Forecast Highs

The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes survey conducted last year paints a worrying picture of attitudes towards Jews in the Middle East.

In the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed, views of Jews were overwhelmingly unfavorable. Nearly all in Jordan (97 percent), the Palestinian territories (97%) and Egypt (95%) held an unfavorable view. Similarly, 98% of Lebanese expressed an unfavorable opinion of Jews, including 98% among both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, as well as 97% of Lebanese Christians.

By contrast, only 35% of Israeli Arabs expressed a negative opinion of Jews, while 56% voiced a favorable opinion.

The survey was conducted between May 18 to June 16, 2009.

The sample size of each of the countries surveyed was over 1,000 people and the margin of error was 3%. Results for the surveys in these nations are based on face-to-face interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. All surveys are based on national samples, except in Pakistan where the sample was disproportionately urban.

In Turkey, which has seen tense relations with Israel since Operation Cast Lead last January, the number of people who said they had a “very unfavorable” attitude towards Jews jumped from 32% in 2004 to 73% in the spring of 2009.

Negative views of Jews were also widespread in the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed in Asia: More than seven-in-ten in Pakistan (78%) and Indonesia (74%) expressed unfavorable opinions.

Among Nigerians, overall views were split (44% favorable, 44% unfavorable), but opinions divided sharply along religious lines. Fully 60% of Nigerian Muslims had an unfavorable view of Jews, compared with only 28% of Christians.

In general, Christians received more positive ratings than Jews, although sizable numbers in predominantly Muslim nations nonetheless expressed negative attitudes toward Christians. Unfavorable ratings of Christians were particularly widespread in Turkey, where over two-thirds (68%) expressed a negative view.

Among the Middle Eastern nations surveyed, negativity toward Christians was especially common in Egypt, where opinions were divided: 49% held an unfavorable opinion and 51% expressed a favorable view.

Just over four-in-10 in Jordan (44%), Israel (44%) and the Palestinian territories (43%) expressed critical views of Christians.

However, views differ among groups within Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israeli Jews were more than twice as likely as Israeli Arabs to give Christians an unfavorable rating (49% vs. 20%). Likewise, negativity was more widespread among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (52%) than in the West Bank (40%).

By contrast, Lebanese opinion was relatively uniform. Few overall (12%) or among the different religious groups – Shi’ite (17%), Sunni (14%) and Christian (6%) – expressed a dim view of Christians.

Negative views of Christians were common in Pakistan, where 61% held an unfavorable opinion. Indonesians were divided: many (43%) expressed an unfavorable opinion of Christians, while just as many (45%) voiced a favorable view.

Overall, only one-in-five (21%) in Nigeria expressed a negative view of Christians. However, nearly four-in-ten (39%) Nigerian Muslims held this opinion.

Terrible, vicious comments by some real crazy people:

In 2008, President Bashar Assad was a worried man.

The UN probe into the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri pointed at direct involvement of senior members of the Assad regime. Hariri’s long-time friend, French president Jacques Chirac, was clamoring for Assad’s head. The International Atomic Energy Agency was pursuing a probe of a Syrian nuclear facility, which, according to foreign media, had been bombed by the Israel Air Force. Damascus was being linked with Pyongyang, Assad with Kim Jong Il.

Assad was also nervously watching for any last-minute surprises by a departing George W. Bush, who hated the Syrian regime with a passion and wanted to avenge the deaths of US soldiers killed by foreign fighters who had reached Iraq via Syria’s borders. In the final stretch of the Bush presidency, about 25 percent to 30% of the Syrian army was deployed along the Iraq border in a defensive posture for this reason. Continue Reading »

An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program will neither completely stop Teheran’s nuclear march, nor bring down the ayatollahs’ regime, according to former Swiss ambassador to Iran Tim Guldimann.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post on the sidelines of this week’s Herzliya Conference, Guldimann, who knows the Iranian way of thinking well, expressed – as a personal opinion – his deep concern about the military option against Iran.

Guldimann was Swiss ambassador to Iran and Afghanistan from 1999 to 2004. As ambassador to Teheran, Guldimann – now senior adviser and head of the Middle East Project at the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva – represented US interests in Iran, acting as a go-between. He gained notoriety for a memorandum he transmitted to the US in 2003, which posited an alleged Iranian proposal for a broad dialogue with the US, with everything on the table – including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian armed groups. The proposal was rejected by the Bush administration. Continue Reading »

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran announced Wednesday it has successfully launched a research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space — a feat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said showed Iran could defeat the West in the battle of technology.

The launch of the rocket Kavoshgar-3, which means Explorer-3 in Farsi, was announced by Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi to mark the National Day of Space Technology.

Iran’s state TV broadcast images Wednesday of officials putting a mouse, two turtles and about a dozen creatures that looked like worms inside a capsule in the rocket, which appeared to be about 10 feet long, before it blast off.

Vahidi gave no details on the research and there was no information on what experiment the animals would serve on board. The report also did not disclose when or where the launch took place.

Judy Siegel adds:

In Israel, leading aviation medicine specialists said it was “highly unlikely that Iran could learn anything scientifically important by sending worms, turtles and a mouse into space via a rocket. The first animal to go to space was a dog who flew in the Russian space vehicle Sputnik way back in 1957.

They noted that the “poor creatures” could easily be dead by the time they reached space and that it was extremely unlikely that the rocket — with the animals inside — could be recovered and examined. “It’s a one-way ticket,” said one expert.

The only conclusion is that Iran was doing it “just for show,” they said, adding with a chuckle that “he could better serve himself by launching the opposition to his government.”

Cartoon by Amir Mizroch and Stefanie Garden

I wonder why the Israeli Government Press Office found it necessary to translate and disseminate this article by Maariv commentator Ben-Dror Yemini attacking the New Israel Fund. The GPO sends out a daily digest of headlines, articles and opinion pieces from the Hebrew press to a large list of recipients, but it is very rare that it translates and disseminates just one article. It has done so in the past on Ben-Dror Yemini’s articles, but I think only once or twice. Maybe it has something to do with a top-level decision to take on Israeli NGOs critical of Israeli government policies…

From אנדי לוטרמן
to “gponews@netvision.net.il”
date Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 11:20 AM
subject SLUSH FUND
hide details 11:20 AM (12 minutes ago)

SLUSH FUND
(Article by Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma’ariv, 2.2.10)
Continue Reading »

Hamas accused Israeli agents accompanying National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau to the United Arab Emirates two weeks ago of assassinating one of its top operatives, Mahmoud Mabhouh.

A senior source in the Prime Minister’s Office said Israel had no comment on the matter.

However, it was pointed out that Landau’s delegation, in the UAE for an alternative energy conference, and which consisted of fewer than 10 people, was guarded by an eight-man UAE security team, from the time it landed on a Friday morning in Abu Dhabi – some 120 km. away from Dubai – until the time it flew out of the UAE.

The Landau delegation hardly left the hotel, only taking one brief site-seeing excursion, and was accompanied throughout by the UAE security detail.

Landau served as a Major in the Paratroopers, and was Minister of Internal Security in Ariel Sharon’s government in 2001.

[hat tip to Mondoweiss]

Image taken from here Prepared by UNITAR Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT)

Continue Reading »

This is one of the “better” anti-Israel videos I’ve seen lately; and it’s brand new.

Is there anyone out there making pro-Israel videos? Anyone…

How about this cartoon? Is this anti-Semitic? It’s called: “Hey, It’s our Holocaust Memorial Day, Not Yours!”

How about this blog post, called: “Have you heard of the Holocaust?” and which asks “Why this narrow use of the word [Holocaust]?

“Was it the Holocaust that took place during WW1 when millions perished in the mud on the Western Front? Was it the millions of Russians who were killed while driving the Germans back from the gates of Stalingrad?
Was it the number of European citizens killed by the Germans as they over ran Europe? Was it the holocaust caused by Pol Pot, one which killed millions of Cambodian citizens? Did it refer to the use of atomic bombs on the Japanese citizens by the Americans? What about the Holocausts carried out by Stalin and Mao which killed millions?”

#1: Israel has come up with a somewhat smart compromise to Goldstone’s demand for a good-faith investigation into Operation Cast Lead. Israel is proposing that a panel of respected Israeli jurists [Aharon Barak, Michael Cheshin] review internal IDF investigations into Cast Lead, and if they’re OK, to say so, in the hope that this will be enough to ward off the UN from demanding a more thorough, independent investigation, which, if Israel doesn’t establish, will land it in the Hague court on charges of war crimes. Israel is hoping this will be enough, but will it? Doubtful. The Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly is too heavily stacked against Israel. Other outstanding questions: what real powers will the judicial panel have? If a probe seems inadequate, can the judges order a more thorough investigation? What access will it have to documents, officers, witnesses? How transparent will the process be? Continue Reading »

Ruth Eglash and Amir Mizroch

In an hour-long interview in her office in Jerusalem, Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver gets angry only once; only once, but very, very angry.

The usually self-composed Landver, herself an immigrant from the FSU, lets rip at the widespread belief amongst veteran Israelis that while new immigrants are vital to this country, 73 percent of the people surveyed said they believe that immigration caused a rise in crime and youth alcoholism. When asked which population people would most like to have as neighbors, veteran Israelis came in first, followed by new immigrants from the United States, immigrants from France, immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and lastly immigrants from Ethiopia. The same results were found when people were asked which population they would be happy to have their children in the class with and also who they would like their children to marry. Continue Reading »

Press freedom in Israel nosedived in 2009, Reporters Without Borders noted in its eighth annual world press freedom index released Sunday.

Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, had an impact on the press. As regards its internal situation, Israel sank 47 places in the index to 93rd position. This nose-dive means it has lost its place at the head of the Middle Eastern countries, falling behind Kuwait (60th), United Arab Emirates (86th) and Lebanon (61st).

Israel has begun to use the same methods internally as it does outside its own territory, the report states. Reporters Without Borders registered five arrests of journalists, some of them completely illegal, and three cases of imprisonment. The military censorship applied to all the media is also posing a threat to journalists, the report says.

As regards its extraterritorial actions, Israel was ranked 150th. The toll of the war was very heavy. Around 20 journalists in the Gaza Strip were injured by the Israeli military forces and three were killed while covering the offensive.

Reporters Without Borders compiles the index every year on the basis of questionnaires that are completed by hundreds of journalists and media experts around the world. This year’s index reflects press freedom violations that took place between 1 September 2008 and 31 August 2009.

The Foreign Ministry just released this, some three hours before Ankara’s deadline for an Israeli apology:

January 13, 2010

H.E. The Ambassador of Turkey

Mr. Ahmet Oguz Celikkol

His Excellency,

I wish to express my personal respect for you and the Turkish people and assure you that although we have our differences of opinion on several issues, they should be discussed and solved only through open, reciprocal and respectful diplomatic channels between our two governments.

I had no intention to humiliate you personally and apologize for the way the demarche was handled and perceived. Please convey this to the Turkish people for whom we have great respect.

I hope that both Israel and Turkey will seek diplomatic and courteous channels to convey messages as two allies should.

Sincerely,

Danny Ayalon

Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel

[Here's my first political cartoon]:

Are the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan descendants of an ancient Israelite tribe that migrated across Asia after it was exiled over 2,700 years ago? This intriguing question has been asked by a variety of scholars, theologians, anthropologists and pundits over the years, but has remained somewhere between the realms of amateur speculation and serious academic research. But now, for the first time, the Israeli government itself has shown formal interest, with the Foreign Ministry providing a scholarship to an Indian scientist to come to the Technion and determine whether or not the tribe that makes up the hard core of today’s Taliban have a blood link to any of the ten lost tribes of Israel, and specifically, the tribe of Efraim.

Mrs. Shahnaz Ali, Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Immuno-Haematology, Mumbai, has joined the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), Haifa, to genetically study the blood samples of the Afridi Pathans of Malihabad in District Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, that she collected to confirm their putative Israelite origin. Continue Reading »

TV screaming matches: Good journalism or bad? Should interviewers cross the line from being assertive to in-your-face, to outright combative? Is that necessary sometimes when a politician deserves it?

Here is the video of Balad MK Jamal Zahalka and journalist Dan Margalit screaming at each other on Erev Hadash last Friday. Besides being a display of passion and venom from both sides, this exchange has done more for the ratings of Erev Hadash [A New Evening] than anything the producers have done in the past.

Zahalka compared Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of SS intelligence and the ‘Butcher of Prague’, when he said that Barak “listened to classical music and killed Palestinian children” – a reference to Heydrich’s penchant for classical music and mass murder. This in and of itself is incitement, associating a Jewish, Israeli minister of defense with Heydrich. But Margalit could have handled it better. Continue Reading »

Organizers of the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo Thursday. These people look like they’re really committed, engaged, and elated. I don’t see similar scenes in Sderot.

Take a deep breath when you reach the full stop at the end of this sentence. Now exhale. Again: deep inhale, feel the cool air as it moves through your nostrils, see your abdomen and chest expand; now exhale slowly through your nose, the same air coming back out warm, feel your face relax. Last time, and now don’t read on, just breathe. And smile. Plug your ears with your fingers and listen to yourself breathe.

Nicely done. Feeling better? Just three deep breaths, a smile, some positiveness, that’s all it takes to give yourself a mini holiday, reduce your stress, rest your mind and add tremendous quality to your life. Remember to give yourself this mini break as often as you can throughout your day, every day. And once in a while, take a long, relaxing holiday somewhere nice, like maybe an island in Thailand. Continue Reading »

Substitute “Enemy Command HQ” for “Hubs of Delegitimacy.” Instead of “enemy armor outflanking our infantry,” use “resistance networks outflanking the IDF to attack Israel’s very legitimacy.” Instead of bombing Israeli embassies – picketing Israeli stores and taking Israeli products off supermarket shelves.

Pair Iran’s nuclear program, an existential threat to Israel, with the simultaneous creation of an existential political threat, and you are talking in a new type of language, and a new type of warfare in which the IDF is not equipped to engage in, and perhaps shouldn’t be engaging in.

A new report by the Reut Institute, a Tel Aviv-based national security and socioeconomic policy think tank, maps out the “new battlefield” in which Israel finds the legitimacy of its very existence attacked by a wide array of organizations and individuals in global centers like London, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid and Berkley. Continue Reading »

It unfolded like something out of a Mario Puzo novel: The powerful don of a mob family holds months of clandestine talks with the disgruntled henchmen of a rival clan and gets them to betray their boss, abandon their family and leave it exposed and vulnerable, fated for cruel elimination. Continue Reading »

SIMILAN ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK, THAILAND – Instead of a Blackberry – I touched barracudas. Instead of cable TV – I gawked at a leopard shark. Instead of monitoring breaking news on the hour every hour – scuba diving four times a day; diving and eating, eating and diving. Instead of politicians and publicity hounds – giant Manta Rays posing for our cameras and plenty of sea turtles performing for our amusement. Instead of sitting in gridlock traffic twice a day – I lived on a boat amidst vast expanses of open sea, swam in indigo blue water, and watched sunsets that took my breath away. And instead of staring at a laptop all day, I strapped a dive computer to my wrist and headed out for the Andaman Sea off Thailand’s southern coast to explore their underwater beauty. As November ticked over into December, I switched my daily routine in the city for five days of boat life in the Similan Islands, a chain of nine islands off Phang Nga Province covered by tropical jungle that together make up a nature reserve, and can be reached by a short speedboat ride from Phuket or Khao Lak. Living onboard the MV Koon – a boat catering to dive customers that jaunts from island to island – I discovered another world, not just the one under the sea, but one away from civilization, away from hordes of tourists, a world of adventure, wonder and stillness. Considered one of the best diving spots in the world, the Similans are closed to tourists during the rainy season from June to November. But from mid-November until May, when the weather is balmy, the sea calm, and visibility excellent, the islands burst alive with hundreds of divers exploring their rich underwater ecosystem. Continue Reading »