Two Israeli police officers confer at the arrivals hall of Ben-Gurion International Airport early Friday morning, July 8, 2011. (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)
The Israel Police ratcheted down visible security at Ben-Gurion International Airport a notch overnight Thursday, after Israel gave foreign carriers a blacklist of more than 300 suspected hostile, pro-Palestinian activists headed here on flights.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday brushed off Egyptian claims that an American-Israeli dual national arrested over the weekend on charges of espionage against Egypt was a spy, or connected to any Israeli intelligence service.
"Grapel has no connection to intelligence apparatus, not in Israel, the U.S., or Mars," Lieberman said in an interview with Army Radio's morning news program, “It's All Talk.”
Speaking with host Razi Barkai, the Foreign Minister said that Ilan Grapel, 27, “had no connection whatsoever with any intelligence service; this is a student who may be a bit odd or irresponsible.” New York-born Grapel holds Israeli citizenship, and – according to Cairo officials – was visiting Egypt in February during the demonstrations to overthrow the Mubarak government. Grapel's family, however, hotly disputed the contention, saying that he only arrived at the beginning of May.
To all my media colleagues who take issue with my constant critique of our profession, it's because of abysmal coverage of events like "Nakba" and "Naksa" Day. You know, there's good reasons why the public largely thinks we're a bunch of media whores. Here are a few:
Simon Plosker over at Honest Reporting gives a good overview of bad news coverage of the so-called "Naksa Day" events along the frontier between Israel and Syria.
"Once again a flood of headlines present Israel as an aggressor responsible for the deaths of dozens of unarmed civilians. Was this really a peaceful protest or another Syrian-engineered attempt to breach Israel’s border? Where did the media get it right and where did it go wrong?"
The following video is a warning issued by an IDF soldier to rioters approaching the Syrian-Israeli border near Majdal Shams, one which I heard broadcast live on the day in question:
Translation to English:"Stop! You are breaching an international border. We warn you not to damage security infrastructure. Whosoever attempts to violate Israel's sovereignty or security infrastructure puts himself in jeopardy. Please return to Syria."
Got that. Good, Now, here's a map of the area in question, courtesy of EoZ, who wonders, "So where was UNDOF on Sunday?":
UNDOF is the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in Syria. This is its mandate:
Maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Syria;
Supervise the disengagement of Israeli and Syrian forces; and
Supervise the areas of separation and limitation, as provided in the May 1974 Agreement on Disengagement.
Here is a map showing its area of operations. I have highlighted Majdal Shams, where the riots were yesterday and on May 15th.
(Click on map to embiggen)
The map shows that the Arab rioters passed through miles of UNDOF areas patrolled by the Austrian contingent of UNDOF. The entire UNDOF forces consist of around 1200 lightly armed peacekeepers. So what did they do on Sunday to defuse tensions on the border?
Be sure to read the rest, and maybe you can provide an answer to his questions.
Movie buffs around the world love the anti-hero of Joel and Ethan Coen's 1998 cult hit The Big Lebowski. The misadventures of the middle-aged early-1990s Los Angeles-based deadbeat, portrayed brilliantly by Jeff Bridges, and a supporting cast of companions and adversaries, has been celebrated around the world via a fan community tradition called the "Lebowski Fest," which has been hosted regularly since 2002 in locales from Kentucky to California.
Now Israel is getting its first Lebowski-styled party to celebrate the cult phenomenon, with the event's entertainment including bowling, white Russians, plenty of Credence tunes over the speakers, a costume contest and yes, a screening of the beloved movie. The party is the brainchild of Jerusalem's Eliyahu Sidikman, who says the Holy City's concentration of Lebowski fans makes holding Israel's first Lebowski Fest here a no-brainer. "There's a large Anglo population - and a lot of Israelis who are very up on it and can even quote you from the movie," he tells GoJerusalem.com. ---
"Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing."
The satirical image below is a take on iconic American illustrator Norman Rockwell's self-portrait The issues it raises, however are deadly serious.
May 20 is the first anniversary of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, which was conceived by Seattle illustrator Molly Norris to champion free speech but became yet another symbol of its curtailment. Professor and commentator Karen Lugo has urged Americans to remember Norris as "inspiration in our cause to never accommodate threats of retaliation for exercising our fundamental liberties."
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves as a critical case study of the forces that imperil Americans' ability to speak openly about Islam. Indeed, examination of its full context reveals almost all of the elements that contribute to this anti-freedom trend. In order of their appearance:
Groveling capitulation. Comedy Central, the network that carries South Park, quickly proved the show's point. It censored the follow-up episode by placing black boxes over images of Muhammad and bleeping utterances of his name.
Islamist obfuscation. Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR played the conspiracy-to-defame-Islam card with respect to Revolution Muslim, opining that "most Muslims suspect they were set up only to make Muslims look bad." (So "phony" are these Islamists that the author of the aforementioned threats later pleaded guilty to attempting to join the jihad in Somalia.)
Fear and hesitancy. Dismayed by Comedy Central's actions, Norris created a poster, with anthropomorphic household items claiming to be true likenesses of Muhammad, to advertise a fictional event in which everyone would sketch him on May 20 to "water down the pool of targets." When the idea went viral, Norris got spooked and distanced herself from her own art, but countless websites followedthrough on the concept.
Government and media fecklessness. Soon after cleric Anwar al-Awlaki placed Norris on an assassination list, Seattle Weeklyreported in September that "there is no more Molly" because an FBI warning had prompted her to leave her job and go into hiding — "without the government picking up the tab" for her protection. So much for defending free speech. Equally alarming, most mainstream media organs expressed littleoutrage over the plight of Norris, preferring instead to drop the issue down the memory hole.
In short, the events surrounding Everybody Draw Mohammed Day are a microcosm of how freedom slowly dies. Only by familiarizing ourselves with this process and comprehending its impact on real human beings can we gather the intellectual and moral resources necessary to keep others — and ultimately Western civilization itself — from sharing this cartoonist's unhappy fate. That is precisely why we must remember Molly Norris, today and every day.
