bombing the school. Moreover when analyzing the scene you claim that you could not verify the numbers of 24 dead and 40 wounded but these numbers are not considered exaggerated. Finally in the Factual findings part you already determine that 24 people were killed and 40 injured!

Did you by any chance try to validate any of these invented and inciting details? Did you look at the Al Jazeera or BBC reports from the same very date of the event? Did you try to validate your “factual findings” conclusions by getting at least Emergency Room charts on the people admitted to their trauma department on this very day? Did you go over the I.D.’s of the “dead” people and the place or cemetery where they were supposedly buried?

Well you didn’t!

In all the scene of “40 dead and 40 wounded” filmed by Al Jazeera and other channels reporters and screened at the same day all over the world you could not see bodies or blood spots in the streets beside two or three casualties and one footage of a single wall damaged by a bomb. As a physician who was at terrible suicide events with smaller number of casualties I can testify how it looks like for hours following the event….The media documentation of the Al Fakhura event does not verify and definitely does not go along with the fantasy and lies of your witnesses.

As a judge I must be sure that you did not mean to hurt Israel, I try to believe that you came to Gaza without prejudice…but a judge is expected to look at least for some evidence and verification (media, ER registration, burial places  etc….) of the testimonies and not accept impossible “facts”. You have let yourself to be misled by fabrications made by either terrorists or even doctors such as Dr. Abu Rali from Jenin.

I and my colleagues in Israel are proud of the medical service that is given equally to every human being regardless of his origin; we are also proud to belong to a nation that has the imprint of having higher moral standards than others.

The price that we pay for this status is very high. The Palestinians and other Muslims around the world, either common people or even respected doctors, use straight lies as part of the war against us. The Western world media criticizes us and tries to find where we were not behaving up to the extremely high moral standards that we made ourselves.

I call on you Judge Goldstone take this Al Fakhura event, look at the media coverage from the very same date…see the events in the context…try to live one day with the responsibility for the existence of this small nation of 6 million Jews threatened constantly by 300 million Muslims. I call on you to try and not draw conclusions from such lies and misleading witnesses even if they come from so-called professionals. In the modern world propaganda and lies are definitely a part of the war and as a judge you should not serve as a tool for augmenting hatred and conflicts.

We look for peace , we love peace and we do try our very best to fight for our right to exist in the highest possible moral standards even at the cost of our lives.

David Zangen M.D.

3:20PM: Regarding the frightened palestinian boy in one of Reuter’s “Pictures of the decade” (see last update), here he is right before he wet his pants:

Funny how this picture did not make the cut.

1:40PM: Reuters seems to be running a Picture of the Decade series. And as usual, they are finding it hard to hide their anti-Israel bias.

Two pictures, two boys. One palestinian and one Israeli. The former portrayed as terrified, the latter as angry and aggressive.

REUTERS PICTURES OF THE DECADE. A young Palestinian protestor is arrested by Israeli border police in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 6, 2001 after clashes broke out following Friday’s Muslim prayers. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein (JERUSALEM)

REUTERS PICTURES OF THE DECADE. An angry Jewish settler boy looks out from inside a synagogue as Israeli policemen and solider storm the Neve Dekalim settlement in the Gush Katif, August 18, 2005. Israeli troops stormed two Gaza Strip synagogues and dragged out screaming settlers and supporters on Thursday in assaults on the last bastions of resistance to a pullout from the occupied territory. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj (GAZA)

I am sure there are many photos of young Israeli boys looking terrified and worried, and I am already aware of the thousands of photos of palestinian boys looking aggressive and angry (especially while shooting guns, or throwing rocks and petrol bombs). Yet somehow the “Pictures of the Decade” series features photos supporting the “Israelis as aggressors, palestinians as victims” narrative.

8:50AM: This should tell you everything you need to know about J Street.

J Street’s university arm has dropped the “pro-Israel” part of the left-wing US lobby’s “pro-Israel, pro-peace” slogan to avoid alienating students.

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“We don’t want to isolate people because they don’t feel quite so comfortable with ‘pro-Israel,’ so we say ‘pro-peace,’” said American University junior Lauren Barr of the “J Street U” slogan, “but behind that is ‘pro-Israel.’”

Barr, secretary of the J Street U student board that decided the slogan’s terminology, explained that on campus, “people feel alienated when the conversation revolves around a connection to Israel only, because people feel connected to Palestine, people feel connected to social justice, people feel connected to the Middle East.”

She noted that the individual student chapters would be free to add “pro-Israel,” “pro-Israel, pro-Palestine,” or other wording that they felt would be effective on this issue, since “it’s up to the individuals on campus to know their audience.”

8:40AM: US “”allies”, the Saudis: Saudi University Professor Salman Al-Abdali explains the difference between suicide bombings in Israel and Saudi Arabia.

6:02AM: Solomon has more on the J Street conference and the Silverstein panel blogger ejection, including this gem.

It gets better. Stavis tells me that Mr. Silverstein was sitting in front of him at another (formal) J Street panel. Hillel approached Mr. Silverstein and asked him if he would like to sit down and discuss matters calmly…Whereupon RS motored immediately to a security person and insisted that Mr. Stavis was a fraud, that he wasn’t who he said he was (cuckoo, cuckoo…who exactly does he think Stavis is?)…the guard asked for Stavis’ conference badge and ID. Everything checked out. So of course our Mr. Stavis insisted he do the same for Silverstein.

Solomon also links to this article, which describes how Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was mocked at the conference.

Blumenthal went on to trash Elie Wiesel for speaking this past weekend at the Christians United for Israel conference in San Antonio. After mocking Pastor John Hagee, the founder of CUFI, Blumenthal said “the last time Elie Wiesel trusted someone so much it was Bernie Madoff.” Wiesel admitted earlier this year that he lost “everything” he had in Madoff’s ponzi scheme. The audience erupted with laughter at Blumenthal’s tasteless joke.

Peace lovers, huh?

5:52AM: In their latest report, Amnesty International has accused Israel of “denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies” which “unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.”

NGO Monitor has identified some major issues with the report, not least the timing of its release.

NGO Monitor notes that Amnesty International’s 112 page report titled “Troubled Waters – Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water”, is timed to strengthen the Israel boycott campaign, coinciding with a US speaking tour linking the water issue and Israeli ‘apartheid’.  The report itself is a political document which promotes an imaginary and highly distorted version of international law.  In addition, it omits critical context to the conflict in order to promote the Palestinian narrative, thereby continuing the NGO-led political warfare against Israel.

• This report is the latest episode in Amnesty’s campaign against Israel.  Amnesty International headquarters issued over twenty statements overwhelmingly critical of Israel during and in the aftermath of the Gaza conflict.
• Amnesty’s report provides legitimacy for a speaking tour beginning November 1 at universities in the US organized by the Palestinian Cultural Academic Boycott of Israel (PCABI) movement entitled, “Israel’s Control of Water as a Tool of Apartheid and means of Ethnic Cleansing.”  The main speaker, Omar Barghouti, is a leader of the boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
• Amnesty’s report ignores evidence that not only does Israel provide West Bank Palestinians with more water than required under the Oslo framework, but that Palestinian water thieves are responsible for stealing up to 50% of supplies in some areas.
• Amnesty claims that levels of Palestinian water consumption (60-70 liters per person per day), are “the lowest in the region.” Amnesty omits easily available evidence that this is a similar level, if not better than major regional cities such as Amman, Tunis and Algiers.
• The report is based on the claim that Israel is violating Palestinian human rights, because the Oslo framework, on which current water arrangements are based, “codified inequality in access to water resources”.  This approach patronizingly assumes that the Palestinian leadership is incapable of negotiating agreements, and creates the spectre of future agreements that will be abrogated on similar ground.
• The report invents standards of international law, by erroneously claiming (including on the front cover) that Israel has an “obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the right to water” based on the International Covenant of Economic, Cultural & Social Rights (ICESCR).  Amnesty falsely implies that the ICESCR demands a right to water when no such right is even mentioned in the treaty. In fact, the legislative history of the ICESCR indicates that the State parties deliberately omitted water issues.

As for my favorite description, it’s a toss-up between “The women of Paradise are pure, unblemished, menstruation-free, free of feces, urine, phlegm, children” and “Each one of them is so beautiful that you can see the bone marrow through the delicate flesh on their legs.”

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The failed assassination attempt on Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, Thursday night was planned by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which operates from Yemen, sources confirmed.

The suicide bomber was recruited by Yemeni Nasser Al-Wohaishi, known also by the nom de guerre Abu Baseer, the sources said.
Al-Wohaishi is the head of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which had announced in an Internet posting last January the merger of the Saudi and Yemeni branches of Al-Qaeda.

The merger was seen by analysts as an attempt to consolidate after the Saudi branch of Al-Qaeda was practically wiped out following a vigorous counter-terrorism campaign led by Prince Muhammad.

According to Okaz sources, the bomber who detonated himself only a meter away from the Prince was part of a terrorist cell formed to target oil installations and public figures.

The sources said the bomber stayed in an apartment on Sari Street, northwest of Jeddah, Thursday.

He had slipped into the Kingdom from Mareb, east of Sana’a, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr Al-Qirbi told The Associated Press.
“He was in Yemen,” said Al-Qirbi. “He claimed that he was going to hand himself over to Saudi authorities and make a statement to his followers to abandon Al-Qaeda principles.”

Okaz sources said the bomb was implanted in the attacker’s rectum, which could explain why he refused to drink coffee at the Prince’s Court.

The bomber had sent word he wanted to surrender personally to the Prince who had ordered that he not be searched to encourage others to come forward.

At the Prince’s home in Jeddah’s north Obhur beach area Thursday night around 11.30 P.M., the attacker was in line to enter a gathering of well-wishers for Ramadan when he blew himself up. The Prince was lightly injured in the attack. The bomber died.

While the joke possibilities are endless, here are but a few initial observations:

• Not quite what comes to mind when I think of an ass bomb, but each to their own.
• I’m wondering if the bomber messed up his instructions. He was told to target public figures, not pubic fissures.
• Alternatively, perhaps the tactic is not so bad. After all, if he somehow survived and was sent to prison, it’s not like his anus (or what remained of it) was going to stretch any further.

(hat tip: Elder of Ziyon)

Police are searching for a 28-year-old woman who ran away from a Social Affairs-run women’s shelter in Jeddah on Friday.Col. Misfar Al-Juaid, spokesman for Jeddah police, said the woman ran away while the police were preparing to take her to jail in line with a court order. He further urged the young woman to surrender and warned the public against giving her shelter.

She must have done something heinous to have an all-point bulletin issued by an entire Kingdom. What was her crime?

The court had ordered the police to take the woman to jail while it examined a case filed against her by her father. The woman fled her parents’ home after accusing them of abusing her and sought refuge at the shelter.

The woman had earlier complained against her father at a summary court. The father had then filed a counter-case against her, accusing her of disobeying her parents, a culpable offense under Saudi law. The court refused to entertain the woman’s petition and instead began examining the father’s complaint.

Before issuing a final verdict, the court ordered police to take the woman to jail. When police arrived to take her, the woman said she needed to use the toilet and on entering the ladies’ toilet she fled.

The woman accused her father of abusing her. The father responded to the court that she had done something much worse – she had disobeyed him. So the Saudi justice system, naturally, decided to drop the charges for the abuse crime and start a nationwide hunt for the 28 year old woman who disobeyed her father.

The Saudis aren’t monsters, though. They have a solution:

Urging the young woman to return to her senses and surrender to the authorities, Dr. Ali Al-Hanaki, director of the Ministry of Social Affairs Ministry in Jeddah, said, “The solution now lies in her own hands. Each additional day she refuses to obey the authorities will only worsen her problem.”

He added that the ministry had pledged to resolve her problem without sending her to jail. “We have informed the court of our plans, which include arranging for her to marry and reconciling her with her family,” said Al-Hanaki.

See? They’ll find her a husband! No doubt he will be a prize catch for her, arranged by the government itself.

Almost as much of a prize as her father evidently is:

He also requested her father to stop sending threatening messages to the authorities.

A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.

According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, “Fahd” and “Hadian.”

But seriously, there has to be some defense to this charge.

Fahd told the policeman that he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan.

Ah yes, the old breastfeeding defense.

Which begs the legal question: WTF?!

Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman.

Couldn’t the old lady argue she had no choice but to have the men deliver bread to her? You know, since she IS NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE and all.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism and punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, feared by many Saudis, is made up of several thousand religious policemen charged with duties such as enforcing dress codes, prayer times and segregation of the sexes. Under Saudi law, women face many restrictions, including a strict dress code and a ban on driving. Women also need to have a man’s permission to travel.

Al Watan obtained the court’s verdict and reported that it was partly based on the testimony of the religious police. In his ruling, the judge said it had been proved that Fahd is not the Sawadi’s son through breastfeeding.

And how would they prove that?

Forget it, I don’t think I want to know.

The court also doled out punishment to the two men. Fahd was sentenced to four months in prison and 40 lashes; Hadian was sentenced to six months in prison and 60 lashes. In a phone call with Al Watan, the judge declined to comment and suggested the newspaper review the case with the Ministry of Justice.

Sawadi told the newspaper that she will appeal, adding that Fahd is indeed her son through breastfeeding.

The case has sparked anger in Saudi Arabia.

“It’s made everybody angry because this is like a grandmother,” Saudi women’s rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider told CNN. “Forty lashes — how can she handle that pain? You cannot justify it.”

This is not the first Saudi court case to cause controversy.

In 2007, a 19-year-old gang-rape victim in the Saudi city of Qatif was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for meeting with an unrelated male. The seven rapists, who had abducted the woman and man, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison. The case sparked international outrage and Saudi King Abdullah subsequently pardoned the “Qatif Girl” and the unrelated male.

Many Saudis are hopeful that the Ministry of Justice will be reformed. Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced in February a major Cabinet reshuffling in which many hard-line conservatives, including the head of the commission, were dismissed and replaced with younger, more moderate members.

The new appointments represented the largest shakeup since King Abdullah took power in 2005 and were welcomed in Saudi Arabia as progressive moves on the part of the king, whom many see as a reformer. Among ministers who’ve been replaced is the minister of justice.

The actions of the religious police have come under increased scrutiny in Saudi Arabia recently, as more and more Saudis urge that the commission’s powers be limited. Last week, the religious police detained two male novelists for questioning after they tried to get the autograph of a female writer, Halima Muzfar, at a book fair in Riyadh, the capital of the kingdom.

“This is the problem with the religious police,” added Al-Huwaider, “watching people and thinking they’re bad all the time. It has nothing to do with religion. It’s all about control. And the more you spread fear among people, the more you control them. It’s giving a bad reputation to the country.”

Driving a car.

A woman has been arrested in Mecca in Saudi Arabia for driving a car.

Police gave chase after she was spotted at the wheel of a 4×4 car, the English daily Arab News reported. She was arrested after hitting another car.

Women are prohibited from driving on all public roads in Saudi Arabia, a ban that has triggered several high-profile protests by women’s rights activists.

The woman’s name and nationality have not been announced. Only Muslims are permitted in the holy city of Mecca.

Police arrested the woman, in her 20s, early on Wednesday morning after the car she was driving crashed into another, said Maj Abdul Muhsin al-Mayman, spokesman for Mecca police.

He did not identify the name or nationality of the woman but said she was caught driving a Lexus.

“The woman tried to escape when she saw a police car and in the process hit another car, which was slightly damaged,” he said.

The spokesman said the woman driver was handed over to the Prosecution and Investigation Commission for investigation.

I will resist making any women driver jokes since I don’t want to obfuscate my disgust over the horrendous treatment of women in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim or Arab countries.

Not only do columnists and analysts openly accuse Israel of sponsoring acts of piracy that multiply off Somali waters, but they also do not hide their fears of an internationalization of security in the Red Sea, where Israel plays a decisive role.

“What is happening in the Horn of Africa is not a simple case of piracy. These acts of piracy raise various questions about the capabilities and equipment of simple outlaws who are seeking ransoms,” wrote Tuesday (November 25) Nawaf Al-Meshal Sabhan in the Saudi daily Al-Iqtissadia.

“These acts triggered statements on the internationalization of the Red Sea, in which the enemy state of Israel would be a crucial element,” he adds.

“Who has got an interest in such an internationalization?” Asks the analyst, echoing “another disturbing development represented by the decision of a shipping company (AP Moller-Maersk, the world’s largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator) to divert its huge merchant fleet from Suez Canal and take the route via the Cape of Good Hope.”

“Who has got an interest in putting pressure on Egypt, by diverting cargo ships of Suez Canal and by making Egypt lose daily income of over $15 million?” the analysts asks again.

“Who is behind acts of piracy?” Was the headline of the daily Al-Riyadh’s editorialist Dr. Hashem Abdou Hashem.

“These repeated acts of piracy are premeditated. They are sponsored by a State or organization, in any case by a party seeking to create tension, concern and instability in the Red Sea in order to achieve strategic interests,” he wrote.

According to him, “this party seeks to convince the international community to monitor the sea on the pretext of ensuring the safety of navigation, ensuring energy supplies and preventing supplies of arms to troublemakers in the region,” referring particularly to the Islamist militia “Shebab” who control much of Somalia.

Red Sea: “the lung of Arabia”

More explicitly, Jalal Aref wrote Monday in al-Youm that Arab countries bordering the Red Sea “are now faced with four dangers: The internationalization of security in the Red Sea with the pretext of fighting piracy, Israel’s covetousness of seeking to play a key role in the Red Sea, the theft of Arab oil through piracy, without counting the blow to navigation in the Suez Canal.”

The daily Al-Iqtissadiya asked in its editorial Monday “how hackers may have means of air defense, missiles guided by satellites, computers and advanced navigation equipment.”

“This means that some countries close an eye on these acts of piracy for strategic, political and economic reasons,” added the newspaper, pointing out that “the Red Sea is the only waterway in the world where residents are Arab dominant … and it must remain so.”

Amin Sa’ati, a Saudi expert, demonstrated in a long article published the same newspaper that “the security of Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea are inseparable (…) since 30% of global crude, including the one of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, pass through the Red Sea, the bulk of our desalinated water resources comes from the Red Sea, and our imports and exports pass largely through the Red Sea. ”

“The Red Sea is our lung (…). The kingdom must convene a meeting of countries bordering the sea to develop a mechanism for strategic cooperation. But it seems that foreign forces do not want stability in the region. Israel remains the main obstacle to such cooperation,” added the expert.

Besides Saudi Arabia, eight other countries bordering the Red Sea are: Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Israel.

Yemen: mobilize Arabs

Last October, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh called on Arab countries bordering the Red Sea to “assume their responsibility” to remove any pretext for an internationalization of security in the sea.

His appeal came shortly after a decision by NATO to strengthen its military presence in the Indian Ocean against piracy off Somalia, in coordination with the European Union (EU).

Saleh went to Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia for that matter. His foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Korbi, had claimed that Riyadh was “conducive to cooperation among Arab countries bordering the Red Sea to ensure the security of the sea.”

Speaking on November 20 in Cairo at a meeting of Arab officials bordering the Red Sea, Korbi said that the multinational naval presence in the southern part of the Red Sea was “a danger to Arab national security.”

Since the diversion of Saudi supertanker, the “Star Sirius” on November 15 by pirates off Somali waters, the Saudi press has been publishing echoes of several Arab journalists and analysts, including Egyptians, who warn against “Israel’s aims for playing a key role in the Red Sea” and against “a US-European control of this strategic sea.”

Israel in Islamists’ line of fire

Israel is also condemned by Islamists on Internet sites which are full of inflammatory articles, including one written by the former Secretary General of Kuwaiti Salafist Movement, Sheikh Hamed Al Ali.

“The aims of the Zionist enemy in the Red Sea have never ceased,” wrote the Islamist cleric on his website, illustrating his long article with a quote by a former commander of the Israeli navy regarding “a diabolical plan” which aims to “transform the Red Sea into a Jewish lake.”

Sheikh al-Ali also lists examples of “the Zionist military engagement in Ethiopia,” particularly “sophisticated aircraft-radars and 60 military Zionists experts.”

That is why Sheikh al-Ali called the mujahideen in Somalia “to eliminate pirates whose irresponsible acts will be exploited by western hackers to the benefit of the diabolical Zionist plan and to abort the Islamic project in Somalia.”

The Shebab, who called piracy an offence to Islam, threatened to attack the pirates if they will not release the “Star Sirius.”

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Just kidding.

Meet Maaz Al Shami, winner of the “Most Beautiful Goat” title in Saudi Arabia.

What a tease.

You have to hand it to the Saudis. After a leading Islamic authority condemned their camel beauty contests as evil, they certainly found a loophole.

Two illegal Yemeni immigrants, disguised as women, were arrested at a checkpoint near Asir. Lt. Col. Abdullah Bin Ayidh Al-Qarni, spokesperson for the Asir Region Police said the vehicle was stopped at an Al-Majaridah checkpoint with the two ‘women’ as well their driver. The third unidentified man said the two women in his car were his wife and sister. Police discovered that the ‘women’ were in fact men and arrested the three.