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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: FALL FOLIAGE
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi October 31, 2011. |
- Anne Geddes HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Leave no doubt about it: Fall is in the air. And hanging out in vivid color on branches everywhere. I love this time of year, not only because the temperature is more tolerable but also because I get to proclaim loudly to disbelieving ears that Israel has spectacular fall foliage. Sure we can't compete for sheer drama with New England Sugar Maples. But who cares? Open your eyes and breathe in the beauty that surrounds us. I selected two images for this week's dispatch that paired well in terms of content and technique. It's easy to spot the grand landscapes but much harder to hone our vision on delicate details often hidden amid thickets of visual chaos. In both photos, I began by searching out a suitable, dark background that complements the strong colors, already enlivened by beautiful back lighting. I also played with my camera angle so that the backgrounds appear completely empty, with nothing to divert the eye's attention from the foliage. I also like the blemishes seen in the insect-eaten leaves, a trait shared by both photos. Nature is always magical and miraculous, but rarely is she perfect. Technical Data: Upper photo: Nikon D70, 70-300 zoom at 240mm, f5.6 @ 1/500th sec., ISO 200. Lower Photo: Nikon D300, 18-200 zoom at 200mm, f5.6 @ 1/1250th sec.,
ISO 200.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website: |
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JEWISH EMERGENCY: HOLOCAUST RESTITUTION
Posted by David Cohen, October 31, 2011. |
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Did you see this? I am filing claims for all my family and forwarding it to everyone I know. You should do the same. Be well, David From: davidcohen@childrensbabystuffworld4all2.co.cc |
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IT IS A JEWISH EMERGENCY! In the next few decades there will be no more living Holocaust Survivors - there will be no one alive to bear witness. The Nazis did more than just destroyed our families, our zaides our bubbies, our parents and our children, our aunts, uncles and cousins. They stole all of our families' property. The systematic plunder of everything the Jews of Europe ever owned. This was not just the greatest Shoah in history - it was the GREATEST ROBBERY of all times. 66 years later and only a tiny fraction of property has been returned or had restitution paid. Time is running out! This is not just about the money it is about our last moment in history for a small measure of justice. There is no justice as long as the stolen property is not compensated. Every family owned something. Every Jewish Family in Europe lost property. Their property was looted, confiscated, stolen or even forcibly sold. Real estate, businesses, stocks, bonds, professional tools, savings and bank accounts, life policies, valuables, Judaica like Kiddush cups, art, even livestock. Please, before it is too late - file your claim - make the history permanent. Lay claim to what rightfully belonged to our families. HOW? Project HEART. Project HEART is sponsored by the Government of Israel and hundreds of Jewish Organizations around the world. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lent his full support. There is now a simple way to file a claim without any fees, expenses or obligations to you or your family. You do not need even need the documents. The Holocaust Era Restitution Taskforce - Project HEART (a not-for profit organization) seeks to reach Jewish Holocaust victims, their families or their heirs worldwide. Any family, who owned any property or belongings that were stolen, confiscated, looted, or forcibly sold in countries controlled by the Nazis or their henchmen during the Shoah must file claims. We owe this to our families - we owe this to the honor and memory of all those who perished. Even though millions of Jewish families are owed their heritage and property, very few claims have been submitted. Do not put it off - SUBMIT A CLAIM TODAY. Our families worked hard for decades building their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren. Dare we allow the Nazis and their collaborators to enjoy our families' legacy without any restitution? Just steal from our families and keep what was stolen without ever paying for what was stolen? Justice demands that we take action. We must take action before it is too late. Submit your families' claims before it is too late. Add your name to those who demand justice be done. WHAT IF I DO NOT HAVE DOCUMENTS OR EVIDENCE? You do not need to have hard evidence. Many families say, their ancestors owned property, but we have no evidence. So they don't bother to apply. You can search the on-line archives on the HEART website. Just file with as much, even sketchy information to the best of your knowledge. Make a claim for your family - make a claim for the Jewish people - write Jewish History! Please forward this message to everyone in your address book. This independent message was sent by: Sam Levine
WHAT TO DO
Go to the website: http://www.heartwebsite.org/
OR: Send an email to them: mail@heartwebsite.org P.S. We cannot bring anyone back to life, but if we do not act, the crime of the Holocaust will continue forever. P.P.S. It is bad enough that they wiped our families off the face of the earth and that millions more suffered in ways that defy all description, but that they still have the property they stole from us to this very day? |
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TRUE, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE - AN AMAZING CREATION OF GOD
Posted by Ari Bussel, October 31, 2011. |
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Did you notice how at every point of time we are given a choice: turn right or left, continue or abort, pay attention or ignore. Our progress in life is just the sum total of numerous small decisions, most seemingly inconsequential. But they all are, shaping our path and defining who we are. Also, this is how we can be grouped into clusters. There are many reasons for doing what we do, some rational, others mysterious. At times we think, hesitate and hardly reach a conclusive decision. Other times we do not spend a glancing thought but proceed, either oblivious or with such determination that we are already at the next juncture. Life is too short, we cannot stop to ponder; we must move on, there is no time to waste. I must admit that I am often guilty of being the latter, as I walk in the early morning hours and see dozens of homeless. Some cuddled near a heat-emitting source, like a supermarket's air conditioning system that spews hot air into the alley or an office building external generator. Others seated on a bench at a bus stop or sleeping in the street, in the cold or the heat, with constant noise of passing cars and stares of passersby. Others in a sleeping bag or mishmash of black-dirty blankets on hard cement or asphalt, often at store entrances slightly protected from wind or rain. I walk by. Without remorse or even a second thought, I continue and walk away, thus ignoring these beings, people exactly like me. I do not mean anything, as I ignore and walk on. During those few instances I notice them, I think how easy it was for the Germans or other Europeans to pass a Jew in the street, after he was stripped naked and beaten almost to death. How easy, even necessary, to continue walking. The majority did not stop, laugh at the beating or participate, but ignored and continued walking. How could they ignore the ashes of the crematoriums, the smell of burning flesh or the hunger in the eyes and bodies they witnessed staring at them from the ghettos or in the daily marches of slave labor? They did not have to collaborate, justify or celebrate, just be oblivious, continue walking without a second thought or even turning their head. It is comforting to think we would have done differently, behaved like the few Righteous Gentiles or other unrecognized heroes. But I tend to think it is unlikely, for me at least. Likewise, I often ask myself why some Christians support Israel so fervently. Why, when Israel does not do the very basics required to support and protect her very existence. Is their aim to convert us or to usher in the Messiah? Many object to their hand extended in earnest and reject the offer of friendship and assistance on these grounds. Israelis refuse to see what is so clear and evident to others. Israel is on the brink of destruction, and her enemies are clever, cunning and manipulating. They deceive and operate on a different time frame than Western society. They have patience, they attack and wait, witnessing the poison spreading, knowing that when the patient will finally realize what is happening, it would be too late, their victim will be too weak to take action or react. The poison drips while Israelis do nothing. Perhaps worse they enable the spread of venom and hasten its effects as the world gladly participates, onlookers cheering at the progress. The few with courage to stand and say, "it is wrong" are hushed up. Attempts are made to confuse them into believing this is a wonderful, helpful treatment with no side effects, no negative implications. Or they hear claims the person is so evil, he deserves to die, and the treatment is the most humane, owing to how merciful the world really is. And if these attempts to fool the innocent into ignoring what they see fail, they too are attacked. Except, attacking Israel is evil, and these forces will not stop with Israel. Their intentions go far beyond and include all those naïve others who will fall like lambs at the slaughterhouse, be gathered like fish into a net or attracted like flies into a spider's web. Prey directly into the kill zone. It is people like Glenn Beck or Evangelical Christians or a country like Canada or Australia that act in a way others would not, as we all walk past homeless lying on the street or a Jew beaten almost to death left to bleed near the Strasse where apple strudel with tea is served in cafes. Why fight for Israel when Israel so miserably fails to act for itself, one asks. Is it not obvious? One does it not because it is said that the Almighty blesses those who bless Israel (that would be too simple: to do something because an imminent reward is promised). On the contrary, the "blessing" is not obvious, neither is the return immediately given. They do so like a loving parent or sibling who sees a son or a daughter, a sister or a brother suffering greatly. So greatly in fact, the person tries to commit suicide (or eventually will undoubtedly reach that junction). And so they try, again and again and again, with all the love and support they can fathom, and then more: It is a true, unconditional love. They need no explanation or reason for doing what they know is right. Whatever the expense, whatever the requirement, they will go the extra mile at a great cost to themselves. They will not stop to ask or ponder. Maybe they dare not stop, for they know that Satan will attempt to confuse them, that the inner Whisper of Comfort will say "leave it all, just let go, you will be so much more comfortable, so much better off; you will have time for yourself." They continue to fight, to hope, to pray and to do everything possible and beyond, even when the fight looks impossible and the success dim to impossible. As long as there is a sliver of hope, the tiniest of chances, they stand firm. They must not give up. As long as the person breathes and you can extend your hand and touch, they will not relent. This is all the comfort that is needed, this touch, and the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, the person can still feel or hear even if unable to see or respond. So one continues. So do all these extraordinary individuals, groups and even a country like Canada or Australia. They do the right thing, the hard thing to follow, for it requires courage, dedication and unwavering conviction. They do it for others, or for themselves, it matters not. They do not get discouraged along the way, although it is so easy along the alternate path, that of least resistance (giving in and giving up). They fight where Israel fails to fight. They fight for Israel, but they also fight for humanity and thus for themselves. They may not even realize it, and thus it is exactly the reward the Bible speaks about when an observation is made in Genesis that those who bless Israel will be blessed. They leave an everlasting imprint and change the course of humanity. Those who are generous and courageous, those who do not think of themselves first and most importantly those who in face of adversity will support Israel (not the mightiest or most numerous, rather the most despised and hated), the homeless, the oppressed or the beaten, they are the instruments of salvation of all human kind. One needs not be religious to understand how a kind deed leaves a mark on this earth, and the collection of such kind deeds saves humanity, like the Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Do not dismiss their memories or belittle their deeds as a mere avenue in Yad VaShem in Jerusalem, two parallel rows of trees with plaques of engraved names. They saved humanity from falling completely to the hands of Satan. They were the small lights that continued to burn, like candles in the wind, when all else was dark. Some were executed, some died, others lived decades still and died unknown or in complete poverty. Sugihara San in Japan, for instance, or Raul Wallenberg in Soviet captivity, or the members of the White Rose Society in Nazi Germany or members of the NILI underground movement in Palestine under Ottoman Empire rule. Their "rewards" were not in this world, and yet they acted as they did. Some are remembered, their heroic actions taught to this day, others died nameless, their actions unknown although they definitely changed the course of history. Many little baby steps together, seemingly unrelated, like drops of water they gather to a waterfall, an amazing creation of God. Contact Ari Bussel and Norma Zager at busselari@gmail.com |
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PALESTINIAN ARAB AGGRESSION WILL NEVER END
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No, the terror will continue so long as Israel and the IDF merely retaliates against each and every separate Muslim Arab crime against the Jewish state's civilian population. As one person, commenting on a blog, stated: "Israel's taking out a few rocket launchers is like giving aspirin for cancer. It's only a band aid - not a cure." These last few days, Israeli cities and villages have been bombarded with dozens of Grad and other missiles from Gaza; lethal weapons, many brought in from Libya. Last Wednesday, October 26, 2011, a Grad rocket brought into Gaza from one of Gaddafi's looted weapons stockpiles, was fired into an Israeli town. This began a relentless daily barrage. There was no Israeli response until the following Saturday when a gang of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists were spotted preparing to launch several more Grad missiles at Israeli civilian targets. They were killed and the Grads and their multi-barreled launchers destroyed before they could be fired. Predictably, the mainstream media attacked the victim, Israel. The BBC, CNN, and the New York Times all blamed Israel during this latest unprovoked Palestinian attack, giving the usual pass to the terrorists. This twisting of the truth must give great joy and comfort to the ghost of Josef Goebbels; Nazi Germany's Minister of Propaganda. But if the Israeli government does not inflict far, far more intensely painful responses to the terror bosses of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all the human cockroaches who infest the Gaza Strip, then the missiles will continue to strike at southern and central Israel with increasing lethality and horror. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) produces charts and graphs showing the ever increasing capabilities and destructiveness of the terrorists' weapons caches. The deadly flow of Grad missiles entering Gaza - with Egyptian complicity - from the looted arms stores of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya exposes the real meaning of the Arab Spring. The so-called rebels, who were aided by NATO, are not the democratic loving folks who Hillary Clinton and her boss, Barack Hussein Obama, claimed them to be. Along with all the European heads of state who gleefully joined in the lust for Libyan oil that masked their hollow claims of bringing democracy to Libya, Clinton and Obama have unleashed a Muslim Pandora's Box, which will create in the Maghreb (North Africa) an Islamist, Jihadist and Sharia compliant wave that will eventually engulf Morocco and Algeria. It will extend west to Mauritania and its loathsome tentacles will then reach south beyond the Sahel and into equatorial Africa. Like Hillary's and Bill's destruction of the Serbs, which allowed the ancient Serbian heartland of Kosovo to become a Muslim beach-head in the Balkans, so too Hillary's and Obama's misguided policies - under the guise of an Arab Spring - have plunged the world into an endless and perilous cycle of violence in which untold horrors will plague the entire globe. The Islamic tide is rising. With every foreign policy misstep by the Obama Administration and the grotesque mishandling of her term as Secretary of State at the State Department, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are emboldening the Islamists in their aim of a creating a worldwide Caliphate. Nowhere has their ideological foolishness and political ineptitude been more glaring than in their relentless obsession with what they call Israeli "settlements." They even go as far as to denounce the construction of homes within Jerusalem's city limits as "impediments to the peace process." Again Palestinian Arab terror, the real impediment to peace, is cynically ignored. 
Jerusalem, north, south, east and west is Israel's capital. It was her capital city 3,000 years ago - millennia before the United States was created and Clinton and Obama came to power. Judea and Samaria is the biblical, ancestral and aboriginal heartland of the Jewish patrimony going back to the time of Joshua's entry into the Promised Land. Before that, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Jewish patriarchs, lived in the land some 4,000 years ago and are buried in Hebron, Judea; one of Judaism's four holy cities. Jews have always lived in this tiny sliver of land in whatever numbers they could maintain and the hills and valleys of Judea and Samaria are dotted with Judaism's shrines, holy places, villages and ancient cities from time immemorial. The very ground embraces its Jewish heritage and patrimony. Ask the archaeologists. Read the Bible. Yet here come Obama and Clinton, et al, parroting the mendacious and deceitful lies of the Arabs, those who call themselves Palestinians, that Judea and Samaria is Palestinian territory and that Jewish villages are "settlements." Even Judaism's holy shrines, such as the biblical Joseph's tomb in Shechem — the city now known by its Arabic name, Nablus - are Islamized by the Palestinian Authority and attempts by Muslim Arabs to desecrate it and turn it into a mosque are all too frequent. Clinton and Obama employ today, as so much of the world sadly does, the Jordanian Arab name of "West Bank" for the territory instead of biblical Jewish Judea and Samaria. This is the territory the Arabs want to take as a Palestinian state - a first stage before taking what is left of Israel. But it must be repeated again and again that there has never in all of recorded history existed a sovereign, independent nation called Palestine; and certainly not an Arab one. This "West Bank" was seized by the British officered Jordanian Arab Legion when it invaded and occupied the territory in the 1948 Arab-Israel War. The Jordanians drove out the Jewish population, including from the Old City in Jerusalem, and the subsequent illegal Jordanian occupation was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan. Yet the thousands of years that the land was known as Judea and Samaria are forgotten and sublimated to the name, "West Bank," which refers to the term given to the mere 19 years of Arab occupation that lasted from 1948 to June, 1967. How strange! So many times have such slanders and falsehoods about this Jewish heartland been spewed by Arabs and their supporters that now the world cannot comprehend the immoral, unspiritual and unhistorical fabrication that they have perpetrated.
That the morally bankrupt United Nations vomits such lies endlessly is one thing, but that Hillary Clinton and United States President, Barack Obama, repeat it and hurl it at Israel is shameful. But we know by now that neither of them are true friends of the Jewish state. Anything but. So, in the face of the villainous campaign to delegitimize and demonize the embattled Jewish state by the Arab League, the Muslim world, the Left and the execrable international and national media - with few honorable exceptions - Israel must realize that it is time to weather the storm by responding both to Hamas and terrorist crimes and aggression with a terminally painful and crushing rejoinder. It must also decide that, if needs be, it is better to be hung for a wolf than a sheep. After all, whatever restraint Israel shows in the face of Muslim Arab terrorism and barbarism, she will still be vilified, slandered and pilloried by a hostile and unsympathetic world. And whatever concessions she makes, one truism will always remain: Palestinian Arab aggression will never end.
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer, contributing editor, and author of Volumes One and Two of "Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state." Volume Three will be published shortly.
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BEN-ARI'S 'MAGIC PEN' TO RELEASE JEWISH PRISONERS
Posted by Miskin, Maayan, October 31, 2011. |
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MK Michael Ben-Ari hoped to present President Shimon Peres with a special gift on Thursday: a "magic" pen. However, Ben-Ari did not see Peres at the annual memorial to slain minister Rehavam Zeevi, where he had planned to give his gift. Instead, he presented the pen to Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman, and explained its special properties. "I see that in recent years, the pen that you all have has signed off on releases only for terrorist murderers," Ben-Ari told the minister. "I got you a special pen with which you will be able to sign on the release of Jewish prisoners, in light of the terrorist release deal." Ne'eman declined to respond to Ben-Ari's implied criticism. Ne'eman has been under increasing pressure to release 12 Jewish prisoners accused of terrorism against Arabs. Those pushing for the release say they do not approve of the prisoners' actions, but feel their release would be just in light of the recent release of many hundreds of Arab terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit. Maayan Miskin writes for Arutz-7 (www.NationalIsraelNews.com), where this article appeared today. |
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QADDAFI'S DICTATORSHIP WAS PREFERABLE TO AN ISLAMIST LIBYA
Posted by FSM, October 31, 2011. |
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This was written by Andrew C. McCarthy and is archived at
Our Libyan Adventure |
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'Are you suggesting that we would be better off with the Qaddafi dictatorship still in effect?" asked Chris Wallace, browbeating presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. And why shouldn't he? After all, the Fox News anchor had just gotten Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Lindsey Graham to perform the requisite "Arab Spring" cartwheels over the demise of Libyan strongman Moammar Qaddafi. Apparently, when leading from behind ends up leading to a vicious murder at the hands of a wild-eyed mob, even folks who once got the sniffles over fastidiously non-lethal waterboarding can feel good about pulling out their party hats. Imagine, then, the gall of Bachmann. The Minnesota Republican persisted in finding the cankers on the Arab Spring smiley face. The most obviously ugly of these is that a throng of seething Islamists stripped, beat, paraded, and finally shot Qaddafi execution-style, all the while screaming the signature "Allahu Akbar!" battle cry with a fervor that would have made Mohamed Atta blush. They then shoved the despot's corpse into a refrigerator — to maintain it for further triumphant display before thousands of gawking spectators. Too bad there was no official from the Obama administration's Islamic Thought Police on hand to remind the mob of the Koran's oft-quoted (but oftener ignored) teaching that to slay a single person is to slay all of mankind. The murder was facilitated by NATO forces operating under false pretenses: Claiming they were merely protecting civilians, they set about hunting down Qaddafi, only to help usher in a new era of Islamist governance. The bill for NATO's services was willfully footed by the Obama administration — which had previously funded the Libyan regime on the oft-repeated grounds that Qaddafi was a valuable counterterrorism ally, but which then initiated a war against Qaddafi in the absence of any provocation or American national-security interests. NATO's war of aggression is already inuring to the benefit of America's Islamist enemies. What's not to celebrate? Though Representative Bachmann made the case gamely, she eventually withered. Mr. Wallace has previously intimated that she is a "flake" (Wallace's word), too often out of step with Beltway wisdom. And who wouldn't want to be in step with Hillary Clinton, Lindsey Graham, and Barack Obama? Washington wisdom is fickle — one day you're a Qaddafi booster, the next day you're switching your bets to the Muslim Brotherhood. But no one wants to be a flake. So Bachmann finally got with the program and admitted, "The world certainly is better off without Qaddafi. I agree with Lindsey Graham." I don't. Yes, Qaddafi was a creep. If we lived in a static, zero-sum world where the killing of a single creep equaled a net decrease in global creepiness, that might be cause for cartwheels. But the world is dynamic. When one leader is ousted, another takes his place. Even if the leader happened to be a tyrant with a yellowing résumé of anti-American terrorism, it matters what his status is when the Arab Spring comes a-callin'. It matters who replaces him and how that transition comes to pass. The changing threat environment matters. The example we set, what it tells others about our principles, matters. To borrow Mr. Wallace's phrase, I am not "suggesting that we would be better off with the Qaddafi dictatorship still in effect." I am saying it outright. If the choice is between an emerging Islamist regime and a Qaddafi dictatorship that cooperates with the United States against Islamists, then I'll take Qaddafi. If the choice is between tolerating the Qaddafi dictatorship and disgracing ourselves by lying about the reason for initiating a war and by turning a blind eye to the atrocities of our new Islamist friends — even as we pontificate about the responsibility to protect civilians — then give me the Qaddafi dictatorship every time. Just to review what happened here: Qaddafi was not merely ousted. He was not "brought to justice," as our government likes to put it when, say, the president of Iraq is captured and handed over to a foregone conclusion of a death-penalty tribunal; or when the emir of al-Qaeda gets the swifter due process of a ruthlessly efficient military strike. Those sorts of killings represent transparent wartime combat: The president makes the case that American national security is imperiled, Congress authorizes military attacks, and our armed forces violently subdue the enemy. It is not pretty, but it is honorable. That cannot be said about Libya. In "leading from behind," our government went rogue — to the evident satisfaction of the formerly antiwar Left. Obama claimed to be keeping the peace and protecting civilians while waging an unauthorized offensive war against Qaddafi's government — a regime with which the United States was at peace; a regime with which the United States had made a great show of arriving at friendly relations; a regime to which the United States (urged on by such official emissaries as Sen. Lindsey Graham) had provided foreign aid, including assistance to prop up Qaddafi's military; a regime to which the Obama administration, including Secretary Clinton's State Department, had stepped up American taxpayer subsidies — including aid to Qaddafi's military and contributions to charitable enterprises managed by Qaddafi's children. Protecting civilians? Please. We jumped in as a partisan on the side of the Islamists, who sported violent jihadists in their ranks and among their commanders — including al-Qaeda operatives whose dossiers included a stint at Guantanamo Bay and the recruitment of jihadists to fight a terror war against American troops in Iraq. While NATO targeted Qaddafi, the rebels rounded up black Africans, savagely killing many. (See, e.g., John Rosenthal's reporting on summary executions, lynching, and a beheading — but be forewarned that the accompanying images are deeply disturbing.) When the Islamists finally began seizing territory, which they could not have done without NATO, they raided weapons depots. In Qaddafi's Libya, his regime controlled the materiel; once the "rebels" swept in, weapons started going out — to other Islamists, like al-Qaeda in Northwest Africa and Hamas in Gaza. And now that the Islamists have won, the first order of business, naturally, was to install sharia — Islam's politico-legal framework that oppresses non-Muslims, women, homosexuals, and apostates. To install sharia, by the way, is the reason jihadists engage in violence — it is the prerequisite for Islamizing a society. On Sunday, before a crowd still giddy over Qaddafi's murder, Transitional National Council leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil proclaimed, "This revolution was looked after by Allah to achieve victory." Allah will thus be honored, he elaborated, by making sharia the "basic source" of Libyan law. Polygamy for men has already been reestablished, and lenders have been banned from collecting interest on loans. Happy democracy! Qaddafi had last attacked the United States almost a quarter-century ago. Before that, he'd endured punishing retaliation for his Reagan-era terror attacks. The Bush 43 administration had declared these hostilities settled. The two governments resolved outstanding claims — much to the chagrin of those of us outraged by the moral equivalence drawn between Qaddafi's terrorist aggression and President Reagan's righteous response. But a deal is a deal — as the Left is quick to remind us whenever the U.S. makes international agreements that end up disserving American interests. In this instance, we were told the deal had been a good one. Qaddafi abandoned his advanced weapons programs and began providing what the Bush and Obama administrations regarded as vital intelligence — vital, no doubt, because Libya is rife with Islamists who despise America and the West. Indeed, on a per capita basis, more Libyans traveled to Iraq to join in the jihad against American troops than nationals from any other country. Our government even took Libya off the list of state sponsors of terrorism because, as the State Department put it in 2008, Libya had become "an increasingly valuable partner against terrorism." In the last several years, the Libyan regime never even threatened, much less attacked, American interests. Qaddafi spoke glowingly of Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and of President Obama, the Bush and Obama administrations embraced him and supported his regime. There was nothing close to a casus belli for the United States to launch a war against his government. The rationalization about the regime attacking civilians is nonsense: Qaddafi never stopped repressing Libyans in the years we were allied with him, and our aid to him only increased; Libya is a brutal society in which Qaddafi's demise will not stop the internecine savagery; and we don't intervene when hostile governments in Iran, Syria, China, Russia, and elsewhere repress their citizens. Yet, President Obama invaded without congressional authorization — just consultations with the Arab League and a Security Council resolution that called for a no-fly zone to protect civilians, not for war against Qaddafi or regime change. Even as Obama paid lip-service to this charade, promising Americans there would be no U.S. "boots on the ground," he dispatched covert intelligence operatives to guide the Islamists. Senator Graham — Qaddafi's tent guest and military-aid supporter in 2009 — wondered aloud why we couldn't just "drop a bomb on" our erstwhile ally and "end this thing." No congressional approval? No U.N. mandate? No problem. "I like coalitions," Graham explained to CNN, "it's good to have the U.N. involved. But the goal is to get rid of Qaddafi. . . . I would not let the U.N. mandate stop what is the right thing to do." The right thing to do? So hot was the senator to off the dictator that he even proposed that the president unilaterally declare Qaddafi as an enemy combatant so we could kill him without violating a longstanding executive order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders. That might have been a swell idea but for the inconvenience that Qaddafi did not qualify as an "enemy" or a "combatant" under the governing statute — a law that happens to have been written by Senator Graham. Of course, if there had been a case that Qaddafi's regime had become America's enemy and that war was needed to overthrow him, the administration could have made it to Congress. The president never even tried — such an argument would have been frivolous. That is not to say the administration was above frivolous legal claims. President Obama overruled administration lawyers who ever so gently pointed out that his sustained war-making ran afoul of the War Powers Act — a suspect piece of legislation, but one the administration was loath to ignore given Obama's support of it (at least until he became the president whose hands it tied). Not to worry: Obama reached outside his Justice Department to find his trusty State Department counsel Harold Koh — the former Yale Law School dean, War Powers Act enthusiast, and incessant critic of the cowboy militarism of George W. Bush (you may recall Bush as the president who used to get Congress's blessing before attacking other countries). Presto: Koh rationalized that invading Libya, dropping bombs on it, and trying to kill its leader didn't quite rise to the level of "hostilities" — suddenly, a very elusive concept. Party on, dudes! Qaddafi's escape from his last holdout was thus cut off by NATO airstrikes. Trapped and hidden in a sewer, he was dragged out and brutalized — not for intelligence, but for sport. There is a video here if you can stomach it. What NATO abetted was not a military capture. It was an assassination. We will be worse off that it happened. And the way it happened should sicken us. Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and most recently The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. He blogs at National Review Online's The Corner. |
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HOW SHOULD THE US HAVE RESPONDED TO THE ATTACKS ON 9/11
Posted by Ted Belman, October 31, 2011. |
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When America was attacked on 9/11, it had to do something, but what? The first thing America did was to rule out Saudi Arabia who was the major supporter of al Qaeda and Wahhabism and instead went after al Qaeda and its training grounds in Afghanistan. Never mind that there are a multitude of places that they could have trained in or other terrorist groups that could be trained. The US just created another in Libya. They also went after Saddam Hussein in Iraq who had nothing to do with 9/11 and, in the scale of things, was a minor figure. Iran which was named as part of the Axis of Evil wasn't touched. The end result is that the monster is bigger now and the US is weaker. There is a comprehensive treatment of this question in "Just War Theory" vs. American Self-Defense by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein, published in 2006. It is a long but excellent article so I'll just whet your appetite. To fulfill the promise to defeat the terrorist enemy that struck on 9/11, our leaders would first have to identify who exactly that enemy is and then be willing to do whatever is necessary to defeat him. Let us examine what this would entail, and compare it with the actions that our leaders actually took. And in answer to the question in the title, What specific military actions would have been required post-9/11 to end state support of Islamic Totalitarianism is a question for specialists in military strategy, but even a cursory look at history can tell us one thing for sure: It would have required the willingness to take devastating military action against enemy regimes — to oust their leaders and prominent supporters, to make examples of certain regimes or cities in order to win the surrender of others, and to inflict suffering on complicit civilian populations, who enable terrorist-supporting regimes to remain in power. As for the Just War Theory; Just and Unjust Wars serves as the major textbook in the ethics classes taught at West Point and dozens of others colleges and military schools. More broadly, Just War Theory — for which Just and Unjust Wars is the most popular modern text — is the sole moral theory of war taught today. I dealt with the issue of morality in Don't muddy the waters. "Im ba l'hargekha, hashkem l'hargo," "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him (first)." Israel, are you listening? Ted Belman is a retired lawyer and the Editor of Israpundit. He made aliya from Canada last year and now lives in Jerusalem, Israel. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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PINO JIHADA
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 31, 2011. |
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For those of us old enough to be AARP members, the name "Kent State" conjures up memories of the killings of 4 Kent State students on May 4, 1970 in an over-reaction by Ohio State Guardsmen positioned on the campus during anti-war protests. This past week Kent State gained a new basis for international notoriety and for a different sort of death, this time of academic standards and decency. Kent State is home to one of the worst tenured jihadists and pseudo-academic barbarians on the planet. Julio Pino is a tenured pseudo-academic, teaching Latin American history at Kent State. He was born in Cuba in 1960 and is a proud Fidelista, although he seems to prefer the option of having three square meals to eat in the heartland of American capitalism to living in the workers' paradise. In 2000 he converted to Islam and adopted the new name, Assad Jibril Pino. Since then he has been a professional anti-Semite and rabble rouser against Israel. He routinely denounces Israel for perpetuating "genocide" and Nazi-like crimes. (He evidently has never found any crimes in Cuba committed by the communists there, nor any human rights abuses of Muslims in Muslim regimes.) He proudly admits to being a full-time indoctrinator of his students at Kent State. He has referred to his students at Kent State as his "little jihadists" and his "beloved Taliban." He insists that the United States is "rapidly descending toward Christian fascism, we need more Ward Churchills." In September 2000, Pino declared a fatwa on the moderator of the "Marxism List," proclaiming that those who dared to disagree with him were "hereby sentenced to death." He routinely celebrates mass murderers and suicide bombers, including the al-Qaeda terrorists who attacked the US on 9-11. The Kent State student paper has had some biting satire to say about all this. Pino was in the news this past week for academic barbarism. An Israeli diplomat was speaking at Kent State and Pino jumped up and interrupted the talk by screaming "Death to Israel." Pino was upset when the diplomat noted that that Israel had offered humanitarian aid to Turkey, despite Turkey's recent behavior, and Pino insisted the aid was really just profits from murdering Arab babies. But there was more to this, in fact there was ultimate irony in it. The diplomat speaking at Kent State attacked by Pino was an Israeli Arab Bedouin and a Muslim. He is Ishmael Khaldi, an adviser to Israel's Foreign Minister. So any whining from the tenured Islamofascist Pino about Israel supposedly being an "apartheid regime" was being debunked before the eyes of the Kent State students in the very person who was being harassed by Pino. The president of Kent State University, Lester A. Lefton, denounced Pino for his behavior, but — as expected — refuses to do anything about it nor to take disciplinary action against Pino. Lefton himself is Jewish. But the very fact that Pino was granted tenured and still holds a position at Kent State shows that academic standards have been trashed at that university. He continues to use his university position as a launching pad for the jihad against America and Israel. It remains to be seen whether the Ohio governor and the Board of Trustees at Kent State will have the courage to do something about Pino. And we sure would like to hear why the FBI has never done anything about the Pino problem. Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. This article was printed from FrontPage Magazine: (http://frontpagemag.com)
and is archived at
2. While there has been debate since the "deal" in Israel and abroad about what the consequences of it may bring in the future, as I am writing this - the future is already here and we have a definitive partial answer. Southern Israel was this week blitzed with dozens of state-of-the-art rockets fired by the Hamas into Jewish civilian areas of the Negev. To make things clear, the targeted areas are inside Israel's pre-1967 borders and so are hardly "occupied territory." The rockets have killed, and one Israeli school building suffered a direct hit. I think it is abundantly clear that the rocket barrage is a direct consequence of the "prisoner exchange deal." The Hamas had been relatively quiet in recent months in the anticipation that some deal would be struck for Shalit and that it would gain a windfall political profit from hundreds of its murderers being released from Israeli prison. Once the deal was completed, however, the Hamas had no reason for restraint. So any doubts anyone had about how the "deal" would affect terrorism were blown to smithereens by Hamas rockets in the Israeli south this week. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@gmail.com His website address is
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THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY DIE
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 31, 2011. |
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This was written by Janet Daley and it appeared Oct 29, 2011 in The Telegraph (UK) (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ financialcrisis/8857533/This-was-the- week-that-European-democracy-died.html# disqus_thread.) Janet Daley is American-born, but has lived in Britain since 1965. She is a freelance journalist writing for The Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Sunday Telegraph and Spectator. |
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The plan to tackle the eurozone crisis will only render ordinary people more powerless. 
Democracy went down in a blaze of glory last week. Both the German Bundestag and our own House of Commons put up one hell of a fight against the dying of the light. Maybe history will record that fact in an elegy on the demise of the great 18th-century experiment in government by the people: they were eloquent to the end. Because at the end, eloquence was all they had. Trying to hold back the resurgence of oligarchy — the final dismantling of democratic responsibility in the governing of Europe — has been looking pretty hopeless for a long time. That eruption of excellent rhetoric and faultless argument which sprang to the defence of the rights of the governed (and in Germany's case, of constitutional legality) made the loss seem all the more tragic, but no less inevitable. So this is where we are. The agreed EU "stability union" triumphantly paraded before the media in Brussels will have the power to approve or disapprove budgets of countries in the eurozone — that is, to vet and police them — before they are submitted to the elected parliaments of those countries. In other words, parliaments which are directly mandated by, and answerable to, their own populations will not control the most essential functions of government: decisions on taxation and spending. Even without the ultimate institutions of economic and political union, which still elude the EU, actual power over fiscal policy will be taken from the hands of national leaders. And if, as a voter, you cannot influence your prospective government's tax and spending policies, what exactly are you voting for? Britain being outside the eurozone, we will not have to present our fiscal arrangements for authorisation before submitting them to the scrutiny of our legislators (and their constituents). But since our own economic recovery relies so heavily on the stability of the euro, we find ourselves (or at least, George Osborne has found himself) enthusiastically supporting this rape of democratic principle in countries which regard their freedom and self-determination as precious in much the same way, remarkably enough, that free-born Englishmen do. And among those hapless, soon-to-be-disenfranchised peoples, hatreds have been awakened that the EU was, ironically, designed to bury. The Greeks hugely resent what they consider to be the implicitly racist contempt of the Germans: the political opposition in Athens on both Left and Right rejects the idea of being "bailed out" of a crisis (with all the compliance that entails) that they believe to have been caused by the artificial constraints of euro membership rather than by national character flaws. Even their moderate spokesmen are beginning to characterise Germany's economic impositions as a revival of its wartime attempt at conquest. Through Greece's historical perspective, it is not difficult to read German intentions as world domination by other means. Instead of burying the old enmities and blood feuds, the enforced conditions of the EU have reinvigorated them. When dissatisfied national populations become convinced that their democratic institutions are useless or irrelevant, they will take to the streets. How long before the resentments and the powerlessness ignite and Greece, in its desperation, turns once again to the colonels? Will we see tanks on the streets of Athens at the same time as growing neo-fascist movements in Germany and Italy? And does our own government really believe that we will be safe from the consequences of democratic decline in Europe, just because we are not in the eurozone? When Angela Merkel warned last week about the possible end of the blessedly long post-war peace in Europe, she meant that the failure of the euro (and thus of the EU project) would precipitate economic chaos and possibly lead to war. But she and her colleagues seem oblivious to the resurgence of hostility that is being brought about by every move closer to "successful" European integration. Indeed, it is often quite eerie how the statements and mannerisms of EU officials, seemingly so dedicated to being the precise opposite of earlier, infamous generations, end up echoing (or parodying) the more memorable moments of the war-torn 20th century. When the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, proclaimed, "I am pleased to stand before you this morning and confirm that Europe is closer to resolving its financial and economic crisis... We are showing that we can unite in the most difficult of times", I half expected him to wave a piece of paper in the air and proclaim economic stability in our time. In reality, everybody's historical experience stands in the way of the EU economic and political union steamroller. Germany cannot comply with demands that it plunge enthusiastically into a quantitative easing programme — even though that would be one way of supplying the needed bail-out funds for Greece (and Italy, and Spain, and whoever goes belly up next) — because its terrifying collective memory of Weimar inflation puts such an option beyond the pale. And Mrs Merkel, however enthusiastic she may be about curtailing the democratic accountability of her euro-partners, is fully aware of her own electoral vulnerability: there will be no funny money run off the German printing presses even if her economy is probably robust enough now to cope with the consequences. In an interview last week, George Soros said that this slow-motion train crash of the single currency reminds him of the fall of the Soviet Union. I assume that what he meant was that there was the same sense of inexorability — the inevitable collapse being forestalled by lots of last-ditch reforms and too little, too late measures that only nibbled at the edges of the real problem. The unthinkable remained unthought: this is a system that is inherently flawed, and therefore cannot be made to work in the terms in which it was envisaged. Far from being an antidote to the ideological delusions of the past century, a trans-national superstate is the same sort of utopian, unnatural, ahistorical folly that earlier generations attempted to foist on the recalcitrant populations of Europe. Its doctrine of "co-operation" is simply coercion by another name. It relies on unswerving belief and enforced conformity, just like all the "year zero" political movements that ended in totalitarianism and terror in the past. The one hope is that the great mass of the people, unlike most of their political leaders, seem to understand all this quite clearly. It remains to be seen whether they will have to go out on the streets to make their case.
Gabrielle Goldwater is a Member of "Funding for Peace Coalition"
[FPC] (http://eufunding.org.uk) |
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ISRAEL'S SURRENDER TO ISLAM
Posted by Nurit Greenger, October 31, 2011. |
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At one point one runs out of words especially when what being done appears what Einstein called insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. |
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The pen has gone dry, many times over, writing about Israel's behavior out of weakness and submissiveness, her not standing for her irrefutable historical and legal rights to the land, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and her lack of decisiveness and apt actions. Worse of all, Israel is acting as if she is the guilty party, the perpetrator in the conflict in which the Arabs want her dead and erased her off the map. Instead of acting along the Jewish sages' advice, the one who wants to kill, kill him first, Israel is insinuating to her enemy, you can kill me. Since 1967, Israel has been, slowly but surely, surrendering to her enemy. It appears that the country has no wish to live, as it acts against all logic of survival. Israel can no longer fight a war to win; she cannot eradicate the terror in her midst nor can she bring it to an end, to finale. Rather than ending terror, for once and for all, and eliminating it from the colloquial lexicon the ongoing Arab killing of Jews has been accepted by the government of Israel and in the discourse in the street, as part of life, if you choose living there. How shameful it is sacrificing Jewish life on the altar of Islamic genocidal savages terrorists. Where is the protection of Jewish sacred life and its adulation? It appears that the enemy's life supersedes the value of Jewish life. A week past since Israel freed into civilization 1,027 most dangerous, heinous terrorists so that one Israeli abducted soldier returns home, and Gaza is at its "game" again, yet, Israel cannot declare it is a right out war! The same story over and over again, the Islamic Jihad fired more than 30 rockets into Israel over the weekend, killing one person and wounding several others and Egypt is now mediating cease-fire that will last one day. And the IDF with its silly mantra: "Islamic Jihad was dealt a heavy blow. So far they have ten dead." Is that one calls a heavy blow? And Osloid Peres states, Hamas is responsible. Really Mr. Peres? No, it is not Hamas who is responsible, rather it is Israel who has not yet decimated this terrorist enclave and is prepared to go on receiving the blows. It is the government of Israel that is lacking the ability to protect and defend Israel. More so, the morale of the Israeli people is tested again and again. How much longer? That is why Israel's behavior is simply insane. No other country would have tolerated what Israel is tolerating coming at her from Gaza. This is the perfect opportunity to put an end to the rockets attacks coming at Israel's population daily. Time to put boots on the ground and bring Hamas to total surrender! But that will be showing dominance and resolve, which Israel has filed away long ago. After all, Jews were given sovereignty to do just that, stop the killing of Jews that has been going on for over 2000 years. But no, in the nation state of the Jewish People, Jews are killed by Arabs way too often with impunity. All that Israel does is against all logic and it is getting worse by the moment. I have gone as far as asking whether Jews deserve to have a state. I even called Israel a nation of Kapos. For the audience, a Jewish Kapo means a prisoner who worked inside German Nazi concentration camp during World War II and received more privileges than normal prisoners, towards whom they were often brutal. At the end the Kapos were killed too. Following my statement, Israel appears to be appeasing and making concessions to its archenemy, the Islamonazis, with the hope they will spare her. But they will not. They will take the concessions she offers and will use her weakness against her and at the end they will kill her, as they have been working to do since 1948. I ran out of words because no one in Israel cares to listen to wise advice of people like Eli Hertz and Dr. Martin Sherman and many others. The government goes on making the same mistakes, over and over again; they behave along schizophrenic ambiguity and flip flop on vital issues, important to the nation's existence, and cross red lines they have established, meaning there are no red line in Israel, all is possible and doable while sacrificing the people, the country. Israel has become the bull's eye of the entire world that is aiming to please the anti-Semitic Moslem Arab world on Israel's account and the red lines there were crossed years ago; there are no red lines to cross, an arena free for all. And anti-Semitic Arab Moslem nations are in good company of the entire European Union, and the UN. So Israel, I ran out of words that are pointing out to your mistakes and what you are doing wrong as you are not listening. And while Israel is the little Hans with his finger stuck deep into the dike to stop the flood — Islam — that finger is slowly giving up and then, when Israel has fallen a victim to the Islamic perpetrator, so goes the world a prey to Islam. If we keep on writing about Islam creeping on us, everywhere, and Israel faltering but do nothing about it you will only accomplish drying one more pen but accomplish nothing. Israel either turns the tide or she can wave a white flag for surrender as the status quo of now does not justify its existence as the National Home for the Jewish people. Forgive me God and our Forefather Abraham to whom You gave this land for posterity. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at nurit.nuritg@gmail.com. Visit her blog:
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TOP MUSLIM DECLARES ALL CHRISTIANS 'INFIDELS'
Posted by Raymond Ibrahim, October 31, 2011. |
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To what extent was Egypt's Maspero massacre, wherein the military literally mowed down Christian Copts protesting the ongoing destruction of their churches, a product of anti-Christian sentiment? Egypt's Grand Mufti confirms Islam's stance towards "infidel" Christians. 
A video of Egypt's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa (or Gom'a), which began circulating weeks before the massacre, helps elucidate. While holding that Muslims may coexist with Christians (who, as dhimmis, have rights), Gomaa categorized Christians as kuffar — "infidels" — a word that connotes "enemies," "evil-doers," and every bad thing to Muslim ears. After quoting Quran 5:17, "Infidels are those who declare God is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary," he expounded by saying any association between a human and God (in Arabic, shirk) is the greatest sin: "Whoever thinks the Christ is God, or the Son of God, not symbolically — for we are all sons of God — but attributively, has rejected the faith which God requires for salvation," thereby becoming an infidel. Gomaa then offered a hypothetical dialogue between Christians and Muslims to illustrate Islam's proper position: Christians: You have the wrong idea about us; we don't worship the Christ. As a graduate of and long-time professor at Al Azhar university and Grand Mufti of Egypt (a position second in authority only to Sheikh Al Azhar), Ali Gomaa represents mainstream Islam's — not "radical Islam's" or "Islamism's" — position concerning the "other," in this case, Christians. Regardless, many in the West hail him as a "moderate" — such as this U.S. News article titled "Finding the Voices of Moderate Islam"; Lawrence Wright describes him as "a highly promoted champion of moderate Islam": He is the kind of cleric the West longs for, because of his assurances that there is no conflict with democratic rule and no need for theocracy. Gomaa has also become an advocate for Muslim women, who he says should have equal standing with men. How does one reconcile such sunny characterizations with reality? The fact is, whenever top Muslim authorities like Gomaa say something that can be made to conform to Western ideals, Westerners jump on it (while of course ignoring their more "extreme" positions). It is the same with Gomaa's alma mater, Al Azhar, the "chief center of Islamic and Arabic learning in the world." MEMRI, for instance, recently published a report titled "The Sheikh of Al Azhar in an Exceptionally Tolerant Article: Christianity, Judaism Share Basic Tenets of Islam." Of course, the day after this report appeared, this same sheikh — Islam's most authoritative figure — insisted that the American ambassador wear a hijab when meeting him: just as Muslim "radicals" compel Christian girls to wear the hijab, "moderate" Al Azhar compels U.S. diplomats. In short, yes, many religions "share basic tenets," but they are secondary to the differences, which are more final and define the relationship. Or, to put it in Ali Gomaa's paradigm: Fine, Christianity and Islam have commonalities — but, by the way: "Infidels are those who declare God is the Christ, son of Mary." The fact is, this Quranic verse is as much a cornerstone of Islam's view of Christianity as the unity of God and Christ is a cornerstone of Christianity, articulated some 1700 years ago in the Nicene Creed. The issue is clear cut for all involved. Accordingly, how can one fault Gomaa? As grand mufti, he is simply being true to Islam's teachings. Indeed, his consistency is more commendable than the equivocations of Western ecumencalists who, by falling over themselves to assure Muslims that they all essentially believe in the same things, demonstrate, especially to Muslims, that they believe in nothing. Incidentally, if Gomaa upholds the plain teachings of the Quran concerning who is an infidel, is it not fair to assume he also upholds the Quran's teachings on how to confront them, as commanded in Quran 9: 29: "Fight ... the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] until they pay the Jizya [tribute] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." Of course, prudent Muslims, undoubtedly like Gomaa himself, know that now is not the time to talk openly about such things. Either way, here is another reminder of how Quranic verses and terms
that Western people brush aside as arcane or irrelevant have a
tremendous impact on current events — such as Egypt's Maspero
massacre: For the same word Gomaa, the nation's Grand Mufti, used to
describe Christians is the same word Muslim soldiers used when they
opened fire on and ran over Christian Copts; the same word twenty
Muslim soldiers used as they tortured a protesting Christian; and the
same word Muslims hurled at Christians during the funeral procession
for their loved ones slain at Maspero: Infidel.
Contact Raymond Ibrahim at list@pundicity.com.
This was published October 28, 2011 in
Pajamas Media
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GAZA: ROCKET FLARES, ALARM BLARES, UN STARE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 30, 2011. |
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The New York Times reported Israeli retaliation for a rocket attack that ended "a few weeks of calm." Concluding statement is: "Hamas is largely committed to the fragile ceasefire that first came into effect after Israel's" 2009 Gaza offensive. Similar groups "like Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees are not" committed to the cease-fire (Fares Abram & Isabel Kershner10/30/11, A14). Jihadists do not honor cease-fires. When ready, they resume firing. This has been the pattern in the Arab-Israel conflict. The Arabs try to see how much they can get away with. When Israel finally loses patience and mounts a major attack, the rest of the world suddenly expresses concern. Otherwise, the UN just stares. The recent lull in fighting is left unexplained. One explanation is that Hamas probably had not wanted to irk Israelis into dropping the prisoner exchange. Mostly, Hamas was upgrading its arsenal. Israel's failure to demolish these rockets before they are fired, and to let Hamas build a strategic threat that can bombard more and more of Israel is like criminal negligence. Israeli politicians enjoy the calm before the next storm of rockets. But how many rockets can Israel let itself be surrounded by, from Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran, among others, without being vulnerable to destruction? To say that other terrorist organizations are not committed to the cease-fire seems to excuse Hamas by mentioning that the current attacks were done by other organizations. That is no excuse. Hamas controls Gaza, as it proved when it overthrew the Palestinian Authority regime there and when it crushed a major clan's militia. Hamas colludes with other organizations in such attacks. Hamas has lent rockets to other groups, and then disclaimed responsibility for the resulting attacks. The Times is covering for Hamas; Times propaganda, inhibits sufficient Israeli retaliation. PHONY RETALIATION Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA (10/30/11 long has pointed out that Israeli retaliation, unless it catches rocket crews in the act, usually is against empty buildings. This does not deter further attacks. [It indicates how far from right wing the Netanyahu regime is.] ISRAEL APPEALS TO UN Israel wrote to the UN Security Council about Gaza's escalation in rocket attacks. [Abbas of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) accuses Israel of escalating when it makes the phony retaliation.] The Israeli letter pointed out the irony of terrorists attacking Israel while Israel expands commercial activity and promotes international development in Gaza and the Quartet is helping restart direct negotiations. The letter called the attackers "enemies of peace." The letter reports the dramatic effect on Israeli daily life [which the New York Times rarely does, although it often has reported the effect on the daily lives of the Arabs, whose support of terrorism should render them less sympathetic]. On October 27, the letter explains, dozens of Israelis were treated for shock. Next day, 3,000 Israeli children were kept home, so one well-aimed rocket could not take out hundreds of them. "No people should have to live under such a specter of terror." Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks from Gaza. [It does? How? It does not punish Hamas, it tries to boost Hamas' economy.] One conclusion is that the P.A. has no authority in Gaza. [Why assume that Abbas would not fire upon Israel from Gaza, if he could? He is a professional terrorist, just as is Hamas.] As the letter notes, Abbas has not condemned Hamas for its continued terrorism. In any case, since the P.A. lacks authority over almost half the Arabs in the area it demands for a state, it fails basic criteria for statehood. Lack of qualification does not impede Abbas' campaign for UN recognition of statehood. The P.A. did not accept the Quartet proposal to restart negotiations immediately without preconditions. [The proposal has two preconditions; (1) Negotiations must reach a certain point in 6 months; and (2) As IMRA points out, the parties must start with a map that everyone knows the world would use as a starting point to bargain more away from Israel]. The letter complains that the latest attack follows a "disturbing trend." Rockets are bigger and longer-range. Israel attributes this to illegal smuggling. Security Council resolution 1860 proscribed this smuggling, and the rocket attacks also violate international law. Israel expects the Security Council to condemn the attacks (Independent Media Review and Analysis, 10/27/11, www.imra.org.il ). Israel cannot expect any justice from the UN. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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JEW-HATERS WELCOME IN EU
Posted by Sacha Stawski, October 30, 2011. |
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This was written by Manfred Gerstenfeld and it was published
today in Israel Opinion in YNET
Dr. Gerstenfeld has published 20 books. Several of these address anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism |
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Anti-Semitic politicians and parties increasingly legitimized by European leaders Anti-Semitic and other criminal worldviews get additional legitimization in the European Union with the entrance of the Laos (The Popular Orthodox Rally) Party into the Greek government. Its leader, Giorgios Karatzaferis, has promoted many anti-Semitic stereotypes. In 2001, while still a parliamentarian of the major New Democracy Party, he asked the foreign minister to explain why during the attacks of September 11, 2001, no Jews died. He has also remarked that "Jewish blood stinks." During Israel's Cast Lead Gaza campaign, he compared the Israeli Defense Forces to Hitler. According to the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Karatzaferis is the publisher of a Greek translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. European Hate The Laos Minister of Transport, Makis Voridis, has a fascist past. Deputy Minister of Development Adonis Georgiadis has promoted one of the most anti-Semitic books in Europe so far this century - The Jews and the Truth by Kostas Plevris. Laos has a strong base in the Greek Orthodox world. In 2004, Karatzaferis was elected to the European Parliament. The then-head of the Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, wrote him a warm congratulatory letter saying: "I am certain that with your rich abilities, your insight and your knowledge ... you will bring to the broader European family the other intellectual values that spring out of your Christian and Greek soul." There have been anti-Semitic and racist parties within other EU countries' governments before. The Polish Family League was once part of the Polish government. Its leader, Roman Giertych, was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education from 2006 until 2007. Anti-Semitism widespread In 2000, the European Union was still willing to react against racist ministers. When the far right FDP Party of Jorg Haider entered the Austrian government, the EU declared some sanctions against Austria. These were hardly effective and were lifted seven months later. Today a suggestion for sanctions sounds ridiculous. To survive its dramatic financial crisis, European Union leaders seem willing to accept almost anything. One finds extreme racist and anti-Semitic parties in many EU countries, which are not (yet?) part of the government. The largest — in percentage of votes — is the openly anti-Semitic, anti-Roma Hungarian party Jobbik. It received 17% of the vote in the 2010 national elections. Jobbik's popularity and its ties to paramilitary organizations are so far unique in the European Union. Germany was shocked in the last few days when it became known that a small neo-Nazi group had murdered German Turks and others over the past several years without being noticed. Now many want to prohibit the extreme rightist NPD party. Anti-Semitism is widespread among European populations. A report by a government-approved commission of experts, published a few days ago, found that about 20% of the German population holds strongly anti-Semitic views. Last month, an Italian parliamentary commission found that "some 44% of the Italian population harbor some prejudice or have a hostile attitude toward Jews." The Chair of the commission Fiamma Nirenstein said, "It was a shock for everybody how much anti-Semitism exists in Italy and Europe." Comparing Israel, Hamas The ancient anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish lust for blood have spread to European perceptions of Israel. A recent study conducted by the University of Bielefeld on behalf of the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, shows this. The study found that 63% of Poles think that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians. The lowest figures in the study are from the Italians and the Dutch respectively, with 38% and 39%. In Hungary, Great Britain, Germany and Portugal, between 40% and 50% think this. The anti-Semitic atmosphere is evidently not omnipresent, yet it is pervasive. It can flourish partly due to anti-Israel rhetoric from the heads of the European Union. There are many statements expressing anti-Israeli double standards — which are part of the EU official definition of anti-Semitism — by EU commissioners, senior employees, as well as ministers and spokesmen of European governments. Another defamation technique is moral equivalence which puts Israel and Hamas on the same level. The entrance of Laos into the Greek government is not only linked to the country's economic crisis. It is also part of the progress of anti-Semitic and other criminal ideologies in the European public sphere. Europe's economic problems may provide an environment suitable for the further development of hate-mongering. Therefore, this phenomenon must be closely monitored in its entirety. Sacha Stawski is with the Honestly Concerned organization. Contact him at sstawski@honestly-concerned.org. |
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LATEST ISRAELI ACADEMIC ATROCITIES
Posted by Paul Lademain, October 30, 2011. |
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Dear Sirs: Greetings to you from the Secular Christians for Zion. (SC4Z) We are taken by Prof. Plaut's sensible criticism of the antics engaged in by your apparently mentally challenged seditionist, Anat Matar. If this old woman engages in even 1/10 of what Prof. Plaut reports, we feel we must share our opinions about a peculiar class of bloody Jews whom we refer to as the murderous seeds of Cain. It appears that your Anat Matar is a member of this class of self-despoliating soiled Jews. Jews like Anat Matar and Neve Gordon are determinedly ignorant of International Law and the treaties that ratified the San Remo Resolution and the League of Nations mandate, and given this ignorance, your apparently strung-out and emotionally imbalanced faculty members have made a living out of begging the arab invaders to exterminate Jews and destroy the Jewish Homeland. We believe this old woman, Anat Matar, is "mentally challenged". We believe she is incapable of grasping that, no matter how hysterically she cleaves to the bloody arabs who stole into the Jewish Homeland for to slaughter Jews, that she is herself a candidate for disembowelment at the hands of the heathens she apparently idolizes. If and when the hordes of devoted Islamist exterminators surge into her bedroom to drag this bloody fool screaming into the street, she should understand that no one will save her because if her jihadist dreams come true, there will be nobody left to save her. So, our question to you is this: As a matter of principle and as a function of your ideas of freedom of speech, would you and your faculty members welcome the celebration of the disembowelment of certain members of your faculty? Or would you people celebrate only when the disembowelment is committed by nazis? Another question: Would you permit certain tenured faculty members at Tel Aviv University to advocate driving you and your children into the sea? Or drowning you and your relatives with or without mercy, because mohammed ordered them to kill Jews ... and your kind of Jew bows to the murderers' beliefs because they taught Jews like yourselves to respect and honor their belief that their god commands them to kill non-muslims? Curious minds want to know. Thank you for taking your time to give serious consideration of our questions. We remain yours truly, the Secular Christians for Zion. Not Left. Not Right. Just 4 Justice 4 Israel. |
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Israeli Academics in the News Part I We have reported regularly on the antics and shenanigans of Tel Aviv University's Anat Matar, one of the worst tenured extremists at Tel Aviv University. She is violent and has been arrested for her violence. She despises Israel and wants it destroyed. She is a tenured faculty member in philosophy. Well, Sister Matar is back in the news these days as a cheerleader and open endorser of terrorist murders of Israelis. She is one of the Israeli airhead leftists who held a celebration of the freeing of the 1000 plus terrorists in the "prisoner exchange deal" that purchased the liberation of Gilad Shalit. But she was not celebrating because Shalit was being freed, but rather because murderers of Jews were being set free. One of those released from Israeli prison was convicted terrorist Muchlas Burjal. He had thrown a grenade at a bus with Jews inside, except the grenade did not go off. Anat Matar has proclaimed him a hero and participated in the welcoming celebrations when he returned home. She organized a group of Israeli leftists to greet the terrorist at his home, bedecked in PLO flags, joined by Arab fascist members of the Israeli parliament. Cited in Makor Rishon October 28, 2011, Matar says that Burjal is a hero because he threw the grenade at a bus carrying Israeli soldiers and not civilians, and such an attack is a legitimate form of resistance. Oh, and not to worry, Matar's own son was not inside the bus because he served time in prison for refusing to do army service altogether. Matar is now lobbying for the release of another convicted terrorist, one Walid Daka, who murdered Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam. Matar insists that Daka is actually innocent because he says he is. The court that convicted him disagrees. In an interview with Makor Rishon, Matar expressed support for terrorist violence by Palestinian against Israelis as resistance to "occupation." Curiously, some of the other Israeli ultra-leftist academic extremists are denouncing Sister Anat. For example, Alon Harel, a radical professor of law at the Hebrew University, criticized her for her celebrations of terrorism. Are you concerned that a tenured member of the faculty at Tel Aviv University is working as a promoter of murdering Jews and as an enabler of terrorist atrocities? Why not tell the heads of TAU what you think?: Tel Aviv University:
Rector: Prof. Aron Shai
American Friends Offices of Tel Aviv University:
Other "Friends of" Groups:
Israeli Academics in the News Part II http://hurryupharry.org/2011/10/27/friends-of-raed- salah-ilan-pappe-says-the-blood-libel-isnt-anti-semitic Friends of Raed Salah: Ilan Pappe says the blood libel isn't anti-Semitic
The Immigration Tribunal ruling upholding the Home Office's ban of Raed Salah takes as established fact that the cleric said this in East Jerusalem in 2007: "We have never allowed ourselves, and listen well, we have never allowed ourselves to knead the bread for the breaking of the fast during the blessed month of Ramadan with the blood the children. And if someone wants a wider explanation, you should ask what used to happen to some of the children of Europe, whose blood would be mixed in the dough of the holy bread. God Almighty, is this religion? Is this what God wants? God will confront you for what you are doing." There is no other interpretation as a matter of history or elementary literacy for such a statement than the following: Raed Salah was presenting the blood libel — i.e. the medieval conspiracy theory that Jews bake bread with the blood of Gentile children — as legitimate. "God Almighty, is this religion?" clearly refers to Judaism in this context, not to Islam or to Christianity, as having incorporated cannibalism or vampirism into its holy ritual, thereby distinguishing beween such alleged barbarism and the purity of Islam ("We have never allowed ourselves..."). Crucially, Raed Salah, the court tells us, seems to understand that the blood libel is anti-Semitic and yet he somehow denies that this is what he has advanced. His defence has argued, to quote from the court ruling summary of the defence's case, that The reference to the holy bread was a metaphor used to convey an example of those who had falsely used religion to justify their crimes. It refers to the actions of Israelis who use religion to subject the Palestinians to oppression. The Appellant drew a parallel with the crimes of the Spanish Inquisition. The Appellant's evidence is supported by that of Professor Ilan Pappe who although describing the Appellant's address as at times incoherent and emotive, said the Appellant did not invoke the blood libel in this or any other speech, and made a clear distinction between Jews as a race and the actions of Israeli officials. The words used by the Appellant on this occasion did not amount to blood libel because he did not refer to Jewish bread; the message of the address was not anti-Semitic or even anti-Zionist, but directed to the violation of Muslim rights in Jerusalem. *** For more stories of academic atrocities involving Israeli (pseudo-?) academics, go to www.isracampus.org.il Paul Lademain is a Secular Christian for Zion (SC4Z). Contact him by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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U.S. UNDERMINES ISRAELI ARMS INDUSTRY AND U.S. SECURITY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 29, 2011. |
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Here is an article from a usually reliable source on military matters that shows the real relationship between the U.S. and Israel. It is by Emanuel A. Winston and comes from the Winston Mid East Analysis & Commentary website, (October 17, 2011) and is entitled "Killing The Merkava Is Like Killing The Lavi." The original was written July 15, 1993. Gail Winston commented on the reprint, "Dov Zakheim has emerged as a 'Middle East expert advisor to Mitt Romney'. Please read the following full article and note Zakheim's treacherous undercutting of Israels innovative military R&D, plus manufacture of cutting edge technologies which brought thousands of jobs to American workers and provided America with ongoing creative innovations which protected American soldiers. |
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If there ever was one clincher that Barak is in the U.S. pocket, it was the recent announcement that Israel would cancel the building of its own famous Merkava Battle Tank to purchase the American Abrams M1A1 Tank. This decision was tentatively announced by Chief of Staff Gen. Shaul Mofaz as a budget cutting measure - or so the story goes. The Merkava was built as a superior fighting vehicle whose first priority was to protect its crew. The Merkava was created and built by Maj. Gen. Israel Tal whose vision of a tank as a combination of rumbling destruction and something a Jewish mother could love succeeded. Every component of the Merkava plays a role to insulate the crew from hostile attack as well as enhance the comfort of the crew, creating a vehicle conducive to high morale and "fightability". This Jewish juggernaut fought and conquered the dreaded Soviet T-72 tank, which the U.S. and Europe thought was unbeatable. To their astonishment in Lebanon, 1982, the Merkava with its 105mm cannon and special Israeli-made kinetic energy shells destroyed the Soviet's prized technology. (1) The Merkava Mark 3 appeared on Independence Day May 1989. It is now modular, meaning that more than 50% of the Mark 3 protection system is modular and can be upgraded as improvements are made. The 105 mm canon is now a 120 mm. smooth bore, plus 3 machine guns. Apart from the engine, all major systems and components in the Mark 3 were developed and produced in Israel. Delivery of the Merkava Mark 3 began March 1990. It was considered the most advanced of all present generation Main Battle Tanks. (2) The Israeli Merkava Tank has out performed the American Abrams hands down, a critical fact which has remained unannounced for a long time. For several years there have been field trials where the Merkava units vied with the Abrams units in field competition. This included firing on the move, night operations, survival, accuracy for rounds fired, etc. The results were embarrassingly and consistently unbalanced and thus were never made public. The Merkava outperformed the Abrams in every way that a battle tank can be tested. Electronics, tank hours without repair, survivability under fire, suspension stability, engine life - but, it all came down to competition in simulated combat field maneuvers. The Merkava Tanks with their Israeli team beat the Abrams' American teams hands down. So, what's going on? Israel, under Ehud Barak has, indeed become a banana republic. The American arms industry has ordered Israel to stand down her capability in developing and manufacturing anything that competes with U.S. sales. This has been going on for a long time. These hungry American industries have ruthlessly attempted to crush, even destroy, any competitor in a shrinking arms market. True, they can't step on Russia, France, England but they can direct a Bill Clinton and the State Department to threaten a small friend, now acting like a banana republic on a short leash. In 1986 the political military/industrial complex killed off Israel's operative prototype of her Lavi aircraft which was a dual purpose air superiority jet fighter as well as a close ground support aircraft. The Lavi was cheaper per plane, about $15.5-17 million compared to at least $45 million each [by 1994] for the F16 including spare parts, the closest comparable American plane. (3) The Lavi was capable of fulfilling both missions which neither the American nor the European planes were able to achieve - even up to today. [See articles by Emanuel Winston about the Lavi - information following:] (4) While still in R&D, the Lavi employed 4000 Israelis and 736 American subcontractors employed many thousands more. At the time Rep. Charles Wilson, Dem.-TX, said the Lavi "will help Israel stop her dependency on the U.S. as Israel learns to rely on her own high technological infrastructure." Then Defense Sec. Caspar Weinberger (under pressure from General Dynamics who manufacturers the F-16) blocked the technology transfer licenses required by the American companies bidding for Lavi contracts on the composite wings, engine and fly-by-wire system. Israel's Sec. of Defense Moshe Arens (called the father of the Lavi), called Sec. of State George Shultz for help and within 48 hours the licenses were approved. Regrettably, it didn't help because the decision to eliminate the competitive Lavi had already been made. The story behind the cancellation of the Lavi is instructive today. At the time in 1985, Congress was in favor of Israel building the Lavi because of the jobs created in America since so many sub-contractors were involved in the co-production with Israel. It was the forces behind the military-industrial complex who engineered the Lavi's demise. Dov Zakheim, representing General Dynamics for Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, convinced some influentials in Israel to lobby against the Lavi. These Israelis claimed it was too difficult, too expensive, too high, too much for little' Israel. [This is called the "Rosh Katan" (little head) syndrome.] Pushed by Zakheim, they lobbied heavily in the Israeli media and Cabinet members. Before Israel's final decision-making Cabinet meeting, the U.S. Congress had voted to appropriate the next year's funds for the Lavi. When the Rabin/Peres Cabinet voted the Lavi down by one vote, the U.S. Congress felt justifiably betrayed. I believe that from that point on the faith and confidence the outside world held for Israel's ability to produce and deliver high level equipment diminished. Several of Israel's major weapons' were canceled, ordered canceled... etc., one after another. Ultimately America could have been the greatest beneficiary of the Lavi. Co-production of the fighter made good sense. The Lavi concept was initiated as a direct result of Soviet missiles that downed more than 100 aircraft in the first 72 hours of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Three prototypes of the Lavi were actually built and flew. The Lavi was lighter than the F-16, 10% faster on the deck; her radar cross-section was smaller; she carried a heavier load of weapons and fuel; she had avionics that proved their superiority in the Lebanon war; she flew farther; had a smaller turning circle and could take out air superiority aircraft. The Lavi was also configured as a "hot trainer" that becomes operational at the flip of a switch. In tests against the American F-16, the Lavi out-performed the F-16. From the 1967 French embargo on all weapons' sales to Israel, when France was Israel's primary arms supplier, Israel decided that, for her own survival, she must be able to produce on her own, at least one tank, one naval vessel, one missile from each family, and one fighter plane. Many countries tried to design a close-ground-support (CAS) aircraft with high survivability in a missile-infested environment. But, they weren't even at a prototype stage and no CAS was expected to be available until 2000-2025. Then the cost estimate was $30 million each, which has since skyrocketed. The U.S. alone needed 300-500 planes. To maintain air superiority into the 21st century, the U.S. may spend $950 Billion for 650 F-22s, the new fighter aircraft. It will possess Star Trek electronics, Mach 2 sprint speed and nearly invisible to radar. Then Defense Sec. Dick Cheney was responsible for development of the F-22. (5) The Japanese introduced their FSX (Fighter Support Experimental) fighter in 1995, with production costs for 70-130 aircraft expected to surpass $100 million each. (6) All have surpassed their estimated production costs and none can perform the dual role as the Lavi did. The same powers-that-be in America killed off the Phalcon sale by Israel to China, knowing that Russia can and is now selling China a comparable aircraft to serve the same function. They' claimed that the Phalcon would enable China to target American planes or ships who were assisting Taiwan against a Chinese attack and, therefore, would be used against American soldiers. They lobbied very heavily to convince Congress that the Phalcon sale by Israel to China was dangerous to American soldiers. However, eliminating the Phalcon and encouraging the Russian substitute provided no actual benefit to American in defending Taiwan, nor did killing off the Phalcon eliminate a threat against American aircraft or ships. In fact, China, using Russian surveillance aircraft, also links into Russian satellite surveillance, doubling the threat to U.S. defenders. Stopping Israel's sale of the Phalcon merely stifled Israel's defense industry in all its component technology used for development of surveillance aircraft. This was the intent of the Clinton White House, the U.S. State Department and Pentagon who support America's military-industrial complex. (6) That sale was for as many as 7 Phalcon AWACS type planes at $250 million each, therefore, potentially worth $1.75 Billion. Israeli officials fear the U.S. will also shoot down (and probably has) India's request to purchase 2 Phalcon reconnaissance aircraft from IAI (Israel Aircraft Industries) for $250 million each. (8) The U.S. has also successfully canceled an Israeli/Russian sale to Turkey of 145 helicopters worth $4.5 Billion dollars to Israel. Bell Helicopter will be the likely beneficiary. Similarly, Turkey canceled their order to receive satellite photos from Israel's Ofek Satellite in deference to U.S. orders, to benefit American satellite companies. (9) How will Israel ever reach economic and military self-sufficiency if her biggest friend keeps undermining her development and sales of defense equipment? How will Israel ever be able to achieve peace in what remains as a hostile neighborhood if she is dependent upon a friend and supplier who sells her self-declared adversaries the same and even more advanced equipment in greater total quantity and perhaps superior quality? And WHY has America assumed this double role of restricting Israel's sales and development? Israel has more highly educated and technically proficient minds per capita than almost any other country. Israel's defense industries and innovative creativity could be excellent partners with America in all fields of endeavor, saving money and time in man-hours of R&D - IF these talents were encouraged instead of stifled. The U.S. has announced a $900 million arms deal with Egypt and a $500 million deal with Saudi Arabia. Included is the improvement of 35 Apache helicopters and sale of advanced detection equipment for the Egyptian Air Force's F16 planes. Saudi Arabia will receive 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, while Kuwait has purchased $190 million of artillery and tank ammunition. (10) The proposed sale to Egypt will upgrade its anti-armor day/night missile capability by upgrading 35 AH-64A to AH-64D model attack helicopters, including 35 Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensors (TADS/PNVS) plus 2 spares and extra repair parts, support equipment and technical documentation, U.S. quality assurance teams, training of personnel, U.S. government and contractor technical support and logistics support. (11) Saudi Arabia will receive 500 AIM-120C Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missiles (AMRAAM), LAU-128 missile launchers, Captive Air Training Missiles, spare and repair parts, technical documentation, maintenance and pilot training, and other logistical support to enhance the air-to-air defense capability of its F-15 fleet. The proposed sale of this equipment and support technology is claimed by the State Department to NOT affect the basic military balance in the region. (12) These biased assurances cannot be comforting to Israel who has fought 6 wars with these same nations who intended to annihilate the Jewish State. Clinton and Company have insisted on having oversight over any sales or negotiations which Israel may be engaged in with any of 27 nations which the U.S. considers a threat to their business interests. This advance knowledge, of course, would allow U.S. arms manufacturers to then put in their lower bid, undercutting any other Israeli bid by the use of America's easy access to long term credit. I wonder why Clinton hasn't made this demand of Russia or France? I wonder why Israel doesn't get the same privilege of assessing similar threats when America's military/industrial complex sells missiles and combat aircraft, AWACS radar aircraft, etc. to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and perhaps, later Syria? Of course, it is fair business practice to use every advantage over your competitors. However, Israel is called America's close friend and ally as the only democratic country in the Middle East. And, Israel's defense industries purchase countless parts and full assemblies of parts from American manufacturers. Israel is required to spend almost all of the military aid she receives from America in America. Therefore, most of Israel's military/defense output produces hundreds of thousands of jobs in America, creating a tremendous force multiplier of benefits to the American military/industrial complex. The U.S. State Department and Pentagon (the voice of the arms' industries) invariably release statements which shrug off any threat to Israel, claiming the particular sale in question won't shift the balance of power against Israel. This is a blatant lie. The U.S. is now proposing to sell "Block 60" F-16s to Arab countries, a plane so advanced that it exceeds everything in the U.S. and Israeli Air Forces. (13) However, during a May 20, 1993 press conference with the American Jewish Press Association, when he was Israel's Chief of Staff, Gen. Ehud Barak said: "Israel's qualitative edge has disappeared as the West arms the Arabs with top-of-the-line planes, tanks and missiles - the same models Israel receives in much smaller numbers. Israel can't afford to maintain present defense levels and has cut its defense budget from 15% of the GDP to 9%; in dollars from $7.2 Billion to $5.8 Billion and going down." (14) The old adage of: "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" clearly doesn't apply to small friends of the U.S. like Israel. It doesn't represent the true spirit of the American people and their support of a free and safe Israel. But, it does represent itself much the same as the multi-national oil industry. This psychological weakness of greed may effectively hide behind the American flag but it will still crush any friendly nation that gets in its way - if it can. It simply picks up the phone to the President or the State Department and sets them into motion. It's nice to have friends in high places, particularly when they are grateful for large campaign contributions. Barak, like Yitzhak Rabin when he agreed to scuttle the Lavi for the sake of U.S. interests, will now kill off what many say is the best tank in the world. Barak will also squelch all the sub-development industries that support construction of the Merkava Tank, just as Rabin was ordered to kill off all the hundreds of industries that were burgeoning around the Lavi. Israel was simply supposed to continue in her role as a supplicant or client, purchasing only what U.S. industries offered and in no way was Israel to try and manufacture for herself. Israel's armament industry has simply shown too much promise, too much initiative, too much creative development. She has become a player even though she ranks as far down on the list of world arms' suppliers so that she's off the charts and no real challenge to U.S. sales. Naturally, the U.S. ranks first. Being first is good for business but since America's real competitors are Russia, France, England, and Germany, why crush the excellent weapons' capabilities of such a small competitor. The answer may be that Israel is the only competitor under American control and small enough to step on. Some Congressmen have expressed concern when the U.S. sold, or rather gifted, $25 Billion American taxpayers' dollars to Egypt to buy U.S. equipment, making Egypt the military colossus of the Middle East and a powerful threat to Israel. Congress expressed even greater concern when Clinton tried to arrange a deal with Syria where Clinton would gift $30 Billion dollars which would come back to the U.S. arms industry in the sales of aircraft, missiles, tanks, etc. Unknown to the public, this is an actual transfer of American tax dollars through the loop of foreign sales which literally comes back to support the arms industries. It is a sweet arrangement. In effect, American tax dollars go directly to the U.S. arms industries so that weapons can be gifted to such nations as Egypt to, presumably, influence foreign policy. (Blackmail by equipment rarely works.) As for the matter of the Merkava tank, clearly the intent is to eliminate this superb Israeli battle tank so that the manufacturing line for the U.S. M1A1Abrams can stay open and profitable. Like the Lavi when it was killed off so the old F16 line could stay open, the Merkava is now targeted for the junk yard. Ehud Barak has become Clinton's boy toy in all ways and in all things. Once you accept black money to achieve high office, you become the money-givers' plaything. America has no need to crush a small ally's arms industry. But, the U.S. arms industry which operates like a separate nation wants every sale it can beg, borrow or steal. Israel has become an extraordinary resource for the development of technology. The arms industry would like to keep it limited to what amounts to a captured resource of brains, slaved to its own sales. Regrettably, corrupt leaders like Barak, Rabin, Peres and Beilin have allowed Israel to slide into the category of a begging Banana Republic. I cannot help but wonder if Congress is in agreement with this process of insuring that Israel remains dependent upon U.S. aid forever. NOTES: 1. "Tank A Jewish Mother Could Love" by Emanuel A. Winston ISRAEL TODAY 12/12/83 2. "Merkava, Mark 3 - A Milestone in Tank Design" by Shlomo Baum, z'l BULLETIN of the JERUSALEM INSTITUTE for WESTERN DEFENSE January 1990 3. "Lockheed Offers Israel Longer Range F-16" by Barbara Opall U.S. DEFENSE NEWS 1/10/94 4. By Emanuel A. Winston Regarding the Lavi: "Building Israel's Front-Line of Defense" SENTINEL 9/11/96 "Lavi: A Look Ahead, A Leap Forward: Co-Production of Fighter Makes Good Sense for America, Israel" U.S. DEFENSE NEWS April 6,1987 "Israel's Lavi Fighter: Good for America, Too: Israeli Innovation, American Genius: A Partnership" U.S. DEFENSE NEWS 7/13/87 & JERUSALEM POST 7/16/87 "Rejection of Lavi Haunts U.S. in Gulf" U.S. DEFENSE NEWS February 11, 1991 5. "F-22 = $95 Billion" by Leslie Gelb NEW YORK TIMES 5/22/91 6. "A New Warplane's Murky Horizon: Controversy & Costs Dog Plans for Joint U.S.-Japan et Fighter" by Andrew Pollack NEW YORK TIMES 1/13/95 7. "Selling Arms to Israel's Enemies" by Emanuel Winston JEWISH PRESS May 25, 2000 8. "India is Interested in Purchasing 2 Phalcon Reconnaissance Aircraft: U.S. Opposition Expected" by Yossi Melman & Amos Harel HA'ARETZ July 23, 2000 9. "U.S. Defeats Israel in $4.5 Billion Helicopter Deal with Turkey" by Amnon Barzilai HA'ARETZ 7/23/00 10 "U.S. to Supply Advanced Arms to Egypt & Saudi Arabia: Says Sale Won't Hurt Balance" by Amnon Barzilai HA'ARETZ 7/23/00 11. "Proposed Foreign Military Sale to Egypt Announced" U.S. Department of Defense - Public Affairs # 424-00 July 20, 2000 12. "Proposed Foreign Military Sale to Saudi Arabia Announced" U.S. Department of Defense - Public Affairs #428-00 July 20, 2000 13. "U.S. to Sell F-16 More Advanced than its Own" by Jim Wolf REUTERS 3/14/00 14. "Barak Quotes U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff on Borders" by Gail Winston JEWISH PRESS 1/26/96 Emanuel A. Winston wrote, "Dov Zakheim, representing General Dynamics for Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, convinced some influentials in Israel to lobby against the Lavi." Emanuel A. Winston was a Middle East Commentator and research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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FROM ISRAEL: RESPONSE TO A LETTER
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 28, 2011. | |
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Motzei Shabbat (after Shabbat) October 30, 2011 Motzei Shabbat (after Shabbat) This posting will have a slightly different format, as it is, quite literally, a response to a letter. The letter is from Congressman Gary Ackerman (NY-5th), sent to fellow Jews (how many and whom I cannot say) for the High Holidays. Congressman Ackerman is the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on the Middle East. The letter circulated and came finally into the computer of a friend, with an introduction about how good it is to know the facts. I thank that friend — who was not well pleased by the Congressman's message — for sending it on to me, so that I might respond to those who received that letter along with her. ~~~~~~~~~~ The core of my response — with some additional comments — follows here, as it may be useful to some of my readers, who have either seen Ackerman's letter or the arguments it advances. Beneath it, the original letter. ~~~~~~~~~~ The letter from Congressman Ackerman, below, has come to my attention and I believe that in the interests of truth it is important to respond. Congressman Ackerman lists a good number of things that Obama has ostensibly done that show that he is not anti-Israel. But there are a few fallacies built into his argument. One fallacy is that everything Obama is doing that seems good for Israel is being done FOR Israel. It's time for people to understand that a strong Israel is good for the US!!! Obama is not necessarily protecting Israel for Israel's sake, but rather protecting US interests. Nothing wrong with that at all — his job is to protect US interests. But his efforts to do so should not be touted as pro-Israel actions. Israel is America's only reliable and stable ally in the Middle East. G-d forbid a million times, were Israel to fall, US interests in the region would take an incredible hit. Maybe Obama reacted more quickly now with regard to military assistance than his predecessor had because the situation is so much more unstable now. A few things you should know: [] The vast bulk of US assistance to Israel requires Israel to use that money to buy military equipment IN THE US. This means when Obama seems so generous to Israel, he is also bolstering the badly failing US economy. He is not "giving away" money to Israel — he is assuring it gets spent in America. [] The US BENEFITS from Israeli technological development of defensive weaponry. Investing in that is another way that the US can be helped. It's very unfortunate that mostly people believe that Israel "takes" from the US, when the fact is that many times Israel gives. And I haven't even mentioned Intelligence assistance Israel provides to the US. [] The Pentagon is soundly pro-Israel and always has been, because military men — not former military men who have gotten into politics — get the picture and understand Israel's value. Some of the military support for Israel comes from the Pentagon position and not necessarily the president's. Most ludicrous of the examples Ackerman gives is the one about organizing sanctions against Iran. Can Ackerman really believe that it is only Israel that Iran threatens, so that action against Iran is "for" Israel? The reality is that Iran is after the entire Western culture, and no country more than the US. It is very naive to imagine otherwise. It is American interests in the Gulf area that Iran would go for first. Another fallacy is that what Obama does "for" Israel comes from sincere convictions. The president is a political animal. An election is coming, and he knows that an anti-Israel stance does not play well with the electorate. There has been a discernable shift in his position in this regard. ~~~~~~~~~~ Allow me to describe some of the ways in which Obama has worked against Israeli interests: [] With his policies and actions he has severely weakened the interests of moderate forces in the ME, sabotaged US deterrence power, and rendered Israel more vulnerable to radical forces. He has been obsequious, for example, bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia. He has pushed his philosophy of promoting "dialogue" and "encounters" in a manner that is counter-productive. Most particularly was this the case with Iran, which he kept on reaching out to, while refusing to state that he would consider a military option against nuclear development because this would interfere with his "outreach" efforts. The Arab/Muslim world respects power and strength. It doesn't value the Obama approach of constant conciliation. Its leaders laugh at him and see him as weak. Americans don't see this readily. Very dangerously, he has been willing to tolerate or even encourage the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Members were invited to his speech in Cairo. Just as the US needs a strong Israel, Israel is stronger when the US influence in the ME is solid. You need to know: Obama has destroyed this. (This works against Israel AND the US.) [] Under Obama's stewardship, the US has joined the exceedingly anti-Israel and corrupt UN Human Rights Council; his logic is that the US can have more effect from inside, but that is nonsense, as America is severely outnumbered. Unfortunately all US membership does is accord the Council greater credibility. Obama doesn't seem to notice this. [] Obama has shown a very obvious tilt towards the PA and against Israel that has worked against the very negotiations he says he wishes to promote. The first leader he called after his inauguration was PA President Mahmoud Abbas. A strange choice and a loud statement if ever there was one. On the other hand, he openly humiliated Israeli PM Netanyahu during a visit to the White House in March of last year, treating him in a manner that was severely inappropriate for a democratically elected leader of an ally, whether he approves of his policies or not. [] It is actually Obama who has sabotaged the peace talks. He withdrew from the position of previous administrations with regard to recognition that major settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria would be retained in any final agreement with the Palestinian Arabs. In fact, he denied there was any US obligation to honor the letter President Bush had written to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on this subject (while lawyers and diplomatic experts say it did carry weight). Instead he is now promoting the '67 lines — which were only temporary armistice lines and would not provide secure borders for Israel — as a basis for negotiations. Let this be clear: The settlements take up less than 3% of the area of Judea and Samaria. Another little-known fact. People tend to think the settlements take up much more area. But in reality Bush's commitment in writing in no way destroyed the possibility for a Palestinian state to be established. And also fact: Obama's position goes against Security Council resolutions, which say the border must be determined via negotiations. It's not for him to say where it should be. He has come down considerably harder on Israel than on the PA — putting the onus on Israel to make concessions to "move the peace process forward" while cutting the PA slack. He demanded a freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria — something never demanded before. (And to which Netanyahu agreed for a period of time, to no effect.) At the same time, Obama has not made any demands on the PA regarding horrendous incitement in its school books or its honoring of terrorists. Is this balanced???? Which threatens peace more? Buildings or teaching people that terrorists are to be honored? Another fact not well known: Israel is committed to building in the settlements ONLY within existing borders of each community. More land is not being taken for this building. You may not have noticed, but the things Abbas now demands of Israel were things Obama demanded first — setting the tone that Abbas now has adopted. For years there were face to face talks between Israel and the PA WITHOUT a settlement freeze and without Israel agreeing up front to use the '67 armistice line as a basis for a border. What must be kept in mind is that whether you agree with Israel's current stance or not (and I'd be happy to dialogue about this), Obama's approach has been heavy-handed and counterproductive. And blatantly unbalanced. If you think it's good for Obama to seek a settlement freeze, you must also think it appropriate for Obama to act to stop the PA from telling its children in their textbooks that "jihad" is praised by Allah. The message the Palestinians have gotten from Obama is that they can do as they wish, and the president will "take care" of Israel for them. This is not how a friend of Israel acts. ~~~~~~~~~~ In addition to this letter, I add a few thoughts: First, that couching a political message in terms of the sin of careless speech (against the President) seems to me an inappropriate approach. Dirty pool, in fact. And then, Ackerman's comment about Obama's body language, which he conceded has been a "disaster" (and thinks it one of the "mistakes" the President needs to correct). With this, the Congressman gives himself away. Body language is not something that requires only a superficial correction, such as a bad haircut or speech delivery might. Body language works at a sub-conscious level and reveals a great deal about feelings. As Congressman Ackerman says Obama's body language has been a "disaster," I believe he has inadvertently revealed more about the President's true feelings towards Israel than he intended to do. Beyond this, what I said about motivation, above, applies in other matters as well: Yes! Obama acted to help bring Israeli security personnel safely out of Israel when our Embassy in Cairo was attacked. And we were very glad for this. But this does not mean he did it "for" Israel. It does not make him "pro" Israel. Had anything happened to our personnel, whom Egypt had a responsibility to protect, our necessary actions against Egypt would have been harsh and the result would have been a further destabilized Middle East. Obama acted for Western interests and US interests in preventing this disaster. Properly so. But leave it at that. As to pledging (ever so reluctantly) to veto the PA unilateral action in the UN, he acted again for US interests and not because he is "pro" Israel. He knows that a Palestinian state would destabilize matters as well, and act directly against his stated policy of fostering a two-state solution.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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ISRAELI LEFTIST CALLED TO ACCOUNT = MAN BITES DOG; REAL OBSTACLES TO PEACE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 28, 2011. |
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ISRAELI LEFTIST CALLED TO ACCOUNT = MAN BITES DOG Ben-Gurion U. Professor Eyal Nir suggested that the public physically attack Zionist youth dancing in the streets on Jerusalem (unification) Day, and "break their bones." His kind of incitement to riot and violence is increasingly common at some Israeli colleges, especially his. Also common is the arrest of rabbis or of right-wingers who do not urge violence but who suggest that the Arab side is the country's enemy. What is not common is to arrest or fire leftists who take the Arab side to the point of encouraging some Jews to beat up others and Arabs to commit terrorism. This time, prosecutors are investigating Prof. Nir. It took them a few months to decide, but they did. Usually there is unequal application of the law (Prof. Steven Plaut, 10/28/11). Most people consider Israel a Jewish state; many condemn it as such. They do not condemn Islamic states for establishing Islam far more obtrusively than does Israel, which supports all religions. This double standard against the Jewish state probably is antisemitic. How much of a Jewish state is Israel? Government, media, and academia appease the Arabs and persecute right wing defenders from the Arabs. The Left long has expressed antipathy toward Judaism. Thus in some ways Israel is an anti-Jewish state. What should be done with Prof. Nir? Let us assume for discussion that his case is as simple as reported. Under Israeli law, he committed "incitement." Incitement to what? As usually described, that law is vague. Loose law fosters abuse of discretion. In the U.S., the standard for prosecution is inciting a mob to imminent violence. Crowds are predisposed to mob behavior, leading to violence. Prof. Nir was not addressing a mob. If he were inciting Arabs, whose culture features violence, morally he would be guilty, if not legally. International jihad has changed the real life meaning of "incitement to violence." In the West, Islamic movements for violence build motivation for terrorism. Muslim countries and the Palestinian Autonomy are in a state of war against Israel. They are helping Arabs strive again to take over Israel, as by giving them funds for houses. Radical Jewish professors who help the jihadist drive would be committing treason if Israel were frank enough to acknowledge it is at war. These days, professors and others get fired for unpopular statements. Should they be? It depends. They should not abuse their classroom authority to indoctrinate and to punish patriots rather than educate. They should not be appointed or tenured without qualifications and solely because of their ideology. Israelis appears gradually to be coming out from under leftist domination and to assert the national interest. They do not have strong national leadership in this. THE REAL OBSTACLES TO PEACE How is American public opinion formed? How do Americans come to believe what induces peace and what obstructs it? Officials utter nonsense, newspapers repeat it, and readers have no countervailing source to correct misimpressions. Americans somehow manage to rise somewhat above the confusion. Consider a Wall St. Journal piece on Tony Blair's so-called peace efforts. He wants both sides to agree on how they would negotiate. One rule would be to make "'substantial' progress on borders and security" within six months. Blair's efforts reportedly were "upstaged" by Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman. Lieberman "launched an unusually blunt personal assault on Mr. Abbas as an obstacle to peace." Palestinian Authority officials expressed "outrage" at Lieberman's remarks (Joshua Mitnick, 10/27, A15). That article is an example of officials uttering and newspapers stuttering. First, let's consider Tony Blair. What a misunderstood politician! He saved the Labor Party for many years, but antagonized its cadres for not over-straining the British economy to indulge them. He supported the U.S., which support hasn't been sufficiently appreciated here. On the other hand, he was pro-Arab. Blair made a lot of money clandestinely from the Arabs even while posing as a neutral mediator between the Arabs and Israel. He is a key actor in the so-called peace process. It is not a peace process. Jihadists do not make peace and they do not keep agreements. The process is one of maneuvering Israel into making concessions to the Arabs, including fatal ones, and calling a cajoled agreement peace. Negotiations cannot be forced. Agreements by themselves do not make peace. First must come a desire for peace and mutual agreement. Islam prefers conquest to peace. Although the media and our President keep blaming Israel for lack of peace, it is the Arabs who keep spurning negotiations, demanding preconditions, and committing aggression. Since Abbas deliberately stalls in negotiations, setting a six-month deadline does not pressure him. Nobody pressures him and his cohorts. The only pressure is on Israel. He probably would let the six months pass, as he reiterates demands that would doom Israel. Then Blair and everybody else would demand that Israel quickly agree to Islamic demands. Blair is doing to Israel what the detective stories call a "setting up" a victim. Lieberman is another misunderstood politician. He poses as right wing, but proposes what is left wing, i.e., appeasement of the Arabs. He speaks sharply rather than diplomatically, so he steals credibility. His calling Abbas an obstacle to peace is fair enough. Actually, it is not just Abbas but his Islamic culture that obstructs peace. The West has been averting its eyes from the Islamic cause of war and from Abbas' refusal to make peace. The West does not realize that Israel is just one front of international jihad, and that the West needs to unify against it, not press Israel to succumb to it. Nor does the West realize that international jihad is the major current menace to civilization. Sure the Palestinian Authority expresses "outrage" over the criticism of its leaders, unpopular a leader as he is and false as his statements are. Their outrage could be described as, "How dare that infidel criticize our advocacy for Islamic and Arab supremacy!" Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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WHITHER THE IDF?
Posted by Barbara Sommer, October 28, 2011. |
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This was written by Caroline B. Glick and appeared today in Jewish World Review. |
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It was a normal Sabbath afternoon in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood. Children were outside visiting with their friends and playing in the empty streets. But the tranquility of the scene was destroyed in a moment when a Palestinian terrorist crept up on 17-year-old Yehuda Ne'emad and his friend and began stabbing Ne'emad in the abdomen and shoulder. Ne'emad's neighbor, a 12 year old girl told reporters that there but by the grace of God both she and her six year old little brother would have also been attacked. After stabbing Ne'emad, the Palestinian terrorist began chasing the two children. "It was only due to God's help that I was able to escape," she said. "I am sure that I couldn't have escaped alone because he was much faster than me." The IDF, which failed to prevent the attack, played no role in saving their lives. One week later, the terrorist was still at large. One could be forgiven for thinking that the IDF would view Ne'emad's stabbing, along with the steep escalation of terror and sabotage from Ashdod to the Galilee to Gush Etzion over the past several days as a wake-up call. The time has come to ratchet up the IDF's counter-terror operations in Judea and Samaria to end the current wave of terror before the Palestinians have the opportunity to get their killing machines back in gear. But shockingly, it appears that defeating terrorists is at the bottom of the IDF's to-do list. Statements emanating from the IDF's top echelons indicate its commanders are unaware that it is even their job to fight and defeat terrorists. Israel's release of hundreds of convicted Palestinian mass murderers in exchange for Gilad Schalit was a shot of adrenalin for Hamas and Fatah alike. Hamas views the swap as a vindication of its path of murder in the name of jihad. Fatah sees the swap as a challenge to its power that can be surmounted only by proving it can mount its own renewed terror assault against Israel. Rather than meet this new challenge with an aggressive counter-terror initiative, earlier this week officers in the General Staff told Ha'aretz that Military Intelligence, the Civil Administration and the Shin Bet believe the best way to respond to Hamas's ascendency is to release Fatah terrorists from jail and to give more land to Fatah's terror-aligned security forces in Judea and Samaria. That is, those charged with fighting Hamas terrorists recommend empowering Fatah terrorists. And they do so at a time when Fatah's leadership refuses to have anything to do with the Israeli government and as Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is preparing for his summit with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Rather than recognize and confront the rising dangers from Hamas and Fatah alike, senior IDF commanders made statements this week indicating the army believes that its most important mission in Judea and Samaria today is to fight Jews. This week Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon completed his two year stint as Judea and Samaria Division Commander. At his farewell party held two days after the terror attack in Jerusalem, Alon described the central challenges facing the IDF in Judea and Samaria as evicting Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria from their homes. As he put it, "It's likely that the IDF will be required to carry out, together with the police and the Civil Administration certain missions that are not within the national consensus, and do so in the face of a rising conflict with the extremist but expanding fringes of Israeli society." During his time as division commander, Alon ordered troops to shoot at Israeli residents of outpost communities slated for destruction with rubber bullets if they tried to oppose forcible expulsion. Alon went on to speak of the grave threat of "Jewish terrorists." He said, "Already today there is an extremist minority, marginal in size but not in influence, that is liable to steeply escalate the acts commonly referred to as 'price tag,' but are actually terrorism. These acts must not only be condemned; their prevention, and the arrest of their perpetrators must be undertaken more effectively than what we have managed to accomplish to date." As far as Alon is concerned, "Jewish terrorists," pose a threat to Israel that is just as dangerous — if not more dangerous — than the threat posed by the real terrorists just freed from prison. And from OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrachi's supportive statements at Alon's farewell bash, it appears that Mizrachi agrees with him. But how can this be? No "Jewish terrorists" have stabbed and murdered Palestinian children. No "Jewish terrorists" have sent missiles into Palestinian residential neighborhoods or strapped bombs on their chests to blow up Palestinian cafes and buses. What Jewish terrorism are they talking about? True, earlier this month there was an arson attack at the mosque in Tuba Zangaria in the Galilee. While the media was quick to blame it on unknown Jewish assailants, it is hard to see why they would be the obvious or even most likely culprits. Residents of Tuba Zangaria torched their own clinic and community center. They routinely steal and kill livestock belonging to Jewish farmers in neighboring communities and set fire to their fields. Aside from that, the police arrested two Jewish suspects but were compelled to release them this week due to lack of evidence. The police arrested a third suspect this week but failed to convince a judge to remand him to custody for ten days. The judge scolded the police for even asking given that they had no evidence of guilt. Why would Jews from Judea or Samaria go to all the way to the Galilee to attack a mosque anyway? There are plenty closer to home. The truth is that the "price tag" attacks are not acts of terror. They are acts of hooliganism and warrant criminal punishment. But their Jewish perpetrators are not terrorists. They are petty hooligans. The fact of the matter is that there is no Jewish terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria or anywhere else. And there never has been. This was reported earlier this week by Amir Oren in Haaretz. Among other things, Oren's article dealt with the 1994 Shamgar Commission formed in the aftermath of Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Arab worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Oren revealed that following the massacre, the Shin Bet recommended forming fake Jewish terror groups in order to provide an organizational framework for would-be Jewish terrorists that would enable the Shin Bet to find and arrest them. The commission adopted the recommendation in its final report. Obviously, if there had been a Jewish terror infrastructure, the Shin Bet wouldn't have needed to build fake ones. So what has motivated Alon to focus his attention on fighting a non-existent Jewish terror threat? Throughout his two years in Judea and Samaria, Alon distinguished himself as one of the most politicized IDF commanders. He consistently overstepped his authority, contradicted government policies and advocated positions of the radical Left. For instance, in an interview earlier this month with the New York Times, Alon indicated that unlike the government, he supports a full IDF withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and doesn't believe that a withdrawal will be dangerous for Israel. In the same interview, Alon reprimanded the US Congress for threatening to cut off US funding to the Palestinian Authority's terror-aligned security forces, claiming that they are a stabilizing force in the region. It is hard to think of another example of an IDF officer telling the US Congress how to spend US taxpayer dollars. But while Alon's political activism is more pronounced than that of his colleagues, he is far from the only commander who misapprehends the responsibilities of the military. Take the IDF's behavior on September 25, the day Abbas was in New York to request Palestinian membership as a state at the UN. A few hours before Abbas's speech, 300 Palestinians from Kusra in Samaria attacked a platoon of soldiers from the Kfir Brigade commanded by Lt. Maor Asayag. When one of the soldiers reported his life was threatened, Asayag ordered him to use live fire to protect himself. His soldier's life was saved and a 34 year old Palestinian attacker was killed. For his actions, last week, Asayag was removed from his command and barred from further service in combat forces by his battalion commander, Lt. Col. Yoav Tzikrun. Shocked and angry at their commander's removal, Asayag's soldiers wrote a letter to Tzikrun defending Asayag's behavior as exemplary. They also raised concern that he was punished for political reasons and demanded that he be restored to his command. For their efforts, the soldiers received a harsh reprimand from Tzikrun. Asayag wasn't the only victim of the IDF's decision to put politics before duty during the UN General Assembly session. That day the police, Central Command and the IDF Spokesman's Unit falsely reported that the terrorist murder of Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan was a simple car accident. The two were killed by Palestinians who threw stones at the windshield of their car as they drove along the highway. It took two days and a court order to force the IDF to acknowledge that the father and baby had been murdered. Not surprisingly, the politicization of senior IDF officers has demoralized junior officers and line soldiers. Soldiers and officers who for years risked their lives in operations aimed at capturing the same terrorists that were just released for Schalit feel betrayed by their commanders who supported the deal. As one officer told Arutz 7, "It may not be so nice to say it, but we are asking what the point was in taking all those risks? These aren't some amateur Molotov cocktail throwers or stone throwers. These are real killers. We know them and their release is frustrating." In the aftermath of the Second Lebanon War, the IDF's senior officer corps was subjected to well-deserved public attack for its poor performance during the war. Not only did senior commanders fail to produce and implement a plan to defeat Hezbollah, preferring instead to let the politicians put together a "political solution." They failed to lead their soldiers in battle, opting to stay behind in air conditioned command posts watching the fighting on television screens. Three division commanders and OC Northern Command were removed from their posts for their normative and operational failures and then-chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz was eventually forced into early retirement. It was widely believed that the public opprobrium forced the IDF's senior ranks recognize that their duty is to defend the country, and defeat the enemy, not behave like politicians. Unfortunately, the IDF's current behavior indicates that nothing has changed. With the Muslim Brotherhood on the rise throughout the Arab world, and with Hamas co-opting Fatah in Judea and Samaria, Israel needs the IDF to defend it. The current situation, where politicized commanders highlight nonexistent threats and punish committed officers for doing their jobs cannot be allowed to continue. To share love for and with Israel, I encourage you to support Healing Teddies R.A. www.healingteddies.org.il/english Contact Barbara Sommer at lsommer_1_98@yahoo.com |
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STATEMENT BY AMB PROSOR TO THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL OCT 24, 2011
Posted by Dave Alpern, October 24, 2011. |
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In an outstanding speech, Israel's Ambassador to the UN reiterates the inconvenient truths that must be acknowledged and dealt with if we are ever to have real peace in the Middle East. "The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question" — The Middle East is in turmoil. Yet, month after month, this Council focuses disproportionately on one and only one conflict in our region. |
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Statement by Amb Prosor to the UN Security Council 
Ambassador Prosor (UN Webcast)
At the outset, I would like to extend my condolences to the people of Turkey following yesterday's tragic earthquake. Let me begin by reminding this Council that the name of today's debate is the "Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question" - and not vice versa. This morning I'd like to take the unusual step of actually focusing on the situation in the Middle East. Let me assure you that I will give proper attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, first, let's look at the facts: the Middle East is in turmoil. Thousands of innocents have been gunned down in the streets. People are calling for their freedom and demanding their rights. Yet, month after month, this Council focuses disproportionately on one and only one conflict in our region. I don't claim that this Council does not deal with the situations of specific countries in the Middle East. It does. However, I think it is time to start connecting the dots so that we can face the bigger picture. For generations, the Arab world has failed miserably to address the needs of its own people. The United Nations Development Program has sponsored five "Arab Human Development Reports" since 2002. Year after year, the Arab researchers who write these reports offer a glimpse into the real world of the Middle East. Young people struggle without access to jobs and education. Women are denied basic rights. Free expression is repressed. Minorities are persecuted. Elections are a sham. And with their world in flames, Arab leaders continue to blame Israel and the West for all their problems. For years, it's the only explanation that they have been able to offer to their own people. From time to time, they spice up the story. When a shark attacked a tourist in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, the local Egyptian governor suggested that the Mossad was using sharks to harm Egyptian tourism. Everything wrong in the Middle East, according to many Arab leaders, is simply Israel's fault. If it's not the Mossad, it's the CIA, or MI6, or some other "foreign force". Today the people of the Middle East demand real answers for their plight. We have seen their brave stands in public squares. We have heard their cries. And we have witnessed the deadly response to these calls for freedom. In Hama, Daraa and Latakia, the Syrian regime slaughters its citizens in a desperate bid to hold onto power. Some members of this council remain blind to Assad's brutality. In Libya, the reign of Moammar Qaddafi is over after more than 40 years of repression and many months of bloodshed. The Libyan despot's violent end illustrated what Churchill once described as a signal disadvantage of the dictator: what he does to others may often be done back to him. This truth haunts the minds of many leaders in our region - and Qaddafi's fate rings an alarm for them. In Iran, an Ayatollah regime represses its own people as it helps other tyrants to butcher theirs. Last week, UN Special Rapporteur Shaheed briefed the General Assembly, offering a chilling picture of daily life in Iran. His report highlighted "a pattern of systemic violations of... fundamental human rights... including multifarious deficits in relation to the administration of justice... practices that amount to torture... the imposition of the death penalty in the absence of proper judicial safeguards... the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, and the erosion of civil and political rights." Iran remains the world's central banker, chief trainer and primary sponsor of terror. Recent events have shown that its state-directed terrorist activities extend from the Persian Gulf to the Washington Beltway, with targets that range from innocent protestors to foreign soldiers to official diplomatic representatives. This is the way the regime behaves today. One can only imagine what it would do with a nuclear capability - with the dangerous combination of extremist ideology, advanced missile technology and nuclear weapons. IAEA reports make clear that Iran continues to march toward the goal of a nuclear bomb in defiance of the international community. We cannot allow it to place the entire world under the specter of nuclear terrorism. The world must stop Iran before it is too late. Yes, Mr. President, The Middle East is trembling. Its future is uncertain. And two roads stand before us. There is the future offered by Iranian and Syrian leaders - a future of more extremism, greater violence and continued hate. Their vision will not liberate human beings, it will enslave them. It does not build, it destroys. And there is another road - a path of progress, reform and moderation. The choice before us is clear - and it has never been more critical to make the right choice for the future of the Middle East and all its inhabitants. It is time for this Council to stop ignoring the destructive forces that seek to keep the Middle East in the past, so that we can seize the promise of a brighter future. Mr. President, Make no mistake: it is important for Israel and the Palestinians to resolve our longstanding conflict. It is important on its own merits, so that Israelis and Palestinians alike can lead peaceful, secure and prosperous lives. But it will not produce a sudden outbreak of stability, harmony and democratization from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. And seriously addressing the underlying problems of the Middle East will be essential for advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace. The road to peace can only be built on a foundation of mutual recognition and dialogue. A month ago, President Abbas stood in this building and said the following: "I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him)." He denied 4,000 years of Jewish history. It was not a small omission. It was not an oversight. The Palestinian leadership attempts to erase the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Others in the Arab world have offered a different message. For example, in 1995, King Hussein came to the United States and said: "For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their descendants are living together in the birthplace of their three great monotheistic religions." Let me repeat this. King Hussein said three monotheistic religions, not one or two. Those who seek peace do not negate the narrative of the other side. On the contrary, they recognize its existence and choose to sit down and negotiate peace in good faith. This is what President Sadat did. This is what King Hussein did. The ancient Jewish bond to the land of Israel is unbreakable. This is our homeland. The UN recognized Israel as a Jewish state 64 years ago. It is time for the Palestinians and the more than 20 Muslim countries around the globe to do the same. Let there be no doubt: Israel wants peace with a future Palestinian state. Let me repeat that: Israel wants peace with a future Palestinian state. In word and in deed, my government has demonstrated time and again that we seek two states for two peoples, living side-by-side in peace. Prime Minister Netanyahu stood in this hall last month and issued a clear call to President Abbas. Let me reiterate that call today to the Palestinians. Sit down with Israel. Leave your preconditions behind. Start negotiations now. The international community has called on the Palestinians to go back to negotiations. Israel has accepted the principles outlined by the Quartet to restart negotiations immediately, without preconditions. We are waiting for the Palestinians to do the same. Mr. President, The Palestinians suggest that settlements are the core cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's an interesting assertion considering that our conflict was raging for nearly a half century before a single settlement sprung up in the West Bank. From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arab world did not lift a finger to create a Palestinian state. And it sought Israel's annihilation when not a single settlement stood anywhere in the West Bank or Gaza. The issue of settlements will be worked out over the course of negotiations, but the primary obstacle to peace is not settlements. This is a just a pretext for the Palestinians to avoid negotiations. The primary obstacle to peace is the Arab world's refusal to acknowledge the Jewish people's ancient connection to the Land of Israel - and the Palestinian's insistence on the so-called right of return. Today the Palestinian leadership is calling for an independent Palestinian state, but insists that its people return to the Jewish state. It's a proposition that no one who believes in the right of Israel to exist could accept because the only equation in political science with mathematical certainty is that the so-called right of return equals the destruction of the State of Israel. The idea that Israel will be flooded with millions of Palestinians is a non-starter. The international community knows it. The Palestinian leadership knows it. But the Palestinian people aren't hearing it. This gap between perception and reality is the major obstacle to peace. The so-called right of return is the major hurdle to achieving peace. Since the Palestinian leadership refuses to tell the Palestinian people the truth, the international community has a responsibility to tell the Palestinian people about the basic compromises that they will have to make. Mr. President, The many issues that remain outstanding can only - and will only - be resolved in direct negotiations between the parties. Israel's peace with Egypt was negotiated, not imposed. Our peace with Jordan was negotiated, not imposed. Israeli-Palestinian peace must be negotiated. It cannot be imposed. The Palestinians' unilateral action at the United Nations is no path to real statehood. It is a march of folly. Today the Palestinians are far from meeting the basic criteria for statehood, including the test of effective control. The President of the Palestinian Authority has zero authority in the Gaza Strip. Before flying 9,000 kilometers to New York to seek UN membership, President Abbas should have driven 50 kilometers to Gaza, where he has been unable to visit since 2007. In the same breath that they claim their state will be "peace-loving", Palestinian leaders speak of their unity with Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization. Hamas and "peace-loving"? There is no greater contradiction in terms. This month, on a fundraising excursion for terrorism with his Iranian patrons, Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh stood in front of an audience in Tehran and said, "the correct strategy to liberate our country and Jerusalem is violent resistance." Under Hamas rule, Gaza remains a launching ground for constant rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians, which are fueled by the continuous flow of weapons from Iran and elsewhere. Israel has the right to defend itself. As the Palmer report made clear, the naval blockade is a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea. When it is not attacking Israelis, Hamas is oppressing its own people. In Gaza, civil society is nonexistent, political opponents are tortured, women are subjugated, and children are used as suicide bombers and human shields. Textbooks and television glorify martyrdom and demonize Jews. Incitement against Israelis also continues in the West Bank and in the official institutions of the Palestinian Authority, which names its public squares after suicide bombers. The unresolved questions about a future Palestinian state cannot be simply swept under the carpet. They go to the core of resolving our conflict. They have to be addressed. Let me be clear: for Israel, the question is not whether we can accept a Palestinian state. We can. The question is what will be the character of the state that emerges alongside us and whether it will live in peace. Mr. President, The Palestinians' unilateral action at the UN breaches the Oslo Accords, the Interim Agreement, the Paris Protocol and other bilateral agreements that form the basis for 40 spheres of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation - all of which could be jeopardized by a unilateral action at the UN. This unilateral initiative will raise expectations that cannot be met. It is a recipe for instability and potentially, violence. Members of the international community should be clear about their responsibilities: You vote for it, you own it. All those who vote for unilateral recognition will be responsible for its consequences. At this critical juncture, the Palestinians' true friends will encourage them to put aside the false idol of unilateralism and get back to the hard work of direct negotiations. Speaking of friends, the many so-called Arab champions of the Palestinian cause have a responsibility to play a constructive role. Constructive support from the Arab world is vital for building the civic and economic structures necessary for real Palestinian statehood and peace. Instead of simply adding to the chorus of state-bashing, the Palestinians true supporters will help advance state-building. Arab donors provided just 20 percent of the international funds for the Palestinian Authority's regular budget last year. Let me put this in perspective: last year, Arab donations to the regular PA budget accounted for a little more than half of what Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal spent on his newest personal luxury jet. People in Washington, London, and Paris are struggling with an economic downturn, but still providing the bulk of support for Palestinian institutions, while Arab states saturated in petrol dollars don't even give the Palestinians crumbs off the table. Mr. President, In the Jewish tradition, we are taught: "Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe." This sacred principle forms the backbone of Israel's democracy. It drives our government's policy. We witnessed a clear reflection of these values last week - as all of Israel welcomed home our kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, after more than five years in Hamas captivity. It was a moment of great joy, but it came with tremendous costs. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Secretary-General personally and some of the countries represented here today that played an important role in the release of Gilad Shalit. For us, the supreme value of a single human life justified releasing more than a thousand terrorists and criminals covered in the blood of innocents. The values inherent in such an act shine bright in our region. Many took note. On Twitter, one Syrian blogger, Soori Madsoos, wrote "Their government is prepared to pay the ultimate price for one citizen, while our government kills us like we are animals and our Arab neighbors say that it's an internal matter." Time and again, Israel has shown that it is ready and able to make bold and courageous decisions to preserve life, to uphold human dignity and to pursue peace. Mr. President, Sustainable peace must be negotiated. It must be nurtured. It must be anchored in security. It must take root in homes, schools and media that teach tolerance and understanding, so that it can grow in hearts and minds. It must be built on a foundation of younger generations that understand the compromises necessary for peace. A brighter future in the Middle East must be forged from within, when we are open and honest about the challenges before us - and resolute in our determination to meet them together. Thank you. 24 October 2011
Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net
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OBAMA PROPOSES ETHNIC CLEANSING OF JEWS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 27, 2011. |
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OBAMA PROPOSES ETHNIC CLEANSING OF JEWS; IRAN'S QUEST FOR MIDEAST HEGEMONY President Obama and his officials say nothing about massive, growing, and often illegal housing for Arabs in the Palestinian Authority and in Jerusalem, but say plenty negatively about routine legal housing for Jews in eastern Jerusalem and in Judea-Samaria areas under full Israeli administration. Again the Obama administration opposes a 1,100-house project in Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem annexed after the Six Day War. The State Dept. called itself "deeply disappointed" over the project, which it termed "counterproductive." (US calls new construction in J'lem "counterproductive Jerusalem Post, September 27, 2011). The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is deeply disappointed by the Obama administration policy, which it termed "racist." Gilo now houses 40,000 people. Jews legally purchased that area before the War for Independence. It always was part of Jerusalem and always was a Jewish neighborhood owned by Jews. When Jordan made war on Israel in 1948, Jordan captured the area and illegally annexed it and the whole of Judea-Samara. What did Jordan do with the area? It expelled the Jews, vandalized or destroyed their synagogues, and seized their property. After Jordan's next aggression against Israel, Israel liberated Gilo and reestablished the Jewish neighborhood. During the "Second Intifada," Arab snipers in adjoining Beit Jala constantly fired upon the Jews. President Obama's effort to terminate housing for Jews in areas that Jordan illegally seized in 1948 encourages Islamist efforts to evict 300,000 Jews from parts of Jerusalem [and three hundred thousand more from the rest of Judea-Samaria). That is the import of his May speeches proposing the armistice line left after Jordan's 1967 assault as the basis for a final agreement. That means that neighborhoods from which Jordan illegally drove or kept Jews out for 19 years now are to be areas from which Jews must stay out. ZOA observes, "No previous president proposed that Jewish residential rights in parts of Jerusalem be made conditional on the assent of a terror-glorifying PA regime." (The P.A., being fanatical jihadists, won't assent. Therefore, no solution by negotiations.) Is it up to President Obama or to the Israeli government and city planners where Jews may build homes in the biblical and historical capital? (press release by Zionist Organization of America, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member) http://www.zoa.org/ .) Note the double standard, condoning illegal acts by Arabs and condemning legal acts by Jews. Another double standard is to insist that Jews not be allowed in certain areas without insisting that Arabs not be allowed to stay within the State of Israel. Then there is the PLO hypocrisy of demanding that Jews be expelled from certain areas and turning around and seeking sympathy by complaining that Jews had expelled Arabs from Israel (though that is almost entirely untrue). So Obama's policy does seem religiously biased. The problem really is that it is diplomatically biased and intrudes on other people's business. A couple of years ago, a resident of Gilo showed me how close Beit Jala was, and that the PLO fired upon Gilo often. The plan to bring PLO rule alongside Jerusalem would rest in much more sniping. That is not a peaceful solution. IRAN'S QUEST FOR MIDEAST HEGEMONY NOT JUST SECTARIAN Iran's struggle to gain hegemony over the Mideast usually is seen as a Shia-Sunni rivalry. The struggle may be more than sectarian. The Shah, who was largely a secular ruler, had the same regional ambition. He, too, strove for nuclear weapons, deceptively. He, too, claimed some Arab countries as Iranian territory. For centuries, there has been a Persian-Arab rivalry. Persians consider themselves superior in civilization to the Arabs. Overthrow Iran's clerical regime, and some of the existing tensions and clashes my continue (Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, The Jerusalem Post, 19/25/11
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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HAMAS' (& FATAH'S) CHRISTIAN TERRORISTS: MEET CHRIS AL-BANDAK OF THE SHALIT TRADE
Posted by Paolo Porsia, October 27, 2011. |
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This was written by Debbie Schlussel and it is archived at
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It's important to note that there were Christian terrorists for Islam involved in this week's HAMAS terrorist trade for Gilad Shalit. And as one Christian Fatah murderer was set free, another was captured planning an attack in Jerusalem. 
Christian Terrorists for HAMAS/Fatah Chris Al-Bandak and Dimitri Daliani While the majority of Arab terrorists are Muslim, it's important to note that there is a not-so-small contingent of Christians who not only openly support HAMAS and Fatah and other Islamic terrorist groups, but take part in their terrorist attacks and mass murders. I've written about these people before. HAMAS has had Christian leaders. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group, which murdered Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi and perpetrated several deadly homicide bombings in Israel, was founded and headed by George Habash and deputy Dr. Wadih Haddad, both Greek Orthodox Christians. Greek Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Coptic Christians are among the most anti-Semitic, anti-Israel fanatics there are. In many cases, such as with Egypt's Copts, they led the Muslims in pogroms against the Jews. And that's why, as I've noted before, I don't shed any tears for the Copts being attacked by Muslims in Egypt. They and their religious leader, Pope Shenouda III, are, in many cases, even more anti-Semitic than their Muslim countrymen in Egypt, and they're big supporters of HAMAS, as lead by their pope. And so it goes with the Greek Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches in Israel. Their religious leaders, including Jerusalem Greek Orthodox Church spokesman Atallah (a/k/a Theodosios) Hanna, frequently and openly attack Jews and call on congregants to support HAMAS. Just as the many Islamic terrorists — and one Christian pan-Muslim terrorist among them — were released, this week, Israelis captured Dmitri Dalyani a/k/a Dmitri Diliani a/k/a Dimitri Diliani, a Palestinian Orthodox Christian and a Fatah terrorist, in Jerusalem. Dalyani is part of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. Fatah claimed Dalyani was "protecting" Jerusalem and its holy sites. Ah, a not-so-new euphemism for terrorism: "protecting." And despite the fact that he's suspected in terrorist attacks, Palestinian Christians backed him and threatened more anti-Israel terrorism a/k/a "Christian resistance": Christian groups in Jerusalem condemned the arrest of Dalyani, describing it as "a barbarous operation" and said it would only increase the strength of Christian resistance in Jerusalem. And that brings us to Christian "Chris" Al-Bandak, one of the murderous Fatah terrorists released in the trade for Gilad Shalit. Like, Dalyani a/k/a Diliani, Bandak is an Eastern Orthodox Christian and a cold-blooded killer. He was arrested at the Church of the Nativity after he killed at least two Israelis and seriously wounded a third in 2002. He is a member of the Fatah Tanzim, arguably the most brutal and deadly segment of the Fatah terrorist group. In 2003, he received four life sentences from an Israeli court. And, now, he is free, and using his freedom from justice to invoke Christianity in his attacks on Jews and Israel in interviews with the Muslim media. Remember that HAMAS, not Fatah, fought for his release. He's one of them. But same difference, anyway. I'm not surprised by any of this, and as you know, I've repeatedly warned on this site about the Christian element of the Islamic terrorism movements in the Middle East. Sadly, most people are oblivious to it or choose to ignore and deny it. So, I wasn't surprised when I wrote about Mosab Yousef, the "Son of HAMAS," and his vehemently anti-Israel Christian missionary co-author and handler, Ron Brackin, whom I personally know and who repeatedly attacked Israel on a phone call with me. Yes, there are many — far too many — Christians in the Middle East (and America) who not only side with Islamic terrorists, but take part in their murderous, deadly attacks. While it's true that the main aggressors are Islam and Muslims, the fact remains that throughout Middle East history, the Christian populations — now, themselves, under attack and in danger of extinction — eagerly sided with Muslims against the Jews. And that isn't just a relic of the past. It's a very real fact of the present to which Christians worldwide must own up.
Contact Paolo Porsia by email aventerita@aim.com
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FROM ISRAEL: NO SURPRISED
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 27, 2011. |
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Negotiators representing the Quartet parties — the US, the UN, the EU, and Russia — along with Quartet Envoy Tony Blair have now met separately with an Israeli team headed by Yitzhak Molcho, and a PA team headed by Saeb Erekat. And guess what? There was no breakthrough. The PA is holding to its line of no talks unless Israel freezes all building beyond the Green Line and agrees to that '67 line as the "term of reference" for negotiations. Israel's response is negative on both scores (see more below). ~~~~~~~~~~ What both parties did agree to do is present "comprehensive proposals" for their respective positions with regard to security and territory within three months. Even this makes me uneasy, for without a broader context going on record at all might not be wise. But what is so incredible to me is that the Quartet acts as if this is "progress" towards their goal of a full peace by the end of next year. Blair has said that once proposals are received it would be possible to see how wide the gaps are and whether there was a basis for negotiations. But Tony should pack it in. It simply cannot be (can it?) that the representatives of the Quartet don't perceive how far apart the parties are, and how impossible it would be to bridge the gaps. But they don't give up. A "full negotiated peace between Israel and the PA" remains the holy grail of the Middle East. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday, straight-talking Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman sent a letter to foreign embassies in Israel. It said that he has reached the "inescapable" conclusion that "no agreement will ever be possible as long as Mahmoud Abbas leads the Palestinian Authority... It would be a "blessing" if Abbas carried out his frequently made threat and resigned. Most interesting to me was that there was no repudiation of this from the prime minister's office, which remained mum. One government source (not from the pmo) is quoted as saying, "the fact that the Palestinian Authority continues to raise new obstacles to direct talks would seem to reinforce the foreign minister's point." ~~~~~~~~~~ Abbas, meanwhile, is chairing a two-day meeting in Ramallah of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. They will discuss the UN gambit, the "attack" by Lieberman, and more. Reports are that he is also planning a "surprise" announcement. I will indulge in no speculation as to what this means, which may end up being nothing at all. ~~~~~~~~~~ News came out today regarding what US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said in a meeting with Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas). Left: Ambassador Daniel Shapiro
According to several sources — basing their reports on IDF Army Radio — Shapiro told Yishai that the US is trying its utmost to stop the PA bid in the UN, but the job would be easier if Israel would stop all construction. Yishai understood this as meaning a permanent freeze. Shapiro reportedly presented this as a "goodwill gesture" and not as an accession to a PA demand. I guess he's doing his job, but how dumb does he think we are? Yishai's response was that no government has ever agreed to a freeze (what Netanyahu did was one time and temporary) and that there would not be one now. I did not have the sense that this was done with a threatening tone by Shapiro — that he was demanding a quid pro quo for the US veto in the Security Council. This was much more low key. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to Haaretz, the PA is getting ready to demand that Israel honor a promise made to Abbas by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in 2008: that if a deal on Shalit — in which prisoners were released to Hamas — went through, Israel would also release prisoners to the PA. (Olmert confirmed to Time Magazine that he did make the promise.) Reportedly, it is the PA's intention to get the Quartet to pressure Israel on this matter, which makes me rip-roaring furious. Israel has no obligation whatsoever to honor a verbal promise made by a former prime minister. And what I see here is a pattern of extortion by the PA, a pattern in which the international community permits that extortion instead of stonewalling PA demands. "At the Knesset on Monday, MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al ) said that Israel should not be surprised if the two current conditions the Palestinians have set for restarting talks - a halt to construction in the settlements and recognition of the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations - become three, the third being the prisoner release." This is possible because the PA leadership knows how badly the international community wants them to come to the table. And so they keep raising the ante. I think they still have hope that in time the Quartet can pressure Israel into giving what they demand. Among the 170 long-time prisoners PA reportedly wants out are Marwan Barghouti, a leading member of Fatah responsible for organizing much terrorist activity, and Ahmad Saadat, Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who planned the 2001 assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi. Neither of these guys should ever see the light of day again. I can readily imagine Ambassador Shapiro or Envoy Blair saying to members of our government, "Ah, you've let so many out already, what's a few more in the interests of bringing peace closer? It's just a goodwill gesture." And I can only pray that they would answer as Eli Yishai just did. It does seem to be the case that many members of the Israeli government (not all) are very much disinclined to do anything for the PA in light of its current behavior. Something to be grateful for.
~~~~~~~~~~ Can you imagine what would happen if the Quartet called a press conference and confessed that they now recognize that fruitful peace negotiations are not possible now, particularly in light of the PA intransigence? That they were going to be consulting with Israel regarding alternatives to a two-state solution — perhaps something in the nature of the autonomy originally envisioned with Oslo. No, it's not going to happen. Although it should. And I like to fantasize every so often about what would happen if the wings of the PA were finally clipped. ~~~~~~~~~~ In the wake of the major earthquake suffered by Turkey at the beginning of the week, Israel offered assistance that was rebuffed. But Chief of Staff Gantz ordered preparations to be made for a standby mission in case there was a change of heart. And, indeed, the Turkish government then reversed itself, and decided it was wise to receive equipment, not personnel, from Israel. The first plane to Ankara went out yesterday, with additional to follow. Even as the preparations for takeoff were in process, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking from Jordan, where he was visiting, called for pressure on Israel. Jerusalem officials said this was also no surprise, as there was scant expectation that the humanitarian mission — "aimed at keeping men, women and children safe and warm" — would heal the rift between Israel and Turkey. But I rather like the comment of one government official, who said the shipment represented "good neighbor relations. I don't want to raise expectations. The Turks helped us battle the Carmel Forest fire and while that was greatly appreciated, it didn't improve the ties. We want to be realistic. This is about neighbors helping neighbors." And neighbors helping neighbors is all together a good thing. ~~~~~~~~~~ I was more than a tad miffed when I read recently about the "National Unity Pledge for Israel" being advanced in the States by the American Jewish Committee and ADL. Sounds good at first blush, but it is anything but. A document is being circulated in an attempt to garner signatures, in an effort to "unite" parties on the issue of Israel: "US-Israel friendship should never be used as a political wedge issue." What? This means it should not be considered legitimate to disagree on matters concerning Israel in the course of the upcoming campaign? Michael Freund, writing about this, put it very well: "This pledge has far more to do with domestic American politics than it does with preserving Israel's standing in public opinion. |
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POLL SHOWS NATIONALIST / RELIGIOUS BLOC WITH 70 KNESSET SEATS
Posted by Aryeh Zelesko, October 27, 2011. |
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It is the unfortunate reality here that when we vote for the Left we get the Left and when we vote for the Right we get the Left. Only when there will be a leader strong enough to "disengage" us from the Left by removing them from the Court/Police/Prosecutor system will we be able to have a Government loyal to the Jewish people and be able to advance the nation on all fronts. This below comes from today's Arutz-7 (www.think-israel.org). It was written by Gil Ronen. Three polls in 24 hours shows Netanyahu boosted Likud's standing with Shalit release. |
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Three polls in 24 hours show Likud has received a serious boost, most likely from the Shalit deal with Hamas. A poll carried out by the Smith Institute for Globes gives Likud 33, while Labor chalks up 20 and Kadima gets 17. According to the poll, the nationalist / religious bloc, including the haredi parties, has 70 seats, five more than at present. A Panels poll for the Knesset Channel also gave Likud 33 Knesset seats, with Labor in the number two spot garnering 25. Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu both received 14 seats and Shas got 7. The Panels / Knesset Channel poll in September gave Likud 28, Labor 25, Kadima 16, Yisrael Beitenu 15 and Shas 9. Taken side by side, the two Knesset Channel polls show Likud jumped up by 5 seats in the course of a month, at the expense of all of the other top parties except Labor. On Wednesday a Channel 2 / Sarid Institute poll showed Likud gaining 10 seats compared to its current 27 if elections were held today, and Kadima losing 11 seats. According to the poll, Likud would have 37 seats, and Kadima would have only 17, putting it in third place after Labor, which would receive 22 seats. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party was projected to receive 15 seats, the same number it currently holds. Kadima appears to be losing steam as the leading opposition party and Labor appears to be taking its place, going back to the time when LIkud and Labor were the largest parties. While Kadima refused to join the Netanyahu coalition, Labor's attitude may be different. Labor leader Shelly Yechimovich is seen by some as a centrist, while others suspect her of harboring far-left views that she conceals for political purposes. Yechimovich grew up in a radical communist household, has admitted to knowing some of Karl Marx's writings by heart and to voting for the communist party in the general elections on at least one occasion. Interestingly, Israel's three Jewish leftist parties will soon be headed by women. Meretz's Zehava Galon is expected to become its chairperson, joining Kadima's Tzipi Livni and Labor's Yechimovich as female party leaders. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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TUNISIAN ELECTIONS AND THE ROAD TO THE CALIPHATE
Posted by Raymond Ibrahim, October 27, 2011. |
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Tunisia, where the 2011 Arab uprisings began, remains an ominous model for where these uprisings will end. 
The nation's first round of elections are in, and, as expected, the Islamist party, al-Nahda, won by a landslide, gaining over 40% of the seats in the national constituent assembly. As usual, the mainstream media, interpreting events exclusively through a Western paradigm, portrayed this largely as a positive development. Thus, a Washington Post editorial, "Tunisia again points the way for Arab democracy," asserts how "the country's leading Islamic party claimed victory — and that, too, could prove a positive example." Other reports, perfunctorily prefixing the word "moderate" to "Islamist" — an oxymoron to common sense, an orthodoxy to the MSM — gush and hail "democracy." Such sunny depictions are not mere products of Western projection but augmented by conniving Islamists who spoon-feed the world what it wants to hear. Thus, an MSNBC report, "Tunisia's Islamists Seek to Reassure Secularists," optimistically talks of how the Islamists "said they would share power and would not try to push through radical measures." Of course they did. Meanwhile, despite these fantasies, the mood among seculars on Tunisian ground is one of dread and urgency. Wael Elebrady, host of the popular show Al Haqiqa, speaking to a corresponded in Tunisia soon after al-Nahda's "sweeping victory," confirmed that the Islamists have immense grassroots support, that they will have a major say in the formulation of laws (Sharia), and that, if the Western MSM is eating up Islamist talk of "sharing power," the apparently outnumbered "liberals and secularists" are not. Some reflections: First, among Arabic speaking nations, Tunisia has long been recognized as an especially "Westernized" nation, secular and liberal — at least in comparison to other Arab countries, and not unlike traditional Lebanon. Now, if Islamists have risen to power in onetime "moderate" Tunisia, through the usual conduits — grassroots support, lip-service to democracy, promises of "sharing power," and a complacent West — is there any doubt that Islamists will also takeover in those nations where they are especially entrenched, like Egypt and Libya? Ali Akbar Velayati, top advisor of Iran's Supreme Leader, accurately predicts that "the result of the election in Tunisia will positively affect regional developments. We will observe the victory of Islamists in future elections in Egypt and Libya." A Wall Street Journal report elaborates: Tunisia's small, well-educated and religiously moderate population could make it an unreliable metric for gauging the regional political changes that will follow. The Nahda Party distinguished itself as uniquely moderate when compared with other Islamist parties in the Arab world. Egyptian Islamists, who are led by an 83-year-old organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, in general take a stricter view of the role Islamic law, known as Shariah, should play in Egyptian governance. Accordingly, not only are Islamists better positioned to come to power through elections in Egypt than Tunisia, but more critical consequences are sure to follow: peace with Israel will be contemptuously scrapped — once capability permits — and the suffering of Christian Copts, who are already under attack in a myriad of ways, will be institutionalized. Yet the West remains transfixed before the words "democracy" and "elections." Nice words, to be sure; but just as the generic word "terror" — as in "War on Terror" — provides absolutely no understanding of the ideas motivating it, so too does the generic word "democracy" provide no understanding of the draconian, anti-infidel ideas the "will of the people" will establish — ideas encapsulated by one word: Sharia. Consider the following excerpt from a Fox News report: "I am the enemy of democracy," Hesham al-Ashry said in an interview with Fox News in his Cairo tailor shop. The devout Muslim is a main organizer in a group called the Salafists, which is working to bring Shariah law to Egypt. They, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, have risen quickly in the past eight months to fill the power vacuum left in post-Mubarak Egypt. Left unspoken is how they rose — and will continue to rise — to power: democracy, "people-power," which al-Ashry gladly exploits, even as he is "the enemy of democracy." The report continues: "As for what's next if al-Ashry and his followers get their way, 'instead of one Iran ...you have two.'" Actually, "what's next," in the grand picture of things, not the myopia of the moment, is the resurrection of a Sharia-enforcing Caliphate and the ushering of a new age of conflict — an age when future generations will look back to their Western predecessors and see in them the sort of passive naivety that would make Neville Chamberlain look like Winston Churchill.
Contact Raymond Ibrahim at list@pundicity.com.
This was published today in Jihad Watch
and is archived at
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WHO REPRESENTS AMERICAN JEWRY?
Posted by Michael Freund, October 27, 2011. |
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The American presidential election may be over a year away, but two leading Jewish organizations are already gearing up to assist Barack Obama in his effort to win a second term. In a highly unusual move, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) have joined forces to launch what is being billed as a "National Unity Pledge for Israel." The document, which is being widely circulated to garner signatures, ostensibly seeks to promote bipartisan support for Israel. It says "the Jewish community has had a strong interest in ensuring that American support for Israel is one of the critical strategic issues that unites rather than divides parties and officials," and speaks of the need for American voices to be "raised together in unshakable support for our friend and ally." Don't let all the gallant fluff about unity fool you. This pledge has far more to do with domestic American politics than it does with preserving Israel's standing in public opinion. It is nothing less than a nakedly transparent attempt by liberal American Jews to bolster President Obama's sagging support among members of the tribe and deflect criticism from his hostile record toward Israel. Ever so subtly, the document suggests that the "US-Israel friendship should never be used as a political wedge issue."
But behind that seemingly harmless rhetoric lies a far more calculated agenda, one that seeks to stifle debate and silence criticism of the Obama administration. A critical clue to the initiative's real aim can be found in a statement that accompanied its release, by ADL national director Abraham Foxman. "We want the discourse on US support for Israel to avoid the sometimes polarizing debates and political attacks that have emerged in recent weeks," said Foxman, "as candidates have challenged their opponents' pro-Israel bona fides or questioned the current administration's foreign policy approach vis-à-vis Israel." Say what? Since when is there anything wrong with questioning a presidential administration's approach to Israel? For decades, American Jews have stood up in defense of the Jewish state when presidents such as Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush sought to manhandle Jerusalem. They have gone to the political barricades, lobbied congressmen and organized rallies, petitions and protests when needed. There is something ludicrous and un-American for the ADL and AJC to now suggest that challenging Obama's policy towards Israel is somehow damaging or detrimental. It defies logic and common sense and should be thoroughly spurned. Foxman and friends seem to have forgotten that debate, discussion and yes, even disagreement are precisely what democracy is all about. There is no political, intellectual or moral justification for this heavy-handed attempt to hush up Obama's critics. Those behind the move should be ashamed of themselves.
THE TIMING of this "unity pledge" is hardly coincidental. Just last month, a survey conducted by AJC found a growing sense of dissatisfaction among American Jews with Obama and his policies. For the first time since Obama was elected, the number of Jews expressing disapproval of his presidency exceeded those who voiced approval, by a margin of 48 to 45 percent. And when asked for their opinion of his handling of US-Israel relations, 53% said they disapproved while just 40% supported him. While Obama is still likely to win a majority of the Jewish vote, hardly anyone expects him to come close to winning the 78% that he is said to have won in 2008. Among the general electorate Obama is facing an increasingly difficult political environment, even as his Jewish support is declining. Hence the "unity pledge" proffered by the ADL and AJC. The two groups, which generally compete with one another for press coverage, donors and prestige, have suddenly found common cause in trying to help the president. By taking political sides and casting their lot with the Democratic incumbent, the ADL and AJC have revealed themselves to be partisan players rather than truly impartial Jewish organizations. In this light, their pledge only demonstrates just how unrepresentative they truly are of American Jewry as a whole. Instead of defending Jewish rights and interests, they are acting like an extension of the Obama campaign. I believe many American Jews will see right through this ploy and reject it out of hand. A growing number of them recognize that Obama is bad for Israel; it is crucial that they continue to hammer this message home in the run-up to next November. Israel does indeed need broad bipartisan American backing and support. But it cannot come at the expense of the most basic freedom of all: the right to disagree. Michael Freund is the founder and chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which assists Anousim in Spain, Portugal and South America to return to the Jewish people. He served as an adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his first term in office. |
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RABBI YOSEF URGES NETANYAHU TO ACT FOR POLLARD
Posted by Alexander Dymshits, October 26, 2011. |
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Rabbi Yosef urges Netanyahu to push for Pollard's release. The time for self-serving public pronouncements is over. It is time to act. On November 21, 2011 Jonathan Pollard will enter his 27th year of an unlimited life sentence.He is in very poor health. His life is in danger. This was written by Kobi Nahshoni;
it appeared October 24, 2011 in YNetnews
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef late Sunday and discussed with him at length the efforts to secure the release of Jonathan Pollard and Ilan Grapel. Rabbi Yosef urged Netanyahu to persist in his efforts to bring Israeli captives home after the return of Gilad Shalit and to focus on the Israeli agent incarcerated in the US since 1987. Netanyahu replied by saying that he was making the utmost efforts in the matter and updated him on recent developments. According to Netanyahu, progress has also been made with regards to Ilan Grapel who is being held in Egypt. Netanyahu's visit sparked much interest on the haredi street as rumors began to spread, among them a report about progress in efforts to release Pollard, or about the prime minister's intention to ask the rabbi for a blessing to resume negotiations with the Palestinians. In July, Shas Chairman Eli Yishai relayed a letter from Rabbi Yosef to the US ambassador in Israel, urging President Barack Obama to free Pollard. Yishai was attending a reception held at the ambassador's home for the 4th of July. The meeting also included a discussion of political matters and some of it was kept secret. At one point, all aids and security guards were asked to leave the room as only Netanyahu, Yosef and the two senior Shas ministers - Yishai and Ariel Atias - remained. Netanyahu thanked Rabbi Yosef for his support of the Shalit deal and asked him for a blessing for his 62nd birthday which took place several days ago Attila Somfalvi contributed to the report. Contact Alexander Dymshits at alex8well@yahoo.com |
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CHINESE AND ISLAMIC DECEPTION
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 26, 2011. |
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TO: Editor, Wall Street Journal What an interesting contrast in your October 25 issue between Bret Stephens' Opinion piece ("How Many Nukes Does China Have?") and the editorial ("The Arab Spring's First Election.")! Mr. Stephens finds China's claim of having relatively few nuclear weapons not credible, because of China's age-old practice of deceiving the enemy. By contrast, the editorial accepts Islamist claims to be moderate, but Islam also has an age-old doctrine and practice of deceiving the enemy. Although somewhat cautious, the editorial describes Tunisia as democratizing. Its Islamist party gained half the votes, but has to form a coalition government. Don't worry, the editorial reassures us, "Religious parties in Iraq and Turkey have won elections without later short-circuiting democracy." The Tunisian Islamists' popularity may be fleeting, based as it is, we are told, on sympathy over their having been persecuted. The Moslem Brotherhood of Egypt may yet moderate or the other parties may unite against it. Let's be realistic. The Arab Spring is turning out to be an Islamist Spring. Islamists have learned to talk about democracy and being moderate, as cover until they become entrenched. The Moslem Brotherhood and the Egyptian people got more and more outspokenly bigoted and power-seeking after Mubarak's overthrow. They murder more Christians, now. Early in the Islamic revolution in Iran, oh was Khomeini moderate-sounding, when he appealed for women's votes! A coalition government may not keep Tunisian Islamists in check. Coalitions in Europe did not always keep the Communists in check. In Libya most of the commanders the West blindly supported turned out to be Islamists. Pakistan pretends to be an ally, but the US is waking up to Pakistan's support for jihad. It is not waking up to the Palestinian Authority's support for jihad. The Journal perceives the Islamist government of Turkey as not curbing democracy. In fact, that regime is progressing into dictatorship. Gradually it curbs the media, curbs the judiciary, curbs academia, and curbs the military (which might have protected the Constitution). Many Turks have turned to the same kinds of hatred as have many Arabs. Democracy means majority rule with protection of minority rights. Islam cannot be compatible with democracy, because its core principles assume the right to conquer and oppress non-Muslims. Radical Islamists carry that theme further into greater activism, global alliances, racist view of Jews, more genocide rather than oppression, and more terrorism. Islam would have to be reformed before it can be democratic. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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FROM ISRAEL: NATIONAL INTEGRITY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 26, 2011. |
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When I speak of integrity, I am referring to soundness, state of being whole. For Israel as a nation, this applies to a great many situations. We have a regrettable and maddening tendency to turn ourselves into a veritable pretzel — as we seek to disprove a charge against or to satisfy demands leveled at us — rather than remaining true to what we know we are. My reason for raising this now is because the issue of the rebuilding of the Mughrabi Gate bridge has come to the fore once again. 
~~~~~~~~~~ I've written about this in the past, but here is the story once again: The Mughrabi Gate is the only entrance to the Temple Mount utilized by non-Muslims; it is the entryway for Jewish Israelis, tourists who are Christian and Jewish, and Israeli security forces who need to have access to the Mount at times of emergency. The Gate is on the right side and at the top of the Western Wall. Prior to 2004, a sand embankment led to the Gate; but that year a combination of severe weather forces caused it to collapse. Israel quickly constructed a covered wooden bridge — which is what is pictured above — so that there would be access to the Gate. It was intended to be only temporary. ~~~~~~~~~~ Quickly thereafter, plans were put in place by Israel for a permanent bridge of glass and steel of some considerable dimensions. That plan was dropped because of fear by archeologists that damage would be done to the adjacent archeological park, through which it was to run, and because of an inadequate approval process. Subsequent plans have since been established for a permanent bridge to the Gate. Everything is in order: In the summer of 2007 legally mandated archeological rescue operations took place, ensuring that anything of archeological value in the path of the projected bridge be rescued and preserved. This work, which required excavation, was done with complete transparency. Cameras permitted transmission of live pictures of the work being done. And international organizations were invited to come observe the archeological rescue operations. A team from Turkey came, and most notably one from UNESCO, which reported that, "no work is being conducted inside the Haram es-Sharif [Temple Mount], nor is there anything in the nature of the works being performed at this stage that could constitute a threat to the stability of the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa Mosque." Additionally, Jordan was invited to participate fully in the planning. ~~~~~~~~~~ Was this attempt to pacify the situation successful? A rhetorical question. For passionate objections from Muslims are founded not in serious concerns, but rather an opportunity to incite against Israel. Thus, as described by Nadav Shragai, we saw the following: At the time of the rescue operation in 2007, the Islamic radical Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, instigated riots, declaring: "Whoever is playing with fire should know that the fire will consume him. Whoever schemes to destroy the al-Aksa mosque will have his house destroyed." Destroy the al-Aksa mosque? Not for a second does he believe this is what Israel intends. But this is his ploy, utilized frequently in order to inflame Israeli Muslims. Nothing works as well as saying that Israel intends to destroy their most important mosque on the Mount. Khaled Mashaal, head of the Hamas politburo, participated in this inciteful charade, telling a press conference that, "Israel is perpetrating a new attack on al-Aksa mosque." And, let it be noted, the bureau chief for PA president Mahmoud Abbas said: "The Palestinian Authority will provide every assistance to the struggle against the Jewish excavations under the Temple Mount." That is the totally fallacious (and, considering Jewish sensibilities, illogical) claim: that Israel is digging under the Mount with the intention of bringing it down. ~~~~~~~~~~ An aside here, before continuing the story. This statement from the PA provides evidence of the fact that it will never take a moderate stance. Quite simply, the political rhetoric of the Palestinian Arabs is radical. If the PA diverges too far from this, it is lost. ~~~~~~~~~~ Just this year, Jordan, in a total reversal of its earlier position, withdrew from cooperation with Israel on the planning of the bridge. Jordan's Hashemite king is growing increasingly weak on his throne and we've seen, accordingly, his movement towards a more radical stance as a protective measure. He too, at this point, I suspect, cannot diverge from the radical line and survive. But Jordanian withdrawal from the project, Shragai tells us, caused enormous unease in Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ In addition to all of this, the Wakf has charged that the bridge belongs to Muslims and Israel does not have the authority to make plans for its construction. And here, I think, we come to the heart of the matter. Yes, there are attempts to utilize the situation for incitement. But there is more: this is a challenge to Israeli sovereignty. The Wakf, or Islamic Trust, over which Jordan has influence, has day-to-day authority for the administration of the Temple Mount. (Itself a deeply regrettable situation.) But the bridge to be constructed is not on the Mount, it is on sovereign Israeli territory. ~~~~~~~~~~ Everything moves slowly here in Israel — especially when there are legal challenges by left wing groups. But the Western Wall Heritage Fund, which will oversee bridge construction in coordination with the Antiquities Authority, received necessary permits in March of this year; the Ministry of the Interior has signed off on it. Additionally, the Jerusalem District Court has upheld the legality of the plan. And yet, nothing has happened. Seems that the prime minister's office, which has to give final approval because of the political sensitivity of the situation, has not yet done so. Back in late May the municipal engineer declared the bridge unsafe and in need of being torn down. But according to a May JPost article, an official with the prime minister's office, "said one safety concern is avoiding playing into the hands of extremists who would use any change in the site to stir up tension." How devoid of integrity is such a statement! Integrity in terms of our sense of our own sovereignty and our own rights. Does the prime minister's office presume that every time extremists threaten to stir up tension we must refrain from what distresses them? The proper course of action is to go ahead, certain of our right to do so, and take down that unsafe bridge and build the new one. If they riot, send out trained riot troops with non-lethal weapons that can disperse them. To act otherwise is to compromise our sovereignty and our deterrence power. ~~~~~~~~~~ Fighting the fight against the Jerusalem Municipality, which wants to see the construction begun, is Attorney Kais Nasser, who represents the Council for Muslim Interests in Israel. The challenge that was brought, with regard to the right of Muslims — via the Wakf or other groups — to have input on this, is supposed to be heard in the High Court in December. Nasser's stated approach is that the bridge has worked fine until now, so he doesn't see why there's a problem waiting until December. That, however, is not how Municipal Engineer Shlomo Eshkol sees the matter. He says the bridge is dangerous — a catastrophe waiting to happen — and must come down. In the name of the municipality, he has sent a letter to the Western Wall Heritage Fund saying that the city will destroy the bridge if the Fund fails to act within 30 days. The Fund, which is "studying the situation," has made no comment as yet. One matter is certain: The issue is not one of genuine concern on the part of Muslim groups that we're doing something wrong. The issue is one of control, of their uncontested right to have a say. For that very reason — even beyond the real and serious issue of the potential for the bridge to collapse when people are on it — Israel must proceed. But of course, Israel wouldn't be maintaining a bridge that is in danger of collapsing if it were not for fear of political repercussions. How ludicrous it all is. ~~~~~~~~~~ The excellent, detailed study of the situation by Nadav Shragai, done for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, can be found here:
And the most recent JPost article on the situation, here:
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LIES WON'T BRING PEACE - OLIVE HARVEST CAMPAIGN IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Posted by David Ha'ivri, October 26, 2011. |
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Lies won't bring peace Op-ed: Peace won't materialize before Arabs admit Zionism is a blessing for Mideast by David Ha'ivri Published on ynetnews. At one of the sessions of the UN dealing with a motion to condemn Israel, the Israeli ambassador got up to speak. He said, "Before I reply, I would like to tell you a story from the Bible. When Moses was leading the Jewish people in the desert, he came to a stream and decided that it would be a good opportunity to take a bath. So he walked to a site where no one could see him, took off all of his clothes and went into the stream to bathe. When he came out, he couldn't find his clothes. A Palestinian had stolen them." As the ambassador said this, the PLO Representative jumped up and shouted "I object! There were no Palestinians then!" At that, the Israeli ambassador announced, "I rest my case," and stepped down from the podium. The point of this joke is the reality that a major part of the Palestinian propaganda strategy is based on establishing lies as truths by repeating them with a straight face and getting others to repeat them too. Over the past few years the anti-Israel machine has developed an annual libel, claiming that Jews are systemically burning down all the olive groves in Judea and Samaria. Foreign aid, human rights and peace groups are tripping over each other in a competition for who can tell the story best, thereby making the Israelis look the worst. Britain's Oxfam has even published a price tag, claiming that half a million dollars' worth of damage has been caused by Jews vandalizing Arab residents' olive crops. To translate that into actual product, that would mean that some 60,000 liters of olive oil have been lost. There would have to be approximately 15,000 trees in 200 acres of olive groves burnt to cause that amount of damage. News reports and anti-Israel websites that repeatedly report on the alleged arson very rarely post pictures of a fire, and those that do often repost the same few pictures that have been used again and again over the last few years - pictures that do not show a clear scene of a major fire. Some 200 acres of burnt olive groves is not a small issue that could easily be hidden in tiny Israel. I live in Samaria and travel the roads daily. If the olive groves were burning regularly, as reported by Palestinian propagandists, I would have seen some smoke and fire. But in actuality, the only place that I am seeing it is on Twitter and Arab blogs. Publicity stunt Recently I was interviewed by a foreign journalist who has been assigned to a nearby Middle Eastern capital for the past five years. He came to Israel to get a close-up of the olive harvest story and the conflict between the Jewish and Arab residents in the area. In the interview, I explained that the famed "olive harvest conflict" is more media spin than it is reality on the ground. Sure, there are some events on both sides here and there. But the bulk of those being publicized are promoted by non-local provocateurs who are bringing the story to the media as a publicity stunt for the advancement of their agenda - namely, to give the Jewish residents a bad name. This has become the norm for interaction between the radical leftist anti-Israel activists and the representatives of the international media, who are glad for any opportunity to defame the Jews who make their home in Israel's heartland - the hills of Judea and Samaria. After the interview, in a open conversation with the journalist, who has much experience with the Arab population in Middle Eastern countries, I pointed out that if we were to look at the situation with an objective eye, putting aside preconceptions about Israel and the Palestinians and political correctness, the fact is that in general, Arabs under Israeli rule don't have it as bad as Arab citizens of most of our neighboring countries. That is the truth that the Palestinian propagandists do not want the world to know. That explains why the majority of Arab residents of Jerusalem have answered polls saying that they would rather be a part of Israel and not an Arab state. The journalist actually acknowledged my point and went on to tell me how difficult his work as journalist is in Arab countries, where freedom of press and freedom of expression are nearly non-existent. In recent months, international journalists have been beaten, molested and kidnapped in other Middle Eastern countries, but the norm of the media is to criticize Israel for much less and accept and overlook such offenses in Arab countries. Those who pose as "peace" and "rights" activists, who make it their business to libel Israel and the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are not advancing peace as they would prefer to be viewed by the world, but actually, they are the biggest deterrent to peace between the Arabs and Jews in Israel. Peace will not be brought about by denying the great benefit that Jewish development has brought to the region. On the contrary, peace will come about when the Arabs stop lying to themselves and the world and express true appreciation for Zionism, which has brought the Jewish people back to the land and is a true cause for blessing in the entire region. David Ha'ivri, chairman of Revava, is also editor of Darka Shel Torah
and Ideas in Action newsletters, and the publisher of books teaching
Jewish pride and faith in HaShem. He has set a goal to put the Jewish
people back on the footpath of our fathers, and build a proud and
strong nation whose national policy is based on Jewish values. He can
be reached by email at haivri@hameir.org or at his website:
http://www.hameir.org/
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ROBERT FORD'S HEROIC DIPLOMACY
Posted by Seth Frantzman, October 25, 2011. |
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US envoy to Syria's personal investigation of abuses and his shows of support for protestors is a welcome sign. The American decision to withdraw Ambassador Robert Stephen Ford from Syria should raise eyebrows, not only because it represents a fundamental fear for his safety, but also because of what he has come to represent. Through Ford's courageous use of personal diplomacy, travelling to the most dangerous areas of Syria to show support for the protestors, he has carved out a niche for himself in the region, defying stereotypes about what diplomats can and should do. On the face of it the ambassador's position and biography don't necessarily lend themselves to this type of action. A career diplomat, Mr. Ford, born in Denver, Colorado in 1958, is considered one of the foremost Arabists in the State Department. He served in the Peace Corps and obtained a BA and MA from Johns HopkinsUniversity before entering the US foreign service in 1985. Since 1985 he has been posted throughout the Middle East, most notably in Iraq after the American invasion and in Algeria from 2006 to 2008. His posting to Syria in late 2010 was considered important because the US had withdrawn its ambassador to Syria in 2005 after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister. Ford's work in Syria has almost all taken place against the backdrop of the "Arab Spring." During his confirmation hearings with the US Senate, before being posted to Damascus, Ford had promised that "unfiltered straight talk with the Syrian government will be my mission priority." It is interesting that through June of 2011 he was in fact criticized for doing little to show support for the protestors that Bashar Assad's regime was gunning down in the streets. Richard Grenell, writing at the Huffingtonpost.com, asked, "Shouldn't Ford be calling attention to and showing the violence coming from Assad's government?" He also thought the US should withdraw its ambassador to protest the crackdown. In early July, however, Ford made an important and visible statement against the actions of the Syrian regime when he visited Hama with the French ambassador, Eric Chevallier. After his factfinding trip, which brought temporary respite to the besieged protestors in the city, he told media that "the violence that the Syrian government is inflicting on Syrian protesters, from our point of view, is grotesque. It's abhorrent." He also articulated a new type of "muscular" diplomacy: "I don't particularly care [if Syria is angry], because we have to show our solidarity with peaceful protesters. I'd do it again tomorrow if I had to... I'm going keep moving around the country. I can't stop." Since July, Ford has been active in articulating opposition to the Syrian regime's methods and showing support for those who oppose Assad. In September he travelled to meet with Hasan Abdel-Azim, an opposition figure. Pro-Assad protestors surrounded the ambassador's vehicle, pelted him with tomatoes and eggs and temporarily interdicted his motorcade. Stephen Ford is not the first US diplomat to find himself in harm's way. One hundred and eleven US diplomats have been murdered or come to a bad end since 1780. Many died in Pakistan as a result of terrorism and most were not of ambassadorial rank. One of the most famous cases of an American diplomat being murdered while at his post was that of Vice-Consul Robert Imbrie. Imbrie was beaten to death by a mob in Teheran in 1924 after being mistaken for a member of the Bahai faith. Local Islamists had whipped themselves into a rage, convinced that Bahais had poisoned a well . Cleo Noel, US ambassador to the Sudan, was killed by Palestinian members of Black September in 1973. The US ambassador to Beirut, Frances Meloy, was murdered in 1977. Adolph Dubs, the US ambassador to Afghanistan was killed in 1979 when terrorists tried to kidnap him. Ford's departure from Syria is apparently based on credible intelligence that certain elements wanted him to meet a similar end. The kind of blunt, heroic diplomacy that Ford has come to represent is a departure from the long-standing practice of US State Department functionaries, especially those considered Arabists, of toeing the line when it comes to dictators and human rights abuses. Especially in the Middle East, US diplomats have been stricken with what is often termed "clientitis"; staying in a country too long and becoming too attached to it, rather than representing US interests. US ambassadors in Saudi Arabia have been loathe to condemn killings in the Qatif region, in the Gulf states the US representatives do little to speak out on the mass human rights abuses, which amount to slavery, against foreign workers. In Iraq, where it has just been announced that Iran and Turkey are both cooperating to suppress the Kurds, including incursions into Iraq, the US has remained silent. There is obviously a question as to what constitutes going beyond the diplomatic mission's purview, such as meeting with illegal opposition figures. But Mr. Ford's personal investigation of abuses and his shows of support for protestors is a welcome sign, one that the US State Department might consider repeating in the future. Seth Frantzman received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute of Market Studies. |
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RMT SENIOR OFFICIAL DIRECTS TIRADE OF ANTISEMITIC ABUSE AT ISRAEL ADVOCATE
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 25, 2011. |
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This was written by Jonathan Hoffman and appeared today in
the Daily Mail (UK)
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Astonishing scenes at SOAS last night where a small group of Israel advocates managed to dominate a hostile meeting of BDS supporters, called by the RMT Trade Union (the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers - many of the staff on the London Underground are members). The Israel advocates had the PSC and RMT apparatchiks completely flummoxed with questions such as "why was Israel singled out by the RMT?" and "was the RMT's obsession with Israel not just a smokescreen to mask the Union's ineffectiveness at delivering jobs and pay for its members?" PSC Chair Hugh Lanning was left squirming after being brought to task for making that tired old claim that all criticism of Israel is labelled 'antisemitic'. Hugh, you really must change your shtick, along with that hoary old one about taking pride that the Reut Institute calls London the hub of Israel hate. You need to get yourself a decent scriptwriter Hugh - surely the TUC can afford to get you one? Moshe Machover - a tired old Israeli-born Commie whose lawyer son Daniel consistently abused the Universal Jurisdiction law against Israelis, until the Government recently close the loophole he exploited - resorted to obscenities: The wet dream of all major Zionist parties is ethnic cleansing Very astute, Moshe - we can see why you were a Professor. Ilan Pappe is another Professor. Here is what fellow historian Benny Morris thinks of him: At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world's sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two. Pappe last night demonstrated astonishing ignorance about the economy of Judea and Samaria. Growth rates in recent years have averaged 6-9% but Pappe insisted on referring to the 'impoverished people' of the West Bank. Adam Hanieh is a lecturer in development at SOAS. We got from him the tired old dog-whistle words of the haters: "Bantustans" .. "apartheid" ... Does he not know that (for example) Arab women in Israel get the best education in the Middle East? How can someone so biased against Israel hold a responsible academic position at a British University?
Things really heated up however when Steve Hedley (Bob Crow's right-hand man in the RMT; the RMT's London regional organiser, arrested for alleged assault last year) let rip at one of the Israel advocates (me). First he called me "one of the Chosen People" (this phrase used in an abusive manner is a favourite of antisemites: of course the phrase "Chosen People" in the Bible clearly means chosen for responsibilities and not chosen for privilege). Then he referred to "your friends in the media" (the trope that Jews "control the media" is beloved of antisemites - it appears of course in that well known antisemitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"). More - with audio and video - will be available soon on Richard Millett's blog Addendum
"Engage" has a timely piece by Eve Garrard about the 'Chosen People' trope: Things are different now, and this trope has been resurrected for the same old use: to denigrate Jews and stir up dislike, or worse, against them. In fact it's very effective for that purpose: most people (very understandably) dislike anyone who claims to be inherently superior to everyone else; and so to attribute such a claim to Jews is a very economical way of making people dislike and distrust them. By referring to the Chosen People you can, without saying another word, tell your listener that Jews are an arrogant supercilious bunch who despise the rest of the human race, and that you yourself don't much like that kind of thing; and indeed your listener (or reader, as the case may be) probably doesn't much like that kind of thing either, being a decent honest person; and so you and she together can enjoyably agree that there's something pretty obnoxious about Jews, or they wouldn't be claiming to be 'chosen', would they, or insisting that one Jew is worth 1,000 other people, which of course they must believe, since Gilad Shalit was exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, and there's no other possible explanation of that ratio, is there, eh? All that hostile implication from just two well-chosen (so to speak) words, or even in Orr's case one word alone — she writes with casual familiarity about 'the chosen', apparently assuming that her Guardian readers use the term so readily that no misunderstanding can arise from the informal contraction. This is indeed real economy of effort in the business of producing Jew-hatred. Orr herself may not, of course, have intended to stir up dislike of Jews; but the language which she chose to use did all the work that was needed for that unlovely task. What's worrying about this use of the Chosen People trope is not so much its appearance in a little piece by Deborah Orr: a minor journalist making derogatory insinuations about Jews isn't anything so very special. But with Orr as with Mearsheimer it's the silence of the others, of those in the wider context — the colleagues, the editors, the readers at large — that's the really chilling thing. Addendum 2 Here's Richard's account, with audio and video http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/ 2011/10/25/threatened-and-told-im-on... http://thejc.com/blogs/jonathan- hoffman/rmt-senior-official-directs- tirade-antisemitic-abuse-israel-advocate-0 Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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MAGEN YEHUDA - PROTECTING JEWS FROM TERROR ATTACKS
Posted by Shlomo BenZaquen, October 25, 2011. |
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Shalom all, I am reaching out to you as my fellow Jews to help Magen Yehuda protect Jewish communities throughout Israel. If you are not already aware, Magen Yehuda was created as a response to the increased level of terror attacks and infiltrations from our enemies into Israeli towns, and settlement communities. Magen Yehuda provides top level training to civilian First Response Teams (also known as kitot konenut), in full coordination with the IDF - the Israeli Defense Forces. Kitot konenut are groups of civilian community members who are specially trained as the first responders in defense of terrorist attacks until the IDF can arrive. As has been proven many times in the past, in the event of a terrorist attack the first few minutes are crucial in saving lives. Kitot konenut trained by us are provided with the tools they need to effectively respond to terrorist attacks by containing and eliminating the threat as quickly as possible. As we rejoice together upon the recent release of Gilad Shalit, we cannot forget the increased threat to our citizens. The release of hundreds of terrorists who are determined to destroy us is the new reality that we must all now face and so it is incumbent upon us to ensure that our first responders have the tools they need to protect our communities. The immediate goal of Magen Yehuda is to train 20 First Response Teams of communities in Israel who are most vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The cost of training each team is approximately $10,000. We are now reaching out to you once again to help us meet our goals. Any donation you can make will be greatly appreciated and will help save Jewish lives! To donate directly online, click the below link (donation is tax deductible - EIN - 26-3383926): https://www.israelgives.org/makedonation/580428043 To donate by check, please send your tax deductible (tax id#: 13-3673810) donations earmarked for "Magen Yehuda" to: American Friends of Maccabee Institute Foundation
with love of Israel, Shlomo Benzaquen
_____ Israel Office: Mayanei Hayeshua 102 | Kochav Yaakov, Israel 90622
Contact Shlomo Benzaquen by email at shlomo@magenyehuda.net |
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WHO LOST THE WORLD? OBAMA HAS PAVED THE WAY
FOR AN EXPLOSIVE ERA
Posted by Susana K-M, October 25, 2011. |
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"Among other things, Mr. Abdul-Jalil said Shariah would be the "basic source" of all legislation.Translation: Forget about representative democracy: Under Shariah, Allah - not man - makes the laws." This was written by Frank J Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times. To view a video of Mr. Gaffney on "Rise of Sharia Law will Bring War" click here. |
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Conventional wisdom has it that the 2012 presidential election will be all about the dismal economy, unemployment and the soaring deficit. That appears a safe bet because such matters touch the electorate, are much in the news at the moment and have indisputably become worse on Barack Obama's watch. It seems increasingly likely, however, that the American people will have a whole lot more to worry about by next fall. Indeed, the way things are going, by November 2012, we may see the Middle East - and perhaps other parts of the planet - plunged into a cataclysmic war. Consider just a few of the straws in the wind of a gathering storm:
The Republican candidates to succeed Mr. Obama are beginning to find their voices on the national security portfolio. They will be formally debating the president's sorry record in coming weeks. The question the American people will want answered is not only "Who lost the world?" but what they will do to get it back. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
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CREATING THE LEGENDS OF LIES; TURKEY HAS CHOSEN ISLAMIST ISOLATIONISM
Posted by Steven Shamrak, October 25, 2011. |
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Creating the Legends of Lies. by Steven Shamrak Most people of this planet do not care or even know about Israel and Jews. Many of them receive glimpses of information about the Arab-Israel conflict from the accidental reports they hear on radio, TV or newspaper headlines. Unfortunately, under bombardment from the modern media, some of them have adopted the main stream 'understanding' of the issue, but still they do not care about the factual truth behind reports. Even many members of the Jewish tribe, who are still suffering from the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) inflicted on Jewish people during two millennia of living in exile and persecution by Christians and Muslims, have become believers of these opinions, continuously propagated by the world press and Western governments who are oblivious to danger of Islamic expansion. Strangely, the fake opinions about the Arab-Israel conflict have not been refuted by the string of Israel's governments or the Jewish leadership of the Diaspora. The term "legend" would be more appropriate than "opinion" in relation to the world attitude toward the Arab-Israel conflict! Quite often, legends are based on deliberate lies and created through distortion of the details of historical facts which with time people have forgotten and/or do not care about. Most often legends are deliberately created to support a political agenda. In the case of the Arab-Israel conflict it is the destruction of Israel. Enemies of Jews, not just Arabs, through distortion of public memory of factual historic reality, have managed to forge a fake nation and generate doubt about Israel's legitimacy. As the evil Nazi, but at the same time talented propagandist, Joseph Goebbels said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." That is what the enemies of the Jews and of the Jewish state have been doing quite consistently and successfully for many decades. They have done it so skillfully that even some Jewish Zionists started using some of their terminology or began to resign to the artificially created illegal status quo - ugly and unfair to Jewish reality! There are three major lies about the Arab-Israel conflict. Throughout the years they have gone through many metamorphoses and became first legends and later were transformed into a commonly known 'truth': Israel was created due to European guilt because of the Holocaust: The modern Zionist movement emerged at the end of the 19th century with the goal of creating Eretz-Israel, the Land of Israel - a Jewish state on the Jewish ancestral land. In July 1922 the League of Nations entrusted Great Britain with the Palestine Mandate, recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine." The Palestine Mandate was created exclusively for the benefit of the Jewish People, just the same as other mandates were intended for the creation of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries. 1. Palestinians are a nation. Since Jews were dispersed from Judea and Samaria by the Romans 2000 years ago, there were no kingdom or an independent country established in the land of Israel . As the Jews came back and drained the swamps, made the deserts bloom and developed industries - Arabs, Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cherkesians, Turkmenians and Egyptians followed. They came for jobs, for prosperity and were encouraged to migrate by the region's controlling powers, Ottoman and British, in order to prevent the creation of the Jewish state. For a political reason, they began identifying themselves as Palestinian people only in 1964, on the initiative of Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat. 2. Israel is the occupier of Palestinian land. The Palestinian Mandate (Article 5) clearly stipulated that "no Palestine territory (designated for the Jewish state) shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power." This means that the United Kingdom had illegally ceded the Trans-Jordan to the refugees from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula. And the United Nation's partition plan of the remaining parts of Palestine in 1947 was also illegal. In addition, in spite of the fact that the partition plan was devised to sabotage the creation of the Jewish homeland (the creation of two states on six ugly triangles - a completely unworkable political map). The Arabs rejected it! Therefore, they lost any legal standing on the land. They knew it and that is one reason why seven Muslim states declared the war on Israel in 1948! But no one is interested in facts nowadays or ever, especially where Jews are concerned. After 60 years of anti-Israel propaganda, facts are forgotten and distorted, legality is brushed aside and a new reality is forged, the same old ugliness only with a new 'politically correct' phony face. Where is the Jewish leadership with the courage to dispel these ugly legends? Food for Thought by Steven Shamrak Isn't it strange that Kurds who are struggling for freedom of Kurdistan from Turkish occupation are called "terrorists", but thugs of recently forged so-called Palestinians nation, who are occupying Jewish land and have the one purpose only - destruction of Israel, are called "militants"? If Turkey is allowed to pursue PKK fighters in Iraq, surely Israel must feel free to hunt PA terrorists in Sinai, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan etc! Gaza: "The People Want a New Gilad" Hamas' Damascus head Khaled Masha'al, speaking in Cairo, said that the deal was "a great accomplishment that brings great light to our history, and requires us to do the same in the future." Over 250,000 people gathered in Gaza City's central square last Tuesday night, holding Hamas flags and pictures of terrorists. (Terror supporting infestation, so-called Palestinians, must be removed from Jewish land. This is the only way toward peace in Israel and reunification of Eretz-Israel!) Not Bad for a Little "S**ty" Country Among Israel's many achievements the Ministry of Agriculture's Research Institute near Rishon le Tzion produces staggering results in long and better shelf life for fruits and vegetables. That allows products to be shipped by sea instead of air freight, thus reducing export costs. Many of Israel 's agriculturalists also avoid chemicals and achieve larger crops with the aid of the use of colors. In addition, Israel's water shortage prevents cultivating grass for cattle food, yet the 'milk yield' of Israeli cows is the best in the world! Arab Spring or Military Islamic Winter? Coptic Christians were angry over a recent attack on a church in southern. Protesters were attacked by crowds hurling stones and clashed with military units guarding the nearby state television building along the Nile . Many of the 26 people killed - at least 21 of whom were Christians - were crushed by armored military vehicles that sped through crowds of protesters. Other victims had gunshot wounds. The military's decision to take full control of the investigation barred the civilian prosecutor from continuing his own inquiry and drew criticism from activists and rights groups who have grown deeply suspicious of the ruling generals' commitment to the reform path in Egypt's post-Mubarak transition to democracy. Not a Friendly Behavior of the Friend Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, announced the establishment of a new committee charged with finding ways to legalise settlement outposts built on private Palestinian land. The US state department said: "We oppose any effort to legalise settlement outposts, which is unhelpful to our peace efforts and would contradict Israeli commitments and obligations." Later the state department said: "The United States has a clear policy; we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity." (Friends support each other, no matter what! Historically the Palestine is Jewish land. It was legally designated for Jewish state by the League of Nations in July 1922, including Trans-Jordan. The US has immediately rebuffed even exploratory attempts of Israel to find legal ways to reunite Jewish land - not really friendly move!) Disgraceful Egyptian interview with Shalit An Israeli official slammed an Egyptian state TV interview with freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as imposed by force while he was in a fragile state after over five years in captivity. It was an interview forced on a weakened hostage just out of his cell and still in a state of shock. US Concern is Too Little, Too Late US State Department spokesman Mark Toner, while refusing to go into detail over which of the 477 inmates caused the US concern, said some of the prisoners being released posed a threat and that the US had objected to their freedom. (For years the United States has been restraining Israel from decisive military action against Arab terror. The US State Department is plague-ridden with anti-Israel individuals, who would do and say anything to secure flow of Arab oil to US. But now they are concerned?) Turkey has Chosen Islamist Isolationism Turkey rejected on Sunday offers of aid from dozens of countries after earthquakes hit the eastern Van province. Israel was among the countries ready to aid the Turks. The epicenter was located in the village of Tabanli, part of occupied Kurdistan. Initial estimates placed the death toll between 500 and 1,000 people after at least 45 buildings had collapsed. (They do not care about their own people, as long as Islamic agenda is implemented) Quote of the Week: "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe that they are free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Interim Agreement Expired Failure! Do members of UN, 'Useless Nothing', care? No, they have allowed the anti-Israel farcical show to go on. REAFFIRMING their determination to put an end to decades of confrontation and to live in peaceful coexistence, mutual dignity and security (Since the agreement was signed Israel received no peaceful coexistence nor dignity or security) ARTICLE XI 1. The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period. ARTICLE XV 1. Both sides shall take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities directed against each other, against individuals falling under the other's authority and against their property, and shall take legal measures against offenders. ARTICLE XXII 2. Israel and the Council will ensure that their respective educational systems contribute to the peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and to peace in the entire region, and will refrain from the introduction of any motifs that could adversely affect the process of reconciliation. (PA education system is inundated by anti-Israel propaganda!) Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak.e@gmail.com |
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RESERVISTS' GROUP: 'DON'T SWAP TERRORISTS FOR US!'
Posted by Chana Ya'ar, October 24, 2011. |
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An IDF reservists' group called "My Israel" is calling on soldiers to sign a petition not to participate in future terrorist swaps that would free murderers with blood on their hands. The move comes following the release of 477 terrorists, including many fulfilling exactly such criteria, as part of a prisoner exchange deal to free kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, held hostage for more than five years by the Hamas terrorist rulers of Gaza. Shalit was freed last week in the first phase of the two-part exchange, which will eventually free 1,027 Palestinian Authority inmates of Israeli prisoners, including many murderers serving multiple life sentences who immediately vowed upon their release to renew their terrorist careers as soon as possible. The petition, which can be found on the group's website, urges the government not to ever agree to a prisoner swap that frees terrorists with blood on their hands. Signatories on the petition agree not to participate in such a swap if they are ever, G-d forbid, captured or kidnapped in future action. "We demand [the government] not release murderers, also at the price of our own personal lives," clarified the reservists. My Israel chairperson Ayelet Shaked and David Tzviel, who initiated the petition, said the campaign is intended to facilitate the efforts of decision makers who might in future be faced with the need to negotiate for the release of Israeli soldiers in captivity. "When soldiers and reservists say they are ready to bear on their shoulders the burden of [defending the nation], even the terrible suffering [if] captured by the enemy, to save Israel from the terrible danger posed to the country due to the release of terrorists — the State of Israel can't avoid expressing a firm, resolute and clear stance against the terrorist organizations in this matter," said the two. The petition may be signed, and names of other participants may be seen at the organization's website, by clicking here. Chana Ya'ar writes for Arutz-7 (www.IsraelNationalNews.com) where this article appeared today. |
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PRESSURE ON FBI TO LIE ABOUT ISLAM
Posted by Dr. History, October 24, 2011. |
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Thanks to Ideology of Islam for this article. The article is longer than those I usually post, but this one is essential to read and understand. I repeat the word essential. People who do not know what is in this article are part of the problem we have: general ignorance due to the Political Correctness that has become rampant in Leftist circles and the disconnect between the people of the United States and its media, a media that appears to have abrogated its responsibility to inform the public of all the dangers facing it. A media with that agenda is no longer a media; it is a political organization. It was written by Leonard Magruder, who writes that the "following is from two recent news items from 'Danger Room' and 'Mother Jones.'" |
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"Danger Room has obtained material showing how wide an anti-Islam mentality has spread throughout the Bureau.The FBI library at Quantico currently stacks books from authors who claim that "Islam and democracy are totally incompatible." The Bureau's private intranet recently featured presentations that claimed to demonstrate the "inherently violent nature of Islam," according to multiple sources. Earlier this year, the Bureau's Washington Field Office welcomed a speaker who claimed Islamic law prevents Muslims from being truly loyal Americans. And as recently as last week, the online orientation material for the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces included claims that Islam seeks "domination of the world." The FBI declined to respond directly to questions from Danger Room. But what's clear is that the anti-Islam sentiment in the FBI's training and orientation isn't the marginal problem that the Bureau portrayed in its previous public statements and press releases, it's ongoing. And it will require substantial effort to root out. Said one FBI report to its agents, "Sunni Muslims (the vast majority of Muslims) have been prolific in spawning numerous and varied fundamentalist extremist terrorist organizations. Sunni core doctrine and end state have remained the same and they continue to strive for Sunni Islamic domination of the world." That paragraph is contained in orientation material, known as the Joint Terrorism Task Force Orientation v2 course, distributed online through a secure intranet for every member of the JTTFs. That's approximately 4,400 officials, according to FBI figures, all charged with stopping terrorism. The orientation course is mandatory for every member of the task force.. Several Bureau and law enforcement officials who spoke to Danger Room on condition of anonymity believe that the FBI continues to be less than forthright with the press and the public about the extent of its teaching that Islam is at the root of the menace of terrorism. Evidence for this continuing belief can be found in Quantico, Virginia, at the FBI's elite training academy. Within the sprawling campus of that academy, Quantico maintains a library befitting the FBI's status as America's most important law enforcement agency. It stacks thousands of books, from heavy tomes containing the U.S. criminal code to forensics reference material. The library is open to all FBI agents, plus intelligence officials and police from across the country. There's a section on religion — in which Islam, perhaps understandably, predominates. A law enforcement source provided Danger Room with a photographic catalog, compiled in late August, of approximately 150 books on Islam stacked at Quantico. Many of them are innocuous or contain unquestioned scholarship. But, significantly, the library also contains books by anti-Islam authors that portray the religion as devoted to murder and world domination. At the Bureau's training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more "devout" a Muslim, the more likely he is to be "violent." Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed an FBI instructional presentation adds: Also,"Any war against non-believers is justified" under Muslim law; and "a moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah." Echoing the theological assessments of many scholars who agree that terrorism is the "correct" interpretation of Islam, one of the briefings states that "There may not be a 'radical' threat as much as it is simply a normal assertion of the orthodox ideology....The strategic themes animating these Islamic values are not fringe; they are mainstream." In the past few years the FBI has accelerated its monitoring of mosques, community centers, businesses and other organizations run by Muslims. Several observers suspect that the persistence of training materials that casts Islam in a threatening light helps explain the increased surveillance. Needless to say all this is under increasing complaint from Muslim leaders. "We are glad that this very serious issue has finally received the attention of FBI leadership," says Farhana Khera, executive director of the San Francisco-based civil rights group Muslim Advocates, "but an internal review is insufficient at this stage. In the last year, the FBI has either defended its use of bigoted trainers or emphatically assured the public that the various trainings were one-time, isolated incidents. Each time those assurances were later revealed to be false." On January 11, the FBI's Washington, D.C. Field Office held another seminar on Islamic extremism. In the conference room of its Judiciary Square offices, about 60 of the Field Office's agents and intelligence analysts spent the morning hearing two presentations on how Islam is out to take over the world and that there is no such thing as a loyal American Muslim. One of the speakers told the agents that Muslims believe Islamic law to be all-encompassing, presenting an either/or choice to U.S. Muslims: either reject the U.S. Constitution or fall into apostasy. He also explored an obscure Islamic concept known as "abrogation," the supposition that some Koranic verses supersede others, to argue that the Koran's non-violent passages are overtaken in Muslim eyes by commands to wage war against "non-believers." ---------------------------- "Abrogation" is not "obscure". It is a central principle of Islamic hermaneutics, or interpretation of scripture, and this is the key to how there can be both arguments for the claim that Islam is a religion of peace, for the consumption of the non-Muslim world, and the internal knowledge known to all true Muslims that Islam is a religion that calls for violence against "unbelievers". If it is "obscure" that is because the books and experts that discuss this principle are uniformly boycotted in America by mainstream media and academia. We brought up the issue of abrogation in a number of our earlier articles: "Andrew C. McCarthy, the top federal prosecutor who put in prison the jihad organization responsible for the first bombing of the World Trade Center, writes about abrogation in his book, Willful Blindness. McCarthy, already an expert on Islam before the trial, wrote : "The more tolerant verses of the Koran trace to the early Meccan period, such as the injunction that there shall be "no compulsion in religion" (2:256) - the unparalleled favorite of self-styled "moderates" and Western elites who mulishly portray Islam as "the religion of peace" in the teeth of overwhelming counter-evidence. In Medina, things changed drastically. It was from here that Islam was principally spread not by intellectual persuasion but by the sword. The scriptures tending toward ecumenism and tolerance were negated, superseded by divine commands that the prophet "make war on the unbelievers and deal rigorously with them."( Sura 9:73) This is reflected in the Islamic doctrine of abrogation (naskh), the concept that, as He sees fit, Allah refines or repeals his prior instructions. Abrogation is essential to a proper understanding of the Median period, and of the chasm between the Islam of Western fantasy and the one that actually exists. In Islamic thought there is no deed on earth that equals jihad in God's favor, even though today's pundits are determined to portray jihadists as heretics who have perverted the "true" faith, relieving us of any need to concern ourselves over Islam, the 800-pound gorilla that is somehow always in the middle of the room when terror strikes." Writes William Wagner in his recent and highly praised book How Islam Plans to Change the World, "In looking at the difference between the Meccan and the Median Koran we can see that different parts of the Koran are used in different areas of the world. In the West, the Meccan Koran, which teaches tolerance and acceptance, is used. In the Islamic world, the Median Koran has a strong presence. Both are Koranic, but two different messages are sent out. Both are true to the Koran, but it is essential to understand the very important Islamic doctrine of abrogation. Abrogation states that a later revelation from Allah abrogates an earlier one. In looking at the two parts of the Koran we are told that the earlier verses are inferior to the later verses. When it comes to a final interpretation, those verses advocating violence are more important because they abrogate the earlier, moderate statements. According to this Islamic doctrine, when Allah replaces a verse, the later version is a better and improved one." From "Religion of Peace ?- Islam's War Against the World" by Gregory Davis. "The principle of abrogation directs that verses revealed later in Muhammad's career "abrogate' - cancel and replace - earlier ones whose instruction they contradict. Thus, passages revealed later in Muhamad's career in Medina overrule passages revealed earlier in Mecca. The Koran itself lays out the principle of abrogation. ------------------------- As examples, all of the following verses are found in the second half, or Median period of the Koran, as a result of the principle of abrogation. And these are the verses taken most seriously by Muslims, basic to jihad, their plan to dominate the world.Taking these seriously is also what is behind the so-called "home-grown terrorist" phenomenon. Collected in "Leaving Islam", by Ibn Warraq, page 405: 9.5 Slay the idolaters wherever you find them...lie in ambush everywhere for them. Plans are in progress by a number of organizations to educate the non-Muslim world on the true nature of Islam, inasmuch as media and university continue to whitewash the religion: Jihad Watch: U.S. Newswire April 1, 2011: Leaders of anti-terrorist organizations announced today their plans for an "International Read the Koran Day." Representatives of Stop Islamization of America, the United Kingdom Independence Party, the Dutch Party for Freedom, and other groups have posted on their websites plans for "International Read the Koran Day," noting their intention to gather in groups at local schools, church basements, and civic venues, and read aloud the hateful verses in the Muslim holy book. In the U.S., the national organization, "ACT ! for America," with multiple chapters in every state, is preparing a similar project: "We have co-branded the day: The Doctrine of Abrogation: Open the Koran Day. Oct. 29-30. Our goal is to educate the general public about an important doctrine called "abrogation." It is central to the jurisprudential study of the Koran by Islamic scholars and is the doctrine believed and taught by Major Nidal Hasan, the infamous Fort Hood shooter. In a presentation that has now been published in its entirety, Major Hasan walked a room full of commissioned military officers through the doctrine of abrogation and how it led him to believe that the peaceful verses of the Koran no longer apply, only the violent ones." -------------------- A new mission for our organization, (V.V.A.R.) began shortly after 9/11 with the desire to understand what was the true "root cause" of terrorism. By the time we issued the first of some 40 articles posted at WMDterror.com, on July 31, 2003, four things were very clear from our research: 1) The root cause of terrorism is to be found in Islam, the religion, not in poverty or American foreign policy.. In studying Islam you learn that there are two groups of books on the subject. One group contains both the Western and Muslims apologists, who invariably ignore "abrogation" and the verses of violence or try to "contextualize" them, the latter practice unaccepable to almost all Muslim scholars, who also hold to the literal interpretation of the Koran. The other set of books, written mostly by converts from Islam, or present or former FBI or CIA analysts, or counterterrorism experts, all discuss abrogation and the verses that incite violence and are the books you learn to rely on to be objective. Here are most of the authors whose names appear repeatedly in the rosters of symposiums and conferences on terrorism, events always boycotted by media and on campus. These are the authors who cover abrogation and the Median verses in their books and lectures, documenting that Islam is violent by nature. Because of this they are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the mainstream media or on campus, nor do their books appear as recommended reading or in the campus bookstore. Occasionally one or more have been interviewed on the Fox network. Walid Phares
Recently we ran into the same observation about this suppression of material in the writings of Diana West, one of the most perceptive analysts we have on the subject of Islam. In chapters 7, 8, and 9 of her book, "The Death of the Grown-Up", she has written the best expose' of Islam as the enemy that we have seen. And she sees the same cover-up of information on this that we do: "Both the topic of Islam ...and the topic of Islamization - are verboten. Islam as a whole, as a historical continuum, as the theology of what we know as terrorism, as a rationale for dhimmi repression, is off the charts; out of bounds, really, and way beyond acceptable discourse. The issues central to Islam's incompatibility with modernity are ignored according to an unspoken consensus, and thus, never appear on the public agenda. What is left is a black hole. But - there does exist a formidable body of contemporary scholarship that bravely explicates the history of jihad and its modern- day applications. But such scholarship has been largely relegated to the sidelines, scholarship all but ignored by elites for purposes of public discussion and debate. Ex-Muslim intellectuals such as Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Brigette Gabriel, are held at arm's length.... out in the cold, their copious knowledge of the dire perils of jihad unheeded, unexplored, undebated. These elites seek to defend the West by repelling or defeating "Islamic extremists", but not the ideology contained within mainstream Islam that seeks to establish world dominance ruled by sharia. This is dreampolitic. This has helped enforce a terrible silence on the urgent questions of our times. Thus, we pretend Islam isn't a threat to Western liberty; it's those awful "extremists", Jihad isn't a historic and theological tradition in Islam; it's those awful "extremists." Shari'a isn't a threat to freedom of expression and sexual equality; it's those awful "extremists". Rather than confront the hard truths of our times, we tell ourselves soothing tales, rather than act on the logic of reality, we deny its implications. We call our self-censorship the silence of respect; in reality it is the silence of fear. We call it the silence of tolerance, actually it is the silence of cultural submission. -------------------- Whenever any of these experts are allowed to be heard, opinions change. Here is what happened the only time one of them was allowed to speak on campus, at New York University: Here is what happens when a university finally does allow one of the boycotted experts on Islam, like Steve Emerson or Robert Spencer, in this case Ayaan Hersi Ali, to be heard. Prior to the debate, "Religion of Peace ? " the audience of 800 at NYU was polled as to what they thought about the issue, and results showed 41 percent were for 'peaceful', 25 percent were for 'violent' 34 percent were 'undecided'. After the debate, poll results revealed a dramatic change from the results at the beginning of the night — 36 percent were now for 'peaceful', 55 percent were for 'violent' and 9 percent were undecided. Let's look at this reversal carefully: Before the debate: 25% violent, 34 % undecided After the debate: 55% violent, 9% percent undecided. --------------------- The following items, which came out even before this FBI story, show even then the growing conflict over the nature of Islam in the Obama government. Walid Shoebat, former PLO terrorist now supporting Israel, sent us a link to an interview by investigative journalist Bill Whittle of PJTV. Here, paraphrased, is what Shoebat said in material accompanying the video: "This interview, with counter-terrorist experts in the CIA and the FBI, confirm that our government is fully aware that Islam is not a "peaceful" religion", but deliberately suppresses reports showing this that they themselves ordered done. One analyst at the Defense Department was told to do research for the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a view to vindicating the "moderate view" of Islam But after much research he discovered that the theology of Islam supports the terrorist view. When the report was filed it was thrown back in the face of the analyst by the very people who commissioned the study, the Joint Chiefs of Staff." "The State Department and Department of Homeland Security recently issued guidelines for U.S. government officials that said American Muslim groups had recommended not using "jihad" or "Islamic extremism" in labeling Muslim extremist violence in order not to offend Muslims. A U.S. Central Command Red Team of experts, however, stated in another report that honest reports require labeling the terrorists as Islamic and jihadist since the roots of the violence lie in Islamic law. "The fact is, our enemies cite the source of Islam as the foundation for their global jihad." "If the American people don't rise up quickly we are all sunk," says Shoebat. "The safety of every person in the US is at risk. Each one of us needs to act in some way to defend the freedom of the West because our leaders, under the new Obama administration, are handcuffing the people who could save and protect us but they are being misled and mismanaged in what can only be described as criminal negligence on a scale never seen before in the history of the U.S.." Failure to correctly identify the roots of terrorism is the direct road to catastrophe.This kind of ignorance stops a president from doing what must be done, and immediately. Warn the world that there is something wrong, something sub-moral and a threat to humanity about the religion Islam.That it poses a threat to the entire non-Muslim world, and therefore he is issuing a warning to the Muslim world that an attack on America will be met with catastrophic retaliation against, at minimum, all Muslim nations known to be harboring, or supporting, terrorists in any way. The following is from one of a number of articles we sent out before the Obama election trying to raise this issue of Islam and violence: In our article of Aug.12, 2008 we wrote: "Obama as president would plunge America into an existential crisis as liberal delusions about Islam take hold. On Sunday CNN aired an interview Barack Obama recently gave Fareed Zakaria, in which the candidate expressed the opinion that Islamic jihad is a result of U.S. foreign policy failure. "Around the world," said Obama, "there is not the sense that Islam is inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life...you can see some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis, where about a third of Indonesia's GDP was wiped out, and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces. There has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth." None of this makes much sense. According to Obama, the "shift in Islam," referring to the rise of jihad, has nothing to do with imperatives within Islam itself. Economics is the reason. This is classic leftist or Marxist analysis. Typical "blame it on the West" multiculturalist cant of university and media, with no comment on the possible role of Islam itself. Mitt Romney, who is very knowledgeable about terrorism, in an interview with Newsmax, said Obama's approach to the war on terror shows "frightening naivete". "Barack is one of the few who has still refused to speak out against radical violent Islam and jihadism. Now is the time to stop this enemy, because the consequences of ignoring them until they have massive casualty capability are almost unthinkable." Instead of a national dialogue what we get is silence. Only Mayor Giuliani recognized the issue when he said at the end of the Republican debate: "Not once did the Democrats mention Islamic terrorism." Nor did any of the media or university people who questioned the candidates. Here are the obvious questions that we demand be asked of the presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans, in the next debates. (And now in the 2011 debates): How would you respond to a nuclear attack on the U.S.? Many people want America to meet Islamic threats with a threat of catastrophic retaliation. Would you consider this? There are many who argue that Islam is the root cause of international terrorism. Do you agree ? The issue of national security must be adressed as at least as important as the economy. Without a country you don't have to worry about the economy. Usually the American electorate accepts the outcome of a presidential race and moves on. But this time, if Obama wins, as Americans increasingly see the truth about Islam, and see that Obama's "naivete' "(Romney) is placing their lives at risk, there will be various and growing forms of protest, as seen, for example, when Clarion Fund paid huge sums of money to distribute 25 million copies of "Obsession" through the Sunday supplements of 75 major newspapers. Tensions over this will grow rapidly, especially as demoralization grows in the armed forces, and media and academic attempts to shore up the delusion grow more hysterical. That is what the growing threat of a nuclear attack, on a nation paralyzed by the delusions of its own government, will do. As Obama forces his administration to hide the full truth about the enemy, the nation will move closer to that moment William Bennett once warned about, "accommodation, appeasement, and surrender." While it is true that Obama has recently taken bold action against al-Qaeda, his overall vision of the threat is limited. In their new book,"An End to Evil", analysts David R. Frum and Richard Perle point out how limited our current idea of the enemy really is: "The terrorists kill and will accept death for a cause with which no accommodation is possible. That cause is militant Islam. Moreover, these beliefs are not really confined to a radical fringe, but infect even ordinary Muslims. Even though it is comforting to deny it, all the available evidence indicates that militant Islam commands wide support, and even wider sympathy, among Muslims worldwide, including Muslim minorities in the West. The result is an unlimited threat to dominate the world through Jihad." The noted Israeli strategist Shmuel Bar says the same, "Insofar as religious establishments in most of the Arabian peninsula, in Iran, and in much of Egypt and North Africa are concerned, the radical ideology does not represent a marginal and extremist perversion of Islam but rather a genuine and increasingly mainstream interpretation. Even after 9-11, the sermons broadcast from Mecca cannot be easily distinguished from those of al- Qaeda." Said Tony Blankley, editor of "The Washington Times," "Most of the world today is not only in denial concerning the truly appalling likely consequences of the rise of radical Islam, it often refuses to even accept unambiguous evidence of its existence.The nation cannot design a rational response to the danger if the nature and extent of the danger is not identified, widely reported and comprehended. The public has the right and the vital need to have these events of our time fully and fairly described and reported." It is no accident that Kansas University Professor of Anthropology Felix Moos said recently on the front page of our local paper, "I find at KU that people are oblivious to the fact that we are at war." The ratio of Democrats to Republicans on faculties across the nation is roughtly 12 to 1 and it is largely they that are keeping communities totally in the dark about the danger from Islam. --------------------- Some proposals as to preventive measures have been made: Wrote Joseph Farrah of "WorldNetDaily" in Jan. 2005: "What would be the U.S. response to a nuclear attack? Now is the time to think about the unthinkable. Contingency plans need to be made. And those plans need to be known to the whole world to serve as a deterrent against such an attack. We cannot afford to put off this discussion until it happens. It will be too late. Wrote the noted Stanford scholar Victor David Hanson: " We should be clear about a proper response now and inform the appropriate parties exactly of the real damage they should expect...inform hostile countries of a big list of their assets - military bases, power plants, communications, and assorted infrastructure - that will be taken out in the aftermath of another attack.. Honesty and resoluteness now might just save lives later on, as the Middle East realizes that it has a collective stake in preventing such a calamity." Right now the enemy feels free to strike, believing we won't strike back because we can't figure out where the attack came from. Once everyone understands that there will be instantaneous catastrophic retaliation, targets unspecified, sovereignty irrelevant, even the destruction of Mecca a possibility, this will stop.We need a mechanism similar to the policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) of the Cold War era that will cause an enemy to pause if contemplating an attack on the United States. ------------------------- What has happened is that the FBI, seeking to put together a comprehensive library of books on Islam managed to include a signficant number of those authors who discuss the Median verses,the true root cause of terrorism. This is the first time these authors, who Diana West agrees have been ignored, have ever been mentioned either by the mainstream media or on campus or any institution, including the church. But now that the FBI realizes that the vast majority of Muslims go by the abrogated interpretation of the Koran, and that this is the true root cause of terrorism, the FBI is morally obligated to make this increasingly known to the public and expecially impressed upon those in the Obama adminstration, whose ignorance on this matter has long been the subject of our articles on terrorism. If the FBI is charged with stopping terrorism, then obviously they are going to have to take the Median more violent verses more seriously than the earler more peaceful Meccan verses. and it is clear that their thinking is moving rapidly in that direction. The world can no longer live with a religion whose mission is to murder those who won't convert to Islam, and now has access to the weapons of mass destruction that can make that possible. Contact Dr. History at drhistory@cox.net |
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"THE FACE OF DEMOTARIANISM" RABBI KAHANE ATTACKED BY SHIN BET
Posted by Barbara Ginsberg, October 24, 2011. |
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This below was written by Rabbi Meir Kahane and it appeared July 21, 1989. |
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Beyond Words
In the summer of 1976 I was invited to the police station in Tel Aviv. Since the invitation was delivered by three plainclothed men who arrived to take me there, it seemed prudent to comply. Arriving at the station, located on Dizengoff Street, I was ushered into a third-floor room, whose door was totally devoid of any identifying sign. A rather balding man sat at a desk and introduced himself as "Brenner." It was glaringly clear that this was the local office of the Shin Bet, the General Security Services, whose legendary James Bond deeds never include their exploits against Jews. "Benner" proceeded without delay to inform me that he was unhappy over my activities and told me directly: "We do not warn more than once and this is the second time that I am telling you to stop it." (A message to that effect had been delivered to me by the Shin Bet some months earlier, through my brother.) I considered it prudent not to point out the essential contradiction in what he had said but, instead, asked" "Stop what? Exactly what would you like me to stop? Breathing?" "Brenner" was not amused. Indeed, Brenners are never amused, lacking that sense of humor which is the major demarcation line between normal people and the totalitarian mind. I am not here to argue with you, he said. "If you do not stop, you will regret it." That ended the interview and, needless to say, I did not "stop it," whatever "it" was, and continued with my ideological struggle. And so, it happened that on the night after the Fast of the 17th of Tammuz, 1976, I found myself walking slowly and leisurely on Rechov Chana (Chana Street), a small, poorly lit street in the Shikun Chabad area of Jerusalem, located between Sanhedria and Ezrat Torah neighborhoods. I was returning from giving a class to a group of Jewish Defense League leaders who had arrived in the country for an eight-week leadership training course. It was close to 11 P.M. and the street was empty of passersby as I walked home. And then I heard it. The merest sounds behind me, but hearing it undoubtedly saved my life. I began to turn to see what had made the noise and, there, just beginning its descent, was a sack. A burlap sack being brought down over my heard. Instinctively, I threw myself down on the ground, in the gutter, and began shouting loudly: Mechablim! Mechablim! (Terrorists! Terrorists!). The assailants (there were two as I saw later) were professional and methodical. Foiled in their efforts to get me in the burlap sack, they attempted to hit me with what were apparently blackjacks — heavy metallic weapons. I began to roll and continued to roll over and over, the whole time shouting, and they had great difficulty aiming at me, though they were eventually able to fracture a hand and cause a deep gash in my head. Had Divine Providence not caused me to hear that slight sound and see the sack, I would have been caught in it and surely killed. By this time, people began to come out of their houses in response to the noises, and an automobile suddenly rounded the corner, coming toward us. The attackers fled, and I could clearly see that there were two of them. They had not made a sound during the entire assault, a thing that clearly ruled out robbers or muggers. They were "Brenner's" men, the Shin Bet carrying out its threat, the Shin Bet of the Jewish state against a Jew. In the years that followed, many were the stories I heard about the methods used by the Israeli General Security Services. Jews accused of being "right-wing extremists," and who were alleged to have attacked or planned to attack Arabs, were held in tiny cells where they could not lie down and without blankets against the bitter cold. They were awakened again and again, and interrogated again and again, sometimes with plastic bags placed over their faces. Charges, patently false, were fabricated, and witnesses simply lied. Promises were made that were broken and, in general, the worst of James Bond Western culture was used.
Two points: I have not the slightest objection to any method used against enemies of the Jewish people who wish to destroy us. I find it intolerably obscene, however, that such methods to be used against Jews who are not the enemies of the state of Israel. Nothing could more graphically underline the gentilization of the Jewish state than to see who the Shin Bet people are and how their callousness to fellow Jews emerges from their total lack of Jewishness of soul. Secondly, I say all this because there is no mitzvah to be silent when Jews suffer at the hands of other Jews. There is no Ahavat Yisrael. Love of Jews, in silence concerning evil done by Jews to their fellow Jews. Indeed, true love of Jews demands that our voice cry out loudly against the injustice being done to Jews inside Israel. I am particularly incensed at the outrageous, totalitarian treatment meted out to two young Kach Yeshiva students arrested on the Temple Mount. The Mount — victim itself of a massive Hillul Hashem by the gentilized leaders of a gentilized state — finds Jews barred from praying there or exercising their G-d give right of freedom of religion on their holiest site on this earth. The two Kach young men, David Axelrod and Ben-Zion Gapstein, were attacked by the gang of Moslems that is hired by the infamous Wakf, the Moslem Religious Council, headed by the Mufti (and no greater band of Jew-haters can be found on this earth). The two Kach people fought back, injuring several Moslems, when the Israeli police attacked them, too. Most of the police in the Old City of Jerusalem are Arabs, another desecration of G-d's Name, another disgrace and outrage. The police attacked the young men with clubs, and the Jews fought back. They were arrested, charged with attacking police "under serious circumstances" (sic) and have been held since May 27th (I write this on July 6th) without bail. In what civilized Western state is no bail allowed for two young men with no criminal record and on such a relatively minor charge? The purpose of bail is not to punish the accused (the accused is innocent until proven guilty) but merely to insure his appearance at trial. In Israel, the refusal to allow bail (and how often did that happen to me!) has a specific purpose. Punishment. David and Ben-Zion will sit until October at least (since the summer recess begins soon, followed by the High Holidays). They may be found innocent, but will have lost more than four months of their lives. This is a common thing in the country. As is the outrageous court habit of deciding to keep a suspect in jail because he refuses to "cooperate" with the police, meaning that he exercises his right to remain silent! As is the outrageous habit of police (used against me several times) under which, at the arraignment, the police officer tells the judge that the evidence is "secret" and cannot be shown to the prisoner or his attorney, for "security reasons." Not only do the defendant and his attorney have not the slightest clue as to what the police are talking about and what evidence there is against the suspect, but time after time, the "secret" evidence consists of a note from a police officer to a colleague stating, "we have good reason to believe that 'x' is guilty of a serious attempt to . . . " Of course, this is nonsense, but the judge, especially when the officer in charge is from the Shin Bet or the Department of Special Services, is both unsure and impressed by the apparent seriousness of the note. The practice of not informing a suspect of his "crime," of course, reaches its zenith in the concept of "administrative arrest" under which a defendant is sent to prison for six months without benefit of a trial or even knowing what the charge is. After the six months are over, the Minister of Defense can sign yet another order for yet another six months, ad infinitum. Or the practice of police asking that no bail be granted because "we have not yet finished investigating the case." The truth is that nowhere in a Western civilized country is this argument used, and in the cases in which it was used against me, it proved to be a total fraud. They never bothered to ask me anything about the case until the last day or so of the remand, at which point they came back to the judge to say that they still had not finished. The entire world understands the opposed concepts of democracy and totalitarianism. In most cases, the two are easily distinguishable and we have little difficulty in pointing out to which of the two systems a particular country belongs. But Israel has succeeded in creating a system of Demotarianism, totalitarian regime clocked in much of the trappings of democracy, but to those who run afoul of its inner system — and especially if they are particular thorns in the side of the government — the totalitarian nature is clear. The success of the government in creating this Demotarianism is due to the basic fact that Jews wish to believe only the best about the country. They do not want to believe things about it that puncture the illusions Jews so badly need. But David Axelrod and Ben-Zion Gapstein are clear and cruel exhibits in the indictment of Israel as a Demotarian state. As a poor Alan Goodman, who shot two Moslems on the Temple Mount. Anyone who knows Goodman knows that he is simply not sane. He is simply not in possession of his faculties. When a gentile, an Australian, burned down Al Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount in 1967, the Israelis hastened to declare him crazy and to expel him from the county. But because Goodman, clearly mad, is a Jew, the Israelis had to make of him an example to the world of Israeli "justice." He sits today, as he has for years, alone in a cell in Ramle Prison, slowly going crazier. Israel. Neither the Jewish state we dreamed of nor even a democracy. I sit here, a citizen, and look at it, seeing the face of Demotarianism. [The police never investigated the attack against Rabbi Kahane and not a single one of the news media carried a word of the attack BG] Contact Barbara Sommer at lsommer_1_98@yahoo.com |
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OBAMA ADMINISTRATION BANS THE TRUTH ABOUT ISLAM AND JIHAD
Posted by Dr. History, October 24, 2011. |
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This article was written by Robert Spencer and appeared today in
FrontPage Magazine. |
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It has been a long time coming, but the Obama Administration has now officially banned the truth. Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole declared Wednesday at a conference in Washington that he had "recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security." This "reevaluation" will remove all references to Islam in connection with any examination of Islamic jihad terror activity. The Obama Administration has now placed off-limits any investigation of the beliefs, motives and goals of jihad terrorists. Dwight C. Holton, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, emphasized that training materials for the FBI would be purged of everything politically incorrect: "I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated." Holton said that he had spoken with Attorney General Eric Holder about FBI training materials that Holton claimed were "egregiously false," and that Holder "is firmly committed to making sure that this is over....we're going to fix it." Holton said that this "fix" was particularly urgent because the rejected training materials "pose a significant threat to national security, because they play into the false narrative propagated by terrorists that the United States is at war with Islam." Cole suggested that these training materials had done damage domestically as well: "One of the many, tragic legacies of 9/11 has been an increase in prejudice, discrimination and hatred directed against persons of the Muslim and Sikh faiths and those who are, or who are mistakenly perceived to be, of Arab or South Asian descent. Some have wrongly sought to blame the horror of 9/11 on Arab-American, Muslim American, Sikh-American and South Asian American communities. It has led to attacks against places of worship and other hate crimes, to job discrimination, and to the tragic harassment of children in our schools." After sketching out this horror tale, Cole declared: "We must never allow our sorrow and anger at the senseless attack of 9/11 to blind us to the great gift of our diversity." And this, he said, must involve a rejection of the stereotyping of Muslims: "All of us must reject any suggestion that every Muslim is a terrorist or that every terrorist is a Muslim. As we have seen time and again — from the Oklahoma City bombing to the recent attacks in Oslo, Norway — no religion or ethnicity has a monopoly on terror." It was George Bush, he said, who after 9/11 "made clear to the nation that these terrorist acts were committed by individuals who distort the peaceful religion of Islam," and now all government analysis of jihad terror would reflect that perspective. . [NOTE: Nobody says that all Moslems are terrorists. However, almost all terrorists are Moslems. And, hundreds of millions of Moslems who are not terrorists, nevertheless, support the terrorists politically, morally and financially.] Of course, the controversial training materials did not really claim that all Muslims are terrorists or that all terrorists are Muslims, and it is noteworthy that Cole had to resort to dismissive caricatures to make his point. For in taking this course, the Obama Administration is bowing to pressure from the Hamas-linked Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic advocacy groups. In a Los Angeles Times op-ed that appeared on the same day as the conference in Washington, Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) roundly criticized existing training materials about jihad terror and demanded that the FBI and the Justice Department "issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the Muslim American community; establish a thorough and transparent vetting process in selecting its trainers and materials; invite experts who have no animosity toward any religion to conduct training about any religious community to law enforcement." Al-Marayati complained that training materials reflected "bigoted and inflammatory views on Muslims, including claims that 'devout' Muslims are more prone toward violence, that Islam aims to 'transform a country's culture into 7th century Arabian ways,' that Islamic charitable giving is a 'funding mechanism for combat' and that the prophet Muhammad was a 'violent cult leader.'" "[NOTE: Marayati was complaining about telling the truth. These are all part of the Koran and Sharia Law.] In this al-Marayati was simply repeating talking points from an "expose" of FBI training materials by hard-Left journalist Spencer Ackerman in Wired, who has been conducting a campaign for some time to get the bureau to purge its terrorism training seminars of any hint of the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. Yet like virtually all Leftist and Islamic supremacist critics of anti-jihad and anti-terror material, Ackerman and al-Marayati take for granted that such assertions are false, without bothering to explain how or why. Apparently they believe that their falsity is so self-evident as to require no demonstration; unfortunately, however, there is considerable evidence that they are true, and that in banning such materials, the Obama Administration has essentially banned the truth. Are "'devout' Muslims are more prone toward violence"? While certainly not all devout Muslims are terrorists, virtually all Islamic terrorists are devout Muslims. In recent years, not only Osama bin Laden but also devout Muslims such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would-be Times Square bomber Feisal Shahzad, Arkansas jihad murderer Abdulhakim Muhammad, and other jihad terror plotters such as Khalid Aldawsari, Baitullah Mehsud, and Roshonara Choudhry, among many others, reference Islamic teachings to justify violence against unbelievers. Just recently, Detroit underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab declared in court that Muslims should only be judged by the Qur'an. Is the "Islamic charitable giving" a "'funding mechanism for combat'"? If not, one wonders why so many Islamic charities in the United States and around the world have been shut down for funding terrorism, including what was once the largest Islamic charity in the United States, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), as well as the Global Relief Foundation (GRF), the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), and many others. Was Muhammad a "violent cult leader"? Certainly one definition of a cult is that members are not free to opt out if they choose to do so — and it was Muhammad who enunciated Islam's notorious death penalty for apostasy by saying, "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him." (Bukhari 9.84.57). Also, there are several celebrated incidents in which Muhammad lashed out violently against his opponents, ordering the murder of several people for the crime of making fun of him — including the poet Abu Afak, who was over one hundred years old, and the poetess Asma bint Marwan. Abu Afak was killed in his sleep, in response to Muhammad's question, "Who will avenge me on this scoundrel?" Similarly, Muhammad on another occasion cried out, "Will no one rid me of this daughter of Marwan?" One of his followers, Umayr ibn Adi, went to her house that night, where he found her sleeping next to her children. The youngest, a nursing babe, was in her arms. But that didn't stop Umayr from murdering her and the baby as well. Muhammad commended him: "You have done a great service to Allah and His Messenger, Umayr!" (Ibn Ishaq, 674-676). Al-Marayati's demand that the FBI and Justice Department "invite experts who have no animosity toward any religion to conduct training about any religious community to law enforcement" is at the heart of this entire affair, and illustrates the assumptions upon which the Obama Administration is now proceeding. For years Islamic advocacy groups like MPAC and Hamas-linked CAIR have asserted loudly and often that telling the truth about Islam's doctrines of jihad warfare and supremacism constituted "hatred," and endangered innocent Muslims. Hamas-linked CAIR has trumpeted and even fabricated hate crimes against Muslims in order to exaggerate this perception of Muslim victimhood. The entire premise of all this, however, is false. The now-banned FBI training materials were not written out of hatred for Muslims. They were put together in order to give agents an accurate picture of the beliefs and perspectives of jihad terrorists. It is unfortunate but true that the Qur'an and Sunnah do contain doctrines of warfare and exhortations to make war against and subjugate infidels (cf. Qur'an 2:191; 4:89; 9:5; 9:29; 47:4, etc.), and it is not an act of "hatred" to point this out, or even to scrutinize the Muslim community in the U.S. in order to try to determine its view of these texts and teachings. The only people who are genuinely threatened by such scrutiny are those who wish jihad terrorism to be able to proceed unhindered. And there's the rub: in banning the truth about Islam and jihad, the Obama Administration has opened the door for increased jihad terror activity in the United States. Agents who do not understand the threat they face and are constantly surprised by the places where that threat is coming from will be powerless to stop this jihad activity. And the nation will reap the whirlwind. Contact Dr. History at drhistory@cox.net |
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SIMPLE ANALOGY
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, October 24, 2011. |
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You cannot make the weak strong by making the strong weak!" An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A." After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.
This profound short little paragraph says it all "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for,that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il |
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ISLAMISTS EXPLOIT OWN PARANOIA ABOUT "ISLAMOPHOBIA"
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 24, 2011. |
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A verdict about a terrorism case was rendered in Australia last June, but kept secret until now. Four police were dispatched to arrest a man for terrorism. As the court record shows, the suspect "had with him ... two loaded guns in connection with the preparation for a terrorist act." He also was "found to possess jihadist propaganda, weapons, acids, and instructions for explosives. He pleaded guilty to terrorism counts in 2008 and is serving at least 14 years. When police approached the suspect in 2005, he shot one of the officers. He later claimed that he had intended to fire a warning shot and flee. He claimed to have been sick and was worried about surveillance and police questioning. Judge Leonie Flannery accepted those arguments and attempted to rationalize his panic over the prospect of arrest and that police, influenced by "the climate of anti-Muslim feeling in the community at the time, might harm him. Oh the poor terrorist was worried about the general opinion of the public he was trying to murder! Islamists usually claim that bias motivates investigations and prosecutions. Now "Islamophobia" got a Muslim's violence excused. He was not punished for shooting a police officer. Would a Jew in France be allowed to shoot a gendarme out of fear over the climate of Islamic antisemitism? Would a Hindu in a Muslim city in India be allowed to shoot an approaching policeman because of fear over the climate of Islamic anti-Hinduism? No, Jews and Hindus "are treated like adults; Muslims frequently are viewed as children lacking self-control." But it is the notion of Islamophobia that is out of control (David J. Rusin, 10/7/11, http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2011/10/ islamophobia-defense-succeeds-for-shooter ). The analogy to Jews and Hindus has a major flaw. Among Muslims, hatred of Jews and Hindus is common and cultivated. Among non-Muslims, hatred of Muslims is uncommon and castigated. Muslims assert a climate of Islamophobia in the U.S. that does not exist. Americans oppose terrorism but not Islam. Westerners would be wise to disregard jihadists' excuse for their violence. They have taken to a brutal war against us, no excuses worthy. Likewise, Islamists have committed many acts of jihad against the U.S. and in the U.S.. I saw the smoke where the Twin Towers once stood. It does not take paranoia to motivate U.S. security officials. One Australian judge may not typify Western naïveté toward its currently greatest challenge to security. But the naïveté seems to be growing faster than awakening to the jihadist menace. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP
Posted by Ari Bussel, October 24, 2011. |
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How does one measure leadership? I will let the reader ponder this question, as I point out a true leader is one who wields his will onto others rather than the one who submits to populace wishes. Leaders are often judged in retrospect, in much better light than when they were contemporaries. Such, for example, are Ronald Reagan, Menachem Begin, the Shah of Iran, Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II and others. To this short list, I would add President Mubarak of Egypt, who in 2011 stood up to the American President, and despite the tsunami sweeping the Arab world in a manner and magnitude never before seen, said to his people and the world: I am not leaving. This is my country and here I shall stay to my death. Here I will be buried. The Egyptians were not happy. In fact, they went as far as to bring the ailing Mubarak on a bed into a cage to be humiliated before the entire world. The main humiliation was upon Egypt itself, once a proud nation from the emergence of civilization. One who visits Egypt can witness pictorial and architectural depictions of the great Pharaohs. From the burial tombs to the great Pyramids, the Egyptians struggled with the great exodus of the Hebrews and the drowning of their eternal-Pharaoh and his powerful army. On a historical axis, add to this the recent self-inflicted humiliation. Where were the other Arab countries? Where were the other Arab leaders? They should have stood as one and said: Every dollar the American President withholds or withdraws will be replaced three-fold — or ten-fold (just to make the point) — by us, and anyone who dares to tell any sovereign ruler to leave must look closer to home. The late Steve Jobs had the courage to tell President Obama straight forwardly, "You will be a one-term president", but the all-powerful Arab rulers behaved like lapdogs with their tails between their legs. These are the very same dogmatic "leaders" who lecture and blame Israel for any and all ills and overall behave like bullies in the Middle East. True leaders might have shifted the focus from pure hatred and demagogy against the Jews in their neighborhood, to better neighborly relations. So much benefit could have been derived for their own people, from agriculture to better utilization of scarce resources, protecting the environment to learning how to maximize yields for the greater good. No, even selfish interests paled in comparison to a common enemy. How void of any substance, how shallow and pitiful it is now in light of the events that unfolded in 2011. One by one these "leaders" are gone, their billions unhelpful, their bodies at times dragged like garbage through the streets of their home towns. SHAME. How can any people treat their leaders in such a manner? Do they not understand they are shaming themselves? Lynching and blood thirsting is the image forever stuck in our memories, along with a caged ruler or an ousted king forever barred. Strange place the Middle East, and regrettably, its influence is spreading. Israel used to be fearless. It had no choice because to survive, it had to do whatever was necessary: from drying swamps and fighting malaria to making the desert bloom; fighting armies many times its size and overcoming unimaginable odds against its very existence. The miracle called "Modern Israel" was replaced with the comforts of being. All is taken for granted, and Israel is now in too many ways like its neighbors. They are more interested in Israel's destruction while Israel is busy initiating its own demise. Israel stopped fighting and apparently lost its conviction and will. In fact, the same symptoms are displayed by much of the Western World, with a singular exception. One true leader among all lost of their common sense and eyesight is Canada. Canada refused to participate in the circus called "Durban III" where all the ills of the world were attributed to Israel, where Jews were called racists and Zionism was named the source of all worldly evils. The USA that contributes upwards of 22% of the United Nations annual funding facilitates the organization's continued existence. This clearly defies all logic. President Ahmadinejad, the head of a sovereign country, calls for the annihilation of another member of the UN and is allowed to do so from the pulpit of the organization's New York headquarters. Worse, he is given free passage into New York and has the audacity to expect to go to Ground Zero and to accuse the Zionists and the CIA of perpetrating crimes against humanity (i.e. 9/11 was all a scheme) in order to blame the Islamic Nation. Today, Canada did something that Israeli media reported as follows: "It is quite doubtful if something like that would have happened in Israel." Imagine the beginning of an article ascribing such little faith to Israel and attributing so much to CANADA. The report continues: "Canada is expelling from its territory the Palestinian representative after she added to her Twitter account a link to a video in which a Palestinian girl is seen calling to a war in which the Jews be exterminated. "According to the report, the Palestinian Representative Subach Ali was declared persona non-grata, was asked to leave the country and official elements were told to minimize any contact with her. "In addition, Ali was called to be reprimanded, in addition to an official protest which was presented to the Palestinian Authority. "In the referenced video linked from the Twitter account of the representative, a link that won the approval of that representative, a crying Palestinian girl can be seen reading a song in which she declared 'I am Palestinian' and subsequently calls for a 'war that will defeat the injustice and the Occupation and will annihilate the Jews.'" In Israel a debate would have erupted. No, in fact, nothing would have happened, so used are the Israelis to insane voices from within their own midst. In the days following the release of Gilad Shalit after 1,940 days in captivity (for those who think the number is insignificant, it represents four months and five years without access to the International Red Cross), Muslim Israelis call for the kidnapping of other Israeli soldiers to force Israel to release more Palestinian terrorists. Sane? Not in Canada. In Israel, Palestinians burn Israeli products, and Israel does what in return? Nothing. In Israel, Palestinians name classrooms, school auditoriums, playgrounds and city squares after terrorists who murdered Israelis. What does Israel do? Again NOTHING. Is Israel, foreign entities (individuals, foundations and governments) funnel money to elements whose sole mission is to destroy the Jewish State. They hide under the guise "human rights organizations," but they are never truly concerned with human rights. It is the same hypocrisy as having Syria, Libya or Iran on the Human Rights Council. And Israel allows this unrestricted flow of money that hastens and will eventually bring its downfall. Also in Israel, the intellectual elite fights Israel. The Gazans are bombing population centers in Israel, and the "elite" demonstrates against Israel. Leading newspapers call the Israeli operation to stop the smuggling of arms into Gaza and stop the bombardment of the south a "blood bath," and Israelis then participate in the "Free Gaza" movement and the flotillas to "break the blockade" and "end the siege." Members of the Israeli Knesset, including one Deputy Speaker, met with the enemy, participated in the Turkish Terrorist Flotilla whose stated aim was to break both Israeli and international law, and they feel immune. Well, they are, the Knesset did nothing to expel him. Even when the Knesset finally acts (like prohibiting participation of elements who oppose the state in elections), the Israeli Supreme Court engages in judicial activism and blurs the line between the Judiciary and the Legislative branches of government. In Israel this is proper and expected as long as the Supreme Court follows its (political) convictions that — without exception — are extreme and-left-leaning. There are those who would say Israel is a Democracy and all the above are "signs of strength." Learned readers would emit a bitter laugh. Strength? It sounds like a person about to commit suicide explaining why suicide is the noble and just way to go. A psychiatrist is what the patient needs, not encouragement. Unless, that is, the bystanders wish the suicide to occur. Thus, as I look at Israel's refusal to fight for its existence, when I see Israeli bureaucrats and elected officials doing anything other than actually lead, putting their benefits and comforts ahead of the common good and longevity of their office before country, it is refreshing to read one article about, and then witness another act — and then another — by Canada. What do the Canadians see that Israelis do not? I am reminded of a talk by the founder of the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction Israel movement), when he stated, "Europe has already fallen; the US is next." I am also reminded of an Israeli-American professor, head of a department at UCLA who said, in talking about Gilad Shalit, "it is perfectly legitimate to kidnap Israeli soldiers." Then I read with admiration and utter disbelief the news item that starts off saying "It is doubtful if in Israel something like that would have happened." I salute you Canada, and I salute the People of Canada. You show leadership in the face of adversity. You exemplify what taking a stand and doing something highly unpopular (standing for Israel, acting sane and unwavering) is all about. In my dictionary your actions define true leadership. The pages of history will judge you, and I humbly add a footnote as things evolve before our very eyes: Take a lesson from the Canadians. They stand for Israel, thus they stand for themselves and all good men. Bravo. Contact Ari Bussel and Norma Zager at busselari@gmail.com |
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ISLAMIC DISSIMULATION TO ASSUAGE CRITICS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 23, 2011. |
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Islamic behavior has been consistent over the ages and across the continents. This behavior is recorded and predictable. Nevertheless, apologists for Islam claim that particular incidents are atypical and the religion is misunderstood. Muslim clerics and sheikhs still declare that among, or consistent with, the principles of Islam are: "the legitimacy of adult 'breast feeding,' pedophilia as marriage, insistence that the earth is flat, commands not to yawn (lest Satan flies down one's throat), the salutary effects of drinking prophet urine, the need to execute the 'infidel' Mickey Mouse," and other matters the West considers perverse. When such principles reach non-believers' attention in such a way likely to make Islam appear to be a menace and to rouse opposition to it, then Muslims become cautious and engage in damage control. Consider holy war, the Islamic imperative to conquer non-believers and spread Islamic hegemony over them. That imperative is an integral part of Islamic doctrine and history. Nevertheless, Muslims try not to bring non-believers' attention to it. For example, al-Qaeda indoctrinates Muslims in the Islamic imperative to conquer non- Muslims. When communicating with Westerners, however, even al-Qaeda uses wording that Westerners think more benign. As a result, many Westerners think that "Islam's nonstop aggression around the globe is a byproduct of 'grievances,' of 'Zionism,' of U.S. 'foreign policy,' of anything and everything, not Islam." Consider the dissimulation by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the case of Yousef Nadarkhani, formerly a Muslim, now a Christian pastor. Iran's Supreme Court ruled, "He has often participated in Christian worship and organized home church services, evangelizing and has been baptized and baptized others, converting Muslims to Christianity. He has been accused of breaking Islamic Law that from puberty (15 years according to Islamic law) until the age of 19 the year 1996, he was raised a Muslim in a Muslim home. During court trials, he denied the prophecy of Mohammad and the authority of Islam. He has stated that he is a Christian and no longer Muslim." The Court upheld capital punishment for such apostasy. As their prophet commanded, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, kill him." Western mainstream media found out about that case. Then Western politicians condemned it. Iran's hypocrisy in constantly calling for justice and humanitarianism and defaming Israel, while itself treating people barbarically, was likely to be exposed. In reaction, Iran's government changed the story, though not the facts of the case. Now they claim that the pastor is to be executed as a "Zionist traitor," a "rapist," an "extortionist," a "brothel owner," etc.. In Iran's press releases, he now is accused of everything but trying to practice freedom of religion, which is banned by Islamic law and valued by Western law. This kind of Islamic apologetics is predictable. Iran's rulers must hope that Westerners will fall for this deception. Many Westerners will. Western wishful thinkers accept Iran's lies, despite the contrary evidence, to validate their own worldview (Raymond Ibrahim, Jihad Watch, 10/6/11, http://www.meforum.org/3062/islamism-predictability ). Western wishful thinkers' worldview was not defined. I think Mr. Ibrahim means the illusion that Islam is a religion of peace and that the West should engage with Iran. Years of attempting to negotiate normal relations have failed. Promises by Iran, the Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, etc., have been broken. By Islamic leaders, deception, deception, deception. By Western leaders, illusion, delusion, confusion. Note the bizarre array of accusations against the pastor that came up after his trial! Together they resemble a spoof. But these absurdities are ignored by Western intellectuals who boast of their courage in condemning Israel or in ridiculing Presidential candidates. Western governments, media, and such parts of academia as are not subsidized by Islamic donors should draw conclusions from this case and similar ones. Such conclusions would be that Islam bans freedom of religion, kills opponents, and lies to the outside world it wants to conquer. Now let us start unpeeling jihadist falsehoods and rationalizations about Israel and Jews, Islamophobia, Muslim charities, Muslim grievances, and the excuses that poverty and lack of education cause terrorism. The Islamic mindset still is controlled by primitive concepts. Hence the Arabs keep accusing Israel of various attempts to poison them. They accuse Jews of being sons of "apes and pigs." They have a racist concept of the Jewish people. They lie about Jewish history and try to replace it with a non-existent Palestinian history, in order to strengthen their claim to the Jewish homeland. All over the Mideast, law-abiding Christians are being murdered, forcibly converted, robbed, and forced out. Why are most Western apostles of tolerance not forthright in behalf of persecuted Christians? Muslim leaders tell Americans they are tolerant. No doubt some are tolerant. But the tolerant ones do not rule and the rulers are organizing and spreading intolerance. When multi-culturalists insist upon political correctness about Islamic institutions and demands upon us, they reveal a naivete that eventually can get us killed. Westerners must question the wisdom of allowing a massive immigration from a culture desirous of conquering and repressing ours. If we suppose that our decency typifies that alien culture, we risk that culture's destroying our own. Carrying multi-culturalism too that extreme endangers our own civilization. This is a matter of national security. Over this issue, we must put aside political correctness and anticipating peace from the bellicose. We yearn for peace, but we will not get it by empowering fanatics indoctrinated in killing us. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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FROM ISRAEL: THE BROADER CONTEXT
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 23, 2011. |
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Theories abound as to why Netanyahu agreed to the Shalit trade now. The decision was undoubtedly "over-determined." As is often the case in life, many different converging factors played into it. Some — for example, that he wanted to lift the morale of the nation, or that it was politically advantageous to appeal to the populist spirit of those doing the tent protests — I prefer to pass by, although they may have played into the decision in some relatively minor fashion. A few ideas, however, merit a closer look: Much is being written about the role of Egypt — which negotiated the deal — in bringing it about now. I have been reading about this, but have been reluctant to cite sources that are less than consistently reliable. But now I have a source that I consider quite reliable. Khaled Abu Toameh, writing in the JPost on Friday, laid out this scenario: "...The ongoing popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad has put the Damascus-based Hamas leadership in a difficult position. According to numerous reports in the Arab media, relations between the Syrian authorities and the Hamas leaders have deteriorated in recent months because of the Islamist movement's [Hamas's] refusal to voice public support for Assad's regime. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal has begun studying the possibility of moving the Hamas headquarters from Syria to another Arab country the reports claimed. ~~~~~~~~~~ "The sources noted," writes Abu Toameh, "that the ruling military council in Cairo had a great interest in reaching a deal between Hamas and Israel. Facing increased criticism from home and abroad for its failure to hand power over to a civilian government, and violations of human rights...the Egyptian generals now have good reason to show the US and the rest of the world that they are capable of delivering. "By embracing Hamas, the generals are also hoping to appease the Egyptian masses especially the Muslim Brotherhood organization. In the eyes of many Egyptians, being affiliated with Hamas is more dignified than an alliance with the Western-backed PA." ~~~~~~~~~~ OK, so the Hamas leadership may now be taking orders from Egyptian Field Marshal Tantawi and his generals in the Supreme Military Council. And they may have, per Egyptian demands, become more "flexible" in negotiations with Israel. "Flexible" meaning that they would now accept deportation to another country for some of the released prisoners, and they would agree that some small number they had wanted out (perhaps including Marwan Barghouti) would stay put. But this is only one half of the negotiation equation: This does not automatically make the deal acceptable for Israel. And this begs the question of why Netanyahu was prepared to accept this increased "flexibility" on the part of Hamas (what is being referred to as a "window of opportunity") and do the deal. Why he, in turn, waxed more "flexible" — allowing terrorists with blood on their hands to be released, for example. ~~~~~~~~~~ Here we have many factors that require a closer look. [] From sources that I have referred to as less than consistently reliable has come the suggestion that Obama had reasons for wanting Hamas to move out of Syria's sphere and into Egypt — and thus wanted Israel to make the deal with Hamas. According to this scenario, when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was here in Israel recently, he would have pushed Netanyahu to take the deal. Understand that I put this out only as a tentative possibility. I have no definitive information. I do know, however, that when Panetta was here he annoyed me royally by talking about how Israel was "increasingly isolated" and needed to improve diplomatic relations with her Palestinian neighbors. Something to consider. [] There are those who suggest that Netanyahu was seeking to weaken the PA, following the UN gambit by Abbas. No question, the trade boosted Hamas's popularity in the Palestinian street, at least for the moment. Something else to consider. ~~~~~~~~~~ [] Various deeply troubling reports suggest that there was an Israeli intelligence failure, so that Shalit was never located and no plans were ever drawn up for rescuing him. We see this in the written comments of Tzachi Hanegbi, who, as an MK with Kadima, served as Chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee: "I am concerned about the limitations of the intelligence community exposed by this whole affair. As someone who is aware of the amount of resources allocated by the state to locating Gilad Schalit in Gaza, to allow for a military option, I am very disturbed by the thin results of such great efforts. ~~~~~~~~~~ And even more powerfully is this point made by Maariv journalist Ben Caspi, in his piece, "The Schalit story is an intelligence failure." "We flew to Entebbe and returned with hundreds of hostages. We taught the world that terrorist isn't to be bargained with or catered to, that terror is to be fought. Despite its vaunted intelligence services, advanced technologies and enormous well-trained and experienced army, Israel was unable to locate a single soldier being held in a narrow, controlled strip of enemy territory just a few miles away. ~~~~~~~~~~ (See more on this IDF/intelligence failure from Caroline Glick, below.) Caspi writes that because of the intelligence failure Israel "was forced to fold to bring Gilad Schalit home." I wouldn't put it quite that way — we did not have to fold. But the intelligence failure should not be discounted as a factor. Netanyahu felt his options were limited. [] Perhaps most serious and most disturbing are the charges made by Caroline Glick in "Marketing Gilad Schalit": "According to the New Wave poll carried out for Makor Rishon...75.7 percent of the public supported the deal and only 15.5 percent opposed it. In a society as rife with internal divisions as Israel, it is hard to think of any issue that enjoys the support of three quarters of the population. But even more amazing than the level of support is that the poll also shows the vast majority of Israelis believe that the deal harms Israel's national security. What made this all extraordinarily successful, explains Glick, is that the media, which is supposed to be the watchdog of Israel's national interests against the advertising executives, opted to "behave like lapdogs." And this is not the first time that this has been the situation: "...the media are the strongest force in Israeli society. Their power owes to the fact that the major media organs are ideologically uniform and therefore act consistently as a pack.Thus could an advertising executive observe, "The media left the government no option not to act [on Schalit]." ~~~~~~~~~~ Glick continues: "What distinguished the Schalit campaign from those that preceded it was not the media mobilization but the complicity of the IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Mossad. In all the other campaigns, the security services either opposed the campaigns or stood on the sidelines. ~~~~~~~~~~ A question still to be asked here is who paid for the PR campaign that promoted the trade of terrorists for Gilad Shalit? It is a question of major import. ~~~~~~~~~~ An excellent article by Martin Sherman echoes many of the same sentiments: "Some have characterized the Schalit episode as a case of 'heart prevailing over head.' It certainly was a triumph of media-mania over mind, a victory of rating over rationality. ~~~~~~~~~~ For anyone who doubts that there is an impact on the Palestinian Arab population with regard to the release of terrorists, I share this: Wafa al-Biss was receiving treatment 2005 at Soroka Hospital in Beersheva for severe burns. As I recall her case, the burns had been inflicted by her family, and the Jewish doctors at Soroka had saved her life. But when traveling back to the hospital from Gaza for follow-up, she was found to be wearing a belt of explosives. Just lovely. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is a great deal of talk now about how to respond when Hamas attempts to capture another IDF soldier. This is a matter of great significance and I'm pleased to see it. The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Subcommittee for Intelligence, Secret Services, Captives and Missing Soldiers has called for an official government policy on captive soldiers, and even Defense Minister Barak has called for guidelines. You might also want to see this:
~~~~~~~~~~ PA President Abbas, smarting at the increase in Hamas popularity as a result of the trade, is demanding that Israel now release Fatah prisoners as well. Additionally he has announced that the PA will "honor" all prisoners who have been released, including those in Gaza, by providing them with "grants." There is more to be said with regard to the source of the funds for those grants ~~~~~~~~~~ Another of the demands made of Hamas by Egypt, according to Abu Toameh, is that Hamas forge a unity government with Fatah. This is something we will have to watch, as the situation is currently very fluid. Reportedly, Abbas and Mashaal will be meeting in Cairo next month. Meanwhile, Palestinian officials are saying that if their UN bid fails, they will pursue "other options." ~~~~~~~~~~ The Quartet plans to meet with the PA and Israel separately to get detailed proposals from each regarding borders and security, touting this as progress forward. ~~~~~~~~~~ PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is saying that the time is not ripe for productive Israeli-Palestinian talks. How right he is. But of course, his frame of reference is different from mine: he means we have to first agree to '67 lines as the basis for negotiations and stop construction in Judea and Samaria. Moshe Ya'alon, however, in a talk last night, was insistent that there would be no further freezes, which he labels ethnic cleansing. Ya'alon may be Deputy Prime Minister as well as Minister of Security Affairs, but his opinion, on its own, does not necessarily hold sway. May the government remain strong in the face of PA demands. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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GET SERIOUS ON IRAN
Posted by Matthew RJ Brodsky, October 23, 2011. |
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Tepid White House response to Iranian plot will reassure Iran that the U.S. is a paper tiger The Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies marks a significant escalation in Iran's confrontation with the West. However, it does not signify a change in Iranian tactics as it seeks to export its revolution and assassinate political rivals abroad. Yet for some reason, since the White House made the plot public on October 11, there has been a bizarre aversion among many in Washington to identify the leaders of the regime as the culprits. Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that "factions of the Iranian government" had directed the plot while Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein said in a statement "we must learn how high in the Iranian government this alleged conspiracy reaches President Obama finally added his voice in a news conference with the South Korean leader saying, "There are individuals in the Iranian government who were aware of this plot." The thinking in academic and journalist circles followed that the regime itself could not be so rogue; perhaps it was merely rogue elements within the regime. Or even more apologetic, some analysts have posited that this simple but botched scheme was not carried out by Iranian intelligence professionals so it couldn't have been ordered by the Iranian leadership - it might even be a setup of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in order to spoil the waters for diplomatic engagement. The truth is that this is a dangerous form of wishful thinking. The White House's tepid response to the Iranian plot will no doubt reassure the regime that America is a paper tiger. It should not be hard to understand that the Iranian regime was behind this failed plot. According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, since 1979 top Islamic Republic leaders have been linked to at least 162 extrajudicial killings of political opponents in 19 different countries around the world. State-sponsored killings Iran's global assassination campaign was predicated on the simple principle that opponents of the regime should not be able to find a safe haven anywhere in the world. Thus began a coordinated and extended policy of state-sponsored assassinations abroad, beginning with the Shah's nephew who was assassinated in Paris on December 7, 1979. Closer to home, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, Iran's former press attaché in Washington, DC, was shot dead in his home in Bethesda, Maryland on July 22, 1980. Perhaps the most similar plot to that recently planned in Washington was the Mykonos Massacre in Berlin in 1992. Roya Hakakian describes that incident at length in her new book, "Assassins of the Turquoise Palace." Two men burst into a private dinner at Mykonos, a Berlin restaurant, and fired a barrage of 26 bullets at eight of Iran's leading opposition figures. Of the eight targeted that night, four were killed, including Sadegh Sharafkandi, Iran's most prominent Kurdish leader. One of the assassins was Abdulrahman Bani-Hashemi, an Iranian hit-man who flew to Turkey and then escaped back to Iran. Previously, he had assassinated an Iranian exile in Switzerland in 1989. He was arrested but held only briefly by Swedish authorities after attempting to kill the Saudi ambassador there. After the Mykonos murders, German authorities arrested only one Iranian in what Hakakian described as "a ring of small-time Lebanese crooks with histories of petty theft, forgery and other such violations." Iran's Minister of Intelligence Ali Fallahian tried to persuade the German authorities to bury the legal proceedings in the case but to no avail. During the four-year trial an Iranian intelligence official defected and testified that Tehran had a list of 500 "enemies of Islam" who were targeted for death. As in many past cases of Iranian state-sponsored terrorism, the plots can be simple and carried out by local or foreign sympathizers of the Iranian Revolution, but most are coordinated by the Qods Force, a specialized unit of elite members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and an integral part of the Iranian regime. This is Iran without nukes According to the U.S. State Department's 2010 Country Report on Terrorism, the Qods Force is "the external operations branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)," and "the regime's primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad." It is the main partner used by the Ministry of Intelligence and since its creation in 1980 it has been extensively involved in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Sudan. More recently, it has been active with Hezbollah in South America. Among the more well-known plots it has been involved in are on the two terror attacks in Buenos Aries - the first against the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the second against a Jewish cultural center in 1994. The handpicked members of the Qods Force are chosen from the already elite ideological army of the IRGC and they pledge their allegiance to - and only answer to - the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. The oath that each member takes is to uphold the religious dogma of the regime, which is to say it is more than a pledge of loyalty. This is not merely a rogue group of terrorists; it is Iran's elite ideological and operational Special Forces unit. It does not operate without the consent of the Supreme Leader. The assassination plot in Washington bears all the hallmarks of the Qods Force and it is dangerous to think otherwise. This escalation on U.S. soil should give all Americans pause. Today, America faces a brazen enemy in Tehran that does not fear U.S. military retaliation. And this is Iran without a nuclear deterrent. Team Obama's response has been to demand more sanctions. Such a toothless retaliation to an Iranian operation designed to massacre diplomats and Americans in the US capital makes crystal clear to the Iranians that the White House is not serious about bringing their nuclear weapons program to heel. It is long past time that the White House got serious with Iran.
This appeared
October 23, 2011
in Ynet News
and is archived at
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ISLAMIST RISE IN EUROPE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 23, 2011. |
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Decades ago, few Muslims resided in Western Europe. Some had remained in Germany continuing intelligence work against the Soviets. German intelligence officials, like U.S. ones, imagine themselves able to utilize non-Westerners for Western purposes, such as helping wage the Cold War. [Doesn't work well, when the Westerners do not inform themselves about the non-Westerners' cultures and goals.] German intelligence found evidence that the U.S. also was working with, or even helping, Islamists. One in particular was Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the Moslem Brotherhood. Germany helped Ramadan found a mosque center. Over the decades, the Moslem Brotherhood has rebounded from many reverses, including bans. It is skilled at resilience, and is aided by the opening of one haven to them, when another, such as Egypt, is closed. It suffered no bans in Europe. It patiently rebuilds without attracting attention. Indeed, Western intelligence agencies discounted the effectiveness of the Brotherhood and the virulence of Tarik Ramadan. The U.S. thrilled at the Arab Spring, not noticing the strong Brotherhood participation in the Egyptian uprising and being surprised by the strong Brotherhood emergence afterwards. Apparently Western intelligence does not use its intelligence capability to assess movements' fidelity to Western goals they supposedly ally with. As Muslim immigrants arrived in Europe, Ramadan formed a network of mosques. His purpose was not then to convert Christians, but to subvert Muslims. He wanted to corral them into his ideology and unite them. Ironically, at first he excluded Turks, who constituted the majority of Muslims in Germany. He was building an ideological organization funded by Mideast Muslims. Ramadan succeeded to a great extent. The Moslem Brotherhood has become the major Muslim organization in Western Europe, and is a power to reckon with. Since Islam does not have a religious hierarchy, Ramadan has the dominant role in defining the faith's goals there. His organization is run primarily by well educated, even professional people, who claim to speak for downtrodden masses. The Brotherhood contends that Islam is the only way to justice. However, its anti-modern philosophy considers most Muslims as apostates for not following the Brotherhood's ideology all the way. What are the Brotherhood's and Ramadan's goals and methods? The West judges by terrorist plots. The Brotherhood has broader aims than terrorism and usually does not involve itself directly in it. The Brotherhood's role is to radicalize Islamic culture to foster terrorism's way of thinking. [This is like Pakistani madrassas, Saudi Wahabbi culture, and Palestinian Arab control of TV, schools, summer camps, and mosques.] Although the Brotherhood's spokesmen tell us that they renounce violence, its theoreticians either advocate violence or rationalize major exceptions in which violence is permitted. When terrorists are found to have attended its mosques, the imam claims he was approached by them only for spiritual guidance. [What is "spiritual guidance?" Remember that a head of Hamas was called its "spiritual leader?" He blessed terrorist plots, thereby authorizing them.] A U.S. investigation discovered that the Brotherhood's organizations were distributing funds to terrorist groups. The ensuing freeze of the two principals' funds inconvenienced them but did not much impede terrorism. Lacking proof of the men's ties to terrorism, the funds later were unfrozen. The West fails to realize that the more important problem is enemy ideology, from which terrorism emerges. [While the West fights hatched Islamists as it finds them, the Islamist bee keeps laying more and more Islamist eggs. The Islamist bee is out-breeding Western military counter-terrorist liquidations.] Indeed, the Bush and Obama administrations expressed admiration for the Brotherhood's dynamism and media savvy, and "reach out" to them. The West still does not understand that Islamism is a powerful foe. We lack an effective theory for how to combat it (Ian Johnson, Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2011, pp. 39-46 http://www.meforum.org/3059/europe-islamists The full essay is worth reading). Would the West have admired Nazism's and Bolshevism's dynamism and media savvy? Those characteristics are means, among other, to ends. The ends are more critical. The West does not consider the goals of Islamism. Time and time again, the U.S. makes this mistake. We waste our money and get ourselves and allies killed, as in Afghanistan. The non-intellectual aspect of U.S. foreign policy, and the lack of long-range planning must be the primary failure of the State Dept. and media. Talk to most Americans about Islamism, and they will suggest that poverty and lack of education is what produces terrorists. That is what the media tells them. They still do not know that terrorist leaders often are educated and professional, at least middle class. This public failure to understand the major international human menace is a failure of the media and government. Although people say they don't believe politicians, when it comes to these issues, they do, or perhaps one should say they believe the media. If it is in print, it must be true. Yes, like sub-prime mortgage agreements! What does the West think the Moslem Brotherhood would do when it organizes Europe's Muslims under its banner? Do they think it solely will attend to religious affairs, which it does not do now? Can't they imagine its threat to the religious freedom and liberty of Europe as a whole? The West sure has underestimated the Islamist aims of Turkey's leader! The New York Times considers him rough but democratic, perceiving his crackdowns on other institutions as empowering the people. Actually, his crackdowns are empowering his Islamist rule. Now that he is breaking out into imperialist adventurism, the New York Times may catch up to the times. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THE VIEW FROM THE ABU NETANYAHU HILLS
Posted by David Wilder, October 23, 2011. |
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Time sure flies. Just yesterday we were preparing for Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year. Preparations in Hebron are two-fold: Private and Public. On the private side, each to his own, introspection, an examination of the past year, the good and the not so good, trying to figure out what to do differently next year. Prayer, supplication, mixed with song and dance, in an effort to ensure self-improvement on all different levels. 
But in Hebron, there's also public preparation. Getting ready for the tens of thousands who flock to Ma'arat HaMachpela, the tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. For a month prior to Rosh HaShana, through the high holy days, to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, following into the joy of Succot, the feast of Tabernacles. The festive worship services, the music festival, children's plays and activities, thousands upon thousands walking the streets of Hebron. During this time alone, over the week-long Succot holiday, well over 50,000 people visited Hebron. Over the month and a half we probably came close to 100,000. That's a lot of people. Very exciting, very invigorating and refreshing, very supporting, very addictive. You want to see it happen again, and again, and again. In conjunction with our United States partner, the Hebron Fund, this Succot we offered a special VIP tour to select supporters. Two busloads of friends, mostly from the United States, participated in this unique event. They attended an exceptional luncheon at the Yeshivat Shavei Hebron succah, and heard a particularly moving speech from Hebron's police chief, Arnon Friedman. In the past, relationships between police and Hebron citizens were such that the last person expected to speak at a Hebron event would have been a police officer. However, times have changed. You can see and hear Friedman's address here. Also talking to the visitors were Hebron Mayor Avraham Ben Yosef and Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum. 
Additionally the group had special access to Ma'arat HaMachpela, and also attended the dedication of 'the Ayal Park,' in memory of our beloved resident, Ayal Noked, who passed away a few months ago, not yet forty years old, leaving a wife and ten children. One of Ayal's dreams was the 'greening of Hebron,' and as such, dedicating a park in his memory, in the hopes of continuing his holy work, was more than fitting. However, the highlight of the day was an exclusive event, that being a trip up the hill to the south of Hebron's Jewish community, known as Abu Sneneh. In the past, prior to the 1997 Hebron Accords which split the city, this area was readily accessible to Jewish visitors. However when Hebron was divided, this area was transferred to Arab control. On the brink of the hill, overlooking the city, a 'joint' Israeli — Arab patrol, in two jeeps, kept a constant lookout over the city. However, when the second Intifada, or the Oslo War, as we call it, began, the Israeli jeep disappeared and the Arabs stayed. The hill became a source of shooting attacks on the Jewish community for two and a half years. It was from this hill that Shalhevet Pass was shot and killed. 
Since the end of that war the hill has been under Israeli military control, with a small base providing protection, preventing renewal of those shooting attacks at Jewish Hebron below. Civilians don't have frequent access to this site; once a year, during the eight days of Hanukkah, a large Menorah, built on the edge of the hill, is lit nightly. That's about the only time during the year we make the climb up the hill (in a jeep, not by foot). This year though, we received permission to take our group of VIP visitors on a short tour of Hebron from the top of Abu Sneneh. 
Usually I enjoy the trip to Abu Sneneh. It's a great place to get fabulous photos. With my equipment I can get close-ups of the neighborhoods and Ma'arat HaMachpela. Kiryat Arba, kilometers in the distance, turns into a stone's throw away. The pictures are stunning. And the visitors had a great time. None of them had ever before experienced viewing Hebron from above. Together with full explanations by Noam Arnon, the visit was a real success and a great way to reward loyal friends. But truthfully, this time around, I left with hill with an unsettling, troublesome feeling. Keep in mind, the talk of the day centered around one subject alone, that being Gilad Shalt. Hundreds of terrorist murderers were about to be released for our Israeli POW, held captive by Hamas for over five years. The deal was extremely controversial. Letting hundreds of murderers out of jail, for one person, could almost be called an act of desperation. Clearly the decision-makers reached a breaking point of 'now or never.' Shalit's life was in their hands. Do or die. Families of terrorist victims, felt betrayed. Rightly so. They had been promised that the killers of their loved ones would never again see the light of day. And around the country, citizens, understanding the implications of blood-thirsty terrorists again roaming the streets, feared the worst. The question was, where they would hit first. The idea of their return to terror is not, and was not, a question. It is a given. My queasiness though, didn't so much stem from the terrorists' freedom. Its cause was the source of that liberation: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. If Netanyahu had the guts, and also the despair to make such a decision, what might be next? Back in 1996-1997 Hebron's Jewish community pulled just about every string possible to prevent the accords from being signed and implemented. We made a movie showing the bloody results of shooting from Abu Sneneh. We were labeled as paranoid scaredy cats. After all, peace had arrived. Then Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu promised his hesitant ministers, 'if one shot is fired at them, I'll send up the tanks. You think I'd endanger the life of one Jew in Hebron?!?' Endanger he did. Two and half years of gunfire, until the tanks were sent in. And of course he was no longer Prime Minister when the shooting started, or when it ended. So the big question is, in my mind, what's next? If this Prime Minister was able to send hundreds of killers home-free, for one Israeli soldier, how much guts, or despair, would it take to give Abu Sneneh back to the Arabs? How much American/UN/European/Russian/ pressure would it take to roll back the clock to the days pre-Oslo War, in Hebron and throughout Judea and Samaria? 
As I looked down at the Avraham Avinu neighborhood, at people entering Ma'arat HaMachpela, at Kiryat Arba, at Yeshivat Shavei Hebron, that question reverberated through my head, and through my body. 'This is what the terrorists saw, this is where they took aim and shot at us. A terrorist with a good scope can see into people's windows, into cars, kids walking on the street. Will it happen again?' That's the big question: will history repeat itself, will we be forced to live through it again? After Shalhevet was killed, we renamed the area the 'Shalhevet Hills.' The name didn't really stick. I sure hope we don't have to change the name again. For the time being, I might call them the Abu Netanyahu hills, just to remind Bibi. He doesn't have to make do with my photos. He should come and see first-hand the view from the Abu Netanyahu Hills before any other kind of 'Gilad Shalit decisions' about Hebron, or Judea and Samaria. Maybe it would shake him up enough to discard the thought of relinquishing Israeli control here again, forever. 
David Wilder is spokesman of The Jewish Community of Hebron. You can contribute directly in Israel to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB105, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, email: hebron@hebron.org.il or phone: 972-52-431-7055. In USA, write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, email: hebronfund@aol.com or phone: 718 677 6886. |
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FRANCE 2 TV MARKETS A PALESTINIAN STATE
Posted by Nidra Poller, October 23, 2011. |
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Eleven years after the al Dura hoax — produced and broadcast by state-owned France 2 TV — the same outfit treats us to a ludicrously staged Palestinian State promotional film. Was the 2 and a half -hour "documentary" aired on October 3 in the geopolitical magazine Un oeil sur la planegrave;te (an eye on the world), a chef d'oeuvre in the campaign to destroy the Jewish State or a last gasp of shopworn Palestinianism[1]? Looking at the world through keffieh-colored glasses, MC Etienne Leenhardt disingenuously asks: "Is the creation of a Palestinian state still possible?" First stop, Ramallah. Chic, modern, bustling with business and a humming bureaucracy that maintains law and order...everything you need to make a state. How did Ramallah get so shiny and peaceful? What keeps it from tumbling into the maw of the Islamists who rule Gaza? Who is financing its prosperity, and what does the "wall" have to do with it? Don't ask. Leenhardt and cohorts know why the Palestinians don't have the state they've been yearning for since the days of Adam and Eve: it's because the cruel, heartless, murderous, land-grabbing, gun-slinging Israelis colonize their land! One brief scene sums it up. A Palestinian in the West Bank (Judea-Samaria) points to a clump of trees in the near distance and laments: "You see that fertile land over there? That's what the colonists [Israelis] took for themselves. They left us this arid stuff." The indictment builds and incriminates. The Israelis/Jews stole the land, siphon off the water, erect a wall between a man and his fields, expropriate the very holiness, and, one could assume, took all the fertile intelligence for themselves, colonizing the Nobel prizes and leaving the Palestinians with nothing but bile. Actually, this docu-hoax could be used to help the Zionist cause. It is so grotesque, so crudely fabricated, so false and so dishonest that it sheds light on the subtle twists of more sophisticated products that weave their way through public discourse, gradually bending minds and condoning atrocities. We who have been working tirelessly to expose the Mohamed al Dura hoax can take some comfort in observing that this long-drawn out genocidal hate speech exercise doesn't seem to have the electrifying effect of the September 2000 blood libel. Unfortunately, this does not rule out a potential increase in thuggery against French Jews. Intuitively avoiding the fact-check trap, I followed the film without noting one by one the lies, fibs, half-truths, distortions, misconceptions, and twists that would have distracted from a cogent analysis of the overall enterprise. The five-part broadcast, presented as the work of globetrotting reporters who gathered the facts at ground level, was a total fabrication — so much so that Uzi Landau, granted a short minute to say that no sovereign nation would give free rein to an entity determined to exterminate it, seemed unreal, even when you know him personally. What was the point of broadcasting this fictional documentary a few days after Mahmoud Abbas made his U.N. Security Council bid for recognition of a Palestinian state carved out along the 1947 partition lines with Jerusalem as its capital and a funnel to pour millions of "refugees" into the temporarily surviving rump state labeled "Israel"? Whom did France 2 hope to convince with its overblown, slapdash, hysterically hyped, sleazy marketing film? Was it aimed at the European Parliament? If it's possible to be less discriminating than the U.N., the European Parliament is your man. Was it tailored for UNESCO, whose advisory board giddily recommended admission of a Palestinian state? We're the cultural arm of the U.N., dahling, we don't have to quibble about mundane things like borders and democratic institutions. Palestine, for us, is a fashion statement. Was it a sop to our local punk jihadis...if they had the patience to sit through this yawn-a-minute, low-testosterone production? Or was it simply made to order for the choir that never tires of preaching to itself: print media, academics, NGOs, and value-added Jews who certainly slurped up Avrum Burg's six minutes of pontifications? For these aficionadas, the repetition of the word "colon" ("colonist") is as thrilling as a lap dance. According to Stéphane Juffa of Metula News Agency, the Arabic mustaotinin — settler — is systematically mistranslated as colon. Hallowed places like Jerusalem are polluted with colons, and in Hebron, Palestinians have to share their "mosque" with the colons: "On their Sabbath and holidays, it's half of our mosque for them, half for us." The "mosque" is no less than the synagogue built over the Cave of Machpela, said to be the tomb of Adam and Eve, Sarah and Abraham, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. Apparently aligned with the jihad practice of launching attacks on Jewish holidays, France 2 threw its Eye on the Planet in our faces during the "days of awe" between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. The reaction was rapid and forceful. France 2 has learned nothing from the al Dura fiasco. But we have! Thinkers, writers, associations, and honest citizens are speaking out. The CRIF (Jewish umbrella organization) and the Israeli embassy publicly protested and will be meeting with France 2 authorities later this month. Samy Ghozlan of the BNVCA (national bureau for vigilance against anti-Semitism) is filing a lawsuit. As usual in France, when Jews and their allies protest against incitement to hatred, they are accused — first, of censoring the media, and second, of bad faith, clannishness, thin skin, emotional overreaction, dual loyalty, refusal to face the truth of their (i.e., Israel's) pernicious deeds...and finally, they are dumped into a Protocols of the Elders of Zion cesspool. The corporation of journalists stands shoulder to shoulder to protect France 2 and its planetary eye from the wicked Jews. The monotonously unanimous war cry is "there are no factual errors in this program." Charles Enderlin of al Dura fame says so, and he should know. All the guys and girls who worked on the film — it took five months, by golly-- say so, and how could they be wrong when everything they said, showed, and recorded is 100% factual? Every Palestinian who walked, talked, and gestured in front of their cameras spoke the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. They have the good Professor Walt on their side. Jimmy Carter, too. One is led to understand from the "Israel Lobby" segment that American journalists, unlike their French counterparts, are not free to give the facts on the itchy Mideast conflict. Are the garish lighting and harsh camera angles reserved for The Lobby factually true? Does AIPAC hand out envelopes to puppet politicians? A journalist fingered by CAMERA for not painting a pretty picture of Israel can't get work anywhere in the U.S., right? What's not factual about the choke-gulp-gasp panorama of Christian Zionists? The big guns aimed at Glenn Beck? The outrageous behavior of Israel-lobbied congressmen and women who threaten to punish the Palestinians for trying to put together a decent state? Aren't these people and their organizations objectively lurid, shady, manipulative, and permanently accompanied by dramatic here-comes-the-villain music? And if you don't like it, you're a dirty Jewish censor, n'est-ce pas? The representative of the Israeli embassy said, "Press freedom, yes — freedom to incite hatred, no." What's not to hate? The plight of a Muslim family in Hebron — plump mother in hijab/djellaba, mustachioed father, numerous wide-eyed children, a spoon-fed baby — who can't go anywhere, do anything, live, breathe, or swallow in peace, because of the colons. Here, you see this window in the kitchen? The colons were always throwing rocks at it. The broken glass went into our food. Now we covered it with a steel shutter. No sunlight, but it's better than having glass in our food. The farmers of Gaza want to feed the hungry population...their fields just happen to run along the border with Israel. Israeli soldiers pop them off like clay pigeons. Helpers from the International Solidarity Movement (presented as an impeccable source of information and disinterested action) radio the soldiers: "We'll be here for a short time...just to pick our crop. We aren't doing any harm." Ha! They take three steps and the soundtrack crackles with the ping-zing and evil snickers of faceless sharpshooters. Eye on the Planet caught a strangely muted glimpse of the "internationally famous" Charles Enderlin "interviewing" Nabil Shaat. It looked like a spliced image — the two don't appear in the same frame. Enderlin whispers a few semi-questions, and the rest of the sequence is Shaat, supremely alone, spouting off about how they had tried everything for decades, but the Israelis just don't want to make peace, don't respect any agreement they sign, don't stop chomping away at our land to make colonies, kill our people, send dogs against them, we had no choice but to go to the U.N. We are ready for statehood. At this writing, a meeting is scheduled with France Télévision's news director Thierry Thuillier, former chief of the Oeil sur la planegrave;te program, who has ominously warned: "They [president of the CRIF and a representative of the Israeli embassy] have something to say to us, but we have something to say to them." What? Is there an insult or accusation that was not included in the broadcast? Something saved to throw in the faces of those who dare to protest? What can we say to reporters with no scruples, no depth, no sense of fair play, who have been covering the conflict year in, year out with no regard for the truth? How can you reach journalists who have crossed into the Palestinian camp and see nothing wrong with stamping a promotional film with the logo of state-owned French television? The Eye on the Planet outfit has announced its line of defense: there are no factual errors in the report. Wouldn't it be wise to sidestep and attack at the fundamental level? For, in fact, the entire report is a lie; the "Palestinian State" defended in the film by French journalists and at the U.N. by Mahmoud Abbas is a lie. The sixty-plus years of Palestinian distress is due not to the lack of a state, but to the frustration at not being able to implement a genocidal project. The security barrier, checkpoints, Gaza blockade, and other vexations deplored by the Planet's Eye are not impediments to Palestinian statehood; they are a direct consequence of the genocidal project. And everything in the report, from the hustle and bustle of Ramallah to the house keys of Palestinian refugees to the fifth generation in Lebanon who participates in that genocidal project, has nothing to do with statehood. The only possible effect of the pretentious Eye on the Planet episode will be to further the genocidal project by enflaming hatred against Jews, without bringing Palestinians one inch closer to a theoretical statehood that they have never pursued. If I were invited to the face-to-face, I would be dignified, imperious, and unemotional. No hint of lamentation or supplication. As long as the genocidal project hides behind the term "Palestinian State," I would say that it is logically and materially impossible to envision any normally functioning civil entity under the same label. It is counterproductive to quibble over details. Your film embraces the genocidal project. It is disgraceful, but it will fall by the wayside. We are strong. You are foolish. Adieu. Addendum: October 17: Christian Denisot, a 45 year-old unemployed IT technician, holds hostage the Director and her assistant in a state employment agency in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. Several hours later the hostages are released, unharmed. Monsieur Denisot's gun was a fake. But the 20-page Manifesto transmitted by Denisot, curiously enough, gives short shrift to the travails of the unemployed. According to Pierre Haski, editorial director of the Rue 89 blog [1], 15 pages were devoted to a denunciation of the "extremist Zionist fringe groups" that have poked a "black hole" in our democracy. Denisot declares that the purpose of his act was to awaken society to the dangers of these Zionists, namely the Betar, the Jewish Defense League, the CRIF, and Samy Ghozlan of the BNVCA. Citing various incidents that occurred over the past ten years, Denisot claims these organizations confuse anti-Zionism and criticism of Israeli government policies with anti-Semitism, and get away with it. Shortly after taking the hostages, Denisot contacted Rue 89 and specifically asked to speak to the specialist on Mideast affairs. He kept a running conversation with Haski throughout the operation and finally surrendered after the police had assured him that his message had been relayed to major media and broadcast publicly. In fact, outside of Rue 89 his message was either not mentioned or dismissed as "vague." I contacted Rue 89 this morning to request a copy of the Manifesto and was told that Haski, who has an appointment with the police today, cannot transmit it "because it hasn't been published." Will it eventually be made available? I have my doubts. But I will try to contact some of those "extremist Zionist fringe groups" to see if they at least have had access to the document that incriminates them. The comparison with the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik is intriguing. In both cases, a "native" European focused on Muslims or Jews attacks his own. Will those who accused anti-jihad thinkers of propelling Breivik now suspect Un oeil sur la planegrave;te of inspiring the hostage-taker?
Footnote [1] Blurbs for the five segments: A working State? by Martine Laroche-Joubert and Thierry Breton : There is already a working administration in Palestine. International organizations congratulate the management of ongoing affairs. The West Bank is much more modern than South Sudan, the State most recently admitted into the UN... 1000 faces of Gaza, by Katia Clarens and Valérie Lucas : Besides the West Bank there is the Gaza Strip, run by the Islamists of Hamas, infamous for bloody suicide attacks in Israel. In retaliation the territory is subjected to a blockade. In retorsion Hamas sends rockets to Israel, that counter-attacks... Violence that severely penalizes civilians. A majority has nothing to do with Hamas and wishes they would leave. But there are also Salafist groups that find Hamas too moderate... Exclusive report. Frontiers of Discord, by Alexis Monchovet and Sophie Claudet: There are other obstacles to the creation of a Palestinian State. First, frontiers. The Israelis don't want to hear anymore about the lines traced before the Six-Day War. For strategic or religious reasons, they multiply colonies in the West Bank, monopolizing the water and the best land. Jewish colons also settle in and around Jerusalem. How can a viable State be created under these conditions? And the right of return? by Negar Zoka and Malek Sahraoui: Another concern, the Palestinian refugee question. There are approximately five million outside the territories. More than in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The right of return is transmitted from generation to generation. In Lebanon some have been rotting away for more than 60 years in unsanitary camps. Only a minority can return to Israel or Palestine. The pro-Israel lobby in the United States, Estelle Youssouffa and Christophe Obert: Despite UN Resolutions, Israel has long been able to count on unfailing support from the top world power. Because the Israeli lobby is very influential in the United States, with a mixture of Jewish organizations and conservative Christians. Their pressure weighs with all its weight on American foreign policy. But the Arab Spring has redistributed the cards. Contact Nidra Poller at nidrapol@gmail.com
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TSUNAMI
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, October 22, 2011. |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il
Go to
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THE NEW-OLD JEW HATRED
Posted by Giulio Meotti, October 22, 2011. |
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Current-day anti-Semitism obsessed with concept of Jews as the chosen people |
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The malignant use of the expression "chosen Jews" is recurring in the latest attacks on Israel made by secular intellectuals, archbishops, mainstream journalists and European politicians. Such vilification inspired historical waves of violence, like the pogroms, the expulsion of the Spanish Jews and Martin Luther's demonology (the founder of Protestantism argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but instead "the Devil's people.") "Modern-day Jews are not God's chosen people," the head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, declared recently in a meeting with former US President Jimmy Carter. "Do not believe their claims that they are God's chosen people, because it is not true." It is no longer only Syria that aired a movie against the "Chosen Jews" or the former prime minister of Malaysia, Mohammad Mahathir, who warned that "the Jews must never think they are the chosen people." The obsession for this issue now widely appears in the latest indictments of Israel as an "apartheid state" and in the legal campaigns against the Law of Return. Recently, Stephen Sizer, a leading British theologian, released a declaration to support the UN Palestinian bid: "The New Testament insists the promises God made to Abraham are fulfilled not in the Jewish people but in Jesus and those who acknowledge him." According to Sizer, the Jewish covenant with God is "rubbish." Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, a cleric chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to draft the conclusions of the synod on the Middle East, declared that "there is no longer a Jewish chosen people," resurrecting the ancient calumny that the Jews are damned for all time as cosmic exiles. Elias Chacour, the Vatican-approved Catholic Archbishop of Israel, says that "we do not believe anymore that the Jews are the Chosen People." Many anti-Semitic comments are based on the concept of Jews as the chosen people. "All Jews share a particular gene, that makes them different from other peoples," recently declared German central bank executive Thilo Sarrazin. Christina Patterson attacked the Jews in a column for The Independent: "I didn't realize that a purchase by a goy was a crime to be punished with monosyllabic terseness, or that bus seats were a potential source of contamination, or that road signs, and parking restrictions, were for people who hadn't been chosen by God." 'We call it racism' Meanwhile, acclaimed Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis told an interviewer that "today it is possible to say that this small nation is the root of all evil; it is full of self-importance and evil stubbornness." Asked by his interlocutor, "what is it that holds us Jews together?" Theodorakis replied, "It is the feeling that you are the children of God. That you are the chosen." Elsewhere, European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, a former Belgian foreign minister, recently blamed the "Jewish lobby" and said that "there is indeed a belief - it's difficult to describe it otherwise - among most Jews that they are right." De Gucht's target was the Jews, not Israeli policies. Jostein Gaarder, author of the literary bestseller Sophie's World, published an op-ed titled "God's chosen people" in the Aftenposten, one of Norway's major newspapers, in which he declared that Israel has lost its right to exist: "We no longer recognize the state of Israel....We don't believe in the idea of God's chosen people....To present oneself as God's chosen people is not just stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it José Saramago, the Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize laureate, described the Jews in perfervid terms as "contaminated by the monstrous and rooted 'certitude' that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God and that, consequently, all the actions of an obsessive, psychological, and pathological exclusivist racism are justified." The plot of celebrated British playwright Caryl Churchill's "Seven Jewish Children," which got much acclaim at London's Royal Court Theater, is built on the Jewish obsession. Churchill's short play unfolds over seven scenes, beginning, dimly, sometime during the Holocaust and concluding with Israel's wars. Characters appear as parents of an offstage child, and the dialogue revolves around what the girl should or should not know about her political circumstances as they unfold over the decades. "Tell her", says one of the play's Zionist elders, "I wouldn't care if we wiped them out . . . tell her we're better haters, tell her we're chosen people." This is the same delusional lexicon of medieval Jew-hatred. Taken to its logical end, this language suggests that there is only one price the Jews can pay for being accepted by the world: Israel's elimination. Indeed, this worldwide condemns the Jews to homelessness and humiliation, chosen to walk the earth alone until the end of the days. Giulio Meotti is the author of the book "A New Shoah"
Contact him at giuliomeotti@hotmail.com.
This is archived at
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WHOSE LAND IS JUDEA-SAMARIA?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 21, 2011. |
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Many of the Jewish communities in the Benjamin area of Judea-Samaria are on formerly state land — long abandoned and not owned by individuals. All over those hills are the remains of ancient vineyards, agricultural terraces, mikvot, and other indicators of Jewish life going back thousands of years. Nevertheless, the legal status of those communities has not been made final. This gives the government of Israel a pretext for calling them illegal. PM Netanyahu has said that the legal status of those communities should be resolved. Actually, the existence of those communities is threatened. Peace Now sues in the High Court each of those communities. The complaint suggests that the Court destroy them and give the land to what Peace Now calls their owners, Arabs whom they have recruited for the purpose. Actually, those Arabs have no title deeds. That doesn't bother Peace Now. It should bother any fair-minded person. How can Peace Now afford all those court actions? Other anti-Zionist organizations, such as New Israel Fund, European countries, and Saudi Arabia donate the funds. They would destroy Jewish life in Israel. Arabs also claim that certain olive orchards belong to them, although those orchards lay within Jewish communities. Again, no legitimate records support the Arab claim. The claim is based often on hearsay and on Arabs having cultivated the area (from opinions of sources in Israel). Arabs there are known to try to squat on land they do not own. When Jews resist, the leftist and foreign media complain. They always lament that Israel "occupies" "Arab land." But the Arabs, descendants of Islamic imperialists, still strive to occupy Jews' and Christians' land. Peace Now has caused much disputation and tension by finding Arabs willing to go along with Peace Now and make dubious claims on the land, and perhaps be awarded it. Their chance for success is due to the bias of the justice system. As we reported, the IDF escorts Arabs into the communities to harvest olives. Some of the Arabs have been found reconnoitering for terrorism. The Arabs are involved in a struggle to drive the Jews off the land, all of the land, just as they are driving Christians out of the Mideast. What is Israel doing in self-defense? If the government were patriotic, it would regularize the legal status of Jewish communities and outposts within them, though it would see that compensation is given to the few Arabs who actually did have title to some acreage in communities taken over by Jews after the confusion of war and poor record-keeping. The government would not just, as it is attempting to do, report on foreign donations to organizations that take the Arab side against Israel. It would bar such funding as aiding and abetting the enemy. But there is a Western reluctance to declare jihadists the enemy. As a result, what is treasonous is deemed legal, especially by the leftists who control the justice system in Israel, and what is legal is questioned. In the U.S., the same reluctance hobbles national security efforts against jihad. Another patriotic government potential for action useful for national security, would be to enforce the law against Arab rioters, land thieves, and rustlers and not to keep releasing convicted terrorists by the hundreds. Police and prosecutors would not routinely take the word of self-contradictory Arabs and arrest Jews and try to convict Jews without evidence. Unfortunately, the government is appeasement-minded. Its policy is to withdraw from territory, if only the Arabs would agree to a formula that would not arouse Israeli public rage. The government lacks the courage to defy foreign and leftist opinion. Buckling under pressure, it makes promises, such as to dismantle "illegal" outposts and communities. Then those promises are cited by foreign governments who do not keep their own promises to Israel and by journalists who report falsehoods about Israel.
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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DISGRACEFUL, OUTRAGEOUS, UNACCEPTABLE
Posted by Susana K-M, October 21, 2011. |
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This was written by William Katz and it is archived at
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DISGRACEFUL, OUTRAGEOUS, UNACCEPTABLE — One day after we get Gaddafi, the president's own Justice Department announces a kamikaze step that will seriously compromise, if not paralyze, our efforts to root out home-grown terrorists. You have to read this twice to believe it. From the Daily Caller: Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday that the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive. This is utterly sickening. The United States Government goes out of its way to stress the distinction between law-abiding Muslims and those planning attacks against the United States. The bottom line is that the overwhelming number of terror attempts are made by radical Muslims. Just yesterday two radical Muslims were convicted in Minneapolis of funneling money to terror groups in Somalia. And get this: In his op-ed, Al-Marayati demanded that the Justice Department and the FBI "issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the Muslim American community" and "establish a thorough and transparent vetting process in selecting its trainers and materials." Are we serious here? That's like having members of the Ku Klux Klan serve as advisers to the agents investigating Klan activities. That's like inviting the KGB to examine our investigation of its spying in the United States. This is complete madness. Our Justice Department, under Eric Holder, seems to be in its knee-jerk left-wing mode. The professional Muslim organizations should be grateful for how restrained this country has been in the years after 9-11. The demand that the government apologize to the Muslim commity is outrageous. I cannot imagine a Republican Justice Department buckling before these threats and demands. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
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TO MY FAVOURITE WRITERS
Posted by Susana K-M, October 21, 2011. |
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Being English not my mother tongue, which I deeply regret, I would like to express some of my thought to you. ¿Do you really think that people in Israel are far more unsafe now than before the terrorists swap? ¿Do you believe that Iran stopped sending funds and weapons to "Palestinians"? And what about the U.S. trainigng and funding the terrorists there? 1027 were released. How many more can have been put in their places long ago? 3,000? Possible. On the other hand, having the Mossad, how long would it take to its staff to trace the released, follow up their activities and get them back in jail? This is just common sense, but we should all put in Bibi' shoes for one day and try to deal with a Muslim President in America, and with a liberal antisemitic vice-President (the settlements issue). According to a Professor Grief's Case Study, Shamgar was to blame for applying the Military Law to the brand-new Israel State. In turn, this brought about subsequent serious problems.Shamgar laid the fundations to the claims of delegitimization and occupation. I heard something about a Shamgar's report that must be released. Is it the same Shamgar I am mentioning? On top of it all, Bibi has to deal with "The White Elephant" Group: ONU, HRW, RED CROSS, UNWRA, etc. They stand for red-tape and antisemitism. I do not think that anyone of them would have helped at all with Shalit, but quite the opposite. And then what? What else could have liberated Shalit? We should ask ourselves if terrorism ceased while those 1027 were in jail. Let´s remember the Fogel Family and years of rockets and bombs falling in people's backyards. I also remember Israel soldiers being returned dead. If you do not mind, I would love to be answered by all of you. Warmest regards Shosh Kohan
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INDIA TOO SLOW TO RECOGNIZE ISRAEL AS NATURAL ALLY
Posted by Daily Alert, October 21, 2011. |
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This was written by Sadanand Dhume
and is archived at
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Instead of throwing its weight behind Israel - a natural ally with whom India shares more interests than it does with almost any other country - the government in New Delhi has publicly backed Palestinian brinkmanship on the statehood issue. India was the first non-Arab state to recognize Palestinian independence in 1988, while simultaneously deepening security and trade ties with Israel since it established full diplomatic relations in 1992. Below the radar, India-Israel relations continue to grow. Two-way trade has ballooned to $5 billion this year from $200 million in 1992. In 2008, space scientists in southern India launched Tecsar, an Israeli spy satellite reportedly aimed at improving the monitoring of Iranian military movements. India has emerged as one of the Israeli defense industry's largest export markets. Among India's purchases: surveillance drones, surface-to-air missiles, advanced artillery, missile defense systems, airborne radar, and sensors to track cross-border infiltration by terrorists into Indian Kashmir. Yet India has yet to abandon its habit of holding a vital relationship hostage to the vagaries of domestic identity politics. While Muslim voters account for about 14% of India's electorate and the Congress Party tends to assume they are viscerally hostile to Israel, this remains untested. New Delhi also is trying to pander to Arab sentiment (India benefits from large remittances from Indian workers in the Gulf region, not to mention energy imports), which tends to favor Pakistan. India remains stuck in a time warp of supposed Third-World solidarity with "oppressed" Palestinians rather than understanding that as a rising power India's interests lie with democratic Israel. Neither country has a quarrel with Islam - both house Muslim populations that enjoy more rights than their co-religionists in many places - but both are threatened by radical Islamist ideology and the terrorism it spawns. The writer is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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FROM ISRAEL: IMPLICATIONS
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 21, 2011. |
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A familiar but necessary refrain of mine: Shabbat is early and time for this posting is limited. But I — along with many others! — carry the consequences of the Shalit trade heavily on my heart. There are things that must be said, with continuation as necessary after Shabbat. As it is, there are those outside of Israel who are still celebrating the holiday and will not see this until after Shabbat in any event. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is no one, but no one, who is not glad to see Gilad alive and free. That is, as an issue separate from how his freedom was achieved. He came out in much better shape than had been expected — which makes it clear not that Hamas has become humanitarian, but that they understood his worth to them in a trade. He has handled himself with intelligence, including in the horrendous interview to which he was subjected in Egypt. May he heal in soul and body, and go on to live a meaningful and full life. He should never be begrudged this, now that he is out. ~~~~~~~~~~ My empathy for his parents, however, and in particular his father, Noam Shalit, is considerably less. Not that I am without understanding of his pain, and his longing for his son to return. But, rather, that I am uneasy with how Noam conducted himself these last five years. There are those who say that he did what a father had to do — this was his job: to make as much noise as possible to help bring his son home. And I say no. It was not his job to try to influence the prime minister and the entire government with regard to a trade. It was not his place to push the decision-makers of Israel to make the decision they finally did, nor to generate grassroots opinion that would pressure the government. More than once, he suggested publicly that it was the prime minister's "fault" that his son was not home yet — that if only Netanyahu would agree to the trade Hamas was demanding, all would be well (for the Shalit family, that is). Quite simply, Noam Shalit's concern was only his son. Fine and good. However, it is the business of the government to be concerned with the wellbeing of all its citizens! And the decision that was made is most decidedly not in the best interests of the Israeli citizenry. ~~~~~~~~~~ Andrew Friedman, the JPost's new opinion editor, in a piece on Wednesday, addressed this very point: "...it [is]...worthwhile to consider the family's campaign to win their son's release, and to compare it to other hostage situations. "From the beginning of the crisis, Noam and Aviva Schalit focused their campaign on the Israeli government, demanding the government bow to Hamas's demands, rather than demanding on the international stage that their son be afforded the basic human rights afforded all other prisoners-of-war. "...instead of enlisting the international community to demand Geneva Convention rights like Red Cross visits and a sign of life from the hostage, the Schalits demanded that Israel release terrorists. Instead of demanding that organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch throw the full weight of their influence behind Gilad's case, the Schalits demonized successive Israeli governments for 'failing' to secure a deal. "Compare the Schalits' campaign to that of Avital Sharansky, who pounded Western capitals for nine years to win the freedom of her husband, Natan, from the Soviet Union, but would never have even raised the specter of a 1,027-to-one deal with president Ronald Reagan or British prime minister Margaret Thatcher... "...In the current instance, one would have expected Noam and Aviva Schalit to have made themselves frequent visitors to Washington, London and Brussels, and especially to Ankara and Oslo, both of which maintain close ties with Hamas and consider the Islamist organization a legitimate player in the Middle East political game, in order to win Gilad's release. ~~~~~~~~~~ Other points Friedman makes include these: [] "There is no proof to support the claim made by supporters of lopsided hostage deals that motivation to serve in the IDF goes down when soldiers are held captive... ~~~~~~~~~~ I think most important of all is Friedman's comment that: "It is time now to initiate a full pubic discussion into Israel's policy of terrorists-for-hostages swaps and to publish the 2009 Shamgar Commission findings and to legislate a clear policy to guide future hostage crises... (Emphasis added) Now that the Schalit hostage crisis is over, the Shamgar Commission should release its findings immediately..."
~~~~~~~~~~ I could not agree mort, and that these governments are bound by restrictions in terms of what can be negotiated. As Friedman wrote: "...hostage crises require nerves of steel and a keen eye on the future. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Shamgar Commission was a special committee headed by former chief justice Meir Shamgar and including Professor Asa Kasher and retired general Amos Yaron, which was established at the order of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. It was mandated with establishing recommendations for guidelines for future prisoner exchanges. Those recommendations were drawn up, but were never ratified by the Cabinet and have been kept secret. According to Ha'aretz: "The Shamgar commission...is expected to update its report to reflect lessons learned from the deal to free Gilad Shalit. According to an anonymous military source the panel will meet in the next two weeks with special envoy David Meidan and other figures involved in reaching the agreement with Hamas, before submitting its report to Defense Minister Ehud Barak." Now is the time for a huge amount of noise on this. ~~~~~~~~~~ For the record, I know of IDF soldiers with great courage and wisdom who have told their parents that, should they be abducted, they would not want to be traded for terrorists. And here (with thanks to reader Michael P.) is an article that talks about the adamant opposition of Yonah Baumel to the precedent-establishing Jibril deal of 1985, in which over a thousand terrorists were traded for three Israeli soldiers captured in the first Lebanon War, even though his own son, Zack Baumel was held in captivity.
~~~~~~~~~~ Jonathan Rosen has written an article about the need to institute the death penalty for terrorists in the most extreme cases. He makes some significant points. Says Rosen: "The risks [of releasing terrorists] are all very real and, regrettably, are likely to have a personal and painful impact on Israeli individuals in the future, either in the form of violent attacks or kidnappings. ~~~~~~~~~~ With this, my prayers to one and all for a peaceful Shabbat and for wisdom in the days to come. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT — FORGOTTEN FACTS! — INTRO1
Posted by Steven Shamrack, October 21, 2011. |
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for more information please visit: www.shamrak.com The term "Palestinian" is itself a masterful twisting of history. To portray themselves as indigenous, Arab settlers adopted the name of an ancient Mediterranean tribe, the Philistines ("Invaders" in Hebrew), that disappeared out over almost 3000 years ago. The connection between this tribe and modern day Arabs is nil. Romans, in order to conceal their shame and anger with rebellious regions, changed the references to Judea and Samaria by naming them Palestine. 1. Nationhood and Jerusalem - Israel became a nation in the 14th century B.C.E. Two thousand years before the rise of Islam. 2. Since 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for up to 1,000 years with a continuous Jewish presence in the land for the past 3,300 years. 3. The only Arab dominion since the Arab invasion and conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years. 4. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem. 5. For over 3,000 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital and Arab leaders did not come to visit. 6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran. 7. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray facing Mecca (often with their backs toward Jerusalem). 8. In 1854, according to a report in the New York Tribune, Jews constituted two-thirds of the population of that holy city. (The source: A journalist on assignment in the Middle East that year for the Tribune. His name was Karl Marx. Yes, that Karl Marx.) 9. In 1867, Mark Twain took a tour of Palestine. This is how he described that land: A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human. 10. In 1882, official Ottoman Turk census figures showed that, in the entire Land of Israel, there were only 141 000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab. 11. A travel guide to Palestine and Syria was published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker; The book estimated the total population of Jerusalem at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews. 12. As the Jews came and drained the swamps and made the deserts bloom, Arabs followed. They came for jobs, for prosperity, for freedom. And, they came in large numbers. 13. In 1922, with what was widely acknowledged as the illegal separation of Trans-Jordan, the Jews were forbidden to settle on almost 77% of the Palestine, while Arab settlement went unrestricted and encouraged by British mandatory authority. 14. Prior to the Second World War Mojli Amin, a member of the Arab Defense Committee for Palestine, proposed the idea "that all the Arabs of Palestine will leave and be divided up amongst the neighboring Arab countries. In exchange for this, all the Jews living in Arab countries will leave and come to Palestine." 15. Did you know that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920? Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941; the borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival would have to deny their own rights as recent arrivals as well. They did not exist as countries. They were all under the control of the Turks. Over 80% of the original British Mandate land was given to Arabs without population transfer of Arabs from the land designated for Jews. 16. In 1947, the Jewish state huddled on 18% of the original British Mandate land. The Jews accepted it gratefully. The Arabs rejected it with a vengeance and seven Arab states immediately declared war against Israel. 17. In 1948, the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Most of them left in fear of being killed by their own Arab brothers as traitors. 18. Some 850,000 Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab countries, due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms. 19. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is claimed to be around 630,000 (where did they get this number?). Based on population census, estimated number of Arabs who left Israel was around 460,000. They were ordered to leave by Arab leaders at the time. 20. From 1948 till 1967 Arabs made no attempt to create a Palestinian state. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated, 58 synagogues in Jerusalem were destroyed and the Jews and Christians were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths. 21. Arabs began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1964 only, on the initiative of Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat. The idea became popular Arab propaganda tool after Israel re-captured Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the defensive 6-Day War of 1967. 22. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, Arab-Palestinians are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel. 23. Arab refugees INTENTIONALLY were not absorbed or integrated by the rich Arab oil states that control 99.9 percent of the Middle East landmass. They are kept as virtual prisoners by the Arab power brokers with misplaced hatred for Jews and Western democracy. 24. There is only one Jewish state. There are 60 Muslim countries, including 22 Arab nations. 25. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. 26. Pan-Arabism or the doctrine of Muslim Caliphate declares that all land that used to belong to Muslims must be returned to them. Thus, Spain, for example, must eventually be re-conquered. Ethnic Make Up of 'Palestinians'. Extracts from: "Bosnia - Motherland of "Palestinians" by Manfred R. Lehmann and "Palestinians 'Peoplehood' Based on a Big Lie" by Eli E. Hertz. Arab Palestinian nationality (which was officially forged in 1964) is an entity defined by its opposition to Zionism (the Jewish national liberation movement) and not by its national aspirations. Like a mantra, Arabs repeatedly claim that the Palestinians are a native people of Israel. The concept of a 'Stateless Palestinian people' is not based on fact. It is a fabrication! The following is a chronology of an ethnic make up of so-called Palestinians and their origin. During Ottoman Empire. Until the Jews began returning to the Land of Israel in increasing numbers from the late 19th century, the area called Palestine was a God-forsaken backwash that was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. 1880-84 Turkish government settles Muslim Circassian refugees in the Golan to ward off Bedouin robbers. Other settlers in the area include Sudanese, Algerians, Kurds... In 1878, an Ottoman law granted lands in Palestine to the Moslem refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Carmel region, in the Galilee and in the Plain of Sharon and in Caesarea. The refugees were further attracted by l2-year tax exemptions and exemption from military service. The same colonization policy was also directed toward Moslem refugees from Russia - particularly from the Crimea and the Caucasus. They were Circassians, Cherkesians and Turkmenians - leading to their settling in Abu Gosh, near Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights. Refugees from Algeria and Egypt were also settled in Jaffa, Gaza, Jericho and the Golan. British Mandate: 1917-1947. 1923 Having discovered the Golan lacks oil but that the Mosul area in northern Syria is rich in oil, the British cede the Golan to France in exchange for Mosul. At the same time the Trans-Jordan was ceded from Palestinian mandate as well and Egypt was given control of Sinai, British and France gain control of Suetz canal. (82% of Jewish land was sacrificed in the process!) In 1934 alone, 30,000 Syrian Arabs from the Hauran moved across the northern frontier into Mandate Palestine, attracted by work in and around the newly built British port and the construction of other infrastructure projects. They even dubbed Haifa Um el-Amal ('the city of work'). The Ottoman Turks' census (1882) recorded only 141,000 Muslims in the Palestinian. The British census in 1922 reported 650,000 Muslims. The Palestine Mandate. In July 1922, the League of Nations entrusted the Great Britain with The Palestine Mandate, recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine," Great Britain was called upon to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine - Eretz Israel (Land of Israel). Three months later, in order to obtain full control over Suez canal, the Great Britain made a deal with Hashemite Kingdom, Egypt and France. The trans-Jordan (77% of the Mandate) was given to the king's brother in exchange for the Sinai, which was given to Egypt. Golan Heights (5% of the Palestinian Mandate) was ceded to the French controlled Syrian Mandate. This robbery was legalized immediately by, the puppet of the Great Britain and France - the League of Nations! http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Palestine_Mandate.html General Assembly resolution 181, of Nov. 29, 1947: It calls for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem to be controlled by a "special international regime" to protect its holy places. The Zionist movement seeking to establish a Jewish state accepted the partition, the Arabs rejected it. The resolution was not carried out: After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, war broke out pitting the embryonic state against surrounding 7 Arab states. Israel gained more land than it would have had under the partition resolution. Neither Israel nor Jordan, which controlled the divided parts of Jerusalem after the war, accepted control of the holy city by an international body. Security Council resolution 242, Nov. 22, 1967: It calls for "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied" in the 1967 Six Day War and for "respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." The resolution was not carried out because the Arab side did not recognize Israel, and Israel refused to withdraw. Why Left or Right? by Steven Shamrak One of the major distinctions between humans and animals is that we have analytical intellect. At the same time, we base most of our ideas and form opinions on our emotions, beliefs and assumptions, not on facts. Blinded by personal psycho-emotional history, people dismiss logic of the facts and create assumption to fit and support their own belief structure. Completely opposite ideologies: Lefties, Fascists and Islamic expansionists/terrorists found themselves united on one issue only — Hate toward Jews. Quite often, I receive mail from them. Those messages are mainly just rhetoric based on preconceived ideas and psycho -emotional cocktail. I have never received letters that would contradict the historical facts about: Right of Jewish people to their homeland — "Palestine"; The history of aggression and terror created by Arabs; The U.N. bias against Israel. But, I am often accused of being: Anti-Arab or Muslim. - As a member of the Jewish tribe, with thousands of years being the victims in history of persecution and discrimination, I can assure you that my view are not Anti-something. I just express a pro-Jewish point of view based on facts not legends. At the same time, I do respect the freedom and rights of any religion and political point of view, even the fascist one, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others. Too emotional. - Arab leaders and clerics, often seen on TV, fumigating when they talk about Israel. Communists and Fascists are so passionate when they scream anti-Israel/anti-Semitic slogans. This is apparently acceptable. However, when a Jew logically presents facts in support of the Jewish state, suddenly, it is wrong to be emotional. Too Right wing. - I do not consider myself Right or Left wing. I base my ideas and views on facts not emotions. There are too many people (including many Jews) who are very eager to promote, self-destructive, Left wing views. Actually, I can't understand why, in relation to Israel's right to exist there are Right or Left wind political points of view. Isn't it supposed to be point of view based on historical facts and the right of the Jewish people to live on the land of their ancestors? Dear Friends, Six years have passed since I started to send my letters out. I often asked one question: Why do you do it? I would like to answer it here: Unfortunately, most people, including many Jews, are driven by emotions. They form their opinions under the influence of the manipulative world media and their own psychological predispositions, ignoring facts and logic. Israel is losing "Media War"! Neither Israeli governments nor Jewish leadership in other countries have been doing anything about PR side of the Arab-Israel conflict. I try to disseminate several points in my letters:
Elie Wiesel said: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." As members of Western democratic society we all have an obligation to fight indifference and protect our way of life — Democracy - Social justice and freedom of speech. The blind Israel bashing is not a part of a true democracy. It is ugly left over of the "Old World". Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak.e@gmail.com |
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WHY DEMOCRACY IS DANGEROUS FOR THE ARAB SPRING
Posted by Frank Salvato, October 20, 2011. |
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There is a concerted movement that began in earnest with the Progressive Era to identify the United States of America as a Democracy. To be sure, this movement has made great strides in convincing the American citizenry of just that. This movement has been so successful in delivering this message that Democrats, Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives have, throughout history — and even up to and including today, have identified our American form of government as that of being a Democracy. There is even an initiative promoted by our federal government to export "Democracy" throughout the world. Today we see this initiative playing out in the Middle East and North Africa. There is only one thing wrong with all of the above and the problem exists at the root: The United States of America is not a Democracy; it never has been and, God willing, it never will be. Democracy has always, throughout history, served as a gateway to despotism. This is primarily because Democracy is tantamount to "mob rule," or government by the majority. In a government ruled by the will of the majority — a Democracy, the rights of the minority are not guaranteed and are often neglected or even ignored by those who hold power, most often in pursuit of keeping or maintaining that power. Additionally, in a Democracy, because it is essentially government by the will of the majority, government has no constraints. If fifty-one percent of the people — or a plurality of the people — can be persuaded to believe a particular avenue of thinking; convinced that a certain law is "necessary," it becomes the policy of the government or the law of the land, regardless of whether or not the minority's rights have been usurped or protected. The history of the world, where governments are concerned, have proved quite clearly that there is a natural progression from Democracy to mob rule, which gives way to anarchy and, eventually, tyranny under an oligarchy. An examination of the democracies of the early Greek city states illustrates this progression. Looking at Democracy from a historical — or realistic — viewpoint, especially where transition to Democracy is concerned, it can be stated with confidence that the best organized — and usually the best funded — faction among a people in turmoil is almost always the most influential when a new form of government is established out of the chaos that encompasses governmental transition. This is exactly the case in the events taking place across the Middle East and North Africa. It is smart, at this point, to layout the transitional formulaic timeline so as to map out the evolution of almost all of the governmental transitions that have, to date, taken place in the so-called "Arab Spring." In each country, discontent with despotic leadership — self-protecting and nepotistic oligarchies, rulers with an often violently heavy hand, who routinely oppressed political opponents and opposing political organizations, who, in many cases, jailed those of differing political and/or religious ideologies — provoked a move toward rebellion. That rebellion fomented a move to public civil disobedience. At first, these protests; these demonstrations, were organic; comprised of mostly urban inhabitants better suited to use the tools of modern social networking to organize protest locations and attendance. As international media began to inform the world of these events, people from more rural locations began to trek to protest sites. And as these events became increasingly potent they became fertile ground for factions and organizations more familiar with organizing large groups of people to action. In some cases — as in Egypt with the self-injection of the Progressive Movement and international labor union organizations, like SEIU — these elements were non-indigenous entities based in foreign political ideologies, possessing ulterior motives targeting any new system of government. These prolonged, well organized and well funded demonstrations fueled anarchical chaos, used as a tool to bring about revolutionary change. It is important to understand that in the condition of anarchy there exists a vacuum where no central authority exists; there are no laws, no protection for the populace of property. During this anarchical chaos, rioting, looting, destruction and physical violence became prevalent, thus facilitating a thirst among the populace, in each of the affected countries, for order; for control. As stated earlier, the best suited groups to provide this order, this control, were the best organized and best funded factions among the people; usually the very people who encouraged the anarchical chaos from the start; the people and groups most likely to gain from the overthrow of the existing government. This scenario came to pass in almost every event in the so-called Arab Spring. From Tunisia to Egypt, from Libya to Syria to Yemen, a despotic oligarchy was in the seat of power, chaotic and most often violent protects ensued and a power vacuum manifested only to see the best organized and funded factions among the peoples — in many cases military or armed factions — seize power under the guise of facilitating future "democratic elections." This is exactly what happened during the Russia Revolution of 1917, which saw Vladimir Lenin establish total control over the Russian people, and also what happened in the run up to Nazi Era Germany, when Hitler's "Brown Shirts" created the chaos that catapulted him to power. It is also the same formula followed by Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara during the Cuban Revolution. In each instance, the resulting forms of government that evolved from the chaos were responsible for millions of deaths and genocide. Understanding the frailties and vulnerabilities of Democracy is important in understanding the very real threats facing the people of the Middle East as the so-called "Arab Spring" evolves. In each of the countries affected there are well organized and well funded factions that either stand in the wings waiting for the right moment to make their moves toward the seat of power or have already done so. In Egypt, two factions have advanced toward the seat of power, even as "free and democratic elections" are promised to the people: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (the Egyptian military) and the once outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has delayed elections while expanding power, almost on an ongoing basis, only recently setting on a date — November 28, 2001 — on which the four month parliamentary election process will begin. The presidential election is slated for 2012. At each stage of getting to this point, the military has acted sluggishly and with a totalitarian hand. Renewed protests have materialized in Tahrir Square, with protest organizers demanding speedy reforms, the lifting of the decades-old emergency law, an end to military trials of civilians and "social justice," the last demand suspiciously symbiotic with the international labor union and Progressive movements. On the other end of Egypt's "Arab Spring" spectrum exists the Muslim Brotherhood: an organization that exists at the epicenter of fundamentalist Islam; an organization that serves as a spiritual focal point for violent jihadi organizations (i.e. al Qaeda and all of its off-shoots, Hezbollah, and Hamas, to name but a scant few) around the world. The Muslim Brotherhood exists as the best organized faction among the Egyptian people, rivaling the Egyptian military in both organizational ability and funding. In fact, it can be argued that the Egyptian people are more sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood than to the military, who are facilitating and guaranteeing elections. Members of both of these groups stand to fair nicely in both the parliamentary elections and the presidential election. In Libya, anti-Qaddafi rebels poised to attain power have been tied to jihadi elements connected to al Qaeda and in some instances, jihadi forces that have physically engaged in combat against American military units in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The same fact present when an examination of the events in Yemen is undertaken. In Syria, as Bashar Assad continues his genocidal tamping down of anti-regime protesters even in the face of international calls for his removal from power, "Arab Spring" revolutionaries face a future where either Assad prevails or even more draconian Iranian operatives ascend to the reign of power. And in Tunisia, fundamentalist Islamist factions are exerting their influence of the shape of their society. On October 14, 2011, Islamic extremists firebombed the home of a TV station executive just hours after militants clashed with police in the streets of Tunis in protest of the station's broadcast of a film they claim violated Islamic values. Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets in the West — along with opportunistic politicians, and community organizing and international labor union leadership — celebrate the "transition to democracy" facilitated by the "freedom fighters" of the "Arab Spring." In 1992, the terrorist group Hezbollah — born of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard — politicized its organization, agreeing to participate in that country's elections for the first time. In their first political sojourn they won all twelve seats for which they slated candidates. Today, Hezbollah members are part of the Lebanese government and maintain virtual control over Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, the organization responsible for more deaths of US military personal before the September 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda on the United States, has been validated via the democratic process as a legitimate political organization. In 2006, Hamas, a United States State Department recognized terrorist organization, achieved political validity via democratic elections in Gaza. They then immediately entered into armed insurrection with their political and military rival in the Palestinian-held territories, Fatah, establishing themselves as the sole seat government in the Gaza Strip. In 2007, Marxist Hugo Chavez, then already elected to a term-limited presidency per Venezuela's constitution, advanced sweeping constitutional changes that allowed him to be re-elected indefinitely. Chavez initially won the Venezuelan presidency via democratic elections. The overriding point in all of this is that history always — always — repeats itself. The "Arab Spring," occurring in today's Middle East, is just as vulnerable to despotic forces as were the revolutions that took place in Russia in 1917, Germany in the 1930s and Cuba in 1959...and the repercussions of the ascendance of these despotic powers could be the catalyst for a seminal confrontation that could very well encompass the globe. Frank Salvato is the Executive Director for BasicsProject.org a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) research and education initiative focusing on Constitutional Literacy and the threats of Islamic jihadism and Progressive neo-Marxism. He can be contacted at contact@newmediajournal.us. |
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RETURNING LIBYA TO ITS RIGHTFUL RULERS!
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 20, 2011. |
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Special blessing for Shmini Atzeret, even if a few hours late:.
All around the Libyan Bush,
I thought now would be an apt time to re-post this, from last Purim:
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The world is wringing its hands over the fate of Libya. Being a helpful sort of guy, and what with Purim fast approaching, I know just the proper solution. Control of Libya should be returned at once to the natural and rightful owners of Libya, the people who controlled it before it was invaded and occupied by Arab military hordes. Libya should be returned to the Jews. Why the Jews? Well, because according to at least a few scholars, Jews controlled Libya not only before the Khaddafi era but long before the country was seized and occupied by the Arabs. And, according to at least a few theories, Libya was governed by a Jewish Berber queen known to history as Kahina. In the spirit of Adar and Purim, let's accept those theories as indisputable fact and proceed: Before the birth of Muhammad, back when there were no Arabs at all in North Africa, Libya and its surroundings were home to Byzantine occupiers and indigenous tribes. The latter were the true natives of the area. The Romans called the tribes Berbers, from which they derived the derogatory adjective "barbarian," but the Berbers called themselves Imazighen, possibly meaning "free people" or "free and noble men." Libya was Berber long before the Egyptians and their slaves built any pyraminds. Cathaginians conquered the area and were evicted by other conquerers, as were the Vandal tribes and the Byzantines. But the natives consisted of Berbers. And Jews. The Jews probably entered the area during the period of the Second Temple, and Berber-Jewish ties were strengthened during the revolt against the Romans in the Land of Israel that ended with the destruction of the Temple. North African Jews mixed with and influenced local Berber tribes. The French historian Marcel Simon claims that Tripoli, the same Tripoli in which Muammar Khaddafi suppressed his own people, was under the rule of Jewish Berbers as early as the first century of the common era. By the time the Arab imperialist armies entered Libya after the death of Muhammad, Berbers in Libya and North Africa belonged to Christian tribes (usually heretical heterodox Christians), pagan tribes, and at least one large Jewish tribe. And the Jewish tribe was led by a woman. No glass ceilings for her. She didn't need any Reform rabbis lecturing her about egalitarianism in Judaism. While known in most histories as the Kahina (from the root word kohen for priestess), her actual name is given variously as Dahiyah, Dahia, or Dhabba. Her tribe, known as the Jerawa, was based in the Aures Mountains in eastern Algeria and Tunisia, and its control extended into Libya. And she was a warrior queen. The historian Charles-Andre Julien, in his History of North Africa, calls her the Berber Deborah. Her most dramatic victories were over the Arab imperialist invaders. She decided to resist the illegal occupation of her homeland by Arab colonialists and kick them out with force. She drove the first wave of Arab invaders out of Libya altogether, though they later returned. After the Arab general Hassan ibn al Numan took Carthage from the Byzantines, the Kahina's forces defeated him on the battlefield. Alas, he later turned the tables and defeated her. Most Berber tribes were eventually Islamized, though they retained their penchant for embracing theological heterodoxy even as Muslims. The medieval Arab historian Ibn Khaldun writes at length about her military campaigns. The great historian Edward Gibbon, author of the classic history of Rome, mentions her. She was a figure of fascination for the American writer Washington Irving, better known for his tales of Rip van Winkle and Ichabod Crane. As we see, when Muammar Khaddafi's ancestors were chasing camels around what is now Saudi Arabia, Jewish roots were well entrenched in Libya. So would not the most logical resolution of the current political crisis in Libya be to restore it to its proper Jewish rulers? If the Arabs are thought to be entitled to 22 different states, why should the Jews not have at least two - one in the Land of Israel and one in Libya? Jewish high-tech know-how in agriculture would turn Libya into a rain forest within a decade. In fact, since Purim is coming and I'm in a good mood, I'll even suggest that the Palestinians be moved to the southern part of Libya near the Chad border and be allowed to set up their own state there. Maybe even two states, one for Hamas and one for the PLO. They can have a cut of Libyan oil revenue if they behave themselves there. If a brief period of Arab rule over the Land of Israel is thought to convey some sort of legitimate claim to parts of Israel for Arabs, why should Jewish rule in Libya, older than the Arab conquest of Palestine, not similarly confer natural rights of sovereignty? The peace plan is simple. The illegal Arab colonial occupation of Libya must end. All illegal settlements must be removed. The legitimate Jewish rulers of Libya must be restored to power! Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@gmail.com His website address is
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REVIEW OF THE CLOSING OF THE MUSLIM MIND
Posted by Raymond Ibrahim, October 20, 2011. |
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The Closing of the Muslim Mind:
How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis
Reviewed by Raymond Ibrahim
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Last week, "Saudi Arabia's religious police arrested an Indonesian housemaid for casting a magic spell on a local family and 'turning its life upside down.'" The maid "confessed" to using sorcery, and "commission experts took the magic items to their office and managed to dismantle and stop the spell." Far from being absurd aberrations to be dismissed, such accounts, which are becoming better known thanks to the Internet, are stark reminders of the incompatibility between the Western and Muslim worldviews, or, more to the point, the difficulty Western peoples have transcending their own paradigms and understanding the Muslim worldview in its own right — above and beyond the issue of sorcery. In his book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind, Robert Reilly, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, helps explain the Muslim worldview by thoroughly documenting the historic and doctrinal roots behind it; by refreshingly bypassing the overly dramatized question of "what went wrong," he explains the more pressing "why it went wrong." The book is a reminder of the importance of epistemology: before understanding Muslim acts, one must understand the Muslim mind that initiates them. We discover that Shakespeare's dictum "Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," in Islam becomes "nothing good or evil but Allah says so." The author sheds light on the struggles of the different schools of Islam, showing how by the 10th century, the fatalistic, deterministic schools triumphed, delivering the death blow, not only to the notion of free will, but natural law as well: "a theological deformation ... produced a dysfunctional culture." From here one can understand the full impact of the popular assertion "the doors of ijtihad [intellectualizing] closed in the 10th century." Reilly chronicles how the giants of Muslim philosophy, such as Ghazali and Ashari, concluded that knowledge was unknowable, that moral truths can only be ascertained through revelation. Accordingly, all knowledge — the very bounds of reality — came to be limited to the words of the Quran and its pronouncer, Islam's prophet Muhammad. The ramifications of such intellectual calcification are immense: "All acts are in themselves morally neutral"; "Allah does not command certain behavior because it is good; it is good because he commands it. Likewise, he does not forbid murder because it is bad; it is bad because he forbids it." Equivocations, such as the following by Ashari, become commonplace: "Lying is evil only because Allah has declared it to be evil.... And if he declared it to be good it would be good; and if he commanded it, no one could gainsay him." Of course and as Ashari knew, the Islamic deity and his prophet are on record permitting and even encouraging Muslims to deceive. Similarly, the spirit of inquiry perishes: "the only thing worth knowing is whether a specific action is, according to Shari 'a: obligatory, recommended, permitted, discouraged, or forbidden. The rest is irrelevant." It is precisely for this reason that in Islam, the law — what is right or wrong, how one should live — trumps "theology," the latter designated as kalam, that is, mere "words." This is also why in the last millennium Spain alone has produced more books than the Arab world in its entirety. Likewise in the realm of science: Reilly cites a Pakistani physicist — not an uneducated, impoverished "radical" — saying it is un-Islamic to believe that combining hydrogen and water makes water; rather, Muslims are "supposed to say that when you bring hydrogen and oxygen together then by the will of Allah [which need not always be consistent] water was created." The Closing of the Muslim Mind explains the singularity of Muslim epistemology and its antithesis to Western sensibilities: it explains why a maid is arrested and charged with sorcery and the dread of bewitched animals; explains why adult "breastfeeding" and habitual lying pose no moral problems; explains why top Muslim clerics insist the world is flat and ingesting the feces and urine of Muhammad is salutary; explains why jihadists believe their terror is pious and a libidinous paradise awaits them. All these "alternate" ways of thinking make sense when one accepts that, in the purely Muslim mind, intuitive reasoning, the human conscience, and even common sense take a backseat to the literal words of Allah and his prophet, seen as the founts of all truth and reality — or, inevitably from a non-Muslim perspective, the words of a deluded or deceiving 7th century Arab. Contact Raymond Ibrahim at list@pundicity.com |
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SIMON DENG FORMER SUDANESE SLAVE: "CALLING ISRAEL A RACIST STATE IS ABSOLUTELY ABSURD AND IMMORAL."
Posted by Laura, October 20, 2011. |
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This is from New English Review. Simon Deng, a former South Sudanese slave taken by a neighbor as a young boy to Islamist Northern Sudan gave this impassioned speech at yesterday's Durban Watch Conference in New York. He puts the lie to the Zionism is Racism canard of Durban III painting Israel as a pariah state. Rather as he points out it is the Arab Muslim Jihadis who have engaged in racial genocide of millions of Sudanese, whether Muslim or Christian. As he further points out it is Israel that is the ultimate destination of Sudanese refugees, as Egypt has oppressed them. What follows is Simon Deng's Speech before the Durban Watch Conference on September 22, 2011.
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Thank you for those kind words: I want to thank the organizers of this conference, The Perils of Global Intolerance. It is a great honor for me and it is a privilege really to be among today's distinguished speakers. I came here as a friend of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. — I came to protest this Durban conference which is based on a set of lies. It is organized by nations who are themselves are guilty of the worst kinds of oppression. It will not help the victims of racism. It will only isolate and target the Jewish state. It is a tool of the enemies of Israel. The UN has itself become a tool against Israel. For over 50 years, 82 percent of the UN General Assembly emergency meetings have been about condemning one state — Israel. Hitler couldn't have been made happier. The Durban Conference is an outrage. All decent people will know that. But friends, I come here today with a radical idea. I come to tell you that there are peoples who suffer from the UN's anti-Israelism even more than the Israelis. I belong to one of those people. Please hear me out. By exaggerating Palestinian suffering, and by blaming the Jews for it, the UN has muffled the cries of those who suffer on a far larger scale. For over fifty years the indigenous black population of Sudan — Christians and Muslims alike — has been the victims of the brutal, racist Arab Muslim regimes in Khartoum. In South Sudan, my homeland, about 4 million innocent men, women and children were slaughtered from 1955 to 2005. Seven million were ethnically cleansed and they became the largest refugee group since World War II. The UN is concerned about the so-called Palestinian refugees. They dedicated a separate agency for them, and they are treated with a special privilege. Meanwhile, my people, ethnically cleansed, murdered and enslaved, are relatively ignored. The UN refuses to tell the world the truth about the real causes of Sudan's conflicts. Who knows really what is happening in Darfur? It is not a "tribal conflict." It is a conflict rooted in Arab colonialism well known in north Africa. In Darfur, a region in the Western Sudan, everybody is Muslim. Everybody is Muslim because the Arabs invaded the North of Africa and converted the indigenous people to Islam. In the eyes of the Islamists in Khartoum, the Darfuris are not Muslim enough. And the Darfuris do not want to be Arabized. They love their own African languages and dress and customs. The Arab response is genocide! But nobody at the UN tells the truth about Darfur. In the Nuba Mountains, another region of Sudan, genocide is taking place as I speak. The Islamist regime in Khartoum is targeting the black Africans — Muslims and Christians. Nobody at the UN has told the truth about the Nuba Mountains. Do you hear the UN condemn Arab racism against blacks? What you find on the pages of the New York Times, or in the record of the UN condemnations is "Israeli crimes" and Palestinian suffering. My people have been driven off the front pages because of the exaggerations about Palestinian suffering. What Israel does is portrayed as a Western sin. But the truth is that the real sin happens when the West abandons us: the victims of Arab/Islamic apartheid. Chattel slavery was practiced for centuries in Sudan. It was revived as a tool of war in the early 90s. Khartoum declared jihad against my people and this legitimized taking slaves as war booty. Arab militias were sent to destroy Southern villages and were encouraged to take African women and children as slaves. We believe that up to 200,000 were kidnapped, brought to the North and sold into slavery. I am a living proof of this crime against humanity. I don't like talking about my experience as a slave, but I do it because it is important for the world to know that slavery exists even today. I was only nine years old when an Arab neighbor named Abdullahi tricked me into following him to a boat. The boat wound up in Northern Sudan where he gave me as a gift to his family. For three and a half years I was their slave going through something that no child should ever go through: brutal beatings and humiliations; working around the clock; sleeping on the ground with animals; eating the family's left-overs. During those three years I was unable to say the word "no." All I could say was "yes," "yes," "yes." The United Nations knew about the enslavement of South Sudanese by the Arabs. Their own staff reported it. It took UNICEF — under pressure from the Jewish — led American Anti-Slavery Group — sixteen years to acknowledge what was happening. I want to publicly thank my friend Dr. Charles Jacobs for leading the anti-slavery fight. But the Sudanese government and the Arab League pressured UNICEF, and UNICEF backtracked, and started to criticize those who worked to liberate Sudanese slaves. In 1998, Dr. Gaspar Biro, the courageous UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan who reported on slavery, resigned in protest of the UN's actions. My friends, today, tens of thousands of black South Sudanese still serve their masters in the North and the UN is silent about that. It would offend the OIC and the Arab League. As a former slave and a victim of the worst sort of racism, allow me to explain why I think calling Israel a racist state is absolutely absurd and immoral. I have been to Israel five times visiting the Sudanese refugees. Let me tell you how they ended up there. These are Sudanese who fled Arab racism, hoping to find shelter in Egypt. They were wrong. When Egyptian security forces slaughtered twenty six black refugees in Cairo who were protesting Egyptian racism, the Sudanese realized that the Arab racism is the same in Khartoum or Cairo. They needed shelter and they found it in Israel. Dodging the bullets of the Egyptian border patrols and walking for very long distances, the refugees' only hope was to reach Israel's side of the fence, where they knew they would be safe. Black Muslims from Darfur chose Israel above all the other Arab-Muslim states of the area. Do you know what this means!!!?? And the Arabs say Israel is racist!!!? In Israel, black Sudanese, Christian and Muslim were welcomed and treated like human beings. Just go and ask them, like I have done. They told me that compared to the situation in Egypt, Israel is "heaven." Is Israel a racist state? To my people, the people who know racism — the answer is absolutely not. Israel is a state of people who are the colors of the rainbow. Jews themselves come in all colors, even black. I met with Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Beautiful black Jews. So, yes ... I came here today to tell you that the people who suffer most from the UN anti-Israel policy are not the Israelis but all those people who the UN ignores in order to tell its big lie against Israel: we, the victims of Arab/Muslim abuse: women, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, homosexuals, in the Arab/Muslim world. These are the biggest victims of UN Israel hatred. Look at the situation of the Copts in Egypt, the Christians in Iraq, and Nigeria, and Iran, the Hindus and Bahais who suffer from Islamic oppression. The Sikhs. We — a rainbow coalition of victims and targets of Jihadis — all suffer. We are ignored, we are abandoned. So that the big lie against the Jews can go forward. In 2005, I visited one of the refugee camps in South Sudan. I met a twelve year old girl who told me about her dream. In a dream she wanted to go to school to become a doctor. And then, she wanted to visit Israel. I was shocked. How could this refugee girl who spent most of her life in the North know about Israel? When I asked why she wanted to visit Israel, she said: "This is our people." I was never able to find an answer to my question. On January 9 of 2011 South Sudan became an independent state. For South Sudanese, that means continuation of oppression, brutalization, demonization, Islamization, Arabization and enslavement. In a similar manner, the Arabs continue denying Jews their right for sovereignty in their homeland and the Durban III conference continues denying Israel's legitimacy. As a friend of Israel, I bring you the news that my President, the President of the Republic of South Sudan, Salva Kiir — publicly stated that the South Sudan embassy in Israel will be built — not in Tel Aviv, but in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. I also want to assure you that my own new nation, and all of its peoples, will oppose racist forums like the Durban III. We will oppose it by simply telling the truth. Our truth. My Jewish friends taught me something I now want to say with you. AM YISROEL CHAI! The people of Israel lives! Thank you Contact Laura by email at lel817@yahoo.com |
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LIBYAN TV REPORT GADDAFI DEAD
Posted by Ilana Freedman, October 20, 2011. |
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From http://www.gerarddirect.com/: Libyan TV has reported this morning that the city of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town has fallen to the National Transition forces and that Gaddafi was captured and shot, and that he has died from his wounds. His body, according to the reports, has been taken to Misrata. |
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Contact Ilana Freedman by email at ilana@gerardgroup.com |
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THE OTHER SIDE SPEAKS OUT
Posted by Susana K-M, October 20, 2011. |
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This was written by Toby Klein Greenwald This would appear to mean that the U.S. is now obligated to pursue and bring to justice those who
have been released by Israel.
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Did the U.S. object to the release of murderers of Americans? Together with the euphoria that many Israelis feel about the return home of Gilad Shalit, victims of terror are dealing differently. Granted, there have been a few who came out in support of the "Free Gilad" campaign that was aggressively waged by the Shalit family and the media, but many of those who have been wounded, or whose family members have been murdered, have expressed frustration, horror and anger. As the dilemma of a nation's lifetime was telescoped into only a few days, we discovered that among those being released were one of the perpetrators of the Ramallah lynch (who gave the term "blood on their hands" a whole new meaning), and Ahlam Tamimi, a woman who drive the bomber to the scene of the Sbarro Restaurant massacre in August, 2001, that took the lives of fifteen people,including both parents and three siblings of one family, and Malki Roth, whose father tried desperately, in the last few days before the terrorist release, to at least get Tamimi's name removed from the release list. The list also included those who planned and facilitated the bombing of the Moment Café, a Haifa restaurant, the Dolphinarium club (filled with teenagers at the time), the Hebrew University cafeteria, and more. Some of the terrorists were serving up to 37 life sentences for the horror they wreaked. One of the master butchers, Abdullah Bargourti, interviewed in a documentary, For the Sake of Allah, produced by the Center for Near East Policy Research, said that, "I played the guitar. After that I decided to make bomb (sic)." He said that in one instance he planted the bomb inside a guitar in order to carry out the attack "in a romantic way." He described coldly how he would create the suicide belts. Another terrorist said that his only concern, when he blew up the Hebrew University cafeteria, was that he was afraid the remote control cell phone detonator would not work, but he was relieved to see that it did. Tamimi, when asked by an interviewer in For the Sake of Allah if she felt regret afterwards, replied that she felt sorry for the suicide bomber, El Ashwri, "who was a human being." El Ashwri's mother, when interviewed, said, "I praise Allah that he was successful in his act." Her family restaurant in Jenin posted a huge poster of him and it has become a local shrine. Before he left Tamimi's car to blow himself up, he asked her if, when she previously checked the venue, she noticed if religious Jews ate there, as, he said, "Religion is the source of the conflict." In Israel, if someone adds a window or a porch to his home, his neighbors are given at least one month to object and to present their case to the authorities. Yet, the names of the terrorists to be released were announced on Saturday night, Oct. 15. The court session to hear their objections convened less than two days later, on Monday. During the very moments that the terrorists were being freed, on Tuesday morning, I attended a press briefing, organized by the Center, with two wounded victims who have been less in the public eye. One of them, Dr. Alan Bauer, was wounded, along with his then seven-year-old son, Yonatan, in a 2002 bombing on King George Street. (I was in another building a few streets away and remember hearing the explosion. - TKG) In that bombing, three people were murdered. Five, actually, if one adds to the count the twin babies who were inside a pregnant woman who died. Dr. Bauer had made aliya in 1992; he graduated from Harvard, received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and was a Fulbright scholar. His parents fled Germany as children. Bauer held up his left hand to show us where the two screws had lodged. He showed us one of the screws removed from him and a piece of shrapnel removed from his son's brain, who was blind for several weeks after the attack and still limps. That attack was perpetrated by a Palestinian policeman who was aided, operationally and financially, by officials of the Palestinian Authority and by the Arab Bank in Ramallah. Bauer related that two women came along with the suicide bomber - who was holding flowers — to help him get through the roadblock, and they stood back and watched as he blew himself up. In spite of the fact that Bauer and his son are American citizens, the U.S. has done nothing to prevent the release of those who aided in the bombing, said Bauer. "Not the White House, not the State Department, not the FBI, not the Justice Department - no one made any effort to stop the release of these two women, who are being set free as we speak." Bauer said he was happy for the Shalit family, but that they are not the problem. "The problem is that Israel doesn't establish facts quickly enough." He said that Israel should have immediately cut off gas, oil, and other supplies to Gaza. He accused the decision makers of living in a world "that real Israelis don't populate." The politicians have bodyguards, guards outside their homes, whereas Israelis ride busses, visit cafes. "The leaders are comfortably separated from the people, and we know that 60-80% of released terrorists return to terror. No one will take responsibility...The U.S. has done nothing, though they took care of the Somali pirates." Bauer also called the press "tremendously irresponsible" for pressuring Netanyahu instead of the Hamas.
ELIAD MOREH ROSENBERG was wounded in the bombing in the Frank Sinatra Cafeteria in Hebrew University on July 31, 2002. A close friend of hers, David Ladowski, who was about to leave on a Foreign Ministry assignment to Peru, was murdered in the bombing attack. Rosenberg had a piece of shrapnel go into the back of her neck and was told by the doctors that if it would have been a tiny bit more to the center and hit her spine, she would be dead. How does Eliad feel about the Shalit deal? "I feel devastated, angry, in pain. I recovered, got married, have a beautiful child, and I thought it was part of the past, even though I still suffer from the trauma, have nightmares and can just begin to cry. "But the release of these terrorists today took me back to Stage One. I remember that after the terrorist attack, after recovering from the physical pain, I had to deal with the psychological pain. "I didn't understand how a human being could do that to another human being. I felt betrayed by humanity. Today I feel betrayed as a citizen. "Because there is no justice. Terrorists who received multiple life sentences are walking out free after a few years. We don't ask for revenge. We ask for justice. It was pre-meditated murder. The whole equation is wrong. The life of one soldier against the release of more than a thousand terrorists? The government of Israel should not have accepted this equation from the beginning. The terrorists have won. "When a serial rapist, Benny Sela, escaped from jail, the entire country was in a panic. Women were afraid to leave their homes. Now a thousand terrorists have gone free and people are rejoicing. Am I living in a crazy country, where people don't see what is happening, don't realize it, and do whatever the press is dictating to them? I cannot understand the euphoria. "After I recovered, I promised myself that I would speak out against terrorism. I've gone on missions, met with the European Parliament and the European Union, spoken at The Hague, traveled with the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "This week I spoke with the parents of my murdered friend, David. They are terribly upset. I am happy for the Shalit's, but I don't feel that I have to justify myself to them, to 'defend' myself by saying I'm happy for them. I, too, will have tears in my eyes for them today, but I'll also have tears for the victims of terror, and for the next soldiers who will be kidnapped. And what about soldiers who have sacrificed their lives to capture these terrorists? They did so in vain."
SHERRI MANDELL wrote, in the Jerusalem Post, on the day of the terrorist release: "My son Koby Mandell and his friend Yosef Ish Ran were murdered by terrorists 10 years ago when they were 13 and 14 years old. They had been hiking in the wadi near our home when they were set upon by a Palestinian mob and stoned to death. It was a brutal, vicious murder...Most people don't understand the continuing devastation of grief: fathers who die of heart attacks, mothers who get sick with cancer, children who leave school...We see depression, suicide, symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder...We see the pain that doesn't diminish with time. We literally see people die of grief. U.S. acts and programs to bring terrorist murderers of U.S. citizens to justice Koby, like many other victims of terror, was an American citizen. In December 2004, Congress passed the Koby Mandell Act. According to the Israel Resource Review, "In 2005, the Justice Department established the Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism to monitor investigations and prosecute killers of Americans in terrorist strikes. The office was part of a bill passed by Congress in 2004 to pursue terrorists who target Americans. A department statement said the office would be responsible for 'monitoring the investigation and prosecution of terrorists who attack Americans abroad.' The office would work with other agencies in the Justice Department as well as the FBI." But the Koby Mandell Act came exactly twenty years after the Rewards for Justice Program, whose goal was also to find and punish terrorists who had murdered or harmed U.S. citizens, or their property, wherever they are. According to the official website of the U.S. State Department, the Rewards program "has paid more than $80 million to more than 50 persons who provided credible information that has resulted in the capture, prosecution, or death of terrorists or prevented acts of international terrorism." One example of the Rewards program was the award offered for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of the four Arabs who hijacked Pan Am Flight 73, believed to be members of the Abu Nidal terror organization. According to the U.S. spokesman, "The attack resulted in the murder of at least 20 passengers and crew, including two Americans, the attempted murder of 379 passengers and crew, and the wounding of more than 100 individuals on board." Dr. Bauer noted that he provided information on individuals involved in his attack and to the best of his knowledge the information was never used to apprehend those individuals responsible. He believes that a reward has never been paid in this region. David Bedein, director of the Center, sent an online interview in which he noted the U.S. responsibility to U.S. victims, to 45 Congresspeople and to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. He notes in the interview that at least 40 of the released terrorists have been convicted of murdering American citizens. He urged other Americans to contact U.S. officials as well. The Jerusalem Post of October 19th noted that a U.S. State Department spokesman said that, "Some of the prisoners being released posed a threat and that the US had objected to their freedom." Indeed, how do the Rewards program and the Koby Mandell Act correlate with the U.S. dissatisfaction with the release of "some" of the prisoners? Were the terrorists to whose release the U.S. objected, those who had murdered American citizens? In response to my question, an official who only agreed to be identified as "an American diplomat," responded, "The U.S. communicated our concerns to the Israeli government before the release of the prisoners. We were not involved in the negotiations. As a matter of principle the U.S. opposes the release of individuals who have been convicted of crimes against Americans." This would appear to mean that the U.S. is now obligated to pursue and bring to justice those who have been released by Israel. We are waiting. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
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HAMAS DEAL AND ABBAS NEGOTIATIONS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 19, 2011. |
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"If Israel can negotiate with Hamas, why not with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.),?" ask the editors of the New York Times. They worry that the Hamas deal will prevent an agreement between the P.A. and Israel, which they describe as "the only real guarantee of lasting security for both sides." Why their worry? Having compromised with Hamas, PM Netanyahu may have to prove his toughness by not compromising to restart negotiations. PM Netanyahu's compromise is somewhat hypocritical, they imply, because he had threatened to cut off tax remittances to the P.A. when it announced a unity government with Hamas. "If Mr. Netanyahu can negotiate with Hamas — which shoots rockets at Israel, refuses to recognizes Israel's existence, and, on Tuesday, vowed to take even more hostages — why won't he negotiate seriously with the P.A., which Israel relies on to help keep the peace in the W. Bank." Netanyahu backers claim that his coalition won't permit him to compromise with the P.A.. The editors respond, "But he was strong enough to go against the grief-stricken families of those Israelis killed by the Palestinian prisoners he just freed." (10/19/11.)
COMMENTARY: The editorial is the usual New York Times line blaming Israel for failure or lack of negotiations. Israel has offered to negotiate with the P.A., and the P.A. has refused. A deal between the P.A. and Israel would not guarantee security. The two parties already have made a deal, the Oslo Accords. However, the P.A. violates the Accords and threatens war. Deals mean little to jihadists. Their ideology permits them to deceive the victims of jihad. Just as shameful as their religious bigotry and barbarism is the West's letting them get away with it without exposing them. What do the editors mean by an agreement for security "for both sides?" The P.A. has no legitimate fear of insecurity from Israel. Israel does not start wars with the jihadists, the jihadists start all the wars with Israel. The term, "for both sides" is a false parallelism that aims to make Israel seem no better than the terrorists who attack it. The editors' reference to "compromising" is misleading. They don't suggest any compromises by the Islamic side, just of Israel. They want one-sided compromises. And when that is done, they probably will ask for more compromises by Israel. Just as the Arab side has done. What they call compromises to restart "negotiations" also is misleading. Restarted would be partial negotiations. By meeting the Arabs' one-sided and unreasonable demands in advance, Israel would have forfeited negotiations on those points. By demanding pre-conditions, Abbas is trying to get part of what he wants without having to negotiate for it. In the past, when Israel agreed to some of his demands, he then demanded more. Israel does not rely on the P.A. to keep the peace. The P.A. polices ordinary criminals but not terrorists. Israel frequently has to raid the P.A. to capture or kill terrorists. Israel would raid more often, but the U.S. insists it not do so. As the editors put it, Netanyahu was strong willed enough to make the deal, despite objections by relatives of Israelis murdered by the prisoners he just freed. The editors put it wrong. The proposed deal is very popular in Israel, whose people and politicians are short-sighted and prefer the one face of the Israeli captive that the media kept putting before them, to the many unknown faces of future victims of the released terrorists. So Netanyahu pleased his public, because he prefers popularity to principle and national security. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THE SIMPLEST THING IN THE WORLD TO UNDERSTAND: WHY THERE ISN'T
ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN PEACE
Posted by Barry Rubin, October 19, 2011. |
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Media, "experts," and governments finds it very hard to understand an amazing phenomena. No matter what they offer to the Palestinian Authority (PA)--even if it includes money, concessions, and steps toward statehood--the PA says "no." I wouldn't even bother to write this since the answer seems so simple but a lot of people who are paid to deal with this stuff don't get it. So let me elucidate: The PA wants everything, an independent state on all the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem with no restrictions, no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, no serious security guarantees, no limits on militarization, no agreement that this means an end of the conflict, no insistence that Palestinian refugees be resettled in the state o Palestine, and nothing to prevent them from pursuing a second stage of wiping Israel off the map entirely. Now, one could say that it is common for people to want everything and to give nothing in exchange but certain factors--missing in this case--push toward compromise. These factors include: --Knowing that they cannot get a better deal. The Palestinian know that the West will always offer more if they are intransigent. That's not a complete list. But the point is that the world in general, the United States and Europe, the UN and Arabic-speaking states and Muslim-majority states have created a "perfect" system in that it is pretty unbreakable. Here's a brief description: --The PA has no incentive to make peace and won't do so. Deadlock.
You can read this article in two or three years and it will still be completely up to date. If you don't understand the points made above it is impossible to comprehend the Middle East. There will be thousands of emails, hundreds of articles, scores of expensive conferences, dozens of foundation grants, and tens of peace initiatives that are all meaningless because they are based on false premises. This is not left-wing or right-wing but merely an explanation as to why all the schemes and theories of those who do not see these facts never actually take wing. It is not politically correct but factually correct. Now, you might ask, do I just criticize or do I have constructive policy advice? I do. Here it is: When the Palestinian Authority rejects the Quartet proposal for negotiations, the United States, European Union, and anyone else who wants to go along tells them, "We've tried to help you and you don't want to listen so since we have lots of other things to do we will go do it. Good luck and if you ever change your mind and get serious about making peace you have our phone number." The previous paragraph would send shock and rejection throughout policy circles, right? But why? If you cannot solve a problem and--let's be clear here--the problem doesn't need to be solved immediately, than you work on other problems. And there are no shortage of those! I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. We are left, however, with the following problem: Those in positions of political, media, and intellectual power don't get it. Solution: Please explain it to them, replace them, or take their place. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and "Hating America: A History" (Oxford University Press). His latest book is The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. Contact him at profbarryrubin@yahoo.com The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. This article is archived on his website at(http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/10/ simplest-thing-in-world-to-understand.html) |
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BETTER THAN THEM
Posted by Doris Wise Montrose, October 19, 2011. |
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This was written by Daniel Greenfield and appears on
his Sultan Knishwebsite
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We are better than them. When all the other arguments for why we can't fight back have been exhausted this is the one that remains in the background presenting our moral exceptionalism as the reason we shouldn't fight to protect ourselves. "Fight back? But then we'd be no better than them?" If we waterboard then we are no better than the headchoppers and mutilators. If we profile then we are no better than the genocidal jihadists. If we treat our friendly Pakistani and Saudi visitors the way they would have been treated a century ago-- then we would be guilty of being un-American. But is that really the difference between us, that we treat everyone equally even when they are cutting our throats, and the moment we deviate from the standards of the Trial Lawyers Association then we're no better than the Taliban or Al-Qaeda? Does our exceptionalism derive from our laws, in which case if we compromise our laws then we given up the only worthwhile thing about us and there is nothing more to fight for-- or are our laws the means by which we protect our individual and national exceptionalism? We are better than they are, is the argument put forward so often by those who do not truly believe that we are, and even when they do they don't understand why we are. The Bill of Rights did not spring full-grown out of a barbaric culture, nor did any of the same judicial rulings and quotes so often used by advocates of the 10 percent defense plan. We are not better than they are because we guarantee civil rights to our enemies-- we are better than they are because of Michelangelo, the microchip and universal education. We are better than they are because of Shakespeare, the space shuttle and the World Trade Center. We are better for all the reasons around us, the accomplishments, the achievements, the knowledge we have gained and the society we have built. Our laws were crafted to protect these achievements, the exceptionalism of the individual from the government, and that of the nation from internal and external enemies. The laws have no individual life apart from the culture of the nation that created them and maintains them. It would be possible to transpose the United States Constitution to Indonesia, Libya or Pakistan and it wouldn't last a single day there. No mere document can safeguard rights and freedoms that a culture does not value, and no culture that does not value them is deserving of their protection if such protection has the cumulative effect of destroying those same rights and freedoms. Freedom isn't just defended on the battlefield, by the time things get that bad then the damage will be hard to contain. We defend it every day by defending the culture that makes it possible. Against external enemies there is the war of armed conflict, economic competition and geographic positioning. Against the internal enemy there is the culture war, the war of ideas and institutions. Who we are is seen in the connections that define our culture and those connections tell us who we are. Rewire the human brain so that its connections are no longer streamlined and identity breaks down into fragments of things that no longer make sense. The same is true of a culture, lose the connections and you end up celebrating holidays you don't understand and fighting for things that feel intuitively right, but no longer seem to fit into the new order of things. It is the task of the culture warriors to rebuild those connections so that the culture understands itself. Connections don't just store information, they define priorities by reminding us which thing is dependent on the other. They remind us that governments sre instituted to keep laws and laws are implemented to keep the people. Governments serve the law, but the law serves the people. And the people are not some random mass, they are not defined by passports and identity cards or place of birth-- the people are the keepers of the flame of their culture. This need not be a matter of birth, immigrants can be among the greatest heroes and natives among the greatest traitors. But no one who is committed to the destruction of the culture, in concrete or abstract terms, in the immediate present or the indefinite future, can enjoy the protection of legal codes that exist to protect the freedom of the individual within the integrity of a free culture. The more sophisticated a culture becomes the less it is concerned with survival. Bubbles grow in its centers of government and learning within which philosophies and ideas seem more real than reality. Opposing philosophies struggle to lobotomize the culture with revisionist histories and social philosophies that place their own ideal at the center of all human striving. But ideas are sterile without a culture to carry them forward. Kill the culture and the ideas become orphans that me adopted in an altered form by some other culture-- if they are lucky. Tolerance and civil rights are worthless unless the countries and cultures where they are expressed are also defended. Any form of tolerance which leads to its own destruction is not only poisonous to a host culture, but is also literarily self-destructive. All healthy entities whether biological, organizational or intellectual contain the means for their own continuance and self-perpetuation. Any entity which does not is poisonous and must be treated as such, and to defend any idea or code above the survival of the culture that carries it is a homicidal act. When conflict comes, two questions are asked. Is the threat real and is our culture worth fighting for. The latter question is most often asked by elites against whose bubble ideals no real culture can ever measure up to, and by outsiders who have the least invested in the survival of the culture. "If we do this how are we any better than they are?" is the question of the bubble elite whose abstract ideals exist apart from flesh and blood people, who do not measure their ideals by the culture, but measure the culture by their ideals, and always find it wanting, who think that the culture with its millions of people and centuries of history exist to shepherd their ideals and die for them-- and ought to be grateful for the privilege of dying so that no Muslim is ever profiled at an airport. The bubble elites distrust nationalism and patriotism because they center not around ideas, but the people's sense of solidarity. The only exceptionalism that they will accept is the exceptionalism of ideals, and if the nation does not represent its ideals then it does not deserve to live. In the face of such reasoning it is important to remember that we are not better than our enemies because we represent ideals, but because we create ideals along with skyscrapers, paintings, high powered microscopes, novels, better mousetraps, systems of philosophy, muscle cars, musical styles, theorems, charities and sandwiches. We are makers and shapers, movers and thinkers, seers and doers. We reach for the stars and find ways to keep premature babies alive. We are imperfect, dynamic and changing-- and the world would be a much poorer place without us in it. Whatever we do to protect ourselves against outside enemies in thrall to a hostile ideology, regardless of where they were born is fully justified by our accomplishments, our past, our present and our future-- and even if all these things were not present by our right to individual, national and cultural survival. It is not by becoming pacifists that we will be better than them, but by fighting for what we have and who we are. And if we do not stand up for our countries, our peoples and our cultures then we will not inherit the moral high ground, but the low killing pits of the victims of the thousand year spree of terror. There is no moral high ground to be gained in refusing to struggle to your utmost for the things that you hold dear, only through the struggle to protect our individual and national exceptionalism, can we gain the high ground and justify the assertion that we are better than them. Doris Wise Montrose is with Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. Contact her at doris@cjhsla.org. |
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WHY PALESTINE?
Posted by Hands Fiasco, October 19, 2011. |
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This was written by David Solway, and it appeared in
Front Page Magazine and is archived at
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The People’s Republic of China has overrun Tibet, resettled it with its own citizens and imposed autocratic rule? Not on the radar. Zimbabwe has forcefully dispossessed its white farmers and mercilessly persecuted its own people? Of no account. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian Copts are fleeing the country to avoid killings, rapes, church burnings and forced conversions? A mere bagatelle. Islamist and Salafist factions are emerging in Egypt in the wake of the much-tout ed “Arab Spring,” promising renewed violence whether in Helwan, Imbaba, Tahrir Square or Alexandria? A tepid reproof by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and so on to other things, mainly Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood is making inroads into the Islamic world and promulgating Sharia law in the West? Of little interest. Iran is brutally suppressing its own population and Syria is indiscriminately slaughtering its people? No flotillas. Russia is systematically murdering and imprisoning investigative journalists? It’s an internal Russian matter. Reports indicate that Venezuela and Cuba may construct missile emplacements targeting the U.S.? Forget about it. Libyan rebels are massacring black Africans? Nothing to worry about. Sudan is conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur? It doesn’t register. Somalia is imploding owing to the bombings and depredations of the al-Shabaab terrorist network? Not our problem. Pakistan-sponsored terrorists wr eak havoc in India? It merits a passing headline and is then dismissed. The Taliban is again turning Afghanistan into a killing field? Unfortunate, but there it is. Turkey refuses to acknowledge and apologize for the Armenian genocide it carried out? Well, that was long ago. But when it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian nexus, the focus is unswerving. The UN debates the issue endlessly and propagates one denunciation of the Jewish state after another. The EU and the U.S. are fixated on a resolution to what they appear to consider a planetary imbroglio. Something called the “Quartet,” which has been aptly called a “chorus of jackals,” has been concocted to deal with the matter to the exclusion of far more pressing concerns. The media are pitching in with obscene insistence. NGOs, churches and labor unions have exceeded their mandates and competencies in engaging with a Levantine quarrel. And public opinion, especially in Europe, has bee n galvanized by what is in essence a parochial dispute and really none of its business. The media and the political class are especially culpable. As James Fallows argues in Breaking the News, the media are busy practicing what is called predictive journalism and engaging in professional spin, disguising editorial opinion as impartial news coverage and thus adding political prejudice to the ostensibly neutral transmission of facts. The political class is given to what Michael Freund has dubbed "selective provocation syndrome," that is, "when one deems Israel's actions to be provocative while ignoring similar moves by the Palestinians." The Palestinians, he points out, are building thirteen times the number of dwellings in Samaria and Judea as are being built by Jews, in order to establish facts on the ground in the disputed territories. "So why," he asks, "is this too not regarded as a 'provocation' that undermines peace efforts?" And replies: "I guess not all 'provocations' are considered equal." Clearly, the debate is intensively weighted on the side of the Palestinians, which means that the Israelis are regularly condemned for defending themselves, for acting in accordance with historical and legal principles, and for their reluctance to sign away legitimate territory and, in effect, to jeopardize their very survival. There is little recognition of the fact that Israel has constantly signaled its willingness to embark upon realistic negotiations. As Barry Rubin writes, "So if the world isn't going to listen to Israel's proposals, won't credit its eagerness to negotiate and won't accept plans that also include Israel getting something for its troubles, there is no way Israel is ever going to satisfy it." The situation is frankly preposterous and provokes two salient questions: why such an unrelenting convergence of interest on this tiny slice of the world's geography, so scarce in natural resources and constantly threatened with destruction, called Israel?; and in the context of consensual advocacy, why Palestine? The world remains focused on Israel because Israel is a Jewish state, the Jewish family on the international block, a distinctive presence which activates the latent — as well as the manifest — content of a malingering and inexcisable anti-Semitism. For this is anti-Semitism pure and simple and it would be disingenuous to try and mitigate the truth by seeking for nuanced and textured evasions intended to downplay mankind's longest hatred. Jews, the feeling goes, do not deserve their own state. They presumably form a collection of wandering tribes and disruptive social interlopers, justly scattered among the nations and deserving of marginalization, a historical "fossil" according to the celebrated historian Arnold Toynbee and, according to the anti-Zionist delator Tony Judt, an "anachronism." But such pronouncements and convictions are merely an attempt to launder one's irrational bigotries or dissemble one's innate aversions. The current situation makes this blatantly evident. The name of the game is Judeophobia. For the disproportion between the world's response to a healthy, robust, legitimate and embattled democratic state the size of New Jersey and the vast cesspools of tyranny, oppression, insurgence, violence and depredation that litter the globe is incommensurable. With only occasional exceptions, the world trains its gaze almost exclusively on Israel. "One wonders," writes Matthew Hausman, "how they can be so consumed with Israel's alleged indiscretions and yet ignore the totalitarian and theocratic tendencies of the nations comprising the Arab-Muslim world." Good question. World leaders inveigh against every defensive operation that Israel undertakes to protect its sovereignty and safeguard its people. They condemn normal domestic projects, like building apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, a city which also happens to be the capital of the country. The blame for stalled "negotiations" is inevitably laid at Israel's door, in defiance of Palestinian intransigence, bellicose chauvinism and unilateral actions. Material concessions are demanded of Israel: little is required of the other side, except for a few paper agreements of approximately the same value as UN assurances — that is to say, they are worth nothing. The historicity of the Jewish sanction to the Jewish homeland is ignored. The legal instruments that have validated the Jewish state are vacated or deliberately misinterpreted. The laws of war which entitle Israel to the territories it has conquered in a defensive struggle — and that are in any case part of its ancestral allodium — are brushed aside, though recognized in every other historical instance. At the same time, the revisionist Palestinian narrative of indigenous rights and immemorial nationhood, which has no basis in reality and is demonstrably woven out of whole cloth, is vetted by the international community and accepted without question. The Palestinian program should be perfectly transparent. As Zahir Muhsein of the Palestinian National Council told the Dutch newspaper Trouw as far back as 1977, "The Palestinian people does not exist...Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people...to oppose Zionism." With regard to the Israelis and the Palestinians, the maxim is: to the losers go the spoils. The anti-Israel bias explains the spurious preoccupation, indeed the pathological obsession, with the Palestinian cause, the acceptance of the Palestinian fable of dispossession (the so-called Nakba), and the winking at the Palestinian terror franchises, the anti-Jewish incitement industry and the genocidal charters of both Fatah and Hamas. The declared goal of Hamas is the annihilation of Israel. Its mission statement reads in part: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad." The cardinal purpose of the Fatah movement, according to its constitution, is the "complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence," to be effected by "armed struggle [which] will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished." Further, Article 19 of the PLO Covenant rejects the 1947 UN partition of Palestine and Article 20 denies the Jewish historical relationship to the Holy Land. The most effective way, then, to shrink the Jewish state and render it increasingly vulnerable to successful attack by the surrounding Muslim nations is to support the claims, strategies and demands of the Palestinian leadership. Western leaders, the liberal political elite, Third World parasites and various autocratic regimes are not genuinely interested in the confection of a Palestinian state. A loose collection of mendicant clans calling themselves a "people" or a "nation," with neither historical grounding nor political warrant and that offers nothing of value to the world at large, is, or should be, by any reasonable estimation of peripheral significance. The agenda in play is something quite different, in part an effort to curry favor with the Islamic umma and, allied with this concern, the intent to siphon the lifeblood of the troublesome Zionist upstart. Israel represents the collective Jew who must be put in his place, not treated as an equal, but, at best, superciliously tolerated and, at worst, deprived of status or erased from the book of the living. This is where Palestine comes in. As others have remarked, Palestine is the Trojan Horse the councils of the nations wheel up to the gates of Jerusalem; "their forces join/To invade the town," as Virgil writes in The Aeneid. Troy must fall to the ruses of its enemies. The invention of Palestine has no other purpose, whether for the Arabs, "progressive" political society or the rabble of confrontation states and rogue regimes, than the reduction of the Jewish state, on which the world's baleful attention has fastened since at least the 1967 war. Why Palestine? The answer is obvious. The answer is: Israel.
Contact Hands Fiasco by email at handsfiasco@webtv.net
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"THE DECEASED FELL AND HIT HER HEAD" - HONOR KILLINGS RIGHT HERE IN THE US
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, October 19, 2011. |
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This is by Javier Manjarres and Pamela Geller Have the Arabs learned about US Payola Corruption or Lobbying or Political Correctness or is it Self-Delusion or Fear or What? |
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The abhorrent practice of 'honor killings' by radical Islamists beholden to the precepts of Sharia law is going on right here in the United States- some say that these killings are becoming more prevalent, although no statistics for such killings are recorded. Unfortunately, political correctness and fear of the "Muslim street" here in America are restraining not only the media from accurately reporting on these cases, but law enforcement as well from aggressively investigating these cases as well as identifying that these murders are indeed "honor killings". One such case that appears to have been grossly mischaracterized and likely was an honor killing involves the death of Fatima Abdallah from Tampa, FL. Abdallah was found dead in in the home of her brother, Muhammad Abdullah Hmeid on August 17th, 2009. The Tampa Medical Examiner's Office determined that the cause of death was that the "Decedent fell and struck her head," and ruled the death to be accidental. Subsequent to this finding, the Tampa Medical Examiner's Office has come under fire from critics who charge that the office may be attempting to quash any further questioning of the Office's determination which ruled Abdallah's death to be an accidental death- possibly done out of fear of Muslim reprisal. Tampa Police Crime Scene Technician Shelby Garman requested that her name be removed from the Tampa Police Department GO report because of "fear of Muslim reprisal." The Tampa Police Department and the Medical Examiners Office both concluded that Abdallah died by banging her own head against a coffee table repeatedly- yes, you read that right. A member of Tampa Rescue called the Tampa Police's explanation "illogical" and reported that Abdallah appeared to have been badly beaten. What's more, there was a history of abuse against Abdallah by certain members of her family, and she was quoted before her death by a neighbor who said that Abdallah's brother did "unspeakable things to her." The Florida Family Association took note of this case early on and ultimately hired its own independent private investigator who raised a major red flag about the investigation. "There is a glaring absence of any suspicion, from either report (TPD and ME reports), that the decedent could have possibly been a victim of an assault that eventually caused her death." — Prestige Investigations, Inc. report on the death of Fatima Abdallah If Florida law enforcement agencies are reluctant to investigate and aggressively pursue charges in the context of honor killings for fear of reprisal, it means that we are effectively being governed by the vile precepts of Sharia that command these honor killings. Our communities should stand united, break through the silent complicity of family members that too often attends these killings, and pursue justice. Attorney General Pam Bondi's attention was also solicited on this case, and her office issued the following reply- We understand that you are requesting an investigation of "the Tampa Police Department and Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's office." If you are requesting an outside investigation of local officials, you may wish to contact the Governor's Office. The Governor has the power to appoint what is known as a special prosecutor to investigate criminal allegations outside a state attorney's normal circuit when there are concerns about possible conflicts of interest. The Governor may also direct the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to perform special investigations and investigations on public officials and agencies. With all of the evidence in the case pointing towards murder and not towards an accident or suicide, pressure must be brought on Florida authorities to revisit the determination that he 48 year-old Abballahs' death was an "accidental suicide" and to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice. As it presently stands, this case can only be reopened by Governor Rick Scott via a special prosecutor. We strongly urge Governor Scott to review this case and order an investigation into the highly questionable conclusions that have been reached thus far by the various branches of Florida law enforcement. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America and hosts the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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ISRAEL'S ARAB PRISONERS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 18, 2011. |
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PALESTINIAN ARAB VIOLENCE & PRISONERS Palestinian Authority (P.A.) head Abbas told the UN that Israel should release all Palestinian Arab prisoners. Although Abbas claims to favor non-violence, he insists that none of his people should be imprisoned for committing violence against Israelis. Reporters have not asked him about this inconsistency (Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA). Here is an example of the sort of violence Abbas' people commit. Two of them from Halhoul threw the fatal rock at the Palmer father and son, driving near Kiryat Arba. This is the case that at first, Israeli authorities claimed was a car accident. Later they realized this was a case of terrorism, they investigated, and the pair of Arabs confessed. Since the attack occurred on the day that Abbas gave that speech, Jews in the area believe that the authorities deliberately misled the nation about the cause of death, to keep Abbas' speech from being received cynically. MKs Katz and Ariel cite the confessions as proof that stone-throwing is Arab terrorism designed to kill, and not, as some people think is always the case, harmless (Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik,www.palwatch.org, from IMRA, 10/6/11). Comment: By insisting that Arabs who attack Israelis should not be imprisoned, Abbas shows he is no man of peace. Journalists depict him as a man of peace. How are those journalists serving their readers by misleading them? P.A. CLAIM THAT TERRORISTS SHOULD BE IMMUNE TO CAPTURE An Arab lawyer in Judea-Samaria told Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA that the Oslo Accords ended armed hostility. He concludes that Israel should not imprison Palestinian Arab fighters, whom he depicts as legitimately fighting to defend their land. But, Dr. Lerner points out, if armed hostilities ended, then what right do they have to kill Israelis by armed hostilities? Asked whether the declaration of P.A. sovereignty obligates Israel to treat its P.A. prisoners as POWs, the lawyer said yes. They fight for their rights to defend their state. Asking further, would Israel be obliged to release these alleged POWs before a peace agreement ending the conflict? Again, the answer was yes, because, he claims, the Oslo Accords ended the conflict. May Arab prisoners who intentionally killed Israeli civilians be charged with war crimes? The P.A. lawyer replied that the Arabs did not do that, but Israel did. He accused Israel of doing so when attacking the Jenin refugee camp in 2002 (IMRA, 10/11/11). Comment: Peculiar logic! The Accords were supposed to have ended armed hostility, but obviously the Arab side violates the Accords. In any case, they are fighting, so they did not cease hostilities. More peculiar logic is that the Arabs are fighting to defend a state that Abbas is petitioning the UN to establish. How can they be fighting to defend a state that is not established? And if they have signed the Oslo Accords to eschew violence, why are they fighting? The lawyer wants his Arabs have everything both ways. Gunmen are not POWs when their method of fighting is by war crime and not by the laws of war. They have the same rights that pirates had when Britain caught them and hanged them, Interesting claim, that thousands of Arabs convicted of deliberately attacking and often killing Israeli civilians did not do it! Obviously, thousands did. The Jenin camp was a terrorist stronghold. The IDF attacked it by infantry, rather than by artillery and aerial bombardment, in order to spare civilians but at the risk of Israeli troops. Israel was unfair to its innocent soldiers in favor of a population that favors terrorism. Despite Israel's care in minimizing enemy casualties, the Arabs first claimed that the IDF killed thousands, until investigation showed the total was just over 50, some from terrorist booby-trapping of buildings. For some time, the Western media repeated Arabs' gross exaggerations without investigating. When the P.A. casualties were found to be a tiny fraction of what it had claimed, the media drew no conclusions about P.A. veracity. Instead, it continues to take P.A. claims seriously and Israeli claims skeptically. The media must be biased or intimidated. What a philosophy, the P.A. has, that Israel should release all Arabs who attacked civilians and soldiers! That reflects the arrogance of jihad, considering itself above the law and above human rights for the enemy. TREATMENT OF PRISONERS The P.A. daily described in detail Arab prisoners being allowed to study for M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. A released Arab prisoner said that prisoners of Israel "lack nothing." (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 17, 2011). Since the year 2000, 10,000 Arab prisoners have matriculated. On the other hand, interviewed in P.A. TV, P.A. Deputy Minister Ziad Abu Ein accused Israel of keeping Arab prisoners under worse conditions than the Nazis did at their concentration camps. Likening Israel to the Nazis is standard P.A. propaganda (the objective being to impugn the whole Zionist enterprise). Min. Ein claimed that Israel tortures Arab prisoners and performs medical experiments on them (PA TV, Oct. 6, 2011, via IMRA). The P.A. daily claimed that Israel forbids family visits, uses "racist interrogation methods, etc. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 5, 2011). "Director for the Bethlehem region at Al-Quds Open University, Ibrahim Al-Sha'er," told some British MP's that his people have been subjected to a holocaust for 63 years (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 9, 2011). Others echoed the allegation. Yahya Rabah, columnist for the P.A. daily complained that the Jewish religion commands it to murder and craves an enemy (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 24, 2011). On April 15, the daily accused prison guards of shooting at prisoners with live ammunition El-Sana wrote that Israel is racist, establishing cities for Jews only. He claimed that Israel strives to block P.A. culture (Al-Ayyam, April 12, 2011). Another complaint is that Arab prisoners are denied the use of cell phones. Comments: The P.A. makes numerous claims of medical atrocities by Israel, all without evidence. Western journalists rarely publicize and expose such claims. These journalists leave their publics unaware of how defamatory and irrational Arab propaganda is. Israel has a number of mixed cities. The presence of Arabs in those cities leads to intimidation of resident Jews. Israel does not realize that the Arabs constitute an enemy population. The Arabs do realize it. What's "racist interrogation?" Since racism is deplorable, the Arabs use it as an adjective constantly, without justification except the jihadist's attempted justification that lying for jihad is permitted. Islamic bigotry is apparent in the slander that Judaism commands murder and craves an enemy. Another deplorable and illegitimate activity is that of Holocaust, so P.A. propagandists claim Israel has perpetrated one against them since the modern Jewish state was founded. Some Holocaust, 63 years and the Arab population has multiplied! Just more blood libel. The idea is to undermine popular support for Israel. The P.A. can get away with this, because the media does not call them to account. Apparently the media lack an adequate ethical standard of journalism. Israel does allow Arab family visits, but Hamas and Hizbullah do not allow Israelis to. Israel found the family visits abused by couriers for terrorist leaders and by smuggling of contraband, including cell phones with which to keep in touch with their terrorist organizations. People suggested that, since Cpl. Shalit was not allowed family visitors, neither should Arabs be. The government has implemented different types of crackdowns on Arab prisoners, but soon acquiesces to protests. Have you noticed that Israel treats Arab prisoners well, and the Arabs treat Israeli prisoners barbarically, but the Arabs complain about Israeli treatment of Arab prisoners? Where is the Western expose of jihad barbarism and duplicity? Why does Israel treat its convicted prisoners so well as it does, going far beyond basic requirements? Since it is excessive, and actually encourages terrorism, it is not a matter of being humane. Since it gets criticized no matter what it does, and does not get praised no matter how decently it does things, it is not a matter of public relations. PRISONER EXCHANGE The agreement to release the kidnapped Israeli soldier is a humanitarian act. It "exposes the moral bankruptcy of international human rights mechanisms." During Cp. Shalit's five years of captivity, his human rights were violated, but the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), Gisha, and the International Red Cross demonstrated very little interest." Same for the Goldstone UN report on the Gaza War. No sense of decency for Jews? Shalit's life was held hostage to the release of hundreds of
terrorists, convicted of heinous terrorism. The release of those
convicts was extorted, but human rights organizations did not condemn
Hamas. This gives terrorists an incentive to kidnap more Israelis
and violate their rights, too. Not requiring the convicts to serve
their full sentences undermines international legal principles (NGO
Monitor, 10/12/11,
It is not humanitarian of Israel to get one captive Israeli released, at the cost of perhaps a hundred Israelis whom the released terrorists will kill. The human rights organizations, the jihadists, the media, and Israel all are acting irrationally. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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IRAN'S WAR TO WIN ISRAEL'S ARAB PRISONERS
Posted by Gail Winston, October 18, 2011. |
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This was written by Caroline B. Glick, the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Her book "The Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad," is available at Amazon.com. Visit her website at www.CarolineGlick.com. Contact her by email at caroline@carolineglick.com. |
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It is fairly obvious that the administration will take no military action whatsoever against Iran's nuclear program. The Obama administration's response to Iran's plan to bring its 32-year-old war against the United States to the US capital is the newest confirmation that President Barack Obama has no intention of taking action to remove or diminish the threat Iran poses to the US, its allies and interests. Last week, the Justice Department revealed that law enforcement officials foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US and to blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington. They arrested an Iranian-American dual national who is a relative of a senior terror mastermind serving in Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The dual national, Mansoor Arbabsiar, contacted an American undercover agent whom he believed worked for one of Mexico's drug cartels and asked for the cartel to assist Iran in carrying out the plot. Iran declared war on the US in 1979. Since then, it has used its terrorist arms in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region to murder Americans. It has used its terror arms in Latin American to target US interests and allies. And now it has been caught in the act of recruiting agents to assist it in carrying out acts of terror in Washington, DC. Following the Justice Department's announcement, the Obama administration proclaimed it intends to "isolate" Iran in the international community. While it sounds like a serious plan, particularly when it is stated assertively by Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the fact is that this is not a serious policy at all. Indeed, upon reflection, it is clear that the announced aim of isolating Iran involves doing nothing to retaliate against Iran for its aggression. There are three reasons that this is the case. First, by placing the burden for punishing Iran on the nebulous "international community," Obama is signaling that under his leadership, America does not view operational plans to attack US interests on American soil as something that America should deal with. In Iran's case, the "international community" means Russia and China. The two UN Security Council-veto-wielding regimes have collaborated with Iran on its illicit activities generally and its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles specifically. Russia and China have blocked all serious sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. Their active defense of Iran at the Security Council renders it a foregone conclusion that the UN will never authorize military force to be used against Iran's nuclear installations. Since Russia and China prefer to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons than authorize any UN measure that could prevent or slow down this development, it is hard to imagine either government suddenly agreeing to isolate Iran just because it planned to kill the Saudi ambassador and blow up a couple of foreign embassies in Washington.
THE SECOND reason it is reasonable to conclude that the administration is being disingenuous in its tough talk about Iran is because the administration tells us it is being disingenuous. Speaking to The New York Times over the weekend, several senior White House officials said they were considering options to steeply escalate the US's sanctions against Iran. Specifically, they said the administration is mulling the prospect of barring financial transactions with Iran's central bank. They also said that the White House is thinking about barring contact with Iran's Revolutionary Guards-owned company that controls the sale of Iranian oil and natural gas to foreign countries. Then again, administration sources also told the Times that they aren't certain that the sanctions are such a good idea. If the US blocks the only viable path toward purchasing Iranian gas and oil and otherwise makes it impossible for Iran to sell its natural resources, they warned, the US would cause the market price of both commodities to rise sharply, thus harming its own economy.So probably the US won't ratchet up sanctions on the regime after all. Then there is the notion of military retaliation. After the news broke of the foiled terror plot, Obama let it be known that the "military option is on the table." But then, he didn't specify the goal of the military option or its target. Is the US developing an option for attacking Iran's nuclear weapons facilities? Is it preparing to attack Iranian regime targets in an effort to topple the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world? Is it planning a military strike against IRGC targets in Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan? It is highly unlikely that the US is planning to undertake any of these missions. Over the weekend, the US announced that its troops would be fully removed from Iraq in January. Obama has insisted on withdrawing his surge troops from Afghanistan despite the Taliban resurgence in the country. As for attacking regime targets, it is hard to imagine that after siding with the mullahs against democracy protesters in the aftermath of the 2009 stolen presidential elections, Obama would decide to call suddenly for the regime to be replaced — let alone take military action to advance that goal.
THEN THERE is the nuclear issue. Since Russia's and China's support for Iran at the Security Council rules out any option of a Security Council-sanctioned attack in Iran's nuclear installations, it is fairly obvious that the administration will take no military action whatsoever against Iran's nuclear program. This is, after all, the administration that believes the US must receive UN approval for any military operation. Obama's effectively pro-ayatollah policies have caused him to treat the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran as essentially identical to the threat posed to the US by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. As nuclear proliferation scholar Avner Cohen explained in an interview with The Jerusalem Post earlier this month, the administration is committed to a policy of containing a nuclear-armed Iran rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Cohen explained, "The US wants itself, and also Israel, to be engaged in a thorough effort to contain Iran — like the way the Soviet Union was contained during the Cold War — meaning that for all practical purposes and short of extreme circumstances, both the US and Israel would have to put aside the military option and instead work to contain Iran." According to Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, the US will have an opportunity to put its nuclear containment policy toward Iran into action in the near future. In an interview two weeks ago with Der Spiegel, Heinonen asserted that within two years, the Iranians will have sufficient quantities of plutonium to produce atomic bombs. Within a year, they will have enough highly enriched uranium to have what is referred to as "break-out capacity," meaning they can produce nuclear bombs at will. The problem with Obama's non-response to Iran's nuclear weapons program and its terror plot to attack Washington is that the Iranian regime is nothing like the Soviet Union. The regime whose first foray into international diplomacy involved taking a knife to the nation-state system by attacking the US embassy and holding its personnel hostage is not a strategic equivalent of the Soviet Union. A regime that lured 100,000 of its children to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq War by sending them out to the field as human mine sweepers is not a regime that can be contained through mutual assured destruction as the Soviets were. Iran's war against the US is a war that only Iran is fighting. And if something doesn't change very quickly, it is clear that since Iran is the only side fighting the war, Iran is the only side that will win the war. Contact Gail Winston at winston@winstonglobal.org |
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WILL WORLD ASK WHY PALESTINIANS CELEBRATE MURDER?
Posted by YogiRUs, October 18, 2011. |
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This was written by Jonathan S. Tobin, editor of
Commentary Magazine, and it is archived at
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The painful debate about Israel's decision to trade 1,000 imprisoned Palestinian terrorists for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit continues this week with the families of terror victims attempting to sue the government to prevent the swap. Though the vast majority of Israelis support the trade and Prime Minister Netanyahu's willingness to pay the ransom for Shalit, the impending release of so many murderers is nothing to celebrate. That is, unless you are a Palestinian. Mass rallies and celebrations are being planned in Ramallah to celebrate the freedom of those who were convicted of mass murders. Who will they be cheering? As the New York Times reports: Those being freed include the founders of Hamas's armed wing and militants who kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers and civilians. A mastermind of the 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria who killed 15 will walk out of prison, as will a woman who used the Internet to lure a lovesick Israeli teenager to a Palestinian city and had him murdered. Most of the prisoners were serving life sentences, some for being involved in attacks like the 2001 bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub that killed 21 people and a suicide bombing a year later of a Netanya hotel in which 29 died. Apologists for the Palestinians will argue those in Israeli jails were resisting the "occupation" of the country, though few will own up to the fact that as far as the prisoners are concerned, the territory of pre-June 1967 Israel is just as "occupied" as the West Bank. But even if you think the Palestinian cause is just, how can anyone justify the slaughter of innocents such as at the Sbarro bombing in Jerusalem? Even if you think Israel should withdraw back to the 1967 lines, how can any civilized person condone the Palestinian decision to treat those who committed such atrocities as heroes? What is on trial this week is not the moral calculus by which Netanyahu decided that saving the life of one Jewish soldier was worth the subversion of justice — freeing murderers as ransom. What ought to be discussed is the upside-down ethos of Palestinian political culture in which the spilling of Jewish blood grants the killer not only absolution but also heroic status. The world turned away in horror a decade ago when a photograph captured the moment when one of the ringleaders of a Palestinian lynch mob showed his bloodstained hands to a cheering crowd after he had helped murder an Israeli. Yet today, the Palestinian political elite, including many whom our government deems "moderates," will not only facilitate the release of this miscreant but treat him like a conquering hero. The prisoner swap has unfortunately reminded us of the depths of degradation to which the Palestinian political culture sank during the second intifada, as mass slaughter became not merely a tool of war but the touchstone of a people's identity. We would have hoped the passage of years and the realization of the cost in Palestinian suffering that this terror war incurred would have sobered them up. It would be one thing if these murderers were taken back in an atmosphere that showed some recognition their crimes were nothing to emulate. But instead, the release is proving to be yet another indication nothing has changed. Those, like the Obama administration, who repeat tired clichés about the need for Israel to take risks for peace, never seem to own up to the costs of those risks. The second intifada and the 1,000 Jewish lives lost to terrorists were the price of earlier risks previous Israeli governments took in the hope of securing peace. The celebration that will convulse Palestinian society tomorrow is sad proof that similar risks taken today will also be paid for in blood. Rather than ask why Israel is willing to trade so many terrorists for one soldier, the world should be asking why the Palestinians are cheering the release of sociopaths.
Contact YogiRUs by email at YogiRUs@aol.com |
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NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO MEMBER OF TERROR-LINKED GROUP, NO QUESTIONS ASKED
Posted by GWY123, October 18, 2011. |
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This was written by Ryan Mauro,
and it is archived at
Is it really just too hard to find a prominent Muslim in the Islamic world who doesn't have ties to terror, or has the Committee stopped trying? |
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On October 7, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded
Karman is a 32-year old journalist with three children. She leads an
organization called Women Journalists Without Chains. To her credit, she has
fought for women's rights and has been imprisoned for challenging Yemeni
President Saleh. She was instrumental in the Arab Spring's manifestation in
Yemen, and is an adversary of the Salafists. She wants legislation passed
against child marriage. She boldly stopped
Although these are admirable causes, the fact remains that Karman chooses to sit on the Shura Council of Islah, the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Islah was founded in 1990 and has three pillars of support: Tribes, the
Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. The Islamist party has been extremely
critical
The university he founded in Sanaa has been indoctrinating students
Zindani is very close
Islah claims that Zindani has no connection to Al-Qaeda or terrorism at
all. Even if that were true, his extremist preaching should be enough for
Yemeni democratic activists to condemn him: He speaks in favor of Hamas'
suicide bombings and preaches
Tawakul Karman's fight for women's rights and free elections has drawn the
ire of some of her Islah colleagues. Zindani is in favor
She may argue that Islah is the most viable alternative to Saleh, but the opposition umbrella group to which Islah belongs is diverse. Why stick with Islah? If she feels that the other parties are no better, then why not create her own? She is a rock star in the Arab world and certainly has the following to start her own party. The Nobel Peace Prize committee did not even begin asking these questions. In fact, the chairman even upheld the Muslim Brotherhood as a positive force. Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said that the group knew about her Muslim Brotherhood ties, _acknowledging_ (http://m.startribune.com/news/?id=131318024&c=y) that "in the West [it] is perceived as a threat to democracy." To him, her Brotherhood affiliation was far from a disqualifier. He said the West is wrong to fear the group. "I don't believe that [the West's view]. There are many signals that, that kind of movement can be an important part of the solution." The Nobel Peace Prize committee is supposed to recognize those who fight for human rights, justice, peace and good-will. Instead, it has honored a prominent member of a Muslim Brotherhood party that has an Al-Qaeda-linked preacher of hate among its leadership. The Nobel Peace Prize committee has lost whatever credibility it had left. Contact GWY123 by email at gwy123@aol.com |
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ARAB CAUGHT SURVEILLING ITAMAR, IDF FREES HIM
Posted by Gil Ronen, October 18, 2011. |
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Six months after the shocking murder of five members of the Fogel family in the settlement of Itamar, residents caught an Arab man conducting surveillance on their homes and security system. The man is a resident of Beit Furik who was brought into Itamar's territory, supposedly to harvest olives, with IDF accompaniment. He was caught red-handed as he was viewing the settlement's homes and defense setup with binoculars. The community's security officers and military forces, who spotted the Arab, captured him. However, an officer from the IDF Coordination and Liaison Office who was on location overseeing the olive harvest insisted on freeing him. He claimed that the Arabs were not informed in advance of regulations regarding what they are permitted to bring with them to the olive harvest and what they may not bring. The IDF's decision and explanation caused particular anger and frustration because one of the Fogel's murderers, Hakim Awad, had gathered intelligence on the community when he was allowed near it for the olive harvest. When he and his cousin Amjad entered the community and carried out the massacre, they did so after gaining knowledge and familiarity with the settlement during the olive harvest.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Background (From Arutz-7, 17Nov2011, by Maayana Miskin, "PA Police Operate in Israeli Town": Palestinian Authority Arabs showed up at the Jewish village of Adei Ad on Monday to harvest olives — olives from trees that were planted and nurtured by local Jewish farmers. The PA group was accompanied by PA police, who stood watch as the harvesters gathered Adei Ad's produce. Residents of Adei Ad explained that the trees were planted years ago, and that PA Arabs recently filed a claim for ownership, arguing that an Arab family owns the land the trees were planted on. Local Jews say the claim of land ownership is false. The trees in question are located just 100 meters from homes in the small Shomron (Samaria) community. Residents said regional IDF commander Saar Tzur had given the PA Arab group, and the accompanying PA officers, permission to enter Adei Ad's city limits. "How far will this disgraceful situation go? Arabs harvest in Area C, and who protects them? Palestinian Authority soldiers — what is known in 'PC' as the PA police," said Itzik Shedmi, head of the Binyamin Residents' Council. "This contradicts all the agreements. It contradicts basic logic. What's next? Should we put Arab guards at the entrance to IDF bases? Or to Jewish towns?" asked Shedmi. Jews living in Judea and Samaria have long argued that the PA uses the annual olive harvest as an excuse to bring Arabs into Jewish communities, where they launch attacks. The harvest is also used to slander Israel. The IDF continues to allow PA Arabs into Jewish communities to take olives, despite the fact that past harvests have been used to plan horrific attacks.
Gil Ronen is a columnist for Arutz-7
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TERRORIST ENTRAPMENT: IS NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL TWISTING FACTS?
Posted by FSM, October 18, 2011. |
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This was written by
Ed Koch,the former mayor of New York City.
It is archived at
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Last Saturday, The New York Times published an extensive article by Richard Perez-Pena headlined "Koch and N.Y.U. Clash Over Terrorism Report." The article stated, "The report, focusing on three high-profile cases, accuses law enforcement agencies of luring young Muslim men into violent plots and makes broad assertions that the government stigmatizes Muslims. The charge is nothing new; defendants in many terrorism trials in the past have alleged entrapment, but juries have rejected that defense." First, some background. On August 24, I was told by Norman Liss, a lawyer, friend and fellow alumnus of New York University Law School, that a report had been issued by the school which he believed to be misleading. Norman had contacted Richard L. Revesz, Dean of the law school, who responded, "Robust discussion of varying views is a hallmark of academia — and of a democratic society." Norman did not believe that reply to be appropriate and inquired whether I would pursue the matter. I agreed to do so. My own interest in this subject is the result of attacks made upon Congressman Peter King, who as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, held hearings on homegrown terrorism in the U.S. Muslim community. Congressman King was strongly criticized by a number of civil rights organizations and others for holding the hearings, and in particular for singling out the American-Muslim community. I supported the Congressman, believing that the various acts of terrorism in the U.S. following 9/11 indicated there was cause to believe that homegrown terrorism in the American-Muslim community was an issue about which we should all be concerned. I read the 81-page report prepared by the faculty and students of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the International Human Rights Clinic, issued under the imprimatur of the law school. I decided to ascertain from Congressman King whether he believed the report to be factual. I wrote to him on August 24, stating, in relevant part: "The report is entitled, "Targeted and Entrapped, Manufacturing the 'Homegrown Threat' in the United States." I was surprised to read the following statement in its Executive Summary: 'Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has targeted Muslims in the United States by sending paid, untrained informants into mosques and Muslim communities. This practice has led to the prosecution of more than 200 individuals in terrorism-related cases. The government has touted these cases as successes in the so-called war against terrorism. However, in recent years, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, local lawmakers, the media, the public and community-based groups have begun questioning the legitimacy and efficacy of this practice, alleging that-in many instances-this type of policing, and the resulting prosecutions, constitute entrapment.' Peter King provided me with a copy of his letter to Dean Revesz dated August 29. I am setting forth his letter in full and the response of Dean Revesz. The correspondence is extensive, but I assure my readers, well worth reading and has not appeared elsewhere except for a few quoted sentences. "Dear Dean Revesz: My good friend (and adviser) Mayor Ed Koch, who is a distinguished alumnus of New York University Law School (LL.B. '48), has forwarded to me the May 11, 2011 report of the NYU Law School's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the 'Homegrown Threat' in the United States. Leaving aside its policy recommendations, about which reasonable minds may differ, I write to bring to your attention omissions of important facts from this report, omissions which bring into question its scholarly value and strident conclusions. Dean Revesz's response is as follows: "Dear Congressman King: I am writing in response to your letter regarding "Targeted and Entrapped," the report prepared by students and faculty of the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) and issued jointly with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ), both at the New York University School of Law. I wrote to Dean Revesz on September 21: "Congressman King's detailed analysis appears to thoroughly debunk the 'Targeted and Entrapped' report issued with the imprimatur of New York University School of Law. If the Congressman's analysis is correct, the New York University report would be overwhelmingly in error and those reading it would be left with a serious misunderstanding. Dean Revesz responded by letter dated September 26, "Thank you for writing me. I want to assure you that both your letter and Congressman King's about the 'Targeted and Entrapped' report have been shared with the report's authors. It appears to me that the authors of the report have implicitly alleged that 200 Muslim-Americans have been entrapped. They provide no cases where there has been such a finding. Indeed, the three cases that they cite to support such a charge have been addressed in detail in Congressman King's letter refuting those charges. In all three cases, there were convictions. If Congressman King's analysis is correct and the authors of the report have not offered a shred of evidence to the contrary then we have a situation where the School of Law has irresponsibly permitted a seriously flawed document masquerading as legal scholarship to be publicly circulated. The distribution of the report threatens to further antagonize the relationship between the Muslim-American community and their government. It appears to me if Dean Revesz was appropriately concerned with that relationship, he would feel the necessity of providing every recipient of the report with a copy of Congressman King's letter. At what point does it become inappropriate for the New York University School of Law to continue libeling the U.S. prosecutors, courts, juries and government itself? What if the government and U.S. law enforcement authorities had not impeded by prosecution the "more than 200 individuals" referred to in the report, and they had successfully carried out their terrorist acts? How many Americans and resident aliens would have been murdered and how many would have been injured? Thank God the government and law enforcement successfully intervened.
Contact Family Security Matters (FSM) at info@ familysecuritymatters.org
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A MOTHER'S PAIN
Posted by Hands Fiasco, October18, 2011. |
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This was written by Sherri Mandell and it appeared in the Jerusalem Press
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Why are we against the exchange that allows murderers to go free? Because we know the suffering that they leave in their wake. Why is it that terror victims are seemingly the only ones against the prisoner exchange? While other Israelis are rejoicing, we are in despair. Arnold and Frimet Roth circulated a petition against the release of Ahlam Tamimi, an accomplice in their daughter Malki's murder at the Sbarro pizza shop. Tamimi says she is happy that many children were killed in the attack. Meir Schijveschuurder, whose family was massacred in the same attack, filed a petition with the high court and says he is going to leave Israel because of his feelings of betrayal. The parents of Yasmin Karisi feel that the state is dancing in their blood because Khalil Muhammad Abu Ulbah, who murdered their daughter and seven others by running them down with a bus at the Azor junction in 2001, is also on the list to be released. Twenty-six others were wounded in that attack. Why are so many of us against the exchange that allows murderers and their accomplices to go free? Because we know the suffering that these murderers leave in their wake. Yes, I want Gilad Schalit released. But not at any price. Not at the price we have experienced. My son Koby Mandell and his friend Yosef Ish Ran were murdered by terrorists 10 years ago when they were 13 and 14 years old. They had been hiking in the wadi near our home when they were set upon by a Palestinian mob and stoned to death. It was a brutal, vicious murder. We now run the Koby Mandell Foundation for terror victims' families. We
direct Camp Koby, a 10-day therapeutic sleep away camp for 400 children
who have lost loved ones, mostly to terror. We also run mothers' healing
retreats and support groups.
MOST PEOPLE don't understand the continuing devastation of grief: fathers who die of heart attacks, mothers who get sick with cancer, children who leave school, families whose only child was murdered. We see depression, suicide, symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. You wouldn't believe how many victims' families are still on sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. We see the pain that doesn't diminish with time. We literally see people die of grief. Bereaved families face acute psychological isolation. Nobody understands us, they often complain. They mean that nobody understands the duration or the severity of their pain and longing. In the aftermath of a prisoner exchange, this isolation will only be exacerbated. So will the feeling that our children's deaths don't matter. When people tell me that my son Koby died for nothing, I always used to say: No, it is our job to make his death mean something. But now I am not sure. It seems that the government is conspiring to ensure that our loved ones' deaths were for nothing. Cheapening our loved ones' deaths only enhances the pain. If Israel is willing to free our loved ones' murderers, then the rest of the world can look on and assume that the terrorists are really freedom fighters or militants. If Palestinians were murdering Jews in cold blood without justification, surely the Israeli government wouldn't release them. No sane government would. When we were sitting shiva for Koby, a general in the army told us: "We will bring the killers to justice." I believed him. I took his words to heart. Today I am thankful my son's killers have not been found. So are my children. Of course, I don't want the terrorists to kill again. But if they were to be released in this prisoner exchange, I don't think I could bear it. We don't want other families to be put in our situation. We don't want terrorists to be free when our loved ones are six feet underground. Ten years after my son was beaten to death, the pain often feels like a prison. In many ways, I am not free. We don't want other terrorists to be emboldened because they know that even if they murder, they may not have to stay in prison. President Shimon Peres says he will pardon but he will not forgive. Terrorist victims' families will not pardon or forgive the government for this release. We have been betrayed. To pardon terrorists mocks our love and our pain. Furthermore, terrorism aims to strike fear in an entire society, to bring a whole populace to its knees. During the intifada, the terrorists did not succeed in defeating Israeli society. But to release prisoners now signals to Hamas that their strategy of terror was correct, effective. They will celebrate wholeheartedly because they have won. And as a result of prisoner exchanges, the Israeli justice system can only be seen as a joke, a mockery, even a travesty of justice. It provides no deterrent and no retribution. It's as if our government says to the killers: Come hurt us again. We'll be happy to release you one day. We'll let you go when you demand it. I want Gilad Schalit home. We need to protect our own soldiers. But not with a wholesale prisoner exchange. I wish that I could rejoice with the Schalit family. But I can't. The price is too high. Contact HandsFiasco by email at handsfiasco@webtv.net |
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CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS PROTESTING ANTI-ZIONIST GROUP
Posted by Doug Krieger, October 17, 2011. |
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I think you should know that Christian Zionists will not give a pass to the antics of the Sabeel organization funded by the Saudis et al when they attempt to politicize their anti-Israel agenda at the First United Methodist Church here in Sacramento, California...it is time for Christians to stand up and call this kind of propaganda for what it is: A FARCE perpetrated by deluded Israelis who may mean well but they actually don't mean well when their presentations are disturbingly one-sided and even filled with blatant lies. Don't take a bunch of red-necks for a bunch of idiots who think that Israel's the same show that went down in South Africa - get out the word - DON'T TREAD ON ISRAEL! Any nation that will cherish the life of one soldier in exchange for 1,000+ (many of whom are rank terrorists) is not inhumane and cannot be considered in the same league as Apartheid South Africa once was! Trying to boycott investment funds because they trade with Israel here in California and other states will result in unmitigated resistance from Christians who see in Israel a beacon of light in an otherwise dark part of the world. Furthermore, we're not from Jewish backgrounds as some ignorantly surmise (e.g., converts) - we're blatantly evangelical and believe that all humankind need Jesus as Lord and Savior - and, we're here "standing with Israel" against this kind of claptrap espoused by Sabeel or anyone else who thinks that they can willy-nilly waltz on into the Christian community and foment lies and distortions without consequence. Tav Evangelical Ministry Protesting anti-Zionist Seminar
It was a seminar that clearly lacked any real legitimacy: holding Israel to a standard Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO refuse to live by striped it of any genuine credibility. Nevertheless, we indicated at the rally a willingness to revisit the issue raised by Dr. Halper, the seminar leader and himself a Jew, when Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, and at least a majority of the Middle Eastern countries - both Arab and non-Arab ... 1. acknowledge Israel's right to exist,
What's more, the seminar completely ignored Israel's plight. Israel's foreign policies - including her treatment of the Palestinians on both the West Bank and in Gaza - must be judged in light of the implacable hatred and unremitting hostility she faces both in those territories and throughout the Middle East. Dr. Halper made absolutely no attempt to even address the issue of security - actually dismissing it with a cavalier wave of his hand - insisting that it's nothing more than a red herring. One more item of note: there wasn't a single Jew there at the seminar to challenge Dr. Halper's ridiculous assertions. How ironic: Evangelicals more willing to underwrite Israel's security than American Jews. It gives one pause ... See the video:
TAV Evangelical Ministries protest anti-Zionist seminar
Contact Doug Krieger by email at kriegerdwm@yahoo.com
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US MILITARY AID TO EGYPT - COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, October 17, 2011. |
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One million demonstrators participated in the anti-Mubarak Tahrir Square rallies. However, two million demonstrators joined the anti-US Muslim Brotherhood Tahrir Square demonstration following the toppling of Mubarak, highlighting the political trend in Egypt. The transfer of advanced US military systems to Egypt — including the co-production in Egypt of the M1A1 Abrams tank - undermines vital US national security interests. It bolsters a regime which is at odds with the values and the long-term interests of the USA, a potentially anti-US regime, which is increasingly closer to Hamas and a safe haven for additional anti-US terrorists. It accelerates the regional arms race and fuels Egyptian imperialistic goals in the Sudan, the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It rewards a regime which oppresses and executes its 9 million Christian-Coptic minority and institutionalizes anti-Semitic and anti-US hate-education. The transfer of advanced US military systems to Egypt is not required to combat domestic terrorism and to safeguard the borders with dramatically weaker Libya and Sudan. It is required to achieve a "strategic parity with Israel" — a code name for launching a war on Israel. Such a transfer defies Middle Eastern Egyptian realities. For example, the most advanced US military systems, sold to the pro-US Shah of Iran, could not avert the February 1979 ascension to power of the anti-US Khomeini. Those systems made Iran a much more formidable threat to the US. The 1951-1969 transformation of Libya's Wheelus Air Base, into the largest US air base outside the USA, did not foil Qaddafi's coup in 1969. The transfer of US military hardware to Jordan did not prevent King Hussein from supporting Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The pile of advanced US military systems sold to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States was not employed during the 1991 and 2003 US-Iraq wars. A large scale US military deployment and US casualties were required to secure recipients of US military hardware. The recent seismic developments on the Arab Street, especially in Egypt, have demonstrated how tenuous are Arab regimes, policies and alliances; how unpredictable, volatile, unstable, treacherous and violent are inter and intra Arab politics; and how uncontrollable they are by the USA. The rising tide of fundamentalist Islam is apparent in Egypt, where the anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood — Hamas' Big Brother - is favored to make major gains in the coming election. Almost all Muslim Egyptian women undergo circumcision (genital mutilation)! According to a December 2010 Pew Global Attitudes, 95% of Egyptians support Islam's large role in politics, 82% favor the stoning of adulterers, 84% support the execution of apostates and 77% advocate the flogging or hand-amputation of thieves. Egypt produced Bin-Laden's chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Blind Sheikh Rahman of the 1993 Twin Tower terrorism. Anti-US Egyptian sentiments are the derivative of sustained incitement by educators, policy-makers and public opinion molders. For instance, the Mubarak-controlled media and clergy celebrated 9/11 and contended that it was a US conspiracy. Two weeks before 9/11, the Mubarak-controlled daily Akhbar Al-Yom, incited: "The Statute of Liberty must be destroyed." The editor-in-chief of the Al Jumhuriyah daily, who was appointed by Mubarak, wrote that "Iraqi swords would chop the neck of the US invader." Egypt has collaborated with Russia, China and especially with North Korea (since 1981, with Saddam's financial support) in the development of ballistic, chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities. Mubarak violated US sanctions against Saddam and Qaddafi and voted consistently against the US in the UN. Notwithstanding the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Egypt has conducted a Cold War against Israel, promoting anti-Semitic hate-education, anti-Israel positions at the UN, the Arab League, NGOs, the anti-Semitic Durbin conferences and in Africa. Egypt has facilitated the flow of advanced missiles to Hamas-controlled Gaza, spending 18% of GNP on its military, while its economy crumbles. The $40BN in U.S. military aid to Egypt ($1.3BN in 2012) is framed as an investment in regional stability, supposedly advancing pro-US policies, allegedly constraining anti-US elements, promoting regional peace and democracy and ostensibly reducing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. However, reality demonstrates that US military aid to Egypt has been devastatingly counterproductive, with potential devastation yet to occur. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as
well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for
Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to
Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul
General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of
Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem
Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il
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THE MAGNET OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Posted by Reuven Kossover, October 17, 2011. |
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In a difficult discussion at the Israel Muse Portal, Bat-Zion Susskind Sacks wrote the following: "We are all here to support Israel to ensure it stays forever as a Jewish state. We need to join hands to achieve that goal. We achieve NOTHING by bickering. Neither do we achieve anything by encouraging the import of missionaries or those that try to remove the Jewish nature of Israel. We need to agree on WHERE we draw the line between the support we get from Christians and their efforts to infiltrate us for purposes of their own agenda." I agree with this entirely. And then she continued (in part): "We should look for support wherever we can get it, that is what some of us do believe. ..... We just cannot afford NOT to have it,not in today's climate." I disagree with this entirely. Israel and Israelis should not whore after allies taking support wherever they can get it. One need only read the Books of Ezekiel and Isaiah to see where this policy got us. "TODAY'S CLIMATE", whenever "today" has been, has always been difficult for Jews and the Children of Israel. OUR appropriate stance is to be the "magnet of righteousness". Avi Lipkin, who has worked very hard to build Christian support for this country, would like to graft a partly Christian political party into our broken political system. The main problem (from his side, looking at this sympathetically) with his idea is that the system is broken - or to be more precise, RIGGED, so that a nationalist majority representing OUR nation will not emerge, as it will not be allowed to emerge. The idea that those citizens of Israel willing to die to defend the country should have a voice in running the country is a fine idea for a "western democracy". This country is not meant to be a "western democracy". It is G-D's Gift to the Children of Jacob - of Israel, and NOT meant to be "a state for all of its citizens". That is the fundamental problem with Avi's idea. It goes against what this nation is meant to be. We must be a "magnet of righteousness" instead. What does this mean? It means that BY OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS AND NOT BY OUR CONTENTIOUSNESS we will draw those non-Jews who will support us to our side. I do not expect non-Jews to agree with our religion or to support our nation uncritically. My only expectation of them is that they will support Israel, and its nationalist agenda, in the wider world. In other words, to be precise, OUR ACTIONS WILL DRAW PEOPLE TO SUPPORT US, RATHER THAN OUR CHASING THEM FOR SUPPORT. That is what it means by "you will be a head, not a tail", in the Book of Deuteronomy. I do not see political change of a serious nature coming about here without a war. The Zionist Establishment - which is largely secular and anti-religious - succeeded in creating ITS state - the State of Israel - in its shadow. However, ITS state will not be allowed to properly defend itself against its many enemies. We see this in the disastrous deal for the release of Gil'ad Shalit, in the withdrawal from Gush Qatif in 2005 and from South Lebanon in 2000, in the Oslo Accords, all actions of the Zionist Establishment in power, the Zionist establishment that controls the Zionist Entity, the State of Israel. The Zionist Entity must fall - probably by war - before a JEWISH OR HEBREW ENTITY can emerge to fight the wars of the messiah. BY OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL WE DRAW OUR TRUE NON-JEWISH FRIENDS - NOT BY POLITICS!! Blessings from Samaria,
Contact Reuven Kossover by email at rkossover@gmail.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: CONTINUING
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 17, 2011. |
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Who doesn't remember the horrendous, the breathtakingly obscene lynching in Ramallah in 2000 of two IDF soldiers who had lost their way? The picture of one of the lynchers, showing his bloodied hands, was seared in the consciousness of all of us: 
The Palestinian Arab in that picture was Abed al-Aziz Salaha. I neglected to mention yesterday that he is one of the terrorists who is now scheduled to be released. Plain and simple: It shouldn't be. One of those murdered that day was Nordim Norzich. Now his brother says: "The government lied to all the bereaved families. They promised the bereaved parents that the terrorists would never get out. Ehud Barak [then prime minister] made a personal promise to me that this terrorist would never see the light of day." ~~~~~~~~~~ For the complete list of those to be released:
~~~~~~~~~~ Spurred by what is happening, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) has asked Prime Minister Netanyahu to order the death penalty for Ajmad Awad and Hakim Awad, convicted of the heinous murders of five members of the Fogel family — including a three-month old baby — in Itamar in March of this year. The cousins — who mutilated the bodies of at least some of their victims — have been convicted and are serving multiple life sentences. It was Hakim who spoke about how proud he was of what he had done. Done "for Palestine." The idea, here, of course, is to guarantee via capital punishment that they can never get "traded" into freedom. I don't know that the prime minister can "order" death for those already sentenced by a court. Nor — as much as I happen to believe they deserve it — do I think it even remotely a possibility that they would be given the death penalty, because they are young. As they are not yet out of their teens, it would be a very difficult sell. When they were first arrested, the mayor of their village declared, "What? They're only children." Yea, sure. But beyond this particular case there is a principle that it is time to consider. Judaism is not absolutely opposed to the death penalty, but is not predisposed to its frequent use, to say the least. Israel has only executed one person in 63 years: Adolph Eichmann. Maybe it's time for this to change. ~~~~~~~~~~ See the commentary of Aaron Lerner on a related issue: "Blood and revenge." Not capital punishment, but actively taking out Hamas leaders instead of shooting at empty buildings.
~~~~~~~~~~ Yet another issue to be dealt with: Among those being released at Hamas's demand are six Arabs who are Israeli citizens and who will be allowed to return to their homes. This is a bad move. Yarom London looks at the several reasons why. (He refers to Israel's Arab citizens as "Palestinian Israelis," which I find unsettling even though I know that in recent years this is how they refer to themselves. But his analysis is good.) As Israel seeks to make its Arab citizens feel truly Israeli — to identify as Israeli, he says, the key is equality of Arabs and Jews under Israeli law. "The equality of the law in respect to the breaching of national security directly pertains to the shaping of our Palestinian citizens' Israeli identity...An Israeli criminal who committed a crime in Israel should serve his sentence in an Israeli prison. Equality under the law also includes the deprivation of freedom under equal terms. "[But] when the State included Israeli prisoners in the list of detainees to be released, it told Palestinian Israelis that they are not like other Israelis. They are subjected to different kind of laws and are removed from the general public; they are a 'special case.' "There is no telling how this declaration will be affecting a few or many Palestinian Israelis, yet I assume that it will be entrenched in their consciousness, pushing them further away from us and vice versa. "The festive celebrations being prepared in the communities of Arab Israelis to be freed in the Shalit swap and the words uttered on the issue by Islamic Movement spokesmen reinforce my estimate. They are saying almost explicitly: Your victory is also our victory in the struggle against the State of Israel, where we constitute one-fifth of the population."
~~~~~~~~~~ How awful this is. Pain multiplied upon pain. Families of those murdered by terrorists implored the High Court today to stop the madness of releasing the terrorists. Bad enough, they say, that they have lost family members. Now those still living will be in greater danger. The Shalit attorney Gilad Sher observed that, "This is a sensitive, fragile, volatile deal. Any change in it, any court-ordered delay may be catastrophic. "[The Shalits] are anxious. They fear the unknown ramifications of any delay or change and they plead the court not to grant any petition whose consequences cannot be predicted. " Noam Shalit responded more directly, that "Unfortunately, suspending the deal won't bring the victims of terror back [to life], but it could condemn Gilad to death." What else would we expect him to say as the life of his son hangs by a judicial thread? And yet, suspending the deal could save many other lives. The court ruling is supposed to come tonight. It will not be in favor of the petitioning families. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is much speculation as to what prompted this deal now. I'm not prepared to sign on to any of the current theories, for there is simply too much speculation, too much that we don't know. There's one theory that says, because of Abbas's intransigence, Israel is trying to diminish the PA by strengthening Hamas. Don't know about that. Another attributes what's been going on to the recent visit here of Defense Secretary Panetta, who's attempting some international power plays. Don't know about this either. However, mindful of the fact that much more may well be going on than what seems apparent at the surface, I intend to keep my ears and eyes open.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com
and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
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EXODUS, MYTH AND MALPRACTICE
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 17, 2011. |
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This was written by Martin Kramer and was published October
11, 2011 on his
website. It is archived at
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Exodus by Leon Uris must rank high on any list of the most influential books about the Middle East. The novel, published in 1958, popularized the story of Israel's birth among millions of American readers. The 1960 film, based on the book and starring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan, reached many more millions. Exodus is still of interest, not for what it says about the creation of Israel (the commander of the ship Exodus said Uris "wrote a very good novel, but it had nothing to do with reality. Exodus, shmexodus"), but for what it reveals about mid-twentieth-century America. So more inquiry into the American context of Exodus is welcome — provided you get the facts right. Last fall, Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, offered his audiences an account of how Leon Uris came to write the book. In a speech at Brooklyn Law School, Khalidi made this claim: This carefully crafted propaganda was the work of seasoned professionals. People like someone you probably never heard of, a man named Edward Gottlieb, for example. He's one of the founders of the modern public relations industry. There are books about him as a great advertiser. Khalidi made a similar assertion in another speech a few weeks later, this time at the Palestine Center in Washington: Now, I think it's worth noting that this book was not the unaided fruit of the loins as it were, the intellectual loins of Leon Uris. He wrote it, of course, but the book was commissioned by a renowned public relations professional, a man who was in fact considered by many to be the founder of public relations in the United States, a fellow by the name of Edward Gottlieb, who desired to improve Israel's image, and who chose Uris to write the novel after his successful first novel on World War II, and who secured the funding which paid for Uris' research and trip to Israel. Given that many of the basic ideas about Palestine and Israel held by generations of Americans find their origin either in this trite novel or the equally clichéd movie, Gottlieb's inspiration to send Leon Uris to Israel may have constituted one of the greatest advertising triumphs of the twentieth century. The man deserves his place in the public relations pantheon. You can see Khalidi make this claim, with his customary self-confidence and much gesticulation, in the embedded clip. (If you don't see it, go here.) A myth unravels Khalidi warned his Brooklyn audience that Gottlieb would be "someone you probably never heard of." Quite right: I regard myself as reasonably informed about the history of American Zionism, and I had never heard of Edward Gottlieb. Khalidi claimed there were "books about him as a great advertiser," so I did a search, but I couldn't find one. When Gottlieb died in 1998, at the age of 88, no major newspaper ran an obituary. That seemed to me a rather scant trail for "the father of the American iteration of Zionism" and "the founder of public relations in the United States." One reason for the thin record, I discovered, is that Edward Gottlieb wasn't the founder or even one of the founders of American public relations. He had been a journalist in the 1930s, and in 1940 joined the long-established public relations firm of a true founder, Carl Byoir. After Pearl Harbor, Gottlieb did radio and informational work for the war effort in the European theater of operations. In 1948 he opened his own shop, Edward Gottlieb and Associates, which grew into a respected mid-size firm, focused primarily on products. Most notably, Gottlieb popularized French champagne and cognac in the United States. When he sold his company in 1976 to a bigger competitor, it ranked sixteenth in size among PR firms in America. He seems to have been well-regarded, but he was not dominant in the business. If the Encyclopedia of Public Relations constitutes "the public relations pantheon," then Gottlieb is noticeable only by his absence. Gottlieb is likewise completely absent from works on American Zionism — there isn't a single reference. Moreover, his name doesn't appear in the two scholarly studies of Leon Uris: Matt Silver's Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel's Founding Story and Ira Nadel's Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller. I wrote to both scholars, asking them whether they had encountered the name of Edward Gottlieb in Uris's personal papers, housed at the University of Texas and cited extensively in both studies. Silver wrote back that "I didn't see anything about Edward Gottlieb" and Nadel answered that "I never came across G[ottlieb]'s name." Both biographers are in agreement that the idea for a novel on Israel originated with Uris (encouraged by Dore Schary, a Jewishly-active Hollywood executive); that Uris's agent Malcolm Stuart pushed him to realize his plan; that Uris successfully shopped the idea in Hollywood studios and New York publishing houses; and that his research trip to Israel in 1956 was financed by advances on the film rights and book from MGM and Random House. (United Artists and Doubleday subsequently acquired the rights.) The contracts and correspondence are preserved in Uris's papers. And the Gottlieb "commission"? Silver wrote me that "my feeling is that this reference could be a complete canard." Nadel wrote me that "the story is a complete fabrication." Khalidi always presents himself as a historian, so I figured he wouldn't have concocted the Gottlieb story out of whole cloth. He must have had a source. As it happens, the Gottlieb claim figures in three books that are classics in the Israel-bashing canon. In Deliberate Deceptions (1995), Paul Findley wrote that Exodus "was actually commissioned by the New York public relations firm of Edward Gottlieb." In Fifty Years of Israel (1998), Donald Neff wrote that Gottlieb "hit upon the idea of hiring a writer to go to Israel and write an heroic novel about the new country. The writer was Leon Uris." And in Perceptions of Palestine (1999), Kathleen Christison wrote that Gottlieb "selected Uris, and sent him to Israel" in an "astute public-relations scheme." And on what source did Findley, Neff, and Christison rely? All of them referenced a 1985 how-to book on public relations, The Persuasion Explosion: Your Guide to the Power and Influence of Contemporary Public Relations by Arthur Stevens, a public relations professional. This is a breezy advice book full of PR do's and don't's, which no one would mistake for a history of the business. (A typical chapter title: "Success DOES Smell Sweet.") Stevens in his book relates the Gottlieb story to illustrate a point: The cleverest public relations in the world cannot successfully promote, for any length of time, a poor cause or a poor product. By contrast, skillful public relations can speed up the acceptance of a concept whose time has come. A striking example of this involved eminent public relations consultant Edward Gottlieb. In the early 1950s, when the newly formed State of Israel was struggling for recognition in the court of world opinion, America was largely apathetic. Gottlieb, who at the time headed his own public relations firm, suddenly had a hunch about how to create a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel. He chose a writer and sent him to Israel with instructions to soak in the atmosphere of the country and create a novel about it. The book turned out to be Exodus, by Leon Uris. So this is the origin of the Gottlieb story: an example in a how-to book. Even so, I wondered how Stevens came to write this paragraph. Did he have a published source or documentary evidence? Was this part of the folklore of the business? So I tracked Stevens down and asked him. In an e-mailed reply, he told me that he had interviewed Gottlieb, "whom I knew well at the time," around 1984: The comments he made to me during my interview of him were those that went into the book. It wasn't hearsay I made use of or the reporting of prevailing folklore floating through the public relations world at the time. What I reported is what he actually told me during my interview. Obviously, I cannot vouch for the accuracy or reliability of what he said. So this wasn't a claim based on any document or even part of PR lore. It was Gottlieb himself who told Stevens the story of how he supposedly chose Uris and sent him to Israel. "I didn't get that information from any other source," Stevens wrote me, "but directly from the horse's mouth." Ultimately, Gottlieb is the sole source of the Gottlieb story — told by him 28 years after Uris set off for Israel. Gottlieb and Israel But this still left a question. Since Gottlieb doesn't appear in any account of American Zionism, why would he expect such a claim to be credible? "Only Edward Gottlieb would know if what he told me was true," Stevens wrote me. But that isn't so, because there is a living witness to Gottlieb's own operations. She is Charlotte Klein, one of the first women to reach the top rungs of a public relations firm. Klein worked for Edward Gottlieb and Associates from 1951 to 1962, making vice president in 1955. Klein was recently the subject of a short academic study, and there I finally found evidence for some connection between Gottlieb and Israel. The Government of Israel became a Gottlieb client in 1955; Charlotte Klein managed the account, and even traveled to Israel that year. This was about the time Uris began to take his book and film proposal around New York and Hollywood. Could the Gottlieb story still contain a grain of truth? The study of Klein noted that she was still active at age 88 and living in Manhattan. So I wrote to Klein informing her of Khalidi's claim that Gottlieb had commissioned Uris to write Exodus. I received this reply: I was in charge of the Israel account at Edward Gottlieb and Associates and if Ed had ever talked to Uris about Israel I would have known it. As a matter of fact, Ed sought the Israel account because of me. I was one of his top employees and I told him that I was going to leave because I wanted to do work that was socially significant and would seek a job at the United Nations. He didn't want me to leave and called me from outside the office soon after and said "Is the Government of Israel socially significant enough?" I stayed with him and handled the account which we kept for several years. There was never a discussion about Uris or regarding a possible book about Israel. When I told her that Stevens said he had heard the story from Gottlieb, she added this: 1984, of course, is a long time from 1955 and Ed may have met Uris and felt he influenced him. However, there never was money enough on the account for Ed to "commission" anyone to write a book. I am also pretty sure that Ed would have bragged about meeting and talking to Uris if this happened. He would have asked me to come up with some ideas of what Uris ought to cover. I would have had a meeting of my staff on the Israel account and would have drawn up a plan to include people in Israel for Uris to contact. As part of our work for Israel we did suggest mainly to media people to go to Israel to write about any special events going on there or to cover specific news that was happening there. So Charlotte Klein, who handled the Israel account for Gottlieb, was unequivocal: Gottlieb didn't commission Exodus, and the name of Leon Uris never came up in the Israel work of the firm. I could have stopped my pursuit here, but I decided to go one more lap. Perhaps there was some record of the Gottlieb-Israel relationship in official Israeli records? So I paid a visit to the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem, and found the Israeli foreign ministry files related to Gottlieb. These include contracts, reports, budgets, invoices, and press clippings, all awaiting a future historian. The documents explain the relationship in detail. Gottlieb's firm had a sub-entity, Intercontinental Public Relations, Inc. (ICPR), with offices in Washington and New York. The sub-entity did work that required foreign agent registration. Israel's contracts with ICPR ran for two years (an initial year and one renewal), from February 1, 1955 thru January 31, 1957. The relationship was handled on Israel's end by Harry (Yehuda) Levin, counselor at the Israeli embassy in Washington. The PR firm's biggest coups involved Life magazine. This included arranging a meeting between visiting Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and the top executives of Life, resulting in a Life editorial strongly critical of Arab refusal to accept Israel. This was the firm's biggest score, but Klein also worked to place Israel-related stories in magazines, newspapers, and trade journals. The record shows that Israeli officials saw such outsourcing of PR as a (pricey) stopgap, until these tasks could be assumed by professionally-trained Israelis (and soon enough they were). The files make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the early history of Israeli hasbara in America — but they don't contain a single mention of Leon Uris. The purpose of myth In sum, the Gottlieb "commission" never happened. Uris's biographers dismiss it, Gottlieb's most knowledgeable associate denies it, and no documents in Uris's papers or Israeli archives testify to it. It originated as a boast by Gottlieb to another PR man, made almost thirty years after the (non-)fact. And given its origin, it's precisely the sort of story a serious professional historian would never repeat as fact without first vetting it (as I did). Yet it persists in the echo chamber of anti-Israel literature, where it has been copied over and over. In Kathleen Christison's book, it finally appeared under the imprimatur of a university press (California). In Khalidi's lectures last fall, it acquired a baroque elaboration, in which Edward Gottlieb emerges as "the father of the American iteration of Zionism" and architect of "one of the greatest advertising triumphs of the twentieth century." What is the myth's appeal? Why is the truth about the genesis of Exodus so difficult to grasp? Why should Khalidi think the Gottlieb story is, in his coy phrase, "worth noting"? Because if you believe in Zionist mind-control, you must always assume the existence of a secret mover who (as Khalidi said) "you probably never heard of" and who must be a professional expert in deception. This "seasoned" salesman conceives of Exodus as a "gambit" (Khalidi) or a "scheme" (Christison). There is no studio or publisher's advance, only a "commission," which qualifies the book as "propaganda" — an "advertising triumph." In Khalidi's Brooklyn Law School talk, he added that "the process of selling Israel didn't stop with Gottlieb.... It has continued unabated since then." It is Khalidi's purpose to cast Exodus, like the case for Israel itself, as a "carefully crafted" sales job by Madison Avenue mad men. Through their mediation, Israel has hoodwinked America. In fact, the deception lies elsewhere. Exodus, novel and book, were universally understood to be works of fiction. In contrast, Rashid Khalidi claims to speak in the name of history — that is, carefully validated truth. "I'm a historian," he has said. "What I can do best for the reader or audience is provide a background for which to see the present, not tell them about the present." Again: "I'm a historian and I try not to speculate about the future." And this: "I'm a historian, and I look at the way idealism has tended to operate, and it's not a pretty picture." And this one (which truly beggars belief): "I'm a historian, it's not my job to attack or defend anybody." Forget that Khalidi interprets the present, speculates about the future, poses as an idealist, and attacks and defends people with vigor. (If he didn't, he wouldn't be a regular on NPR, Charlie Rose and the lecture circuit.) The point is that he proclaims over and again that he is a historian — that his opinions rest on facts about the past that he has subjected to his professional investigation. As I have shown, this is simply untrue. Khalidi will repeat and embellish a story simply because of its utility, without even a cursory check of its veracity. That's literary license in a novelist. It's malpractice in a historian. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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JEWISH CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP LAUNCHES STUDENT HOTLINE TO COMBAT ANTI-ISRAEL HOSTILITIES ON AMERICAN CAMPUSES
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 17, 2011. |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 17, 2011 (New York) Jewish civil rights group Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center has launched the "Campus Hotline," a manned telephone switchboard to assist university students in the United States who are subjected to anti-Israel and anti-Semitic attacks at their schools. Students and faculty are being encouraged to call the Campus Hotline at (718) 907-9258 to report to Shurat HaDin any incidents of anti-Semitism, discrimination, intimidation or harassment arising from anti-Israel activities on American college or university campuses. Shurat HaDin is also soliciting information and updates via the Hotline on BDS (the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign to delegitimize Israel) activities on campus and organized efforts to provide support for terrorist organizations.
Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center
Recently, Shurat HaDin sent letters
The Campus Hotline will assist Shurat HaDin in monitoring activities on college campuses and in protecting the rights of Jewish students and faculty and the security of the state of Israel. The organization is currently investigating the alarming connection between anti-Israel activists, organizations and activities in the United States and Middle East terrorism. Many extremist groups operate and recruit on college campuses. Direct contact with the students will keep the organization constantly aware of unacceptable activities and will allow it to rapidly respond with appropriate legal action. An immediate, effective legal response will have a deterrent effect on harassment, discrimination, and potentially on terrorism. Shurat HaDin's new American office will be devoting significant time and resources to responding to calls to the Hotline. By taking advantage of its world-wide legal network, Shurat HaDin will be a formidable force in combating the ever-increasing threat to Jewish students on campuses nationwide. Attorney Kenneth Leitner, the law center's Director of American Affairs, said "we want Jewish students to know that there is a number to call when they are victimized by extremist groups promoting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate on American college campuses. Jewish students should be made aware that they have the full support of a large community of Jewish and non-Jewish advocates who will not tolerate their continued intimidation and harassment. We want to encourage pro-Israel students to stand-up for their rights and beliefs without fear." Mr. Leitner further stated, "it is time for us to go on the legal offensive. In the same way that Shurat HaDin pioneered the use of the courtroom to bring terrorist organizations and their state sponsors to justice, we will employ the legal system to take down campus hate groups and their off-campus financiers. We would like American college campuses to be safe and secure for Jewish students, without distraction, intolerance, antagonism and most importantly, violence. We expect that the schools share our goals; if not, we will legally compel them to." Shurat HaDin is also in the process of creating a "Report Card" to rate campuses based on their commitment to the U.S. Department of Education's civil rights guidance and to providing a safe and welcoming environment for Jewish students and faculty and for pro-Israel viewpoints. The organization expects administrators at poorly-ranked campuses to become more actively aware of both their legal obligations and their social responsibilities in responding to hostility and discrimination against Jewish students. Contact: Kenneth Leitner, Esq.
Media Contact: Suzanne Balaban
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=54130 Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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THE MIDDLE EAST TODAY: HA, HA! IT'S TOO FUNNY! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!
Posted by Barry Rubin, October 16, 2011. |
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There's a saying that goes something like this: When things are bad, a Jew cries. When they get even worse, a Jew cries more. And when they even get worse, a Jew laughs. As indelicate as this may seem, the current situation makes me want to laugh. That's so because things are more ridiculous than they are scary. As the advice and claims of others get increasingly absurd, you have no desire to listen to them. You just have to do what you know is right and stop having any doubts about it precisely because the arguments on the other side are just so historically inaccurate, factually false, and illogical. For those joining the story late — a group that seems to include Western politicians, media, and academic "experts" — here's a little background. In 1993, Israel made an agreement with the PLO to try to achieve peace. It turned over the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank to a Palestinian government. Israel accepted the establishment of large security forces, the supply of guns, and the transfer of billions of dollars of aid. Israel made major offers of territory and concessions to Syria and the Palestinian Authority in 2000, after almost a decade of negotiation. The other side rejected those compromise solutions. The Palestinian leadership instead launched a five-year-long war of terrorism. They lost. Then Israel was attacked by Hizballah. The world intervened and made promises to Israel. These were broken. Then Israel was attacked by Hamas. It defended itself. Again it won, but the world rushed in to save Hamas and to condemn Israel. Of course, you can say that Israel did mean things and didn't keep every commitment it made. Yet any balanced and honest assessment has to acknowledge the basic accuracy of the preceding summary. And any that doesn't is basically worthless as a guide to policy or education. Now, what are the latest developments? Well, let's see: — Turkey's government has gone berserk (in fact, a product of its Islamism and a celebration of breaking the armed forces that posed the last barrier to their total control of the country) and has started acting as if it is at war with Israel. There is a real possibility that Turkish naval vessels will escort ships organized by terrorist groups to violate a legal blockade to strengthen a regime in the Gaza Strip that openly talks about killing all of the world's Jews. That government, behaving as if it is at war with Israel, is simultaneously being used by the U.S. government to help direct Syria's future and lead its main new counterterrorism project. Feel the chuckles coming on yet? — The Palestinian Authority, allied with the aforementioned antisemitic, genocidal Hamas, violates all of the agreements it made during the last 18 years — after refusing to negotiate for 2 years — by seeking unilateral independence in the UN. This would mean it will never have to negotiate with Israel or compromise in any way. Thus, this stratagem will kill any chance of negotiations. Nevertheless, countries are lining up to vote in favor of this proposal. It's the ultimate embodiment of "social justice" and endless entitlements. The Palestinians "deserve" a state and don't have to do anything at all to obtain one except to demand it. — Egypt's revolution is baying for Israel's blood. Palestinian-Egyptian terrorists cross Israel's border and kill Israeli civilians; a mob attacks the Israeli embassy as the authorities stand by and do nothing. Hysteria returns to the country as if the Camp David peace agreement never happened. The Muslim Brotherhood — which we were told is weak and not Islamist — is now heading toward either a takeover or at least becoming the country's most powerful force. — What is the reaction in much of the media, universities, and governments? Let's use the appropriate acronym for this trio — MUG. Guess who is getting mugged? Let me limit myself to one example of the genre. The former failed and minor Jewish organizational politician Seymour Reich writes in The New York Times: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gained nothing — except placating his right-wing coalition — by rebuffing President Obama's proposal in May for negotiating Israeli-Palestinian borders based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, although some reports indicated that he may have later softened his stand. This is an amazing paragraph, if only for the fact that Reich attacks Netanyahu for taking a position that Reich admits he didn't actually take! And after many occasions on which Netanyahu did precisely what Reich wants failed. Of course, there's no mention about years of Palestinian intransigence or of the previous risks and concessions made by Israel and even by Netanyahu. I do not mean this as a direct reference to Mr. Reich but as an observation about the current institutional set-up. In biblical times, one sold out for a bowl of stew ("mess of pottage") while today one does so for a New York Times op-ed piece, or perhaps a tenured professorship, or admiring media coverage of oneself. Christians speak of "the wages of sin." Well, those salaries are at all-time highs, with great fringe benefits, and extremely low unemployment. Reich continues: Mr. Netanyahu must step back from the brink. He should cast aside his far-right coalition members, form a government with moderate parties and add a freeze on settlement construction to an offer to negotiate without preconditions. This would demonstrate seriousness. Why does Israel or Netanyahu need to show at this date that they are serious? Doesn't the virtually daily efforts of Netanyahu to restart negotiations show seriousness? The nine-month-long settlement freeze? The quick acceptance of Obama's proposal for a summit conference at the end of 2009? I will pay no more attention to these people. They are not serious. They are deaf to what we say and blind to what we do. They are not dealing with reality. As our next-door neighbors say: Let them go drink the Nile! They only have one note: It's all Israel's fault! If it only had offered more and accepted a Palestinian state everything would be fine. If it gave everything and demanded nothing — since the PA is unwilling to make any concession — then everything would be fine. As to everything else in the region from Palestinian intransigence to the alliance with Hamas to events in Egypt and Turkey, their only response is to say that it's not really happening! The Muslim Brotherhood was real sorry about the attack on the embassy (then how come it endorsed the assault?). The moderate secularists will win everywhere. Turkey is just miffed that Israel didn't capitulate totally. Israel is isolated! So rather than be isolated it, should make every concession demanded of it? And then everyone will love it and give up the war against it. The fact that this is what we have been told repeatedly and it hasn't happened means nothing! Oh, no. This time, once Israel goes back to the pre-1967 borders, recognizes the Fatah-Hamas regime, and doesn't make trouble over little things like the Palestinians refusing to end the conflict even under those conditions, the military build-up in Palestine, and the demand that a few million Palestinians can come live in Israel... then everything will really be great! Are we supposed to take this seriously? Starting to understand why I'm laughing? Let me take one example out of hundreds to show the absurdity of the situation. The sufferings of Palestinians which so upsets and animates Egyptians, Turks, and the Western left? Those are in the Gaza Strip. What is the strategy of the Gaza Strip's government? Kill the Jews. It is more openly radical than the policy of the PLO in the 1960s and 1970s. How many Israeli soldiers and settlements are in the Gaza Strip? Zero. How many rockets from the Gaza Strip are in Israel? Thousands! So this is why I'm laughing. First, the claims, arguments, and demands being made against Israel are ridiculous. Second, they have become so ridiculous that maybe people should start to notice. Third, since there is no alternative in the face of this nonsense, we know that our course is a correct one. We know that more risks, concessions, and apologies will have no positive effect for Israel's interests or security. We know that courting death and disaster will not even win applause or sympathy. Please listen very carefully and I will put the following conclusions in boldface: The Palestinians and Arab regimes have given us no reason to believe that more concessions and risks will bring us any closer to a stable and secure peace. They have given us every reason to believe that they will quickly forget what Israel has done and go back to their default goal of wiping Israel off the map. The Western democracies have given us no reason to believe that more concessions and risks will bring us greater support and more help from them if and when those actions backfire against Israel. They have given us every reason to believe that they will quickly forget what Israel has done and go back to their default position that it is all Israel's fault Today, Israel gives up south Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai, and most of the West Bank as well as offering all of the Golan Heights to Syria. Tomorrow they will say that Israel has done nothing. The radicals claim that Israel does not want peace; the relative moderates that Israel hasn't shown that it wants peace. Consequently, with full good conscience, we can justify our laughter on pragmatic realpolitik or on spiritual terms. Regarding the former, an idiotic analysis fails; the truth comes out; those who follow foolish policies fall. And for those of you who are spiritually inclined: "The wicked plots against the righteous, and threatens him with his teeth. The Lord doth laugh at him; for He sees that his day is coming." — Psalm 37 Also see my Jerusalem Post column: "Give the Status Quo Some Respect: All We Are Saying Is Don't Make Things Worse"
Barry Rubin is director of the Global
Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of
"Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and "Hating America: A History"
(Oxford University Press). His latest book is The Truth About Syria
(Palgrave-Macmillan). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at
http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. Contact him at
profbarryrubin@yahoo.com The website of the GLORIA Center is at
http://www.gloria-center.org and his blog, Rubin Reports,
http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
This article was published on Pajamas Media
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RAMALLAH LYNCH BUTCHER TO BE FREED
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, October 16, 2011. |
| The government is freeing the terrorist who gleefully waved his bloody hands after the lynch of two Israeli soldiers. No one told the soldiers families that the terrorist is being released. A video of the Ramallah atrocity is included with the article. WARNING: The video of the lynch is not suitable for young children |
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The shocking picture that remains in the memories of Jews around the world depicts Abdel - Aziz Saleh waving his bloody hands from his Ramallah widow after the October 2000 lynching of Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami, who were murdered and their bodies mutilated after they inadvertently entered Ramallah. Aziz Saleh was arrested in 2001. He admitted to being one of those who broke in to the police station and choking one of the soldiers He and other terrorists threw Nurzhitz upside down through a second-floor window and tossed Avrahami out the door for an angry crowd to trample their bodies, drag them to a town square and mutilate them. Saleh was sentenced to life in prison, but the government did not abide by the law requiring that the survivors be informed of his release, along with 1,026 other terrorists and security prisoners for the return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The brutality of the event, captured in the photo, sparked international outrage. Palestinian Authority police had taken the two soldiers a police station, but 1,000 rioters, hearing of the report they the soldiers were detained, stormed the building. British photographer Mark Seager tried to photograph the event, but the mob assaulted him and destroyed his camera. He later stated, "It was the most horrible thing that I have ever seen and I have reported from Congo, Kosovo, many bad places.... It was murder of the most barbaric kind." Tzvi ben Gedalyahu is a columnist with Arutz-Sheva
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FROM ISRAEL: MORE ON SHALIT
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 16, 2011. |
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My presence at my computer is only intermittent, and will continue to be so until Thursday night, when the holiday is over. Quite simply, it is a mitzvah (a commandment) to dwell — to eat and sleep — in the Sukkah. And a source of joy to do so with family. But in no way does this mean I have forgotten about Gilad Shalit, or other pressing matters of the day. The issue of Shalit in particular weighs heavily upon my mind and heart — as upon everyone's. As I last wrote just as the news of the deal broke, I share here both additional facts and thoughts. ~~~~~~~~~~ Let me begin by stating what I hope is obvious: Although there are multiple sound reasons to be thoroughly opposed to the deal that is about to take place, this cannot/should not negate the human gladness at seeing this son of Israel return home. He was grabbed by Hamas because he is an Israeli soldier, and he has suffered greatly for the very same reason. Whatever poor decisions are being made on his behalf, he has had no part in them — he will simply be brought home. Undoubtedly damaged, although we don't know yet how badly. If only he were returning by means other than a prisoner swap with Hamas, there would be unmitigated joy. As it is, it's schizoid situation and terribly painful on many counts. Schizoid is quite a good word for what is going on. Conflicted might be another. ~~~~~~~~~~ Ransoming of captives (pidyon shvuyim) was set out by the Mishna (code of Jewish law) as a mitzvah. Traditionally Jewish communities went to great lengths to redeem captives. However, the rabbis ruled that the good of the community also had to be considered: if ransom was excessively burdensome on the community, or if paying the ransom would motive additional kidnappings, it was discouraged or forbidden. The parallels here are obvious. ~~~~~~~~~~ For the record, when the Cabinet voted to proceed with the deal, there were three who voted against: Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya'alon (Likud), Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beitenu), and National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beitenu). Men of integrity. Ya'alon, reflecting the national struggle, said it so very well: "My heart says yes, but my head says no. (Emphasis added) "This issue has ethical, national, security and strategic aspects. On the one hand, we have a responsibility for Gilad — the need to save his life and redeem a captive. But to bring about his release, we would have to free 1,000 terrorists. From experience, we know that the terrorists we release will lead to the murder of dozens and maybe hundreds of Israelis. "[The Schalit deal] would be a victory for Hamas and a surrender to terror. It would give new spirit to jihadist extremists and harm our deterrence. We are obligated to the life of Gilad Schalit and to return him home, but we are also obligated to protect the citizens of Israel." ~~~~~~~~~~ Ya'alon spoke about terrorists released in 1985, which sparked the first intifada and caused the death of at least 178 Israelis. That there is going to be more of the same now is inevitable. Yoram Cohen, head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, admitted this when he said, "We cannot promise that they will not produce terror." In a 2008 study done for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Nadav Shragai reported that Israeli security services have informally estimated that about half of the terrorists set free "returned to the path of terror, either as perpetrator, planner, or accomplice." (With thanks to Dave A. on this.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Among those who are apparently going to be released (the list is from Hamas and not confirmed by Israel) are Nasser Batima, who was in prison for planning the Passover Seder bombing at the Park hotel in Netanya, in which 30 were killed and 140 wounded, and Husam Badran, who helped plan the bombing of the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv, in which 21 young people were murdered. These are big guns: planners. They are not about to take up carpentry or become computer repairmen. ~~~~~~~~~~ And then there's Ahlam Tamimi, complicit in the bombing of the Sbarro Pizza restaurant, in which 15 were killed and many more wounded. She is usually referred to as the one who drove the suicide bomber to the Sbarro, but in fact she helped plan the operation. From prison, she gave an interview in which she declared she regretted nothing. One of those killed in Sbarro was 15-year old Malki Roth. Her parents were so enraged by the prospect of Tamimi being released that they circulated a petition asking that her name be removed from the list of those to be traded. The deadline was today, but in any event, it has occurred to me that the anger of the families of those killed during the Seder bombing or at the Dolphinarium or during other attacks can be no less — even if they did not circulate individual petitions. The issue is far bigger than the removal of one name from that list. An article in the JPost, for example, cited Hovav Nuriel, whose father, Sasson Nuriel, was murdered by a Hamas cell; his family, he says, has been "shattered" by the news that three of the terrorists convicted of the murder were to be freed. And then there's Haim Karisi, whose daughter, was killed by a terrorist now slated to be released: "What they did to us is like a slap in the face. We need to hear about the terrorist who killed our daughter being released from the media? Everyone is happy and dancing in our blood and with all due respect to Gilad's smiling mother, there are hundreds of parents whose heart is bleeding today." And, so, the Almagor Terror Victims Organization has organized a petition by victims of terror asking that the High Court of Justice stop the trade. It is unprecedented, said the petition, because of the emotional consequences for families of those murdered, and because of the security risks. Do not count on the Court intervening. But the pain of these families should not be forgotten. ~~~~~~~~~~ The operation — called Operation Beit HaShoeva — has been finalized by David Meidan, in Cairo, on behalf of the Israeli government. Everything is said to be "go" for Tuesday morning: Shalit will be brought from Gaza into the Sinai, likely via Rafah, and will be met by Egyptian soldiers and a small IDF contingent. He will then be brought south to an Egyptian army base. Once his identity and condition have been verified, word will go out to release the first 450 prisoners. Shalit will then be brought into Israel, to the Tel Nof base, by helicopter. There will be a brief, small reception for him and he will then be brought to his home in Mitzpe Hila. As to the released prisoners, who will have been gathered at a prison in the south of Israel and whose identities will be confirmed by the Red Cross: some 110 will be brought to Ramallah and will be permitted to move into homes in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. About half of these, including 57 Hamas prisoners, will have security restrictions. Others will go to Gaza or be deported elsewhere. Tamimi is supposed to go to Jordan. Some 279 of these 450 were serving life sentences. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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THE SHALIT DEAL - DISGRACEFUL AND DEADLY
Posted by Menachem Kovacs, October 16, 2011. |
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This was written by Rabbi Yehoishophot Oliver. Contact him at rabbioliver@gmail.com This was posted By Blogger to A Chassidishe farbrengen at 10/15/2011 07:58:00 PM |
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1. High risk of re-offense, G — d forbid: Letting loose terrorists with blood on their hands endangers Jews who would, G — d forbid, be their next target, which has happened before countless times, and not even the most ardent advocate of this deal doubts will happen again this time. According to this article, sixty percent of such freed terrorists re-offend. Now, this would be true if even one terrorist were to be released; all the more so in this case, when over a thousand are to be released. These excuses for human beings running amok in society is tantamount to hundreds of stabbings, sniping attacks, or suicide bombings waiting to happen, G — d forbid. Once these attacks begin, G — d forbid, I wonder what the pro-deal camp will say, or how Gilad and his family will manage to live with themselves. 2. Rewarding terror emboldens the enemy: When you surrender to terrorists, you show them that their acts of cold-blooded mass murder pay off. The Israeli government should have treated this capture as an open act of war and gone on the offensive by occupying the entire Gaza, executing terrorist prisoners, cutting off Gaza's electricity, taking prominent Arab leaders captive, and so on, until Gilad was released. Instead, the Jews have shown the terrorists that Jews are weak and cowardly, and that abduction is a highly effective method for the enemy to achieve its goals. So now that the Jews have capitulated, the enemy knows to continue such acts again, and again, and again, G — d forbid, thereby manipulating the Jews in power to cede to their every demand. So this tremendous emboldening of the enemy will make the Jews in the Holy Land in general much more at risk of being captured, G — d forbid. 3. Strikes fear into Jews: The whole philosophy of terror is to drive terror — fear — into the hearts of the target population. So when those in leadership act out of fear, they in effect promote fear among the Jews they were charged with bravely leading and protecting. In the case of this deal, these released murderers will go on to become community icons, bragging to their Arab brethren about their "feats," inciting others to do likewise, and continuing such activities with even greater zeal. This increased danger and perception of vulnerability creates an atmosphere of low morale and fear among the general populace, military and civilian. 4. Destruction of deterrent power: Even once terrorists are in prison, they will know (as they have after past deals, and all the more so now) that it's only a matter of time until their cohorts capture someone else and use that captive as a bargaining chip; this knowledge encourages them to commit terror, secure that not only will they not be put to death when caught (which is what we should do), but they may only have to sit a few years (indeed, many of them boasted just that when they went in, and to our disgrace, their arrogant words proved correct). 5. Affront to families of victims: What about the many hundreds of grieving families of the victims of these prisoners? They were assured that their slain relatives' murderers would never see the light of day. How will they feel now, knowing that not only were their loved ones not brought to true justice by being executed, but they are being set free? Why don't these families at least have a say in these deals? And why were most of them not even politely informed of the court's decision? 6. Violation of Jewish law: Jewish law unequivocally forbids any deal of this kind, according to the principle of the Gemara[1] that Pikuach Nefesh, saving a life, does not override the prohibition against killing another Jew. Here is not the context to discuss this topic on a more technical level, but Jewish law explicitly prohibits a ransom of this kind.[2] 7. Warped morality: The Midrash warns: "Whoever is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind."[3] True, every Jew is priceless: "Whoever whoever saves a Jewish life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."[4] And yet the thought to release hundreds of vicious murderers for the sake of saving one Jew is warped morality; it is misplaced kindness and compassion that stems from Kelipah, the forces of impurity (see here and here). This is why Hashem gave us the Torah, which is called "a Torah of light,"[5] for it illuminates our way in this dark world, "a world of falsehood."[6] In this context, Torah was vital for the Jews striving to free Gilad to approach to matter with moral clarity. Yes, they may have meant well, but without Torah as their anchor, they were bound to sink into a bottomless pit of moral confusion, doing harm when they sought so sincerely to do good. May they come to realize the foolishness of abandoning divine morality in favor of their own highly-limited intellects. 8. Farce of the justice system: How is it that unrepentant mass murderers are let loose en masse, but criminals convicted of crimes incomparably less severe must do their time? And this complaint applies all the more with regard to Jews whose actions were perhaps misguided, but were reactions to attacks, motivated out of a worthy desire to protect Jews, such as those imprisoned for throwing rocks back at Arab youth who were throwing rocks at them, and the like. 9. Disgrace before the world community: Jews should be setting an example of proper behavior for all mankind — being a "light unto the nations."[7] I cannot imagine any other country making such a disgraceful deal. Look at how America went and occupied Afghanistan as soon as it viewed it as a terrorist threat, and later on, Iraq. The world respects those who respect themselves. Such craven concessions as these lead the nations to look down on Jews in general, and greatly weakens the case of the Jewish people to live in their G — d-given Land. 10. No mercy on mass murderers! Lastly, I can only reiterate the Rebbe's words (see here) warning the Israeli government to execute terrorists. a. This is this the punishment that these scum more than deserve; b. it deters further acts of terror; c. most importantly, it protects, or at least significantly decreases, the likelihood of Jews being abducted, because if there are no convicted murderers being held, there is no one to exchange (not that there will not be Arab criminals in prisons in the Holy Land, but their crimes will not be related to terror, and so there will be less of a desire on the part of the terror groups to free their comrades). Footnotes [1] Sanhedrin 37a.
Rabbi Menachem Kovacs is Director of the Jewish Roots Center of
Baltimore, an education and research center on Torah and social
science topics. He is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Montgomery
College in Maryland.
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PERES'S GLORY-MOMENT
Posted by Paul Lademain, October 16, 2011. |
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"A spokeswoman for President Shimon Peres said he received the files of hundreds of prisoners set for release in the first phase of the deal and has 48 hours to sign the pardons. The swap will likely happen Tuesday." How happy he must be, this Polish intruder as he imagines halos blossoming over his greasy brow whilst he pardons bloody murderers, heirs of the many arabs Peres invited into his adopted homeland. But this Polish ignoramus suddenly gets plenty smart when it comes to scraping up the shekels for himself. And what's even more horrible is the fact that the Jews of Israel haven't taken to the streets to run both Peres and his arab gangsters out of town. Brilliant Jews might know how to chart the path of the elusive neutrino, but when it comes to loving and respecting their own brothers and sisters, they are at each other's throats. (And politically intelligent? Feh. Only in their dreams.) Each Jew for himself? Peres for Peres and only Peres? Must be so, or else he would refuse to perform this degrading task. (Were he a man, he would insist that Ehud the Barf should perform this daft and dirty deed.) So we have to ask: What's wrong with Jews that they are so politically hypnotized? Why is it that they behave as if they have less courage than a knitting circle of elderly British ladies? But sneak? O yes. Jews can sneak with the best of them. Ask Peres about sneaking. Ask him to account for how and why he and his "dearest friend in peace," Yasser Arafat, bound themselves together in a pact in the secretive Cayman Islands, cutting deals with each other through their Cayman Island NGOs even as Yasser's goons were murdering Muslims loyal to Israel and Yasser was greedily taking millions from the Saudis and the US for to fund the theft of Israel's land and undermine the US and arm Yasser's roving bands of thieving gangsters while the cunning Saudis snickered at it all from under their sheets. When you read the following, be reminded that the case against Peres ought never have been framed as to whether Peres personally profited from his scheme, because The Real Issue that the self-serving, avaricious politicos of Israel did not want to perceive let alone confront was whether Peres should be booted for fraternizing with the enemy. And if Peres really is all that brilliant as he needs people to think he is, then most certainly he knew he was. See: http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/bin/ content.cgi?ID=2019&q=1 and a more dramatic rendition by Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily: |
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In what some here are calling a curious development, a multi-million-dollar investment fund founded in 1999 by Israel's Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced this week it would liquidate its assets and return the money to all investors, according to an Israeli media report. The move follows WorldNetDaily exclusive articles exposing a private probe, brought to Israel's Knesset Ethics Committee, questioning whether Peres profited from the fund, which secured investments from the Palestinian Authority and several supporters of the politician while he was a government minister — a conflict of interest that could require Peres to vacate his government position. As WND reported, the Israel Resource News Agency, an Israeli investigative organization, in February privately requested the Knesset probe the establishment by Peres of the Peace Technology Fund, a $160 million venture-capital entity created in part to encourage investment in the Palestinian economy. Investors in the fund, allegedly procured while Peres was minister of regional cooperation under Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1999, include the Palestinian National Authority and several companies that in the past have contributed to the Peres Center for Peace, a non-profit think tank founded by Peres. The article reported, "A venture capital fund founded by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres has taken a $9 million, 3.3 percent stake in Paltel ... The investment is the first by the peace fund, which was established last year by Israeli and Palestinian investors. "The fund's first investment — a $9 million, 3-percent stake in Paltel, a Palestinian telecommunications company — was announced in Business Week in June 1999, one month after Peres assumed his ministerial position that year. The stock increase has been widely attributed to a monopoly license granted in August 1999 by the Palestinian Authority to Paltel for the company to operate exclusive wireless services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Other questions surround Peres' involvement in the procurement of a $22 million investment in the fund by the Palestinian National Authority, also allegedly while Peres was an Israeli minister. The PNC is a monetary branch of the Palestinian Authority. The price of Paltel's shares jumped from 2.5 Jordanian dinars in May 1999 to 4.5 in August of that year, reportedly realizing a nearly $10 million profit for the Fund's investment. David Bedein, director of the Israel Resource News Agency, raised questions regarding the possibility Peres profited from the Paltel investment, and whether he knew in advance, through government contacts while he was an Israeli minister, the PA was going to grant Paltel the exclusive contract. As well, nearly $10 million was raised by the fund from Bank Leumi, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Federmann Enterprises, Koor Industries, Arison Investments, Strauss Holding, Delta Galil, Daimler Chrysler and Keter Plastics. Most are contributors to the Peres Center for Peace, which itself is listed as a member of the fund's advisory board. WND reported that the Ethics Committee responded last month to Bedein's probe request, explaining to him they are not an investigative body and can determine only whether documented activities violate government rules. Bedein said the Knesset asked him to provide them with detailed information about whether Peres received or continues to receive fees for allegedly securing multimillion-dollar investments or profits from previous fund ventures. But before Bedein commenced the next stages of the investigation, the fund sold all its holdings and decided to return all monies to original investors, according to an article this week in Israel's Yediot Ahronot Hebrew daily. The fund reportedly sold its investments to Palestinian entities. "I find it to be a very strange coincidence that immediately after the Knesset ethics committee asked for verification of Peres' assets in the Palestinian Authority, and after their request was publicized, the fund suddenly announced they are divesting and returning assets," said Bedein. "It sounds like they are running scared." The fund, registered in the Cayman Islands and classified as an international investment entity, did not issue an explanation for its sudden closure. Sources told WND a slew of private investigative firms have quietly offered their services in conducting various probes of the fund. "The next step is to find the proof of any wrongdoing," said Bedein. "For example, since Peres was the minister of regional cooperation when the Palestinian investment was made, was Peres was paid a consulting or broker fee as payment for bringing in the investment? Consultants procuring investments for companies or funds typically receive finder's fees of 2 to 5 percent. The Palestinian Authority's investment of $22 million could have earned Peres a fee of $440,000, according to Bedein. "Also, why is the Peres Peace Center, a nonprofit political think tank, qualified to provide financial consultation services to the fund?" asked Bedein. He added, "all this comes at a very strange time regarding financial interests of Peres and others. It happened just as Peres announced he wants to turn Gaza into a Club Med. Who is going to profit from that?" Bedein was referring to statements Peres made this week following talks with French President Jacques Chirac regarding economic possibilities from Israel's plan to withdraw Jewish communities this summer from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Peres suggested building a Club Med in the lands being evacuated. "We could convert a settlement into a Club Med," Peres told reporters. "We must not wait for the political solution but create economic and social hope" in the region, Peres said. "We must coordinate on the economic front." The developments also come at a delicate time for Sharon, whose Likud party is bitterly divided over the Gaza withdrawal. Nationalist opponents have been regularly calling for Sharon's resignation. If Peres is found in breach of the Israeli government's official code of ethics, he would be required to vacate his post, a move that likely would undo Sharon's current unity government between Likud and Peres' Labor party, and could precipitate new elections in Israel. Shimon Peres is a regular political fixture in the Jewish state. He served twice as Israel's prime minister — following the formation of a unity government in 1984, he was an alternate prime minister with Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir, and again in 1995 after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Peres has held numerous other government posts, including deputy defense minister, minister of immigrant absorption, minister-without-portfolio, minister of transport and communication and minister of information. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appointed Peres foreign minister until Labor left the government in 2003, and created for him the position of vice prime minister when Labor again joined Sharon's coalition in December. Peres founded the Center for Peace in 1996 with the aim, according to its website, of "realizing [Peres'] vision of a 'New Middle East,' in which people of the region work together to build peace through socio-economic cooperation and people-to-people relations." Paul Lademain is a Secular Christian for Zion (SC4Z). Contact him by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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REALISTICALLY THINKING ABOUT POST SHALIT DEAL - BLOOD AND REVENGE
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 16, 2011. |
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This is by Aaron Lerner, Director of IMRA, Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Its website address is http://www.imra.org.il Write him at imra@netvision.net.il |
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If there are terror attacks after the Shalit deal is completed those who pushed for the deal won't have remorse. They will either say that terror is inevitable regardless of the deal or that the only way to end terror is to give the Arabs what they want (or both). Some might even criticize the security services for failing to thwart the attacks. And if the attack takes place beyond the Green Line then the victims will be to blame for being there in the first place. And If there are kidnappings then unless the parents of the hostages scream for the heads of the terrorists rather than for PM Netanyahu to release another thousand, there is every reason in the world to expect, once again, a full press by the media for Israel to once again open the prison gates. Is it possible to actually change any of this? Are we locked into a perpetual spiral of concessions? How can Israel respond differently to a post-Shalit terror attack that will give the nation the feeling that we are not in some terrible free fall? How can the next kidnapping be handled so that we are not demoralized? Blood and revenge. Yes. It sounds primitive. But it is the lingua franca of the neighborhood. And, In truth. Not just the neighborhood. Blood isn't shelling empty buildings in an ever growing target bank. Then again, blood can very much be the mysterious disappearance and or death of terrorist commanders and leaders. A lot of blood. After all, literally within walking distance there are hundreds — if not thousands — of legitimate candidates. Blood certainly doesn't necessarily require an official press release from the IDF Spokesperson's Office. As for kidnapping, we should be prepared to actively seek out the whereabouts of the victim by bringing in the terrorist leadership associated with the kidnappers. Of course, if these leaders resist while being taken into custody their deaths will be on their own heads. As for "revenge", there is today one clear and indisputable form a "revenge": Jewish settlement construction. Blood and revenge. Certainly preferable to surrender. Gabrielle Goldwater is a Member of "Funding for Peace Coalition"
[FPC] (http://eufunding.org.uk) |
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WHO'S A TERRORIST AND HOW SHOULD WE TREAT HIM?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 15, 2011. |
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Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh deplores the coming U.S. abandonment of 3,400 Iranian exile allies of our in Iraq, the Mujahadeen Khalq, as we pull out, despite their written U.S. guarantees of protection. Iraqi PM al-Maliki openly has had dozens of the exiles murdered. Now al-Maliki demands that they close their refugee camp by year-end, and disperse throughout Iran. Their massacre is a real possibility. Al-Maliki's excuse for attacking them? The Khalq is on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Their designation as terrorist lets the regimes of Iraq and Iran consider them fair game. But are they terrorists? The State Dept. had labeled the group as terrorist, in 1997. Mr. Freeh, then FBI Director, saw no credible evidence for the label then or since. He sees them as no threat to the U.S.. He accuses the State Dept. of using the label in a vain effort to encourage Iran to have a dialogue with the U.S.. Finding the group not a terrorist threat, Britain and the EU have removed the Khalq from their list of terrorist organizations. Ten years ago, the Khalq renounced violence and stopped military action against the Iranian regime. In 1993, the Khalq voluntarily turned their weapons over to the U.S.. They have provided the U.S. with valuable intelligence about Iran's nuclear development. The group does not meet the State Dept. standard for being a terrorist organization. According to Mr. Freeh, the State Dept. 'often makes politically motivated designations." An example of politically motivated decisions is the State Dept. rejection of an FBI recommendation to designate the Irish Republican Army as terrorist. The State Dept. also refused to designate as terrorist the Sadr army in Iraq and the Haqqani terrorist network in Pakistan, although both have murdered Americans. Another political motivation, Mr. Freeh believes, is State Dept. insistence that the FBI stop fingerprinting Iranian intelligence agents posing as athletes, when Iranian wrestlers were invited to the U.S. for "goodwill." The FBI did not prevail in exposing the active, proven anti-American terrorism of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, including the Khobar Towers attack that killed 19 GIs. The State Dept. is stalling on reconsidering its designation, while time runs out for those people who helped the U.S. (NY Times, 10/13/11, op-ed). Freeh's article omitted the facts on whether, when Khalq acted militarily, it did commit terrorism. His criterion whether an organization poses a threat to the U.S. is flawed. An organization can be terrorist without posing a threat to the U.S.. Shouldn't it still be listed, even if the U.S. does not particularly war on it Those examples of State Dept. politics are credible and worrisome. Three more examples are: (1) The pre-9/11 State Dept. outsourcing granting of tourist visas to Saudi travel agents and post-9/11 initial refusal to obey Pres. Bush's order to cease doing so; (2) Cooperation with the PLO by the State Dept. and in successive Administrations, although the PLO is listed as a terrorist organization; and (3) Obstructing policy to finance Iranian organizations that would have tried to undermine their regime in time to help the mass-protestors. The 9/11 investigation focused on intelligence agencies' failure to apprehend the 9/11 people after they entered the country, and not on the State Dept. failure to vet Saudis to whom it issued visas. The State Dept. should be reformed so it pursues Administration policy and not its own. Unfortunately, U.S. politicians have a broad misunderstanding about international jihad. They mistakenly assume that we can come to terms with the bigoted, imperialistic, fanatics. Time after time, that assumption fails the test of real life situations. And our politicians and media fail the test of learning from those failed experiments. The U.S. should either not issue guarantees to foreign groups or should honor guarantees. The U.S. has reneged on guarantees to Israel. The U.S. has betrayed other allies. How long will it be before allies fall away from the U.S., being unable to trust its word? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THE PALESTINIAN APPLICATION FOR UN MEMBERSHIP IN A TOPSY TURVY WORLD
Posted by Maurice Ostroff, October 15, 2011. |
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In this topsy turvy world, notorious human rights abusers like Zimbabwe, Syria, Pakistan and Gadafi's Libya have been members of the Human rights Council. And now, the UN is seriously considering admitting as a member, an entity of which Hamas, which has been defined as a terrorist organization by the USA and the EU, would be a major component. In his eloquent address to the UN on September 23, 2011 Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) called for an independent state in all the land occupied by Israel in 1967 including Gaza. But anyone with elementary knowledge of Middle East affairs must query his authority to speak in the name of Hamas-ruled Gaza or indeed on behalf of Hamas members anywhere including in the West Bank. It is strange that no query was raised at the UN when Mr. Abbas who has been prevented from visiting Gaza since the Hamas takeover, claimed that he was speaking on behalf of the PLO which he described as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people including Gazans This claim is sharply contradicted by Article 27 of the Hamas Charter which states that because the PLO has adopted the idea of a secular state it will not be fully accepted until it adopts Islam. According to an Al Jazeera report, Alaa al-Rifati, minister of economy in Gaza said that Hamas has not endorsed the PLO bid for statehood because they see it as a Fatah-led initiative and Ahmed Yousef, the deputy foreign minister in Gaza told Al Jazeera, Because nobody consulted us, we, Hamas, do not take this issue seriously," In the circumstances the UN must clarify whether it is competent to impose PLO rule over an unwilling Gaza. Conditions for membership The Palestinian application for UN membership cannot be properly considered until several basic constitutional issues are resolved. For example, article 5 of the UN Charter specifically requires that the admission to membership will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council, not vice-versa as being considered at present. Since article 4 of the UN Charter states that membership is open to peace-loving states, the question arises as to whether the fractured PLO-Hamas entity can be classified as a state, peace-loving or otherwise. And since Hamas-ruled Gaza comprises a substantial component of the Palestinian entity, the peace-loving requirement is very definitely ruled out by article 13 of the Hamas charter which unambiguously declares, "Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. In fact the PLO is also disqualified as a peace-loving entity by article 9 of its charter which declares bluntly that the armed struggle is not merely tactical, it is the overall strategy. Contrary to Mr. Abbas statement to the UN that the PLO and the Palestinian people have renounced violence and condemn terrorism, incitement and glorification of terrorism continue to infect Palestinian society. Children continue to be taught to hate from the earliest age. See for example this clip and this On March 9, 2011, Abu Mazen's advisor Sabri Saidam, delivered a speech in which he emphasized that Palestinian weapons must be turned towards Israel and a few days later some inspired young Palestinians did exactly that. Recently a town square in Ramallah was named after Dalal al-Mughrabi, the leader of the 1978 bus hijacking in which 37 Israelis were killed and 71 wounded It is hardly surprising that brutal terror attacks are motivated by children attending schools named after terrorists and by popular soccer tournaments that are named after terrorists, Refugees Mr. Abbas call for a solution to the Palestine refugee issue in accordance with resolution 194 is strange in view of the fact that all six Arab countries then represented at the UN voted against it. According to an article in the China Worker by Aysha Zaki, of the Committee for a Workers International, many refugees, who remain suspended in Lebanon without passports, democratic rights of participation in Lebanese society, entitlement to purchase or inherit property, and banned from working in more than 30 professions, fear the statehood bid, at best, carries no weight for their plight and, at worst, places resolution 194 in jeopardy Since Resolution 194 is a General Assembly resolution it is not binding, and only serves as advisory statements whereas resolution 242 is a biding Security Council resolution that is accepted by Israel and is the basis of the majority of negotiations. Much has been written about the implications of resolution 242 and if we are to avoid the distortions introduced by propagandists, obviously, the most reliable source from whom to seek clarification are the persons who drafted it. In drafting the resolution, both British Ambassador to the UN in 1967, Lord Caradon, and American Ambassador, Arthur Goldberg, deliberately omitted a demand for Israel to return to the pre-1967 borders. In an interview in the Beirut Daily Star on June 12, 1974, Lord Caradon stated: "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967 because these positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places where the soldiers on each side happened to be on the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them, and I think we were right not to." According to the article in the China worker, quoted above some Palestinians conclude that the UN bid for statehood is not in the interests of the Palestinian people, while others believe that it can be a step towards uniting the Palestinian people after a period of internal divisions. Recommended reading. "Palestinians Defy the U.N. Charter" Co-authored by David Benjamin a former senior legal adviser to the Israel Defense Forces and David French. Contact Maurice Ostroff by email at maurice@trendline.co.il |
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WHAT WOULD RABBI MEIR SAY?
Posted by David Wilder, October 15, 2011. |
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The Succot holiday has arrived. As we say in Hebrew — 'Chag Sameach' — Happy Holiday. Succot has a uniquely special characteristic — it is a time of great joy. It is considered to be the 'happiest' of the Jewish holidays, coming after the intense holy days of Rosh HaShana, the New Year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the entire month preceding these, as a time of concentrated preparation. Now, with those past, we can sing and dance, celebrating Eretz Yisrael, living in small 'booths,' while participating in joyous worship services. Yet this Succot, our festivity is somewhat dulled. The announcement that Gilad Shalit will soon be released is certainly a cause for overwhelming gratitude and happiness. But the price, release of 1,000 terrorists, of whom, according to past statistics, sixty percent will return to terror activities, is not a reason to celebrate. To the contrary. The Shalit agreement is a done deal. There isn't too much we can do to prevent it. Past experience shows that the courts will not stop the exchange. Next week, barring unforeseen circumstances, it will happen. That being the case, I can only but express, in my opinion, a couple of elements missing from this disgraceful surrender by Israel to terrorists. If it has to be, at least is should include at least two other factors. The first, I've already seen others speaking of. According to published reports, Interior minister Eli Yishai is demanding the release of Jewish 'terrorists,' that is, Jews who have been convicted of perpetrating crimes against Arabs. A list of such people has been prepared by my friend and neighbor, 'Zangi' Medad, the head of the Honenu organization, which works to defend Jews accused of any and all crimes under the sun. Medad and Yishai are to be commended. It goes without saying: if hundreds of Arab terrorists, convicted of murdering, maiming and wounding hundreds and thousands of Jews, with the intent to destroy the State of Israel are being released from prison, so why not release a few Jews too? Are they worse than the Arabs? Of course not. These people are not terrorists, nor are they 'common criminals.' These are people who, as a result of continued Jewish bloodshed, reacted. The manner in which they chose to react is not commonly accepted by Jews or Israelis; the fact is, the number of such 'criminals' is miniscule. If people really believed that this was the way to solve our dilemmas, 'taking the law into their own hands,' the numbers would be much much larger. People do make mistakes. It certainly would be preferable that the Arab terrorists be left to rot in Israeli jails, or better yet, be executed for their deadly crimes. But being that Israel sees fit to release 1,000 for one, there's no reason to leave Jewish Israelis in prison. But this is only one side of the coin. There is another side, which I have yet to see mentioned. What about Jonathan Pollard? Pollard wasn't convicted of murder. He didn't harm anyone. He was convicted of 'spying' for a friendly ally of the United States. He has expressed regret for his actions. If Israel can release so many evil individuals, with blood on their hands, creatures who have committed the worst of crimes, how can the United States continue to hold Pollard in jail? There shouldn't be any mistake made. I'm not, in any way, shape or form, comparing Pollard to Arab terrorists, or to Jewish convicts. He doesn't fit into these categories. But his release is no less humanitarian than that of Shalit's. Were he being held by any other country in the world, the United States would be in the forefront of the attempts to have him released. In truth, Pollard, similar to Gilad Shalit, is a Prisoner of War. Jonathan Pollard did not spy to get rich. He didn't have any evil illusions about destroying the United States. He was a Jew, in a position to help Israel against deadly enemies, wishing to annihilate another few million Jews. His only concern was to help Israel survive. For that, he is paying an enormous price. Shalit has been in a Hamas dungeon for five years. And Pollard? In an American dungeon for almost 9,500 hundred days. Netanyahu has spoken at length over the past few days about leadership. He, today, following agreement to free terrorist murderers, must demand of the United States, to simultaneously release Jonathan Pollard from the pit in which he is being held captive. As Shalit crosses into Israel and terrorists are freed, so too, the United States must do its part, and let Jonathan come home too, to Israel. At least that. Not 1,027 for one, rather 1,027 for two. Last night, coming home from my daughter's home in Eshtamoa in the southern Hebron Hills, we were discussing the deal. One of my sons, who has also served in a combat unit, was resolute, exclaiming, 'you would never do that because of me.' In other words, he said, should I ever become a captive of the enemy (G-d forbid), I wouldn't want you to demand the release of hundreds and thousands of murderers and terrorists, whose freedom would cost so many more Jewish lives. I certainly hope and pray that I'm never put in a situation where I would have to face such a test. What I do know is that some seven hundred and twenty years ago, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of his time, died in prison after being held captive for seven years. An enormous ransom was demanded for his release and according to tradition, some 23,000 silver marks were collected for his freedom. Yet he refused to allow this money to be paid, fearing it would result in further imprisonment of others, as a way to extort huge amounts of money from Jews. And today: what would Rabbi Meir say? There will be many Israelis crying next week, as Shalit crosses the border. Not tears of joy, rather tears of anguish, seeing their loved-one's murderers go free. At the very least, the very very least, we should have some small sense of something positive, seeing not only Shalit, but also, Jonathan, coming home too. David Wilder is spokesman of The Jewish Community of Hebron. You can contribute directly in Israel to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB105, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, email: hebron@hebron.org.il or phone: 972-52-431-7055. In USA, write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, email: hebronfund@aol.com or phone: 718 677 6886. |
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GOING TO ISRAEL TO FIND QUEBEC
Posted by Laura, October 15, 2011. |
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This was written by Barbara Key of the National Post
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There are the countless stories of conversions from one religion to another, from atheism to belief and from belief to atheism. All of these leaps of faith are interesting, because the same uniquely human faculty — the ability to critically examine the received wisdom of one's youth, and to reject it in favour of other more compelling resolutions to one's spiritual discomfort — can lead to so many disparate and often contradictory solutions. Whatever the intellectual process that leads to such a dramatic change in a life, the final step is always a leap of faith. On Oct. 1, La Presse published two extracts from a newly published book recounting a double conversion — first political, then religious — requiring a leap of faith over such an unusually wide chasm that it deserves our attention. The author of Juif, une histoire québécoise, is Richard Marceau, a former MP for the Bloc Québécois from 1997-2006. Early in his tenure, Mr. Marceau took a trip to Israel. Up until then, he had not seriously questioned the reason why most Quebecers, and in particular those dedicated to the sovereigntist option, reflexively sympathized with the Palestinians against Israel. What he saw in Israel awakened first his curiosity and then his admiration (my translation): "I liked what I was seeing, what I was reading, what I was discovering about Israel." What he saw was a state that in economic and cultural ways resembled Quebec: "A social democratic state which focuses on high technology and the technology of knowledge. These are people, so few of them, fighting for their language and culture through adversities to build a country of their own." Israel was also a country that unlike its neighbours embraced the socially progressive values so cherished at home: "Israel is a model of equal rights for homosexuals and women." Mr. Marceau's first visit convinced him that Israel should be an economic role model and Quebec's first choice for economic partnership. He returned home with a sense of mission — to promote understanding in Canada of "this small, misunderstood country I loved." Mr. Marceau is well aware of the charged nature of the word "Zionist," and knows that it is more often used as an insult than a compliment, but uses it to describe his burgeoning affinity for Israel. Mr. Marceau was not yet a Zionist activist; his use of the term is more at this stage an expression of solidarity with Israel's right to exist as a nation. He explains that to him Zionism is "a very simple concept, one that wants the Jewish people to have the right to self-determination and its own country. As simple as that." Needless to say, Mr. Marceau's intellectual conversion ruffled feathers among his colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, which, as a federal party, had to deal with Mideast tensions, and whose publicly stated views were supposed to be a harbinger of Quebec's foreign-affairs posture as a sovereign nation. The majority of the Bloc caucus was pro-Palestinian and life became difficult for him. Undeterred, Mr. Marceau continued to press his minority view, bringing forward facts and realities ignored in the equally pro-Palestinian mainstream media. He tells us that the primary canard he struggled to expose was "the false and widely spread myth that Jews had stolen a land, which belongs to Palestinians." Mr. Marceau's second trip to Israel took place during the 2000 intifada, when rockets were falling on Israeli towns and tourism had fallen off steeply. Mr. Marceau was moved by the gratitude shown to him for his courage in coming at such a bad time. (Restaurant owners and merchants offered him and his entourage rebates and even invited them to their homes.) His admiration and sympathy for Israelis' life-affirming impulses to "Grow. Build. On this land which is theirs" expanded his political commitment: "I became, through admiration and sympathy for the Israelis, an active Zionist." Remarkable as this story is to this point — surely unique in Quebec history — it represented only the beginning of Mr. Marceau's reinvention of self. On his third trip to Israel in 2003, without his understanding why, after a special Shabbat experience in Jerusalem, "an old-stock Quebecer, born and raised in a very Catholic family, who later became agnostic, if not cynical, went back to God, not as a Christian, but as a Jew." He assigns his profound inner revolution to a need for meaning that could not be met by anything short of a reconciliation with God. Why Judaism? Because of the "insistence Judaism puts on this sacred text [the Torah]," and because "I was attracted by the concrete side of Judaism," and because "Judaism focuses on life, here, now," rather than the promise of a better life after death. Which really doesn't explain such a dramatic personal revolution at all to the curious observer. This book is sure to spark interest and discussion among Quebec's cultural and political elites. Richard Marceau is a Quebec original, and a reminder that whenever we think we have figured out what makes people tick, we find we really don't know anything at all about the mystery of the human mind, heart and soul — and our capacity for transcendence in the search for meaning to our lives. Contact Laura by email at lel817@yahoo.com |
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IRANIAN PLOT IN U.S. FOILED
Posted by Samara Greenberg, October 12, 2011. |
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Factions of the Iranian government plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, outside a restaurant in Washington that he frequented, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday. Also discussed by the plotters was an attack on both the Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Manssor Arbabsiar — a naturalized U.S. citizen — and Gholam Shakuri — a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Qods Force — were named as the two alleged plotters. Arbabsiar is currently jailed in New York and Shakuri's whereabouts are unknown. According to reports, Arbabsiar met with an informant of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration posing as an associate of a drug cartel. Arbabsiar discussed killing the ambassador with the informant, and told him that his cousin was a "big general" in Iran and had asked him to "find someone to carry out the ambassador's assassination." Arbabsiar arranged to pay the informant in installments that would total $1.5 million to carry out the attack. Iran, for its part, has denied the accusations. In announcing the news, Holder was direct in implicating the Iranian government: The plan was "conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran" by a faction of the government, he said, calling it a "flagrant" violation of U.S. and international law. "The U.S. is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions," he added. And in an interview Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the plot "crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for," adding that President Obama wants to use it to enlist more countries to work against a "clearer and clearer threat" from Iran. If the news reports are accurate, this shift in Iranian sponsorship of terrorism from targets in the Middle East and South America to the United States represents a significant escalation. With the target being the Saudi ambassador, it also foreshadows how the Shia vs. Sunni conflict will continue to unfold. Preventing that conflict from becoming one between nuclear-armed powers should be a vital strategic priority for the United States. This article comes from the Jewish Policy Center
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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: INSPECTING LULOV FOR SUKKOT
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, October 12, 2011. |
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HOW I GOT THE SHOT: It's the time of year again for the ritual of assiduous inspection of the leaves, branches and fruit that combine to form the four species of Sukkot. The color and creative carpentry of this week-long festival is spiced by the commandment to be joyful. Are we just happy that Yom Kippur is behind us for another 12 months or do we truly celebrate our return to Jerusalem and the blessings that permeate our lives? This photograph evolved from a series of situational constraints. The residents of Jerusalem's religious neighborhoods often frown upon having a camera pointed at them. I needed to shoot from an unnoticed vantage point while still capturing the essence of the activity I witnessed. This shot retains the subject's anonymity while blending a bit of humor as it documents this man's search for a beautiful Hadas branch. Moadim L'simcha and Chag Sameach from Israel. Technical Data: Nikon D70, 70-300 zoom at 190mm, f7/1 @ 1/160th sec., ISO 400.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website: |
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ISRAEL IS AN ISLAND OF STABILITY IN A SEA OF INSTABILITY
Posted by Ted Belman, October 12, 2011. |
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This was written by Spengler and it appeared today in Asia Times. Never have so few been blamed for so much by so many |
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Here's your final exam question in Middle Eastern studies: A mass of Coptic Christians marches through Cairo to protest the military government's failure to protect them from Muslim radicals. They are attacked by stone-throwing, club-wielding rowdies. Armed forces security personnel intervene, and the Copts fight it out with the soldiers, with two dozen dead and scores injured on both sides. Who is to blame? The full credit answer is: Benjamin Netanyahu, for building apartments in Jerusalem. If that's not what you wrote, don't blame me if you can't get a job at the New York Times. Rarely in the course of human events have so few been blamed for so much by so many. There are precedents, for example, when Adolf Hitler claimed that a Jewish "stab in the back" lost World War I for Germany. The notion that the problems of three hundred million Arabs revolve around the governance of a few million Palestinians has the same order of credibility. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations always presumed that Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan would remain intact — that Egypt would interdict terrorists infiltrating Israel from the Sinai, stop weapons from reaching Hamas in Gaza, and otherwise fill its obligations. But Egypt is dissolving. The Egyptian army crossed a red line on October 9, according to Egyptian blogger Issander al-Armani. [1] Soldiers attacked Coptic demonstrators who were demanding protection from the army, the military not only shut down news coverage of the massacre, but used state television to call on Egyptian Muslims to "defend the army from the Copts". On September 19, the Egyptian army showed that it could not protect Israel's embassy in Cairo; on October 9, it showed itself ready to murder members of the country's Christian minority. Egypt is dissolving because it can't feed itself, and it can't feed itself because it is going bankrupt. Former International Atomic Energy chief Mohamed ElBaradei, now a candidate for Egypt's presidency, warned last week that Egypt would run out of money within months, according to the English-language edition of Almasry Alroum: "Egypt might face bankruptcy within six months, Egyptian reform advocate and presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei warned on Monday. During a meeting with labor leaders at the Center for Trade Unions and Workers Services (CTUWS) in Helwan, south of Cairo, ElBaradei attacked the 'failing' policies of Egypt's ruling military council. He criticized the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) for what he called incompetence and lack of experience, saying that experienced government officials don't have enough power. Egypt is currently relying on its cash reserve with no gross domestic product, he said [2]." ElBaradei, the undeserved winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize (he helped Iran cover its tracks en route to enriching uranium to near weapons grade), nonetheless is the closest thing to a responsible figure in Egyptian politics. His warning that Egypt is burning its cash reserves is accurate. On October 5, the Financial Times reported that Egypt's foreign exchange reserves had fallen from $35 billion in January to only $19.4 billion, [3] enough to cover less than five months' worth of imports. The central bank had reported $25 billion of reserves in August, [4] so the monthly decline appears to be around $6 billion; it is hard to tell precisely because the Egyptian central bank publishes contradictory data about its reserve position. The earlier $25 billion figure might have counted loans expected from the Gulf states, but as the FT explains, "Only $500m of some $7bn of promised aid from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have arrived so far." Almost 60% of Egyptians live in rural areas, yet the country imports half its caloric consumption and spends $5.5 billion a year in food subsidies. When it runs out of money, millions will starve. Many already are hungry. The state-controlled newspaper al-Dostour warned on October 9 that an "insane" increase in the price of food — up 80% so far this year — has left citizens "screaming". [5] The newspaper added that the "current state of lawlessness has left merchants and businesses with no supervision", leading to hoarding, price-gouging and shortages. This was evident at the outset of the uprisings, [6] and a breakdown of the country's food distribution system was evident by May, as I wrote at the time. [7] The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces appears baffled. Its leader, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, does not appear in public. Previously he ran Egypt's military industries. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf was briefly transportation minister, having taught highway engineering for most of his career. He has spoken publicly about only one topic of political importance, namely the peace treaty with Israel, which he proposes to change, as he told Turkish television on October 8. [8] Egypt's leaders face a crisis brewing for two generations in which the Egyptian government kept half of its population illiterate and mired in rural poverty as an instrument of social control. As ElBaradei warns, they have no idea what they are doing. Syria, meanwhile, is in civil war, which may turn into a proxy war between the Sunni powers and Iran. And Iraq's leader Nuri al-Maliki, the leader of the supposed Iraqi democracy we spent a trillion dollars and 4,000 lives to put in place, is backing the Bashar al-Assad regime in alliance with Iran. [9] Turkey, the self-styled rising power in the region, is about to get its come-uppance in the form of a nasty economic downturn. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's belligerence has risen in inverse proportion to the market price of the Turkish lira. I warned in August of the "instant obsolescence of the Turkish model" as the credit bubble engineered by the ruling party explodes. [10] Markets have already anticipated a sudden turnaround in the Turkish economy. The lira fell by a quarter between November 2010 and September 2011, making it the world's worst-performing emerging market currency. The stock market has fallen in dollar terms by 40%, making Turkey the worst performer after Egypt among all the markets in the MSCI Tradable Index during 2011. A hard landing for Turkey has now become the Wall Street consensus. "Goldman Sachs Group Inc added Garanti to its focus sell list, saying the stock's gain last month was based on optimistic macroeconomic assumptions that don't account for a 'relatively high probability' of a recession," Bloomberg News [11] reported on October 6. The Russian brokerage Renaissance Capital [12] and my own firm, Macrostrategy LLC [13] have published warnings about the Turkish banking system, which has increased lending at a 40% annual rate for the past couple of years. In short, there is not a patch of ground in Israel's proximity that is not roiling and boiling with political and economic turmoil. Echoing in the ears of Israel's leaders are the words of Isaiah (57:20-21), which Jews around the world read on October 8 on the Day of Atonement: "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Spengler's corollary states: Neither is there peace to the stupid. We have Nicholas Kristof writing in the October 6 New York Times: "Now it is Israel that is endangered most by its leaders and maximalist stance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is isolating his country, and, to be blunt, his hard line on settlements seems like a national suicide policy. Nothing is more corrosive than Israel's growth of settlements because they erode hope of a peace agreement in the future." Kristof is talking about the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, which was undeveloped land before 1967 and which every conceivable peace agreement would assign to Israel. Nothing will appease the liberals, because if liberal social engineering can't fix the problems of the Middle East, the world will have no need of liberals. The New York Times will demand [14] that Israel concede and apologize, as surely as a gumball will roll out of the machine when I crank in a quarter. Existential need trumps rationality, most of all among the self-styled priesthood of rationality. For extra credit, class: If 15 million Egyptians starve to death, and all the Copts are murdered, and Syria plunges into a genocidal civil war, and Turkey kills another 40,000 Kurds, and the Iraqi Shi'ites and Iraqi Sunnis all fight to the death, whose fault will it be? I bet you guessed right this time. Israel's, for building apartments in Gilo. Notes 1.
See here.
2.
See here.
3.
See here (registration required).
4.
Egypt government to rely less on local banks: Finance Minister Ahramonline. October 2.
5.
See here.
6.
See Food and failed Arab states Asia Times Online, February 2, 2011.
7.
See The hunger to come in Egypt Asia Times Online, May 10, 2011.
8.
See here.
9.
See Iraq, siding with Iran, sends essential aid to Syria's Assad Washington Post, October 9.
10.
See Instant obsolescence of the Turkish model Asia Times Online, August 10.
Ted Belman is a retired lawyer and the Editor of Israpundit. He made aliya from Canada last year and now lives in Jerusalem, Israel. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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GILAD SHALIT: ISRAEL SUCCUMBS TO RANSOM
Posted by David Bedein, October 12, 2011. |
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On July 4th, 1976, Yonatan Netanyahu, older brother of the Prime Minister, commanded a successful operation to rescue 118 hostages from abductors in Entebbe who had demanded the release of 57 murderers in exchange. Not today. |
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When Israel succumbs to the ransom demanded by a regime which has kidnapped a citizen of the free world, that creates a precedent that will reverberate across the globe.
This ransom arrangement will establish an international precedent that would communicate: Abductions Pay..
Our agency interviewed 12 of these convicts who would be released, each of whom promise to return to the path of murder, if released.
In Israel, those who most feel the greatest injustice in their guts are the family members of the 1,478 people murdered by these convicts since the inception of the negotiations with the PLO in 1993.
However, the Israeli media has delivered a monolithic message, as if the only way to free the one kidnapped Israeli citizen in Gaza, Corporal Gilad Shalit, would be to trade hundreds of lethal murderers for his freedom.
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There is another option: The government of Israel can clamp a complete and total economic shut down of Gaza until the Gaza regime hands over a kidnapped citizen of Israel that it now holds for ransom.
There is one possible reason why Israel has not applied that option: According to a study released by Globes, Israel's daily business paper, Israeli firms export 2.7 billion shekels of products to the Palestinian Authority.
An economic boycott would cause Israeli firms to lose profits.
One of the Israelis firms that would express outrage at an economic slowdown in Gaza would be Dor Alon, Israel's leading gasoline conglomerate, which owns a contract as the primary supplier of gasoline to Gaza.
The new owners of "Dor Alon" now include former Israel Finance Minister, Beiga Shochat, and son of the the former head of the World Jewish Congress, Matthew Bronfman.
Another Israeli firm that does business in Gaza is Nesher, Israel's cement cooperative, which is owned in part by the influential former Israel Defense Forces Commander in Chief, Amnon Lipkin Shahak.
The time has come to demand an economic boycott of the Gaza regime instead of a surrender to the Gaza regime, to forestall the freedom of convicted killers. It is not too late.
Israel's foreign ministry could mobilize voices of reason across the world who will call for Israel to stand strong and not to agree to any such ransom.
The message of Israel and the free world to Gaza must be: Your regime needs an economy. To have any economy, your regime must hand over the young man whom it has kidnapped.
A postscript: On July 4th, 1976, a senior Israeli army officer, Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of Israel's current Prime Minister, commanded an successful military operation to rescue 118 hostages from the hands of abductors in Entebbe who demanded the release of 57 convicts who were serving time for murder in Israeli jails, in exchange for the lives of the hostages.
Yonathan Netanyahu paid for that mission with his life.
Perhaps Yonatan's younger brother should visit his grave at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem and learn a lesson from his older brother about what it means to stand up to those who hold people hostage in exchange for murderers.
David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency.
(http://Israelbehindthenews.com). He is president of
Center for Near East Policy Research.
Contact him by email at media@actcom.co.il
This article is archived at
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ISLAMIST SPRING
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 12, 2011. |
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As feared, what was optimistically called an "Arab Spring" has "morphed" into an Islamist Spring. Consider several countries once a source of hope. EGYPT: Every few weeks, Muslims destroy another church in Egypt or attack Christians with impunity. This year, starting on January 1, Muslims attacked a church, killing 23. They destroyed the ancient church of Sool and desecrated its relics. At Imbaba, they put several churches to the torch. They attacked a church at Edfu. Three days later, Muslims attacked another church. In October, unarmed Christians protesting prior mistreatment of Christians were shot by the military or run over by armored vehicles. Dozens killed. The old church at Edfu was so obviously run down that even the local authorities approved its renovation. [Egyptian law forbids building or renovating churches without government permission, rarely given.] Before any renovation and contrary to what the permit allowed, local Muslims demanded removal of crosses and bells, an irritant to Muslims. The Copts acquiesced. Escalating their demands rather than being appeased, Muslim leaders demanded that the church be referred to as a "hospitality home" and its dome be removed. Removal of the dome probably would cause the building to collapse. That the Copts could not accept. Defied, Muslims started yelling the Islamic war cry, "Allahu Akbar," and threatened to replace the church with a mosque. They ordered Copts to stay home and not buy food until they removed the dome. Christians starved. After Friday prayers, September 31, three thousand Muslims demolished the dome and set the church afire. The fire spread to some Copts' houses, which Muslim rioters looted. Not only did security forces there fail to stop the mob, the area's security chief directed it! The area's governor denied that any church was set afire, calling it a "hospitality home." That euphemism is common. He said that the Muslims merely rectified the Christian's mistake in making the building higher than authorized. Historically, Islamic policy has been to let churches collapse and to remove churches' religious identity. Attacks occur on Fridays, after sermons, when the worshippers boil out, all riled up. Notice that the crimes of hate committed against Egyptian Christians are not punished by police, Christian self-defense is. [This is like the foreign criticism of Israeli self-defense.] The colonial period afforded partial respite. The lull in attacks during that time gave Westerners a misimpression of Islamic tolerance. Now that Muslims are unrestrained in Egypt — the occasional detention is temporary and for foreign consumption, and released perpetrators are given a hero's greeting — the Moslem Brotherhood declared that it will not allow the construction or the reconstruction of churches, that crosses must be removed, and bells may not be rung (Raymond Ibrahim, 10/10/11
Apologists for Islam and well-meaning Westerners may call that religion one of peace and tolerance. They forgot to inform Muslim masses about it. Hatred was pervasive during the Mubarak regime, and broke out into killings and forced marriages and conversions. President Mubarak was given too much credit for keeping order. On his watch, Radical Muslim sentiment strengthened. With his removal, however, Christian lives became more precarious. Those who could flee did. Notice that an attempt to appease the Muslim mob did not work. The mob simply demands more. Jihad does not accommodate. Muslims have been driving religious minorities out of the Mideast for centuries. Notice the mob's flimsy excuse for demolishing a church — it exceeded its permitted height. That does not justify arson. There should be no law in Egypt making Christians dependent upon government permission to repair or build churches. We Americans respect people's right to have their own temples. Islam does not. Upon conquering Constantinople, Turkish Muslims took over that country's premier church. The moguls took over Hindu temples in India. Arab Muslims declare Jewish holy sites in Israel Islamic holy sites and deny any Jewish rights to them. The Arabs have suddenly claimed that some such sites always were mosques. Libya forbad a Jew born in Libya from repairing a synagogue kept shuttered. Islamists may win the elections there. Then they will take over the Egyptian army, recipient of tens of billions of dollars of U.S. aid and still on the receiving end. YEMEN: In other news, the U.S. gave the titular ruler of Yemen hundreds of millions of dollars to repress al-Qaida. He was called an ally against terrorism. He was discovered to have spent most of the money repressing two non-religious rebellions. Under his regime, al-Qaida has grown. It now is formidable. LIBYA: More and more military commanders are found to be Islamists. But the U.S. continues to support the rebels. TUNISIA: Although the regime was considered moderate, the protests have led to Islamist leaders to prominence, though not at present to dominance. JORDAN: Islamists are protesting in Jordan. Islamist sentiment there is strong. So far, the King has maintained his authority. Let us hope that his army, which the U.S. also subsidizes, does not fall under Islamist control. PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: Hamas keeps Gaza Islamist. It bids to take over the whole Palestinian Authority. Not generally realized is that the Authority has been waging jihad for many years. But the U.S. continues directly to support the PLO and indirectly Gaza parts. The Obama administration is increasing its subsidy there. The U.S. trains PLO police in military matters, although the U.S. commander admits the PLO police may turn on Israel. Is Israel any wiser? It just made a 1000:1 prisoner exchange to release many convicted terrorists who will resume war crimes and take down several times as many Israelis as the one to be saved by the exchange. The deal is exhilarating Islamists in the Authority as a great triumph and an example of Israeli weakness. Isn't it? enabling dozens of Israelis to be murdered, to save one Israeli, is not as humane as Israel thinks. SYRIA: The popular protests and strife in Syria are against the Assad regime, identified with a non-Sunni sect. Since the majority there is Sunni, and the Moslem Brotherhood has some strength there, Assad's fall could lead to Islamist control. Whether that control would take Syria out of alliance with Iran remains to be seen. Iran does cooperate with Sunni Muslims conducting jihad, such as Hamas. TURKEY, PAKISTAN, AND IRAN: These countries are not Arab. However, popular uprisings in Arab areas took their lead from the one in Iran. Iran's clerical regime has repressed the people. Turkey has joined the Islamist axis. The NY Times and the State Dept. delude themselves even as the evidence piles up and Turkey becomes imperialist and aggressive. Pakistan continues its ethnic cleansing started since statehood, and has seen attacks on Shiites and Sufi Muslim sects. Only now is the U.S. questioning the value of its large subsidy of Pakistan. Somehow, U.S. diplomats do not know what was reported long ago, that former Pres. Musharraf of Pakistan and former PLO head Arafat both assured their followers that Pakistan's crackdowns on Islamists and Arafat's signing of a peace agreement with Israel does not indicate a turn against jihad but a tactical maneuver in its behalf. Arafat described the Olso Accords as part of his phased plan for the conquest of Israel. So it would seem that what was thought to be a triumph of secular democracy over authoritarian rule is turning into an Islamist triumph, an Islamist Spring. Western governments remain naïve about this. There should be no law in Egypt making Christians dependent upon government permission to repair or build churches. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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ISRAEL'S CRUDE DISCOURSE ON LOCAL FASCISM TITLE
Posted by Seth Frantzman, October 12, 2011. |
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HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE
Posted by Paul Lademain, October 12, 2011. |
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Forcing Israel to sacrifice for Shalit is indeed a permanent stain on the UN and the arabs who control it, and a scab on the backs of the wayward Jews who function on their behalf under cover of the New Israel Fund. Every Jew doing so, every Jew who still hovers about Jimmy Carter, every Jew who sullies Israel's right to defend itself against aggression is equally stained as deeply as that dog, poodle Goldstone. I hope you continue to publish your press release about Shalit's release not once, but for months more. And the arab aggressors seeking to dominate every strata of human society, as well as their cowardly enablers, must be verbally scourged, without end. The next thing that needs doing is getting into the secretive archives of Shimon Peres, the architect of Israel's diminution. Any more apologies from him for having become an Israeli? Does he still yearn for love from Poland, his native homeland? Any more cheesy excuses why he was secretly engaged with Yasser Arafat via their respective tax haven founded, secretly funded (Cayman Island) NGOs? Peres, along with Ehud Barak, were described as traitors by Prof. Howard Grief in his book: The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law. And this book ably describes why, and it should be required reading for all, along with Craig Unger's book: House of Bush - House of Saud. Both books are available at www.amazon.com. It seems that the Jewish Leadership of Israel lacks guiding principles and are living from moment to moment, merely reacting to whatever blow is dispensed, but worse still, they cower at using the power Israel has to fiercely and defiantly combat arab aggression. Is this because their imagination leads them to cower even more at the thought of what the US can do to Israel? Or is Peres again back-channeling in self-serving Janusian ways? Perhaps Israel's leadership fails to grasp that the US needs Israel more than Israel needs the US and that Israel can wreak as much havoc throughout the middle east as would any Egyptian, should the US be so foolish as to push Israel's back to the wall. Viva to the Patriots of Israel from the SC4Z. Paul Lademain is a Secular Christian for Zion (SC4Z). Contact him by email at lademain@verizon.net
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A JEWISH VICTIM OF MUSLIM "HONOR
Posted by David Rackner, October 12, 2011. |
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A Jewish woman, Natalia Nariman, made aliya from Uzbekistan in 1993. She met a Muslim man, Nashad Basul, in Nazareth. After having a child with Basul, she converted to Islam. Ms. Nariman was required by her husband to wear the traditional Hajib (Muslim garb for women). Basul would not allow her to talk to men or leave their apartment. After many years of this isolation and domination, Ms. Nariman made the decision to take off the Hajib and go out of her house and apply for work. Of course, this desire did not please her husband, Basul. How did he respond to his wife's actions? He simply took her out to a hotel (for a celebration) in Afula, got her drunk (against Muslim law), strapped her unconscious body to the passenger seat of his car and set the car on fire. This story was in the Friday, October 7th addition of the Jerusalem Post.
I welcome your comments, ---Dave Rackner--- DIDYOUKNOW---ISRAEL? Contact David Rackner at drrackner@012.net.il |
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FROM ISRAEL: A WORD ON SHALIT
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 12, 2011. |
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Just a word. I am without the time to write, but cannot go into the Chag without a comment to my readers. Suffice it to say that I, too, want to see Gilad Shalit home, and I, too, hurt for his parents. But I am deeply distressed by this deal that has been announced. My first thought is: Why now? Why did Netanyahu cave on parameters he had held strong on until now? What's going on behind the scenes that we're not aware of? What are the political parameters. I will not speculate here. One Israeli involved with this who was quoted said, "Israel probably could have gotten a better deal, but it was time to bring Shalit home." Really? The problems: [] The deal releases over 1,000 prisoners, some terrorists, some of whom were serving life sentences. They will, as a Hamas leader has already declared, "return to the resistance." Oi! [] Originally it was being said that none released would be allowed to return to Judea and Samaria. But within the parameters of this deal some will. Some will even return to eastern Jerusalem. Oi! It is being said that some of these will be restricted in their movement, but I'm not clear as to who will do the restricting — besides which, they can organize, plot and plan even if restricted. [] This provides increased motivation on the part of Hamas to do further capturing of Israelis in order to secure the release of more prisoners. So... it must be asked who — and how many — will pay for Shalit's release. [] In addition, those in the Israeli security forces who do a magnificent job of capturing terrorists will find this reduces their motivation and serves as a disincentive to their efforts. Why should they work so hard and even risk their lives, if these bastards may be released down the road? It likely aggrieves them, that their work is being undone. Not good. [] But speaking of being aggrieved, think of the families of those who have been killed by the terrorists who will now be released. What a bitterness this must be for them, what a sense of justice undone they must feel. Justice undone. [] Lastly, and not insignificantly (although there may be more going on than has been made public), I see nothing about Shalit's condition and verification of that condition before the deal is begun. As I read it, 450 terrorists will be released before we get him back. May he be in health that can be repaired, and reasonably coherent in his mind, when he returns. May he be breathing! ~~~~~~~~~~ There should have — there could have — been other ways of bringing Shalit home. Professor Gerald Steinberg of NGO-Monitor notes what a condemnation this situation is with regard to the so-called human rights organizations, who never acted on Shalit's behalf. ~~~~~~~~~~ The holiday continues to call to me. Chag Sameach! Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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JEWS ARE BEING BANISHED FROM THEIR HOMES WHILE TERRORISTS RELEASED
Posted by Robin Ticker, October 11, 2011. |
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Arutz-7
Netanyahu said "Not a day went by without us trying various ways to bring Gilad home, any way possible and that didn't work either" |
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Dear Esteemed Knesset Ministers, Netanyahu said "Not a day went by without us trying various ways to bring Gilad home, any way possible and that didn't work either" Well Prime Minister Netanyahu set me suggest the following for the next time chas vechalila. As opposed to your solution this solution does not reward terrorists and terrorism but rather punishes them in a way to fit their crime. As a result of your decision, now I fear a wave of future kidnappings of Israeli soldiers chas vechalila since kidnapped soldiers bring in a hefty reward. So the next time G-d forbid please study this proposal very seriously. 1. Cut all Israel funding to the PA. Announce that from now on the word Palestinians will be replaced with the word Arab throughout Israel.. Announce that Judea and Samaria is now under Jewish Law and that Temple Mount, Kever Yosef and Hebron are under Jewish Sovereignty and no longer under Arab control. Jews are and should be sovereign in these very Holy sites. 2. Threaten to cut off the electricity in Gaza/,,, unless the kidnapped soldier is released within the hour 3. Then take 1 or both of the terrorists that murdered the Fogels and who also decapitated the Fogel baby without remorse and put him on TV and cut off one of his/their fingers. Remind the Arabs that their electricity is about to be cut off and that terrorist fingers will be continued to be surgically removed on a timed schedule until the kidnappee is released. Continue step 3 and you can alternate with the other Fogel murderer or any terrorist that has blood on his hands. Let it be broadcast live on Arab TV. They will find it very entertaining. . .Warn them that if the kidnapped has any torture mark on his body upon release, this torture will be duplicated live on TV in kind to all terrorists in Israeli prisons. On Israel TV show the pictures of the murdered Fogels and the decapitated baby and pictures of Daniel Perl etc in order that Israeli's remember that we learned these techniques from the Arabs and find it necessary to use it in turn as a deterrent of further terror attacks on Jews. On Arab TV tell the terrorists that you are fulfilling their innermost desire for shahidism and that their families are very proud of them. But you are sorry to disappoint them since you plan on burying/disposing their body parts with pigs so they won't have a chance to go to heaven.. Tell them that their homes and the homes of their parents are being demolished and Israel will make sure that their families will receive zero compensation from any source hostile to Israel for their acts of terror against Jews innocent victims of terror. 4. If the Kidnapped soldier is still not returned then proceed to cut off their electricity and warn them that their food and water supply is at risk. 5. Disarm the PA Police and take away all the textbooks in the Arab Authorities and replace them with ones that acknowledge that Israel is Sovereign over all of Judea and Samaria. Insist that any resident Jew or non Jew living within Biblical Boundaries of Israel including all of the 67 territories conquered by Israel must recognize Israel's Sovereigny and accept that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish People and they also must accept to adhere to the 7 Noahide Laws. If they do, then they have rights and will receive protection, medical benefits, education and will be welcome to stay. 6. Anyone not agreeing to these terms are encouraged to leave and should choose any Arab/Muslim country or any non Muslim country that accepts them of their choice. Show them maps of the world. If no country is willing to accept them, find a barren place and send them there. There are no lack of countries and places in the world more ideologically attuned to their beliefs. 7. If they choose to stay in Israel and show any aggression or hostility to Israel they will pay the consequences and receive no protection. Haba Lehargecha Hashkem LeHargo. One who comes to kill you, preempt it. Sincerely, Robin Ticker --------------------------- 13 BANISHED FROM THEIR ISRAELI HOMES WITH NO JUDICIAL PROCESS by Shalom Pollack and Adina Kutnicki Akiva HaCohen (right) with his wife and four children. HaCohen was given his 4th administrative (expulsion) order. For the Sukkot holiday, many Jews voluntarily leave their homes and move into temporary dwellings for the seven day festival. But in Israel, thirteen orders were recently given to Jewish men forcing them out of their homes and communities with no evidence, no trial and no judicial process. Akiva HaCohen was one of them. The administrative order was not for 7 days but for 365. 
HaCohen was given an administrative order to leave the region. It was not his first. In 2008, he was banished from his home and community for four months and in 2010 for six months followed by another order for three months. But, this was the most severe order he had yet received - a full year. It was devastating news. The HaCohens had poured their energy into building up the town of Yitzhar. They had a newly built home, owned a flour mill and vineyard, and were making plans to expand to a full farm. Now they would be forced to leave it all behind. And they had three days to decide where they would go. HaCohen has never been given a specific reason for these punishments. He was told it was because of "security concerns." He has also not been formally charged with a crime. Most significantly, according to Louis Rene Beres, a renowned Professor of International Law, "The point of these orders, of course, has been to quash anti-government dissent in various West Bank (Judea/Samaria) Jewish communities." "Honenu gives legal assistance any time and in any way we need," HaCohen says.Honenu volunteers handle everything from basic legal advice to free-until-trial lawyer services. If not for Honenu, HaCohen says he would have no idea how to handle the legal problems that arise in the context of his settlement work. You can donate to Honenu here. For more information on administrative (expulsion) orders read Kutnicki's article in the Outpost.
Contact Robin Ticker by email at faigerazel@gmail.com
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US-FUNDED EGYPTIAN MILITARY KILLS CIVILIANS
Posted by Elaia Basily, October 11, 2011. |
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Please stand in solidarity with the Coptic community in their calls to end religious persecution and equal rights
click here and sign the petition. |
On Sunday, October 9, 2011, the Egyptian Army brutally attacked a peaceful protest in Cairo, Egypt, killing at least 24 civilians and injuring at least 300. In one case, a military tank ran over a protester's head, smashing it to pieces. Mina Daniel, a youth activist who protested in Tahrir for the 18 days of the January 25th Revolution and survived, was among those killed during today's protest. Thugs have also attacked the Coptic Hospital in El-Daher, Cairo, where the injured are being treated. The protesters were made up of Muslims and Christians protesting the burning of a church in Aswan, Egypt. During this violence, Egyptian state media falsely reported that three members of the military were killed by the protesters, and the the Egyptian Army (SCAF) used this as an opportunity to pit Egyptian against Egyptian, using state television to call upon Egyptians to "protect" the army from these attacks by Coptic protesters! Under the rule of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), 12,000 Egyptians were sentenced to military court since last January. During Mubarak's rule, only 500 Egyptians were sentenced by military court. More churches were burned and the perpetrators un-sentenced under this military rule. The hated Emergency Law has been renewed, and heavy-handed censorship has brought upon the arrest of journalists and the storming of the offices of independent news media. In the meantime, lawlessness rules the streets in Egypt, and it seems that SCAF is only uses its security forces to attack protesters and independent media, rather than to do its job to protect its citizens. Every year, the US government gives $1.3 billion to SCAF. My tax dollars are being used to fund a ruling army that is attacking, killing and oppressing the citizens of its own country. This same army, while on one hand accepting all military aid from the US, has refused any US aid that would help build a truly free, fair and democratic country that respects the rights of all its citizens--and that could hold SCAF accountable. SCAF has proven itself incapable of ruling Egypt and presiding over elections planned in November. It is trying to incite a civil war in Egypt, and is using the Egyptian state media to spread this message of hatred. Do not use my tax dollars to support this regime. Use your influence and stand with the Egyptian people, not their oppressive military government. Call for a complete investigation of these criminal acts and full prosecution of those responsible at the highest levels. Egypt needs a transitional, secular civilian government that is capable of presiding over free and fair elections and legitimate constitutional changes. The over 800 Egyptians who died during the January 25th Revolution did not die for this. Enough is enough
Please. Click here and sign the petition.
Contact Elaia Basily by email at elaiabasily@gmail.com
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SUKKOT IS COMING TO JERUSALEM
Posted by Judy Lash Balint, October 11, 2011. |
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1. The tourists have landed! Overwhelmingly religious, English and French speaking, they jam the city's take-out places and restaurants. The well-dressed visitors may be seen in packs wandering up and down Emek Refaim Street and through the glitzy Mamilla Mall talking to their friends on their Blackberry or IPhones in English at top volume. 2. The clang of metal poles and the sounds of hammering are practically
constant as Jerusalem's apartment dwellers hurry to erect their sukkot and
squeeze them into small balconies, odd-shaped gardens and otherwise derelict
rooftops.
3. Almost every non-profit group worth its salt has scheduled a fund-raising and/or familiarization event for the intermediate days of Sukkot, aimed at capturing the attention of the wealthy temporary Jerusalem residents. 4. Real estate agents are taking a deep breath before their busiest week of the year as they prepare to pitch their over-priced wares to eager foreign buyers. Each of the many luxury residential building projects around town has managed to put up billboards depicting the completed construction and inviting prospective buyers for a tour of an unfinished building site. 5. You can't get on a bus or ride the _light rail_
6. The sweet smell of etrogim in Jerusalem's Machane Yehuda is
overpowering. Huge crowds descend on a lot on Jaffa Road near the market to vie for
the most shapely lulav and etrog.
7. One enterprising bookstore is offering "Machzor rentals" for tourists who inadvertently left their holiday prayer books at home. 8. You've never seen such gaudy sukkah decorations in your life — unless you
've been to WalMart on Christmas Eve. Kiosks manned by bearded Haredim are
selling gold, green and red tinsel hangings, made in China and exact
replicas of Christmas decorations in the old country.
9. Huge piles of schach (palm fronds for the roof of the sukkah) cover
major city squares, and citizens are invited to take as much as they need for
free.
10. The usual throngs of traditional Jews are expected at the Western Wall for the thrice-yearly observance of the ancient ritual of Birkat Cohanim — the Blessing by the Priests — that takes place during the intermediate days of Sukkot. 11. Thousands more Jerusalemites and visitors will stand in line outside the official Presidential Residence on Hanassi Street in Talbieh to press the flesh with President Shimon Peres. Traditionally every Israel president opens the residence on Sukkot (this year on Monday morning, October 18) to greet the citizenry. 12. Like Christmas tree lots back in the US, empty city lots all over
Jerusalem are taken over to sell sukkot of every size and description. Some are
marketed by large companies and feature the latest space-saving technology
and hardiest materials, while others are simpler affairs made of tubular
piping and fabric walls. Every kosher restaurant in town has a sukkah of
some kind and each boasts bigger and better holiday specials to entice
customers.
13. Since the entire week of Sukkot is a national holiday you'll have a tough time deciding which festival/event to take part in. There's the Fringe Theater Festival in Akko; the Haifa International Film Festival; The Tamar music and arts fest at Ein Gedi; the Storytelling Festival in Givatayim and the Gush Etzion Jewish Music and Theater Festival to name just a few. 14. Touring the country is another favorite Sukkot activity and every political group is promoting trips to "See For Yourself." Hebron is a perennial favorite for the intermediate festival days as the Isaac Hall in the Cave of the Patriarchs that's normally off-limits to Jewish visitors is open for the holiday. 15. Not to be left out are those tenacious Christian friends of Israel —
this year the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem (ICEJ) will bring
thousands of people from 100 nations to attend their 32nd annual Feast of
Tabernacles celebration. The Christian contingent dressed in costumes of
their country of origin will also take part in another annual Sukkot event, the
Jerusalem March, where tens of thousands proudly march through several
routes in the capital on October 18th. On Friday the 16th, all 6000 Christian
visitors will actually head down to Ein Gedi near the Dead Sea to vote en
masse by SMS for the Dead Sea as THE wonder of the world!
Not everyone is happy about the Feast, however. In 2007 Israel's _Chief
Rabbinate's Committee for the Prevention of the Spread of Missionary Work in
the Holy Land
16. Another prominent group of tourists set to arrive are refugees from the young American frum singles scene who make an annual migration to Jerusalem from the Upper West Side for Sukkot. Discreet meetings of earnest, well-scrubbed, modestly dressed twenty-somethings take place in all the major hotel lobbies. 17. And speaking of refugees — spare a thought for those 1,700 families
expelled from their homes in _Gush Katif _
Judy Lash Balint is an award-winner investigative journalist and author of "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen). It is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com. Contact her at judy.balint@gmail.com |
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A FASCINATING EXAMINATION OF TERROR NETWORKS THRIVING IN OUR AMERICAN PRISON SYSTEMS
Posted by FSM, October 11, 2011. |
An Interview With Patrick T. Dunleavy, Author of "The Fertile Soil of Jihad: Terrorism's Prison Connection" by Ruth King, a freelance writer who writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel. An exclusive interview with the author of a fascinating examination of terror networks thriving in America's prison systems. |
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At Riker's Island, Zaben reconnected with a friend Rashid Baz, a Lebanese livery cab driver celebrated by Hamas sympathizers as the "Holy Warrior and Son of Islam" for opening fire on a van full of Hasidic Jewish boys on the Brooklyn Bridge in March 1994, killing one and wounding several others. Baz was tried and convicted of the second-degree murder of Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old Jewish yeshiva student from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, along with fourteen other counts of attempted murder. From Riker's Island Zaben moved through the New York Downstate Correctional Facility, a maximum security Auburn Correctional Facility, Cayuga Correctional Facility in the Finger Lakes district of New York, Fishkill Correctional Facility, and finally, after a parole rejection, Shawangunk Correctional Facility from which he was released and deported in 2005. In all these jails, Zaben met and collaborated with notorious terrorists and converted many prisoners to radical Islam, hatred of all infidels, and participation in jihad. Most appalling is the fact that the Moslem chaplains, many with long and nefarious criminal histories often facilitated or were complicit with prison clerks and volunteers to enlarge and connect terrorist cells. At Auburn, Zaben met an eclectic group of terrorist "celebrities"-murderers and arsonists, a Black Liberation Army member, Anthony Bottom also known as Jalil Muntaquin, serving a life term for killing two policemen, David Gilbert convicted for murder in the Brinks's Robbery, Leroy Smithwick, a convert to Islam sentenced for murder, and his old buddy the infamous Rashid Baz. This compatible crew presented an excellent opportunity for proselytizing and strategy in recruitment. Zaben also met his bride, Isabel Oviedo who converted to Islam and married Zaben after a rather short "courtship" of two prison visits and changed her name to Halima. Halima became Zaben's volunteer befriending other mothers or wives who visited other jails and delivered messages among cell members in other jails. This was facilitated by the fact that prison visitors took buses from a central location in New York. Prison conversions and radical Islamic influences from volunteers and chaplains continued long after Zaben's release. As late as May 2009, James Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen were arrested for a plot to bomb synagogues and down military aircraft with missiles. All four were prison inmates and converts to Islam. Dunleavy masterfully weaves together the intrigue, the connective dots between the prisoners and the radical mosques and charity fronts, the conspiracies that bind the jihadists' in and out of the penitentiaries and their subtle connection to home grown domestic terrorists. His narrative is spellbinding and his prose is superb. No review can do it justice. This book is essential reading and it is my great pleasure to interview Patrick Dunleavy. RK: How did authorities come to know about the main character — Abdel Zaben — and others like him in prison? PTD: He first came to authorities' attention in early 1999 when information from two separate confidential sources talked of an alliance formed between Middle Eastern inmates and African-American Muslim inmates to train together for acts of jihad. One source specifically named Zaben as a follower of Osama bin Laden who not only recruited within the prison system but also had the ability to facilitate overseas travel for recently released prison converts to study and train in places like, Egypt, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. RK: One of the most startling revelations in your book is the complicity of Moslem chaplains, many with their own sordid criminal history in the recruitment of terrorists. How are they chosen and by whom? PTD: That was a process that evolved in corrections in the same way that Islam did. In the 60's the vast majority of muslim inmates were followers of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. Then in 1968 The Dar ul Islam movement began a prison program with the goal of putting a Sunni/Salafist mosque in every prison. Still there were no full time Islamic chaplains. Following the Attica riot in 1971, prison officials began to look to hire Imams. The pool that they drew from were mostly former inmates who had converted in prison. One of the first chosen was Warith Deen Umar, formerly known as Gene Marks. Umar then formed an organization called the Muslim Chaplains Association which was run out of the basement of his house. That organization became the ecclesiastical certifying body for newly hired Islamic clergy. The process worked like this: Umar would recommend an individual to the Deputy Commissioner for Program Services for hiring. Then Umar's own organization would do the background certification necessary for the hiring to be completed. Umar himself was a former Nation of Islam disciple who became a Sunni fundamentalist while in prison through the Dar ul Islam outreach. Following his release he received funding from the Saudis to perform his hajj to Mecca. He continued to receive foreign funding which he used to send newly hired Chaplains on hajj also. RK: Please describe for us how the chaplains'offices were used by high security prisoners to place calls and how Operation Hades was able to monitor them. PTD: Each prison chaplain had an office with a phone. The phone was primarily to be used for inter facility communication, however the chaplain was also issued a personal identification number (PIN) to be used when dialing outside the prison. Staff were to safeguard the number and no inmates were permitted to use thephone because it was not subject to the same security monitoring as the regular prison phone. The chaplain also had inmate clerical staff to help with paperwork, filing and cleaning of the office. It did not take inmates long to realize that they could breach security by using the chaplain's phone. One of the first to do this for terrorist reasons was El Sayyid Nosair, who was in Attica at the time for the shooting of Rabbi Meir Kahane. He utilized the prison Imam's phone to contact hisassociates who were plotting to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993. When investigators from Operation Hades became aware through confidential sources that Abdel Nasser Zaben was using the chaplain's phone to call places in the Middle East and North Africa, we decided to go through the Courts and obtain a wire intercept order under the New York State Anti Terrorism Act. With that in hand, we then utilized the latest technology available to capture the call data. Salahuddin Muhammad. RK: Please tell us about Salahuddin Muhammad, aka known as Leon Lawson, Leon Ross, Shanhan Allah or Lawson? PTD: Imam Muhammad is a very interesting fellow. In an interview in the New York Times in 2009 regarding Islamic radicalization in prison he stated emphatically that he had never seen or heard any inmates involved in jihadist rhetoric or recruitment. If that is true than he must be the most unfortunate individual to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Abdel Nasser Zaben worked for him as his clerk for four years. In taped conversations with associates in the Middle East Zaben spoke glowingly about his relationship with the Chaplain and even arranged for him to meet two of them in Brooklyn. In addition to his position as the prison chaplain he is also the spiritual leader of Masjid al Ikhlas in Newburgh, New York. That is the mosque where the four ex-inmates, James Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen met prior to plotting to bomb synagogues in New York City and shoot down military aircraft with Stinger missiles.
RK: You describe a nexus between the Brink's Robbery terrorist David Gilbert, who is an author and unrepentant advocate for terror and Professor Rashid Khalidi in a taped telephone conversation. Tell us about that. PTD: The segue for that was through a visitor who came to the prison to meet with both David and Yousef Saleh. Yousef, a Palestinian from Ramallah, was serving a life sentence for firebombing a Jewish deli in New York killing two people. The visitor was an activist with Free Palestine Movement. Several other visitors of Gilbert's were also involved in the Viva Palestina movement. The conversation took place just prior to the Republican National Convention in 2004 from a phone in Clinton Correctional Facility to the Professor's house. Several individuals participated in the conversation which centered around demonstration tactics to be utilized at the convention as well as the war in Iraq. RK: What is the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. I doubt that many Americans, even those interested in the evolution of terrorism on our soil are familiar with it. PTD: The historical database of terrorist incidents and organizations which I refer to in my book is no longer available to the general public. The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism's Terrorism Knowledge Base (TKB) was an online link containing information on terrorist incidents, leaders, groups, and related court cases. The TKB ceased operations on 31 March 2008. The database is now maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). MIPT continues to provide training and other resources to first line officers. RK: Tell us about your role in Operation Hades and the melding of the agencies involved in the investigation. PTD: My participation in Operation Hades was at the request of the NYPD to the Inspector General's Office of the New York State Department of Corrections. Police and Intelligence officials, in light of the Richard Reid and Jose Padilla cases, wanted to first identify if there were any radical Islamic influencesat work in the prison system and to probe the depth of that influence. At the time I was the head of the Criminal Intelligence Division and had spent over twenty years infiltrating criminal enterprises and narcotics organizations operating through inmate associations. I had also spent considerable time working as an undercover agent for the Department of Correction's IG.As the Operation Hades investigation developed it became necessary to include a multitude of agencies to completely cover the national and international aspects of our findings. RK: What do you think will happen if the inmates from Guantanamo are moved into the U.S. Prison System? PTD: I think that would create numerous security and facility management issues to both corrections administrators and Counter Terrorism officials. Where are they to be housed? If in the general prison population, they would have the ability to communicate and influence other inmates. If you isolate them and place Special Administrative Measures (SAM's) on them you will be constantly defending against lawsuits brought by the inmates and their supporters on the constitutionality of the conditions of confinement as in the case of Khalfan Khamis Mohamed convicted in 2001 for the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania in 1998. He is requesting the Court to remove the SAM's enforced by the Bureau of Prisons arguing, among other things, that after 10 years in prison he is a different person and that the restrictions are no longer necessary. Which brings us to the question of the rehabilitation of radical Islamic terrorists. Would the Bureau of Prisons institute a program specifically designed to re-intergrate jihadists into society along the same lines as the Saudi's program? With a current recidivism rate in the US of about 65 % of released inmates returning to crime, do we really want to gamble with that option when it comes to terrorism? RK: What do you think is the greatest challenge facing prison officials and intelligence experts today? PTD: The greatest challenge would be to remain vigilant to the ever changing adaptability of incarcerated terrorists. In prison there is always time. Time to think, to plan, to plot. Days turn into weeks, to months, to years. The general public tends to forget over the great space of time. Inmates do not, particularly those who have already committed acts of terrorism. Complacency is the X-factor that concerns me most. Contact Family Security Matters (FSM) at info@ familysecuritymatters.org |
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HOLLYWOOD MAKES ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 11, 2011. |
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In a Wall St. Journal fight-back article, Edward Jay Epstein (author of The Hollywood Economist) accuses Hollywood of casting capitalists as the usual menace to society. A recent mystery, "Syriana," does not portray the menace as al Qaida, Syria, organized crime, or serial killers, but big oil companies depicted as manipulating terrorism, wars and civil strife to raise oil prices. A 2004 version of "The Manchurian Candidate" is not the USSR but a U.S. corporation contracting its services in the Iraq-Iran war. Nevertheless, the film does not mention Iraq or Saddam! Why not? The film director's DVD explains that he did not want to "negatively stereotype" Muslims. [It would stereotype Saddam to depict him as evil?] Instead, the corporation is cast as implanting false memories of terrorists in the heads of captured GIs, so they will blame al-Qaida for terrorism actually committed by the corporation. Thus not only does the film falsely inculpate corporations as an institution, it also falsely exculpates terrorism. What has happened to Hollywood, that although its gore and sex are realistic, its themes are not? Various groups now liaise with Hollywood, to prevent not just stereotyping but any negative impression of them. Often, film executives pro-actively clear scripts with these "lobbyists" in advance. They fear protests. In addition, Hollywood does not want to agitate foreign markets, now its major source of revenue. In 2002, "Sum of All Fears" was a take-off from the Tom Clancy novel about Muslims setting off a nuclear bomb in the U.S.. The movie makers, however, wanted to avoid criticism by Arabs and other Muslims. This time the "bad guys" were Nazi businessmen in South America. [I didn't realize that the shoe bomber, the Times Square bomber, the underwear bomber, the USS Cole bombers, the 9/11 skyjackers, and the al-Qaida trainees were Nazi businessmen.] In the original, 1984 "Red Dawn," Soviets invaded the U.S.. In the re-make, the invaders were Chinese. In next year's release, they would be from N. Korea, which bars Hollywood moves. [Incidentally, China is involved in some of the worst foreign mineral extracting exploitation. My joke is that Chinese factories can more out-compete U.S. ones not only because of low wages, but also because they don't have toxic waste disposal costs — they just dissolve those wastes into pet food and baby formulas they sell domestically and abroad.] Even in "Avatar," in which aliens destroy a planet's environment and people, the puppet masters are a greedy mining company. Some foreign companies replete with movie fans are concerned about foreign mining companies. This film would please them. "Mission Impossible" has dropped Soviet and Chinese Communist enemies for U.S. corporate ones initiating a plague so it could sell antidotes.
Thus although corporations may finance films, they don't lobby the industry (Wall St. J., 10/10/11, op-ed). Maybe they had better. Let's get perspective. Some corporations but not most act unethically and even harmfully. When the U.S. government and Federal Reserve encouraged sub-standard mortgages, flooded lenders with money, allowed banks to speculate and with insufficient reserves, implied that they would bail out big companies that over-extended themselves, and failed to enforce what protective regulations remained, they created an economic bubble that individuals and corporations alike exploited. The boom stifled prudence and led to financial instruments whose complexity make the extent of risk not comprehensible to most corporate executives. In laying almost the entire blame on "greedy corporations," and none on the government that encouraged greed and blunder, the film industry takes up the liberal line. Hollywood people are known to have mostly leftist sympathies. Mr. Epstein omits this ideological factor, attributing the whole Hollywood problem to commerce based political correctness, alone. Spreading false notions about the terrorist threat to America ill serves our country. And it does so for commercial advantage. Hollywood, itself, may be the worst example of the corporate greed that the film industry stereotypes. Let's have a film on Hollywood greed. Israel's film industry is largely leftist, too. Many of its films portray Arabs sympathetically, and their own troops unsympathetically. We know that course, some individuals do not act according to their national character, but in general, Muslims Arabs favor jihad with its bigotry and violence, and Israel tries to combat them humanely. I think Israel goes so far in minimizing enemy casualties, military as well as civilian, that they needlessly sacrifice their own people. That attempt to appear humane is inhumane ... inhumane to their own people, the real innocent ones. The U.S. and civilization as a whole are beset by a barbaric international menace, Radical Islam if not much of the rest of Islam, equal to the Nazi and Communist menaces of their time. Unfortunately, our society is slow to catch on. Our President, himself a radical, refuses to deal with the broad problem and even to name the problem correctly. It is true that when criticism of political Islam is made, however accurately, Muslims can be roused individually or in mobs to violence. But we need our whole media, not just the film industry alone, to drop its political correctness, drop its fear of Muslim violence, and drop its advocacy journalism, and report and explain fully and accurately. Otherwise, the media abets the assault on civilization. It misleads people under global assault. When the media omits news and mischaracterizes society lest groups in support of our enemies protest, we have half lost the war. When the media censors itself in behalf of political correctness, and promotes witch hunts against people who may or may not have said something minor and harmless in private or in a needless joke, we have lost half our freedom. It is one thing to be considerate, but another to be inhibited. An inhibited society has lost half its liberty. TV programs keep celebrating Hollywood, often rightfully so. However, although that industry has been the butt of antisemitism for having largely Jewish origins, its Jewish founders downplayed Jewish interests to avoid, unsuccessfully as we see, accusations that "the Jews" control Hollywood, meaning in behalf of Jewish and Israeli interests. At least Hollywood was patriotic, except when it came largely under Communist influence in the 1930s and 1940s. Sadly, Americans do not realize how much they really are cheated, by the media, schools, and government, nor do they much realize actual problems from business. There is more than one menace to society. When so much effort is expended chasing politically incorrect shadows, substantive dangers slink into the shadows. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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HOW THE DRTY BRITZ PAY FOR THEIR
Posted by Paul Lademain, October 11, 2011. |
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.. membership in the greasy arab oil club. Inna nutshell: The Guardian and BBC produce and publish arab propaganda to help the arabs steal Israel's land so blood-lust arabs can get their grubbies on Israel's offshore oil fields. Drty Britz publish bloody dirty propaganda against all Jews---(except
filthy rich ones because British banks are broke and hope wealthy Jews
will bail them out same way Rothschilds did last century)---to help the
arabs steal the rest of the Jewish Homeland (Israel). We think the drty
Britz are hoping the arabs will share the spoils when arabs : 1) control
the Mediterranean, and 2) get rid of US influence in the middle east and
3) supplant the US with the Britz. Question: Will Fr tolerate this? Or
have the Fr already back-stopped the drty Britz?
Bravo to Honest Reporting for tearing off the bandages! ---- SC4Z (Secular Christians for Zion) Not Left. Not Right. Just 4 Justice 4 Israel! Paul Lademain is a Secular Christian for Zion (SC4Z). Contact him by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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FROM ISRAEL: NO TIME TO STOP!
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 11, 2011. |
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Word has come out that Prime Minister Netanyahu has instructed Justice Minister Ya'akov Ne'eman to explore ways to legalize Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that are now considered "unauthorized" and at imminent risk for dismantlement. I believe Ne'eman will be putting together a committee for this purpose. But please, do not confuse an order to explore with an order to implement. Some newspaper reports have already projected this confusion. Nothing has been decided yet, and at the end of the day the prime minister could still reject what Ne'eman recommends. Thus it continues to be our job to let Netanyahu know, in strong and unambiguous terms, that we expect alternative measures to be implemented so that the communities will not be dismantled. What is clear is that his readiness to consider alternatives is a bow to the protests he is receiving with regard to possible dismantlement. In other words, protest by numbers of people does make a difference. ~~~~~~~~~~ On the other side of the equation, there is solid information that the army will be practicing maneuvers for dismantlement in the coming week. Similarly, this does not mean that it's a sure thing, and that the army will be commanded to move on this. What it means is that the army will be ready if the political decision to dismantle is made. This is not something we want to leave to chance. ~~~~~~~~~~ What particularly rankles is that this should even be considered in the face of the PA's intransigence and overt hostility to Israel. Now is surely the time to stand strong and stay put. But of course, the powers on the left perceive this exactly in reverse, arguing that we must show "flexibility" to encourage moderation in the PA. Today it made the news that Yesh Din — "there's justice," one of the Israeli organizations far to the left — has just released a report charging that government delays in dismantling "unauthorized" settlements encourage construction of additional "unauthorized" settlements. What this tells us — in addition to the fact that there is pressure from the left — is that the government is a bit schizoid on the issue, and will delay in acting if that's what is mandated by the political situation. ~~~~~~~~~~ But, as I speak of the political situation, there is another factor that works against our concerns for a Jewish Judea and Samaria: That is our prime minister's practice of playing along with international elements, notably the US, to some degree, to mollify. He doesn't cave completely — he hasn't frozen construction again, for example. Yet, as that international community views our presence in Judea and Samaria as "illegitimate," a few well-timed demolitions can serve to indicate that Netanyahu is a "team player." Not too many demolitions, as that would rock his coalition. The bottom line is that we are facing an exceedingly volatile situation that requires our constant vigilance. ~~~~~~~~~~ I am reproducing here the information on making contact with the Israeli government that I provided yesterday. If you are an Israeli citizen, contact PM Netanyahu.
If you have not yet communicated your concerns about this issue, please! do so now. Speaking as a citizen of Israel, convey a sense of great urgency. But I implore you to keep your message short, direct, clear and polite. No speeches, no history lessons. Tell him that if he allows communities in Judea and Samaria to be dismantled, he is betraying all he has stood for. Insist that he over-rule the civil administration in Judea and Samaria, and the position of Defense Minister Barak, and that he stop all orders for dismantling of any Jewish communities. Indicate that you expect that a way to retain the communities — by legalizing them — will be worked out, hopefully via the exploration of Justice Minister Ne'eman. If you have already written to Netanyahu, write again. Tell him it's a good first step, to ask Justice Minister Ne'eman to explore ways to legalize "unauthorized" communities. Let him know that you are watching and that you expect that a solution will be found — for anything less would be unacceptable. ~~~~~~~~~~ If you are in the US or elsewhere, utilize the lists for the Embassies and Consulates below. Make sure there is an outcry where you are, and Jerusalem will know about it. If you have not yet communicated your concerns, do so now. Keep your message short, direct, clear and polite. No speeches, no history lessons. Say that you are protesting as a supporter of Israel (and, if it is the case, as a Jew). Indicate that you are deeply disturbed by reports that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria might be dismantled. This would be a betrayal of what the prime minister stands for. Say that you know the Justice Minister will be investigating ways to legalize the communities, and that you trust that a solution will be found — for anything less would be unacceptable. If you have already written, write again. Say it's a good first step, that Prime Minister Netanyahu has asked Justice Minister Ne'eman to explore ways to legalize "unauthorized" communities. Indicate that you are watching and that you expect that a solution will be found — for anything less would be unacceptable. ~~~~~~~~~~ In the US: Israel Embassy, Washington DC http://www.israelemb.org/
~~~~~~~~~~ Atlanta Consulate General of Israel http://atlanta.mfa.gov.il/
Boston Consulate General of Israel http://boston.mfa.gov.il/
Chicago Consulate General of Israel http://chicago.mfa.gov.il/
Houston Consulate General of Israel http://houston.mfa.gov.il/
Los Angeles Consulate General of Israel http://www.israella.org/
Miami Consulate General of Israel http://miami.mfa.gov.il/
New York Consulate General of Israel http://www.israelfm.org/
Philadelphia Consulate General of Israel http://philadelphia.mfa.gov.il/
San Francisco Consulate General of Israel http://www.israeliconsulate.org/
~~~~~~~~~~ If you live elsewhere, you can locate your appropriate Embassy or Consulate here:
~~~~~~~~~~ Sukkot is coming. Please act before the holiday begins. And please share this as broadly as you can. ~~~~~~~~~~ MK Yariv Levin (Likud) is working on a bill that would compensate Palestinian Arab owners of land in Judea and Samaria on which Jewish housing has been built. I have no knowledge of how this bill would spell out the means for verifying determining land ownership — but this seems to me an issue of some significance, as simply "claiming" ownership should not be sufficient. The claimant would receive funds or alternate land, but would not be able to demand a demolition of homes on "his" property. Said Levin in a statement to the JPost : "The current situation in Judea and Samaria is intolerable. The judiciary is being used as a tool to promote the extreme Left's political goals, such as harming settlers. ~~~~~~~~~~ Whether it succeeds or not, Levin's bill is a landmark effort as it would represent the first time the Knesset was involved via legislation in what goes on in Judea and Samaria, which is under military law. Some of the objections to the bill coming from the left may seem fairly far-fetched to many of us. But as the Court tilts left, it might entertain some of them, and invalidate the bill, should it pass. (Rest assured, if it does pass, there will be attorneys challenging it in the Court.) According to Attorney Michael Sfard, who works with both Yesh Din and Peace Now, the proposed bill would constitute a violation of property rights and the right to freedom of expression — both enshrined in the legal system's Basic Law. What I ponder here, but have no answer to, is whether Israel's Basic Law (which serves as Israel's constitution) applies to Palestinian Arabs who are not Israeli citizens and live in Judea and Samaria, which is not governed according to Israeli civil law in any event. But one can readily see the potentially problematic nature of this bill. Additionally, Attorney Limor Yehuda, director of the Association for Civil Rights in the Occupied Territories, claims that this amounts to confiscation of lands in "occupied territory," which is illegal under international law. Israel's position, however, is that the Fourth Geneva Convention is not applicable to Judea and Samaria. ~~~~~~~~~~ Thirty-eight MKs have now sent a letter — drafted by the Land of Israel lobby in the Knesset — to the prime minister appealing to him not to demolish any further homes in Judea and Samaria. Fifteen of 27 members of the Likud faction signed, as well as eight MKs from Shas; six from Yisrael Beiteinu; four from National Union; and the three members of HaBayit HaYehudi. Additionally, one MK from Kadima and one from United Torah Judaism signed. Five of the signatories were ministers: Eli Yishai (Shas --Interior); Daniel Hershkowitz (Habayit Hayehudi — Science and Technology); Uzi Landau (Israel Beiteinu — National Infrastructure) and Likud ministers Yuli Edelstein (Public Diplomacy) and Yossi Peled. Said the letter: "We urge you to protect the settlements in Judea and Samaria from those who use the pretense of law and order to persecute them." Concern is highest for further demolitions in Migron, as well as in Givat Assaf and the Ulpana neighborhood of Beit El. The prime minister is asked in this letter to use every possible legal means to assure that no further demolitions will be undertaken. ~~~~~~~~~~ I wrote the other day that the inmates are running the asylum. True enough. But what it also turns out is that the Palestinian Arab prison inmates are attempting to run Israeli prisons. The whole story is enough to make your jaw drop: Fairly recently, finally, there was a decision to cut back on some of their incredible perks — including the right to matriculate for university degrees! — because Gilad Shalit is kept in horrendous conditions. So what's happening now is that more than 230 inmates have gone on a hunger strike until their demands are met. Are you ready? Whole chickens, the return of satellite channels and the Palestinian TV channel, a right to receive visitors while not handcuffed and permission to walk between the cells. And, would you believe, negotiations on these items on going on with the Prison Service. Negotiations? Let them starve. They are not in prison because they are nice guys. And I do not believe the Geneva Conventions cover satellite channels. Oh, what Gilad would give to have visitors, even if handcuffed! So far, the Prison Service has conceded only whole chickens, which have to be cut up by guards. The Service has instituted sanctions on these prisoners and says it is prepared for anything. ~~~~~~~~~~ I thought I had posted the last yesterday, but found it necessary to write again today — for obvious reasons. Now, finally, I hope I am done and can turn my focus to family and holiday. There are many other subjects that might be explored, but they will have to wait for another time. As I will be focused elsewhere over the next few days, I implore my readers to cut back on the number of e-mails they send me. I will not be checking my computer daily. Sukkot is called the Season of Our Joy — Z'man Simchateinu — with good reason. It is a quintessentially happy time. And a time of faith. As of tomorrow night observant Jews will eat and sleep in their sukkot — their temporary booths — for a period of a week. Their protection comes from the Almighty. Or let me put it another way: Our protection always comes from the Almighty, but for this week we are especially reminded of this fact. To all who are celebrating, I wish a Chag Sukkot Sameach! Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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PA REWRITING JEWISH HISTORY
Posted by Giulio Meotti, October 11, 2011. |
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Palestinians are using archeology to advance their statehood bid. Prominent archaeologist Gabriel Barkai called it "cultural Intifada." The PA will seek World Heritage status for the birthplace of Jesus, Bethlehem, once the UN's cultural agency (UNESCO) admits them as a full member. Hamdan Taha, the Palestinian Authority minister who deals with antiquities and culture, also listed Nablus and Hebron among 20 cultural heritage sites which he said could be nominated as World Heritage Sites. Professor Taha is a pioneer of the new Palestinian revisionism. Last January National Geographic magazine ran a "Travel Palestine" ad that appeared to blot out the State of Israel's existence. Published by Taha's Ministry of Antiquities, the ad said that "Palestine lies between the Mediterranean coast and Jordan River." This is just one example of Taha's propaganda successes around the world. Taha's bid at UNESCO is supported by the Vatican Custody of the Holy Land, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Church. As th UN bid brings the Palestinians closer to an independent state, the historical and archeological claims are playing an increasingly prominent role in the building of the national consciousness. Taha, who did his undergraduate work in Berlin, worked in Jericho with Paolo Matthiae, an Italian scholar who discovered Ebla, the Syrian site that is most famous for the "Ebla tablets." In Herodion (Herod's fortress in the Judean hills), Taha worked with Michele Piccirillo, a Fransciscan priest who has been one of the most famous Italian archaeologists. Taha gets funds and support from UNESCO, European governments and societies like the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, a major Catholic association in Jerusalem. The former Vatican's archbishop in Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, who just promoted an appeal to the UE and US to "stop the Hebraization of Jerusalem," and the current Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, who is denouncing the "Judaization of the city," are just two major Christian figures who embraced Taha's rhetoric. 'Bible a mythological narrative' Taha manages 10 research excavations conducted with foreign funding. The Dutch government, through UNESCO, just donated 300,000 euros to the Palestinian Authority, meant to finance the excavation of an ancient city outside Nablus. A feature entitled "Jerusalem, a City Crying Out for Justice" in the PA's Internet site said that "all historic studies and archeological excavations have failed to find any proof" for the existence of the ancient Jewish temples. Taha is now trying to put together a case to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in the Hague to condemn the Israeli excavations near the Temple Mount as "war crimes and crimes against humanity." This is the most inflammatory calumny that was directly connected to the deaths of dozens of Israelis and Palestinians during the so-called "Western Wall Tunnel riots" of 1995. From his office in a restored house in Ramallah, Taha is also mastering a new Palestinian denial meant to cancel any trace of Jewish presence in the Holy Land. According to Taha, the Bible is a "mythological narrative," Israeli archeology is "Eurocentric," "land was confiscated in the name of God and archaeology" and the Israeli works are rooted in "imperialism." Taha just finished a project, in cooperation with the Dutch University of Leiden, on the outskirt of Nablus, Tel Balata, home to the Joseph's Tome, one of Judaism's holiest sites. The renewed excavations at Tel Balata and the establishment of the archaeological park are being conducted jointly by Taha's ministry, the government of the Netherlands and UNESCO. Taha hopes that the dig will help in "writing or rewriting the history of Palestine." 'Worse than Holocaust denial' Despite Tal Balata being identified with ancient Shechem in Samaria, where the Israelites buried Joseph's bones when they returned from Egypt, Palestinians now claim that the tomb in reality is the final resting place of Sheikh Yusuf Dukat, a locally venerated Muslim who lived about 150 years ago. When last year Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that two religious sites, Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and Cave of Patriarchs in Hebron, would be among 150 Israeli heritage sites considered for renovation, Taha declared that the Jewish character of the two holy shrines was "artificial" and "a robbery." He said that even the Dead Sea Scrolls were "stolen" from Palestinians. The town of Shiloh is another target for Taha's revisionism. Despite Shiloh being the capital of the Jewish nation for nearly four centuries and the Jews having brought the Tabernacle there, making Shiloh the religious center of the Israelites before Jerusalem, Taha is convincing the international community that the Jewish Shiloh never existed: "In Shiloh the settlers pretended to have found the tabernacles," he proclaimed. "They can find the chicken bone my grandfather ate 50 years ago and say it was a young calf for ancient sacrifice." On October 21, 2010, UNESCO formally declared that Rachel's Tomb is the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque - endorsing one of Taha's lies. Israel, under a direct assault on the foundations of the Jewish people, is drawing back and the world now literally believes that the Jews stole the past, the Jewish monuments are Arab treasures stolen by the Zionists, and that the Jews are no more than invading colonizers.Archaeologist Barkai once said that this revisionism is even worse than Holocaust denial. Yet for now, Palestinians are winning the war to rewrite history. Giulio Meotti is the author of the book "A New Shoah"
Contact him at giuliomeotti@hotmail.com.
This is archived at
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MUSLIMS AND JEWS IN AMERICA
Posted by Hadassah Levy, October 11, 2011. |
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This was written by Aryeh Tepper
and it appeared yesterday in Jewish Ideas Daily
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Consider these two questions: During the past ten years, approximately 170 American Muslims have been arrested for plotting terror attacks against Jews or materially aiding other terrorists. While the numbers are relatively small, the danger is real enough. Isn't it only reasonable to wonder whether these individuals were moved by anti-Jewish passions that are shared by others in the American Muslim community? On August 26, 2011, eleven American Muslim leaders and two Muslim congressmen addressed a letter to Hamas criticizing its treatment of Gilad Shalit and calling for Shalit's release. Isn't it just as reasonable to wonder whether these individuals were moved by a humane sympathy for Jews that is shared by others in the American Muslim community? To answer such questions, investigating American Muslim attitudes towards Jews might seem a natural enough pursuit for American Jews. But to judge by the recently published collection of essays Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalities, Contentions, and Complexities, genuine investigation is being pushed aside in favor of a political agenda that marginalizes voices from the right and uses Israel as a punching bag in the name of inter-communal "dialogue." Muslims and Jews in America takes pains to appear even-handed. One editor is Muslim, the other Jewish. The 16 essays are evenly divided between Jewish and Muslim authors. But aside from these symmetries, the book has little internal coherence. Some chapters read like advertisements for organizations such as J Street and Tikkun. Others include an inquiry into assimilation and separation patterns among Iranian Jews and Muslims in Los Angeles and an exchange of letters on feminist theology between a Jewish and a Muslim feminist. But there are deeper flaws than the book's patchwork character. Though the volume is purportedly about America, Reza Aslan, the Iranian-American polemicist who is one of the co-editors, begins his introductory essay by describing Israel's security barrier: Call it a security fence, a separation barrier, a seam zone, an apartheid wall. ... For Muslim and Christian Palestinians, the divide is merely the most physical manifestation of what they view as Israel's policy of ethnic and religious segregation. From Aslan's account, you would think that West Bank Palestinians are fighting a 1960's American-style battle to integrate Israel. This is, of course, not true. More important, the barrier has nothing to do with manifesting a "policy of ethnic and religious segregation" — 20 percent of Israel's population is Arab — and everything to do with security. It is outrageous for Aslan to claim otherwise. (We should not be surprised: Aslan recently edited a collection of essays on Middle Eastern literature that included writings in Urdu but nothing in Hebrew.) Muslims and Jews in America calls on both groups to "recognize each other's pain." But, although Israel is fair game, you won't find a word in the book about the hundred-year Arab-Muslim war against minorities in the Middle East, including the mid-20th-century uprooting and shakedown of almost a million Jews. The bias hardly ends there. In a paean to brotherhood, the book includes a 2007 address by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), to the 44th annual convention of the Islam Society of North America (ISNA) and the reciprocal address in the same year by Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of ISNA, to the URJ's 69th annual conference. The problem is that the ISNA has a history of playing host to Muslim extremists; it was once deeply connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Is ISNA's Muslim Brotherhood connection a thing of the past? Does ISNA allow the presence of Muslim extremists only because it seeks to be inclusive? In an honest dialogue we would face and discuss these questions, but on this occasion neither Rabbi Yoffie nor Dr. Mattson did. Instead, Rabbi Yoffie's address was a robust Enlightenment-style attack on the "profound ignorance" that he considers the cause of anti-Muslim passions in America. The book's most egregious example of closed-mindedness posing as enlightened discourse is "American Jews & American Muslims of Love" by Rabbi Michael Lerner, the engine behind the "spiritually progressive" journal Tikkun. Lerner feels no need to pose difficult questions in order to navigate a complex reality. Instead, he strikes an emotional pose. There are two kinds of people in the world, he says, those moved by "fear" and those moved by "love." It's not hard to guess which side Lerner comes down on. "Security," he blithely asserts, "comes from generosity and love." If you think differently, you belong to the "Jews of Fear" (read "conservatives"), part of the fear-mongers in every society who hold back the spiritual evolution of our planet. Such silliness hardly deserves a serious response, though it does highlight the foolishness at the heart of the book, which is especially evident in Peter Geffen's Afterword. Geffen tells the story of how Jews fleeing Morocco left the key of their village synagogue with a local Muslim, who patiently held onto it until a rabbi finally visited the village 45 years later. The Muslim greeted the rabbi with a hearty Hebrew welcome — and even knew how to chant the central Jewish prayer, "Shma Yisrael." A gushing Geffen asks, "Can we in the United States recreate the gentle, subtle tone of Jews and Berber-Muslims living in mutual respect and tolerance?" Aaah. The Muslim was a Berber! This, of course, changes everything. Apparently no one told Geffen that Moroccan Berbers are an oppressed minority with little love for the 100-year-old Arab campaign to erase their identity. It is no wonder that Berbers often identify with Jews. That "gentle, subtle tone of Jews and Berber-Muslims living in mutual respect" needs to be heard against the martial music of the crusading Arab-Islamic fervor that drives these two Middle East minorities together. Geffen and those who share his attitude give every indication that they are profoundly ignorant of such seemingly minor but hugely significant details. So long as Muslim communities around the globe — including America — are investigated with kid gloves, such ignorance will remain depressingly common.
Contact Hadassah Levy by email at harelhadassah@yahoo.com |
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THE FORGOTTEN CHRISTIANS OF THE EAST
Posted by Hands Fiasco, October 11, 2011. |
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This was written by Caroline B. Glick, and it appeared in Jewish World Review (www.jewishworldreview.com It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world |
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On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt's state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February. According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo. State television Sunday night reported only that three soldiers had been killed. According to al-Ahram Online, the military attacked the studios of al-Hurra television on Sunday night to block its broadcast of information on the military assault on the Copts. Apparently the attempt to control information about what happened worked. Monday's news reports about the violence gave little indication of the identity of the dead or wounded. They certainly left untold the story of what actually happened in Cairo on Sunday night. In a not unrelated event, Lebanon's Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai caused a storm two weeks ago. During an official visit to Paris, Rai warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the fall of the Assad regime in Syria could be a disaster for Christians in Syria and throughout the region. Today the Western-backed Syrian opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Rai cautioned that the overthrow of President Bashar Assad could lead to civil war and the establishment of an Islamic regime. In Iraq, the Iranian and Syrian-sponsored insurgency that followed the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in 2003 fomented a bloody jihad against Iraq's Christian population. This month marks the anniversary of last year's massacre of 58 Christian worshippers in a Catholic church in Baghdad. A decade ago there were 800,000 Christians in Iraq. Today there are 150,000. Under the Shah of Iran, Iran's Christians were more or less free to practice their religion. Today, they are subject to the whims of Islamic overlords who know no law other than Islamic supremacism. Take the plight of Yousef Nadarkhani, an evangelical Protestant preacher who was arrested two years ago, tried and sentenced to death for apostasy and refusal to disavow his Christian faith. There is no law against apostasy in Iran, but no matter. Ayatollah Khomeini opposed apostasy. And so does Islamic law. Once Nadarkhani's story was publicized in the West the Iranians changed their course. Now they have reportedly abandoned the apostasy charge and are sentencing Nadarkhani to death for rape. The fact that he was never charged or convicted of rape is neither here nor there. Palestinian Christians have similarly suffered under their popularly elected governments. When the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, Christians made up 80 percent of Bethlehem's population. Today they comprise less than 20% of the population. Since Hamas "liberated" Gaza in 2007, the area's ancient Christian
minority has been under constant attack. With only 3,000 members, Gaza's
Christian community has seen its churches, convents, book stores and
libraries burned by Hamas members and their allies. Its members have
been killed and assaulted. While Hamas has pledged to protect the
Christians of Gaza, no one has been arrested for anti-Christian
violence.
JUST AS the Jews of the Islamic world were forcibly removed from their ancient communities by the Arab rulers with the establishment of Israel in 1948, so Christians have been persecuted and driven out of their homes. Populist Islamic and Arab regimes have used Islamic religious supremacism and Arab racial chauvinism against Christians as rallying cries to their subjects. These calls have in turn led to the decimation of the Christian populations of the Arab and Islamic world. For instance, at the time of Lebanese independence from France in 1946 the majority of Lebanese were Christians. Today less than 30% of Lebanese are Christians. In Turkey, the Christian population has dwindled from 2 million at the end of World War I to less than 100,000 today. In Syria, at the time of independence Christians made up nearly half of the population. Today 4% of Syrians are Christian. In Jordan half a century ago 18% of the population was Christian. Today 2% of Jordanians are Christian. Christians are prohibited from practicing Christianity in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, the Christian population is being systematically destroyed by regime-supported Islamic groups. Church burnings, forced conversions, rape, murder, kidnap and legal persecution of Pakistani Christians has become a daily occurrence. Sadly for the Christians of the Islamic world, their cause is not being championed either by Western governments or by Western Christians. Rather than condition French support for the Syrian opposition on its leaders' commitment to religious freedom for all in a post-Assad Syria, the French Foreign Ministry reacted with anger to Rai's warning of what is liable to befall Syria's Christians in the event President Bashar Assad and his regime are overthrown. The Foreign Ministry published a statement claiming it was "surprised and disappointed," by Rai's statement. The Obama administration was even less sympathetic. Rai is now travelling through the US and Latin America on a three week visit to émigré Maronite communities. The existence of these communities is a direct result of Arab and Islamic persecution of Lebanese Maronite Christians. Rai's visit to the US was supposed to begin with a visit to Washington and meetings with senior administration officials including President Barack Obama. Yet, following his statement in Paris, the administration cancelled all of its scheduled meetings with him. That is, rather than consider the dangers that Rai warned about and use US influence to increase the power of Christians and Kurds and other minorities in any post- Assad Syrian government, the Obama administration decided to blackball Rai for pointing out the dangers. Aside from Evangelical Protestants, most Western churches are similarly uninterested in defending the rights of their co-religionists in the Islamic world. Most mainline Protestant churches, from the Anglican Church and its US and international branches to the Methodists, Baptists, Mennonite and other churches have organized no sustained efforts to protect or defend the rights of Christians in the Muslim world. Instead, over the past decade these churches and their related international bodies have made repeated efforts to attack the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has increased in the past 60 years - Israel. As for the Vatican, in the five years since Pope Benedict XVI laid down the gauntlet at his speech in Regensburg and challenged the Muslim world to act with reason and tolerance it its dealing with other religions, the Vatican has abandoned this principled stand. A true discourse of equals has been replaced by supplication to Islam in the name of ecumenical understanding. Last year Benedict hosted a Synod on Christians in the Middle East that made no mention of the persecution of Christians by Islamic and populist forces and regimes. Instead, Israel was singled out for criticism. The Vatican's outreach has extended to Iran where it sent a representative to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's faux counter terror conference. As Giulio Meotti wrote this week in Ynet, whereas all the EU ambassadors walked out of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denying speech at the UN's second Durban conference in Geneva in 2009, the Vatican's ambassador remained in his seat. The Vatican has embraced leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the Middle East. It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday's events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow. Contact HandsFiasco at handsfiasco@webtv.net |
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ARAB SPRING HAS TURNED AUTUMNAL; TURKEY IS ON A WAR PATH; THE GREATER GOAL CANNOT BE ACCOMPLISHED IN ONE GO
Posted by Steven Shamrak, October 11, 2011. |
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Arab Spring has Turned Autumnal by Jeffrey Goldberg The Middle East is plunging toward crisis. The early promise of Tahrir Square has been supplanted by dismay that the Egyptian authorities — such as they are — allowed mobs to lay siege to the Israeli embassy in Cairo this past weekend. Not long ago, Turkey and Israel were strategic partners. Now, relations between those two key U.S. allies are in ruins. When a recent United Nations report on the deadly confrontation between the Israeli military and a flotilla of Gaza-bound activists that sparked this crisis largely exonerated Israel, Turkey reacted by threatening to send warships to the eastern Mediterranean. And the Jewish state faces a miserable month at the UN, where the Palestinians, who have refused to meet Israel at the negotiating table, are planning to seek recognition as an independent state, with potentially catastrophic consequences for both sides. "As the months of Arab Spring have turned autumnal, Israel has increasingly become a target of public outrage, the New York Times" Ethan Bronner wrote this weekend from Jerusalem. "Some here say Israel is again being made a scapegoat, this time for unfulfilled revolutionary promises. But there is another interpretation, and it is the predominant one abroad - Muslims, Arabs and indeed many around the globe believe Israel is unjustly occupying Palestinian territories, and they are furious at Israel for it." (The third interpretation, which is supported by the history of the conflict, is that Arabs never were interested in peace with Jews. Since 1920s Arabs have been systematically and quite successfully undermining and destroying the inspiration for Jewish homeland - Eretz-Israel!) It Obviously Got Very bad, Very Quickly At least 23 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in Cairo as security forces fought Christian protesters demonstrating against the burning of a church in the south of the country. The ruling military council has promised to protect all Egyptians while the country deals with a transition between a revolution and elections, but Egypt's minority Christians say the council is doing nothing to stop attacks on their churches and people by radical Islamists. Islamist Winds in Egypt - No Jews Allowed For the first time in recent history, Egypt has decided to completely bar Jews from visiting the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira, head of the dynasty that included Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, the famed "Baba Sali." Food for Thought by Steven Shamrak I hate anti-Semitic stupidity of anti-Israel idiots! They have complete contempt of the facts of history, never question words or actions of Israels enemies as Arab propaganda, but always insist that Jews must prove every point they make in Israels defence, which are immediately dismissed and delegitimised as Zionist propaganda, without due consideration. Even pictures of the proposed by PA/PLO/Hamas map of Palestine, which encompass all land of Israel, are dismissed as a Photoshop product made by Zionists. (I wrote this after face to face conversation with a journalist.) Obama's Main Priority The Obama administration is in "intensive" discussion with lawmakers to release $200 million in blocked aid to the PA. Congressmen Gary Ackerman, a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, is saying that "if the PA is willing to place its fate in the hands of the UN, perhaps they should also seek aid from the UN." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said "We still have some money in the pipeline..." US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta insisting the funds have helped improve Israel's security. Meanwhile, it was reported that European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has assured PA officials they were still on the EU dole. (The United States government is financing Islamic terror organizations like PLO and Hamas and Islamic terror sponsored states like Pakistan!) Settlement Freeze or No Talks Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said A return to negotiations requires a commitment by Israel to stop settlement construction and to recognise the 1967 borders (1949 armistice lines -ed.)" (How about - Recognise Israel as a Jewish state and end terror attacks or no talks?) Turkey is on a War Path Turkish warships have been harassing Israeli merchant vessels in waters off Cyprus, ordering them to change course in a bid to assert Turkish mastery in the eastern Mediterranean. Western naval sources say the situation is getting explosive enough to spark a major conflict. Jewish State a "Silly" Idea? "It is silly to talk about a Jewish state," French President Sarkozy said in reference to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's assertion no true peace could be made until officials in Ramallah accepted Israel's essential Jewish identity. "It would be like saying that this table is Catholic." (The idiot has compared state of Israel with a table! But it is not idiotic to ban wearing burkas to protect the French character of his country.) Money does not Buy Love PA officials slammed the freeze of $200 million in aid by US lawmakers while protesters hurl shoes at US diplomats in Ramallah. Ayatollah Pulling Plug on Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the driving force behind Iran's nuclear program and most vocal of Israel's enemies, is on his last legs as president. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stripped him of most of his powers and shut the door against his allies running for the Majlis (parliament) in March 2012. Quote of the Week: "The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators." - Letter from Arafat to Prime Minister Rabin - Sept 9, 1993 - The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, known as Oslo accords, was based on premeditated lies! The Greater Goal Cannot be Accomplished in One Go Following are excerpts from an interview with Abbas Zaki, member of the Fatah Central Committee, which aired on the Al-Jazeera network on September 23, 2011. Abbas Zaki: The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President (Abbas) understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go. If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall - what will become of Israel? It will come to an end... Who is nervous, upset, and angry now? Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama... All those scumbags. Why even get into this? We should be happy to see Israel upset... If we say that we want to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not (acceptable) policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself& (Arabs or so-called Palestinians have always been disrespectful toward Israel and they have never hidden their true intention to destroy the Jewish state. It is time to stop playing the deceitful game called "Peace process" and pursue the Zionist dream of Jewish people. This is the only way for Israel to reunite Jewish land and regain international respect!) Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak.e@gmail.com |
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WOMAN IN LABOR SURVIVES PA LYNCH ATTEMPT
Posted by Maayana Miskin, October 10, 2011. |
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Palestinian Authority terrorists continued their attacks on innocent Jewish motorists over Yom Kippur, this time attacking a woman in labor and her husband as they rushed to the hospital. The husband, Ariel Goldman of Pnei Kedem, told Arutz Sheva that the two were lucky to escape with their lives. Their ordeal began near Har Homa at 2:30 a.m., as they drove to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem. Suddenly, they encountered a point in the road that had been blocked by large stones. As Goldman slowed the car, looking for a way around the trap, several Palestinian Authority terrorists jumped out and began to hurl rocks at the car. The attack turned into a game of cat and mouse, as Goldman looked for ways around the rocks and tried to keep moving, while the terrorists followed the car and continued to pelt it with heavy stones, using a tactic that recently resulted in two deaths near Hevron. The terrorists "had murder in their eyes," Goldman said. He finally managed to pass the stone barrier and speed away from the group of attackers, only to encounter a second group that attempted to stone the car near the Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiot. Goldman managed to speed away a second time. A policewoman he later encountered appeared uninterested by his story, but promised to notify her superiors, he said. Ariel Goldman and his wife managed to reach the hospital, where she gave birth to a baby boy. Both the baby and mother are in good condition. Maayana Miskin writes for Arutz-7, where this article appeared today. |
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ARABS HARVESTING IN ITAMAR: WE WILL TURN YOU INTO FOGELS
Posted by Chana Ya'ar, October 10, 2011. |
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Itamar residents were shocked to see local arabs, some from the Awwad family that brutally murdered five members of the Fogel family, entering the confines of the communityf's security zone barely half a year after the Friday night massacre. The PA village of Awarta's residents were allowed in to harvest olives by Israeli Civil Administration but the Shomron (Samaria) Residents Committee reports that they threw rocks at Itamar residents, yelling "We will turn you into Fogel's", while drawing fingers across their throats to emphasize the threat. Last year, Hakim Awwad, one of the murderers, used the harvest as a means of gathering intelligence about the towns homes and residents. Itamar residents are protesting furiously and young Tamar Fogel, now the oldest surviving member of her family, has joined them. Benny Katsover, head of the Shomron Residents' Committee, had harsh words for the civil administration decision: "There is no limit to the insensitivity and irresponsibility of the civil administration. We thought that even the blatant one-sidedness of the Civil Administration has limits, but once again it has given in to radical left views, at the risk of endangering Jewish lives." Brigadier-General (res.) Rabbi Avichai Ronsky, head of the Itamar Hesder Yeshiva, former IDF Chief Rabbi and once head of the IDF Shomron Brigade, reacted sharply: "Half a year after the murder, the blood still bubbling and the community still tending its bleeding wounds, allowing residents of Awarta, the home of the murderers of the Fogel and Shabo families, into our community — is an irresponsible travesty!" Gershon Mesika, Head of the Shomron Regional Council contacted the commanding ranks of the IDF and Knesset Members in order to stop the murderess clan's harvest: "It is an outrage that cries out to Heaven. A year ago, exactly, I warned the army Civil Administration that terrorists can use the olive harvest as an opportunity to collect intelligence before attacking. In spite of all my warnings, hundreds of Arabs from the village Awarta were allowed into Itamar to harvest the olives and we all know the tragic results. I would expect that this year there would be some logic employed." A PA Arab has been lightly injured after being hit by a rock. He was treated by an IDF soldier at the scene. The circumstances surrounding the attack are not yet clear, sources said. Last March, Tamar Fogel, 12 years old at the time, arrived home at midnight after a Sabbath youth activity to discover that both her parents, her 3-month-old baby sister and two brothers, ages 11 and 4, had been stabbed to death and had their throats slashed. Court documents showed that one of the two Arab terrorists held down the children for slaughter, and shot the mother after the other terrorist stabbed her. The two cousins, Amjad Awad, 19 and Hakim Awad, 18 (17 at the time of the murder), were residents of the neighboring PA Arab village of Awarta. Both expressed pride and no remorse for the crime during the trial. They were sentenced to five consecutive life sentences plus five years in prison, a total of 130 years behind bars. The Israeli government has pointed out repeatedly that murders like the Fogel massacre in Itamar, while not known to have been directed by a specific terrorist organization, are incited by the Palestinian Authority's constant, incessant stream of media invective. "Incitement against Israel, which frequently turns into genuine anti-Semitic incitement, is an inseparable part of the fabric of life in the Palestinian Authority," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pointed out at the time of the murders. Chana Ya'ar writes for Arutz-7, where this article was published today. |
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EGYPT: DESTROYING CHURCHES, ONE AT A TIME
Posted by Raymond Ibrahim, October 10, 2011. |
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What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a few weeks go by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military? The latest chaos in Egypt — where the military opened fire on unarmed Christians and repeatedly ran armored vehicles over them, killing dozens — originates in Edfu, a onetime tourist destination renowned for its pharaonic antiquities, but now known as the latest region to see a church destroyed by a Muslim mob. This church attack is itself eye-opening as to the situation in Egypt. To sum, St. George Coptic church, built nearly a century ago, was so dilapidated that the local council and governor of Aswan approved renovating it, and signed off on the design. It was not long before local Muslims began complaining, making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells — even though the permit approved them — citing that "the Cross irritates Muslims and their children." Coptic leaders had no choice but to acquiesce, "pointing to the fact that the church was rebuilt legally, and any concessions on the part of the church was done for the love for the country, which is passing through a difficult phase." Acquiescence breeds more demands: Muslim leaders next insisted that the very dome of the church be removed — so that the building might not even resemble a church — and that it be referred to as a "hospitality home." Arguing that removal of the dome would likely collapse the church, the bishop refused. The foreboding cries of "Allahu Akbar!" began: Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place; Copts were "forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church"; many starved for weeks. Then, after Friday prayers on Sept. 31, some three thousand Muslims rampaged the church, torched it, and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby Coptic homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims. This account of anti-church sentiment in Egypt offers several conclusions: First, the obvious: animosity for churches, demands that they be left to crumble, demands to remove crosses and stifle bells, are an integral part of Islamic history and dogma. That church attacks in Egypt always occur on Friday, Islam's "holy day," and are always accompanied by religious cries of "Allahu Akbar!" should be evidence enough of the Islamist context of these attacks. Because there was a lull in this animosity from the colonial era to just a few decades ago, most Westerners, deeming events closer to their time and space more representative of reality, incorrectly assume that church toleration is the rule, not the exception in Islamic history, which has more frequently been draconian to churches, and is back: "the Muslim Brotherhood announced immediately after the revolution that it is impossible to build any new church in Egypt, and churches which are demolished should never be rebuilt, as well as no crosses over churches or bells to be rung." This is also why Muslim authorities are complacent, if not complicit. According to witnesses, security forces, which were present during the Edfu attack, "stood there watching." Worse, Edfu's Intelligence Unit chief was seen directing the mob destroying the church. As for the governor of Aswan, he appeared on State TV and "denied any church being torched," calling it a "guest home," (a common tactic to excuse the destruction of churches). He even justified the incident by arguing that the church contractor made the building three meters higher than he permitted: "Copts made a mistake and had to be punished, and Muslims did nothing but set things right, end of story." Equally telling is that perpetrators of church attacks are seldom if ever punished. Even if sometimes the most rabid church-destroying Muslims get "detained," it is usually for show, as they are released in days, hailed back home as heroes (this, too, goes back to Muslim dogma, which naturally sides with Muslims over infidels). This year alone has seen the New Year church attack, which left 23 dead; the destruction of the ancient church of Sool, where Muslims "played soccer" with its sacred relics; the Imbaba attacks, where several churches were set aflame; and now Edfu, wherein, as usual "none of the attackers were arrested." Indeed, three days after Edfu, Muslims attacked yet another church. Aware that they are untouchable, at least when it comes to making infidel Christians miserable, anti-Christian Muslims have a simple strategy: destroy churches, even if one at a time, safe in the knowledge that, not only will they not be prosecuted, but Egypt's military and security apparatus will punish the infidel victims should they dare to protest. This was published in Hudson New York and is archived at
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ISLAMIST WINDS IN EGYPT? 'NO JEWS ALLOWED' AT HOLY SITE
Posted by Maayana Miskin, October 10, 2011. |
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The Arab Spring is turning into an Arab Winter for Israeli and Diaspora Jews. For the first time in recent history, Egypt has decided to completely bar Jews from visiting the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira, head of the dynasty that included Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, the famed "Baba Sali." The decision, issued by regional ruler Mukhtar el-Hamlawi, was reported by the Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa. El-Hamlawi reported that a Cairo court had ruled that celebrations are forbidden at the tomb, and Jewish visitors would be barred for that reason. In addition, he said, "We prohibit Jews from visiting the tomb because we identify with the Palestinian people, and because we do not want to offend the Egyptian public's sensitivities." Egyptian opposition parties, led by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, attempted to prevent Israeli Jews from visiting the rabbi's tomb in 2009. While then-President Hosni Mubarak agreed to allow the visits, the pilgrimage was cancelled for the first time as opposition parties vowed to prevent Jews from visiting. Mubarak continued to allow Israelis to visit, and even announced in 2010 that he would grant an unlimited number of permits. Since Mubarak's ouster in early 2011, Salafi Islam has been on the rise, while the Jew-hating Muslim Brotherhood has been gaining political power. The changes have led to security anarchy in Sinai, an extremely high terror alert for Israeli visitors, and persecution of religious minorities in Egypt, primarily Coptic Christians. This was written by Maayana Miskin, who writes for Arutz-7, where this article appeared today. |
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FROM ISRAEL: THE SHADOW AND THE JOY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 10, 2011. |
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The shadow has been encroaching slowly in the course of the last ten years. It is a left-wing shadow that would eagerly and maliciously surrender parts of our heritage. Very briefly: Since 1967, Israel has neither annexed nor declared the application of Israeli civil law over Judea and Samaria or any part thereof. (This has been the case only with eastern Jerusalem and the Golan.) Thus, Judea and Samaria are governed by the IDF — which, as we know, is headed by a left-wing Ehud Barak. The laws that apply are military, not the same civil laws that apply in Israel within the Green Line. But there is more. The IDF has formulated a civil administration and allocated to it everyday governance of Judea and Samaria. Over the last several years, that administration has been co-opted by left wing elements (aligned with the New Israel Fund, I have been informed). ~~~~~~~~~~ In Judea and Samaria, there are communities that are identified as "unauthorized." I'm not talking about two caravans on a hillside. I'm speaking of communities where families live in permanent housing. They went to live in their communities with the blessings of various Israeli governments. They received permits for Israeli services — building of roads, bringing in of water pipes and electric lines, etc. Those who live in these houses are Israeli citizens who pay taxes. What is missing in these cases is the final military authorization — and that has been withheld for political reasons. Now comes some Arab who points a finger at some housing in one of these communities and says, "That's my land those houses are sitting on." And the left wing civil administration of the area demurs, saying, well, if Israel has never established that this is Israeli land, and this Arab claims the area, we'll have to demolish the housing. Such demolitions have taken place several times — most recently in Migron. Sometimes they — the Border Police — come in the middle of the night, move out traumatized families, and take down the houses. In Migron, when this happened in September, the eyes of Israel and the world were focused on the violence in the south. I write this with a terrible sense of shame, that this should be
happening here. A short video clip shows a nighttime demolition:
Another video shows the morning after Migron demolitions: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnIfB6pwDL8. ~~~~~~~~~~ Now the word is out that not only individual houses but entire "unauthorized" communities may be slated for demolition. The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, cooperating with three other groups, is fighting this on legal grounds. Working furiously, they are preparing a document that lays the groundwork on a technical and legal basis for analyzing the situation in each case with regard to the right of Jews to remain in their housing. The word of some Arab who points a finger and makes declarations would not suffice. In instances (which, once documentation were required, would likely be very few) where it turns out that the building really was done on privately owned Arab land, it is the responsibility of the government, which encouraged and facilitated this settlement in the first place, to find an alternative place to live for those whose housing is destroyed. But nothing of the sort takes place. What is more, what must be looked at is the reprehensible selective enforcement of policies: There is a vast amount of illegal building by Arabs and Bedouins that is taking place with very few demolitions. (I hope to follow with more on this.) ~~~~~~~~~~ A few additional comments here: First with regard to the head of the Israeli Supreme Court, Dorit Benish, who is as left-wing as Israeli justices come. What is happening is not essentially her doing. I was told today by a representative of the Legal Forum that the civil administration of Judea and Samaria does her work for her, in essence. They come in to court and declare that they think certain housing should be demolished, and she needs only to sign on to this. Then with regard to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It is often said that as long as Barak is Defense Minister he cannot over-rule him with regard to what happens in Judea and Samaria. I have confirmed today that this is not the case. If Netanyahu wants to take a stand on this, he would prevail. So far he has chosen not to take a stand against his Defense Minister, and it's time for him to be called on this. ~~~~~~~~~~ Lastly, I want to talk briefly about applying Israeli civil law to/or annexing the part of Judea and Samaria where there are Jewish communities. That would solve the problem, and it would be my fondest wish. However, I am not writing as a pure ideologue here, but rather as an ideological pragmatist. I want all of my readers who are purists on this issue to understand — before they write to me. Netanyahu is not going to apply Israeli civil law to communities in Judea and Samaria at this point. He's still playing that game — agreeing to come back to the table, etc. Oslo is dead. It was in its death-throes even before, but it died a certain death on the day Abbas unilaterally went to the UN. It SHOULD be time for Israel to take unilateral action of her own. But each step in its time. Netanyahu has not yet signed the death certificate. Let's work now to stop housing from being demolished. Then we'll move to what comes next. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so, the outcry of each of us is called for. Instructions follow below. Please! Numbers count. Netanyahu is a political animal — he hears it when there are many voices reaching him. Before Sukkot starts, get out your protest in the appropriate form, and share this with as many people as possible. ~~~~~~~~~~ If you are an Israeli citizen, please contact Prime Minister Netanyahu:
Speaking as a citizen of Israel, convey a sense of great urgency. But I implore you to keep your message short, direct, clear and polite. No speeches, no history lessons. Tell him that if he allows communities in Judea and Samaria to be dismantled, he is betraying all he has stood for. Insist that he over-rule the civil administration in Judea and Samaria, and the position of Defense Minister Barak, and that he stop all orders for dismantling of any Jewish communities. Tell him you know that there is a process being developed for a more fair and legally proper analysis of the situation, and that he should facilitate and then utilize this. ~~~~~~~~~~ If you are in the US, contact either the Embassy in Washington DC or the appropriate Consulate. The list, with the regions each is responsible for, follows. Rest assured, the Embassy and the Consulates must report to the government when they receive communication on an issue from the local population. Make sure there is an outcry where you are, and Jerusalem will know about it. Say that you are speaking out in alarm as a supporter of Israel (and, if it is the case, as a Jew). Indicate that you have learned of plans for dismantling Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and wish to protest this. Say you know that a legal process that will handle the situation more appropriately is being developed and you want to see it utilized. Insist that Netanyahu over-rule his Defense Minister and the civil administration of Judea and Samaria. A phone call or fax is always better than an e-mail. Keep your message short, direct, clear and polite Israel Embassy, Washington DC http://www.israelemb.org/
~~~~~~~~~~ Atlanta Consulate General of Israel http://atlanta.mfa.gov.il/
Boston Consulate General of Israel http://boston.mfa.gov.il/
Chicago Consulate General of Israel http://chicago.mfa.gov.il/
Houston Consulate General of Israel http://houston.mfa.gov.il/
Los Angeles Consulate General of Israel http://www.israella.org/
Miami Consulate General of Israel http://miami.mfa.gov.il/
New York Consulate General of Israel http://www.israelfm.org/
Philadelphia Consulate General of Israel http://philadelphia.mfa.gov.il/
San Francisco Consulate General of Israel http://www.israeliconsulate.org/
~~~~~~~~~~ If you live elsewhere, you can locate your appropriate Embassy or Consulate here:
See instructions for Americans, and follow through the same. ~~~~~~~~~~ Khaled Abu Toameh describes (October 7) the people with whom we are theoretically supposed to sit down at a negotiating table, in "Palestinians' Shoe-throwing Exortion": "American diplomats who arrived in Ramallah this week were greeted by angry Palestinian protesters who shouted anti-US slogans and hurled shoes — the Palestinian Authority claims it was only one pair of shoes — at their armored vehicles. ~~~~~~~~~~ Today, in a follow-up, Abu Toameh reported in the JPost that Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee and former commander of the PA's General Intelligence Force in the West Bank, said on Sunday, at a rally of university students in Hevron, that the US is the number one enemy of the Palestinians since it supports Israeli "oppression." Tirawi assured his audience that Fatah has not abandoned the armed struggle option: "Fatah hasn't thrown the rifle aside." ~~~~~~~~~~ Does any of this have the slightest effect on the Quartet position? Nahhh.. of course not. Speaking after a Quartet meeting in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced that Israelis and Palestinians would be invited to a meeting soon, to encourage re-starting the negotiations: "I believe we have made good progress (really?) and will keep in close contact with Quartet partners and colleagues in the region with a view to meet and move things forward." As one friend of mine is fond of saying, "Unreal!" ~~~~~~~~~~ Ending on a positive note: During Yom Kippur, my rabbi (Ian Pear, Shir Hadash) spoke about the joy and enhanced gratitude for life that follows a brush with death. The day after Yom Kippur, Liat Collins wrote a marvelous piece — "An Israeli autumn" — in the JPost that echoed this very theme. Here in Israel, she says, we have fear of war as imminent. And yet, according to a Gallup poll, Israel ranks higher on the happiness index than Australia, the US, and all of Europe. "Maybe we're happy," she muses, "because we've already been through so much — and thrived." Indeed. There is no moment in the Yom Kippur service more solemn than the final blast of the shofar, she says, and yet, "as soon as the last note fades, the sound of singing rings out 'Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem.' "Whatever the news, whatever the year might bring, we begin preparing for the next festival, Sukkot, just four days away."~~~~~~~~~~ There is something else Collins speaks about in her piece that reflects beautifully a message that I try to convey in terms of what it means to live in Israel: "This is the only country in the world in which Yom Kippur is not only marked: it is truly felt... She gives many examples of ways in which this is so. One charming example before Yom Kippur is the buses, which on their digital signs above the windshields that give the destinations, alternate those destinations with the words "hatima tova" — be signed for a good year. Blessings upon the Jewish state of Israel, with all her faults. ~~~~~~~~~~ This is likely my last posting before Sukkot, which begins Wednesday evening. I expect that I will not post again until after the holiday. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com
and visit her website:
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BAAA BAAA TENURED SHEEP
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 10, 2011. |
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It would be hard to find a better illustration of the politicization and the anti-democratic character of Israel's dual judicial system. The story begins with a woman named Yifat Alkobi, a married woman
from Kiryat Arba. She was arrested in 2007 for spitting and throwing
stones at a Palestinian she claims was harassing her, the accusations
against Alkobi being based on "testimony" from the radical anti-Israel
NGO Yesh Din. She has been in the news before, accused of spitting on
and cursing a Palestinian neighbor
But while being transported to prison she asked a Jewish policeman conducting her there not to leave her alone with Arab policemen. The Arab policemen were probably actually Druse or Bedouin border patrolmen. When word of her comment reached the Deputy Attorney General Shai Nitzan, he ordered that she be charged with "insulting a public servant," the favorite bludgeon of Nitzan to suppress the freedom of speech of non-leftists. Shai Nitzan, you recall, is essentially a Soviet-style official in charge of using the judicial system to persecute the Israeli Right and suppress freedom of speech. He is behind the campaign to arrest and indict anyone who recommends that people read a controversial book that Nitzan considers to be racist. He persecutes and harasses rabbis. He ordered a faculty member at the University of Haifa to report to the police, KGB style, about comments he made in his classroom, comments Nitzan considered bigoted but the University administration did not. This is the same Shai Nitzan who has never gotten around to indicting any of the Israel far leftists who call for murdering non-leftists and settlers, who endorse terrorism, and who call for mass lawbreaking and refusal to serve in the military. This is the same Nitzan who never indicts Arab public figures in Israel for endorsing terrorism and murder. But when a Jewish woman asks not to be left alone with Arab policemen, this was a transgression about which Nitzan leapt into action. Had an Arab woman asked not to be left alone in the company of Jewish men, Nitzan would never have done anything at all. Alkobi never said she would object to being left alone with Arab police WOMEN. But the affair did not end there. It turns out that a young conscientious judge in the Jerusalem magistrate's court named Dov Pollack spoke out against Nitzan's behavior. When the Alkobi case came before him, Pollack ordered the police to explain in court how it arrived at this charge against her. The police opposed the demand to explain and demanded that Pollack recuse himself from sitting in the case, claiming he was "biased" and had "expressed political opinions." In addition, the police claimed that Pollack commented that Nitzan's behavior was due to the fact that he enjoyed the backing of the current Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Dorit Beinisch. Allegedly Pollack said that since Beinisch is due to retire in February he would schedule the trial for March in order for objectivity to be maintained. He also is alleged to have said that this was hardly the first case of one-sided biased prosecution by Shai Nitzan. In response, the Attorney General Moshe Lador, the leftist boss of Shai Nitzan, decided to file an official complaint against Judge Pollack with the "Commissioner for Complaints against Judges." The commissioner actually cannot fire a judge and the complaint is mainly a nuisance tactic. Pollack fired back his own letter of response, accusing Lador of improperly attempting to influence court procedures and decisions. (Alkobi was acquitted of the charges by a different judge, not Pollack.) So here we have the spectacle of a biased leftist State Prosecutor refusing to fire his own biased politicized deputy for his years of anti-democratic actions and his assaults against freedom of speech. And this same State Prosecutor is now attempting to suppress the freedom of speech of a judge and harass that judge for daring to question the political motives of Shai Nitzan in an obviously absurd indictment of a woman for doing nothing more than ask not to be left alone with Arab policemen. Shai Nitzan should have been indicted for bigotry, not Mrs. Alkobi. 2. People outside of the academic world have a great deal of difficulty believing how much of academia consists of sheep-like herd behavior. Having spent much of my professional career at the University of Haifa, I see the herd behavior all the time. The latest outbreak of mass sheep-like herd behavior developed at the University of Haifa in response to the recent vandalization of a mosque in the town of Tuba Zangria in Israel's north. First let me say that I am disgusted with any vandalization of any mosque or any other site regarded by any religion as sacred. I was revolted by the Florida preacher burning Korans. Civilized people do not dishonor the objects and buildings regarded by other religions as sacred. Israel has seen several acts of vandalization of Moslem sites, in most cases consisting of writing graffiti. A handful of youths, mainly teenagers, calling themselves "Price Tag," are widely suspected of being behind these, although I suspect the Kahanists. The "Price Tag" people are hooligans who also curse and attack Israeli police and soldiers and call them Nazis. I am all in favor of prosecuting them and would have no objection to their undergoing intense spanking. The vandalization of the Tuba Zangria mosque was probably the work of one or a few of these. Two youths have been arrested. There have been some other cases of vandalization this week, including graffiti at Moslem and Christian cemeteries in Jaffa (not counting the torching of a Jaffa synagogue by Arabs). I would not be surprised if these were the work of the same two or three kids. To put this into perspective, the incidence of mosque vandalization in Israel is small compared with the US and parts of Europe, and probably only involves a handful of kids. (The police claim that some of the Jaffa mischief is related to football/soccer hooliganism. In soccer games in Israel, Jews and Arabs sometimes yell "Death to Jews" and "Death to Arabs" at each other from the stands. One of the more popular soccer teams is the all-Arab "Sons of Sakhnin," and the catcalls are common when it plays. Soccer hooliganism is hardly an Israeli invention, of course, which is one reason I have always favored all newspaper reporting about soccer matches where hooliganism appears being printed in Talmudic Aramaic.) Let us note that there has not been a single Jewish public figure in Israel from any part of the political spectrum who has condoned the vandalizations. To the contrary, from Netanyahu on down the vandalizations were universally condemned in Israel. The matter became a University of Haifa obsession after the campus "Jewish-Arab Center," headed by a Jewish professor, issued a formal statement condemning the vandalization of the mosque. As your humble curmudgeon pointed out on a campus chat list for professors, condemning the mosque vandalization was all well and good, but the statement by the "Jewish-Arab Center" was issued the day AFTER Joseph's Tomb in Nablus was vandalized there by Palestinian terrorists, who painted swastikas all over the structure. The statement by the "Center" condemning what happened in Tuba Zangria never so much as mentioned the incident at Joseph's Tomb. The Tomb has been regularly vandalized by Palestinians every few weeks for many years. Your humble curmudgeon asked if the Jewish-Arab Center was only outraged by vandalization of Moslem shrines. Several professors wrote me nasty responses, telling me I should be ashamed of myself. Several other professors openly justified the vandalizations of Joseph's Tomb as legitimate acts of resistance. You can see one example posted at the top of http://isracampus.org.il/. Professors justifying the swastika painting at Joseph's Tomb claimed that it was not even a historical Jewish structure, that it was myth that Joseph was buried there, that it was actually a Moslem shrine. (The fact that the Moslem structures atop the Temple Mount are based on historic myth has never been proposed as a reason to remove them.) Never mind that local Arabs in Nablus all call it Joseph's Tomb in Arabic. One professor insisted that it was nothing at all like the mosque vandalization because the mosque vandals were motivated by hatred, while the swastika painters on Joseph's Tomb were motivated by a desire for peace and freedom and an end to occupation. Other professors objected that since Nablus was "outside Israel," the swastikas at Joseph's Tomb "do not count." I pointed out that there have been countless acts of vandalization of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries within Israel's Green Line 1967 borders, and of course those praying at the Western Wall have often been attacked by Moslems on the Temple Mount throwing things down at them, so there were plenty of incidents against Jews that the Jewish Arab Center could condemn. One professor told me I should be ashamed of making such statements just before Yom Kippur and its calls for atonement and the need for all Jews to atone for the vandalization. I responded that the discussion on the professors chat list about the mosque incident did indeed remind me of Yom Kippur, because of the part in the Yom Kippur prayers in which humans are described as sheep in a herd. This is not the first time the Jewish-Arab Center showed its biases. This past summer the head of the center issued a special greeting sent to everyone on campus wishing Moslems a happy Ramadan and an "easy fast" (obviously not a traditional Moslem greeting but a Jewish one). The statement was issued a few days before Tisha B'Av. At the time I asked why no wishes for an easy fast were sent out by the Center to Jews that week. Later, no doubt due to my jabbing my finger in their eye, the Center would send Happy Near Year greetings to Jews on Rosh Hashana, but again no "easy fast" for Yom Kippur. Perhaps the "Jewish Arab Center" should be renamed the Arab Center. In response to the statement by the Jewish Arab Center, large numbers of University of Haifa faculty members issued calls to go the Tuba Zangria to pay solidarity visits and to show the locals how horrified they are of the vandalization of the mosque. Some professors proposed using University funds to repair the mosque. Dozens of professors issued herd-like endorsements on the professors chat list of the calls to make pilgrimage to Tuba Zangria. Lest this appear to be merely the herd response of bleeding hearts and do-gooders, it should also be pointed out that many of those joining the herd were the very same people who campaigned against the singing of Hatikva at University of Haifa graduation ceremonies. The initiator of the solidarity caravan had suggested that the PLO "anthem" be sung at those ceremonies. Not a single one of those joining the herd condemned the swastikas at Joseph's Tomb. None of the professors proposed visiting the Jaffa synagogue that was torched this week by Arabs. Not a single one had ever issued a condemnation of Arab vandalization or Arab terrorist attacks against Jews. Not a single one of those joining the herd had denounced the massacre of children at the Merkaz Harav yeshiva in West Jerusalem in 2008, and in fact a few of the professors had justified that attack at the time. Those who were so adamant about how religious sensitivities must be respected spent Yom Kippur sending out email messages organizing a caravan of cars to Tuba Zangria the next day, to show their solidarity. It goes without saying that when their beloved Palestinians have attacked synagogues, including when those synagogues happened to have praying Jews inside (Paris and Istanbul come to mind), not a single member of the academic herd condemned this on the professors chat lists. So large numbers of University of Haifa academics are horrified by cases of juvenile Jewish vandals damaging Moslem (and occasionally Christian) sites, but consider vandalization of Jewish holy sites and murdering Jews to be legitimate protest and resistance. I think the entire matter can be summed up nicely with this nursery rhyme: Baaa Baaa Tenured Sheep, have you any wool,
Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@gmail.com His website address is
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A STATE IS BORN IN PALESTINE
Posted by John Cohn, October 9, 2011. |
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This was written by Ronen Bergman
and it is archived in
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Sixty-four years ago, in August 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine presented to the General Assembly a startling and unexpected report, calling for an end to the British Mandate of Palestine and division of most of the territory into two independent states, with the Jewish state occupying the majority of the land. What came next, of course, is well known — a vote in the General Assembly on Nov. 29, 1947, in favor of partition, and the war that immediately followed. The decision is viewed in the Arab world as "the great crime," and Palestinian leaders, including the current president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, regard it as the original sin that led to the catastrophe, the nakba, that befell their nation — a disaster they now want the General Assembly to remedy. What is not widely known is how a possibly pro-Arab committee, or at least one that was supposed to be neutral, came to issue a report that led directly to the establishment of the state of Israel. What happened on that committee's trip to Palestine, and how were the minds of its members changed in a way that so radically altered history? For decades, Unscop's classified documents were scattered in archives all over the world, and only recently have they been made available. Many were discovered by the historian Elad Ben-Dror, whose book on the Unscop role in the Arab-Israeli conflict will soon be published. The committee consisted of 11 members who arrived in Palestine on June 15, 1947. Because the U.S. and Britain wished to maintain the appearance of neutrality, no international powers were represented in the delegation. The Palestinians believed a deal to establish a Jewish state had already been made behind closed doors and so ordered a complete boycott of committee proceedings. Palestinians were warned against making any contact whatsoever with Unscop, and Arab journalists were forbidden to cover their visit. Out of fear of appearing to support one side over the other, the British, too, avoided contact with the committee. In the vacuum created by the Arabs and the British, Zionist diplomats and spies were able to work unencumbered on the Unscop members. The Jewish Agency (the representative body of the Jewish community in the British Mandate) appointed a former British intelligence officer, Aubrey (Abba) Eban, to serve as a liaison with Unscop. Eban focused his energies on two Latin American members, from Guatemala and Uruguay, who became increasingly pro-Zionist as the committee's investigation proceeded, providing Eban with inside information on specific members and their deliberations. Alongside Eban, the entire intelligence service of the Jewish underground organization Haganah was put to work monitoring Unscop members. Microphones were placed in hotel and conference rooms. All phone conversations were tapped. The cleaning staff in the building in Jerusalem where the committee held daily hearings was replaced by female agents who reported back each day on its activities. The tactic did not go unnoticed. A member of the Swedish delegation complained that the women on the cleaning staff were "too pretty and educated. They are the eyes and ears of the Zionist leaders, who come to hearings with replies prepared in advance." The committee's chairman, Emil Sandstrom, also suspected the Guatemalan member of leaking information to Eban. "I don't know that he took their money," Sandstrom commented, "but he certainly took their girls." At the end of each day, intelligence was collated and circulated to the heads of the Jewish community under the code name Delphi Report, which bore the inscription "Read and destroy!" The Haganah also gathered personal information on each member, in an effort to discover his particular areas of interest and vulnerabilities. On many of the field trips that committee members took, efforts were made to ensure that they serendipitously encountered someone who spoke their language or shared a common interest. N. S. Blom, a former Dutch official in Indonesia, arrived in Palestine with a pro-Arab agenda, but during his stay he found himself in frequent impromptu meetings with immigrants from the Netherlands, who pressed a different perspective upon him. On one occasion, while traveling in his official vehicle, he came across two farmers herding dairy cows across the road. When Blom got out of the car he discovered that, amazingly, the two farmers were immigrants from the Netherlands. Even more important, their cows were also of Dutch stock! In his otherwise dry reports to the Dutch Foreign Ministry, a welling up of national pride over the contribution of Dutch dairy farming to agriculture in the Holy Land stands out. Wherever they went in Arab centers of population, committee members encountered empty streets and Palestinian Arabs fleeing restaurants in fear for their lives. Their experience in Jewish areas was quite different. In Tel Aviv, the day Unscop visited was declared a public holiday. The streets were decorated with flags, and friendly crowds surrounded the members wherever they went. The mayor of Tel Aviv welcomed them warmly, and at the end of a meeting at City Hall, the members were invited to step out on the balcony, at which point the crowd below broke into the Jewish anthem, "Hatikvah." Even the Iranian delegate, Nasrollah Entezam, initially viewed by the Jewish Agency as a die-hard opponent of Zionism, turned into a supporter of sorts. During a visit to an agricultural settlement in the Negev, Entezam's Jewish liaison officer (who was a Persian-speaking Haganah agent) overheard him telling a colleague: "What asses the Arabs are! The country is so beautiful, and it can be developed. If they gave it all to the Jews, they would transform it into Europe!" By contrast, committee members were dismayed by what they saw of British rule in Palestine. The U.N. secretary general's main representative on the committee, the American Ralph Bunche, wrote of "daily bombings, shootings, kidnappings, sirens, security checks." Some members traveled to the port city Haifa, where they witnessed 4,500 Holocaust refugees being taken off the famous ship Exodus and transferred to another vessel that would take them back to Europe. The Swede Sandstrom was particularly affected by the experience. "Without this evidence, our investigation would not have been complete," he wrote in one of the classified documents located by Ben-Dror. There were also meetings, some held secretly, with Jewish representatives and leaders of underground organizations. The Jewish leadership impressed the committee with its moderation. David Ben-Gurion's willingness to accept a watered-down partition plan, for example, went well beyond the Jewish political consensus of the day. The underground leaders painted a rosy (and false) picture of the Jewish community's ability to defend itself in case of war. By contrast, the sole Arab official willing to speak to the delegation, the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, informed the visitors that the Arabs would not under any circumstances give up on the establishment of an Arab state extending over the entire territory of Palestine. Nearly three months later, Unscop duly presented its report. The General Assembly voted in favor of partition, and the next day the Arabs went to war with the express goal of annihilating the Jewish community in Palestine. The day before the vote in the General Assembly, the C.I.A. sent President Truman a classified report, "The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine," arguing that the Jewish community in Palestine would collapse under Arab attack and warning that partition and war in the Middle East would do serious harm to American interests in the region. The State Department took the same position. Last-minute U.S. diplomatic efforts to create an international trusteeship for Palestine failed, as did pressure on the Jewish leadership to delay the declaration of a Jewish state. President Truman acknowledged the inevitable, and the representative of the Zionist movement in Washington was invited to formally request recognition. The new Jewish state did not yet have a name. In his haste to submit the request, the representative left the name of the country blank — to be filled in later.
Contact John Cohn at john.r.cohn@gmail.com
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NEW CHARGE OVER HOSTILE COLUMBIA CLASSROOM.
U.S. REPORTEDLY PROBING WHETHER JEWISH STUDENT WAS 'STEERED'
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 9, 2011. |
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This was written by Marc Tracy and it appeared October 4, 2011
in the Tablet
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It's possible Morningside Heights has found its annual autumn incident. A U.S. Department of Education committee is investigating whether a Columbia University department head "steered" a Jewish student away from taking a class on the Mideast taught by Professor Joseph Massad due to the perception that she would be "uncomfortable" because of the professor's pro-Palestinian tilt, according to the Institute for Jewish & Community Research's Kenneth L. Marcus, the complainant in the case. According to Marcus, Judith Jacobson, an epidemiology professor at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health who is also active in campus politics, informed him of the alleged incident. He also said that Education's Office for Civil Rights, which he headed for a time during the Bush administration, informed him it had granted its request to launch a probe. "The University has strong policies against discrimination and we treat allegations of discrimination of any kind very seriously," Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger said through a press officer. "It is important to note that the individual complaint appears to relate to academic advising at Barnard College and in no way involves Professor Joseph Massad. Based on these facts, therefore, it is extremely unfair for Professor Massad to be cited in a matter in which he played no part whatsoever." Added Barnard Vice President for Communications Joanne Kwong: "We do not tolerate discrimination by any member of the College community, so we are carefully exploring and reviewing the claims made about this alleged incident. As this is a pending investigation, it would be inappropriate and premature to comment any further at this time." OCR has not replied to a request for comment. Massad was one of a few members of Columbia's Middle Eastern Studies faculty who came under fire in 2005 in a film produced by the David Project, a pro-Israel advocacy group. The documentary, Columbia Unbecoming, featured several students alleging that Massad and others had cultivated classrooms hostile to pro-Israel voices. Maybe most memorably, Massad was accused of asking one student, who had identified himself as a former Israeli soldier, how many Palestinians he had killed. Massad disputes the story. (He has not replied to a request for comment.) A subsequent investigation by Columbia did not lead to any of the professors leaving, prompting critics to call it a whitewash. Technically, "Barnard's Middle East studies department chair" (Barnard is an all-women college at Columbia) is accused of encouraging the student, who was dressed as an Orthodox Jewish woman would be, not to take a particular class in January 2011, in violation of federal civil rights law. (In the spring 2011 semester, Massad's class was a seminar on "Contemporary Culture in the Arab World"; this fall, he is teaching an open lecture on "Palestinian-Israeli Politics and Society.") But Marcus' actual beef is not with the act of steering by the individual department head. It's with Columbia's alleged failure to address the perception that Massad's classes might make Jewish students unduly uncomfortable. "The big question is whether Massad is violating students' rights too," Marcus wrote. "If there is a problem in Professor Massad's classroom, as the Barnard chair may believe, then steering Jewish students away is not the solution. Nor is it the biggest problem. The biggest problem may be the failure of some universities to take anti-Semitism allegations seriously, especially when academic freedom is frivolously invoked." In an interview this morning, Marcus said that he looked forward to the investigation itself and for the potential for Columbia to negotiate a voluntary settlement. "We would want to see Columbia take firm actions to ensure not only that the steering problem is addressed, but more importantly that Jewish students are not facing a hostile environment in Middle East studies classes," he told me. When asked if that meant he wanted Massad's resignation, he demurred, slightly: "We would like for Columbia to look into what's going on, especially in Professor Massad's class, and reconsider whether the investigation they did a few years ago is really adequate," he said. "If it turns out as a result of the investigation that there's a hostile environment for Jewish students in any Columbia classes, then the instructors need to be dealt with." In addition to working at the OCR, as assistant secretary of education for civil rights, Marcus was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. That independent commission has a mandate to examine all charges of civil rights violations, although on its Website, the most prominently trumpeted specific issue is, "Ending Campus Anti-Semitism." According to Marcus, he issued a guidance for the OCR to police campus anti-Semitism, which, he said, it not do since he left the office, in 2004, until last year, when, partly after the lobbying of several Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Obama administration adopted an anti-bullying policy that reinstated that mandate. Marcus has also served as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Indeed, the legal notion of "steering" primarily comes out of that jurisprudence; "It is similar," Marcus wrote of what allegedly happened to the student, "to what happens when a realtor tells a young African American couple that they would not be 'comfortable' living in a particular white neighborhood." He told me that applying steering in this context was "a somewhat novel theory, but," he added, "it fits exactly." Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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FAR-LEFT HAARETZ JOURNALIST EXCORIATES ISRAEL
Posted by YogiRUs, October 9, 2011. |
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Attached is a piece that delves into the mind and actions of a classic self-hating Jew. Psychiatrists and psychologists can interpret Amira Hass better than I. Suffice it to say that she has worked assiduously for years to defame her own people and aid in destruction of Israel, while working for Haaretz, which often reflects her views. It is vital that friends of Israel read and seek to understand this mentality, for we always harbor in our midst a few such people, who will tell any lie and use any method in order to defame and harm their own people.We have produced such distorted personalities throughout our history. Today, some masquerade as journalists, even working for prestigious journals. We must know them for what they are, so we are forewarned. In earlier eras, they acted as agents of overt violent oppression. In more modern times, some were kapos in the ghettos and death camps. Today they masquerade as anti-Zionists seeking justice for the "poor oppressed Palestinians." As a connoisseur of the obscene and grotesque, I find them important to study.. As a friend of Israel, I also find them beyond disgusting. So just as we study cancer, so we should take careful heed of the Amira Hasses. This below was written by David Lev. |
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While most Jews were busy celebrating Rosh Hashana, far-left journalist Amira Hass was regaling an audience in Vancouver with chilling tales of "the occupation" - the horrors that Hass claims Israel has been perpetrating against Arabs in Judea and Samaria for decades. But besides talking politics, Hass also talked about Israeli society — and how she no longer sees herself as a part of it. Accusing Israel of being an "apartheid state" that was carrying out an "ethnic cleansing against Palestinians," Hass told attendees at the event sponsored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East — a far left "activist" group that supported the illegal Turkish flotilla and the attempted lynch of IDF soldiers — that she had felt far more welcome during the several periods she lived in Gaza and Ramallah than she did in the country of her birth. And in an interview with Paul Weinberg of the Canadian site Rabble, Hass, the daughter of Holocaust refugees, said "To tell you the truth I cannot see myself living in a purely Jewish environment. I will not be able to move back to Israel if I had to, and to live in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.... I told my Palestinian friends, who are Israeli citizens, okay if I am kicked out of Ramallah, I will go and live in a Palestinian neighborhood, in Israel itself." Hass is currently in Canada on a speaking tour. Hass espoused in person the solutions she has for years presented as a columnist at Ha'aretz; the need for a binational state, how Israel is the only party that is standing in the way of peace, the need for more international action against Israel, Israel as an "apartheid" state, etc. Besides the Rosh Hashana talk in Vancouver, Hass had already spoken, or is scheduled to speak, to audiences in Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton, Halifax, London, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg. That talk took place last Friday night, the night of Yom Kippur. Jewish community officials in both Vancouver and Winnipeg expressed sadness and shock that Hass was holding her events on the holiest days of the Jewish year, denying observant Jews the opportunity to come hear her speak, if they were so inclined. Hass is not speaking for free; Kairos, a group that represents Christian churches and is a co-sponsor of the tour, said that tickets to the Canadian events cost $15 ($10 for students). The fee is to "offset the expenses of the tour and is not a fundraiser," the Kairos website says. Hass has written hundreds of columns over the years accusing Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria of almost every ill under the sun — but her allegations have often been called outright lies by those she accuses. And in at least one case, an Israeli court agreed with them, when members of the Hevron Jewish community sued Hass and Ha'aretz for claiming that they had defiled the body of a dead Arab, kicking it and spitting on it. The 2001 incident occurred, Hass claimed, when IDF soldiers chased down and killed a terrorist in a Jewish neighborhood of Hevron. After the terrorist was killed, Hass said, Jews kicked the body and otherwise defiled it, before being shooed away by soldiers. Jewish residents of Hevron denied the charges, and demanded that Hass retract the story. She refused, and the community sued — with the court agreeing, after seeing evidence in the form of television video, that Hass had made the story up out of whole cloth. Ha'aretz was forced to pay NIS 250,000 in damages for the story that the court ruled had been libelous, with "malice aforethought" - an extremely rare decision for an Israeli court, where libel charges are usually too difficult to prove. Hass, in her defense, said that she had simply been "reporting the facts" as they had been supplied to her by local Arabs, and that it was the job of the paper's editors to check facts. Contact YogiRUs by email at YogiRUs@aol.com |
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WHAT DOES EGYPT'S ELECTION MEAN TO EGYPTIANS?
Posted by Elaia Basily, October 9, 2011. |
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The upcoming elections in Egypt mean different things to different people. For the unemployed and poverty stricken it gives them hope for a better future, a job, food on the table and some certainty in their lives. For university graduates, it gives them hope of using their hard earned degrees. For the Copts, it is hope the future Egypt will bring about an end to religious discrimination, a hope that they will no longer be looked down as Christians but as "fellow Egyptians". For the brave youth that toppled Mubarak, it is hope for a democratic united Egypt, free of dictatorship and rampant corruption that has robbed the nation blind and deprived them of a better future. For SCAF is a hope to come out of the whole process unscathed with their reputation in tact. For the Muslim brotherhood it is to bring to fruition an 83 year old vision of an Islamic state under shariah where they are the guardians & enforcers. Instead it is becoming a fight for survival tackling the wide spread scepticism and mistrust by Egyptians from every walk of life irrespective of religion. Since the downfall of Mubarak the Brotherhood has been exposed as a fractured unit, rocked by Sharp divisions. The Muslim Brotherhood Founded in 1928 is clinging to its 83 year old Islamic motto:
The once banned group is aware the unprecedented debates have raised serious questions about their future and relevance in modern Egypt. In response the Brotherhood quickly formed a political party and resorted to widespread "charity" work in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution that brought new challenges to the table, namely "a call for democracy". Despite their 83 year old motto the Brotherhood cunningly named their political party "freedom and justice". The brotherhood in reality considers "freedom" as un-islamic. The name of the new party is a very cunning ploy to deceive Egyptians into voting for them despite it been an oxymoron to their motto, "a contradiction" of ideology. The combination of political activism with Islamic "charity" work is also a desperate attempt to ensure they can dictate the future of Egypt. The Brotherhood's new party made a fatal mistake two days ago announcing they would use the famous brotherhood slogan "Islam is the solution" in the upcoming election. Within hours of the announcement there was wide spread condemnation by all other parties excluding those belonging to the salafists. The condemnation was only the start of the Brotherhood's worries, as less than 24 hours after the announcement the ruling military quickly pounced declaring they will impose jail terms for bribery and religious sloganeering in the upcoming parliamentary poll. I am sure the military remembers full well the abuses and perversions that took place during the March constitution referendum, where salafist and brotherhood thugs intimidated voters to influence the results. They also attacked Mohammed El-Bardei because he rejected the proposed constitution amendments. To ensure the brotherhood received the message the amendments to the political rights law were published by the official MENA news agency, jail terms for campaigners using religious slogans or bribery and violence to sway voters, jail sentences of between one and five years for "whoever uses force or threats to prevent people from voting" and "whoever gives or offers another a personal incentive" to vote for a particular candidate. These amendments reinforce Egyptian law bans parties based on religion. Another dilemma is that MB ruled that members are banned from joining any other political party than Freedom and Justice sounding like "it's either us or nobody". "Brotherhood Members aren't allowed to form or join any other political party," The rifts looming over the Brotherhood's political party were further exposed among old leaders, Dr. Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, one of the top MB leaders abandoned the part (expelled) when he decided to run for presidency in violation of the MB decision to not compete for the presidency. The brotherhood are terrified that failure during the election will render them a "redundant" and will only exist as a social organisation with no influence in Egypt, this no doubt would have a negative influence on their affiliate MB organisations all over the world. The Elections also mean the world to the military (SCAF), it was recently eluded in media reports that they fear a full democratic Government may see some of their members facing corruption charges as the military controls some 33% of Egypt's economy. The secular and liberal parties need to bite the bullet and unit for the sake of egypt, the martyrs and to counter the highly organised Muslim Brotherhood. They must also acknowledge they need to work with the military and remind egyptians without the intervention of the military, Mubarak may not have been forced to step down and Egypt could have become another Libya or Syria where the military turned their weapons on their countrymen. The must also address the concerns of the military and guarantee 'the Military will be given immunity from any future corruption prosecution' in exchange for full support of the democratic and secular parties. This would be an opportunity for the military to continue the good work they did in getting Mubarak to step down and redeem themselves from the growing anti-military sentiment in the country. The Military as a sign of goodwill could go one step further and revisit their prior decisions; 1. That lifted the ban on the Muslim brotherhood Re-evaluation of the latter three decisions would go a very long way in ensuring Egypt emerges from this mayhem as a civil democratic society. The Military must also require all parties to disclose the sources of their funding and prohibit parties that are funded by other countries attempting to pervert & override the wishes of the Egyptian people. Any party unable or unwilling to fully disclose the source of funding supported with appropriate documentation would be automatically excluded from participating in the election. Contact Elaia Basily by email at elaia basily@gmail.com |
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THE ANTISEMITISM LOBBY
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 9, 2011. |
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This was written by Petra Marquardt-Bigman, an Israel-based freelance writer and researcher with a Ph.D. in contemporary history. She blogs at the Jerusalem Post
When a self-described 'self-hating' Jew holds forth on what vexes him about 'Jewish identity', Professor Mearsheimer of 'Israel Lobby'-fame thinks it should be recommended reading. |
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Gilad Atzmon: more famed for his antisemitic views than his music Did you know that the Jews declared war on Germany well before the Nazis adopted anti-Jewish policies? I have to confess that despite my Ph.D. in contemporary history, I was completely ignorant of this "fact" — but that's because this particular spin of the Jewish anti-Nazi boycott of late March 1933 is of course a favorite among people who think the Nazis were right about the Jews. Just like how Joseph Goebbels, the notorious Nazi Minister of "Public Enlightenment and Propaganda," felt that there was "intrinsic" truth to the antisemitic forgery known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," there are still people who see "prophetic qualities" in this forgery, which reads to them like an accurate description of "the political reality in which we live." Such views are not restricted to the far-right fringes and neo-Nazi groups, but are also held by supposedly leftist "anti-Zionists." Among the latter type is the Israeli-British jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, who apparently has a lot of spare time that he devotes to expressing his disdain and hatred for all things Israeli and Jewish. Indeed, a Guardian profile of him noted that it "is Atzmon's blunt anti-Zionism rather than his music that has given him an international profile, particularly in the Arab world, where his essays are widely read." Notable among Atzmon's admirers is Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, who approvingly quoted Atzmon in his dramatic outburst when he attacked Israel's President Shimon Peres during an event in Davos in 2009. However, the Guardian's description of Atzmon's views as "blunt anti-Zionism" is simply an attempt to whitewash Atzmon's rabid antisemitism. It is plainly not anti-Zionism when somebody rejects comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel by hysterically claiming that such a comparison is really unfair to Nazi Germany because "Israel is nothing but evilness for the sake of evilness. It is wickedness with no comparison." Indeed, in fall 2006, the Guardian itself published a piece by David Hirsh, an expert on antisemitism, who made the case that Atzmon's views represented a "new strain of openly anti-semitic anti-Zionism." But when Atzmon demanded and got a right of response, he defended his views by citing "the work of the prominent American academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt who have exposed the vast influence of the Israel Lobby in America." Atzmon added confidently: "In fact the views expressed by myself in the piece quoted by Hirsh are no different than those of Mearsheimer and Walt. Those views are now becoming an integral part of the Anglo American academic discourse." As it turns out, Atzmon was on to something: in late 2006, he was a fan of Mearsheimer's and Walt's work on the "Israel Lobby" — and by now, Atzmon has written a book, and Mearsheimer and Walt are his fans. When the news broke that John Mearsheimer, who is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, had provided a favorable blurb for Atzmon's new book-length ruminations about Jewish and Israeli evils, many people were in disbelief and expected that Mearsheimer would quickly distance himself from Atzmon's odious writings. However, Mearsheimer actually did the opposite. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. When Walt's and Mearsheimer's "Israel Lobby" was published a few years ago, many reviewers already noted that the book would appeal to people with antisemitic views. Since then, Mearsheimer has done more to cultivate this audience: In April 2010, he delivered the Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, which he devoted to the topic: "The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners". Towards the end of this lecture, Mearsheimer suggested that "American Jews who care deeply about Israel" could be divided into various categories, including "righteous Jews" and "new Afrikaners." He then provided the criteria that should be used to assign Jews to the appropriate category, illustrating his approach by sharing with his audience which American Jews would qualify for which list. Mearsheimer's list of "righteous Jews" included Noam Chomsky, Roger Cohen, Richard Falk, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Tony Karon, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Sara Roy, Philip Weiss and "many of the individuals associated with J Street and everyone associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as distinguished international figures such as Judge Richard Goldstone." By contrast, Mearsheimer's "new Afrikaners" list included "most of the individuals who head the Israel lobby's major organizations", among them "Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress, and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America." Mearsheimer also added to this list "businessmen like Sheldon Adelson, Lester Crown, and Mortimer Zuckerman as well as media personalities like Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post, Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, and Martin Peretz of The New Republic." To illustrate what it takes to make Professor Mearsheimer's "righteous Jews" list, let's pick the example of Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, who wrote in 2007: "There is little doubt that the Nazi Holocaust was as close to unconditional evil as has been revealed throughout the entire bloody history of the human species. [...] Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not." More recently, Mearsheimer's "righteous Jew" Richard Falk caused a controversy when he posted an antisemitic cartoon on his blog. All too obviously, Gilad Atzmon could expect that Mearsheimer would embrace him as a "righteous Jew." And who knows: maybe next time Professor Mearsheimer teaches a "Seminar on Zionism and Palestine," Atzmon's opus will be on the list of required reading. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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15 PROPAGANDA DISTORTIONS OF NICHOLAS KRISTOF; ABBAS' UN SPEECH VERSUS PEACE AND TOLERANCE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 8, 2011. |
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15 PROPAGANDA DISTORTIONS OF NICHOLAS KRISTOF New York Times journalist Nicholas D. Kristof distorted the Arab-Israel conflict by 15 instances of propaganda in a single article: 1. ISRAEL ITS OWN WORST ENEMY?: "For decades, Palestinian leaders sometimes seemed to be their own people's worst enemies." The statement mistakenly implies a difference between what the Arab masses and leaders want. An overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs approve of their leaders' jihad against Israel. Polls show them favoring a takeover of Israel and by whatever means seem to be work at the time. 2. EUPHEMISMS FOR "TERRORIST": Elaborating, Mr. Kristof writes, "Palestinian radicals antagonized the West, and" "militant leaders turned to hijackings and rockets." "Radicals" and "militants" are euphemisms for "terrorists." Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a militant. Norman Thomas, the old Socialist, was a radical. Both were non-violent. But the Palestinian Arab leaders and many of their followers are terrorists. By not using suitable terminology, Kristoff shields the Palestinian Authority and Arabs from being seen as a disreputable menace. 3. PALESTINIAN "CAUSE": The radicals "undermined the Palestinian cause around the world..." Most Palestinian Arabs want to conquer Israel because their religious idea is that Muslims are and the Jews are racially evil. What an unworthy cause! Why does Mr. Kristof not recognize that? Because he mistakes that holy war to conquer non-Muslims as a nationalistic territorial dispute. 4. NETANYAHU ISOLATES Israel?: PM Netanyahu is "isolating his country" Isolating? Many countries of the world are taking the Arab side, not because the Arab side has merit, nor because Israel is doing anything unreasonable or harsh, but for fanatical or appeasement-minded reasons. They gang up on the Jews as many countries have done before, but Kristof blames Israel, the victim of jihad. Blaming the victim is unfair. 5. ISRAEL'S "HARD LINE" ON "SETTLEMENTS": Netanyahu pursues a "hard line on settlements" What hard line, and would a hard line be bad? Mr. Kristof does not explain. A "hard line" might be to annex all the existing Jewish communities in the Territories and to build new ones. Would that be bad? Not if it gave Israel secure borders and strategic depth. That would make it harder or the Arabs to invade Israel. Less likely to lead to war. Rather than take a hard line, Netanyahu withdrew from most of Hebron, enabling Arabs to commit terrorism against Jews. He does not give much protection to Jewish communities, and continues the policy of accepting the word of Arabs against Jews when there are clashes. He stopped building permits in the Territories for 10 months and unofficially longer, and unofficially extended it to Jerusalem, but the Arabs still refused to negotiate. The Arabs are hardliners. 6. PEACE PACT FRAMEWORK: "Every negotiator knows the framework of a peace agreement — 1967 borders with land swaps, Jerusalem as the capital of both Israeli and Palestinian states, only a token right of return." Rather one-sided! How come every negotiator knows what would make a peace agreement, and none explains how it could work? It can't work. Those conditions are much of the immediate demands of the Arabs, who have admitted to setting the stage for further demands, until they take over Israel. Thus Abbas refuses to recognize the legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish state, meaning he keeps a war option open. He admits that statehood would enable him to pursue other measures against Israel. Then what is in it for Israel? That is not a peace agreement but an imperialist plan. The 1967 lines were not borders but armistice lines, having no legal significance. Then why those lines, which would contradict the Security Council Resolution that did not require Israel to cede them nor swap land and which recognized Israel's right to secure borders. Secure borders means holding the Judea-Samarian hills and the Jordan Valley. A token right of return insinuates Israeli guilt for the Arab flight. The Arabs had attempted dispossession and genocide against Israeli Jews. The Arab aggressors lost. They are entitled to nothing. Once Israel accepted token immigration (of hate-filled enemies), the Arabs probably would demand more. Once the Arabs demand something of Israel, the rest of the world considers Israel stubborn to deny the new demands. 7. ISRAEL SUICIDAL?: Netanyahu's hard line "seems like a national suicide policy." The pact that Kristof and other would like Israel to sign would amount to national suicide. It would reward terrorism and fulfill part of Arafat's phased conquest of Israel, thereby boosting international jihad. It would deprive Israel of secure borders and strategic depth. It would remove the Jewish people from their holiest site and undermine the concept of a Jewish state. Contrast the withdrawal from Gaza leading to a terrorist base, with Israeli patrols in Judea-Samaria that tamp down terrorism. The comparison shows the folly of the withdrawal that Mr. Kristoff suggests. 8. NETANYAHU INSULTS OBAMA?: Instead of showing appreciation for Pres. Obama's veto of a UN resolution for P.A. statehood, PM Netanyahu affronted him by authorizing more housing units in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the active, popular, capital of Israel, but suffers a housing shortage. Therefore, construction will go on there, and the U.S. knows it. Every time another housing project is authorized there, the State Dept. and supporters such as Kristoff pretend that the project insults the U.S.. But it is no insult. Rather, the affront is for the U.S. to attempt to dictate to other countries, telling Israse; to submit to enemies bent on destroying it. Pres. Obama did not veto the resolution because he likes Israel. He did it because the American people like Israel, which they feel is civilized, as is the U.S.. If the U.S. had not supported the PLO cause all these years, the U.S. would not risk the embarrassment Kristoff believes it suffered. 9. NETANYAHU SHOULD IGNORE ELECTORATE: Although the Israeli people have become more conservative about borders and territory, Netanyahu impedes peace by not being liberal with borders and territory. Pres. Obama and Mr. Kristoff claim to favor democracy, but apparently they do not favor it for Israel. They want the government to violate its electoral mandate. This inconsistency impugns their trustworthiness. 10. ARABS THINK ISRAEL WON'T MAKE PEACE?: P.A. Arabs feel that the Oslo peace process has failed, and Israelis feel the P.A. never will make peace. The P.A. never will make genuine peace for the reasons given above. Therefore, the Israeli people finally have become sensible about this, learning to distrust enemies and supposed friends. How ironic that the P.A. Arabs call Oslo a failure! They are the ones who, as predicted by Jewish nationalists, violated Oslo overwhelmingly. Oslo never made sense. It treated them as if one can make peace with the Muslim Arabs, but those Arabs primarily are jihadists. 11. WHAT PALESTINIAN ARAB NON-VIOLENCE?: Mr. Kristoff advises P.A. Arabs to make "non-violent peaceful resistance, like Gandhi's and Martin Luther King Jr.'s, against "illegal" Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria. Unfortunately, sometimes the protestors throw rocks. Sometimes? Every week they were protesting against the security fence by means of throwing rocks and trying to destroy the fence. Sometimes they throw firebombs, too, didn't Mr. Kristoff know? They are so violent, constantly rioting, plotting, and attacking. To think they might be like our hero, Rev. King, after they murdered a few thousands Israelis and wounded thousands more, is perverse. Which communities are illegal, and why? Most called illegal are not. 12. ISRAEL OFFENDS TURKEY?: PM Netanyahu undermined relations with Turkey, thereby isolating itself diplomatically. He undermined relations? Nonsense! Turkey went Islamist. PM Erdogan seeks popularity by baiting Israel. He sent terrorists in a flotilla, the terrorists attacked Israelis, Israel defended itself, and then he demands an apology from Israel. He did that so as either to humiliate Israel, if it apologized for Turkish aggression against it, or to whip Muslims up against Israel. Even the UN found the flotilla in the wrong. 13. LET P.A. ARABS VOTE IN ISRAEL?: Unless a peace deal replaces Israeli "occupation," Israel should let P.A. Arabs vote in Israel, just as it lets Jews do. Simple-minded comparisons or analogies like this one are popular, but a journalist should know better. The two situations he likens are dissimilar. The Jews of Judea-Samaria are Israeli citizens governed by Israeli law. Naturally they vote in Israeli elections. By contrast, 97% of the Arabs of Judea-Samaria are ruled by the P.A., so why should they vote in Israel. The other 3% are not citizens of Israel, either. What does Mr. Kristoff think that those Arabs would do with the franchise, elect better representatives than the ones whom Israeli Arabs elect to betray their country? Should a democracy to let barbarians overthrow it? What "occupation?" Whose country iss it that Israeli now controls, there? Nobody's country. It is an unallocated part of the Palestine Mandate, which Mandate was set up for nurturing a Jewish state. 14. ADMITS TO DOUBLE STANDARD: Mr. Kristoff admits that he applies a harsh, double standard against Israel and a lenient standard against its neighbors. He defends doing that because, he says, he applies higher standards to an American ally that gets much U.S. aid. What higher standard? National suicide would result from his standard. And he talks about how allies should be treated? What has aid to do with it? Is he unaware that the Arabs get at least as much aid as Israel, if not more, and they criticize the U.S. in ways that Israel never does? Why doesn't he defend the U.S. against that? Mr. Kristoff condemns himself for unfairness in admitting to having a harsh double standard against Israel. It is a long-discredited pretext for someone to say that he expects more of Israel. So nobody holds the Arabs to a standard as basic as not committing terrorism? Barbarians should get away with murders? Nobody holds the Arabs to a standard as basic as honoring their agreements, but everybody urges Israel to take existential risks in making a new agreement with those Arabs, whose doctrine is to brake agreements with non-believers? That is not a standard, it simply is adversarial. Imagine how much harder it would be for jihad if people such as Mr. Kristoff did not have a double standard, but rebuked P.A. barbarism! 15. CRITICS ARE FRIENDS OF ISRAEL?: Pointing out Israel's faults is "an act of friendship. What Israeli faults? By condemning Israel for acting in self-defense, and by ignoring recent Turkish and constant Arab aggression against Israel, Mr. Kristoff helps perpetuate the misimpression that Israel is to blame for peace problems. Thus Mr. Kristoff contributes to the diplomatic isolation of Israel that he blames on Israel. He is no friend. Neither are many other perpetual critics of Israel, despite their pretense of being friends of Israel. Their pretense is cover for their hostility.
ABBAS' UN SPEECH VERSUS PEACE AND TOLERANCE
Palestinian Authority (P.A.) head Abbas made some astounding statements at the UN General Assembly, this September? Zionist Organization of America reports and rebuts. 1. Abbas: The P.A. kept trying to start negotiating, but the Israeli government thwarted it. ZOA: Abbas refused to negotiate for years, unless Israel makes concessions that preclude half its negotiations. That's negotiating? To encourage negotiating, Israel temporarily but unprecedentedly froze all Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. Abbas did not reciprocate.
2. Abbas: Israel refuses to base negotiations on international law and UN resolutions. It continues building "on the territory of the State of Palestine." Abbas links "settlement activities" with colonial military occupation, brutality, aggression, and racial discrimination, a breach of international humanitarian law and UN resolutions, all in one sentence. ZOA: International law and Oslo accords, which the P.A. signed allows Israelis to live in the Territories, which are not allocated and under no Arab state sovereignty. The 1920 San Remo Conference affirmed the legal status of the Territories and of Jewish rights to live in them. The only illegal intrusion in the Territories was by Jordanian aggression, and Jordan has renounced its baseless claim to the Territories. Shulman: That supposedly moderate statesman indulges in extreme, defamatory name-calling. Abbas is trying to get a State of Palestine. It does not exist. Therefore, Israel is not building "on the territory of the State of Palestine." Therefore, Abbas misrepresents the law. As a long-time terrorist, Abbas has violated international law. Notice that he refers to international law and UN resolutions without quoting any of them in support of his case. That is because they do not support his case. The pertinent UN Resolution 242 does not require any Israeli withdrawal from the Territories, much less require full withdrawal.
3. Abbas: Israel denies Arabs permits to build in eastern Jerusalem. It increasingly ethnically cleanses Arabs from "their ancestral homeland" by demolishing their houses. ZOA: Actually, Arabs continue building in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. Israeli construction has not uprooted Arab communities. Archeologists have excavated further evidence of Jewish history and confirmation of the biblical record, while Arabs deliberately have destroyed Jewish sites under the Temple Mount. This proves the P.A. untrustworthy to govern the city's holy sites. Shulman: The Land of Israel is not the Arabs' ancestral homeland. Some Arabs conquered it centuries ago, but soon lost control to Turks and others. Most of the Arab families there now immigrated in the wake of the Zionist build-up. Britain set aside most of the Jewish homeland for the Arabs, already (e.g., Jordan), but Abbas wants it all. Tens of thousands of illegal Arab houses in Israel and in the Territories, Israel demolishes handfuls, and he calls that ethnic cleansing? He who would expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their ancestral homeland in the Territories and then millions from the ancestral homeland in the State of Israel is indignant over the handfuls of enforcement against Arab squatters?
4. Abbas: The PLO renounces all forms of violence, including state terrorism, and honors its pacts with Israel. ZOA: The P.A. violates those pacts. The P.A. does not ban terrorist groups nor arrest terrorists. Its media, mosques, schools and youth camps indoctrinate in bigotry and murder. The P.A. formed a unity agreement with Hamas. The Arabs do not regard murder of Jews as "terrorism," a term it reserves for Israeli defense of its citizens [what it calls "state terrorism"]. Shulman: Terrorism means deliberate attacks on civilians for political purposes. That the Arabs do but Israel does not. 5. Abbas: Praises UNRWA for taking care of his people. ZOA: UNRWA helps keep many of Abbas' people in camps as if refugees. UNRWA should have helped them integrate and earn a living. Abbas is not humanitarian toward his own people.
Conclusion by ZOA: Abbas' speech is the usual jihadist deceit, viciousness, and anti-Israel bias. By promoting jihad against Israel, the speech proves disinterest in peace. Pres. Obama should condemn it, but instead Obama subsidizes the P.A. even more. Shulman: When will our elected officials and mainstream journalists stop taking the Radical Muslim Arabs' claims seriously and start taking their menace to the world seriously? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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THE OLIVE TREE INITIATIVE AND TERROR
Posted by Susana K-M, October 7, 2011. |
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This was written by Frank Crimi and it appeared in Front
Page Magazine
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The danger of sending American college students on Olive Tree Initiative trips to the West Bank was underscored by the recent discovery of 13 Hamas terror cells and a foiled suicide bombing plot in Jerusalem. Since its founding in 2007, the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI), a self-described non-partisan educational program, has been a lightening rod of controversy. With chapters already operating on four UC campuses and more scheduled to open, the OTI has steadfastly maintained its mission is to bridge differences among college students on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through what it calls "civil discussion" and "open minds." To facilitate that effort, the OTI provides its Christian, Jewish and Muslim (and unaffiliated) student members a purportedly "balanced" speaker's forum as well as an annual student "diplomatic mission" to Israel and the West Bank. Once there, students are called to "actively engage politicians and leading experts on many sides of the conflict and develop a more comprehensive view." Of course, it should be noted that some of the leading experts the students have met with include representatives of terrorist organizations. On a 2009 trip, the OTI student itinerary included a meeting with senior Hamas leader, Aziz Duwaik, an encounter in which students were later encouraged by OTI leaders to cover up. Yet, despite its high-minded public aspirations and commitment to "neutrality" the reality is that the OTI has promoted a rabidly anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish agenda. The program creates a dangerous moral equivalency between speakers who seek to destroy the Jewish state and support terrorism and speakers supportive of mainstream Israel issues. Moreover, the OTI's efforts have been aided by the support of a collection of overtly anti-Semitic, anti-Western groups, many with known links to terrorist organizations. Chief among OTI's nefarious terrorist supporters is the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and its various affiliates, such as the Al Awda, Palsolidarity, SUSTAIN, Wheels of Justice Tour and the Middle East Children's Alliance. Co-founded by George Rishmawi, a leading figure in the OTI and likely one of its founders; Huwaida Arraf; Adam Shapiro; and Neta Golan in 2001, the ISM touts itself as a "peace group" that advocates "nonviolent resistance to Israel's occupation of Palestine." In reality the ISM is dedicated to the destruction of Israel through aiding terrorist attacks and other efforts by terror organizations to destroy Israel. They also endorse Palestinian terrorism. To that end the ISM has openly admitted to working with Hamas; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ); Fatah; the PLO; and the Palestinian Authority. Of course, the ISM leadership isn't shy about admitting to the true nature of its agenda. ISM co-founder Adam Shapiro has recently said: What we've been doing over the last ten years with the International Solidarity Movement, Free Gaza, and all the other outgrowth organizations and movements is to ... ramp up the resistance. This is all part of a Palestinian movement to transform this conflict between the rest of the world and Israel. In its efforts to transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ISM has been linked to a terror attack in Israel in 2003 that killed three people and wounded 60, as well a series of suicide attacks in London in 2005 that killed 52 people and wounded over 700. Senior ISM leaders have also been accused of harboring Islamic militants, including members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Yet, the ISM's most trusted and effective policy is recruiting activists to act as human shields for terrorist groups battling Israel by interfering with anti-terror operations of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). As such, the ISM was a prime organizer behind the May 2010 "Free Gaza Flotilla" in which ISM and other activists and militants provoked a confrontation with the IDF, a confrontation that left nine activists dead and seriously wounded 10 Israeli commandos. Most recently, the ISM was behind the unsuccessful July 2011 "Flytilla," an effort to fly several hundred high-profile militant activists into the West Bank and which involved the participation of two OTI members. In order to swell its ranks of activists, the ISM recruits worldwide, including at American universities. Once having established their presence on campus, the ISM and its affiliate groups then target unsuspecting or naïve college students. The students are mislead into thinking they will be participating in nonviolent demonstrations, unaware that the real purpose is to get them hurt or killed in confrontations with the Israeli Defense Forces. In fact, frequent OTI campus speaker and ISM co-founder George Rishmawi (there are in fact two George Rishmawis involved in the OTI and both are co-founders of the ISM) has explained that the recruitment of American student volunteers is useful to the Palestinian Movement because "if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice." That certainly was the case with American college student Rachel Corrie who, in March 2003, was accidentally killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza as she acted as a human shield for a weapons smuggling tunnel that was being demolished by the IDF. Other ISM activists have been maimed or killed, in some cases by Palestinians themselves. In 2004 British activist Tom Hurndall was shot and killed in Gaza, and in April 2011 Italian Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped and later hung to death by a group of Palestinians in Gaza. While ISM leaders publicly mourned all their deaths, a more accurate description of their feelings has come from ISM co-founders Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf who have written in the past: The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both non-violent and violent. Yes, people will get killed and injured, but these deaths are no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation. So, the question arises, if those allied with the ISM cause can be openly kidnapped and murdered, then what is the fate of innocent American college students traveling around the West Bank — led around by ISM activists like Rishmawi — to dialogue with a diverse collection of nefarious individuals and organizations? These dangerous individuals even lurk in some networks in Jerusalem; networks which are likely connected to the ISM. Early in September, Israel's Shin Blet security service foiled a suicide terrorist attack only 24 hours before the planned strike in a Jerusalem neighborhood. Discovery of the plot was part of a larger-scale operation carried out by Shin Bet against Hamas terrorists in the West Bank, an operation that led to the arrest of 13 separate Hamas terror cells. The main Hamas cell, which was in charge of the planned suicide attack, was also responsible for a March attack in Jerusalem that killed a British tourist and wounded 47 others. Another terrorist cell exposed by the Shin Bet was operating from within Israel's Ketziot prison where it had recruited around twenty militants whose prime objective was to kidnap an IDF soldier. These arrests followed a similar operation in June by Israeli security forces in which they uncovered a terror cell belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP). In addition to planning the abduction of an Israeli soldier, the PLFP cell was also planning a series of shooting attacks in Israeli settlements around Ramallah; placing explosive devices in Jerusalem; and murdering those they determined to be Israeli sympathizers. Unfortunately, the OTI's links to groups that aid and abet such terror organizations has only served to heighten the potential danger students face when going to the Middle East on an OTI sponsored trip. Yet, sadly, the OTI's purposeful misuse of American students has been amply rewarded, not only through funding from the UC System but also through community support from various Jewish, Christian and Muslim organizations. Moreover, that support has enabled the OTI to garner numerous awards and honors, including from the US State Department. So as the dangers continue to mount in the West Bank and Gaza, perhaps, some of these benefactors may want to revisit their support of the OTI before the next student trip takes place in 2012. For in depth information on the Olive Tree Initiative and how you can stop support for the organization, please visit Ha-Emet.com. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
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THE POLLARD CASE — A NEW AWAKENING BY U.S. JEWISH LEADERS
Posted by YogiRUs, October 7, 2011. |
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This was written by Caroline B. Glick and it appeared today in the Jerusalem Post |
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American Jewish leaders deserve praise for their willingness to plead on Pollard's behalf. Pollard committed a crime. But his punishment far outweighs his misdeeds Next month, convicted Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard will begin his 27th year in prison, and the Obama administration is displaying stunning insensitivity to what this means for the American Jewish community. Pollard was arrested in 1985 for transferring classified documents to Israel during his service at US Naval Intelligence. In 1987, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for his crime. Pollard's sentence contradicted his plea bargain agreement. It was based, among other things, on an impact assessment report of his crimes that was authored by CIA officer Aldrich Ames. At the time of Pollard's arrest, Ames had been spying for the Soviet Union for two years. Ames was arrested for espionage in 1994. He was responsible for the deaths of at least 10 agents working for US intelligence in the USSR. Ames eportedly blamed Pollard for some of the agent deaths caused by his own espionage. Pollard's life sentence was grossly disproportionate to the sentences routinely given to offenders who transfer classified information to US-allied governments. The median sentence for such crimes is two years in prison. Until last year, there was a longstanding consensus in the US political and intelligence communities opposed to granting clemency to Pollard. This consensus evaporated last year. In late 2010, US President Barack Obama received letters recommending commutation of Pollard's sentence to time served from former CIA director R. James Woolsey, and from retired senator Dennis DeConcini, who served as the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time of Pollard's arrest and sentencing. Obama received similar letters from former secretaries of state George Schultz and Henry Kissinger. He received requests for commutation from Sen. John McCain and former attorney-general Michael Mukasey. Lawrence Korb, who served as assistant defense secretary under Caspar Weinberger, has spearheaded the effort to release Pollard. Korb has stated categorically that Pollard's harsh sentence was the result of Weinberger's antipathy for Jews. Other US luminaries who have called for Obama to grant Pollard clemency include former congressman and presidential adviser Lee Hamilton, former senator and presidential adviser Alan Simpson, Harvard law professor and Obama mentor Charles Ogletree, US Appellate Court Judge Stephen Williams and former deputy attorney- general Phillip Heymann. Scores of congressmen, several senators and more than 500 clergymen have called for Pollard's release from prison. Answering public entreaties from Korb and Pollard's wife, Esther, in early January, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu became the first Israeli leader to issue a formal, public appeal for clemency for Pollard. Netanyahu read the text of his appeal to Obama from the Knesset podium and submitted it to the White House on January 4. One of the main reasons for the urgency of the current appeal is Pollard's
failing health. Aside from that, the basic arguments given by his advocates
are the disproportionate length of Pollard's sentence; his deep, repeatedly
stated remorse for his actions; his exemplary behavior in prison; and the
fact that deterrence has been achieved.
OBAMA HAS failed to respond to Israel's formal request for clemency. He has been silent in the face of lesser requests as well. When Pollard's father, Morris, was on his deathbed in June, Obama did not respond to formal requests to permit Pollard to visit him in the hospital. He similarly failed to respond to formal requests for Pollard to attend his father's funeral. Obama's cold silence was broken last week by his agent Vice President Joseph Biden. According to the New York Jewish Week, in a meeting with 15 rabbis in South Florida on September 23, Biden provided an unsolicited monologue about Pollard's case. Repeatedly referring to Pollard as a "traitor," Biden said, "It would take the Third Coming before I would support letting Pollard out." According to The New York Times, in making the statement, Biden, who is considered a friend of the US Jewish community and of Israel, served as Obama's fall guy. Biden's job was to deflect criticism of Obama's unstated decision not to release Pollard away from the president. In the event, Obama's decision to send Biden out to reject calls for Pollard's release backfired. Rather than killing the issue, Biden's unbridled assault on Pollard caused the US Jewish leadership to unify around Pollard and call for his release. As Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman told Channel 2 on Wednesday, Jewish leaders had never discussed Pollard's case publicly, but after Biden went public, they decided that they must follow suit. The leaders of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements were all quoted by Jewish Week calling for Pollard's release. Their calls came just before Biden's previously scheduled Rosh Hashana reception for Jewish leaders. So at the party on Wednesday, Biden was beset by leaders asking him to reconsider his position and recommend clemency for Pollard. In response, Biden agreed to meet with a small group of Jewish leaders in the near future to discuss Pollard's case. Biden's assault on Pollard was strange for two main reasons. First, it was bad politics. Obama reportedly tasked Biden with rebuilding Jewish support for the administration. That support has frayed in the face of Obama's harsh treatment of Israel. It is odd that in the context of Biden's outreach attempts, he chose to express a hostile position on Pollard that couldn't help but raise the hackles of the very community he was dispatched to woo. Rather than bringing the US Jewish community closer to the administration, Biden accomplished the astounding feat of unifying the fractured community in opposition to his position. The second reason that Biden's anti-Pollard harangue made no sense is
because it flew in the face of the claim that Obama has turned over a new
leaf on Israel. Obama's supporters have argued that his speech at the
General Assembly last month where he opposed the PLO's efforts to gain UN
membership as a sovereign state was a watershed event for the president. In
announcing his intention to veto a Palestinian statehood resolution in the
UN Security Council, his supporters argue that Obama abandoned his previous
hostility towards Israel and embraced it as an ally.
BIDEN'S ATTACK on Pollard is just the latest in a stunning line of rebukes of Israel by Obama's senior surrogates over the past 10 days that cast a pall on that supposed watershed event. First Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US opposes even symbolic recognition of Israel's capital city Jerusalem. Then she attacked Israel for approving new housing construction in Jerusalem. Following on Clinton's heels, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta launched a public assault on Israel both ahead of and during his visit early this week. Panetta seemingly made US support for Israel contingent on Israel's willingness to make concessions to its increasingly radicalized neighbors, saying, "As [the Israelis] take risks for peace, we will be able to provide the security that they will need in order to ensure that they can have the room hopefully to negotiate." Panetta further accused Israel of isolating itself diplomatically due to its unwillingness to take what he considers sufficient risks. Just weeks after US intervention was needed to force Egypt's military junta to prevent the murder of six Israeli embassy guards besieged by a mob of Egyptian rioters who took over the embassy in Cairo, Panetta added, "Real security can only be achieved by both a strong diplomatic effort as well as a strong effort to project your military strength." Besides blaming Israel for the absence of peace with the Palestinians and for post-Mubarak Egypt's rapid radicalization, Panetta publicly rejected Israel's right to take military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, claiming all action against Iran must be multilateral. In stating this position, Panetta effectively gave a green light for Iran to develop nuclear weapons. This is the case because the sanctions policy the Obama administration clings to has already demonstrably failed to deter Iran from advancing its nuclear weapons program. Clinton's attack on Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, Panetta's assault on Israel's right to defend itself from the threat of genocide, and his unrestrained criticism of Israel's refusal to genuflect before increasingly belligerent neighbors all indicated that Obama's speech at the UN was not a new chapter in his administration's treatment of Israel. Rather, it was a one-off response to concern about the loss of American Jewish support for the president. That concern was spiked by the Republican victory in New York's Ninth Congressional District's special election last month. Biden's assault on Pollard — and through him, the American Jewish community — was a similar sign that Obama has not let go of his antipathy for Israel. Obama's behavior on Israel following the Democrats' congressional upset replicates his response to Republican Sen. Scott Brown's upset victory in the special Senate election in Massachusetts in January 2010. Brown was elected at the height of the debate on Obama's nationalized healthcare plan. For the first couple of weeks after Brown's election, Obama and his surrogates signaled their willingness to compromise with Republicans in light of Massachusetts voters' rebuke of their partisan brinksmanship on the healthcare issue. But within two months of Brown's victory, Obama and his allies had doubled down and passed their highly controversial healthcare program with no Republican support and against the opposition of the majority of American voters. In the case of both Israel and healthcare, Obama has opted to ignore the political consequences of his actions and press on with his ideological agenda. The lesson Pollard and his supporters in the US and in Israel should take from Obama's behavior is that they must continue to press on in their campaign for Pollard's release as energetically and as relentlessly as possible. As the election date nears, if Obama's polling numbers continue to drop, it is possible — although unlikely — that he will decide that desperate times call for desperate measures and grant Pollard clemency. Even if Obama fails to act in such a politically sensible fashion, a public and outspoken campaign for Pollard's release still makes sense. At a minimum, it can set the conditions for a new president to grant Pollard clemency immediately upon taking office, by causing Obama's Republican opponent to commit to such a course of action. Speaking of Pollard's case with Jewish Week, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said, "In the midst of the Days of Awe, as we ponder the wrongdoings we have committed and pray for God's mercy, we pray as well that President Obama will act with mercy and grant Mr. Pollard long-overdue clemency." American Jewish leaders deserve praise for their willingness to plead on Pollard's behalf. And they should be urged to continue to highlight Pollard's plight and call for his immediate release. Pollard committed a crime. But his punishment far outweighs his misdeeds. Whether Obama releases him from his long suffering or not, it is heartwarming that due to Biden's unbridled assault on Pollard, the American Jewish leadership has found its voice and is calling for justice to be done. Contact YogiRUs by email at YogiRUs@aol.com |
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A SINGULAR MAN - THE BIZARRE SAGA OF JOE ALON
Posted by Alexander Dymshits, October 7, 2011. |
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This was written by Adam Kredo, staff writer and it appeared
Washington Jewish Week
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Faye Cohen can still hear the gunshots, even though they rang out more than 30 years ago. A Bethesda resident, Cohen had been dozing in her bed shortly after midnight on June 30, 1973, when she was awakened by a series of loud bangs that sounded like firecrackers. Within minutes, an ambulance arrived, and Cohen's neighbor, Joseph Alon, was placed bleeding into the back. He had been shot five times at close range with a .38 caliber pistol, and died before he reached Suburban Hospital. An Israeli air attache, Alon became the first foreign diplomat murdered on American soil. For three decades, the case has been shrouded in mystery - for Fred Burton, it became an obsession. The national security expert and author spent nearly half of his life investigating the crime, and claims, in a new book, to have finally unravelled a tale of Cold War espionage, and identified Alon's killer. "I wanted to do this for the victim's family," Burton explained last week during a book-promotion lecture at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad, the unit that was first on the scene after the shooting. Alon was "no ordinary man," Burton told the estimated 40-50 listeners, several of whom were friends of the author. Alon was born on a kibbutz in Palestine in 1929, and he and his parents soon relocated to Czechoslovakia to escape constant Arab-Jewish skirmishes. By the time World War II broke out in 1939, Alon was safe in England. The rest of his family, however, perished in the Holocaust. When Israel officially declared itself a Jewish state in 1948, Alon dropped everything to join the fledgling Israeli military, and he emerged from training a skilled pilot. By 1955, he was selected to lead an elite squadron of Israeli fighter jets. "At one time or another," Burton writes in his book, Chasing Shadows, "most of Israel's combat pilots passed through the Alon [family] dining room." Time and again, against all odds, Alon proved himself in the air. He soon became known as "one of the best tactical-level officers in the IAF," according to Burton, and is widely hailed as the soldier responsible for giving the Israeli army its strategic edge during the 1967 Six Day War. So, Burton wondered in his book, "what was an Israeli war hero doing in my Bethesda neighborhood in 1973?" Alon's presence here had everything to do with the Cold War and America's fear of the Soviet Red Army. Then-President Richard Nixon, in a deal to employ a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt, offered Israel access to a full array of American-made military hardware. In exchange, Israel agreed to share the knowledge it had gained fighting the Soviet-supplied Egyptian army. Alon, the chief conduit for that information, was named the Embassy of Israel's air attache in D.C., where he became, as Burton wrote, "the vital link in the growing military relationship between the United States and Israel." By virtually all accounts, the veteran soldier-turned-diplomat was well-liked and admired - which made the murder even more perplexting and jarring. "It plays in your head like a movie," said Faye Cohen's daughter, Laura Appelbaum, who, as a child, was best friends with Yola Alon, one of Joe's three daughters. (Appelbaum is now the executive director of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington.) "It's still a bad dream you think you're going to wake-up from." Reflecting on the crime, sources recall that someone apparently had been stalking the diplomat in the days before his assassionation. Faye Cohen had noticed an out-of-place truck canvassing the street in front of Alon's house. Could Arab terrorists have murdered Alon? Burton resolved to find out. Within 48 hours of her husband's death, Dvora and her three daughters were shepherded back to Israel aboard Air Force Two at the order of Nixon and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The FBI assumed control of the investigation. Israel, uncharacteristically, remained mum on the matter. "The Israelis, for reasons unknown to the family, were very, very uncooperative," Burton noted during last week's lecture, explaining that, in most cases, Israel aggressively pursues those who murder its citizens. FBI agents chased numerous leads, scanning local airports for signs of an abandoned vehicle matching the descriptions provided by witnesses like Cohen and others. Soon, however, the leads dried up, and Alon's murder became just another cold case. That is, until Burton began poking around in the mid-1980s. Growing up in Bethesda, Burton writes that he had been deeply affected by Alon's death. "The sense of vulnerability I felt at the time was one of the reasons I chose a career in law enforcement," he writes. When Burton became a counterterrorism official for the Diplomatic Security Service in the mid-1980s, he began searching for answers, but found only more questions. The FBI office in Baltimore, Burton discovered, had destroyed most of the evidence relating to the Alon case, which is quite unusual. Asked last week to respond to Burton's book, the FBI told WJW that it "has no comment on any portion" of the material. Burton also learned that the State Department had no record of the murder. In addition, when he asked the Israeli intelligence agencies to turn over documents relating to the case, "my requests went unanswered," Burton recalled. The Embassy of Israel did not respond to requests last week seeking comment on both Alon's murder and Burton's book. "In many ways, that was the kind of case it was," Burton said. "For many years, we were kind of pushing a boulder up a hill." Small slivers of information finally emerged in 2006, when Burton made contact with Detective Kenny McGee, a Montgomery County Police Officer who had worked the case. McGee revealed that as he canvassed Alon's home on the night of the murder, Israeli General Mordechai Gur arrived on the scene. Gur, then the IDF's military attache in Washington, informed McGee that Alon was a Mossad agent who used his diplomatic status in America as cover. That bit of information, however, never made it into the final police report. As Burton and several of his colleagues poured over long-forgotten intelligence memos and briefings, the puzzle pieces slowly slid into place. Alon, in his role as a Mossad agent, had secretly met several times with a member of the terrorist outfit Black September, the group responsible for the assassination of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics, Burton claims. The Israeli spy was likely trying to cultivate a mole within the terrorist group. "This tidbit of information all but confirmed that [Alon] had been assassinated by the terrorist arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization," which had long been carrying out clandestine hits on Israeli targets across the globe, Burton writes. The revelation also explains why Israel tried to keep the matter quiet. "He was a spy functioning in a friendly country," Burton writes. "Had the FBI discovered this fact, it could have been catastrophic" for U.S.-Israel relations. In 2008, Burton and his team uncovered a formerly classified CIA briefing in The National Archives. It disclosed that a two-man Black September hit team had entered the U.S. specifically to carry out the assassination in reprisal for an Israeli air attack following the Munich massacre. Asked about the veracity of the briefings and information, the CIA declined comment. Burton says he has learned the identity of Alon's murderer, but an alias (Hassan Ali) is used in the book due to "operational security concerns." Shortly after Burton shared his information with "old contacts in the Israeli intelligence services," he writes, he received a cryptic text message from one of them that said simply: "The [Ali] matter has been resolved." Contact Alexander Dymshits at alex8well@yahoo.com |
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TUNISIAN REASSURANCE THAT IT IS MODERATE IS NOT REASSURING
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 7, 2011. |
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In requesting U.S. subsidy, Prime Minister Esssebsi of Tunisia predicted that the coming election will prove Islam's compatibility with democracy. Already the Islamist party is leading the pack in the campaign, a pack of about 100 parties. He attempted to reassure other countries that Tunisia will remain moderate. He took umbrage at foreign worry about his country's possible turn to extremism. After all, he said, "No one speaks of such phobia when it comes to Likud in Israel, which is a religious party." (Sudeep Reddy & Jay Solomon, Wall St. Journal, 10/7/11, A6.) Islam encourages submission to rulers, however repressive, but not to rulers not complying with Islam. Islam requires repression of religious minorities. That is not compatible with democracy. Democracy means rule by majority without oppression of minorities. The real question is whether a country of Muslims voluntarily will curb that Islamic requirement of intolerance, in order to have full democracy. The Prime Minister did not explain the grounds for his optimism, but the fact that the Islamist party appears to be the biggest one is grounds for pessimism. His analogy to Israel is erroneous. The foreign concern that the Arab Spring may lead to Radical Islamic supremacy is not a phobia. Also, Likud is not a religious party. Religious parties in Israel do not seek to repress other religions. By contrast, Radical Muslims seek to destroy or subjugate other religions. There is no comparison between religious parties in Israel and in Muslim countries. If PM Essebsi is looking for inconsistencies between Israel and the Arab countries, let him find real ones, such as Israel seeking peace and many Arab governments favoring jihad, or Israel criticized for building houses and the Palestinian Authority not criticized for building houses or, really bad, for promoting terrorism. The Prime Minister's reassurances are troubling. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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' ONE NATION FOR NEW HOLOCAUST'
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 7, 2011. |
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This was written by Samuel Tadros, a research fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom in the Hudson Institute. |
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Many observers were quick to draw an analogy between the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo three weeks ago and the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. After all, a few months after an uprising initially believed to be liberal and democratic, revolutionaries storm a Western embassy. Accordingly, some observers drew the conclusion that Islamists must have been behind the attack on the Cairo embassy just as Islamists had been a driving force in the Tehran takeover 32 years ago. Others saw the Egyptian army's lackadaisical response as a way to provoke chaos, which would in turn allow the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to pass new measures curtailing democracy and free expression. And, of course, some saw the attack on the embassy as the logical result of Israeli policies. Local papers produced all sorts of conspiracy theories: Al-Wafd claimed that Israeli security was shooting at the demonstrators, and Al-Dustour contended that Gamal Mubarak plotted and funded the entire scene. The truth is somewhat different. While Islamists are decidedly anti-Israel and have a long and thriving history of anti-Semitism, they did not take part in any of the day's demonstrations. Rather, the attack was carried out by some of the same groups typically labeled "democrats" or even "liberals." In the wake of the attack, 21 of these groups proudly announced their responsibility, asserting, moreover, that they would not accept the return of the Israeli ambassador. What Makes an Egyptian Liberal a Liberal? Islamists pose a real threat to freedom, but they are hardly the only ones. Populist demagogues are no less dangerous, neither is the odd mixture of demonstrators made up of a mix of Trotskyites, anarchists, and Nasserites. These groups have no real commitment to freedom, and they are obviously no less anti-Semitic than the Islamists. The fact is that anti-Semitism is the daily bread of Egyptian politics. Perhaps nothing captures this grim image better than the phrase, "One Nation for New Holocaust," which was displayed on a huge banner held by thousands of hardcore soccer fans, known as the Ultras, as seen in a YouTube video bearing the same title. (click here.) Despite being completely apolitical, the Ultras were at the forefront of the embassy attack, perhaps in retaliation for police violence in a recent game, flying Egyptian flags with a swastika in place of the Eagle of Saladin. Referring to Egypt's agreement to sell natural gas to Israel, the demonstrators chanted, "We will export no gas, we shall burn you with gasoline" (it rhymes in Arabic). Thankfully, the attack did not end with the same result as the one in 1979, and none of the embassy staff was hurt or taken hostage, but it points out to a larger problem, one that is becoming hard to ignore. The attack on the Israeli embassy is yet another manifestation of the decline of U.S. power and influence in the region. Perhaps Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sincere in thanking President Obama for using "all the means and influence of the U.S." to bring the situation at the embassy to a peaceful conclusion. Still, it is not clear what it means if it takes the U.S. secretary of defense two hours to reach his Egyptian counterpart on the phone. The U.S. has helped bring down the regional order it has so tirelessly built for years and has not provided an alternative order. The result has been a worsening of relations between pillars of U.S. policy and a volatile situation that might well lead to regional conflict. The fact that regional leaders seem to have no appetite for war is not a consolation. Neither did Nasser in 1967, yet he still found himself driven to war by inter-Arab dynamics. While the names of the players have changed, with the Qatari Al Jazeera replacing Cairo Radio, those dynamics are still in play today. Politics in the region continues to be shaped by an Arab Cold War that is perhaps more dangerous with the proliferation of non-state actors such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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EVOKING MY FATHER'S DEFIANT ZIONIST SPIRIT
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 7, 2011. |
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This was written by Menachem Z. Rosenhaft, adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School, lecturer
in law at Columbia Law School, and vice president of the American
Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.
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For one 'extreme Zionist,' love of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel was the most important element of Jewish leadership. 
For one 'extreme Zionist,' love of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel was the most important element of Jewish leadership. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly last month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared that he had come "from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him)." No mention of Kings David and Solomon, nor of the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, or of Rabbi Akiva, or of Hillel and Shammai, the most prominent members of Jerusalem's Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus's birth. He failed to recall Rabbi Yokhanan ben-Zakkai who established his yeshiva at Yavneh only decades later, or, for that matter, of Yehuda Hanasi, who compiled and edited the Mishna in the second century of the Common Era. All these men lived in Abbas's "Holy Land, the land of Palestine" long before the birth of Muhammad. Indeed, the very words "Jews" and "Jewish" are conspicuously absent from Abbas's speech. Abbas's deliberate refusal to acknowledge that before either Christianity or Islam ever appeared on the historical or theological scene, Judaism had been firmly ensconced in what is today the State of Israel speaks volumes. And when Reuters reports that "the issue of whether and how to suggest that Israel should be a Jewish state ultimately sank" the Quartet's recent diplomatic efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks," it is time for all of us, in particular those of us who have long supported a legitimate peace process, to draw our line in the sand. "My people," Abbas declared, "desire to exercise their right to enjoy a normal life like the rest of humanity. They believe what the great poet Mahmoud Darwish said: Standing here, staying here, permanent here, eternal here, and we have one goal, one, one: to be." Our unambiguous response must be that we insist on precisely the same rights that Darwish demands for the Palestinians. For us, permanent, eternal Jewish sovereignty in the State of Israel is not only non-negotiable but must be, especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust, one of the cornerstones of any authentic, and hopefully lasting, peace. When the remnant of European Jewry emerged from the death camps, forests and hiding places throughout Europe in the winter and spring of 1945, they looked for their families and, overwhelmingly, discovered that their fathers and mothers, their husbands, wives and children, their brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins had all been murdered by the Germans and their accomplices. Yet they did not give in to despair. On the contrary, almost from the moment of their liberation, Holocaust survivors' defiant affirmation of their Jewish national identity in the Displaced Persons camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy took the form of a political and spiritually redemptive Zionism. The creation of a Jewish state in what was then called Palestine was far more than a practical goal. It was the one ideal that had not been destroyed, and that allowed them to retain the hope that an affirmative future, beyond gas chambers, mass graves and ashes, was still possible for them.
AT BERGEN-Belsen, the largest of the DP camps, a popularly elected Jewish leadership headed by my father, Josef Rosensaft, made Zionism the order of the day. At the first Congress of Liberated Jews in the British Zone of Germany, convened in September 1945 in Belsen by my father and his colleagues without permission from the British military authorities, the survivors formally adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. They expressed their "sorrow and indignation that almost six months after liberation, we still find ourselves in guarded camps on British soil soaked with the blood of our people." Two months later, my father denounced the British government's stifling of "Jewish nationalists and Zionist activities" at Belsen in the pages of The New York Times. He further charged "that the British exerted censorship over the inmates' news sheets in that the Jews are not allowed to proclaim in print their desire to emigrate to Palestine." In December 1945, my father told representatives of American Jewry assembled at the first post-war conference of the United Jewish Appeal in Atlantic City, according to a report in The New York Herald Tribune, that the survivors' sole hope was emigration to Palestine, the only place in the world "willing, able, and ready to open its doors to the broken and shattered Jews of war-ravaged Europe." The following week, The New York Journal American quoted him as declaring at an emergency conference on Palestine at the Manhattan Center in New York City, that, "We know that the English are prepared to stop us with machine guns. But machine guns cannot stop us." In early 1946, he told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine that if the survivors would not be allowed to go to Palestine, "We shall go back to Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and you will bear the moral responsibility for it." Small wonder, then, that according to British Foreign Office documents, my father was considered an "extreme Zionist" and a "dangerous troublemaker." My father, who taught me that a love of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel is the most important element of Jewish leadership, understood that the goal of a Jewish state was a spiritual lifeline that gave the survivors of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belsen and all the other centers of horror a sense of purpose and a basis for hope. He died precisely 36 years ago, on the fifth day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, midway between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I cannot think of a worthier way to observe his yahrzeit, the anniversary of his death, than by evoking his spirit and his uncompromising dedication to the creation of a new Jewish commonwealth to refute each and every refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com
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LOCAL ISLAMISTS DRAW ON BRITISH SUCCESS IN BID FOR SHARIA LAW
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, October 7, 2011. |
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This was written by Chris Merritt and it appeared today in the Australian. . |
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THE push to recognise sharia law in Australia has entered an ambitious new phase that draws on the tactics that have handed success to Islamists in Britain. The latest move, under the guise of helping Muslim women, would give sharia law priority over Australian divorce law. If enacted, this plan would prevent Muslims from obtaining a civil divorce unless they first divorce under Islamic law. The plan, published by the Alternative Law Journal, would require Muslims to appear first before a proposed Islamic divorce council made up of imams and lawyers who are familiar with sharia and Australian law. This tribunal would "assess the credibility" of divorce applications from an Islamic perspective. Divorce decrees from this proposed council would be recognised under sharia law and become binding under civil law after approval by a civil court. These are the key recommendations from an article in the journal that says its goal is to help Muslim women avoid improper pressure from former husbands who refuse to grant them a religious divorce. "By establishing the council and formalising the process, women would be able to present their case under fair and culturally sensitive conditions," solicitor and migration agent Ismail Essof says. "A process which is recognised under Australian law would mitigate some of the abuses currently permitted." By giving indirect legal recognition to a tribunal applying sharia law, Mr Essof's plan adopts one of the main techniques to have helped sharia law become part of Britain's legal framework. During a visit to Australia in August, British-based anti-sharia law campaigner Maryam Namazie said Australia should learn from Britain's mistake in extending a form of legal recognition to tribunals that use sharia law, not British law, to decide disputes. Ms Namazie's organisation, One Law for All, produced a report last year that outlines how the British Arbitration Act has permitted sharia tribunals to make rulings based on principles that displace the normal law. The rulings of sharia arbitrators can be registered with Britain's civil courts and then enforced as if they are judgments of mainstream courts, the report says. Ms Namazie blames the liberal media in Britain and the British government for tolerating a form of "legal pluralism" that deprives individual Muslims of some of the rights enjoyed by other Britons. "When you look at sharia's advancement, it restricts the rights and freedoms of Muslims first and foremost and therefore it is actually to the detriment of Muslims if it advances," Ms Namazie says. In the Alternative Law Journal, Mr Essof makes clear he has been influenced by the British response to sharia law and legal pluralism. His article quotes Britain's Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips as saying: "There is no reason why sharia principles or any other religious code should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution." He endorses the concept of legal pluralism, asserting that it has been advanced in many democracies, "Australia included". This assertion by Mr Essof might seem odd when compared to the clear and repeated statements by federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland that Australian law wins out whenever there is a conflict between cultural values and the rule of law. Yet it is easy to see how Mr Essof could conclude legal pluralism has been embraced by Australia, just as it has been in Britain. Recent research by legal academics Ann Black and Kerrie Sadiq, published in the University of NSW Law Journal, found sharia law had already become a shadow legal system in Australia, endorsing polygamous and under-age marriages that are outlawed under the Marriage Act. Mr Essof points to the fact that special sentencing courts for Aborigines, known as circle sentencing courts, are in place. He says they are "a contemporary example of the application of legal pluralism". In the context of his plan for a sharia divorce tribunal, Mr Essof says legal pluralism means "a holistic approach to the law which allows minority groups to find recourse and cultural significance". He writes that he does not advocate a separate legal system for Muslims "but rather incorporation of the single aspect of Islamic divorce law". "Failure to reconcile Islamic divorce law and Australian civil divorce would undermine court processes and have a negative impact on local Muslim communities in Australia," he says. Missing from Mr Essof's argument is any reference to the backlash from Australian Muslims when Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel called for Australia to compromise with Islam and embrace legal pluralism. Mr Patel said later that he supported secular law, and it had been a mistake to even mention legal pluralism. Mr Essof makes it clear that if his scheme takes root, the jurisdiction of the proposed sharia divorce tribunal could grow. "If the system proved successful and established grounds to look at addressing other areas of family dispute once a marriage has broken down, then the council could be given formal recognition in addressing these disputes as well, acting as an arbitrator, with the courts then providing a legally binding approval," he says, The first step would require the federal government to "empower and assist" the Muslim community to establish the council. "Australian law should require both parties to appear before the Islamic Divorce Council upon or before applying for a civil divorce in circumstances where their civil marriage was accompanied by a religious ceremony (as documented in the marriage certificate)," Mr Essof says. "The council will not have legally binding powers unless decisions were to be approved by a court during the civil divorce proceedings. A decree pronounced by the council would, however, be recognised by Islamic law." The final step would require the inclusion of what Mr Essof describes as an "extra criterion" in a divorce application. "The applicant would be asked if they were married through a religious Muslim ceremony. If the applicant responded in the affirmative, then they would be required to prove to the registrar that the couple has been divorced under sharia law. Unless there is official documentation to prove a religious divorce has been granted, an application for divorce under civil law would be denied."
Gabrielle Goldwater is a Member of "Funding for Peace Coalition"
[FPC] (http://eufunding.org.uk) |
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FROM ISRAEL'S BUS 300 AFFAIR TO THE AL-AWLAKI ASSASSINATION
Posted by Steven Plaut, October 6, 2011. |
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It is perhaps the ultimate irony that the Israeli "Bus 300" affair is once again popping up in the media just days after the al-Qaeda terrorist with the US passport, Anwar al-Awlaki, was liquidated by a drone in Yemen. Many of the points being raised in debate over the killing of al-Awlaki are the same as those long raised regarding the Israeli "Bus 300 Affair." In both incidents terrorists were summarily executed by the intelligence agencies of democratic nations, without trial and "due process." Both cases are being exploited by the enemies of those democracies to paint them as "inhumane regimes." In the Bus 300 Affair, intelligence agents from Israel's Shin Bet liquidated two terrorists captured after hijacking a bus full of civilians, mainly women, and threatening to blow them up. The al-Awlaki affair is far fresher in everyone's mind. Many on the Left, joined by Ron Paul and some fringe members of the Right, are grumbling about how al-Awlaki was liquidated "without proper due process and trial." The eminent professor of law from Berkeley, John Yoo, probably made the best case for the killing, writing in the Wall Street Journal: Yet, from the howls on the left, you would never know that President Barack Obama had won another victory in the war on terror. Even as details of the operation leaked out, critics claimed that our government had "assassinated" an American citizen without due process. ... Worse yet, they get the rights of a nation at war terribly wrong. Awlaki's killing in no way violates the prohibition on assassination ... [A]ssassination is an act of murder for political purposes. Killing Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy is assassination. Shooting an enemy soldier in wartime is not. In World War II, the United States did not carry out an assassination when it sent long-range fighters to shoot down an air transport carrying the Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. American citizens who join the enemy do not enjoy a roving legal force-field that immunizes them from military reprisal. President Abraham Lincoln confronted this question at the outset of the Civil War. Almost all of the commentators and bloggers who roll their eyes in mock horror over the execution of the two terrorists in the "Bus 300" affair refuse to report what actually happened there. On April 12, 1984, four Arab terrorists who had entered the Israeli Negev from Gaza commandeered an Israeli civilian bus filled mostly with women commuters returning home to Ashkelon from their jobs in Tel Aviv. There were pregnant women among the victims. The terrorists seized the bus and attempted to drive it towards the Egyptian border. They were armed with knives and explosives and threatened to blow up the entire bus with its passengers if stopped. They crashed through road blocks and were pursued by military jeeps. The bus eventually was stopped near Gaza City. The incident took place just a few years after the massacre of bus passengers by terrorists in another incident along Israel's main coastal road. Holding the Bus 300 passengers as hostages, the terrorists demanded the release of 500 jailed terrorists, threatening to murder the captives if their demands were not met. The next morning, an Israeli SWAT team stormed Bus 300 and freed the passengers. Two of the terrorists were killed in the operation. One Israeli woman on the bus died in the crossfire and seven others were injured. The Israeli military announced that all four terrorists had died in the operation. Later it turned out that two of the four had actually been captured alive and were executed by intelligence agents on the spot. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Syria took credit for the attack, although Israel claimed that Arafat's Fatah terror organization was responsible. The incident turned into a "scandal" when an Israeli newspaper called Hadashot (owned by the radical leftist Haaretz publishing house; it has since closed), edited by one Yossi Klein, defied Israel's military censor (which censors news reporting about some sensitive military matters) and published a photo of one of the captured terrorists being led away. (Originally published with faces of intelligence officers blackened out.) In the aftermath, several Israeli intelligence officers were indicted for their roles in "covering up" the execution of the two captured terrorists. All officers would be either exonerated in court or granted presidential "pardon" before indictment. Careers were damaged more by the negative publicity than from formal judicial actions. The head of the Shin Bet at the time was forced to resign. One intelligence officer named Ehud Yatom proudly boasted of his role in eliminating the terrorists. He later served as a member of the Israeli parliament (the Knesset). An official commission of inquiry then examined activities and procedures of the intelligence agency. The Bus 300 affair continues to generate public debate in Israel. It returns to the headlines whenever any of the figures involved are in the news, such as when Yatom was to be appointed director of the Israeli Parks Authority. There have been films, documentaries and plays about the incident in Israel and elsewhere. The latest is a Hebrew film recently released titled "A. — Liquidate them!" and it is generating a lot of public debate. The Israel far Left has long exploited the incident as a bludgeon against the supposed "human rights abuses" by the intelligence services. Yossi Klein, the same bloke who broke the law by running in Hadashot the photo of the captured terrorist being led away, has been exploiting the attention he is suddenly again getting and denounced the Shin Bet for engaging in things that are "immoral and illegal," in his opinion (Haaretz, October 4, 2011). He has been backed by some of Israel's most seditious self-hating leftist extremists. Both the al-Awlaki killing and "Bus 300" actually serve to illustrate the underlying problem concerning the nature of terrorism. Terrorists are not soldiers, do not behave as soldiers, and when they are captured they are not protected by international treaties regarding prisoners of war. They do not wear uniforms and they explicitly target civilians for purposes of creating mass panic and demoralization. By targeting civilians, they defy all norms of human decency. At the same time they are not civilian "criminals" and so are not entitled to the protections and niceties of the judicial system, from Miranda warnings and legal representation to due process in courts. Terrorism is neither civilian "crime" nor is it military activity by soldiers. It is something else, something unique, sui generis. It is absurd for terrorists to be processed and treated like common criminals, and it is just as absurd for them to be treated as prisoners of war. That is why Guantanamo base, waterboarding, kidnapping terrorists to third countries, and all the rest are methods that are perfectly sensible parts of anti-terrorism policy, even if they would be prohibited when dealing with common criminals and with military prisoners of war. To put it bluntly, terrorists should be summarily executed, unless there is some special strategic reason not to kill them (such as extracting intelligence). Try to imagine that some of the hijackers involved in the 9-11 attacks had actually been overpowered and captured by security personnel that fateful day and then the would-be hijackers had been summarily executed. Or imagine that Osama bin Laden had first been captured alive and only then executed by American security forces, after intelligence was extracted from him. Captured terrorists serve as open invitations to other terrorists to engage in more terrorism in order to gain their release. John Wilkes Booth was not read his rights nor provided with legal counsel. Summary execution of terrorists makes a moral point, that by their actions terrorists have forfeited any expectation of "due process" in court and of ordinary protection due to military prisoners of war. Just as we honor and proclaim publicly the merit of our heroes and role models, so it makes perfect sense for us to exhibit our disgust and revulsion with terrorists by liquidating them. While executing terrorists theoretically risks situations where innocent people could be killed in error, should proof ever emerge of such a case occurring, those involved in the error or crime can be indicted. But the burden of proof that an innocent person was so killed in an anti-terrorism operation would be upon the prosecution. The Shin Bet agents who summarily executed the two Bus 300 terrorists, captured while threatening to blow up a bus full of civilians, behaved properly. The terrorists involved indeed deserved to be summarily executed. The agents should have been proclaimed heroes, promoted and awarded medals. Those who express "anguish" and "horror" at such extra-judicial executions are people who prefer that terrorism thrive and flourish. Execution of terrorists makes them feel squeamish and uncomfortable. Their comfort is more important to them than preventing more 9-11s and more mass murders of civilians by terrorists in the Middle East. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist,
a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author
of "The Scout." He frequently comments — both seriously and
satirically — on Israeli politics and the left wing academic
community. Write him at splaut@gmail.com His website address is
This appeared in Front Page Magazine
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STAR OF DAVID CARVED ON INFIDEL'S BACK IN ST. LOUIS
Posted by Jamie Glazov, October 6, 2011. |
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Media mum about savage Muslim hate crime in the U.S.A. |
A certain Arab author by the name of Mr. Alaa Alsaegh, an immigrant to the U.S. from Iraq, was attacked on August 14, 2011, by Muslims in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. They stabbed him and carved a Star of David onto the flesh of his back. His crime? He published an Arabic language poem titled "Tears at the Heart of the Holocaust" on the website ArabsForIsrael.com. The poem expressed his love for the Jewish people and his sorrow over their fate in the Holocaust. The Muslim community in which he lived was outraged by this thought crime. He was called an infidel and received many threats for articulating his taboo feelings for the Jewish people. Alienated from the Muslim community, he continued to write his poetry, which contained the same themes which so upset his fellow Muslims. In broad daylight and heavy traffic on Aug. 14, Alsaegh paid the price for expressing love for the Jews. And it happened in the streets of St. Louis, right here in the heart of America. Author and courageous freedom fighter Nonie Darwish describes the horrific event: As he was driving at 10:30 in the morning on Compton St. near Park Ave., a small white car cut him off and hit his car, while another car stopped behind him. The occupants of the cars, some of whom wore security guard-type uniforms, quickly entered Alsaegh's car, pointing a gun at him. They pushed his upper body down against the steering wheel, stabbed him and pulled off his shirt to expose his back. Then, with a knife, they carved the Star of David on his back while laughing as they recited his pro-Jewish poem. Alsaegh thought that the perpetrators were Somalis; he was taken to the hospital and the photo of his injury was taken there. The FBI has concluded that this was a hate crime. Question: apart from the Nonie Darwish article, and a handful of other reports, where exactly is this horrific story of Sharia street justice in America being reported? It is nowhere in the media. Rodney King became a household name. The inhabitants of one American city rioted over what happened to that man. President Obama quickly reacted to the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates and, without knowing the incident's specifics, accused the police of acting "stupidly." Will Alaa Alsaegh become a household name? Will the inhabitants of an American city riot over his case? Will Obama say something? Henry Louis Gates didn't have his flesh violated by the police. Might Alsaegh prove worthy of one ounce of Obama's moral indignation? We know the answers to these questions. Three more questions: [1] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Muslim who was attacked by Christians in St. Louis who carved a cross on his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media? [2] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a black man who was attacked by skinheads who carved KKK or a swastika onto his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media? [3] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Jew who expressed love of Muslims and was attacked for that by Jews who carved a crescent moon and star, a recognized symbol of Islam, onto his back? Do you think the story would make it into the media? We know the obvious answer to those three questions. We also know that not only would these scenarios lead to mass media coverage worldwide and spark anti-American hysteria, but that scenarios 1 and 3 would most certainly lead not just to U.S. congressional committee investigations, but also to entire UN commissions. Why is our media silent when a Muslim infidel has a Star of David carved on his back in a hate crime perpetrated by Muslims? Why is the literary culture silent? Where is Hollywood? Why is even our own president silent? The answer is because of a monstrosity called the Left. The Left shapes and controls the boundaries of our society's discourse. The Left's mantle of multiculturalism and the belief that all religions and cultures are equal (except the ones it hates) have been internalized by our society, and there are severe punishments for crossing the boundaries of permitted speech. For example, if you condemn the Muslims for inflicting violence on Alsaegh, then you would have to accept that, in terms of the ingredients of their crime, that they are clearly acting out of the mandates of their Islamic faith (i.e., the obligation to hate infidels and Jews etc. is irrefutable). But to condemn their acts and the teachings on which they are based violates the sacred cow of leftist beliefs (i.e., Islam is a Religion of Peace) and, therefore, makes one an Islamophobe, something that, thanks to the Left's victory in our culture, most people are now terrified of being accused of. This phenomenon explains why Ilan Halimi, a Jewish boy in France, was kidnapped by a Muslim gang several years ago in Paris, held in a secret Muslim concentration camp and barbarically tortured for 23 days until he died (with the torturers calling his mother and reciting Koranic verses to her while she heard his screams), and his name is still to be spoken in our media. It is understandable, of course, why Halimi's name is not spoken — or known — in our culture. If it were, then the fact would become well known that in the apartment building in which he was tied up and tortured, the myriad of dwellers in the building, all Muslims, heard Ilan's screams. Not only did they not do anything to stop it, but many of them got in line to participate. And they took gratification and consolation from torturing their Jew, for Islamic theology dispenses numerous mandates and incentives for Muslims to hate, hurt, and kill Jews. To accept this fact annihilates the foundational structures of the leftist belief system; it takes the legs out from the progressive lies on which our culture is built. It is safer, therefore, not to acknowledge the names of Alaa Alsaegh and Ilan Halimi, let alone what happened to them and why. The notion that his own society is unjust is the bedrock of the leftist's vision. To recognize the evil of the people who carved the Star of David on Alaa Alsaegh's back or who tortured Ilan Halimi, and to recognize the evil of the ideology that inspired them, is to admit the existence of pernicious adversarial faiths. Such an admission concedes that there are cultures and systems that are much more unjust than ours. This is an untenable step for leftists to take, because it means acknowledging that there is something superior about our civilization that's worth saving and defending. Showing compassion for Alaa Alsaegh and Ilan Halimi is, therefore, extremely dangerous for any leftist, as it would undermine his political faith. As I have documented in United in Hate, it would also expose him to potential excommunication from his social community — which is unfathomable for the majority of leftists, whose politics are, in the end, their social lives and, therefore, their sense of personal identity. There is also a desperation in our culture and media for a "moderate Islam" (we talk about it more than Muslims do) — an Islam that many non-Muslims strenuously insist exists, but that somehow mysteriously eludes them. This moderate Islam will take all of our problems away, we are told, once the "extremists," who are the "minority" in Islam, are consoled. Meanwhile, a real and actual "moderate Islam" is nowhere to be found; there is no school of Islamic jurisprudence that counsels Muslims to renounce the Qur'an's teachings on Islamic supremacism and the obligation of violent jihad. And yet, to suggest the truth of this reality in our society earns one only the label of being a racist and an "Islamophobe." Roger Simon, CEO of Pajamas Media, wrote a piece awhile back that touched on this theme, analyzing why even various conservative thinkers have attacked Geert Wilders. In his view, these conservative individuals are rejecting Wilders because they are afraid that he might be right. Krauthammer criticized Wilders, Simon writes, not because he thinks the Dutch politician is "extreme," but because he is afraid the Dutch politician is right. Call it projection, but I believe this because I have the exact same fear. I think many of us do and we don't want to face it. Who would? The resultant conclusions are too depressing. Indeed, it is too depressing to consider the implications of Wilders being right and so a form of Stockholm Syndrome vis-à-vis Islam must enter the consciousness of our society — a Stockholm Syndrome clearly on display, in its own toxic form, in the shameless silence we are now witnessing of our media on the frightening and tragic fate of Alaa Alsaegh.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. His new book is Showdown With Evil. He can be reached at jamieglazov11@gmail.com.
It appeared today in Front Page Magazine
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FROM ISRAEL: THE FAITH THAT SUSTAINS
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 6, 2011. |
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We — those of us who care about Israel — need to be sustained these days. It's hardly news that the inmates are running the asylum. And it's easy to feel the blood pressure rising. Barry Rubin describes the situation exceedingly well in his latest article, "Why isn't there peace? Because of Israel, of course!" Its thesis: "The main element of the Israeli-Palestinian talks is that only the Palestinian side makes demands." Tell us about it!
~~~~~~~~~~ Writes Rubin: "Who knew? It's all Israel's fault there isn't peace. Why? Because it hasn't forgotten its history and doesn't want to be a 'willing martyr.' Uh huh... ~~~~~~~~~~ This is how Rubin describes the situation (with my emphasis added): For starters, "Israel cannot ask for anything at all. If it does, the Palestinians will reject it, and that will be 'Israel's fault.' "For example: Suppose we withdraw to the 1967 lines and you drop your demand for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ Rubin's conclusion: "...the intransigence of the Palestinian leadership" results in a loss of opportunity for the Palestinian Arabs, and they get far less than they might have..."After each diplomatic failure due to unmentioned Palestinian rejectionism the world goes away for a while and finds something else to do. Ah! I'll have more to say about this below. ~~~~~~~~~~ And what sort of nonsense are we seeing today? Well, we've got European nations, notably Germany and the Netherlands, "urging" Israel to once again freeze all construction over the Green Line in order to bring Abbas to the table. Surprising? Of course not. But provokes some very impolitic responses non-the-less. Herein do we see the truth of what Rubin wrote. Only Israel is expected to make concessions. And concessions, yet, to an entity that has been uncooperative and defiant in the extreme. ~~~~~~~~~~ What is more, the EU is expected to "mention negatively" the decision by the Israeli Ministry of Interior to build new housing in Gilo. That will happen in Brussels after the EU foreign minister's monthly meeting to be held on Monday. Right now officials in Brussels are discussing how much prominence to give the issue. A negative statement about Israel's plans to build housing for young couples in a neighborhood that is solidly part of Jerusalem and is founded upon Jewish land? In spite of the fact that Netanyahu has agreed to the Quartet plan to begin negotiations again without preconditions, while Abbas has not. In spite of the fact that there are town squares in PA territory named after terrorists, and that PA-produced textbooks teach jihad. In spite of the fact that official PA maps cut out Israel:
And in spite of the fact that Abbas ignored all pleas to not go the unilateral route of the UN. ~~~~~~~~~~ All that matters here in the end is that Netanyahu remembers to say NO! and NO! and only NO! Our prime minister is not at liberty to say publicly some of the other things he most undoubtedly is thinking. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to Muhammed Ishtayeh, a confident of Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has sent a letter to the Quartet, in which it called for the dismissal of Tony Blair as the Quartet's envoy. Said Mr. Ishtayeh, "Our general evaluation of his efforts is that he has become of no use at all. He has developed a large bias in favor of Israel (read: he doesn't always take our side) and he has lost a lot of his credibility...We hope the Quartet will reconsider the appointment of this person." A spokesman for Blair has said these comments do not reflect what he is hearing from Palestinian leadership. I'm sure it has occurred to him that what they say to his face and what they say otherwise may well be two different things. Just as I'm sure there are things Blair must be thinking right now that he can't say any more than Bibi can. I think it's a litmus test of a sort — the question of how the Quartet responds to this. How much will they scrape and bow to the PA. ~~~~~~~~~~ The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO — in response to a Palestinian Arab request — is moving towards granting full membership to a Palestinian state. The 58-member board of this organization has voted to allow the full membership of 193 nations to vote on admitting "Palestine" to its ranks as a full member of UNESCO, during its General Conference that starts October 25 in Paris. The US, Germany, Latvia and Romania voted against this, and 14 nations abstained. All the European nations of UNESCO's executive board, with the exceptions of Russia and Belarus, either abstained or voted negatively. ~~~~~~~~~~ Israel released a statement with regard to this situation, in which it pointed out that UNESCO's task is to address issues of culture, science and education, but it has found the time in this session for six decisions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, "The decision to grant the Palestinians membership [in] UNESCO will not advance their desire for an independent state whatsoever." While in the US, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed her anger by calling for a cut-off of US funding to UNESCO if the Palestinian request for membership is approved. "Feeling that their efforts at the UN Security Council will fail, the Palestinian leadership is shopping the UN system for recognition. Blessing on your head, Ileana! ~~~~~~~~~~ Just yesterday, by the way, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) decided to grant the status of "Partner for Democracy" to the PLO's Palestinian National Council. This does not give the Palestinians voting rights in the Council but allows them to speak before PACE's assembly, and most committees. According to a PACE statement, the Palestinians pledged to pursue the "values upheld by the Council of Europe, hold free and fair elections, and work towards abolishing the death penalty." The assembly will monitor key issues such as making the PNC democratically elected, refraining from violence and rejecting terrorism. When you stop laughing, you can continue reading... This is what happens when nations and agencies in which they participate totally prostitute themselves to politics, ignoring all that is reasonable and fair and honest. And it strikes a startling counter-point to the forthright position of Ros-Lehtinen. ~~~~~~~~~~ If you have the stomach for it, I'll give you one more item: According to the French magazine Le Canard Enchaîne, this is what French President Nicholas Sarkozy told his cabinet after he returned from attending the General Assembly meeting in September: "It is silly to talk about a Jewish state. It would be like saying that this table is Catholic. There are two million Arabs in Israel. I won't dignify this with a comment. ~~~~~~~~~~ Tomorrow night, we begin the holiest day of the year: Yom Kippur. We are in a period in which heshbon nefesh — a personal accounting is required of all Jews. And it is in the spirit of this time that I frame my response to all that I have written about above: The State of Israel, the state of the Jewish People, will be here long after the UN and the EU — and certainly the PA — are ancient history. This knowledge is what sustains. If you will be participating in Yom Kippur prayers, I ask that you pray for Israel. May all of Am Yisrael do a communal heshbon nefesh, so that we might stay strong in our purpose. May we all be inscribed and sealed for blessing. Please, take the time to see this video, and then to share it. It is stunning in its understanding of what is happening today, and it makes my response very clear.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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ISLAM'S PREDICTABILITY: APOSTASY, EXECUTION, AND LIES
Posted by Raymond Ibrahim, October 6, 2011. |
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As one ponders the fate of Yousef Nadarkhani, the Iranian pastor on death row for refusing to renounce Christianity, it is well to reflect that, for all the talk that Islam is perpetually "misunderstood," it is actually immensely predictable and consistent; not only do its patterns cross time and space, but their manifestations are often identical. 
Consider: Muslims have no qualms proudly declaring the particulars of their religion for all and sundry to hear — no matter how absurd or how it reflects on them or Islam. Thus talk about the legitimacy of adult "breast feeding," pedophilia as marriage, insistence that the earth is flat, commands not to yawn (lest Satan flies down one's throat), the salutary effects of drinking prophet urine, the need to execute the "infidel" Mickey Mouse, and any number of other oddities and perversities are regularly evoked by Islam's sheikhs and clerics throughout the Muslim world. There is, of course, one caveat: whenever Islam is vulnerable vis-à-vis the international infidel, as it is today, caution is called for regarding the declaration of those things that might backfire, things that might make Islam look like a threat — things that might incline other civilizations to go on a preemptive offensive, while they have the advantage. Jihad is a perfect example. Despite the fact that "holy war" to conquer infidel territories and spread Islamic hegemony is an ironclad aspect of the religion — an integral part of its history, its doctrines, its very being — Muslims are careful not to evoke it around infidels. Even Islamist organizations, including al-Qaeda, while regularly pontificating to fellow Muslims about how Islam demands the subjugation of non-Muslims — simply because they are infidels — always back-peddle when communicating with the West, opting instead to use language and paradigms that comport with Western sensibilities. It is in this manner that many in the West have come to believe Islam's nonstop aggression around the globe is a byproduct of "grievances," of "Zionism," of U.S. "foreign policy," of anything and everything, not Islam. Now consider how this identical pattern — Muslims proudly displaying Islam's particulars, only to deny them once they become counterproductive — has played out in the Iranian Christian pastor saga: First, Iran's Supreme Court made it unequivocally clear that apostasy is punishable by death. Why shouldn't it? All legitimate schools of Islamic law — including Shia — mandate death for the apostate, in accordance with their prophet's command: "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, kill him." Then, to the chagrin of Iran's government, which likely expected to get away with its barbarities unnoticed, the Western mainstream media actually picked up the story, resulting in widespread condemnation from Western politicians, many highlighting Iran's hypocrisy, thereby undermining its constant calls for "justice" and "humanitarianism" in its attempt to demonize Israel. So what did the taqiyya masters of Shia Iran do? In the face of all the documented evidence otherwise, they decided to change the whole story, to use language intelligible to West: now the pastor is supposedly being executed because he is a "Zionist traitor," a "rapist" and "extortionist," a "brothel owner," etc. — all epithets Iran knows will resonate with the West. Of course, none of these charges exist in Iran's Supreme Court ruling, which clearly and unequivocally asserts that pastor Yousef Nadarkhani is convicted of turning his back on Islam, the greatest religion the prophesy of Mohammad at the age of 19. He has often participated in Christian worship and organized home church services, evangelizing and has been baptized and baptized others, converting Muslims to Christianity. He has been accused of breaking Islamic Law that from puberty (15 years according to Islamic law) until the age of 19 the year 1996, he was raised a Muslim in a Muslim home. During court trials, he denied the prophecy of Mohammad and the authority of Islam. He has stated that he is a Christian and no longer Muslim. Thus, just like all the other Muslims who boldly and proudly declare the things of Islam, except when they are counterproductive to Islam's wellbeing — apostasy like jihad is equally codified in Sharia, and equally detested in the West — those who unashamedly sought to execute an apostate in Iran cringed and dissembled, as usual. For anyone following the patterns of Islamic behavior, this is all too predictable — almost as predictable as the fact that many wishful thinkers in the West will happily accept Iran's lies, simply to validate their own worldview, despite all the evidence otherwise.
This appeared today on Jihad Watch and is archived at
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ARABS DESECRATE TOMB OF JOSEPH — AGAIN
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, October 2, 2011. |
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So Bibi, where is your rage today? Does the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem plan to visit the site and denounce this abomination? Will there be a list of Sheiks and Imams commending this atrocity? As they say; don't hold your breath. Our tradition teaches us that you can know the true nature of a person by what angers him. The betrayer of Hevron become enraged by the burning of an idolatrous structure. Great and noble Government employed Rabbis denounce this as well with great passion and anguish. Well, let us see how fast and how passionate they respond to this most recent desecration of the tomb of Yosef Hatzadik. This was written by David Lev and it
appeared in Arutz-Sheva
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Arabs have once again desecrated the Tomb of Joseph in Shechem, daubing the structure with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic graffiti. 
Arabs have once again desecrated the Tomb of Joseph in Shechem, daubing the structure with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic graffiti, swastikas, and other symbols of hatred. Shocked visitors to the site said that it was simply an act of barbarism, that clearly showed what the fate of Jews would be if the Arabs ever do wrest control of Judea and Samaria from Israel. The desecration was discovered late Wednesday night, when over 2,000 Jews entered the compound in the PA-controlled city of Shechem for Selichot (pre-Yom Kippur penitential prayers). The prayer service was organized by the Samaria Regional Council and the Shechem Echad organization, which advocates a Jewish return to the city, in coordination with the IDF. The first wave of visitors saw the vandalism and alerted group leaders to the situation. Those inside the building quickly began painting over the offending symbols and comments with whitewash, while hundreds of worshippers continued to descend on the site. Speaking to Arutz Sheva Thursday, Gershon Mesika, chairman of the Samaria Regional Council, had a hard time holding back his shock and anger. "Only barbarians are capable of doing such horrible things. Those who have this pathological need to continuously desecrate a holy place do not deserve the title 'human being.'" The desecration gives the lie to the PA's claims that it is responsible enough for statehood, Mesika added. "The PA's terrorist police continuously tell the media that they are capable of guarding the Tomb of Joseph without the help of the IDF. But they have now proven that they lost any shred of humanity. These terrorists in uniform who presided over this desecration are the same ones who murdered Ben Yosef Livnat, h"yd. Maybe they themselves vandalized the Tomb," Mesika said, adding "Woe to the nation that continuously allows its holy sites and symbols to be desecrated without consequence or response. Israel must take full control of the Tomb of Joseph, which is even specified in the Oslo Accords. We must restore our respect and honor, by restoring the Yeshiva and the permanent Israeli presence at the Tomb." The Shechem Echad organization also expressed its shock, saying that "it is shocking and angering that we see the Tomb of Joseph and other holy sites in Samaria desecrated over and over. This is an unacceptable situation, and must be corrected." Visitors to the Tomb Wednesday night ranged from a large contingent of Hassidim, led by their Rebbe, to secular Jews. Witnesses reported seeing tears in the eyes of soldiers who were guarding the group. Rabbi Elyakim Levanon of Elon Moreh commented that "just a month ago the media was trying to frighten us with tales of 'black September' and all that it was supposed to entail, but it was clear then that when Israel showed that it was in control those threats evaporated. I call on the government to act in a strong manner, like Joseph himself, and show Jewish pride and bravery against those who rise up against the Jewish people."
Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is
Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit
(www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet
buying facility for American visitors to Israel.
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FISCAL CRISIS CONFRONTS FOREIGN AID
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 5, 2011. |
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Both houses of Congress expect to slash U.S. foreign aid, including fund for the UN. This cut would come "at a time of desperate humanitarian crises and uncertain political developments. The proposal has raided the specter of deep cuts in food and medicine for Africa, in relief for disaster-affected places like Pakistan and Japan, in political and economic assistance for the new democracies of the Middle East, and even for the Peace Corps." The result would undermine what Pres. Obama and Sec. of State Clinton call "smart power." It is smart for diplomacy and economic development to complement U.S. military power (Steven Lee Myers, NY Times, 10/4/11, A1). "Smart power?" Are they kidding? After all the State Dept. blunders for decades and the resulting wars? "Smart power" is a good theory, if only our leaders were sensible. Think of all the times that President Obama has offended allies and flattered enemies in just two years. This is so detrimental to U.S. interests that one almost wonders whose side Obama is on. The problem with foreign aid precedes this Administration. We subsidized Radical Muslims to overthrow Soviet rule. Unfortunately, most of the funds went to the wrong people. The result empowered the Taliban and war there. That war still is not over. We assisted Saddam and hinted we didn't care about Kuwait, so he invaded Kuwait, and we got into a war with him. That war still is not over. We spent a fortune in economic aid to Iraq and Afghanistan, but are jeopardizing its success, if any, by premature withdrawal. We subsidized the Pakistan military, only for our leaders finally to realize what some of us knew years ago, that Pakistan is jihadist and gets U.S. troops killed. "Smart power" is looking more and more foolish. Now the big Egyptian army built by tens of billions of our dollars hovers at the brink of falling into Islamist hands. What good did that subsidy do us? Not having learned from that, we continue that spending while increasing financing of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), whose head urges and threatens war. The U.S. general training P.A. troops warns us that those troops may turn their guns on Israel. Does one have to be super smart to have foreseen that? The assertion that there are new democracies of the Mideast, and that they are decent is not demonstrable. How can any of those countries be democratic, without any democratic practices except the promise of elections that the Islamists are liable to win and exploit to end democratic inclinations? How can states that establish the religion of Islam, which does not recognize minority rights, be democratic? The notion of spending more money for an unsure benefit is part of the thinking, if you call it that, responsible for our economic crisis. The UN is a notoriously corrupt, power seeking, and even evil organization. Why work through it? Yes, some of the projects cited as liable to lose U.S. financing sound worthy. Worthy in principle, just like the notion of "smart power." In practice, however, money designated for such projects often gets siphoned off by corruption or by greedy leaders. For example, Saddam sold food and medicine sent through the embargo on Iraq as a humanitarian gesture. Send North Korea food, and it would distribute it to the Army and the Party, not the starving masses. The U.S. government does not know how to make foreign aid effective, not since the Marshall Plan and Point Four aid to Greece and Turkey two generations ago. This is an interesting point, considering that the goal or effect of the Obama administration seems to be to make Americans dependent upon it. Hence Obama proposes reducing the tax deduction for donations to charity. That means smaller donations to charity. Some African countries have become dependent upon such aid to the point at which they do not strive to build themselves up. That is the welfare mentality. As some foreign governments once requested, trade not aid. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL:" A POMEGRANATE GROVE NEAR KIRYAT MALACHI
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, October 5, 2011. |
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and you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed. Don't be bitter because you can't record it. Sit down, drink it in, and enjoy it for what it is!" HOW I GOT THE SHOT: I stepped out of my local mini-market last week and stood under Efrat's big sky gazing momentarily at the sunset. A friend spotted me and asked, "Don't you wish you had your camera?" In truth, I didn't. Though it has taken some hard work on my part, I'd rather enjoy the moment in real time than delay gratification for the virtual pleasure delivered by a photograph. That is in no way to diminish the value of photography, but it is also important to have that choice. This week's photo was taken in a roadside orchard not far from the town of Kiryat Malachi. Anyone can stop and hop the guardrail into the field, yet few people make that effort, preferring instead to whiz by unaware at 100 km per hour. In our urban-centered lives, nature rarely comes to us. Walking through this pomegranate grove, I marveled at the trees' ability to hold the heavy fruit without the branches breaking. I wanted a shot that showed the abundance of fruit just before the harvest and found this angle, with a bountiful tree framed nicely by the mature fruits suspended in the foreground. Technical Data: Nikon D700, 28-105 zoom at 32mm, f5.6 @ 1/1000th sec.,
ISO 200.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website: |
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RAOUL WALLENBERG DAY. MAY THE MEMORY OF A TRUE HERO LIVE FOREVER!
Posted by Hands Fiasco, October 5, 2011. |
| To comment on this news, write us to: irwfnews@irwf.org.ar |
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Following an initiative of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation (IRWF), several U.S. State Governors have declared October 5, 2011 as Raoul Wallenberg Day. Thirty years ago on this very day Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who disappeared in January 1945 after saving the lives of tens of thousands condemned to certain death by the Nazis during World War II, became the second person in history to be awarded Honorary U.S. Citizenship by the U.S. Congress. Back in 2005, the IRWF initiated a campaign aimed at obtaining official proclamations of Wallenberg Days across the United States. The State of New Jersey is proclaiming Raoul Wallenberg Day for the fourth time and in the official proclamation Governor Chris Christie declares, Raoul Wallenberg is recognized as an incomparable example and inspiration for all who fight for justice. This commemorative date is celebrated every year in the State of New York and this year will be observed in the States of Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Utah and West Virginia. Wallenberg Days are internationally recognized and are commemorated in various countries including Canada and Argentina. On this day we remember Raoul Wallenberg and all other brave Rescuers during the Holocaust, but our wish for this day is also expressed in words of the New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez Raoul Wallenberg Day provides us with an opportunity to address intolerance issues in our society, become better informed, and take action against such problems; Therefore, we encourage all schools from the participating States to
dedicate a class during the month of October to Raoul Wallenberg and
other brave Rescuers, and to discuss with their students the values that
Rescuers represent, such as: civic courage, human dignity, liberty,
justice, and equality. For our educational programs please visit:
Contact HandsFiasco at handsfiasco@webtv.net |
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YOM KIPPUR GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, October 5, 2011. |
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This is based on Jewish Sages |
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1. Yom Kippur's central theme is the plea for forgiveness from fellow human-beings, highlighting the most essential attributes of constructive leadership, healthy relationships and family and national cohesion: humility (admitting fallibility), faith, soul-searching, thoughtfulness, being considerate, compassion, accepting responsibility, minimizing personal hostility, magnanimity. In order to penetrate the heart of fellow human-beings, the plea for forgiveness must emanate from the heart. Yom Kippur is not driven by punishment, but by behavioral-enhancement. 2. The Jubilee — sanctifying each 50th year by proclaiming liberty, as inscribed also on the Liberty Bell — is announced by blowing the Shofar (a ritual horn) on Yom Kippur. The Jubilee liberates persons physically and spiritually. The word "jubilee" is a Hebrew synonym for "Shofar." Yom Kippur and Jubilee highlight the subordination of human-beings to God. 3. Yom Kippur culminates the ten days of a genuine, heart-driven atonement/repentance, which begin on the first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei - an Akkadian word for forgiveness and Genesis. It is observed on the tenth day of Tishrei. Ten has special significance in Judaism: G-D's abbreviation is the tenth Hebrew letter (Yod); Ten attributes of God — Divine perfection — during the Creation; the Ten Commandments; the Ten Plagues; Ten reasons for blowing the Shofar; Ten percent gift to God (tithe); The Ten Martyrs (Rabbis who were tortured/murdered by the Roman Empire); Ten generations between Adam & Noah and ten generations between Noah & Abraham; a Ten worshippers quorum (Minyan) is required for a collective Jewish prayer; etc. 4. Yom Kippur is a Happy Jewish Holiday, replacing vindictiveness and rage with peace-of-mind and peaceful co-existence between God and human-beings and primarily among human-beings. Yom Kippur emphasizes God's Covenant with the Jewish People, ending God's rage over the sin of the Golden Calf and commemorating Abraham's circumcision, which initialed God's covenant with the Jewish People. 5. The Hebrew word Kippur (atonement/repentance) is a derivative of the Biblical words Kaporet - which covered the Holy Ark at the Sanctuary - and Kopher, which covered Noah's Ark and the Holy Altar at the Temple. The reference is to a spiritual cover (dome), which does not cover-up, but separates between the holy and the mundane, between spiritualism and materialism. The Kippa (skullcap, Yarmulke), which covers one's head during prayers, reflects a spiritual dome. Thus, Yom Kippur constitutes the cover (Dome) of the Ten Days of Atonement (between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), separating them from the rest of the year. 6. Yom Kippur calls for Teshuvah, which is the Hebrew word for repentance. The root of Teshuvah is similar to root of the Hebrew word for Return — returning to positive God-inspired values — and Shvitah — cessation (strike) of mundane thoughts and actions and eating. It is also similar to the root of Shabbat. Yom Kippur is also called Shabbat Shabbaton — the supreme Sabbath. The last Sabbath before Yom Kippur is called Shabbat Teshuvah (based on Hosea's prophesy, chapter 4). While the Sabbath is the soul of the week, Yom Kippur is the soul of the year. 7. The Hebrew spelling of "fast" — abstinence from food - reflects the substance of Yom Kippur. The Hebrew word for "fast" is the root of the Hebrew word for "reduction" and "shrinking" of one's wrong-doing. It is also the root of the Hebrew words for "slave" and "eternity" — enslavement to God, but not to human-beings. "Fast" is also the root of (being oneself), (awesome), (power), (independence), which are gained through the process of fasting, soul-searching, spiritual enhancement and trust in God. 8. The prayer of Veedooi (confession/confirmation/reaffirmation in Hebrew) is recited Ten times during Yom Kippur, re-entrenching genuine repentance and plea for forgiveness. The prerequisites for forgiveness are the expression & exercise (talking & walking) of confession; assuming full-responsibility for one's (mis)behavior, and significantly altering one's behavior. King Saul sinned only once — ignoring the commandment to annihilate the Amalekites — but was banished from the crown and killed, because he shirked responsibility, while responding to Samuel's accusation. King David sinned twice (The "Bat-Sheba Gate" and the "Census Gate"), but was forgiven, because he accepted full-responsibility and the death sentence (as proclaimed by Nathan the Prophet), which was promptly rescinded. 9. The initial prayer on the eve of Yom Kippur, Tefilah Zakah (pure prayer), enables each worshipper to announce universal forgiveness. While transgressions between human-beings and G-D are forgiven summarily via prayers, transgressions among human-beings require explicit forgiveness. Ill-speaking of other persons may not be forgiven. 10. The Memorial Candle, commemorating one's parent(s), is lit during Yom Kippur. It reaffirms Honor Thy Father and Mother, providing another opportunity to ask forgiveness of one's parent(s), as well as asking forgiveness on their behalf. 11. The Scroll of Jonas is read on Yom Kippur. It demonstrates that repentance and forgiveness is universal to all Peoples, commanding one to assume responsibility, to get involved socially-politically, to sound the alarm when wrong-doing is committed anywhere in the world, to display compassion for all peoples and to adhere to Faith and Optimism, in defiance of all odds. It behooves good folks to roll up their sleeves, lest evil triumphs! 12. A long sound of the Shofar concludes Yom Kippur. It commemorates the covenant with God (the almost-sacrifice of Isaac), the receipt of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, Liberty (Jubilee) and the opening of Gods gates of forgiveness. The Hebrew root of Shofar means to enhance/improve oneself . A Hebrew synonym for Shofar is Keseh, which also means cover-Kaporet-Kippur. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il |
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ISRAEL, US AND THE STINKING FISH
Posted by Barbara Ginsberg, October 5, 2011. |
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This below was written by Rabbi Meir Kahane and it appeared September 1976 in Kahane Magazine. Anyone reading this Rabbi Kahane article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles and would like to be, please contact me at: BarbaraAndChaim@gmail.com Visit my blog for previously e-mailed Rav Kahane writings:
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Many times I have spoken of the Talmudic parable of the king, his servant, and the fish. Never was it more apt. [Events of today between Bibi and Obama.] Once there was a king who sent his servant to buy a fish. The servant returned with a fish that stank. In fury the king gave the servant a choice of three punishments: "Eat the fish, get whipped for the fish, or pay for the fish." In common with most people, the servant chose not to reach into his pocket and he decided to eat the stinking fish but after two bites the stench made him give up and he decided to get whipped for it. The pain of the lashes, however, made him stop that, too, and he cried out, "I will pay for the fish!" And so the fool ate the fish, got whipped for the fish and, in the end, had to pay for it, anyhow. Those in Israel and without, who refuse to understand that nothing will deter America from demanding that Israel make the maximum concessions, play the same fool. Those who do not understand that there is nothing that Israel can possible do, that there are no compromises it can make, that there is nothing short of full retreat to the 1967 borders that will satisfy the United States-are the same fools as the servant who ate, got whipped and in the end had to pay anyhow, Their refusal to make the difficult choice of telling the Americans "no", now, at this moment, will see them making the retreats they hope will avert American anger; it will see this effort fail even as the frontier moves from its present lines within the Arab heartland to new ones close to the Jewish cities; and most important, the Americans will make the same demands they always have envisioned since the days of the Roger Plan-total Israeli withdrawal. And since this is a thing that not even the most dovish of Israelis will agree to, the result will be an ultimate Israeli firm "no", an ultimate American anger of the kind all men of "new initiative" propose to avert today by compromise, and exactly the same conditions of confrontation that would come anyhow if the Israelis said their "no" today. There would be one great difference, however, a "no" today will bring the crisis while Israel stands poised near the Arab capitols. A "no" tomorrow, after all the hapless and confused compromises and "initiatives," will bring the same crisis near Tel Aviv, Beersheva and Netanya. This is what happens when foolish and confused Israelis, by refusing to pay the price of saying "no" to the stinking fish of pressure, attempt to eat it, submit to getting beaten over it and then learn to their dismay that there is no escape from the difficult decision that they should have made in the first place. Let the Israeli government, its men of "new initiative" and the Jewish leaders in America understand several basic axioms: 1) America is committed to the Roger Plan and the world's interpretation of Security Council Resolution 242, i.e. Israeli withdrawal from all (but insignificant) parts of the lands of 1967. This includes the Golan Heights, Gaza, the entire West bank and the entire Sinai as well as changing Jerusalem's present Jewish sovereignty status. Stinking fish are not made to be eaten or to get whipped for. One must have the courage to look at the truth and pay the bitter price of honesty. America is tired of the Israeli nuisance and wishes it would ea t the fish already. The time to loudly proclaim "no" is now. Contact Barbara Ginsberg at barbaraandchaim@gmail.com |
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HITLER'S "ARAB MONKEY RACE" [IN HIS VIEW] HAS A NAZI PARTY IN EGYPT... AGAIN
Posted by American, October 5, 2011. |
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In the 1930s, as the Middle East got caught up in Nazism in a combination of ultra Arabism, 'Arab racism' and supremacy mixed with Islamic radicalism, Arab Nazi scouts/parties sprung in the Arab world. Like the Futuwwa in Iraq [who, under the pan-Arab, pan-Islamic leader Mufti's influence was responsible for the Farhud massacre in 1941]; the 'Young Egypt' was born in 1933, "producing" such "gems" as warmonger Nasser; the Husseinis in Arab-Palestine created a Hitler Youth type paramilitary and an Arab Nazi Party. After more than 70 Years, whereas openly Nazism is -fortunately- shunned just about everywhere, still, in the Arab Islamic Egypt there are 'Arab springers' who are "inspired" to be Nazis. Repeating the paradox, in spite of the ironic contradiction to the Aryans contempt for them. It is no secret how Hitler and the Nazis despised Arabs (as well as all Middle Easterners), regarded them as "monkeys," and would have wiped them out (as assertion come out in recent years), just as "soon" as they were "done" with the Jews. |
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HERE WE GO AGAIN: 'ARAB NAZI PARTY' - NOW IN EGYPT [IN 2011] - WITHOUT ANY SHAME Founders of the Egyptian Nazi Party: All We Want is World Supremacy for the Egyptian Race
September 28, 2011 Special Dispatch No.4170
"Our Political Goal is to Make the Arab Race, or Arabic Speakers, the Best Race" TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: "A group of young Egyptians have founded a Nazi political party, even though Nazism is a tyrannical Fascist political ideology, which brought ruin and destruction upon the entire world." [...] Egyptian Nazi Party member Dr. Mamdouh Mansour: "This is a new party with a new ideology. It operates out in the open. It is not a secret or Freemason society. The party's ideology offers solutions to the problems afflicting Egypt." [...] Egyptian Nazi Party member Sayyed Gamal: "We have adopted the positive aspects of the Nazi Party, not the negative. We will not carry out holocausts against the Jews, and we will not fight them. This has to do with the policies of the state, in which we do not interfere. "Nobody finances us — neither at home nor abroad." Head of the Egyptian Nazi Party Muhi Al-Din Gamal: "My vision for the future is that within 10 years, we will have representatives in the parliament, and the president will be one of ours as well. Our political goal is to make the Arab race, or Arabic speakers, the best race. They will be at the top level, and we will help to spread the Arabic language throughout the world." Egyptian Nazi Party member Rami Gan: "Several businessmen want to finance us, and we have to choose between them. We do not recognize the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. "We want to build an Egyptian nuclear reactor — a reactor that will be built by Egyptians and will have Egyptian components. All Egyptians will unite around this national project." "The One and Only Thing We Have Adopted from Nazism is Racial Supremacy" TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: "Heil Hitler! We have in the studio with us 'Amr Fouad, a member of the Nazi Party. Welcome, 'Amr. "Muhammad Abd Al-Rahmad, a member of the Nazi Party. Hello, Muhammad. "And Ahmad Sayyed, a member of the Nazi Party. Welcome, Ahmad. [...] "Why should we, in Egypt, import these tyrannical, Fascist political movements, and evoke them from history, after they have been vomited by the entire world?"
Founders of Egyptian Nazi Party Claim 'Not Hostile to Jews
September 29, 2011 — The Founders of the Egyptian Nazi Party went on television last week to proclaim that their recently formed political group will seek to achieve ...
Egyptian activists 'to form Nazi party', n... JPost - Middle East
May 26, 2011 — 'Al-Masry Al-Youm' report says Facebook pages launched to attract followers; Nazi parties operated secretly in Egypt during Mubarak regime.
Arab Spring... Egypt Now Has a Nazi Party | The Gateway Pundit
May 26, 2011 — A group of Egyptian political activists have announced plans to set up a local version "of the Nazi party," an Egyptian newspaper reported on...
Egyptians Start NAZI Party | FrontPage Magazine [Oct 4, 2011]
NAZI TYPE PARTIES: INCLUDING 'YOUNG EGYPT,' FUTUWWA IN IRAQ AND THE 'ARAB NAZI PARTY' IN PALESTINE (1930'S) The Outpost
The most influential Arab party to follow the Nazi model was Young Egypt, known also as the Green Shirts, in tribute to the Nazi Jung Deutschland and the ...
Bosnian Moslems recruited the Nazi SS by Yasser Arafat's 'Uncle'
The most influential party that emulated the Nazis was "Young Egypt," which was founded in October 1933. They had storm troopers, torch processions, and ...
[PDF] Middle Eastern Myths "The Myth of Yasser Arafat"
During the war, Arab Nazi parties were founded throughout the Middle East. The most influential one was "Young Egypt" which was established in 1933...
Armies of the young: child soldiers in war and terrorism - Page 106
David M. Rosen - Rutgers University Press, 2005 - 199 pages - Preview
Others argued that the "Land is in need of a youth, healthy in body and soul like the Nazi ... paramilitary forces. Palestinian students educated in Germany returned to Palestine determined to found the Arab Nazi Party of Palestine. The Husseinis used the Palestinian Arab Party to established the al-Futuwwa
Semites and anti-Semites: an inquiry into conflict and prejudice - Page 147
Bernard Lewis - W. W. Norton & Company, 1999 - 295 pages - Preview
A first attempt to found an Arab Nazi movement seems to date from the summer of 1933, when the Jaffa correspondent of the Cairo newspaper al-Ahram applied to the German consul for help. It was not forthcoming... The mood of the 1930s was vividly described by Syrian Saml al- Jundi, an early leader of the Ba'th party, ...
The Jews of Iraq: 3000 years of history and culture
Nissim Rejwan - Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985 - 274 pages - Page 223
...and the Futuwwa and Youth Brigades (katayib al-shabab) whose members 'imbibed Nazism from the Palestinians and the Syrians' and who systematically harassed the Jews during the month of May, when they were made responsible for keeping ... One more point about the farhud of the first and second of June is worth mentioning here.
The third Reich & the Palestine question - Page 90
Francis R. Nicosia - Transaction Publishers, 2000 - 319 pages - Preview
Wolff's strong opposition to any sort of German encouragement or support for an Arab Nazi party in Palestine was conveyed in a note to the Foreign Office in Berlin in June, 1933, in which he argued: Because the strengthening of the
First things: Issues 154-158
Institute on Religion and Public Life - 2005 - [Page 14]
Several of the Arab political parties founded during the 1930s were modeled after the Nazi party, including the Syrian Popular Party and the Young Egypt Society, which were explicitly anti-Semitic in their ideology and programs.
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini - Page 28 Chuck Morse - iUniverse, 2003 - 186 pages - Preview Al- Husseini's own Palestine Arab Party stood for the expulsion of all Jewish settlers and an independent Arab ... efforts to assist in the development of what would become distinctly Nazi-Arab style organizations and political parties... http://books.google.com/books?id=HGkthBwbNg8C&pg=PA28 1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war - Page 89
Benny Morris - Yale University Press, 2008 - 524 pages - Preview Al-Hawari tried to model the Najjada on the Ha- ganah. By mid-1946 it had, on paper, "8000" members. The Futuwwa was founded at the end of 1935 by Jamal Husseini as the Arab Party's youth corps; the Nazi Party or the Hitlerjugend ...
Righteous victims: a history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881-1999
Benny Morris - Random House Digital, Inc., 1999 - 751 pages - Google eBook - Preview
It set up its own youth corps, al-Futuwwa (the name of an association of Arab knights during the Middle Ages), which resembled Germany's Hitler Youth and was officially designated the "Nazi Scouts." At the founding meeting on February ...
The master plan: Himmler's scholars and the Holocaust
Heather Anne Pringle - Hyperion, 2006 - 463 pages
Grobba arranged for the leaders of Al- Futuwwa to travel to Nuremberg to attend the annual Nazi party rally.
Gold, Bankiers und Diplomaten: zur Geschichte der Deutschen Orientbank 1906-1946
Wolfgang Schwanitz - Trafo, 2002 - 429 pages - Page 247 - Snippet view
salem, is called by the Germans the chief of the Arab Nazi party and chosen by the enemy as the future representative of the Arabs in the political meaning of the word.
HITLER'S INFERIOR DESPISED ARAB 'MONKEY' RACE War aims in the second world war: the war aims of the major belligerents, 1939-45 -
Islam, Nazism, and Totalitarianism During an interview conducted in the late 1930s (published in 1939), Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychiatry, was asked "...had he any views on what was likely to be the next step in religious development?" Jung replied, in reference to the Nazi fervor that had gripped Germany We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future. Albert Speer, who was Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production, wrote a contrite memoir of his World War II experiences while serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed by the Nuremberg tribunal. Speer's narrative includes this discussion, which captures Hitler's racist views of Arabs on the one hand, and his effusive praise for Islam on the other: Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire. Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking, "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"
The roots of Arab Anti-Semitism - By David Greenberg - Slate Magazine Oct 31, 2001 ... Then came the Holocaust, which not only marked the pinnacle of European anti-Semitism but encouraged it in the Arab world as well. Because Arab leaders shared the Germans' hostility to Britain and France — the dominant colonial powers in the Middle East — they were eager to make common cause with Hitler, despite Nazi belief that they, like the Jews, were inferior to Aryans. The mufti of Jerusalem, among others, actively spread propaganda about "Anglo-Saxon Jewish greed" while praising the Nazi war effort. Even years later, sympathy for Nazism could be easily found in Arab culture. When Israel apprehended Adolf Eichmann in 1960, a Saudi newspaper headline read, "Capture of Eichmann, Who Had the Honor of Killing Five Million Jews." If the Holocaust nurtured Arab anti-Semitism, it also helped to discredit such bigotry in the West. Indeed, it helped mobilize support for a Jewish state internationally. In 1948, Israel was finally granted independence. As if to welcome their new neighbor into the region, the Arab countries promptly invaded. Israel repulsed the attacks, and in the three Arab-Israeli wars that followed (1956, 1967, 1973), the Jewish state managed to survive and..
The third Reich & the Palestine question - Francis R. Nicosia - 2000 - History - 319 pages (Page 85)
Most Arabs never realized that the Nazis would consider them racially inferior as well and that Germany had no intention of undermining British authority in ...
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj ... Chuck
Morse - 2003 - History - 188 pages (page 53) ... as Hitler was known to have described the Arabs as "lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped," to a lower race ...
Despite Hitler's personal antipathy towards Arabs, who he once described as lacquered half apes who ought to be whipped, he nevertheless was prepared to ...
The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters ...Martin A. Lee - 1999 - Political Science - 560 pages (page 122) Even though he loathed Arabs (he once described them as "lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped"), Hitler was nonetheless the idol of the paramilitary ...
What did the Nazis really think about Muslims?
World War II New Research Taints Image of Desert Fox Rommel
By Jan Friedmann
Hitler was celebrated in large parts of the Arab world, and some newspapers even likened him to the Prophet. The Desert Fox was almost as popular as Hitler. "Heil Rommel" was a common greeting in Arab countries. Many Arabs thought the Germans would free them from the rule of the old colonial powers France and Britain. Hitler had shown how to burst the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles. After Germany defeated France in 1940, chants against the French and British echoed around the streets of Damascus: "No more Monsieur, no more Mister, Allah's in Heaven and Hitler's on earth." Adolf Hitler assured the exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, at a meeting in Berlin in November 1941 that his goal was the "destruction of Jewry living in Arabia." The Führer had racist objections to Arabs as well, though. He declined to shake the Mufti's hand and refused to drink coffee with him. Hitler nevertheless provided the Mufti, who later sponsored Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, with a budget of 750,000 Reichsmark per month to foment Jihad in Palestine. In an example of ideological flexibility, the SS even recruited Muslim volunteers and declared that the Muslims living in the Balkans belonged to the "racially valuable" peoples of Europe.
Human Behavior in the Social Environment: A Multidimensional Perspective
- Page 173
José B. Ashford, Craig Winston LeCroy, Kathy L. Lortie - Cengage Learning, 2009 - 726 pages - Preview
Turks, Arabs, and East Indians were subjected to serious discrimination in Germany because of this emphasis on biology.
The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement - Philip Mattar - Columbia University Press, 1992 - Biography & Autobiography - 191 pages
Moreover, the Nazis viewed the Arabs with contempt. Arabs in Germany received the discriminatory treatment consistent with Nazi racial theories..
The beast reawakens - Page 123 - Martin A. Lee - 1999 - History - 560 pages
While Arabs in Germany suffered discriminatory treatment consistent with Nazi racial theories, the Mufti was chauffeured around by an SS guard in a black ...
Have no doubt Hitler would have wiped out Arabs after Jews
MAURICE Papon, lowered into his grave along with his precious Legion d'honneur last week, proved what many Arabs have long suspected but generally refuse to acknowledge: that bureaucrats and racists and others who worked for Hitler regarded all Semitic people as their enemies and that - had Hitler's armies reached the Middle East - they would ultimately have found a "final solution" to the "Arab question," just as they did for the Jews of Europe. Papon's responsibility for the 1942 arrest and deportation of 1,600 Jews in and around Bordeaux - 223 children among them, all shipped off to the Drancy camp and then to Auschwitz - was proved without the proverbial shadow of a doubt at his 1998 trial. Less clear were the exact number of Algerians murdered by his police force in Paris and hurled into the Seine in 1961. He organised the police repression of the independence demonstration by 40,000 Algerians; in the cities of Algiers and Oran and Blida and other areas of modern-day Algeria where this atrocity festers on among elderly relatives, they say that up to 400 Algerians were massacred by Papon's flics. Some historians suggest 250. The same was always claimed of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. From Hitler, he obtained a promise that "when we (the Germans) have arrived at the southern Caucasus, then the time of the liberation of the Arabs will have arrived - and you can rely on my word." All this came back to me last week when I received a remarkable letter from Toulouse in my Beirut mailbag. It was a response to an article I wrote last year about Irene Nemirovsky, whose magnificent, Tolstoyan novel of the Nazi occupation of France was unfinished when Irene was herself sent to Drancy and on to the crematoria of Auschwitz. My article earned a stiff call of complaint from the press attache at the French embassy in London. The letter, in slightly ungrammatical English, was written by Nemirovsky's only surviving daughter, Denise Epstein, and I hope she will not mind if I quote from it: "Allow me to present myself: I am the girl of Irene Nemirovsky . . . and I wanted to thank you for having spoken so well about my mother. This book caused a certain awakening of the consciences undoubtedly but according to what you teach me from the attitude of the French embassy when one evokes the memory of the Jewish children assassinated with the complicity of the authorities of the time, I realise that the memory is really diluted very easily and which that opens the door with other massacres innocent whatever their origin. IT is thus with emotion and gratitude that I want to send this small message to you. I am now 77-years-old and I nevertheless live the every day with the weight of this past on the shoulders, softened by happiness to see reviving my parents, and at the same time as them, I hope to make revive all those of which nobody any more speaks. PS: Sorry for my very bad English!" It would be hard to find more moving words than these, a conscious belief that the dead can be recalled in their own words along with that immensely generous remembrance of other innocents who have died in other massacres. And that extraordinary image of the "dilution of memory" carries its own message. This, of course, is what Haj Amin suffered from. Papon, too, I imagine, before they buried the terrible old man last week.
Contact American at american1627@yahoo.com |
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JEWISH PALESTINE - THE NATIONAL HOME OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, October 5, 2011. |
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The "Mandate for Palestine," a historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law. The "Mandate for Palestine" was not a naive vision briefly embraced by the international community. 51 member countries-the entire League of Nations-unanimously declared on July 24, 1922: "Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." It is important to point out that political rights to self-determination as a polity for Arabs were guaranteed by the same League of Nations in four other mandates-in Lebanon and Syria [The French Mandate], Iraq, and later Trans- Jordan [The British Mandate]. Before the Zionist movement assumed concrete form, among the first to express approval of the return of the Jews to Palestine was John Adams, the second President of the United States, who wrote to Maj. Mordecai Manuel Noah, the first American Zionist, as follows: "I really wish the Jews again in Judea, an independent nation; as I believe, the most enlightened men of it have participated in the amelioration of the philosophy of the ages; once restored to an independent government, and no longer persecuted, they would soon wear a way some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character. I wish your nation may be admitted to all the privileges of citizens in every part of the world. This country (America) has done much; I wish it may do more and annul every narrow idea in religion, government, and commerce" (1819). Eli E. Hertz is president of Myths and Facts, Inc. The organization's objective is to provide policymakers, national leadership, the media and the public-at-large with information and viewpoints that are founded on factual and reliable content. Contact him at today@mythsandfacts.org |
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REFLECTION FROM A RECEDING WAVE
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, October 5, 2011. |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il
Go to
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DISINGENUOUS TAXATION
Posted by Seth J. Frantzman, October 4, 2011. |
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The ultra-wealthy in many countries are claiming that they want to be taxed more, but are they being serious? The social protesters that took to the streets in Israel this summer often spoke about increasing taxation on the wealthy, particularly the mega-wealthy who control large parts of Israel's economy. With the economic crisis that has swept the world this has become a common theme in many countries. Either out of self interest, to deflect criticism, or due to sincere belief that they are under-taxed, some wealthy tycoons have come forward in France and the US, demanding to be taxed more. It is worth examining a few cases of the "tax me more" crowd in order to understand why their claims are partly disingenuous. American billionaire Warren Buffet in particular has gotten a lot of attention for his call for a new tax on the wealthy. It is his latest ploy to keep himself a media darling and add to his fame as the "Oracle of Omaha." In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Stop Coddling the Super Rich," he claimed that he and his "mega-rich" friends were left "untouched" by the latest pain being felt by the American taxpayer. He explained that last year "what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that's actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent" (New York Times, August 14) Buffet went on to detail how those earning salaries on a payroll tended to pay much a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than the super-rich. He noted that 88 of the top 400 income earners in the US reported no wages at all and thus paid no payroll taxes. The Oracle suggested raising taxes on the 236,000 Americans who earn more than $1 million a year in income. THE BUFFET analysis of the tax system's inequality has an allure. It doesn't make sense that someone who earns a good salary, such as $100,000 a year, pays a higher percentage of their income than someone whose income was $1 million from their investments. But there Buffet's claim that he pays less tax is extremely disingenuousness. He pays less tax primarily because he has always structured his income to pay less tax. If he wanted to pay his fair share of taxes, like his employees, he could simply pay himself his income as a salary, and thus contribute upwards of 25% of it in taxes. He has always chosen, like most of the mega-wealthy, to retain his income in investment vehicles, such as his own holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential candidate, was another disingenuous tax promoter. He spoke often of the "two Americas... with two sets of books: one for those at the top who get all the breaks, and one for the rest who do all the work." He argued that "First, we must write a firm principle into the tax code: the wealth of the wealthiest can never be taxed less than the work of the rest of America. Today, wealthy Americans can shelter unlimited amounts of unearned (investment) income from being taxed at the rate working Americans pay...That's wrong." But it turns out Edwards was the king of the tax shelters. In one year he took a salary of only $360,000 from his law practice, but received $26 million in income from special distributions. Now several wealthy Frenchman have stepped forward to argue for a Buffet tax of their own. Maurice Levy, chairman of the advertising firm Publicis, declared that it is "only fair that the most privileged members of our society take up a heavier share of this national burden... I do not love taxes, but right now this is important and just." The billionaire heiress of L'Oreal also chimed in, encouraging the government to tax her more. It all sounds very nice, but the reality is that it will always be hard for the government to tax the very wealthy. Most wealthy people either inherited their money or they are owners of major businesses. Their wealth is therefore either in a bank account earning interest, or in assets and investments. Enacting a "wealth tax" is difficult. This is always the irony of wealthy people like Mr. Buffet encouraging higher taxes, they want higher taxes and they know that those taxes will never reach them, because the government can't simply order Mr. Buffet to turn over 10% of his shares in Berkshire Hathaway every year. The higher taxes debate will always falter on this problem. The government wants to tax people that it can find; going after vague investment accounts, structured partnerships, trusts and overseas numbered accounts is not something tax authorities excel at. Since, in the case of each mega-wealthy person the way their wealth is structured is unique, it is hard to levy a flat tax on them. However, raising the taxes levied on salaried employees, say people making over NIS 10,000 a month or NIS 80,000 a month, is easy because the taxes are generally collected or withheld at their source, before the wage earner even receives the income. The Warren Buffet Tax and the French wealthy calling on the government to tax them is primarily a ploy to make them look like better people and to encourage the public to continue believing in the empty slogan; "tax the fat cats."
Seth Frantzman has a Ph.D from Hebrew University and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
Contact him at sfrantzman@hotmail.com and visit
his website: |
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A CREATIVE WAY TO DISRESPECT ISRAEL
Posted by Dancing Again in Haiti, October 4, 2011. |
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This was written by Barry Farber and it appeared September 6,
2011 in World Net Daily
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You know what hurts as much as America's new mood of twitchy anxiety? We're losing our habit of "good." The difference between America and a Cuba that jails an ill-and-innocent Alan Gross and an Iran that imprisons three obviously innocent hikers who strayed across their unmarked border has been narrowed by an official American act of such brutishness that I wish I could run full-page ads in the major newspapers of Haiti and Israel disassociating myself from this foul deed. The drama begins with the earthquake in Haiti early last year that took 200,000 lives. Haiti's salsa dance champion, Gheorghes Exantus, was pinned down for three whole days beneath the rubble of his apartment building. Friends found him and dug him out. The world may have forgotten and the World Brotherhood of Jew-Haters is not likely to remind us, but little Israel had the best medical team in Haiti. The Israeli doctors and paramedics and the equipment they brought along made Haiti temporarily the most modern medical center south of the USA. That's where they took Gheorghes. It became inevitable his leg would have to be amputated below the
knee; not the best news for a 28-year-old dancing champion. Gheorghes's
next stop was Israel, where Israeli medics and physio-therapists fitted
him with a prosthesis and trained him how to walk, and even dance with
it! Filmmaker Tamar Dressler produced a riveting video of Gheorghes'
rehabilitation with a title as great as the production itself: "Back On
The Floor"! See the video here:
Mafia movies gave the phrase "an offer you can't refuse" a sinister connotation, but next came an offer I don't see how anybody could refuse. Gheorghes was invited to fly to New York for the early June "Salute To Israel" Parade, to dance on one of the floats during the parade and then give a performance at a Central Park concert. I often imagine being at a planning session prior to the parade and we're all happily hugging each other over the magnificence of all this; and then the committee lady who never smiles says, "Wait a minute. He's got to get an entry visa to America first." I imagine all my Southern gallantry evaporating and laying into that woman and saying, "Lady, will you and your stupid negativity get out of here and take your wet blankets with you! How in the world could the State Department fail to give Gheorghes a visa?" Guess what! She'd have been right! It wasn't just that the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince denied him a visa. It was their piggish reason. They interviewed Gheorghes and then said they were "unsure of his ties to Haiti" and feared he "might try to remain in the United States"! I can understand doubting, for instance, George Soros' ties to Haiti or Mel Gibson's ties to Haiti, but Gheorghes Exantus is a native-born Haitian. He made no attempt to remain outside Haiti when he went to Israel for treatment. When you picture what's going on along our border with Mexico, the fear that Gheorghes might not return from America to Haiti is a little like calling room service on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg and demanding they send somebody to your cabin to fix a leaky faucet. At this point Buddy Macy, a palpitating human globule of that good old American "good," briefed me. Buddy threw himself into the fight like a one-man cleanup-and-repair crew after the Embassy added its own little earthquake by denying Gheorghes a visa. The parade went by without Haiti's salsa champion. Poor Buddy stood ready to pay anything, contact anybody, make any call, write any letter, be submissive to any idiot bureaucrat, anything to get Gheorghes a visa — and even though the epic opportunity of the "Salute To Israel" parade and the concert are bygone, Buddy is still exhausting himself trying to bring Gheorghes to America. I always thought a call from a congressman supporting the visa request would apply a blowtorch to all the cobwebs and succeed. Again, wrong. A senator, Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, tried. He failed. That is beyond odd! All of Buddy's pleas to former President Bill Clinton, allegedly a huge friend of Haiti, went unheeded. Gheorghes himself, meanwhile, is as noble as the daffodil that sheds fragrance all over the heel that crushes it. He thanks Buddy in a charming blend of English and Creole for his efforts. No hard feelings, except maybe for mine. I suspect this ham-handed blockage of awarding Israel such overwhelming, heart-warming mass-media attention originates in the Oval Office. And I'm the world's foremost authority on my suspicions. You judge! Do you think the reason this heroic Haitian survivor with such a monster-payload of inspiration for everybody was denied a visa because America fears he'll try to stay illegally? Or because Obama dared not let Israel harvest the tsunami of good will it clearly deserves? A Haitian proverb teaches, "Sot pas touye, mais sot fait sue," meaning, "Stupidity doesn't kill, but it makes you sweat." So, that explains all those strange puddles from the Embassy to Hillary's office to the White House! |
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GIVE A BAR MITZVAH AND THEY'LL COME
Posted by Ted Roberts, October 4, 2011. |
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They tell the story of Jacob Zigowski and his son, Adam, who returned to their Polish village in early 1946 - the only survivors of a family of mama and papa and six children. In fact, the only Jews of Riegle still alive. One day, as Adam and his father sat over a supper of cheese, boiled cabbage and dark bread, the boy uncharacteristically began the suppertime conversation. "In six months, on June 14th, I'll be 13. Should we not start my Bar Mitzvah training. Shouldn't we hire the tutor, Shimon Mendel from Warsaw - if he's still alive - to come and teach me to chant the Torah and Haftorah?" His father laid down his knife and fork. His jaws ceased their chewing. He smiled at his son, but only to gain time to order his thoughts - shocked by the idea of a bar mitzvah. A Bar Mitzvah, he thought? A Bar Mitzvah here in this lawless land; in this godless time where the Supreme Judge, himself, had apparently broken his vows with his people Israel? A 24-hour repetition of the Kaddish would be more appropriate, followed by a funeral march around the town square. That would make sense, thought Jacob. But a Bar Mitzvah celebration? A tribute to the forgotten covenant? How stupid. To the boy, he said, "Adam, I think the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has forgotten us. Eat your cheese". "Maybe he needs reminding," softly suggested the boy. Over the following two weeks his persistence continued. Jacob had never heard such eloquence and passion from this child who had lost most of his childhood. So, finally he agreed. Yes, they'd bring Shimon, or some substitute if Shimon had fed the Nazi appetite for Jewish flesh. Yes, he'd come twice a week and Adam, like whole tribes of boys before him, would recite prayers of praise to G-d for illuminating us with the light of Torah. And he would read the dusty, tattered village Torah Scroll. It had survived the war in a peasant's barn, a far-sighted peasant who knew the Jews would pay well for it, if any of them remained. Only a few weeks before the event did it occur to the Zigowski family - father and son - that their's might be the first Bar Mitzvah without spectators. Except for one, of course, who would stare down in astonishment. "If G-d lived here, our remaining Polish Jews would throw stones at his house," Jacob often said during those months. "That is assuming that any Jewish stone throwers survived," he usually added. Besides Adam and Jacob, the few remaining survivors in the district had scurried as far as possible from the fields and towns of sorrowful memories. "So, who's going to come?" said the papa to the Bar Mitzvah boy. "Ghosts? Well, at least we'll save a bundle on the kiddush. How much herring and cheese can they eat?" "If we do it, they'll come. There's the Abramowitz family in Posen, they'll come. And Dahlia here in our own town, she's got a Jewish grandmother." "Great, we'll fill six seats in a 500-seat sanctuary. There'll be a bigger crowd watching the ice melt on the river." "You forgot someone, Father," added the boy. "Yeah, OK, he'll, maybe, be there, too," replied Jacob. "Maybe the reading of His Book will remind him of his obligations to us" The Bar Mitzvah day dawned as fresh as the first day of creation. It was Spring and the cornflowers in the meadows of Riegle celebrated with vivid blues and purples and pinks. The Bar Mitzvah boy, his father, and the tutor walked the few blocks from their house to the old wooden synagogue, unfrequented for years. Jacob took the key from his jacket pocket. It turned easily in its lock. With a loud click, the weathered door swung open. As they stepped in, a hum - a buzz - of expectation flooded over them. The pews were full. Not one empty seat. It was a crowd befitting a Bar Mitzvah of long ago, not the Bar Mitzvah of the only Jewish boy in Riegle in June of 1946. The chandelier in the old shul blazed with an uncanny brilliance that could have lit the world in its blackest midnight. Down the center aisle, their cheeks shining with tears, walked Adam and his father. They waved exuberantly. They threw kisses. The G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob The former Jewish community of Riegl, glowing with anticipation, awaited the Bar Mitzvah of Adam Zigowski. Ted Roberts is a syndicated humorist. His essays appear in the Jewish press, web sites,
and magazines. He is author of The Scribbler On The Roof, a
book of short stories and commentary. Visit his websites at
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A BLIND EYE ON THE PLANET: AN EMISSION OF INCITEMENT TO HATRED ON FRANCE 2
Posted by Barbara Taverna, October 4, 2011. |
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This was written by Guy Milliere. This article is one that is readily understandable, even in a Google
translation. Original in French is at
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I expected a great show, and it was actually a good show. I would like to see more similar. This would allow me to become a good anti-Semitic French. The show was called an eye on the planet this time, the appropriate expression would have been a blind eye on the planet. Besides, I think that's the fundamental explanation. Journalists who are blind issue, which prevents them from seeing much of the reality around them. They are also partly deaf, because it is the words they hear not. They are so ignorant of history they have had their sixth retripler and miss their ferry to twenty five years. They also suffer from mental quite marked, as when their partner takes them for fools, they show with a silly grin the other person concerned is right. The subject was the creation of a Palestinian state. All Palestinians were shown mild and gentle people who suffered constantly for every reason imaginable to believe that they were horribly persecuted by sadistic monster called the Jews, sometimes, the Israelis. Some of these people soft and friendly joined armed groups willing to kill the monstrous sadistic opposite, those dirty Jews, and it was inevitable, of course, that people come in sweet and nice there: when suffering becomes unbearable and when the terrible persecutions last too long, even the mildest of lambs can start to scream and rebel. Gaza has been shown enclosed within high walls by the Jews. It was said that the Jews did not want the land is cultivated on a strip of three hundred meters along the border, just to prevent farmers from planting vegetables and to starve entire families. It showed the smuggling tunnels to Egypt and not long after, in a shopping center, the only escalator in Gaza, brand new. They are really strong Palestinian sweet and kind. They managed to get an escalator through tunnels of a meter wide. It referred to the rocket attacks on Gaza, but it was explained that these shots were being fired in retaliation for the Jews, who, it seems the Palestinians shoot soft and kind of Gaza just for fun. There was a beautiful passage on the West Bank, saying that the Jews cut off water to the Palestinians that would otherwise cultivate so that the region would be as prolific and productive as the Beauce. The Jews keep farmers to grow and want to die of thirst sweet and kind people: a shame. The journalist believes that before the Jews, Judea and Samaria was green. I expected pictures of the verdant West Bank before the Jews. It seems that the reporter did not have found. Of course, the wall was raised. And then the Jews have built a wall enclosing soft and nice people on one side of the wall while leaving the garden that people grow soft and nice on the other side of the wall. Of pure sadism. There was no mention of attacks or terrorism, because, as everyone knows, there has been no attacks or terrorism. If there had been a journalist would have said. We saw Ramallah, beautiful, clean, new, with a smile and scrupulous police, administrative services that work. We give a state with eyes closed to these people. Especially when one is blind and we do not ask why all the streets have names of terrorists or suicide bombers. We saw endless humiliations and Hebron that Jews are doing to people colonizing sweet and kind. We have not heard of people killed or slaughtered by people soft and friendly, probably because of the Jews murdered, it does not exist either. It was reported that East Jerusalem was largely settled, that Jews were demolishing the houses of people cynically sweet and nice, and it was building homes for Jews. What disgusting people, these Jews! We saw people in a refugee camp in Lebanon, and these people also suffer greatly because of the Jews: the Jews were driven from their homes in 1948, international law, said the journalist, gives them the right to return home, but the Jews continually violate international law, they must hang on the wall of their house key that Jews occupy unduly. The fact that Palestinian Arabs have no right to integrate into Lebanese society was raised by someone who said it was because he first had to liberate Palestine. The reporter found the explanation unconvincing. It's true, what! If you can not bring back five million people who have never set foot in Israel, and whose great-grandfather left the behest of Arab authorities, for two weeks, the time that all Jews are massacred, it's unfair! Is it the fault of these people if the Jews were not all killed! The Jews defended themselves: it is saying how they are vile. Very little has been Israel's blind eye has not seen Israel existed, and he preferred not to see. It would have been risky for him to walk among the Jews, these people are so wicked! No wonder Hitler hated them! Saying he was still balancing his speech, the reporter met for a half minutes Uzi Landau, minister of the Israeli government. He could not take more than a half minutes: thirty one minutes after a dose of truth lies intensive, it is dangerous for the heart rate, especially among the blind. We saw Charles Enderlin, whose reputation is second to none. And we had ten minutes to interview with Avraham Burg has been said that the government fully present practice of apartheid in Israel, is made up of racist and extreme right-wing people. For information, here is information. The final part was devoted to the United States: how is it that the American people so fond of Jews and Israel? How is it that so many American politicians support Israel? The journalist blind eye was quick to find the answer: the Jewish lobby, of course. The Jewish money that goes along with the Jewish lobby. Those dirty Jews buy the politicians who are, of course, very corrupt and sold in Jewish power. They put Jewish journalists in the media, and in these circumstances, how would you want that information is both made in France? And then there are Christians who are not anti-Semitic, and even the opposite, and speak reverently of the Jewish people as the chosen people in the world to bring God's message. And these Christians are influential. The American people are influenced Jewish and Christian. It is composed of people who are not able to think for themselves and do not have the right information. Obama did his best, and denounced Israel in his speech in Cairo, which greatly pleased the Muslims and said the journalist, was a step forward towards peace, but Obama could not pursue in that direction. Why? Ask the Jewish lobby. The final explanation was provided by a friend of Ismael Haniyeh, Jimmy Carter, who also spoke to Israeli apartheid and anti-Semitic by two authors, authors of a best seller that sold well in France: The Israel Lobby, Stephen Walt and John Measheimer, who explained how the U.S. support for Israel was irrational and that it is because of this irrational support any Islamic terrorism existed on the planet, including the attacks of September 11 . A superb explanation. Very convincing. Without American support for Israel, most of Israel, so more problems. Muslims around the world would behave like Buddhist monks. Gentle and kind people of the Middle East would not have to suffer. And it's true: if Israel did not exist and if the U.S. did not support Israel, nothing would have happened September 11. I knew that September 11 was because of Israel! Finally, I see clear. And I know that if Hassan el-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, because Israel was founded in 1948. That makes sense. In an upcoming documentary that I look forward, we will explain no doubt that Syed Ahmad Shaheed, jihad of the 1820s India had become a jihadi because of the creation of Israel in 1948. It was a great show, yes. On reflection, I will go to see similar. But it is to force programs such as anti-Semitism in France back in the wake of the hatred of Israel. France 2 is part of public service. The missions of public service did not seem to include incitement to hatred, the spread of anti-Semitism and the falsification of history. But that was before we hire in the public service journalists blind, partially deaf, mentally retarded and ignorant of history. I will send them out the next book I published in early November saw the title, "How the Palestinian people was invented," I'm sure it will please them. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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WILL IRAN BOMB THE JEWISH DEVIL?
Posted by Giulio Meotti, October 4, 2011. |
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Iran has mastered the fuel enrichment stage of its nuclear program and has proven its ability to enrich uranium to as high as 20 percent. Assessments are that if it so decides, it would take Iran just a few months for it to enrich a sufficient quantity of uranium to over the 90% that would be required for one nuclear device. In 2007, French President Jacques Chirac suggested that an Iranian nuclear weapon wouldn't have an offensive use. "Where will it drop it, this bomb?", Chirac mused. "On Israel?". The answer lies in David Horowitz's latest and beautiful book, "A Point in Time" (Regnery), the last in a trilogy of books on mortality that Horowitz has published in recent years. Mr. Horowitz is one of the most important US activists and journalists, a unique Jewish intellectual who was one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s before becoming disillusioned and turning to Conservatism. "Jew hatred exists in countries without us, like Malaysia and Japan, and Poland after its Jewish population was destroyed", Horowitz writes in his book. "It is a venom that is in some ways absolutely unique. Belief in the conspiracy of the Jews puts a comforting order into the world, and feeds the illusion that a salvation awaits, if the devil can be removed". Will Iran use the Islamic bomb to remove the Jewish Devil? A recent study by Michael Eisenstadt, a former military analyst with the U.S. Defense Department, and Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian-born specialist on Shi'a religious law, has been published under a provocative title: "Nuclear Fatwa". The two authors analize the religious teachings of the Iranian rulers about the possible use of a nuclear bomb against Israel. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, prior to his death, approved a fatwa that authorizes the destruction of a mosque and the killing of muslims with WMD if it is in the vital interests of the regime. Khomeini wrote that the Jews were perverting Islam and thus deserving of "divine retribution". He regarded the Jews as an embodiment of filth and the contaminating source of ritual impurity - which adds another religious justification to the Muslims to rid themselves of the Jews and their state. Khomeini put it this way: "We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land (Iran) burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world". Former Iranian president and Ayatollah, Hashemi Rafsanjani, also justified the use of nuclear weapons against the Jews: "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world". Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, justified the use of atomic bombs against Israel and his leading disciple, Mohsen Gharavian, released a fatwa sanctioning the use of nuclear weapons: "For the first time the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem, according to Sharia". Atomic devastation is one of the signs of messianic redemption: the goal is to set the stage for the Mahdi, the Shiite messiah, or "vanished Imam"; in order to bring that about, Iran must hasten the end-of-time vision in which the Mahdi will appear. Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, explained: "The Jew" — not the Zionist, note, but the Jew — "is the most obstinate enemy of the devout. And the main war will determine the destiny of mankind. . . . The reappearance of the Twelfth Imam will lead to a war between Israel and the Shia". However, despite the evidence of Iranian madness and willingness to justify the use of nuclear bombs against Israel, the "experts" are repeating that the Iranians are pragmatic and they will never strike the Jews. But aren't the same experts who were arong about Iran's revolution, about Saddam not invading Iran, about the 1990s peace process, about the Islamists' rise in Turkey and late about the Egyptian revolution? To destroy the Jewish people, Hitler needed to burn the world. All that is needed today is to burn a territory smaller than Vermont. What will be left of Israel in case the Shia priests launch a nuclear bomb on the coastal plain, where more than 70% of its population - one-third of all world Jews - lives? Israel's ports, airports and industries are all there, and from 600 feet in the air you see it all, from Ashkelon in the south to the Haifa Bay in the north. The first Gulf War reminded even the most wishful thinkers that in an age of nerve gas, missiles and atomic bombs, Israel, with its compact population and tiny land area, is particularly vulnerable to extinction. Just as Hitler sought to "liberate" humanity by murdering the Jews, so the Ayatollahs believe they can "liberate" humanity by eradicating Israel.While the Islamic world could sacrifice hundreds of thousands of "martyrs" in an Israeli retaliatory strike without disappearing — so goes Teheran's fatwa — Israel would be history after the first bomb. For the Islamic fanatics the martyrs are an affordable price to pay in order to remove the Jewish Devil. Israel should trust her enemies' mettlesome rants more than the futile experts' opinion. Iran has the motivation to destroy Israel, and if it is allowed to gain nuclear weapons it will not need an excuse to do so. It's a double motivation: messianic Shi'ite and expansionist-imperial - a winning combination. In that mindset, the Jew Devils must all suffer a violent death, down to the last one. Giulio Meotti is the author of the book "A New Shoah"
Contact him at giuliomeotti@hotmail.com.
This is archived at
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EULOGY FOR THE OSLO ACCORDS
Posted by Steven Shamrak, October 4, 2011. |
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On September 28th the world was supposed to celebrate, but conveniently forgot the anniversary of the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, widely known as the Oslo Accords. Three political stooges Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Perez received the Nobel Peace prize for signing this worthless piece of paper, which was based on fake promises made by Yasser Arafat in a letter to the Prime Minister of Israel, Rabin on 9 September, 1993. In this letter Yasser Arafat promised: "The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes an historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators." It was particularly not convenient to celebrate the dead accord when Mahmoud Abbas came to the UN and put the final nail in its coffin, unilaterally abandoning the principles of negotiation and undermined stability of the peace process. Due to enormous political pressure exhorted on Israel by the Clinton administration to sign the agreement, many parts of it were deliberately written ambiguously to make it open to interpretation. Israel was prepared to allowed limited autonomy to the non-Jewish populations of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but PLO was determined to obtain statehood as the first step towards future territorial expansion with the inclusion of the land of Israel and possibly Jordan, as part of Palestine. Many promises were made clearly but deceitfully by Arafat and never delivered: 1. Terror attacks on Israel have never stopped. Terrorists of Fatah, Hamas and other Islamic organisations have been freely conducting their bloody business. Often, the terrorist actions were coordinated by PA to meet its political aim. When the Oslo agreement was signed several important undertakings were promised by PLO, but not delivered by Arafat and Abbas:
The Oslo agreement expired several years ago. It had not brought peace, but exposed lies and treachery. Instead of negotiating peace, the PA regularly walked from the negotiation table in pursuit of hypocritical international support in order to pressure Israel for more concessions, giving nothing in return. This agreement was dead on arrival! It must be viewed by Israel as a lesson, which many terror experts insist on: "Never negotiate with terrorists!" So-called Palestinian people are the fake nation which was forged by Arabs in 1964 in order to destroy Israel. They are not interested in peace with Israel. They are occupiers of Jewish land! Israel must realise that the only way to resolve the conflict is to utilise self-reliance and determination to end the occupation of Jewish land by Arabs and so-called Palestinians. The painful experience of the peace process has proven one obvious point - Arabs will never have peace with Israel! Israel has done everything possible to accommodate the peace with this terror infested entity. Any other country or nation would not even bother. Therefore, it is time to reclaim our land, transfer enemy population to Sinai or to other numerous Arabs states, those who claim to care so much about "poor Palestinians". (Why not them? - In order to have peace, Israel forcibly removed 8,500 Jews from Gaza. It did not stop terror attacks. The PA insists that all Jews must be removed from Judea and Samaria! So why not remove them from Jewish land instead?) This is the only option Israel has. The alternative is annihilation! Arabs respect strong opponents. It is integral to their national makeup. When Israel demonstrated its military superiority it was respected not just by Arab states, but by most countries, including the Soviet Union. It is time to stop being "a little ghetto Jew", end the policy of appeasement of international anti-Semitic bigots who will never be content with Jews, and stand up for our own rights. Palestine is the Eretz-Israel - Land of Israel! It is the Jewish ancestral land, which was promised to Jews by G-d and even by resolution of the League of Nation in 1922. It is time to take it back! Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak.e@gmail.com |
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ISRAEL UNIMAGINATIVE ABOUT BAD FAITH EXHORTATION TO NEGOTIATE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 4, 2011. |
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The New York Times discussed Israel's acceptance of third party calls to negotiate. A new housing project in Gilo, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, is condemned as interfering with those negotiations. "Israel intends to keep Gilo under any future deal with the Palestinians. But most of the world does not recognize Israeli sovereignty in the areas of Jerusalem that the Palestinians claim as part of their future nation and want Israel to refrain for further building there so as not to prejudice the outcome of negotiations and as a sign of good faith. " Notice of the project drew objections from "close allies, including the U.S. and Germany." German chancellor Merkel told PM Netanyahu that the project "raised serious doubts that the Israeli government is interested in starting serious negotiations." (Isabel Kershner, 10/3, A7.)
FALSE NOTIONS AND STANDARDS. There they go again, loosely calling other countries "allies." Some countries are more anti-Israel than others, but claim to be friends of Israel. Some are more blatant about their anti-Zionist bias than others. The State Dept. is subtly anti-Zionist. The State Dept. is one-sided in its criticism. It is harsh with Israel over minor things or where Israel is within its rights, such as building in its own capital, but mild with the Arabs over major things such as its encouragement of terrorism. Germany favors negotiations that lead to borders for Israel that would be indefensible, as by ceding the Judea-Samaria mountains and tank traps. At the same time it would set up a PLO state sure to promote terrorism if not invasion by foreign Arab armies. What does "most of the world does not recognize Israeli sovereignty in" certain areas have to do with international law on sovereignty? In case you haven't noticed, "most of the world" does not verify or debate its stance. That is because it has no case. Israel has two legitimate paths to annexing territory: (1) As paramount heir to the Mandate; and (2) For national security against aggression — repeated and existential aggression by Arab states. If Israel intends to keep Gilo, which my on-the-spot report about Gilo being attacked by Arabs showed makes sense, why stop building there? How about Bedouin plopping down on State land and building houses illegally in the Negev? Who asks them to stop building houses there? What about masses of illegal Arab housing in the Territories? Only Israel is asked to do things against its national interests and in behalf of its enemy's interests. Of course Israel intends serious negotiations! What the critics really mean is that they don't want Israel to uphold its national security in negotiations. They would prefer that Israel submit to Arab surrender terms, at least on territory and holy sites. But if the terms are stated in advance, then negotiations are precluded. Therefore, it is the Arabs who do not intend serious negotiations and the Quartet that seeks negotiations however doomed by Arab intent to get Israel to surrender. Why should Israel have to prove its seriousness, when it has always dealt seriously with the Palestinian Arabs, but the Palestinian Arabs never have dealt seriously with Israel? Israel made far-reaching offers, but the Arabs refused to negotiate, walked out, and even made war. Likewise, Israel has honored its agreements with those Arabs, but the Palestinian Authority never has complied with its obligations to Israel, such as to dismantle terrorist organizations and stop indoctrinating in anti-Israeli and antisemitic bigotry. Doesn't that show bad faith on the Arab side? Doesn't the lack of foreign objection show bad faith by "most of the world?" The non-Israel diplomats' statements are full of mistakes and bad faith. The New York Times doesn't so much report or discuss the jihad against Israel, as propagandize for its anti-Zionist view. One way is to quote false anti-Zionist statements without correction. Readers are left with misimpressions.
MISCONCEPTION ON TURKEY-ISRAEL RELATIONS. More error or duplicity is present in an Associated Press report presented alongside the one on Gilo: "Israel has seen its once-friendly relations with Turkey sour over Israel's commando raid last year, on a Gaza-bound flotilla." Turkish government encouragement of the floating terrorists is the result of Turkey's Islamist party turning against the West. This is in parallel to its increasingly repressive methods having turned the country against Western-style democracy. By now it should be obvious that Turkey has entered the ranks of anti-Zionist states. Turkey may not be too close to the others, inasmuch as it has a rivalry with Iran and dislikes the instability of Syria. But its presence in NATO should be questioned. Some major media commentators discuss how Israel might restore good relations with Turkey. Realistically, Israel cannot restore good relations with a country taken over by Islamists. They are too fanatical. Our own leaders fail to understand Radical Islam and its truculence. Our leaders treat fanatical leaders as if amenable to reason. ISRAEL SHOULD BE IMAGINATIVE. The typical Israeli reaction is to agree to negotiations without pre-conditions and to claim a desire to set up an Arab state as if that were desirable. But Israeli officials, including the Prime Minister, know that another Palestinian Arab state would not be desirable. It would be a terrorist state and an enemy pledged to conquer Israel. Why do foreign countries want to see such a state? Shouldn't Israel ask them? Shouldn't Israel ask them why they intone fairy tale mantras of "two peoples living side-by-side in peace," when although Israelis are tolerant, the Palestinian Arabs call Jews "sons of apes and pigs." Why should Israel's reactions be so predictable? Israel gets taken for granted because of it. Israeli leaders have no imagination and are too interested in pleasing foreigners. Suppose the government of Israel identified all the hypocrisy, double standards, and false notions that I do? Israel could make them seem shameful, and Netanyahu could put it in a nice way. Wouldn't it be more difficult for foreign diplomats to keep up their double standard? No wonder Israel loses the propaganda battle, when the Arabs and others malign it every day and Israel does not respond! Suppose Israel challenged other governments to stop pressing Israel and to press the Arabs for violating current agreements and pledging future war, as Abbas does? (He refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty anywhere. That means he intends war. He said he would approve of the Arab states making war on Israel. His organization pledges war on Israel. He said statehood would not end the conflict but give him more standing to pursue its struggle against Israel.) Like our economic issues, the Arab jihad against Israel is far different from how it is depicted. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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FROM ISRAEL: THAT CORNER
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 3, 2011. |
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It's the corner that Prime Minister Netanyahu hopes to see the PA backed into. Today I write with the sense that they are headed towards it, but not because they are being backed into it by forces around them. Rather, they are backing into it of their own volition. You know what is said about the Arabs: They never miss a chance to miss a chance. And they are doing a splendid job here. Baruch Hashem. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, speaking for PA President Abbas, declared once again that they would not return to the negotiating table until Israel froze all construction in Judea and Samaria (by which is meant also eastern Jerusalem), and accepted the 1967 lines as the basis for negotiations for a two-state solution. Said Abu Rudaineh, "If Israel is serious, it must abide, without reservations, by international legitimacy as mentioned in the road map, UN resolutions, and the Arab peace initiative." Interesting. Now it's "international legitimacy," rather than "international law." Abu Rudaineh knows full well that the road map and the Arab peace initiative have absolutely no standing in international law, and that only some (SC) UN resolutions do. Resolution 194, which the Arabs use as the basis for claims to a "right of return," for example, has no standing in law. So now they're charging that if the international community thinks something is a good idea, we must abide by it. Israel accepted the road map only with reservations (which were blithely ignored) and never signed on to the Arab "peace" initiative at all. ~~~~~~~~~~ A word about the thoroughly defunct road map for peace — which called for a final resolution of the conflict by 2005, by the way. The Palestinian Arabs refer to it often because it called for a settlement freeze. But why should we focus on just one element of the document? It also says: "A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty." And: "All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel." Is it necessary to say more? ~~~~~~~~~~ According to Khaled Abu Toameh, writing in the JPost today, a "top PA official" in Ramallah said that the Quarter plan was biased in favor of Israel. "The Quartet has lost its credibility, mainly because of its failure to force Israel to stop building in the settlements." What is more, Quartet Envoy Tony Blair is "a servant of the Israeli government," and was "no longer welcome in Ramallah. We prefer not to see him here again." How to win friends and influence people. Is the Quartet privately sick of these people yet? It should be mentioned that Saeb Erekat also addressed the issue of settlements, but from Cairo, where he had met with the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Nabil Elarabi. ~~~~~~~~~~ Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister, conducted a tour of Gilo yesterday for 50 representatives of foreign media. He said: "Jerusalem cannot be divided and will not be divided, and it's very unfortunate that from far away places people are trying to judge Jerusalem by standards that are completely unrealistic. So, I guess we're doing OK. ~~~~~~~~~~ I want to note here that one of the objections Netanyahu intends to raise is that the Quartet plan calls for resolving issues of security and borders first. Israel's position is that all issues must be negotiated in tandem because leverage in negotiating is lost if something is conceded while other matters are still pending. It has, in fact, been Israel's policy that nothing is decided until everything is decided. We should never be caught in a situation in which we've agreed to something, only to have the negotiations then fall apart (which, if they ever begin, they surely will), but the claim made that what we did agree to stands for the next round. ~~~~~~~~~~ Robbie Sabel has written a piece for the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), entitled, "The Palestinian Bid for Statehood: Wherein Lies the State." That's the question I've been asking, but he has an answer: "...President Abbas stated in his speech that the application for membership in the UN was submitted 'on the basis of the 4 June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.' ~~~~~~~~~~ Vice President Joe Biden was in Boca Raton FL, last week, meeting with rabbis to garner support for Obama's re-election. The question of Jonathan Pollard came up. And, according to the NY Times, Biden, who was once considered a great supporter of Israel said: "President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, "Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time. If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life." In 2007, Biden gave an interview in which he supported the idea of commuting Pollard's sentence to time served. Which is it: Has he completely reversed his opinion? Or is he taking a fall for Obama? I would never presume to take him literally and wish him a dead body. But I am quite comfortable wishing for the speedy death of his political career. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday I gave you a link to a page on Israel National News where there was a video, produced by MEMRI, of Abbas Zaki of the Fatah Central Committee, talking about the goal of Israel's complete destruction. I have the same MEMRI clip — good for sharing — on YouTube now:
~~~~~~~~~~ Let's end with something good: From Israel 21C, a list of Israel's 45 greatest inventions. Source of great pride and many are fascinating innovations to read about.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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URGENT: ELUL RECALL
Posted by GWY, October 3, 2011. |
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This was written by Ruti Mizrachi and is archived at
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Urgent: Elul Recall Notice Regardless of make or year, all units known as "human beings" are being recalled by the Manufacturer. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named "Adam" and "Eve" resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect is technically termed, "Serious Internal Non-morality," but more commonly known as "SIN." Some of the symptoms of the SIN defect: [a] Loss of direction [b] Lack of peace and joy [c] Depression [d] Foul vocal emissions [e] Selfishness [f] Ingratitude [g] Fearfulness [h] Rebellion [i] Jealousy The Manufacturer is providing factory authorized repair service free of charge to correct the SIN defect. The Repair Technician, Hashem, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. To repeat, there is no fee required. The number to call in for repair in all areas is: PRAYER. Once connected, please upload the burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, HASHEM, into the heart component of the human unit. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, Hashem will replace it with: [a] Love Please see the operating manual, TORAH, for further details on the use of these fixes. As an added upgrade, the Manufacturer has made available to all repaired units a facility enabling direct monitoring and assistance from the resident Maintenance Technician, HASHEM. Repaired units need only make Him welcome and He will take up residence on the premises. WARNING: Continuing to operate a human being unit without corrections voids the Manufacturer's warranty, exposes the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list. Thank you for your immediate attention. Please assist by notifying others of this important recall notice. Contact GWY at gwy123@aol.com |
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EXTRACTING LESSONS LEARNED FROM HAVING KILLED A KILLER
Posted by Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt, October 3, 2011. |
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For those of us placated by revenge against terrorists who murder innocent men, women and children, there was additional good news last week about the US drone attack that killed terrorist mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki. As did the US special operation that took out Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May and the 2006 US air strike that nailed Al-Qaeda in Iraq's prince of darkness, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the last minutes of al-Awlaki's life were spent in fear. Bin Laden heard, then saw, US Navy SEALs break into the safe house from where he had continued to plot terrorist attacks for years after 9/11. The last vision he had were America's finest on a mission to do to him what he had done to so many others. We had the satisfaction of knowing his last seconds were undoubtedly filled with fear as two objects were pointed at him. One was the weapon that would silence his hatred forever; the other was a high tech facial recognition device using 40,000 contact points to provide his executioner with instantaneous verification the target was, in fact, Osama. In the case of al-Zarqawi, although the air attack caught him by surprise in a safe house, he lived long enough to see the faces of US soldiers rushing to the scene to verify the kill. We had the satisfaction of knowing, with his final breath, al-Zarqawi realized his killing spree had ended, courtesy of those he had victimized. As details of the drone strike in northern Yemen against al-Awlaki evolve, it appears he too may have spent some time experiencing the fear he had forced so many of his victims to endure. To some extent, al-Awlaki, 40, must have believed Allah was protecting him. After being placed on the US "kill or capture" list in April 2010, several attempts to do so failed. One attack, just last May, came very close to success as a missile strike slammed into a vehicle al-Awlaki had just vacated to occupy another. Whenever he traveled to Shabwa province, home of his influential tribe, Al-Awlaki enjoyed a safe haven. Interestingly, while Osama had gambled on staying in one place as affording him the best protection, al-Awlaki opted to move around. Not wishing to fall into a pattern, he varied the time he spent in Shabwa and other provinces, such as Jawf and Marib — al Qaeda strongholds east of Sanaa, Yemen's capital. When Awlaki last entered Jawf, near the attack site, US drone activity increased. While witness accounts vary, it appears around 10:00 am on September 30th, al-Awlaki and his associates, having stopped for breakfast, were either heading toward their two vehicles or were in them when missiles hit the first one. Al-Awlaki either had entered the second vehicle or was running towards it when his luck ran out, becoming the first US citizen targeted and killed for terrorist activities. One can only hope al-Awlaki's eyes betrayed the fear gripping him in those last seconds. Seven people died in the attack, including another US citizen, Samir Khan, 25, an al-Qaeda propagandist and co-editor of al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine. It is believed a top al-Qaeda bomb-maker was also killed. Terrorist leaders are learning a valuable lesson. It was one taught to another generation of terrorists decades ago after a cowardly attack stunned the world. In 1972, the Munich Massacre occurred when Arab terrorists climbed over a security fence surrounding the Olympic Village to kill eleven Israeli athletes. Although the terrorists escaped, Israel vowed revenge. It took several years to accomplish, but one-by-one each was found and killed. Israel never claimed responsibility, but as their numbers dwindled, each terrorist knew death lurked in the shadows, eventually falling victim to the very fear they sought to cause others. Terrorists are starting to understand that an "eye in the sky" can quietly monitor their activities, choosing when and where to extract justice for their violent actions. Since taking office, Obama has ordered 227 drone strikes which have claimed the lives of more than 1100 al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants. Taking leadership of a terrorist organization is quickly becoming a death sentence. A fear factor is starting to influence terrorist activities as they gamble on how to outsmart a US intelligence network that is becoming increasingly more effective in locating them. Such effectiveness influences a terrorist leader's decision to remain in a sanctuary or to constantly move around. As bin Laden and al-Awlaki learned, it really does not matter. But there are lessons here for us as well. The success of the operation to kill al-Awlaki turned on two factors: 1) US pressure on the Yemeni government to go after him and 2) the Yemeni government's realization that doing so was in their best interests. As to the second factor, two motivations were apparent. First, the Yemeni government came to realize al-Qaeda was posing a great risk to its survival as militants were stirring up domestic unrest. Second, the Yemeni government hoped to convince Washington — which was voicing concerns over their violent responses to domestic protests — it was a necessary, and good, ally in the fight against terrorism. Accordingly, Yemeni intelligence services worked very closely with the US in getting al-Awlaki. The lesson here is that for US counter-terrorism operations to be successful, the country where a terrorist organization hides must be motivated, for its own selfish reasons, to fully cooperate. Such motivations are totally lacking as the US puts pressure on Pakistan to go after its Haqqani terrorist network. There is another lesson for us too. Born in New Mexico of Yemeni parents, al-Awlaki, as a practicing Muslim, chose to turn against his country of birth. Poisoned by Islamic extremist thinking, he became a major threat to our national security as a recruiter, known as the "bin Laden of the internet," convincing other Muslims, either Americans, such as the Fort Hood shooter, or non-Americans, such as the underwear bomber, to embrace violence against non-Muslim Americans. Despite his success in rallying other Muslims to his cause, a recent poll astonishingly shows only 2% of Americans listed terrorism as the most important national security threat. Such a low percentage is only explained by the fact the American people remain clueless as to the nature of this threat. This is because President Obama has not educated them on it. To this day, he refuses to publish national security guidelines linking terrorism to Islam, choosing instead to label the threat a "violent extremist" one of undefined origin. The ultimate irony of Obama's failure to identify the real threat to US national security is that all 227 drone attacks during his presidency have specifically targeted it — violent "Islamic" extremists.
Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (ret) is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam War, the US invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war. He is the author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will--Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields" and frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.
This is archived at Family Security Matters
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THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SOVEREIGN ARAB STATE IN PALESTINE
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, October 3, 2011. |
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A Palestinian state now has a good chance of becoming a rogue state — the kind of polity the United States is currently grappling with in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran and elsewhere The artificiality of a Palestinian identity is reflected in the attitudes and actions of neighboring Arab nations who never established a Palestinian state themselves. The rhetoric by Arab leaders on behalf of the Palestinians rings hollow. Arabs in neighboring states, who control 99.9 percent of the Middle East land, have never recognized a Palestinian entity. They have always considered Palestine and its inhabitants part of the great "Arab nation," historically and politically as an integral part of Greater Syria — Suriyya al-Kubra — a designation that extended to both sides of the Jordan River. In the 1950s, Jordan simply annexed the West Bank since the population there was viewed as the brethren of the Jordanians. The Arabs never established a Palestinian state when the UN in 1947 recommended to partition Palestine, and to establish "an Arab and a Jewish state" [not a Palestinian state, it should be noted]. Nor did the Arabs recognize or establish a Palestinian state during 19 years prior to the Six-Day War when Judea and Samaria known also as the West Bank were under Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control; nor did the Palestinian Arabs themselves clamor for autonomy or independence during those years under Jordanian and Egyptian rule. And as for Jerusalem: Only twice in the city's history has it served as a national capital. First as the capital of the two Jewish Commonwealths during the First And Second Temple periods, as described in the Bible, reinforced by archaeological evidence and numerous ancient documents. And again in modern times as the capital of the State of Israel. It has never served as an Arab capital for the simple reason that there has never been a Palestinian Arab state. According to investigative journalist Joan Peters, who spent seven years researching the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine (From Time Immemorial, 2001), the one identity that was never considered by local inhabitants prior to the 1967 war was "Arab Palestinian." Eli E. Hertz is president of Myths and Facts, Inc. The organization's objective is to provide policymakers, national leadership, the media and the public-at-large with information and viewpoints that are founded on factual and reliable content. Contact him at today@mythsandfacts.org |
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NETANYAHU 'ENRAGED' OVER MOSQUE ATTACK, ARABS RIOTING
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, October 3, 2011. |
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What unbelievable BS. He is "boiled with rage?" So where is his rage when Jewish men, women and children are brutally expelled from their homes in the middle of the night by black uniformed goons? For that he has no rage not even a comment. But at least he called the right person to find the perps. All that Yoram Cohen needs to do is walk down the hall to his director of the Jewish Section and ask him which one of his psychopathic goons did the job. This was written by Gil Ronen and it is archived at
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About 300 people began marching from Tuba toward Rosh Pina. They have been throwing rocks at police and burning tires. After an apparent arson attack on a mosque in the Bedouin Arab village of Tuba, about 300 people began marching from Tuba toward Rosh Pina Monday morning. They have been throwing rocks at police and burning tires. Police reportedly had pushed them back into the village by 9:00 a.m.. Large police forces are blocking the rioters from reaching a central junction and are using riot dispersal gear. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Monday morning and asked him to locate the people responsible for the arson as fast as possible. Netanyahu's bureau said that the prime minister "boiled with rage" when he saw photographs of the mosque that was attacked and said that the action contradicts the values of the state of Israel, in which freedom of religion and worship are "supreme values." "The pictures are shocking and have no place in the state of Israel," Netanyahu said. Initial photos from the scene of the attack show some partially burnt carpets and charred walls. A debate over the State's commitment to protecting freedom of religion is ongoing in Israel, spurred by issues like female singing in the IDF, and Jewish worship on the Temple Mount. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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EGYPT'S CHRISTIANS ... RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES (OVER 100,000 SINCE 3/11)!
Posted by Raymond Ibrahim, October 2, 2011. |
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Historically, non-Muslims whose lands were seized by the jihad had three choices: conversion, dhimmitude, or death. Today, however, they have a fourth option largely unavailable to their forbears: quit their lands of origin — emigrate — the latest testimony to the nature of Islam. A recent report indicates that unprecedented numbers of Copts, Egypt's indigenous Christian population, are emigrating from their homeland in response to the so-called "Arab spring": The Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations (EUHRO) published a report today on emigration of Christians from Egypt, saying that nearly 100,000 Christians have emigrated since March 2011. The report, which was sent to the Egyptian cabinet and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), warned that this emigration has been prompted by the escalating intimidation and attacks on Christians by Islamists. "Copts are not emigrating abroad voluntarily," said Naguib Gabriell, the director EUHRO, "they are coerced into that by threats and intimidation by hard line Salafists, and the lack of protection they are getting from the Egyptian regime." The report goes on to list a number of attacks on Copts and churches — including the killing of Coptic youth in Moqattam, the Imbaba and other church attacks — adding "Salafist clerics, who gained political influence after the January 25 Revolution, have become emboldened, calling Copts Dhimmis who have to pay the jizya (tax paid by non-Muslims to the state) because they are not first class citizens and can never enjoy full citizenship rights, or obtain sensitive posts." Indeed, this boldness is a harbinger of things to come — and Copts know it, hence the emigration. Wagdi Ghoneim, a popular cleric and former imam in California, recently called Copts "Crusaders" on Al Jazeera — about the worst thing to call someone in the Muslim world — insisting that they do not deserve equal rights with Muslims in Egypt, because they are infidel dhimmis. Likewise, Abu Shadi, a top representative of the Salafis, told Tahrir News that the Copts must either convert to Islam, pay jizya and assume inferior status, or die. These are just a couple of examples of the countless Muslim leaders openly hostile to Egypt's native population. Nor is this phenomenon limited to the Copts of Egypt: Gabriel sees a parallel with the Christian emigration from Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. "After the massacre of the congregation of Our Lady of Deliverance Church on October 31, 2010, and other attacks in Iraq, the ratio of Iraqi Christians went down from 8% to 2%; in Palestine to just .5%, and in Lebanon from 75% to 32%. If emigration of Christians, who constitute nearly 16% of the Egyptian population, continues at the present rate, it may reach 250,000 by the end of 2011, and within ten years a third of the Coptic population of Egypt would be gone." Bear in mind these large numbers are not simply indicative of those who want to emigrate, but those who simply can: not only does it take years to work out the legalities of emigrating, but many simply cannot afford it. In other words, if emigration was a simple thing, the number of Christian emigrants from the Muslim world would be even higher. As professor Habib Malik confirms, "It is principally the violence visited sporadically upon these Christian communities in their native towns and villages across the Middle East, and the absence of any reliable means of protection in a region seething with religious fanaticism and despotic forms of rule, which impels Christians to flee and not return" (Islamism and the Future of the Christians of the Middle East, pgs. 36-37). But it's more than this; in fact, we are witnessing another manifestation of history — witnessing firsthand how formerly non-Muslim lands become Muslim. For just as conversion to Islam (out of force, out of necessity, out of cynicism) and the outright killing of non-Muslims saw the ranks of Islam grow, so too does emigration fit in this same paradigm of Islamization. Beyond the authoritative primary sources which unequivocally demonstrate the violent nature of Islam — including history and theology texts — which many prefer to dismiss as "dead books," here, then, is yet another live example. And yet the West's leaders, from academics to politicians, will continue insisting that Islam is the "religion of peace" — testimony to the endemic blindness inflicting this age. Raymond Ibrahim, an Islam-specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.Contact him at list@pundicity.com.
This article is archived at
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WINSTON CHURCHILL: IN THE YEAR 1922
Posted by GWY, October 2, 2011. |
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In the year 1922 Winston Churchill said: Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. SOURCE: Churchill and the Jews by Martin Gilbert (chapter 7, page 81) published in year 2007 CHRONOLOGY: Winston Churchill was British Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955.
Contact GWY at gwy123@aol.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: ONE DAY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, October 2, 2011. |
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The sentiments of Caroline Glick's Latma video song "One Day," done for Rosh Hashana, resonated with me so thoroughly that I decided to start my post with it:
One day, there will sanity in the world. In the meantime, be strong, don't cave, know that we are watched from Above. ~~~~~~~~~~ And then let me share a most optimistic demographic report from Yoram Ettinger (emphasis in his original): On the eve of the 5772nd Jewish New Year, September 2011, the Jewish fertility rate — 2.97 births per woman and trending upward - exceeds the fertility rates in most Arab countries. ~~~~~~~~~~ You might want to save this information, or the URL, in order to respond when you see arguments — still advanced regularly today — regarding the "need" to give up Judea and Samaria because of the demographic time bomb. Even Obama has used this argument. The good news for me — in addition to that regarding Judea and Samaria — is what it says about Jewish Israelis. To have increasing numbers of children is to express a certain optimism about the future, a certain faith. All in all, I think we're doing very OK. ~~~~~~~~~~ Not OK at all is a statement recently made by former president Bill Clinton. (Referred to in Israel as "Beel" during his presidency, when he was friends with Yitzhak Rabin.) Disgusted as I was with what he said, I was going to let it pass. But Martin Sherman has written an incisive response to good old Bill that I would like to share. "During a roundtable with bloggers on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York just before the UN debate on the Palestinians unilateral bid for statehood, the former US president unequivocally laid the blame for the failure of the Mideast peace process on Netanyahu. ~~~~~~~~~~ Sherman mentions at the end of his piece that just as he was about to submit for publication, there were reports that the State Department, headed by Bill's spouse Hillary, was distancing itself from his remarks. However, before Hillary is applauded for having a more fair-minded approach than Bill, I note this: In a total reversal of the position she took as Senator, the Secretary of State has now filed a brief with the Supreme Court in the Zivotofsky case. It alleges that any American action that "symbolically or concretely" recognizes Jerusalem being in Israel would "critically compromise the ability of the United States to work with Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region to further the peace process." This is with regard to the case to be heard in the Supreme Court in November, in which Menachem Zivotofsky, an American citizen born in Jerusalem in 2002, wants his passport to record his birthplace as Israel, rather than "Jerusalem" with no nation noted. A law mandating that Israel be mentioned on request was passed when Clinton was a senator but both presidents Bush and Obama have claimed that doing so infringes on their prerogatives with regard to foreign affairs. Zivotofsky challenges this position.
~~~~~~~~~~ It should be noted that Menachem Zivotofsky was born in a hospital in western Jerusalem, the sovereignty of which should be solidly recognized as Israeli. The Palestinian Arabs are only claiming "east Jerusalem" as theirs. Right? Wrong. Anyone who pays close attention to their words realizes they want all of the Jewish holy city. What Clinton is doing here — by claiming that recognition of western Jerusalem as Israeli threatens the "peace process" — is giving credence to the possibility entertained by the PA that it might someday have sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. A matter of negotiations, she says. Not for the US to decide. A lovely position for a putative ally to take. One day, one day, there will be sanity in this world. But not today. Rick Richmond, the author of the article in the Sun on this issue, notes that the US position is one of absolute neutrality: "American policy is to remain neutral over all sovereignty issues, leaving them to negotiations...[and so] the question will arise as to whether it will also scrub the references to the 'Palestinian' territories." Hmm...there is no evidence yet that US policy has been adjusted so that all references in official statements and documents to the "Palestinian" territories are to be removed. What does this tell us? ~~~~~~~~~~ I turn now to the entire — ever-in-flux — issue of Palestinian statehood, the UN and negotiations. Before Rosh Hashana began, Netanyahu had consulted with his Inner Cabinet and come out, in spite of hesitations, in favor of the Quartet proposal for negotiations to be picked up again soon, with no prior conditions (but with a ludicrously short time frame). At the same time, the PA, was skirting on the edge of saying no — qualifying somewhat but making statements about insufficient parameters and the impossibility of coming to the table as long as Israel was building in Judea and Samaria. I don't think it's necessary to belabor every statement made by every PA official. But the sense I had was that the essential message was that international law was totally on the PA side, and unless the Quartet got its act together and made clear statements with regard to this law and forced Israel to bow to it, there would be no negotiations. This, for example was from Tayseer Khaled, a member of the PLO Executive Committee: "The Quartet committee statement is not acceptable. It is not clear and it holds the stick in the middle and divides responsibility between the two sides. Cute. The "international law" to which these PA officials refer (such as the fact that all land beyond the '67 line belongs to the Palestinian Arabs) is totally a figment of their imagination, of course. But nothing new in this regard. They sort of wing it as they go, and people believe they are speaking authoritatively. ~~~~~~~~~~ In light of what seemed to be the situation, Netanyahu expressed a certain tone of exultation. His attitude, at least as reflected by the media, was one of "they've backed themselves into a corner now, and we're going to come out looking good." Even as I read of this, I wanted to tell him, no, Bibi, keep a poker face and play it cool. Not only is the PA slippery, the international community is not on Israel's side. We've not yet reached that "one day," when foreign leaders will say, "Wow! Israel is cooperating and the PA isn't." Logic and fairness play no part here. And so, right now, we are seeing a PA that is hedging a bit-- not giving a final refusal and finding some good points in the plan — although they'd still have to climb down from that tree they're in, in order to come to the table. While Netanyahu has been the recipient of some disgruntled phones calls placed by international leaders with regard to our plans to build in Gilo. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, said this "raises doubts" about whether Israel really wants serious negotiations. In fact, the plans for 1,100 new housing units in Jerusalem's southeastern neighborhood might "threaten" the Quartet's efforts to restart talks. ~~~~~~~~~~ Vastly infuriating, and absolutely typical. It comes back to being our fault. Netanyahu had said we were not freezing construction. This should not be a surprise. Besides which, as Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev made clear, Gilo is not a settlement, and every single peace plan that has been advanced since Clinton has envisioned Gilo, which is near the heart of Jerusalem, as being retained by Israel. In other words, What the hell is the big deal? The "big deal" is what the PA will make of this, and the fear that the international community has with regard to the Palestinian Arabs' obstinacy. In other words, they're not reasonable, but we should cave to keep them quiet and allow them to have a "victory." This is the final shot from Merkel with regard to having doubts about Israel's sincerity: "What now counted was to dispel such doubts." Back off, Mr. Prime Minister. Cancel that Gilo construction. Heaven forbid. There has been no word that it will be cancelled, but one statement generates unease: According to The Israel Project, which tends to hew to the government line, what Regev also pointed out was that there was no construction going on in the heart of Jerusalem. Rather, new plans are being "discussed" by the municipality, and there are still 50 days left in which there can be debate before decisions are finalized. Uh oh. It wasn't just the municipality that was "discussing" plans — Eli Yeshai, Minister of the Interior, approved the construction. It was passed by the Ministry's District Planning Committee in late September, and the public was then given 60 days in which to object before the municipality gave final approval. The public. As I read this, it has to do with providing an opportunity to register concerns, such as the fact that more traffic might be generated by the new housing, or that sufficient classroom space might not be available for new families... Not political concerns, such as needing to appease Merkel. When the announcement was made, Netanyahu said he would not interfere. Let him now be true to his word. ~~~~~~~~~~ Today Netanyahu made Israeli acceptance of the Quartet plan official. Israel does have reservations, he said, which will be raised during the negotiations. Said a spokesman for the prime minister, "The prime minister is completely aligned with President Obama, the US administration and Israel's many friends in Europe and the world." Ouch. This is how he's playing it. Let's see if he backs the PA into a corner. It is very likely that for all their bluster the PA leadership will not accept. Nabil Sha'ath is saying among other things that they won't accept "lengthy" negotiations. Lengthy? Guess he means that the world should dictate terms to Israel so the papers can be signed in a couple of weeks. ~~~~~~~~~~ I'm picking up reports regarding Congress having blocked $200 million in aid to the PA because of its bid at the UN. How much this is non-binding resolution, and to what degree specific allocation processes have been frozen is not entirely clear here. What is clear is that Congress is furious with Abbas for spitting in the face of the US, and that this body stands with Israel to an extraordinary degree. Obama is adamantly opposed to blocking PA allocations, however, and it is likely that at some point Congress will open those allocations channels again. More to follow. ~~~~~~~~~~ On Friday, the Security Council's standing committee on admitting new members met and agreed unanimously to continue meeting at the "expert" level. Experts will be asked to determine if the PA request "meets the criteria of the [UN] Charter." That charter requires that applicants be "peace-loving" and accept its provisions. Other technical issues will be examined, as well. As I've mentioned numerous times before, I remain bewildered as to what there is to discuss with regard to whether a Palestinian state will meet specific criteria, as a state has not been declared and the UN is not empowered to create one. If these experts play it straight, Obama won't have to worry about a veto. It will all go nowhere. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has instructed legal experts in the ministry to draft a report on why the PA is not ready for statehood (e.g., they don't hold elections on schedule), and this is going to be submitted to the SC. ~~~~~~~~~~ Abbas Zaki, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee has given an interview in Arabic to Al-Jazeera TV, which was picked up and translated by MEMRI. Among the things he said: "If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall, what will become of Israel? It will come to an end. Israel National News carries a video from MEMRI with translation here:
This is one of those items that should be shared very broadly. People need to know. ~~~~~~~~~~ I want to repeat here something I ran just before Rosh Hashana. It may have been missed by those in the midst of preparations for the holiday, and it's too important to miss: Two weeks ago, I spoke about the marvelous counter-conference — "Perils of Global Intolerance at the UN" — held in a hotel across the street from the UN while Durban III was going on. Sponsored by the Hudson Institute and Touro College, under the dedicated and vigorous guidance of Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN, the conference hosted a magnificent series of participants. I had wanted to summarize some of their talks, but found it a bit overwhelming, What I hoped was that the talks would appear on video on the Internet, and indeed this has turned out to be the case. The streaming video live presentation was done under the auspices of PJTV (PJ Media) and it is PJTV that is now carrying the videos. I strongly urge you to access these videos and watch at least some of them. It takes a bit of patience, but it's worth it and then some. Go to www.pjtv.com and register. This can be done without making payment, although some subscription deals do require payment. Once registered, you can access "Durban Watch" or "Durban" in the library of videos. So many superb speakers to choose from. My recommendations: Elie Wiesel, author and Nobel Prize Laureate, who was deeply touching. John Bolton, diplomat, who gave background on how the UN can be fought if there is determination. Simon Deng, Sudanese human rights leader, who gave an extraordinarily moving presentation. Dore Gold, former Israel ambassador to the UN, who gave a clear explanation of Israeli security needs. Douglas Murray, UK journalist and author, who managed to be incisive and very funny at the same time. Ruth Wisse, Harvard Professor, who speaks with breathtaking intelligence. Khaled Abu Toameh, Arab-Israeli journalist, who tells the truth about media bias against Israel. Shelby Steele, Hoover Institute Fellow, who looks hard at Palestinian Arab self-perceptions. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner18@gmail.com and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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TRIPLE PLAY IN YEMEN
Posted by Michael Travis, October 2, 2011. |
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This was written by Ilana Freedman and it appeared in Gerard Direct
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US intelligence officers announced late Friday that the drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and Samer Khan in the mountains of Yemen yesterday, also killed Ibrahim al-Asiri, the master bomb-maker who is considered responsible for the bombs that Abdulmutallab wore in his underpants, and the printer cartridge bombs that were intended to blow up two UPS cargo planes in mid-air. Ibrahim al-Asiri was considered the top explosives expert for al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and is the third, high-value al Qaeda operative killed in yesterday's strike. Although he was not well-known to the public, he was certainly known to intelligence authorities. His ruthlessness was legendary. Two years ago, al-Asiri is thought to have attempted to kill Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, by turning his younger brother, Abdullah, into a suicide bomber. The bomber was killed, but the Prince escaped. In fact, although his bombs were often ingenious, none of them were known to have been successful in accomplishing the mission. While al-Awlaki was responsible for external operations for the al-Qaeda franchise, and Samir Khan was co-editor of English-language al-Qaeda online magazine Inspire, al-Asiri was responsible for designing and deploying the bombs that would be the instruments of destruction for AQAP. The loss of the three men represents an enormous accomplishment in the neutralizing of AQAP's terrorist capabilities. Considered one of the most powerful of the al-Qaeda franchises around the world, al-Awlaki was considered a possible future heir to bin Laden's leadership of the entire organization. The Lone Wolf Terrorist. Although AQAP sponsored terrorist operations of its own, it also fostered the idea of do-it-yourself terrorism, which it promoted through its on-line, English magazine. In the May issue of Foreign Policy, Christopher Boucek, an expert on Yemen and al-Qaida, assessed this threat: "The most omnipresent terrorist threat the United States faces today is the opportunistic attacks that are either homegrown or stem from weak or failing states, not the spectacular attacks that take months of preparation. A catastrophic attack — while still the intention of al Qaeda's core — is much less likely than smaller operations that are harder to pre-emptively detect. And those are the kind of attacks Awlaki has the power to inspire." The strike occurred five miles from the town of Khashef in Yemen's northern Jawf province, 87 miles east of the capital Sanaa. The Hellfire missiles hit a vehicle containing three or four suspected members of AQAP. In traveling together, the three broke one of the first rules of organizational security: never have the leadership all traveling together. The fact that al-Awlaki allowed this arrangement showed how arrogantly certain he was that the US could not find him and how firm was his belief that his faith would protect him from harm. He had recently taunted the US about their failure to kill him in two previous attempts. Details of the attack. Officials disclosed today that the drones that killed Awlaki were operated by the same Joint Special Operations Command that carried out the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. According to the NY Post: "A tribal official told The Washington Post that Awlaki had just eaten breakfast and that his lieutenants had left their house for their cars located about 700 yards away. Suddenly, they heard a Predator flying overhead that fired a 100-pound Hellfire missile. It killed some of Awlaki's party. Awlaki raced to a Toyota Hilux pickup. That's when a second Hellfire from a second drone exploded, tearing his body to pieces, according to Khamis bin Arfaaj, whose brother Salem had been living with Awlaki and also died." Final Words. The last issue of Inspire magazine, which appeared last week in time to celebrate the tenth anniversary of 9/11, carried the announcement of a future "do it yourself" article by al-Awlaki called "Targeting the Populations of Countries That are at War with the Muslims". Inspire is the brainchild of both al-Awlaki and Khan, that carried such 'how-to' articles as "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom", "Destroying Buildings", and "Individual Terrorist Jihad", as well as a series telling acolytes "What to Expect in Jihad?". Although al-Awlaki, the first American to be placed on the CIA's "kill or capture" list, was the primary target, the deaths of Khan and al-Asiri as well made this operation a highly important milestone in America's fight against anti-US terrorism. The individual importance of each of the three men was significant. But the combined loss to the organization of all three is likely to stunt future plans for some time, as the organization scrambles to regroup. Under the leadership of Yousif Saleh Fahd al-Ayayri, it is likely to take some time for this formerly powerful group to reconstitute itself after the loss of three of its top people. The AQAP mission, however, will continue, if not immediately by the decimated organization, then by its loyal following. The killings are likely to spawn an angry response among those most influenced by AQAP's mission. The lone-wolf, would-be terrorists in the US, who were the primary audience of Inspire, are likely to be motivated to strike out in reaction to the killings. Al-Awaki has already given them the tools. Using the advice and inspiration of al-Awlaki and his team, aspiring young jihadis may take up his mission on their own, which was his plan. Although he won't be able to plan the operations of the past, al-Awlaki's legacy will continue to be a threat to the US for some time to come. Editor's Addendum:
Read "ISSUE V OF INSPIRE, THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE MAGAZINE OF AL-QAEDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA — A GENERAL REVIEW"
here.
Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com
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BIDEN CONTRADICTS HIMSELF ON POLLARD; MUSLIMS PUTTING MIDEAST CHRISTIANS TO FLIGHT
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 2, 2011. |
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BIDEN CONTRADICTS HIMSELF ON POLLARD Vice-President Biden now advises President Obama not to release Jonathan Pollard except over his dead body. Biden had recommended clemency for Pollard, four years ago (see
After Biden's earlier recommendation, many professionals, "including former head of the CIA, the former Attorney General, several former Secretaries of State, the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the former White House Legal Counsel and a host of others intimately familiar with the case," urged Pollard's release. Biden does not explain nor acknowledge his self-contradiction. The reason for his about-face was hinted at in the New York Times, as absorbing pressure on Pres. Obama to release Pollard. Obama has kept silent about all those serious pleas for clemency (IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis, 10/2/11 www.imra.org.il ). The Wall St. Journal recently posted an article and letters denying that the U.S. has any political prisoners and affirming many positive aspects of our country. I endorse all the positive points except for our actually having one political prisoner, Jonathan Pollard. Biden's vehement and unexplained response, almost an outburst, reinforces the notion that Pollard's excess incarceration is political. Biden may have been asked to uphold Pollard's life sentence after 26 years of it, thinking he could get away with it on the strength of his reputation as being pro-Israel. Biden's reputation as pro-Israel was too easily gained, considering his significant campaign funding from Iranians. It was Biden who reinforced Obama's anti-Israel policy by feigning indignation against publication in an Israeli newspaper of a further step in a housing project in an area that "big brother" Obama did not want Jews, and Jews only, to build. The State Dept. pretended that the announcement, made during Biden's visit was intended to embarrass the U.S.. Apparently, when a U.S. official visits, normal governance that the U.S. does not like, must cease. Certainly Israel does not intend to embarrass the U.S.! This minor issue was orchestrated throughout the Obama administration, in addition to all the other one-sided pressures against Israel. Remember that the continuous pro-terrorism of the Palestinian Authority is accepted by the Administration acting like an over-indulgent parent. Incidentally, when the U.S. Ambassador to Israel defended Obama as pro-Israel, and cited minor and ephemeral U.S. assistance to Israel, he omitted the nasty tone of the Obama administration as exemplified by the Biden incident and the major and permanent U.S. interference with Israel and its assistance to Israel's mortal enemies. Dishonest politics permeates the State Dept.. Pollard did violate U.S. law. But the political nature of his sentencing was apparent from its start. The government violated its plea bargain with Pollard. So he and Israel cooperated with prosecutors, making it possible to convict him. The government used his cooperation in bad faith, by demanding and getting an excessive sentence. Sec. of Defense Weinberger chastised Pollard with hyperbole, indicating subjective factors. The sentence of life without parole compares with the average sentence for Pollard's crime of 2-4 years. Why single him out? The indignation against Pollard was absent from treatment of spies who, unlike Pollard, worked for enemies of the U.S. and in some cases caused U.S. agents to be killed. True, at first, the security establishment suspected Pollard of having caused those deaths. Nevertheless, sentencing should be based on conviction, not on unsubstantiated suspicion. When double agents were found to have been responsible for those deaths, the government continued its hostility toward Pollard. To this day, leaked slander has it that Pollard harmed the U.S. by giving the Soviets code books to which he had no access, showed no remorse though he repeatedly expressed it, and was a paid agent though he took no salary, just expenses. Why do prominent people lie about that? Must be political. The politics probably rests with what Pollard discovered. U.S. policy was to provide Israel with intelligence about Arab military movements. Violating policy, U.S. officials withheld that information and in such a way as to increase potential Israeli casualties. His superiors paid no attention to Pollard's protest against the withholding of promised intelligence. He then broke the law, by providing that intelligence. Those who express indignation against Pollard have expressed no indignation against officials who violated U.S. policies to betray an ally and cause innocent deaths. Neither have such critics of Pollard called for an investigation of subversion. They wrap their indignation against Pollard in the flag, but where is their patriotism against the subversion Pollard discovered, not only about intelligence for Israel? The intelligence Israel received enabled it to prepare such excellent civil defense against Saddam's missiles, that previously Israel did not know Saddam could fill with poison gas, that he fired the missiles without the gas. Thousands of innocent people were spared, thanks to Pollard, no thanks to those who condemned him. Not only did Pollard thwart that subversion about intelligence, he uncovered more facts that could greatly embarrass U.S. officials. Example: U.S. complicity in Saddam acquiring chemical weapons of mass-destruction. Assisting that dictator, whom we later had to fight, acquire such weapons shows how foolish our officials were. Nor is that all. Pollard also stumbled on the Iran-Contra subversion. Again, more U.S. officials' ears burned when they heard what Pollard might say about them, if he were free to do so. There is the source of their pretended indignation and their political persecution of Pollard. Also judge by how the U.S. treated Pollard after sentencing. First he was sent to a prison ward for the insane. Imagine yourself there! Then he spent years naked on the cold stone floor or in solitary confinement. He has been denied proper medical care, although his condition went from serious to grave. It all adds up to politics. Background is that the government, which has permitted Islamists to be prison and military chaplains, to provide the military with false translations from Arabic, and to guide them in dealing with Radical Islam, also has refused to hire Israelis to translate from Arabic and has harassed pro-Israel Jews in the FBI. Clemency for Pollard's time served is long overdue. So is
investigation of subversion in the U.S. government and our lack of an
informed and intelligent policy against the ideology of international
jihad.
MUSLIMS PUTTING MIDEAST CHRISTIANS TO FLIGHT Non-Muslims whose countries were overtaken by jihad had to convert, submit to inferior status, or be slain. Now that jihad has revved up again, and some Christians can arrange and afford emigration, they are fleeing such a fate in large numbers. The "Arab spring" has thrown off the little government restraint there was, prompting Muslims to force out the indigenous Egyptians. Those are non-Arabs known as Copts, whose Christian sect is the Coptic one. There were religious purges when Mubarak ruled. The new Egyptian government still less protects Copts from Salafist Muslims, who keep burning churches and attacking them. Numerous Salafist clergymen are demanding that the ancient religious tax be imposed upon the Copts, who, they insist, should be denied full citizenship rights. According to the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations, about 100,000 Christians have evacuated this year, alone. Similar attacks occurred in Iraq, reducing the percentage of Christians in that country from 8% to 2%. Christians also are fleeing from Lebanon and from the Palestinian Authority. [In Israel, the number of Christians has grown.] Now we see how Islam replaced Christianity as the main religion of
the Mideast. Blind to this as it has been to the rise of other fanatical
movements, the West declares Islam a religion of peace (Raymond Ibrahim,
Jihad Watch, 9/28/11
Muslims are committing ethnic cleansing in Sudan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, even India. Non-Muslims are attacked in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and, for that matter, in Western Europe, among other countries. The Arab-Israel conflict is another example of a Muslim attempt at genocide.
OBAMA'S FALSE POLICY AGAINST TERRORISM The White House has released a policy paper on methods to prevent
terrorism
The Right finds Islamism a global ideological movement of violence. Islamists, however, deny that their ideology fosters violence. They rationalize away the 23,000 Islamist attacks worldwide since 9/11as done by criminals, lunatics, or misguided Muslims. Western leftists and multiculturalists concur. The House committee on Homeland Security investigated the radicalization of Muslims, because since 9/11 [actually before then], jihad has continuously menaced U.S. national security. Jihad is a broad, organized, and potent ideological menace requiring special study. Committee Chair Peter King was contradicted by ranking Democrat on the Committee, Bennie Thompson. Rep. Thompson referred to violence from other groups. He suggested investigating them all. The Right identifies our chief enemy as jihad by terrorism from Islamists. Islamists and their allies do not. They call it "violent extremism, Al-Qaeda and Associated Networks, overseas contingency operation, man-caused disasters, and a 'global struggle for security and progress.'" Accordingly, the Defense Dept. report on the Ft. Hood massacre failed to mention the terrorist's name or his stated Islamist motivation. [In other words, they hid the indicators of what really was stewing and what they had missed, but instead made it seem like individual aberrations.] How to deal with jihad? The Islamist-Left-multicultural people emphasize civil rights, due process, lack of discrimination, goodwill, avoiding a backlash, and partnering with Muslims [but the government picks Radicals to work with]. The Right also would use intelligence gathering, arrests and incarceration, deportation, and military means. The White House paper claims the problem is "neo-Nazis and other anti-Semitic hate groups, racial supremacists, and international and domestic terrorist groups." The paper mentions neither terrorism nor Islamism, but "violent extremism." Although the jihadist menace is more than local, the paper relates the countermeasures to those used against gangs. Gangs are criminal enterprises for hoodlums, not zealots for an ideology. Mostly different methods are needed to combat them. The paper's nearest turn to reality is mentioning al-Qaida, but most Islamists are not with al-Qaida. The paper's deficiency is its narrow scope and failure to recognize the problem The Administration probably could trace its concept to a guide financed by George Soros, the Promising Practices Guide: Developing Partnerships Between Law Enforcement and American Muslim, Arab, and Sikh Communities by Deborah A. Ramirez, Sasha Cohen O'Connell and Rabia Zafar. This guide ignores Islamist terrorism and blames alleged bias by Americans against minorities. "The guide might present itself as an aide to counterterrorism but its real purpose is to deflect attention from national security to the privileging of select communities." The Administration report fails to distinguish between Islamists, whose leaders favor terrorists more than counter-terrorists, and anti-Islamist Muslims. Rep. King even believes that the report condemns legitimate criticism of radical Islamic organizations. How can we tell friend from foe, that way? Radical Muslim organizations are delighted with the report, but those
who want a genuine counterterrorism policy must work to remove the Left
and the multiculturalists from government (Daniel Pipes, National
Review, 8/29/11
The Administration subsidizes Palestinian Arab terrorists and the Lebanese Armed Forces, an ally of Hizbullah. All the non-jihadist sources of human violence listed in the report do not produce anywhere near the number of casualties jihad does. Since the Islamist problem is ideological, the solution requires combating the ideology. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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PILING ON: THE NEW YORK TIMES AND ISRAEL
Posted by Jerold S. Auerbach, October 1, 2011. |
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In last week's run-up to the U.N. General Assembly theatre of the absurd, The New York Times could hardly restrain itself. Fulminating about what was best for Israel, it repeatedly berated the Jewish state and Prime Minister Netanyahu for not acceding to its editor's wishes. The fusillade began on September 11. The Times graciously conceded that Israel and the Palestinian Authority shared blame for the breakdown in peace talks. But "we put the greater onus" on Prime Minister Netanyahu, "who has used any excuse to thwart peace efforts." Netanyahu's acceptance last year of the Palestinian demand for a ten-month settlement freeze was ignored. The Palestinian Authority responded by refusing to negotiate. With time expiring, it demanded a three-month extension — which Netanyahu, once burned, wisely refused. Nonetheless, the Times editorial praised the "moderate" Palestinian leadership and called upon Congress to "lean on" Netanyahu. Another critical editorial followed three days later. Referring to the special election in a heavily Jewish New York district in which a congressional seat held by Democrats for nearly a century went Republican, the Times rejected any notion that the stunning result marked a repudiation of President Obama's strong-arming of Israel. The president's support for the Jewish state, the editorial blithely asserted, "has never wavered." Yet Netanyahu, the Times's favorite piñata, was likely to read the election as support for his own intransigent refusal to compromise with the Palestinians, thereby disregarding "Israel's own security." The "intractable" prime minister, after all, had been busy "building settlements." If only. Such temerity: Jews living in their ancient homeland! Four days later, in the Sunday Review section, the Times reprinted a September 13 letter from Seymour D. Reich blaming Netanyahu for rebuffing President Obama's "peace" proposal that Israel negotiate based on its 1967 borders. To be sure, those "Auschwitz" borders, as Abba Eban memorably labeled them, had left Israel vulnerable to Arab attacks ever since Israel declared independence in 1948. Mr. Reich had all the answers that were fit to print. Netanyahu "must step back from the brink." He must stop "placating" his right-wing government and, instead, dissolve it. He must freeze settlement construction. Mr. Reich's favorite reader's response, understandably, praised the "uncomfortable truths" critical of Israel that Reich had presented. It came (all too predictably) from an Ivy League professor of the history of Judaism. The Times loves nothing more than Jewish critics of Israel. It was left to Thomas Friedman, several pages along, to share his great concern for "Israel's future." Anyone familiar with his Middle East reporting since the Times sent him to Beirut in 1982 knew what that meant: a rant against "the most diplomatically inept and strategically incompetent government in Israel's history," led by a prime minister who gives Israel's friends — namely President Obama — "nothing to defend it with." Several days later, the Times provided former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with a forum to lend Israeli credibility to the Times critique. Back in 2008, Olmert had embraced Palestinian demands, only to have his capitulation ignored by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. The morning before Netanyahu and Abbas would address the General Assembly, Times editors weighed in yet again. Conceding that "there is plenty of blame to go around" for the current stalemate, "the main responsibility" — no surprise — belonged to Netanyahu. He "refuses to make any serious compromises for peace" — the peace, of course, that Palestinians have steadfastly rejected ever since 1947. Veteran Times watchers had every reason to expect this onslaught. It is the current manifestation of the Times's abiding Jewish problem. It has been evident ever since founding publisher Adolph Ochs and his Sulzberger successors trembled with apprehension lest their newspaper be branded as the "Jew York Times." Bending over backward to avoid any Jewish identification, the Times found itself on the wrong side of every major Jewish issue. During the vicious Arab riots in Palestine in 1929, the slaughter of Jews provoked Times articles as hostile to Zionists as they were indifferent to Jewish victims. Joseph Levy, its correspondent on the scene, was an American Jew who had spent years in Beirut before coming to Jerusalem. He conceded that if his efforts toppled the Zionist administration, so much the better. Sound familiar? The Nazi slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust was consigned to the inner pages, competing for space with stories of hijacked truckloads of coffee in New Jersey. Verified descriptions of Auschwitz did not make the front page. The very idea of a Jewish state, to say nothing of its reality, left Times editors acutely uncomfortable in 1948 and thereafter. Ever since the Six-Day War, the Times has been unrelenting in its criticism of Jewish settlements. It enthusiastically endorsed President Obama's assertion that truncated Israeli borders are "vital to defusing Muslim anger at the West" — a dubious claim with dire consequences for Israel. The familiar Times motto — "All the News That's Fit to Print" — requires an update to "All the Criticism of Israel That Fits We Print." Jerold S. Auerbach is professor emeritus of History at Wellesley College. His blog is www.jacobsvoice.tumblr.com. |
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THUNDERSHOWERS IN SEPTEMBER
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, October 1, 2011. |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il Go tohttp://freifenberg-newblog.blogspot.com/ to see more of his graphic art. |
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WELL-DOCUMENTED DEMOGRAPHIC OPTIMISM
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, October 1, 2011. |
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On the eve of the 5772nd Jewish New Year, September 2011, the Jewish fertility rate — 2.97 births per woman and trending upward - exceeds the fertility rates in most Arab countries. In defiance of conventional wisdom, Israeli Jewish demography has been robust - primarily due to a surge in secular Jewish birth rate - while regional Muslim fertility rate is experiencing a sharp decline due to modernity: 1.7 births per woman in Iran, 2.8 in Jordan (the "twin sister" of Judea and Samaria), 2.5 in Egypt, 2.5 in most Persian Gulf states (other than Saudi Arabia's 4 births per woman) and 1.9 births per woman in North Africa. Since the 1940s, Israel' demographic establishment has maintained that Jews are doomed to become a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and that it is incumbent upon the Jewish State to concede Jewish geography (Judea and Samaria) in order to secure Jewish demography. In fact, Professor Roberto Bacchi, the founder of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics and the mentor of contemporary Israeli statisticians and demographers, projected on the eve of the 1948 independence that in 2001 there would be no more than 2.3 million Jews in Israel — a 33% minority west of the Jordan River. However, all demographic prophecies of doom have been crashed upon the rocks of reality. From a minority of 8% and 33% - west of the Jordan River - in 1900 and 1947 respectively, the six million Jews in Israel have become a solid majority of 66% in 2011, in the combined area of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and pre-1967 Israel. The current demographic tailwind should further expand the Jewish majority. From 80,400 births in 1995, the number of Jewish births surged by 56% to 125,500 in 2010, while the annual number of Israeli Arab births has stabilized due to their successful integration into Israel's infrastructures of health, education, employment, finance, medicine, politics, sports and the arts. Israel's Jewish-Arab fertility gap was reduced from 6 births per woman in 1969 to 0.5 in 2011, trending toward a convergence at three births per woman. In 2011, the number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is inflated by almost 1 million people (1.6MN and not 2.55MN) throughthe inclusion of nearly 400,000 overseas residents who have been away for over a year, by a double-count of 350,000 ID card-carrying Jerusalem and West Bank Arabs who are counted as Israeli Arabs by Israel and as West Bankers by the Palestinian Authority, etc. A World Bank September 2006 study documents a 32% "inflation" in the number of Palestinian births. The decline in the West Bank Arab fertility is faster than the decline among Israeli Arabs, resulting from an accelerated urbanization process (from a 70% rural society in 1967 to a 78% urban society in 2011), an expanded education and career mentality among women, reduced teen pregnancy, institutionalized family planning, etc. In addition, Judea and Samaria Arabs have experienced an annual net-emigration since 1950 (e.g. 16,500 in 2010, 17,000 in 2009 and 17,000 in 2008). At the same time, Jews have experienced annual net-immigration (Aliya) since 1882, boosted by periodical waves of Aliya, in defiance of Israel's demographic establishment. For example, during the 1980s Israel's demographic profession underestimated the number of Soviet Jews by 50%, stating that no massive Aliya was expected, even if Moscow opened its gates. Over one million Olim (immigrants) arrived. An 80% Jewish majority in the combined area of the West Bank and pre-1967 Israel is attainable - by 2035 - in light of the current demographic trend, bolstered by a unique Aliya potential of 50,000 Olim annually. It requires Jerusalem to declare Aliya the top national priority, leveraging the relative strength of the Israeli economy — whose credit rating was just upgraded by Standard & Poor — the intensified anti-Semitism in the former USSR, West Europe and Argentina and the expanded Jewish education in the USA. Anyone claiming that Jews are doomed to become a minority west of the Jordan River and that, therefore, the Jewish State must concede Jewish geography in order to secure Jewish demography, is either dramatically mistaken or outrageously misleading. size="3"> Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as
well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for
Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to
Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul
General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of
Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem
Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il
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THE DEMOGRAPHIC ARGUMENT MISTAKEN
Posted by Richard Shulman, October 1, 2011. |
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The demographic argument against Israeli retention of the Territories is that: (1) Palestinian Arabs reproduce themselves faster than do Israeli Jews; and (2) Therefore Israel had better give up the Territories before the Arabs form a majority. Otherwise, Israel wouldn't be a Jewish state and a democratic state. The argument has flaws and even falsities. The argument derives from a presumed demographic trend started years ago. This trend was false then. The rapid growth stated for the Palestinian Authority area was based upon Arafat's double-counting and exaggeration. The trend of the past has changed. Urbanization, female education, and institutionalized birth control have reduced the Arab birth rate in most countries. This new trend has run for some time, now. So has a counter trend among Israeli Jews. Secular Jews have increased their birth rate. In addition, Israel has a net influx of Jews, whereas the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) has a net outflow of Arabs. The Jewish majority is growing (Yoram Ettinger in IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis, 10/1/11, www.imra.org.il ). The falsified statistics on which the argument is based were exposed some time ago. How come people keep citing the disproved argument? Is theirs a demographic argument or a demagogic argument? A note of caution that those who use the incorrect argument should have made: demographic trends change. They may be predictive but cannot be counted on. Since the actual present trend includes Arab out-migration and Jewish in-migration, it would be to Israel's advantage against the jihadists and in favor of Israel retaining the Jewish patrimony in the Territories, to do what it can to magnify the Arab outflow. Don't wait for the current trend to reverse itself. Start by ending subsidies of the P.A. and of Israeli Arabs and by enforcing the law on land acquisition and house construction. If Israel took measures to thus resolve the Arab-Israel conflict in favor of Jewish national interests, the Jewish inflow probably would increase, too. Jewish immigrants would see more hope and less conflict. If the population trend were as popularly believed and as assiduously cultivated by anti-Zionists, then the same ultimate fate would befall Israel by leaving the currently large Arab sector within the State of Israel. Why don't those who cite the now disproved population trend urge Israel to expel the Arabs? Is it because they don't approve of ethnic cleansing? No, they do not object to P.A. plans to ethnically cleanse the Territories of the Jewish residents. The P.A. plans to expel the Jews even in traditionally parts of Jerusalem, such as the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Then the reason must be that those who use the incorrect argument are too biased against Zionism to suggest anything in favor of Israel. Then many of them aren't concerned with Israeli survival, as they purport to be, after all. The notion of giving up the Territories fails to distinguish between parts of the Territories where Arabs live and parts where Jews live. Israel could keep the latter parts without upsetting the population balance in the Arabs' favor. As for Israel losing its Jewish character, it isn't only from Arabs. It also is from illegal immigrants. What do those who insist they worry about survival of the Jewish state planning to say about Israeli immigration law and enforcement? The notion that Israel is not a democratic state if it polices populations not its own citizens is peculiar. Was the U.S. not democratic because it policed Germany and Japan after WWII? Of course not! Then Israel, which acquired the Territories in self-defense, and whose Territories Israel has the best legal claim as a result of the Mandate, is not undemocratic for controlling those territories. What is Israel supposed to do: (1) Give the Territories to enemies planning to turn them into a terrorist front against Israel, as Hamas did in Gaza? Or (2) Negotiate forever, because the Arabs won't accept the Territories except in an agreement that does not, not even just on paper, end the jihad and that demands conditions impossible for Israeli survival. An example is the demand that Israel accept millions more Arabs. What would that do to the demographic balance? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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MISLEADING NEWS ABOUT ARAB TERRORISM; ADDENDUM; MUSLIMS PERSECUTE COPTS FOR MONEY, TOO
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 1, 2011. | ||||
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MISLEADING NEWS ABOUT ARAB TERRORISM After describing recent Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks on Israelis, New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner declared them rare in Tel Aviv in recent years. He attributes this supposed decline to "the renunciation of violence by the West Bank leadership, the construction of a security barrier by Israel and intensive Israeli military activity against militant cells." As if backing up his statement, Mr. Bronner quotes the Palestinian Authority news agency as having "condemned this attack as well as the ongoing Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem..." (8/30/11, A8.) "Militant cells" is a euphemism for terrorist cells. His newspaper's lack of frankness impugns its own trustworthiness. Leaving the P.A. statement unchallenged leaves the impression that Israel commits ongoing aggression. It does not. The Arabs commit constant aggression from Gaza, Judea-Samaria, and in Jerusalem. If you read carefully, you will find that the Times leaves false Arab propaganda unchallenged so much, as to imply complicity with it. Israel does not attack the Arabs for nothing. It roots out terrorism, a task that the P.A. has agreed to do itself. Whatever made Israeli officials sign an agreement depending on jihadists to dismantle jihadist organizations? Many attempted Arab attacks are thwarted. They often are not reported, as if they don't count and don't contradict the claim of reduced terrorism. True, the statement refers to terrorism in Tel Aviv, but will readers realize that the statement refers to a restricted area and therefore is not much of a commentary on the P.A.? One thing Mr. Bronner omits is that the P.A. often condemns attacks but not the attackers, and in English, not in Arabic. Hence the attackers do not feel opprobrium. Far from it, the P.A. honors assailants. The Palestinian Arab leadership constantly indoctrinates its people, an easily incited people, that the Jews usurp their country, that Arabs need to liberate "their" country, and that those who attempt to do so by violence if killed are paradise-bound martyrs whose families get an earthly reward from the P.A., and if captured, are paid a salary as if soldiers on a P.A. mission. That P.A. renunciation of violence is a form of Islamic deception, a valued tactic of jihad at which the report does not hint. No, the New York Times simply features all the false news there's room to print. Surely the editors see the Arab pattern of trying to get Israel to pull its punches and to maintain respectability by condemning what it has incited people to do. Therefore it is all the worse journalism that the first reason Mr. Bronner cites for a reduction of Arab violence in Tel Aviv is P.A. renunciation. Nor is such renunciation valid. P.A. head Abbas threatened violence several times, when, he said, the time is ripe, meaning he is trying to keep things quiet lest it impede his jihadist tactic of gaining his war aims via diplomacy. He has asked Arab states to make war on Israel. He has threatened to launch a war if his diplomacy does not produce results he demands. Those results would be concessions fatal to Israeli survival. Hence Israel cannot agree to them and survive. Hence the prospect of war is grave. The question a journalistic watchdog would ask is why does the State Dept. and Israel subsidize the P.A., which builds a military ostensibly for keeping order but actually for aggression and which gives half its funds to the Hamas regime, openly at war with Israel. ADDENDUM TO PRIOR ARTICLE ON P.A. CONDEMNING TERRORIST ACT Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA points out that the P.A. condemnation was of attacking civilians. The P.A. did not condemn the same terrorist's attack on police. In addition, the whole P.A. leadership insists that Israel release all imprisoned [and convicted] terrorists (IMRA, 9/1/11). How condemnatory of terrorism is a P.A. that demands that those who attack civilians be released from prison? By what right does the P.A., which refuses to negotiate peace, condone attacks on Israeli police? MORE ISRAELI SUPREME COURT ANTI-ZIONIST BIAS The Israeli Supreme Court dismissed a defamation suit brought by Israeli veterans of the battle in Jenin, against the film, "Jenin, Jenin," by Mohammed Bakri, that depicts them as wanton murderers. The film falsely accused Israeli soldiers of massacring innocent Arabs in the battle at the refugee camp [terrorist base] there. Actually, the Palestinian Arabs have admitted that those killed were their gunmen. A doctor present at the Jenin battle attended the film's screening in Israel. When he tried to refute the film's lies, people called him a murderer, the microphone was seized, and he was silenced. These are the points he would have made: 1. The Jenin hospital director claims that the IDF aimed at the hospital water and power supplies and destroyed its west wing. That hospital has no west wing. The doctor/witness says the troops guarded water and power and helped set up a generator. 2. An old resident claims he was taken out in the wee hours and was shot twice for not complying. That doctor saw the man's scratches, no bullet wounds. He was treated at an Israeli hospital for major illness. 3. A baby was said to have died from a bullet wound because the IDF prevented his evacuation. No such baby was found. Evacuation would not have saved someone wounded as described. 4. The same person who alleged the baby fatality claimed to have used a finger to open the baby's airway. He also claimed that tanks ran over people deliberately. Medically impossible for a finger to do what was claimed. Tanks did not run over people. 5. The film alleges a mass grave used by the IDF. None shown or found. International investigators found only 52 Arabs killed, all buried by the Arabs. 6. The film mentions aerial bombing. Everybody knows that the IDF took casualties because it was too human to use planes. 7. Bakri was not at the battle. All his photos are manipulated. For example, he filmed tanks from elsewhere and arranged them in the movie to appear near Arab children. The doctor is proud of the heroic, ethical, and necessary battle against terrorists (http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=18817). Mr. Bakri has denounced Israeli soldiers as murderous "drooling dogs". He also calls them Nazis. Bakri's excuse for his name-calling, false depictions, and attempts to give a false impression artistic license. Actually, he was implementing the jihad tactic of major and systematic lying to defame an enemy. The Supreme Court ruled the film "not defamatory." When right-wingers criticize leftist or Arab behavior or views, they are called defamatory. The State which sent its troops into battle in Jenin did not offer legal assistance to the veterans who sued for their good name. Far leftists in the media express solidarity with Bakri "and his artistic lies." A legitimate insult he could hurl at Israelis is at the Far Left for nurturing libel against their own country and protectors. When right-wingers use Holocaust analogies, they are prosecuted for it. Bakri was not prosecuted for calling Israeli soldiers Nazis. In the case of jihadists or leftists, such language is protected speech in Israel. (Prof. Steven Plaut, 7/27/11. For more on Israel's Supreme Cult, see
Yes, the Far Left is emotionally sick but still powerful in Israel. It represses freedom of speech and favors subversion. MUSLIMS PERSECUTE COPTS FOR MONEY, TOO Not only hatred motivates many Egyptian Muslims to persecute Copts to the point of burning their churches and attempting to murder their priests and Christian villagers. Various Muslim leaders in Egypt express a wish that the government or rioters impose the ancient tax on non-believers. Loot is the motive. There even is sentiment for resuming the business of kidnapping and extorting ransom from non-believers (Raymond Ibrahim. FrontPageMagazine.com, 7/6/11
How similar the Muslim reaction to non-believers is to the Nazi reaction to Jews and the Inquisition reaction to recently converted Jews! The Inquisition tortured recently converted Jews until they confessed, then the Church and the State split the convicted Jews' property. The Holocaust was probably the greatest robbery in history. When the Arab states found they couldn't seize and loot the new Jewish state in the late 1940s, they expelled most of their Jews and confiscated their property. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. |
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READER-SELECTED VIDEOS
Posted by Various Readers, October, 2011. |
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Occupy's Anti-Semitic Slurs Ignored by Left From Americans for a limited government (31Oct11) This is unbelievable From Fred Reifenberg (31Oct11) This is Uganda, but it could be Boca, or Brooklyn.... Victory or Death From uzi26@comcast.net (30Oct11) This is pretty thought provoking From Yoram Fisher (30Oct11) MISOJUDAIC TEACHER EXERCISES FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS From Dr. History (29Oct11) "Freedom of speech" — misojudaic version in action — and she is a teacher in California! So much for the tarnished, bankrupt Golden State. Remember too, they said in Germany -- "It can't happen here!" Rabbi Kahane speaks about terrorist release such as Shalit situation From Barbara and Chaim Ginsberg (29Oct11) This is unbelievable. It was taped during the years that Rabbi Kahane was a Knesset Member . Years 1984-1987. From Billy Mills (28Oct11)
"Occupied Wall Street is just like the TEA party" - President Obama SHORT VIDEO From Dr. History (1Oct11) Just what is Obama doing? history of Islam and its role in the SLAVE TRADE for some 1,400 years From Dr. History (23Oct11) In the U.S. all we hear is about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its horrors. While that is true, it PALES in comparison as to what Islam has done and continues to do to Black Africans. This 8 minute video exposes the tip of the iceberg. If you want to get this book: "The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa," note that Amazon only has copies for some $113.00+ (that is not a typo). However, the publisher in the UK, Oneworld Publications (easily found with google) has copies at £19.99. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ALL ON YOUR E-MAIL LIST. What's really happening in the Middle East From Gerald A. Honigman(28Oct11) joint news conference: the Turks and Jordanians lecturing Israel From Gerald A. Honigman(28Oct11) Occupy Wall Street Interview From Albert Wendroff(27Oct11) Olbermann and Letterman - Men of the People From Liberty Extra(27Oct11) Two extremely wealthy white American comedians, both who "earn" in excess of $10 million a year, gaggled last night on CBS’s "The Late Show with David Letterman" about the "two or three percent of the people [who] have all the money" in this country, while expressing their solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. 1 percenters knocking 1 percenters Gilad Shalit - Who's blurring the lines? From Chana (26Oct11) In this powerful video, Ari Abramowitz, Jeremy Gimpel, Eli Ben-Ze'ev & The Land of Israel.com team expose the true story behind the Gtilad Shalit prisoner swap. Be a Part of the solution and share the truth about Israel with everyone you know. Remember and never forget. From Fred Reifenberg (26Oct11) The Hebrew has been translated into English by a non English speaker, but the translation is easy to understand. Please forward this. Rise of Sharia Law Will Bring War to the Middle East From UCI (26Oct11) NewsMax video featuring Frank Gaffney The Noach Page From Jacob Richman (25Oct11) I updated the Noach Page which has links to children parsha pages, commentary pages, songs, humor items (including the Bill Cosby Noach skit), and a section on Noach stamps, graphics and clipart. This video already has over 6 Million Hits From Dr. History (23Oct11) "Reading Hitler and Gottfried Feder -- Why are we still fighting on the wrong side?" From Dick Eastman (23Oct11) You have nothing more important on the internet than to watch this video - it is the explanation, the answer, the tool Photos of Second Hakafot From Jacob Richman (20Oct11) the second hakafot in Ma'ale Adumim. LAUSD Teacher spreads Jew hatred on TV From Yardena3 (20Oct11) Part 1 of Stand Firm On San Remo From UCI (20Oct11) Tomas Sandell and Esther Levens On the Shalit deal From Amcytryn (20Oct11) Expose of the Occupy Orlando/Muslim Brotherhood connection From Dr. Richard Swier (20Oct11) This will make you wanna get up and DANCE! From Rabbi Sender (19Oct11) Hate at Occupy Wall Street From Susana K-M(19Oct11) The Jerusalem Sukkot March From Jacob Richman(18Oct11) Gilad Shalit Reunites With His Family After Over Five Years From Avodah (18Oct11) IDF Posted on October 18, 2011 Muslims on annihilation of Israel. G-d forbid! From Alexander Dymshits(18Oct11) THE JEWS OF BURUNDI TODAY From David Pisanti (18Oct11) BLOODY TRUTH ABOUT THE UN From IsraPundit (18Oct11) Is Israel an Apartheid State? From Dr. Steve Carol (17Oct11) It is a good summation and provides counterarguements for those who attempt to smear Israel with this blatant lie. Sadly, Mr. Prager is still locked into the usage of the term "West Bank." It takes but seconds to explain that this is an Arab-imposed propaganda term that denies the Jewish link to JUDEA and SAMARIA, the ancient and continuous names for these two areas until 1950 when Arab aggression and conquest sought to eradicate the historic connection. Far too many, in the West, in Israel, and Mr. Prager himself have succumbed to using that term. However, would we as Americans agree to and begin using the term "North Bank" to describe Texas, if Mexican drug cartel warlords or the Mexican government began using that term? Is the Muslim Brotherhood directing Occupy Orlando? From United West (17Oct11) Tarek Fata talk From (16Oct11) The Great Palestinian Lie From YogiRUs (16Oct11) Attached is by far the finest and most compelling commentary on the Arab-Israeli conundrum I have ever heard. It should reach every leader of a Jewish organization, particularly Reform rabbis. This man says it all and says it best. Take the time to pass it along to as many people as possible. It has real impact. An Important Look at Israel...and an equally important appeal From Fred Reifenberg (15Oct11) German Muslims are a Problem, No Kidding! From Roger Bodie (15Oct11) Leading Pro-Israel Group Calls on Democrats to Speak Out Against Anti-Semitism at Their Occupy Wall St protests From Chetz18 (15Oct11) Dumbo Care (from The Donald) From John Trudel (14Oct11) Let me get this straight . . .
How to Speak to the Muslims From Walid Shoebat(12Oct11) Is Obama Admin Fabricating Iranian Assassination Plot To Distract From Fast & Furious Investigation? From John Trudel (12Oct11) 3 new ones. start with return to '49 lines From Gerald A. Honigman (12Oct11) GOOD LOOKIN From Yoram Fisher (1Oct11) A DIFFERENT KIND OF "MUSIC" From Maurice Ostroff (12Oct11) Elbit Systems debuted at the 49th Paris Air Show a full-size model of its highly-effective C-MUSIC(tm) for the protection of large jet aircraft against shoulder-launched missiles Latma — A message to the Egyptian people from an average Israeli From Ted Belman (10Oct11) VIDEO SATIRE: What Has Israel Ever Done For Peace? From Ted Belman (1Oct11) Teen figures out Obama's faked birth certificate From Fred Reifenberg (10Oct11) Stunning IMAX video Fly Over Jerusalem From Fred Reifenberg (10Oct11) AMAZING MUST BE VIEWED IN FULL SCREEN Danger to Israel of Return to 1967 Lines From Susana K-M (1Oct11) Inspirational Kol Nidre video from Wall Street From Hal Rosenthal (10Oct11) Erdogan of Turkey is rising quickly From Gabrielle Goldwater(9Oct11) Mitt Romney on his foreign and defense policy From Truth Provider (9Oct11) l. For the Jews who fasted among you, I hope the fasting was easy. I received this note from Dan Friedman in New York. Please give Mitt Romney's speech the 23 minutes it deserves. His plan on matters of foreign affairs and defense could not be more clear, accurate and promising. Your Truth provider,
Alan Dershowitz From LS (8Oct11) Pre Yom Kippur Video From Paul Rotenberg (7Oct11) Have an easy fast. |
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