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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: SOREQ CAVE IN THE JUDEAN MOUNTAINs
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, December 31, 2009. |
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This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but everyone agrees when something is totally cool. I can only imagine the superlatives that issued forth from workmen at a quarry near Beit Shemesh when they accidentally blasted their way into the Soreq Cave in 1968. Although only 30 minutes from my home, I had never been tempted to visit because, frankly, as a photographer, I shun places that have no light. But a winter storm and school vacation combined to motivate our family to make the short trip during Chanukah and we were not disappointed. The photographs of the cave I had seen prior to my visit, much like the four I offer here, do not do justice to the experience of being inside the huge cave. The millennia-old stalactites and stalagmites, ever growing and changing, are lit with carefully positioned spotlights that enhance the stunning visuals. Using this available light with my f1.4 50mm lens and ISO cranked up to 800, I grabbed a few shots during the short walk through the cave and several more during the two-minute shooting time allotted at the end of the tour. In addition to working in extremely limited light, I had to overcome lens fogging as a result of bringing my cold camera into the humid cave. I wasn't prepared for this and was stymied for about 10 minutes until my camera warmed up enough to stop moisture forming on the glass. These four shots represent some of the diversity found in the cave. The lower right image features what is called a wall, where stalactites forming from above meet stalagmites growing up from the ground. For all of us, bearing witness to such phenomena in nature fulfilled any need to capture a perfect image for posterity. Truly a cave of wonders.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com and
visit his website: |
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AULD LANG ZION
Posted by Steven Plaut, December 31, 2009. |
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1. Auld Lang Zion Should auld accomplice be forgot, "Israel's Right in the 'Disputed' Territories"
The recent statements by the European Union's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel's rights to what are generally called the "occupied territories" but what really are "disputed territories." That's because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered "occupied" in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel's conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years. The name "West Bank" was first used in 1950 by the Jordanians when they annexed the land to differentiate it from the rest of the country, which is on the east bank of the river Jordan. The boundaries of this territory were set only one year before during the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan that ended the war that began in 1948 when five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State. It was at Jordan's insistence that the 1949 armistice line became not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations." (Italics added.) This boundary became the famous "Green Line," so named because the military officials during the armistice talks used a green pen to draw the line on the map. After the Six Day War, when once again Arab armies sought to destroy Israel and the Jewish state subsequently captured the West Bank and other territory, the United Nations sought to create an enduring solution to the conflict. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is probably one of the most misunderstood documents in the international arena. While many, especially the Palestinians, push the idea that the document demands that Israel return everything captured over the Green Line, nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution calls for "peace within secure and recognized boundaries," but nowhere does it mention where those boundaries should be. It is best to understand the intentions of the drafters of the resolution before considering other interpretations. Eugene V. Rostow, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967 and a drafter of the resolution, stated in 1990: "Security Council Resolution 242 and (subsequent U.N. Security Council Resolution) 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to "secure and recognized borders," which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 194." Lord Caradon, the British U.N. Ambassador at the time and the resolution's main drafter who introduced it to the Council, said in 1974 unequivocally that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial." The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, made the issue even clearer when he stated in 1973 that, "the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal." This would encompass "less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory, inasmuch as Israel's prior frontiers had proven to be notably insecure." Even the Soviet delegate to the U.N., Vasily Kuznetsov, who fought against the final text, conceded that the resolution gave Israel the right to "withdraw its forces only to those lines it considers appropriate." After the war in 1967, when Jews started returning to their historic heartland in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as the territory had been known around the world for 2,000 years until the Jordanians renamed it, the issue of settlements arose. However, Rostow found no legal impediment to Jewish settlement in these territories. He maintained that the original British Mandate of Palestine still applies to the West Bank. He said "the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors." There is no internationally binding document pertaining to this territory that has nullified this right of Jewish settlement since. And yet, there is this perception that Israel is occupying stolen land and that the Palestinians are the only party with national, legal and historic rights to it. Not only is this morally and factually incorrect, but the more this narrative is being accepted, the less likely the Palestinians feel the need to come to the negotiating table. Statements like those of Lady Ashton's are not only incorrect; they push a negotiated solution further away.
3. Repost of old item: Israel's Music Man The Israeli Labor Party recently selected Ehud Barak, who had been prime minister from 1999 to 2001, to serve as its party chief and contender for prime minister in the next election, probably in 2008. Barak has always been associated in my mind with music — as well as the incredibly harmful policies he has advocated since entering politics. True, Barak was a military hero. He even entered Beirut disguised as a woman to assassinate terrorists, a scene recorded in the movie "Munich." You can imagine how many jokes at his expense that triggered. But once he left the army, he went out shopping for political ideas and ended up buying the silliest ones available on the Shimon Peres/Oslo vintage clothing rack. He attempted to turn the Golan Heights over to Syria, which would have allowed the Syrian military to advance to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. This inspired me at the time to write a parody of an old Bobby Darin classic, with Ehud Barak singing "Splish Splash I was taking a Ba'ath." It continued: "Splish, Splash! I jumped back in the bath. Well how was I to knowt here was appeasement going on?" Later, due to Barak's disastrous policies as prime minister and his attempt to hand over Jerusalem to the PLO savages, a new song seemed called for. Barak had just been creamed in a landslide electoral defeat by Ariel Sharon. The new piece was to the tune of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song." It went: EH HOOD, day EH EH HOOD Barak is often proclaimed by the media to be the "most decorated Israeli general." But last summer he effectively dropped 4,000 Katyusha rockets on northern Israel, because those attacks were a direct result of his having ordered Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. And now Barak is desperately looking for a new campaign jingle. Being a helpful sort, I thought I would give him a hand. To understand the new song, you need to recall that in 1998 Barak declared: "I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations." My proposed campaign song for Reb Ehud is based on the wonderful "If I Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the Roof." (Unfortunately Tevye is not running for prime minister.) Ready? Here goes! Dear God, you made so many, many cowardly people. 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@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
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UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: TERRORISM'S IVY LEAGUE
Posted by Dave Alpern, December 31, 2009. |
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The price of European tolerance and political correctness. They apparently will never learn. I'm not sure if North America is any better! This was written by Venetia Thompson and it appeared yesterday in The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-30/ my-classmate-the-undie-bomber/p/ Venetia Thompson is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to The Spectator. Her memoir Gross Misconduct will be published in February by Simon and Schuster U.K. She lives in London. |
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The man who tried to blow up Flight 253 on Christmas allegedly turned toward al Qaeda at London University. Alum Venetia Thompson on going to school at terrorism's Ivy League. When former University College London mechanical engineering student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a plane on Christmas Day, he became the fourth president of a student Islamic society to face terrorist charges in three years. Waheed Zaman, former president of the Islam Society at London Metropolitan University, is facing a retrial on charges that he was involved in the 2006 liquid-bomb plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners, and two others have been convicted of terrorist offenses since 2007. The government-funded Islam and Citizenship Education Project, which aims to encourage British citizenship to be taught in madrassahs, and even supplies teaching materials, clearly has a lot of work to do, as do British universities. "Everyone knows London universities are full of would-be nutters honing their engineering skills whilst simultaneously becoming increasingly religious. It's one hell of a dangerous combo when you think about it." When I was in my final year at UCL, the "Christmas undie bomber" would have been in his first year, a "fresher." We may even have crossed paths in the library or Students' Union. Like all freshers, he would have attended the annual Freshers' Fair and signed up to various clubs and societies, probably ignoring the Ultimate Frisbee Society and the Wilderness Medicine Society and making a bee-line for the Islamic Society, which he would then go on to lead. Whilst I was getting drunk and becoming increasingly convinced I was going to fail my finals, somewhere nearby he was beginning to be radicalized. I had various encounters with the UCL Islamic Society, from the relatively innocent (constantly trying to get me to sign their anti-Israel or anti-Iraq war petitions, to wear one of their "Free Palestine" T-shirts, or to take one of their seemingly endless supply of leaflets promoting protests, sit-ins, and lectures by extremists) to the slightly more sinister (the friends I made in first year whom I gradually saw less and less of, and who even began dressing more conservatively as they became more involved with the society, or the girl I knew who told me she was warned against adopting "their" — as in our "Western" — culture by an older student she'd met during Freshers' Week). One former UCL student even says he was told whilst enjoying a pint in the union that it was his "duty" as a Muslim to attend society meetings and that he was frequently invited to Islamic study groups. He jokes that he was "probably seen as a sitting duck — I was even studying 'bomb-making,' as we affectionately referred to the Department of Chemical Engineering." He goes on to say: "Everyone knows London universities are full of would-be nutters honing their engineering skills whilst simultaneously becoming increasingly religious. It's one hell of a dangerous combo when you think about it. We all used to joke about it back then, but it's not quite so funny anymore." Sadly, the average 18-year-old arriving in London, having spent the last eight years locked up in a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, or worse, getting beaten up at the local state-run comprehensive, is going to be looking for more than the Ultimate Frisbee Society when they finally arrive at university. They want guidance, identity, friends, and protection — to feel that they belong. Therefore they are perfect fodder for religious fanatics lurking behind the scenes. Of course most societies that scoop up lost "freshers" don't encourage known extremists to come and give lectures to their impressionable members. Incidentally, no former presidents of other societies have graduated and gone on to try and blow themselves up or plot terrorist atrocities. It could be argued that this seems to be a problem specific to university Islamic societies and the people who are allowed access, or invited to speak at, study groups, and events that appear to be totally unregulated. Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, an independent U.K. think tank specializing in the study of radicalization and extremism in the U.K., tells The Daily Telegraph, "UCL has not just failed to prevent students being radicalized, they have been complicit." Referring to Abu Usama, an extremist due to speak at UCL last month and known for preaching that homosexuals and apostates should be killed, Murray says: "If any other society at UCL invited someone to speak who encouraged killing homosexuals, that society would be banned immediately, but academics are afraid of taking action when it involves Islamic societies in case they are accused of Islamophobia." It is perhaps, therefore, unsurprising that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, during his time as president of the UCL Islamic Society, was able to launch what can only be described as an anti-Western propagandist YouTube video advertising the society's "War on Terror Week" without any intervention from the university. It isn't just UCL in the hot seat. A student at the prestigious London School of Economics — incidentally, where Omar Sheikh, who helped in the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl back in 2002, studied — recalls the friends made in first year who during the course of their degrees "took a mysterious turn to the conservative, stopped coming out and drinking." Then there are the "Death to Israel" T-shirts a Jewish LSE student tells me he has seen around the LSE campus, where, he says, "anti-Semitism is rife. There have been plenty of clashes between the Islamic Soc and the Israel Soc here. It's only going to get worse." Kings College London, another top university, was where Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif studied. They carried out a suicide bomb attack on a bar in Tel Aviv in 2003. Then there is City University, where Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the 2006 liquid-bomb plot, graduated from. It seems to be a struggle to find a London university without terrorist alumni. A YouGov poll conducted in 2008, the only documented extensive study of British Muslim students to be published, found that 32 percent of the 632 students who took part believed killing in the name of religion to be justifiable in order to "preserve and promote that religion" or if that religion is "under attack." UCL has issued a typically frothy statement claiming that "during his time on the course Mr. Abdulmutallab never gave his tutors any cause for concern, and was a well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man." The UCL president and provost, Professor Malcolm Grant is "deeply saddened by these events." It is surely about time that he, and other university heads, stop their clichéd "but he was such a nice young man" denial and fulfill their duty of care by monitoring their students, university societies, and who is being invited to speak on their campuses more closely. They cannot rely on there always being a heroic Dutchman around to bring down the next "bomb-making" graduate who decides to blow himself up. Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
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2009 CHICKENS AND THEIR 2010 ROOST
Posted by Susana K-M, December 31, 2009. |
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This is by Victor Davis Hanson and it comes from today's Jewish
World Review
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. Comment by clicking her |
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In the coming year, plenty of our chickens will be coming home to roost. Take foreign relations. In 2009, the new administration assumed that George W. Bush was largely responsible for global tensions. As a remedy, we loudly reached out to our foes and those with whom we had uneasy relationships. But so far these leaders — like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Russia's Vladimir Putin — have only interpreted Barack Obama's serial goodwill gestures as weaknesses to be exploited. They play the part of the pushy class bully, we the whiny nerd. In the waning days of 2009, Iran has announced it has no intention of dismantling its nuclear facilities and ignored the latest Obama deadline to cease. There's no reason not to expect the theocracy to make significant strides in its nuclear program in 2010, while continuing without rebuke to beat and murder democratic dissidents in its streets. Russia has announced plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons — and scoffed at our polite suggestions that it should pressure Iran to stop its nuclear development. Venezuela brags of its own similar program to come — an act that could threaten all the neighboring democracies in the region. The administration courted China on a much-heralded Asian tour. President Obama even has said he would be our first "Pacific president." Unfortunately, China was not impressed. It declined our advice about reducing its carbon footprint and instead reminded Americans that we owe the Chinese people nearly $1 trillion. Expect much more of that hectoring in 2010 as our debt to China grows. Consider also the threat of Islamic terrorism. In 2009, some in the Obama administration decided "war on terror" was too provocative a label for what might be better dubbed "overseas contingency operations." Apparently, they were thinking a kinder, gentler image would discourage terrorists. Accordingly, the self-confessed architect of Sept. 11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was promised a civil trial in New York rather than a military tribunal normally accorded to out-of-uniform murderous terrorists. Expect a lot of soapbox speechmaking about America's sins during his testimony in 2010. As part of our efforts to break with the Bush anti-terrorism past, President Obama also vowed he would close the facility at Guantanamo Bay by Jan. 22, 2010 — another deadline that won't be met. But as 2009 ended, we were reminded that radical Islamic terrorists still want to kill us for who we are, and what we represent, rather than any particular thing we do. Maj. Nidal Hasan, nursed on radical Islamic doctrine, murdered 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian at Ford Hood, Texas. Five would-be terrorists with U.S. citizenship were arrested in Pakistan on their way to link up with Islamist militant groups. And Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was stopped in flight from Amsterdam before he could blow up an American passenger jet. Note that all these recent terrorists were not poor, lived in the hospitable West — and cared little that the Obama administration has been critical of the U.S.'s prior war-on-terror policies. So, while we assured the world in 2009 that we wouldn't be overzealous in our various efforts to stop terrorists, the terrorists proved they most certainly would be in theirs to kill us. Meanwhile, at home we operated on the same naive assumptions. The Obama administration inherited a $500 billion deficit and expanded it threefold. Its planned mega-deficits may well grow the aggregate national debt over the next decade to over $20 trillion. But the administration's 2009 calculations on how to service the growing red ink are based on continued cheap interest. Yet in 2010, it is likely we will see rising inflation, rising interest rates — and rising costs to the continual self-destructive borrowing. We were given a financial break on energy prices in 2009. The worldwide recession sent oil down to about $50 a barrel. But America did little during the year's reprieve to rush into production newly discovered domestic gas and oil fields, to tap existing finds in Alaska, or to license new nuclear plants. By year's end, oil was creeping back up to $80. If the economic upswing continues, in 2010 it may near its old high of nearly $150 a barrel. Soon we will wish we had done something concrete in 2009 rather than offering more stale rhetoric about wind and solar power. In other words, 2009 may seem to have ended relatively quietly. But in our foreign relations, in the war against terror, in our massive borrowing, and in our energy policies, we created chickens that soon will come home to roost in 2010. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. |
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IN DEFIANCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FATALISM
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, December 31, 2009. |
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This article appeared yesterday in the Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364552534& pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Shabbat Shalom and Happy New Year,
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In 1948, prime minister David Ben-Gurion declared independence in defiance of demographic fatalism, which was perpetrated by the country's leading demographers. He rejected their assumptions that Jews were doomed to be a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, that a massive aliya wave was not feasible, that the Jewish fertility rate was declining to below reproduction levels and that the Arab fertility rate would remain the highest in the world, irrespective of modernity. Instead, Ben-Gurion highlighted demographic optimism and aliya as top national priorities, coalesced a solid Jewish majority and planted the seeds that catapulted Israel to a Middle East power, highly respected for its civilian and military achievements. In 2005, in capitulation to demographic fatalism, prime minister Ariel Sharon retreated from Palestinian terrorism, uprooting 10,000 Jews from Gaza and Samaria. Sharon abandoned his lifelong ideology of defiance, subordinating long-term strategy and security concerns to doomsday demography. Thus, he facilitated Hamas's takeover of Gaza and its ripple effects: slackened posture of deterrence, intensified shelling of southern Israel, the 2006 Second Lebanon War, 2008's Operation Cast Lead, the Goldstone Report and the exacerbated global pressure on Israel.
DEMOGRAPHIC ASSUMPTIONS have played an increasing role in shaping national security policy since 1992. But what if these assumptions are dramatically wrong? For example, since the beginning of annual aliya in 1882 — and in contradiction to demographic projections — the Jewish population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean has grown 238-fold, while the Arab population increased only sixfold. Since 1948, the Jewish population has increased almost tenfold, and the Arab population has expanded threefold. Israel's demographers did not believe that a massive aliya would take place in the aftermath of the 1948/9 war. One million Jews arrived. They projected no substantial aliya from the communist bloc during the 1970s. Almost 300,000 Jews arrived. They dismissed the possibility of a massive aliya from the USSR, even if the gates were opened. One million olim relocated from the Soviet Union to the Jewish homeland during the 1990s. Contrary to demographic assumptions, a rapid and drastic decline in Muslim fertility has been documented by the UN Population Division: Iran — 1.7 births per woman; Algeria — 1.8 births; Egypt — 2.5 births; Jordan — three births; and so on. The Arab fertility rate in pre-1967 Israel declined 20 years faster than projected, and Judea and Samaria Arab fertility has dropped below 4.5 births per woman, tending toward three births. Precedents suggest that low fertility rates can rarely be reversed following a sustained period of significant reduction. At the same time, the annual number of Jewish births increased by 45 percent between 1995 (80,400) and 2008 (117,000), mostly impacted by the demographic surge within the secular sector. The total annual Arab births in pre-1967 Israel stabilized around 39,000 during the same period, reflecting the successful Arab integration into the infrastructure of education, employment, health, trade, politics and sports.
AN AUDIT of the documentation of Palestinian births, deaths and migration, which is conducted by the Palestinian Authority ministries of Health and Education and Election Commission, as well as by Israel's Border Police and Central Bureau of Statistics and by the World Bank, reveals huge misrepresentations by the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics. For instance, the PCBS's census includes about 400,000 overseas residents who have been away for more than one year, ignores high net-emigration (28,000 in 2008, 25,000 in 2007, etc.) and double-counts some 250,000 Jerusalem Arabs, who are also counted by Israel. Furthermore, a 40,000-60,000 annual birth gap is confirmed between PCBS numbers and the documentation conducted by the PA Health and Education ministries. The audit of Palestinian and Israeli documentation exposes a 66% bend in the current number of Judea and Samaria Arabs — 1.55 million and not 2.5 million, as claimed by the PA. It certifies a solid 67% Jewish majority over 98.5% of the land west of the Jordan River (without Gaza), compared with a 33% and an 8% Jewish minority in 1947 and 1900, respectively, west of the Jordan River. An 80% majority is attainable by 2035 with the proper demographic policy, highlighting aliya, returning expatriates, etc. In conclusion, demographic optimism is well-documented, while demographic fatalism is resoundingly refuted. There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal, and the tailwind is Jewish. Therefore, anyone suggesting that there is a demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish state and that Jewish geography must be conceded to secure Jewish demography, is either grossly mistaken or outrageously misleading. The writer is executive director of Second Thought, which researches national security aspects of Judea and Samaria. |
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ISLAMISTS ERASE JEWISH IDENTITY FROM EZEKIEL'S TOMB IN IRAQ
Posted by Boris Celser, December 31, 2009. |
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This was written by Shelomo Alfassa and it appeared in |
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BREAKING NEWS NEW YORK (December 29, 2009) — The Iraqi news agency Ur News has revived fears that under pressure from Islamic political parties, the original Hebrew inscriptions and ornamentation on the walls around the tomb of Ezekiel are being (or have been) removed, this under the pretext of restoring the site. According to sources, the Antiquities and Heritage Authority in Iraq has been pressured by Islamists to historically cleanse all evidence of a Jewish connection to Iraq — a land where Jews had lived for over a thousand years before the advent of Islam. Four months ago a German-based Iraqi journalist tipped off the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq in Israel that plans were afoot to build a mosque on the site of the shrine of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel at al-Kifl, this was first reported on the "Point of No Return" news blog. The rumours were investigated by a philo-Semitic Iraqi Shi'a, Dr. Jabbar Jamal al-Din, a lecturer in Jewish Thought at the Kufa University. They were denied by the shrine's director. Now a report by Ur News revives fears that in the absence of Jews on the ground, nothing, not even UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), stands in the way of politically-motivated plans to erase all Jewish traces of this ancient holy site. 
Drastic changes taking place currently at the tomb of Ezekiel will change its character and prompt UNESCO to delete it as a protected site on the World Heritage List, similar to what happened to the historic city of Babylon, where old buildings were demolished and new layers of construction added. Prof. Shmuel Moreh, the Chairman of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq, Israel Prize Laureate in Arabic Literature and emeritus Professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has indicted that the Arabic news stories have tipped him that the Archeological Authority in Iraq has started a campaign to erase the Jewish aspects of the tomb of the prophet Ezekiel and the original inlay Hebrew inscriptions have been destroyed and covered by new Arabic inscriptions and Islamic symbols. Here is an extract, paraphrased from an Arabic translation of the Ur News agency report: The officials of the Department of Antiquities and Heritage say that their restoration programme will continue until 2011 and is designed to carry out essential maintenance and prevent the dome and roof from collapsing. But their hidden purpose, sources say, is the removal of features that emphasize a historical connection with the Jews who built the shrine and lived in the city for hundreds of years after the Babylonian exile. Hebrew writings will or already has been erased from the site and from the room that houses the shrine. Restoration work includes skimming the walls, 3 metres high in the yard, 2 metres high inside the shrine. Sources say that the media are not allowed to take pictures and visits to the shrine are limited to pilgrims. The city of Kifl contains tens of thousands of acres of land belonging to the Jewish community before their displacement from Iraq in the last century. The majority of tenants' shops around the shrine still pay rent to their original Jewish owners through accredited mediators. Iraq — the Biblical Mesopotamia — is almost as rich in Jewish history
as the Land of Israel. The tomb of the prophet Ezekiel dates back to
the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE. It was there in Iraq
that Abraham discovered monotheism, and it is where the prophets Ezra,
Nehemiah, Nahum, Jonah and Daniel are all buried.
Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net
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FROM PARSHA VAYIECHI: AND HE LIVED
Posted by Rabbi Tzvi Tauby, December 31, 2009. |
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This week: Parsha Vayiechi A title usually reflects the theme of the subject matter. "Genesis" is about the beginning of the world, "Exodus" is about the Jews leaving Egypt. The title should convey the main idea of the content it describes. Which is why the title of this week's parshah (Torah reading) seems highly inappropriate. Vayechi means "And He Lived." The name derives from the parshah's opening line, "And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years..." The parshah, however, goes on to tell us not about Jacob's life, but rather about his death: his last will and testament to his children, his passing, his funeral, and his interment in Hebron in the Holy Land. Why then is he name of the Parsha Vayechi "And He Lived?" The answer, say our sages, is that we are not discussing biological organisms, but Jews. And the test of true life for a Jew is whether he lived an authentic, consistent Jewish life — for life. Did he falter before the finish line, or was he faithful to his value system until the end? How do we know that Jacob did indeed live, in the fullest sense of the word? That his was a genuine, G-dly life? When we see that he remains true to those ideals until his dying day. Only then can we say with certainty that his life was truly alive; that his was a Vayechi life. The fact that Jacob died a righteous man validated his entire life-span, establishing it as a true life, alive and real from beginning to end. There are individuals who have their 15 minutes of fame, who shine briefly and impress the world only to fade away and leave us disappointedly watching so much unfulfilled potential dissipate into thin air. Others are longer lasting, but don't quite go all the way. Complacency can be dangerous. There are no guarantees. One must constantly "live" — i.e., grow and attempt to improve oneself — lest one falter before the finish line. As the great sage Hillel says in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), "One can never morally trust oneself, until their last day". I will never forget my experience with a very fine man who was remarkably loyal to the company he worked for. For 45 years he was with the same group, totally and absolutely dedicated. Then he reached the age of compulsory retirement. Suddenly he took ill. The doctors had no real diagnosis. But he got sicker and sicker until he became incapacitated and eventually died. To this day, nobody knows what he died from. But those who knew him well understood that once he left the workplace to which he had devoted his entire adult life, he had nothing left to live for. Sadly, he had no other interests. His work was his life, and without his work there was no life left. It is psychologically sound to take up a hobby, learn to play golf or develop other interests outside of work. A Jew, though, should ideally start studying Torah. Go to classes, read a stimulating book. Studying and sharpening the mind is good for the brain. Recent medical research confirms that it can even delay the onset of Alzheimer's. Most importantly, a person must have something to live for. Find new areas of stimulation. Discover, dream, aspire higher. Life must be lived with purpose and vigor. That's why at the end of this week's parsha, which also concludes the Book of Genesis, the congregation and Torah reader will proclaim Chazak, chazak v'nischazek — "Be strong, be strong, and we will all be strengthened." Because the tendency when we finish a book is to take a breather before we pick up the next one. Such is human nature. But a book of the Torah is not just any book. Torah is not just history or biography. Torah is our source of life, and we dare not ever take a breather from life. "Chazak" energizes us to carry on immediately. And so we do. The very same afternoon we open the Book of Exodus and continue the learning cycle without interruption. Truth is consistent, from beginning to end. May our lives be blessed to be truly alive — with authenticity, faithfulness and eternal fulfillment. Good Shabbos
The Chabad iVolunteer group is based in Brooklyn. Contact them at
programs@ivolunteerny.com
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FROM ISRAEL: LOOKING MORE DEEPLY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 31, 2009. |
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I confess it: For me, the secular new year is marked chiefly by the need to remember to write the correct date on my checks and at the top of these postings. But I am mindful of what the New Year means to many of my readers. And I most certainly wish one and all blessings — for peace, health, inner contentment and prosperity — in the coming year. The imagery for the new year is one of beginnings that are fresh and hopeful. May 2010 bring the world better tidings than it received in 2009. ~~~~~~~~~~ In my last posting, I raised the question as to whether Obama will grapple with the root of the "systematic failure" that led to a terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, getting on an American plane and attempting to blow it up outside of Detroit. There is a vast amount of material on this subject coming my way, and so I return for a closer look. We will pass by the idiocy of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who told CNN, after the incident, that "the system worked." A ludicrous attempt to put a good face on what — but for the courageous response of passengers and a failed detonator — would have been a very major terrorist attack. Of great concern, however, is that fact that the Obama government seems to be treating this as an "incident," and an isolated one at that, rather than as a symptom of something a great deal more ominous. In fact, Napolitano also alluded to this, saying that, "We have no indication that it's part of anything larger." Come on! Yes, there will be examinations of how screening failed to pick up the explosives being carried on to a plane. This is the "systemic failure" that the president is concerned with. And as a result all passengers flying in or to the US will be considerably inconvenienced. There is talk of such measures as body-frisking and preventing passengers from getting out of their seats for a period before landing. But there is no mention of the fact that the would-be terrorist was a Muslim. No talk of Islamists, or radical Islam or jihadist ideology. ~~~~~~~~~~ So thoroughly is Abdulmutallab being treated as a criminal rather than a terrorist that he is simply being charged — within the civil criminal system — with committing two felonies: trying to destroy a plane in U.S. airspace, and bringing a "destructive device" on an aircraft. JINSA (in Report #951) quotes counterterrorism expert Steve Emerson: "I'd like to first find out who recruited him. I'd like to find out where he got the explosives...I'd like to find out who sent him. How he was recruited...." However, laments JINSA: "...being charged in a U.S. court means that Abdulmutallab is now entitled to Constitutional protections, including the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. And we are sure that if Abulmutallab doesn't know about those rights, his court appointed lawyer or the ACLU will surely tell him. How much we will learn from him under the circumstances is unclear. A Wall Street Journal editorial, "The Terror This Time," on Monday made the same points: "[The Obama administration] immediately indicted Mr. Abdulmutallab on criminal charges...despite reports that he told officials he had ties to al Qaeda and had picked up his PETN explosive in Yemen. The charges mean the Nigerian can only be interrogated like any other defendant in a criminal case, subject to having a lawyer present and his Miranda rights read. Yet he is precisely the kind of illegal enemy combatant who should be interrogated first with the goal of preventing future attacks and learning more about terror networks rather than gaining a single conviction." (emphasis added) Miranda rights for terrorists. Setting up a situation that makes it significantly less likely that information will be secured that might help prevent future attacks. Not a good way to go! Obama has not internalized the fact that we are at war. ~~~~~~~~~~ I recommend here the very excellent piece — "The Wake up call from flight 253" — by Jeff Jacoby. "...As the near-unanimity of 9/11 receded, Americans divided into what the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes dubbed September 12 people, for whom 9/11 had changed everything, and September 10 people, who believed the terrorist threat was being exaggerated by the Bush administration and who regarded the fight against Islamist extremism as chiefly a matter of law enforcement. "...Would that divide have closed if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had succeeded...? If Al-Qaeda...had succeeded in carrying out another 9/11, would the short-lived unity and moral clarity of that terrible day in 2001 have returned?" Jacoby then lists for us the lessons that too many have been inclined to dismiss in recent years: [] "Terrorism isn't caused by poverty and ignorance.Abdulmutallab came from a wealthy and privileged family, and had studied at one of Britain's top universities. He wasn't trying to kill hundreds of Americans out of socioeconomic despair...Abdulmutallab was motivated by ideological and religious fanaticism. The teachings of militant Islam may seem monstrous to outsiders, but that is no reason to doubt that their adherents genuinely believe them..." Jacoby provides a link to "Domestic Terrorism Hits a Peak in 2009":
There have been 32 terror-related events in the US since 9/11, and 12 of them were in 2009. Jacoby's article is at:
~~~~~~~~~~ A hope for 2010, then, would be an awakening on the part of 9/10 people in the US (which undoubtedly includes Obama and the bulk of his administration) before a tragedy ensues. ~~~~~~~~~~ Analysts are viewing the unrest inside Iran with increased seriousness. Some are even saying that this is a grassroots rebellion that in due course will either seriously affect the nature of the current regime or even overturn it. Reuters has reported that police in central Teheran are refusing orders to shoot at demonstrators. Such situations are volatile and difficult to predict. Certainly — we know this already — change, if it comes, would not be without cost in limb if not life for some protesters. But I am mindful of what I reported the other day when Professor Irwin Cotler spoke, and the need to support these protesters. Cotler yesterday called a press conference here, in concert with other lawyers doing the same in other places, to announce the release of the petition he had spoken about, which details actions the international community must take against Iran. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so this, too, may be a hope for 2010: that the situation in Iran might resolve itself internally, without the need for military intervention by Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ 
Sheikh Abdul Palazzo Sheikh Abdul Palazzo is a good man. I've known of him for several years now. Born in Rome to an Italian Catholic father who had converted to Islam, and a Muslim mother whose roots were in Syria, he is today the leader of the Italian-Muslim Assembly co-founded and co-chairman of the Islam-Israel Fellowship, which promotes a positive attitude in Muslims to Jews and Israel. He is profoundly pro-Israel, believing that this is what the legitimate teachings of Mohammad say before they are corrupted by the Ahab perspective. My biggest quandary, with regard to the Sheikh, is understanding how he has managed to stay alive in spite of what he says publicly. I mention him now because I have just read that he visited in Hevron — Jewish Hevron, that is. Do I expect to see other Muslim clergy such as him? Not really. He's an anomaly. But we can hope. ~~~~~~~~~~ The rest of the news, such as it may be? It can wait.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il
and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
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WHAT ISRAEL CAN TEACH US ABOUT SECURITY
Posted by Daily Alert, December 31, 2009. |
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This was written by Cathal Kelly, staff reporter, and it appeared in
The Star and is archived at |
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While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification. That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threats with far less inconvenience. "It is mind boggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He has worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world. "Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.'" Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that? The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Ben Gurion is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from? "Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said. Once you've parked your car or gotten off your bus, you pass through the second and third security perimeters. Armed guards outside the terminal observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behaviour. At Ben Gurion's half-dozen entrances, another layer of security is watching. At this point, some travellers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage run through a magnometer. "This is to see that you don't have heavy metals on you or something that looks suspicious," said Sela. You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side? "The whole time, they are looking into your eyes — which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds," said Sela. Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far. At the check-in desk, your luggage is scanned immediately in a purpose-built area. Sela plays devil's advocate — what if you have escaped the attention of the first four layers of security, and now try to pass a bag with a bomb in it? "I once put this question to Jacques Duchesneau (the former head of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority): say there is a bag with Play-Doh in it and two pens stuck in the Play-Doh. That is 'Bombs 101' to a screener. I asked Duchesneau, 'What would you do?' And he said, 'Evacuate the terminal.' And I said, 'Oh. My. God.' "Take (Toronto's) Pearson (airport). Do you know how many people are in the terminal at all times? Many thousands. Let's say I'm (doing an evacuation) without panic — which will never happen. But let's say this is the case. How long will it take? Nobody thought about it. I said, 'Two days.'" A screener at Ben Gurion has a pair of better options. First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away. Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes.' If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation. "This is a very small, simple example of how we can simply stop a problem that would cripple one of your airports," Sela said. Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben Gurion airport shares with Pearson — the body and hand-luggage check. "But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said. "First, it's fast — there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys." The goal at Ben Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in 25 minutes tops. And then there's intelligence. In Israel, Sela said, a coordinated intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies. "There is absolutely no intelligence and threat analysis done in Canada or the United States," Sela said. "Absolutely none." But even without the intelligence, Sela maintains, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — who allegedly tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day — would not have gotten past Ben Gurion's behavioural profilers. So. Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive? Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training," Sela said. "But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept." And rather than fear, he suggests outrage would be a far more powerful spur to provoking that change. "Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody," Sela said. "But they say, 'So far, so good.' Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and you've spent eight hours in an airport. Which is ridiculous. Not justifiable." 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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L@@NEY T@NES
Posted by Susana K-M, December 31, 2009. |
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We can only hope that psychiatry makes BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome, a recognized ailment in 2010. And Obamacare should provide free treatment for those afflicted, starting with its own troops. From The Hill: Democratic strategists Wednesday asserted President Barack Obama "has been far more aggressive in fighting al Qaeda" than the previous administration. We've noticed the dramatic results. We noticed them at Fort Hood, we noticed them last Friday over Detroit... In an e-mail this afternoon to supporters — which incidentally excoriated Republicans for politicizing the attempted bombing of Flight 253 — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) stressed it was President George W. Bush, not his successor, who relegated the fight against the terrorist network to the back burner by turning "its focus from al Qaeda to Iraq." Again, Bush. Always Bush and, of course, Cheney. It's a BDS epidemic. Swine flu is nothing compared to this. The outrage here, among others, is that the Dems never noticed that we fought al Qaeda in Iraq, and defeated it. We've seen that al Qaeda travels from place to place. It doesn't have just one address on Cave Boulevard in Afghanistan. Bush can be criticized for many things, but there's been a dramatic increase in terror attempts since Obama took office, and it may not be a coincidence. When you flash weakness, an enemy notices. It's odd that the Dems accuse the GOP of politicizing terror and then go on to attack the Bush administration on the same subject. It's unlikely that the Democratic political planners anticipated that terror would erupt once more as a political issue, but it has. Defense is not exactly an Obama strong point. Add that fact to the general unpopularity of some of the domestic issues he's pushing, and Democratic political concern is likely to grow. A year ago the Democratic Party was in political heaven. Now it's headed in the other direction, where global warming is a constant reality. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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SECURITY FORCES ARREST SON OF RABBI BINYAMIN KAHANE FOR MOSQUE ARSON.
THEN NEED TO RELEASE HIM
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, December 31, 2009. |
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Why do I find this not only hard to believe but I smell the stench of intimidation as well? First there was the Freeze, then the "leaked" plans for the next Pogrom, a terrorist murder and now the taking of a high profile hostage. Every effort is being made to break the resolve of Jewish patriots by this Government of National Betrayal.
This article was written by Gil Ronen and appeared today in
Arutz-7 (IsraelNationalNews.com).
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Police and Shin Bet operatives arrested a Jewish youth from Kfar Tapuach in Shomron, a grandson of former MK Rabbi Meir Kahane, on Thursday morning. Eyewitnesses said the youth was not told why he was being arrested, but only that he would be taken to Tel Aviv. Police stated later in the day that he was suspected of involvement in an arson attack on a mosque at Kafr Yasouf in Samaria three weeks ago. His father, Binyamin Ze'ev, and his mother, Talia, were murdered in a terror gun ambush on December 31, 2000. His grandfather, MK and fiery rabbi Meir Kahane, was assassinated ten years earlier. Nationalist activists reacted to the arrest by saying: "We hope the Shin Bet and police do not abuse the boy the way they usually abuse settlers. He is an orphan without a mother and father, who were murdered in a terror attack." Security forces have been busy trying to identify and arrest the people involved in the mosque arson at Kafr Yasouf in northern Samaria on December 11. Unknown people entered the mosque in the pre-dawn hours, set alight a carpet and bookshelves, and scrawled some graffiti on the floor in Hebrew promising revenge for Arab terror. In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means. Have a nice day
UPDATE: January 1, 2010 Kahane proved he was elsewhere at the time and the police were forced to release him. Yaacov Levi writes, "I am familiar with Tapuach, and the nearby sprawling Saudi financed village where the mosque is. There is NO WAY a Jew could approach the mosque in the middle of the night with all of the stray dogs there. Additionally no one just walks into the village unnoticed, its lit up and so is the mosque. A Jew did NOT do this fire. There would have been more fire, not some disposable books and carpet burnt, this was pure and simple a fabrication on the part of the arabs and/or the shabak. The shabak is starting the New Year off badly, but in character." 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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HUMAN RIGHTS NGOS NEED A MONITOR
Posted by Gerald M. Steinberg, December 31, 2009. |
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Most people prefer giving, rather than receiving, criticism. Leaders of powerful non-governmental organizations are no exception. Human rights NGOs have long benefited from a "halo effect" that has protected them from scrutiny; reporters quote their research widely, assuming it is accurate. But in recent years, the protective coating has worn thin, and the heads of these organizations are finding themselves squirming uncomfortably in the spotlight. Events of the past year have highlighted the vital need for accountability, transparency and informed debate on the activities of NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B'Tselem. These NGOs have played a central role in charging Israel with "war crimes" and "collective punishment." To the degree that these groups' agendas and claims prove to be biased, unfounded or simply invented, their accusations against Israel also lose credibility. Understandably, NGO Monitor's research reports airing NGOs' dirty linen often trigger intense counterattacks. There have been angry insults from HRW officials and crude accusations of "McCarthyism" from apologists for some of the groups that NGO Monitor has researched. (One such online attack was linked to prominently on the home page of the New Israel Fund.) Then there are criticisms from more serious individuals, such as Forward columnist Yossi Alpher, author of the December 25 article "NGO Monitor Needs a Monitor." To his credit, Alpher acknowledges the work that NGO Monitor has done exposing "the funding by European governments and reputable American philanthropies of NGOs that smear Israel with lies and classic antisemitic rhetoric." He also affirms the validity of NGO Monitor's complaints about Human Rights Watch. (Alpher doesn't elaborate, but NGO Monitor has documented deep biases among the heads of HRW's Middle East division, the dispatching of an obsessive Nazi-memorabilia collector to assess Israeli military actions and the group's use of anti-Israel themes to raise funds in Saudi Arabia.) Alpher, however, goes off track, making the bogus assertion that NGO Monitor is motivated by the goal of "eliminating human rights monitoring of Israel entirely." He accuses us of "running roughshod" over groups "that are working to maintain Israel's integrity in the context of its ongoing occupation of the West Bank." Yet for the majority of Israelis — who support territorial compromise and are not right-wing fanatics — NGOs' abuse of human rights principles to condemn self-defense suggests that an end to the occupation would not stop the NGO-led war. In 2005, Israel removed every settler and soldier from Gaza, and it received 8,000 rocket attacks and a Hamas-led coup in response. Every attack was a war crime, but where were the self-appointed human rights guardians? And in the more than three years of Gilad Shalit's captivity by Hamas in Gaza, the international human rights community has not given enough attention to his plight. Israelis see that human rights organizations are propelling delegitimization campaigns against Israel — from the NGO forum of the United Nations' 2001 Durban conference to the Israel-bashing sessions of the U.N. Human Rights Council — and waging "lawfare" against Israel's elected officials. The most potent attack, in the form of the report by the U.N. Human Rights Council-mandated fact-finding mission on Gaza — headed by a judge, Richard Goldstone, who is closely affiliated with HRW — is largely a rehashed compilation of NGO allegations. We also see NGO superpowers like HRW and Amnesty International and dozens of Israel-based NGOs that are funded largely by European governments providing the ammunition used to attack Israeli leaders as "war criminals." The latest low-water mark for this abuse was the arrest warrant briefly issued in London for Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni. NGO Monitor's criticism of organizations that abuse moral principles for gratuitous Israel-bashing is not evidence of a "right-wing" agenda, as Alpher seems to suggest. Rather, holding NGOs accountable should be a top priority for liberals. The left should be leading demands for an end to the corrosive double standards that have debased the moral currency of human rights and neglected the mass killings in Sudan and the Congo. By the same token, the funders that enable the small group of ideologues who run these NGOs must also be held to account. Although they may see themselves as promoting progressive principles, benefactors such as the Ford and Soros foundations, the New Israel Fund, the governments of Sweden and Norway, and the European Union foot the multimillion-dollar bill for NGO press conferences, submissions to the U.N., media blitzes and speaking tours. In an October op-ed published in The New York Times, Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, wrote: "I must publicly join the group's critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state." Bernstein is the antithesis of a knee-jerk right-winger, and his was not a narrow, ideological stance, but rather a principled position. Wide cooperation among individuals of varied political views is necessary if we are to restore the moral force and credibility of the movement for universal human rights. Gerald M. Steinberg is president of NGO Monitor and a professor of Political Science at Bar Ilan University. |
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EGYPT AND U.S. ON ISRAELI NEGOTIATIONS; U.S. RENEGES ON ISRAEL OVER
JERUSALEM CONSTRUCTION; P.A. HONORS SLAIN TERRORISTS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 31, 2009. |
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FOREIGN-OWNED ISRAELI BANK DENIES BOYCOTT OF JEWS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA The Israeli Municipality Treasury Bank was sold to a European bank, Dexia. This summer, Dexia signed an agreement to lend the Judea-Samaria regional councils $70 million. Some shareholders protested. Dexia denies that it acceded to pro-Arab groups' demands, and it did refuse to stop lending to Jerusalem. However, it has not lent to the regional councils for months. Now it has asked them to close their accounts. Some Israelis urge remaining account-holders to do likewise (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/29). This is the danger a country runs, when it sells critical assets to foreigners. Dexia denies caving in to boycott pressure, but did not cite economic reasons for blanket withdrawal from Judea-Samaria soon after agreeing to lend the regional councils $70 million. For another obvious acquiescence to demands for boycott,
WAKE-UP CALL IN EGYPT ON ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT 
About a thousand foreigners gathered in Cairo for a march to Gaza in commemoration of the recent war and in protest over Israeli control over Gaza and its partial blockade of Gaza. They found that Egypt had its own partial blockade, when it refused to let this undifferentiated mass through. Instead, citing security precautions, Egypt offered to let a hundred delegates through. One of the protesters is a Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, age 85. She is on a hunger strike. She said, "My message if for the world governments [i.e., governments of the world] to wake up and treat Israel like they treat any other country and not to be afraid to reprimand and criticize Israel for its violent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians." (Mona El-Naggar, NY Times, 12/30, A8.) Ms. Epstein needs a wake up call. Governments should treat Israel like any other country, and not be afraid to reprimand and criticize the Arabs for their violent polices against Israel. First came the violence from Gaza, and not peace negotiations. Then came the partial blockade, primarily to block entry of potential war materiel, and an incursion, primarily to stop the war crimes by rocket. How did Epstein fail to notice that the UN regularly reprimands Israel, more than it criticizes the rest of the world put together? She failed to notice that the accusations are devised by brutal, aggressive dictatorships, haphazardly explained, and automatically approved. Victimized by one totalitarian movement for world conquest, she should have learned better than to abet another, the Islamist one, which again, like the others, targets people of her religious origin, among others. Will her protest persuade bigoted anti-Zionists that they err in brushing off a Jew's reports and opinions as automatically slanted for Israel? No, they prefer flinging mud. They see an outlet for antisemitism, not a duty for integrity. Let some enterprising reporter describe Epstein's plea to Holocaust-deniers Abbas and Ahmadinejad, and then elicit comment on her being a survivor of the denied Holocaust! EGYPT AND U.S. ON ISRAELI NEGOTIATIONS 
Mubarak with Obama (A.P./Amr Nabil) PM Netanyahu spent a day with the President and Foreign Minister of Egypt. The hosts criticized his excluding Jewish construction in Jerusalem from the freeze. "Such behavior raises questions about the serious willingness of Israel to reach a definitive agreement and leads one to believe that Israel is trying to Welch on its obligations for a just and lasting peace," Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit stated to the official MENA news agency." "The Obama administration reportedly is drafting letters for both Israel and the PA with unknown guarantees for the resumption of negotiations over the PA's stated desire to become an independent country." What do Arabs mean by the code phrase, "just and lasting peace?" (1) Giving them what they demand; and (2) Leaving Israel with indefensible borders. Foreign Min. Gheit did not state what obligations Israel has that it is reneging on. It never obliged itself to freeze construction in Jerusalem. That is insulting. I do not believe in starting diplomatic huffs and tit-for-tat withdrawal of diplomats over minor spats. But Israel has let Egypt treat it insultingly too long, without standing up for itself. Result: Egypt's contempt for Israel grows. So would anybody's. A short time ago, the Obama administration used duplicity to deny Pres. Bush's letter of assurance to Israel about U.S. policy. As I have written earlier, the U.S. does renege on many promises to other countries. I want my country to maintain its honor. Unfortunately, no country can trust the U.S.. This is an old story. I learned early that FDR had sold out Spain to the fascists, while Britain and France sold out Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. There are many examples. Israel's government lacks the courage to tell the U.S. that Israel cannot rely upon Presidents' assurances, and will not weaken its security for U.S. "guarantees." How can the U.S., whose power is declining, and whose ruling class is wrecking the economy and drowning it in debt, promise money or anything else? Israel also ought to bar U.S. participation in Israel's diplomatic affairs. The State Dept. seeks to dictate terms to Israel. Those terms would favor Arab aggressors. As for the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), it is not rejecting negotiations conditionally. Frankly, it is attempting to dictate what would be determined either way, by negotiations. Have you noticed that nobody else asks the P.A. to make concessions or even to show good faith by implementing its signed agreements that would make for peace? More frankly than our world of make-believe admits, holding negotiations would make no sense. The Arab side does not want to resolve the problem. It wants to get enough out of Israel so that Israel cannot defend itself from a final onslaught. The name for that is Arafat's "phased plan for the conquest of Israel." Since there is no point to negotiations, and the Arabs remain enemies, but especially the Palestinian Arabs who violate all their signed agreements with Israel, Israel should start annexing areas not filled with masses of Arabs, and should stop shoring up the P.A. economy. Then it would gain secure borders. ISRAELI FEMINIST ISSUE OR EXCUSE FOR ANTI-ZIONISM? A coalition of Israeli feminist groups criticized the Israel Land Council for having only Ashkenazi men on it. [Many of these articles are not worded clearly. I think they mean only Ashkenazi men and women.] They demanded that Sephardic and Arab women be appointed to it, too. The demand was countered by the Zionist Women's Forum. It calls this an anti-Zionist issue masquerading as a feminist one. The Forum accused the coalition of seeking to "use the status of women as a means of advancing their political views but in reality, their goal is that the State of Israel's lands will be transferred on an ethnic bases. Their aim is to help non-Zionist ethnic elements to take over the lands of the State of Israel." Judge the sincerity of the coalition's feminist groups, the Forum
suggests, by the absence of Arab women in most of them
One would have thought the Forum would suggest appointing Sephardic women. (I am awaiting clarification of this issue, before evaluating it.) Americans reading this story probably would evaluate it from the perspective of their own society. We try to treat groups equally, and they contribute to society. In Israel, many Arabs call themselves the people "of 1948." They thus identify themselves with their past attempt to take over the country, in concert with foreign Arabs. Israel has to take care not to let subversive elements grasp certain levers of power. Survival is at stake. On this particular issue, we need more information. U.S. RENEGES ON ISRAEL OVER JERUSALEM CONSTRUCTION 
Secretary of State Clinton had hailed an understanding the U.S. reached with Israel to temporarily freeze Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria, and exempt eastern Jerusalem. Now that more Jewish construction was announced for eastern Jerusalem, a White House statement opposes it. What is the point of Israel reaching an agreement with the U.S., only to have the U.S. rebuke it for operating in accord with that agreement? The Zionist Organization of America opposes any freeze. A freeze implies some basis to false claims that Jews do not belong in those parts of their homeland or are an obstacle to peace. Suspending home-building for Jews was not an Arab-precondition for negotiation until President Obama insisted on a freeze. [That makes him an obstacle to peace.] Real obstacles are Palestinian Authority: (1) Refusal to accept Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state [if not legitimate, it may be fought]; and (2) Support for terrorism, a means of fighting Israel. Why should concessions be by Israel only? If construction by Jews obstructs peace, what about construction by Arabs? If Arabs can live among Jews in Israel, why not Jews among Arabs in Judea-Samaria? (12/30 press release by Zionist Organization of America, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member.) EU NGOS BLAME ISRAEL FOR GAZA PLIGHT AND EXEMPT HAMAS "Amnesty-UK, Trocaire (Ireland), Finn Church Aid, Diakonia (Sweden), Oxfam, Oxfam-NOVIB (Holland), Cordaid (Holland), Christian Aid (UK) — issued a report: 1 "…primary responsibility lies with Israel" to end the blockade — repeats the unsupported legal claim that Gaza remains occupied, as well as the false allegation of "collective punishment." As legal scholars note, Gaza cannot be considered occupied, and economic sanctions are not illegal. These tendentious claims were apparently made in order to condemn Israel and create fictitious obligations." NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg commented: "These NGOs are continuing to exploit moral, legal and humanitarian principles in order to promote political warfare against Israel. Many of the claims in this report are not supported by credible evidence, and reflect the double standards that are all too common. Through this systematic bias regarding Israel, these organizations have lost respectability, and the European governments that fund such attacks share responsibility for this abuse." (www.imra.org.il, 12/29.) PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY HONORS SLAIN TERRORISTS 
Palestinian Authority head Abbas, P.A. TV, and leaders of his Fatah organization honored three terrorists who murdered a rabbi in what they call a "quality operation," of which Fatah promises more. They called the three men "holy martyrs" to "jihad," after Israeli forces tracked them down and killed them. The P.A. denounced this as murder; the IDF said the men refused to surrender www.imra.org.il, 12/29.) If Abbas and his P.A. were against violence and for peace, qualities that the U.S. claims he has and that Israel should make concessions for keeping in power, would he and his organization honor or condemn terrorist murder and promise more of it? AL-QAIDA AGAINST LEBANON AND UNIFIL A Lebanese security source alleges that Al-Qaida is infiltrating Lebanon, in order to attack its state institutions and UNIFIL forces in it. The infiltrators would hide in Palestinian Arab refugee camps (www.imra.org.il, 12/29). PALESTINIAN ARAB NGO REPORT VERSUS IDF REPORT The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports that the IDF opened intensive fire on four unarmed Arabs near the Gaza border, killing three. The four had attempted to infiltrate into Israel, to find jobs, the Center reports. Where they had been crawling were found explosive devices, indicating they sought to commit a terrorist attack (www.imra.org.il, 12/29). Some readers will ignore the IDF code of honor and integrity in
reporting to suggest that if Israel reports it was justified, it is
covering up. They will suggest this despite evidence for doing so.
They also will ignore the Palestinian Center for Human Rights record
of covering up for Arab crimes against Israelis. They may be too
young to remember, and may not have read the history books, the Six
Day War, when the Arab belligerents and USSR issued reports that the
Arab armies had destroyed the Israeli Air Force, tank forces, and were
pushing into Israel. When the dust cleared, it turned out to be the
opposite.
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 and visit his website:
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PILAR RAHOLA, A PASSIONATE DEFENDER
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, December 31, 2009. |
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This is an article about Pilar Rahola. It comes from
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Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist. She is a passionate defender of the United States and Israel and an indefatigable fighter against anti-Semitism. All these despite being ideologically from the left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America. She is the recipient of major awards by Jewish organizations. I came across this speech and felt that it was worthwhile placing it in my blog. I translated it and assume full responsibility for any errors. If you want to visit her blog, with some of her articles translated into English, you can do so by clicking here. Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona? Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship? Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection? Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam? Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan? Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel? Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism? Why don't they defend Israel's right to exist? Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism? An finally, the million dollar question:Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn't care. Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
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CANDLES OF DARKNESS
Posted by Ari Bussel, December 31, 2009. |
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It was the last Monday of the year 2009, and at 5PM already dark here in Los Angeles. The weather treated us nicely, so we stood with only one or two layers, signs in our hands ("We Stand with Israel") along with US and Israeli flags and candles. We were greatly outnumbered, almost five to one. On the other side of the street, just in front the Israeli Consulate building, about 120 anti-Israel protestors, all white-Caucasian, children to the elderly, stood with candles and signs. The darkness and lights of passing cars obliterated them, all except the candles. I was thinking: Hanukah was just ten days ago, Christmas last Friday, how befitting, albeit slightly late? A peaceful protest, quite unlike most held here. The police in great numbers stood on both sides, ready to react if necessary. Even the darkness could not completely disguise the hatred that emanated from the anti-Israel protestors who were on the way to join the protest and passed by us. We stood just near the crosswalk, so people faced our "We Stand with Israel" signs and the American Flag we held. I thought to myself, "What an eloquent statement, an appropriate way to greet!" One protestor could not hold back and repeated "SHAME, SHAME." Another joined in chanting "Children Murderers, Occupiers." The first continued "Shame, Shame." How ironic from those who condone using babies as human shields. Slightly later, another woman became furious. She warned me, lest I was confused, "USA IS NOT ISRAEL." She, too, like the man who repeated SHAME earlier, chanted her anti-Israel mantra with a practiced ease time after time. I imagine my smile irritated her as much or more than the flag and sign I carried. Just being there was all it took. Having just returned from a mission to Israel, I still felt the remnants of jetlag. I could not fathom the reason for their vitriolic protest, or even why it was being held on this particular Monday afternoon when most people are not even in Los Angeles. A fellow reporter stopped to ask me why do we stand here. I replied that Israel is the last fortress standing in the way of radical Islam's expansion to conquer the world, so for our own sake, we must support her. The region is reaching a boiling point, I said, and the rattles we now feel are just precursors to an imminent major explosion. Iran's evil tentacles have already spread via Iraq, Syria and parts of Israel to either side of the Mediterranean, like claws holding the sea from North and South. If Israel falls, the USA is next in line. For the sake of both, I said, we must stand strong together. For America's sake, we must make our position clear and visible. I connected this belief with the attempt by the Nigerian national to blow the plane inbound from Amsterdam to Detroit. My most recent return flight was on Swiss from Israel via Zurich to Los Angeles. I already know to fly as inconspicuous as possible. Now with the use of blankets prohibited, only one handbag allowance and new restrictions coming and going with the hour, my flying habits will have to change. In addition to arriving three hours in advance, taking off our shoes and belt and turning on our computer, we may soon have to submit our underwear for inspection — can you imagine the sight? The rules, designed to protect us, are not only meaningless, they are laughable. At first, anything small we used to carry (clippers, scissors, pocket knives, cutters, etc.) was confiscated. Silverware (the type used in Business and First) was eliminated in favor of plastic, later only the knife was kept out, now all is once again available. Let us not forget, a metal fork can be as deadly as a knife. If one wants to be really creative, a pencil will suffice as well. Then the authorities decided to confiscate our liquids, making my mother quite unhappy. Her bottle of water is taken away from her, just to force her to spend four or five dollars on a new bottle on the other side of the examination site. If anyone wants to sneak explosives onto an airplane, it is still very easy to do. I can even think of a few ways myself. Terrorists so far seem to be steps ahead of our intelligence efforts. They are already devising the next, more ingenious, more deadly trap. All along, our enemies from within urge us not to profile. It is wrong, they say, not all terrorists are Middle Eastern, not all are Muslim. Those spokespersons of the Arab Anti-Defamation League should take the opposite approach altogether. If I were at the helm or one of their slick spokespersons, I would instruct a complete change of course along the following lines: We know that all attacks against the West since 2001 were done by a small group of Islamist extremists shouting "Allah u Akbar" as they exploded themselves and as many innocent bystanders as possible. Therefore, we, devout Muslims, declare these acts are AGAINST ISLAM, a blasphemy of the Koran and The All Merciful. Accordingly, we welcome the most strict security measures. Please, check and verify, ask and inquire. We will cooperate. It is our security on the line exactly as much as everyone else's. It is our objective to catch and punish the extremist minority that stains us all very badly. The spokespersons' opposite approach, teaching how to avoid scrutiny, argue rather than cooperate, is very telling. These are the true enemies of the West and the Democratic Ideals it provides and protects. They use the system against itself, wishing for its demise, aiming to replace it with a Caliphate. Time and again we fail. We are all inconvenienced with checks that are as meaningless as they are expensive. Grandmothers are stopped randomly along with Senators and former Vice Presidents (when the latter take commercial flights which they seldom do), while those with clear warning bells and whistles are completely ignored. The TSA has become a huge mechanism, its value — little if any. Profiling must be used. We must disconnect ourselves from arguments raised in the name of freedom and humanity while designed to undermine them. We long ago lost our freedom. We experience great discomforts while the perpetrator dances around taunting us "Islam is a peaceful religion, do not use the word 'terrorist,' all is relative, one's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, it is not me but a few extremists, how dare you profile, look there — the culprit is just around the corner." Leading the choir in the background is none other than the President of the United States of America. Either we do what must be done to suit the new age of terrorism or soon we will be bowing on the floor five times a day facing Mecca. Thanks, but not for me. I shift my thoughts from the flight situation and the greater discomforts I will have to face in my future travels to the people across the street. Just moments ago they accused me of being a child murderer and an occupier, Israel of committing war crimes. They brandish signs that read the same and express hatred toward Israel and to the USA. Why do people hate our way of life so much? If it is that bad here, get involved, vote, try to change. If you absolutely hate it here, move. Go away. That is another freedom we afford: You do not need to stay. But why teach your children from young age to hate? Celebrate America and all it has to offer. You may find that it is the source of much goodness, trying to share some of its wealth with the world. Other immigrants came here, embraced their new land and became invaluable to the American way of life. Why must you seek to destroy it instead? I proudly continued to stand with the American Flag and the sign reading WE STAND WITH ISRAEL. Two countries, shared values, with endless possibilities and mutual goals. Who would have believed, just half a century ago, that a person whose skin color is black would be the President of the USA? Who would have fathomed the possibility of equal rights, women voting, improved working conditions? Only in America — the country we love and must always protect and cherish. In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point-counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
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IS IT TIME TO BOMB IRAN? THE LAST RESORT
Posted by Michael Freund, December 31, 2009. |
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Recent events have made it clear that sanctions and diplomacy have
failed to halt Iran's nuclear program, which is nearing the brink of
developing an atomic arsenal.
Israel's future and everything we hold dear is at stake, and we may very soon wake up to discover the would-be Hitler of Persia with his finger on the button, threatening to exterminate the Jewish state. As I suggest in the column below from the Jerusalem Post
Iran can and must be stopped, and military force may be the only way to do so. Less than 1,000 miles east of Jerusalem, a new Auschwitz is steadily being prepared as the international community dithers over what to do. Six decades ago, the world watched in silence as the Germans tossed us into Hitler's ovens and turned six million Jews into ashes. We cannot assume they will act any differently if Iran seeks to do the same. So we dare not tarry. There is little room left for delay. If the world fails to act, the option of last resort — bombing Iran — may be Israel's only choice. Comments and feedback may be sent to: letters@jpost.com or to me directly. Thanks,
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As 2009 draws to a close and the second decade of the 21st century looms before us, there is no greater danger facing the world than the prospect of a nuclear Iran. As the events of recent weeks have made abundantly clear, sanctions and diplomacy have utterly failed to stop Teheran's march down the road to an atomic arsenal. The ayatollahs have gleefully ignored repeated warnings from the West, and stubbornly insisted on proceeding apace toward nuclear proficiency. We can no longer continue to ignore this reality. Our future and everything we hold dear is at stake. The danger is simply too great, and the threat is too real. As frightening as it sounds, Israel must give serious consideration to bombing Iran before it is too late.
MAKE NO mistake. If a halt is not put to Iran's efforts, we will soon wake up to discover the would-be Hitler of Persia with his finger on the button, threatening Israel and the world with nuclear blackmail and destruction. What the Nazi leader could only dream of accomplishing more than half a century ago, will soon be within reach of his Iranian disciple. Indeed, the clock is already winding down and we are nearing the end of the game, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's scientists prepare to cross the threshold and storm past the nuclear goal line. Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave a chilling account of just how close Iran is to meeting its nefarious goal. By early 2010, he said, the mullahs will have the technology to build a nuclear bomb, and they will be able to produce one within a year. That means that sometime in the next few weeks or months, Teheran will reach the technological point of no return, beyond which lies a future clouded in darkness and uncertainty. And so, less than 1,000 miles east of Jerusalem, a new Auschwitz is steadily being prepared as the world dithers over what to do.
MONTHS AGO, Washington and its allies set a year-end deadline for Iran to accept a deal drawn up by the UN under which their uranium would be enriched abroad. But even this proved unacceptable to the hard-liners in Teheran, who are not exactly quaking in their boots at the prospect of additional economic penalties. In a speech delivered last Tuesday, Ahmadinejad made clear that he remains unmoved by warnings from the West. The international community, he said, can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care." And why should they? The UN Security Council has already imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran with little to show for it. Does anyone really think that yet another round of injunctions and hand-wringing will do the trick? In fact, just a few days ago, reports surfaced in the press that Iran was once again actively seeking to violate existing UN resolutions by trying to import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan to further bolster its enrichment program. This is just one more sign that the West's efforts to freeze Teheran's nuclear program have come up short.
MOREOVER, THE Iranians continue to improve their strategic missile capability, heightening the peril should they succeed in constructing a nuclear warhead. In mid-December Iran test-fired its latest missile, the Sajjil-2, a sophisticated solid-fuel rocket that is more advanced and more accurate than its predecessors. With a range of 1,200 miles, or nearly 2,000 kilometers, it can hit anywhere in Israel and even reach parts of Europe. Iran's defense minister boasted on state television that the Sajjil-2 can be fired more quickly and reaches its target faster, which makes it harder to intercept or shoot down. Since it is a solid-fuel rocket, it can be prepped in advance and hidden in silos, thereby decreasing its vulnerability to a preemptive attack. And lest there be any doubt about the ayatollahs' real intentions, the Times of London reported two weeks ago that Western intelligence agencies have obtained an internal Iranian document detailing plans for neutron initiators. These are the triggers which set off nuclear explosions, and they have no other use.
TAKEN TOGETHER, all these pieces combine to form a frighteningly unambiguous picture: Iran is terrifyingly close to becoming a nuclear power. With each passing day, this nightmare scenario moves one step closer to fruition. And so we must look ourselves directly in the mirror and ask a simple yet very pointed question: Are we really prepared to allow the tyrant of Teheran to threaten our very existence? An atomic Iran would transform the strategic dynamic of the Middle East, strengthen radical and fundamentalist forces and spark a region-wide nuclear arms race. It would raise the specter of terrorist groups allied to Teheran, such as Hamas and Hizbullah, getting their hands on the most devastating of weapons. And we all know how Iran's leaders have repeatedly and brazenly vowed to exterminate the Jewish state and wipe us off the map. The alarm bells are ringing and the danger is near. Iran can and must be stopped, and military force may be the only way to do so. Six decades ago, the world watched in silence as the Germans tossed us into Hitler's ovens and turned six million Jews into ashes. We cannot assume they will act any differently if Iran seeks to do the same. So we dare not tarry. There is little room left for delay. If the world fails to act, the option of last resort may be our only choice. 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. |
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ISRAEL'S FOREIGN POLICY IN THE SHADOW OF IRAN AND THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT
Posted by JCPA, December 31, 2009. |
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This is the summary of JCPA's ICA Jerusalem Issue Brief Vol 9, No 19, December 31, 2009. It was written by Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister. |
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SAVE THE BABY POLAR BEARS! BUILD MORE ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS!
Posted by Steven Plaut, December 31, 2009. |
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HELP ME!! HELP ME!!! Well, the Copenhagen conference was over just a few days ago but now it turns out that there is a horrendous anti-environmental aspect of Obama's policies that is contributing to global warming and energy inefficiency. I am referring to Obama's demand that Israel end all construction activities in the West Bank, accepted under bullying by the Netanyahu gang. You see, as part of the "freeze" of those "settlements," a number of projects for installation of solar panels that generate renewable energy cleanly from solar energy are blocked. The Knesset this week discussed this anti-environmental initiative of the Obama Administration following a question raised by Knesset Member Uri Orbach. The weather in Israel makes generating electricity by means of solar panels popular. EMPOWER SETTLERS (with Solar Power!) But now, alas, freezing settlements threatens the wellbeing of the entire planet, destroying the polar icecaps, killing coral reefs, and drowning polar bears! The solution? Build more settlements!
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@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
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OH DEAR, THE BRITS NAIL OBAMA AGAIN
Posted by Susana K-M, December 30, 2009. |
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This was written by Bill Katz. |
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OH DEAR, THE BRITS NAIL OBAMA AGAIN — AT 12:58 A.M. ET: British writers are coming down hard on Obama, a man most of them don't like anyway, over the terror issue. Tony Harnden, in The Telegraph, nails the president: Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a "B+" for his 2008 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a "systemic failure has occurred". Well, he's in charge of that system. Actually, the White House thinks that Bush is still in charge of that system. In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an "isolated extremist" who "allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body" — phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. And... Today's words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things — we'll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling. Whenever there's a flap, Obama thinks he can fix it with words. It isn't working. We've heard the CD too many times before. There has been a pattern developing with the Obama administration trying to minimise terrorist attacks. We saw it with Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June. We saw it with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, a Muslim with Palestinian roots who slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas last month. In both cases, there were Yemen connections. Obama began to take the same approach with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. We'll see whether this incident shakes him out of that complacency. Whether it's called the war on terror or not, it's clear that the US is at war against al-Qaeda and radical Islamists. The president does not want to admit that. It's a visceral thing. Janet Napolitano, Obama's Homeland Security Chief, has been a disaster in this, exhibiting the kind of bureaucratic complacency that makes ordinary citizens want to go postal. She should go, but I doubt if Obama has the guts to fire a female department head. There's a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. The public is on to this. Obama can't get away with it much longer. Will there be US air attacks against targets in Yemen? Watch this space. It's safe to say that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, described to me by a senior intelligence official today as "officially recognised and in corporate terms a sanctioned franchise of al-Qaeda" that is plainly now seeking to become an international rather than just a regional Islamist player. COMMENT: The president cannot seem to use words like "victory" or "Muslim extremist." He wants to fight a politically correct war. So far it's been a failure. Next year, almost upon us, will be decisive. If Obama is perceived as weak and drifting at the end of two years, he might have to check out the want ads. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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PANIC IN TEHRAN
Posted by Susana K-M, December 31, 2009. |
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This was written by Bill Katz. |
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PANIC IN TEHRAN — AT 7:53 A.M. ET: There are signs the regime in Tehran is starting to panic, aware that both its legitimacy and its longevity are being seriously challenged. From Martin Fletcher at the Times of London, via the superb Planet Iran website: Iran's panicking regime is once again seeking to suppress the Green Movement by decapitating it. Just as it did after June's hotly-disputed presidential election, it is arresting high-profile reformists, academics and journalists who support the opposition... The response of the president of the United States has been some gosh-darned nice words about the right to protest. "Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards still don't get it," said one Iranian academic. "The Green Movement is a decentralised popular front run by local cells and local leaderships across the country. The main opposition figures do not control it. They are spiritual leaders, but do not provide any direction in regard to demonstrations or slogans." And... One activist said: "Do Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the elite of the Revolutionary Guards really think that I, or anyone else, after being beaten by the police, witnessing the murder of Iranians on the streets, hearing stories of rape and murder in the prisons, and knowing of electoral cheating, will ever remain passive and quiet? None of us will ever accept the rule of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei after what they have done." Tehran's police chief today promised increased brutality toward the demonstrators. That is likely to make matters worse for the regime. The pot is boiling. An informed source told me that March may well see the tipping point. We're making a list and checking it twice, and noting the silence of "human rights organizations," especially those who've been obsessed with Guantanamo. And, by the way, we haven't heard a word from the secretary of state. We're following this. Iran may well be the biggest foreign story of 2010. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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A UN OFFICIAL SEEKS TO DESTROY ISRAEL — WHAT YOU CAN DO
Posted by AFSI, December 30, 2009. |
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Dear AFSI members,
Please write your letters to the editors and to U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice regarding the lies and distortions being promulgated against Israel by UN Special Rapporteur, Richard Falk. His hatred against Israel and America is intolerable. Thank you Helen Freedman |
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From: Lori Lowenthal Marcus
Z STREET ACTION ALERT! Once again a vituperative Israel-hater is given a bully pulpit (he's the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 — yes, that's actually the name of his position) for inciting world hatred against Israel. This time the UN official — Richard Falk, a Princeton professor, and a Jew (at least by chance, probably not by choice) is calling for economic sanctions unless Israel removes any efforts to protect itself from Gazans dedicated to its destruction. How bad is Falk? He was barred from entering Israel a year ago — when Ehud Olmert was PM, not the current "hardliner" — because he compared Israelis to Nazis, saying the Gaza "closure" was the same as the Warsaw Ghetto. And yes, he also hates the US. During his tenure with the UN Human
Rights Council he called for a fresh investigation into the 9/11
attacks in order to examine the possible role that "neocons" may have
played in the attacks. And it isn't only the neocons he points his
finger at — Falk also wrote a laudatory introduction to a book
claiming that George Bush and other "elites" in the US administration
very likely played a role in the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, when
publicly asked at a UN session to state whether he ever made the
statements 'that no plane hit the Pentagon,' and that 'the World Trade
Center was brought down by a controlled demolition'? Falk did not
respond.
WHAT TO DO? We don't think there is much point complaining to the UN, as he is their point man on these issues. What you CAN do is be prepared to write letters to papers that present his latest attacks on Israel and set them straight on Falk's record. Tell your friends about it. Send this information around so that people who don't already "get it" can see what a farce the UN is and how blatant is its anti-Israel animus. AND write to the US Ambassador to the UN, telling her to exercise good moral judgment and denounce Falk's bias and inflammatory attacks. Of course, she's not likely to share our position, but the more she hears from interested citizens perhaps the more she will at least be careful about how she comports herself. Here's her contact info: Ambassador Susan Rice
Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website: www.afsi.org. Helen Freedman is Executive Director. |
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CONFESSION OF THE ANTI-ISRAEL BIGOT; NETANYAHU IS BRIBING
TRAITOROUS RATS; TIME TO REMEMBER BASICS ON ISRAEL
Posted by Steven Shamrak, December 30, 2009. |
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Confession of the anti-Israel Bigot. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is asking for forgiveness for stigmas he caused against Israel as a result of his peace agenda. In a letter sent to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) in time for the Christmas season, Carter wrote: "We must recognize Israel's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het (a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement — that signifies a plea for forgiveness) for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." (Quite possible that he is gravely ill now and is trying to obtain redemption for his consistent anti-Israel bigotry. Isn't it too late and insincere?) Vatican: No Reconciliation, No Respect! Plans by Pope Benedict XVI to relaunch the process of beatification of Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church leader during World War II who remained silent as the Nazis exterminated Europe's Jews, have provoked criticism in Israel and in Europe. (At a time when Christians all over the world are supposed to pray for peace and forgiveness, the Vatican has again shown disrespect and contempt toward Jews and a complete lack of interest in reconciliation. Why must only Jews be polite and considerate toward their enemies, oppressors and haters? Common moral and international legal standards must be applied to all, especially to the Vatican — the moral leader of 1.3 billion of the world's Christians!) Tribute to a Hero of Zion #1: Yitzhak "Ike" Ahronovitch, the captain of the Exodus ship whose attempt to take Jews to Palestine built support for Israel's founding, has died. He was 86. The Exodus 1947 ship left France in July 1947 carrying more than 4,500 people — most of them Holocaust survivors and other displaced Jews — in a secret effort to reach Palestine. At the time, Britain controlled Palestine and was limiting the immigration of Jews. Tribute to a Hero of Zion #2: Thousands of people took part in the funeral of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai who was murdered on Thursday by 'peace loving' and 'moderate') a Fatah terror squad. He lived in Shavei Shomron for 14 years and was married with seven children. Samaria Regional Council Head Gershon Mesika said "Rabbi Meir is a victim of the folly of the government of Israel... (its inaction against Arabs, anti-Jewish policy and political games)" "I demand that you (Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu) face the widow and orphans and ask forgiveness" (Two weeks ago the main checkpoint between Shechem and Tulkarm was opened) IDF Can when Politicians Want. Security Services in partnership with soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed the murderers of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. All three were convicted terrorists who had been committed to and later released from Israeli prisons. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak Once again, the Israeli 'justice' system, controlled by a corrupt and self-hating Labor party, is able to claim success. After threats of prosecution, the Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman was effectively silenced and marginalised. The same tactic was previously used against Ariel Sharon when threats were made to prosecute him and his son for corruption. To Visit the Jewish Temple Mount a Jew Must go to Court. The High Court has ordered Israel Police to allow Yehuda Glick, chairman of the Human Rights on the Temple Mount group, to ascend the Mount, after having denied him the right to do so for many months. Police last year banned Glick because of his activities in promoting Jewish visits to the Mount. Goldstone Report Works Both Ways. Fifteen Israelis who were injured by Kassam rockets from Gaza Arab terrorists during Operation Cast Lead have filed a lawsuit against Hamas in a Belgian court. The Israelis are demanding that Belgian authorities issue international arrest warrants for senior Hamas terrorists, including Khaled Mashaal, Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmoud a-Zahar, Ahmad Jabbari, and Muhammad Deff. Part of the case rests upon the Goldstone report, which ruled that Kassam rocket fire by Hamas was a violation of international law, and that the court could not ignore the case. Netanyahu is Bribing Traitorous Rats. Several Kadima MKs have committed themselves to leave the party. Netanyahu and his associates have negotiated with 15 Kadima MKs about leaving Kadima over the past three months. Each of the MKs who leave Kadima will become a minister, deputy minister or Knesset committee chairman. (In order to improve his position in Likud, Netanyahu is trying to bring traitors into the party.) Foreign Media is Anti-Semitic. Nearly three-quarters of Israelis view the foreign media as being negative towards Israel . The Palestinian Authority's information campaign and poor public relations by the Israeli government were close behind as reasons for the bad image. (The self-hating Israeli media is also not a big help!) Israelis Oppose Foreign Funding of Self-Hating Groups. A new poll has found that a majority of Israelis oppose European government funding of non-governmental 'human rights' organizations, such as the leftwing groups Peace Now and Betzelem, in order to increase domestic pressure on the Israeli government. The poll's findings show that 59% oppose foreign contributions while only 28% support them. Swastikas on Walls of Ancient Synagogue near Hevron. A group of Jews, in a rare visit to the ruins of an ancient synagogue in a PA controlled village southwest of Hevron, was shocked to discover that swastikas had been scrawled on the walls. (No international outrage. It was not even covered by the mainstream news! Why is Arab/Muslim thuggery not news worthy?) Quote of the Week: ''I do not believe in truces with the Hamas. We must respond to terrorism with force.'' — Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said not long ago — Another political stunt from the Israeli left! While being in power her party has forcibly removed 8,500 Jews from Gaza but has not done the same to the hostile Arab population of Gaza! IDF Fighting Jewish Patriots, not Enemies. The Israel Defense Forces will use air reconnaissance and photography to detect violations of the freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank, as well as special forces raids on violators. The document, issued by officers from the Central Command, details the intelligence-gathering methods to be used to detect freeze violations and plans to demolish 'illegally' built structures. (Why is the same vigour and determination not used against enemies and truly illegal Arab constructions? Stupid appeasement games must end, it has never worked for Jews!) EU/Spanish Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic Hypocrisy. The Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Moratinos, who will assume the EU presidency on Jan. 1, at a Brussels news conference. "Of course I cannot guarantee that at the end of the year we will have a Palestinian state. But we are going to fight for this final aspiration to become a reality." (I wonder why the independence of the Basque people, whose land is in Europe and is occupied by Spain and France, is not a priority for the future EU president?) Jewish Music Banned at Jewish Holy Site. The Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria has accused Israeli authorities of unfairly and selectively enforcing laws for Jewish and Arab residents of the mixed city of Hevron . For years, visitors arriving at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the holy city have been greeted by Jewish music. Last week the Jewish music was banned by Israeli police! Retaliate by Refusing Arabs' Goods. Palestinian Authority (PA) Economics Minister Hassan Abu-Libda said that his office has decided to make 2010 the year that the PA economy stops accepting goods from the Jews of Judea and Samaria (Yesha). PA authorities confiscated and destroyed a large shipment of Yesha produce delivered to Jericho that they valued at $50,000 and almost three times that much were seized in other parts of the PA. (There aren't many Arabs' goods on the market but we can start with driving less and checking where the figs, sultanas or dates are produced.) The Result of Non-Jewish Migration and Political Apathy. 1. The government discussed imposing limitations on the sale of alcoholic beverages. Under the proposed rules, individuals under 21 will not be able to purchase alcoholic beverages, and no sales will be permitted after 11 PM. In addition, drinking in public places would be prohibited, and alcohol will be sold only in specially licensed stores. 2. Five men were stabbed in a mass brawl that broke out in Kiryat Gat early on Saturday a week ago over music blasting from a car. ''The husband (of kiosk owner) was stabbed and seriously wounded. A number of passersby came to his aid, and four more people were stabbed,'' said a police spokeswoman. Hypocrisy of the Headlines. Israel feels tarnished as critics apply apartheid tag... — Why don't Arabs feel 'tarnished' wearing the well deserved tag of blood-thirsty terrorists, anti-crusaders bigots and heroin pushers? Where are the headlines about it? Iran's $250M Terror Gift. Iran "wants to hold all the cards in its hands" in any future dialogue with the United States and for that reason it gave Hamas 250 million dollars to derail the internal Palestinian Authority talks over unity, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas said. "Every six months Iran transfers this sum to Hamas." Opposition to Rabin Bank Note. Bank of Israel was asked by Land of Israel activists to reconsider its decision to put the portrait of former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin on bank notes: "Let it be clearly understood that Rabin's image was controversial... Rabin caused inestimable and indescribable damage to the state of Israel." (And it is conveniently forgotten that Yitzhak Rabin was a Haganah commander who carried out the attack on the Irgun weapon supply boat, the Altalena, killing and wounding Jews and sinking the boat, at the time when Jews needed weapons most!) Arabs Stand United Against Israel. The close relationship between Syria and Lebanon strengthens both countries and reinforces the united Arab stance against Israel said Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, who has blamed neighbouring Syria for the assassination of his father, during a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Lebanon's prime minister. (Even a blood feud is unable to break the bonds of Arabs hatred against Jews. I wish Jews would show the same unity in pursuit of the Jewish National goal!) Time to Remember Basics on Israel . At a Knesset discussion last week, MK Yariv Levin (Likud) said that it is time to return to some "basic truths" about the State of Israel, which he said was established not as a "Jewish, democratic state," but a "Jewish state with a democratic system of government. Israel was established in order to be the state of the Jewish people." (Both ideas have unfortunately been ignored by Labor and Likud governments) Levin made the comments after discussion in the Knesset on a law he proposed that seeks to preserve a law that prevents Palestinian Authority Arabs from acquiring Israeli citizenship if they marry an Israeli Arab. Steven Shamrak was involved in the Moscow Zionist movement. He worked as a construction engineer at the Moscow Olympic Games project and as a computer consultant in Australia. He has been publishing an Internet editorial letter about the Arab-Israel conflict since August 2001 and has a website www.shamrak.com. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com |
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BLEEDING HEARTS AND JIHADI REVOLVING DOORS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 30, 2009. |
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This was written by Michelle Malkin. |
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Sen. Joe Lieberman was right to sound the alarm about Yemen in the wake of the Undy-Bomber's Christmas Day terror attack over American skies. But he was wrong to call it "tomorrow's war." The Yemen-based jihadist network has been at war with us for years — since before the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, since before Sept. 11 and well before our current commander in chief had begun his vaunted work as a community organizer. The bleeding-heart ostriches of the left are blaming (who else?) cowboy George W. Bush for radicalizing poor, oppressed Yemenis. But the killer fruits of botched bomber Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's loom have nothing to do with poverty, social injustice, Western imperialism or Bush Derangement Syndrome. The fundamentalist Muslim is the privileged son of a Nigerian public official. He lived a "gilded life," as the Independent of London described it, studying engineering at one of Britain's most prestigious universities before training for terror in Yemen. Media sympathizers have spotlighted Abdulmutallab's web postings bemoaning his "loneliness." But more compassion and empathy — the remedy Barack Obama prescribed in an infamously clueless Chicago community newspaper op-ed after the Sept. 11 attacks — are useless salves to the terrorist's damned soul. Like so many of his wealthy, educated jihad brothers and sisters before him, from Osama bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan, M.D., Abdulmutallab targeted us for who we are — dirty, unbelieving infidels — not anything we've denied him. And for his failed act of self-eunuchery and mass murder, the all-too-enlightened leaders of al-Qaida in Yemen and beyond hailed Abdulmutallab as a "hero." Another of these "heroes" in Yemen is Jamal Muhammad Ahmad Al Badawi, the convicted mastermind of the U.S.S. Cole bombing that took the lives of 17 American sailors in October 2000. Despite being sentenced to the death penalty, escaping twice from jail and being indicted in the U.S. on terrorism charges, the Yemeni government freed him in 2007 in exchange for a promise that he renounce his old infidel-murdering ways. More than two dozen of Badawi's jailbreak buddies, including bin Laden's former secretary, Nasir al-Wahayshi, reunited to form the jihadi training team that now claims it supplied Abdulmutallab with his incendiary device. Yemen human rights activist and blogger Jane Novak has reported for years on how Yemeni intelligence and military officials have facilitated al-Qaida training camps — often providing "safe houses, training and passports to the jihadists that travel to Iraq to attempt to kill U.S. troops." The Yemeni government, Novak points out, has also used al-Qaida mercenaries to fight northern rebels and train tribal militias. Jihad spiritual advisor Anwar al-Awlaki, linked to the Sept. 11 hijackers and Fort Hood mass killer Hasan, also calls Yemen home — and reportedly blessed the Crotch Bomber attack, according to The Washington Times. Now, the Yemen government has the gall to blame the West for not providing enough assistance to stop the breeding of hundreds of future flying Crotch Bombers. America, unfortunately, is hardly in a position to criticize Yemen's jihadi revolving door. ABC News reported this week that two of the four jihadi leaders behind the Christmas Day terror plot were released from Gitmo during the Bush administration in November 2007. (What a quandary for Bush-bashers who have stubbornly denied that Gitmo recidivism threatens our national security.) The freed detainees were shipped off to terror-friendly Saudi Arabia, where they underwent "art therapy rehabilitation" — the ultimate bloody brainchild of the jihadi-as-victim mindset. In January 2009, the two "rehabilitated" recidivists released a video vowing to wage jihad to "aid the religion," "establish the rightly guided caliphate" and " fight against our enemies." One of the duo, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September 2008. Another Yemeni at Gitmo, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, was convicted by a U.S. military tribunal in the last days of the Bush administration for conspiring with al-Qaida, soliciting murder and providing material support for terrorism. He had scripted the videotaped wills of two Sept. 11 hijackers and boasted of making a two-hour al-Qaida commercial designed to recruit suicide bombers, according to FBI testimony. The recruitment ad celebrated the U.S.S. Cole bombers in Yemen. Hundreds of Yemeni detainees at Gitmo abandoned the benefit of the doubt years ago. Yet, Attorney General Eric Holder's law firm, Covington and Burling, has provided dozens of them pro bono legal representation and sob-story media relations campaigns. True to form, former Covington and Burling lawyer Marc Falkoff dedicated a book of Gitmo detainee poetry to his Yemeni suspected terrorist "friends inside the wire." And the White House is rolling out the red carpet to bring them to U.S. soil for civilian trials. At a time when we should be disabling the jihadi revolving door, its rotating shaft is spinning out of control. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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US ON ISRAELI BUILDING PLAN; PAKISTANI TERRORISM; SUPREME COURT LETS
ARABS BACK ON HIGHWAY THEY TERRORIZED
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 30, 2009. |
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U..S. STATEMENT ON ISRAELI BUILDING PLANS IN JERUSALEM 
"The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved by the parties through negotiations and supported by the international community. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations. Rather, both parties should return to negotiations without preconditions as soon as possible. The United States recognizes that Jerusalem is a deeply important issue for Israelis and Palestinians, and for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. We believe that through good faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem, and safeguards its status for people around the world." Dr. Aaron Lerner asks, shouldn't that mean that nobody should build there, for now? Why should only Israelis be asked not to build, why not Arabs, too? (www.imra.org.il, 12/28). ISRAEL LETTING GLASS INTO GAZA 
At the request of UN head Ban, Israel is letting glass into Gaza for post-war reconstruction (www.imra.org.il, 12/25). Will ordinary houses be rebuilt or buildings Hamas used for war? PAKISTANI TERRORISM AND WHO HATES MUSLIMS Part 1. bombing in Karachi 
A suicide bomber killed five people and wounded 80 more at a Shiite gathering in the Pakistan city of Karachi. A thousand people were commemorating an important Shiite holy day. The carnage would have been worse, but police stopped the murderer at a checkpoint. Hence, two of the fatalities were police. Usually, Pakistani terrorists attack Hindus and Sikhs in the Indian sector of Kashmir. However, Sunni terrorists have often struck Shiites on that holiday. The irony here is that several terrorist organizations were, to an extent, formed by, or with the support of Pakistan, against India. Now that the U.S. has gotten Pakistan to reduce support for these groups, they have "turned against their former patron." They make alliances with the Taliban. That enables the Taliban to strike further into Pakistan (Wall St. J., 12/28, A13). Part 2. Who hates Muslims? As jihad grips more of the world, its reporting, meaning, cause, and solution become critical. The leftist tendency to blame Islamic terrorism on how Israel treats Palestinian Arabs becomes more absurd. Most victims of jihad are fellow Muslims. I report that. Some readers, however, claim that my reports reflect hatred and defamation of Muslims. There is a tendency of totalitarians and their fellow travelers to consider someone's citing the journalistic and historical record as defamation. They want clear passage for their own, actual defamation. Some of them put their accusation in crude, bigoted and personal wording. That is where the hatred is, as it surely is among the bombers! Not one anti-Zionist has ever expressed in the comment box any sympathy for the Muslim victims of Islamist jihad or Arab and Iranian oppression in general. None has rebuked other readers for expressing crude antisemitic sentiments (and I am not referring to policy differences with Israel). Their indignation seems hypocritical or insincere. Even worse, some readers claim that persecution of Jews is because of general Jewish misbehavior, which the historical record disproves. They even make excuses for the antisemitism of Adolph Hitler, a criminally insane dictator who started a world war and who, outside of the war, murdered 10 million people. Ironically, the Jewish citizens of Germany had been patriotic and a mainstay of its culture. I suppose those readers also would claim that the antisemitic persecution by Stalin, another criminally insane dictator, who helped start that same world war, and who had 20 million people murdered and millions exiled or enslaved, had legitimate grievances against the Jewish people. Don't adopt the insanity of mass-murderers! One person put it that "you" show no gratitude for Muslims having given Jews refuge from persecution by Christendom. This is prejudicial. It assumes that I report only as a Jew, and that I stand for all Jews for all time. Don't flatter me or blame the rest for me! One of the pertinent traits among Palestinian Arabs is recalling a version of historical events as if they happened yesterday. Hence they quote statements about ancient, exterminated Jewish tribes in Arabia, as if all Jews descended from non-exterminated ancestors are "sons of apes and pigs." That epithet is racist and expresses hatred. I do not use language like that. A couple of times, readers did use such language about Muslims, and I deleted the comments. Nor is it correct about other Jews, me, or the blanket assumption that Islam gave such sanctuary to the Jewish people for all time. Most Jews have accepted the myth of uniform tolerance under Muslim rule. The Arabs took over the Jewish homeland and prompted most Jews to emigrate. Jews in Muslim countries were second class citizens. They suffered centuries of persecution, with pogroms like in Christendom and children being taken from their families if their father died. Large numbers of Jews expelled by Spain were enslaved when they fled to Morocco. Turkey gave Jews who came to it, sanctuary. In a later period, my paternal ancestors were among them, as one of my articles acknowledged. Grandpa was the last Sultan's clock repairman. The Jewish state has had friendship with Turkey and an informal alliance with Iran. Reports about Arabs standing up for Jews, I recount. A culture may have certain traits and tendencies that most of its people adopt. Not all do. One should be careful about over-generalizing about people of certain ethnicity. There were Christians who persecuted Jews and there was the family I had mentioned that, at risk to their own lives, hid my great-uncle from the Nazis. I have reported Muslim persecution of Christians. I would like to see full inter-faith reconciliation, in a spirit of live and let live in peace. Let each faith believe it has the best path, but not deem others inferior people who must be forced into the same path. Judaism judges people by their ethical behavior, not by their religion. The more bigoted commentators sneer at the Jewish concept of "chosen people," which they obviously to me do not understand. They assume it reflects a conceited sense of superiority. Basically, it is a call to be ethical, to follow Jewish as an example to help others. The task is so daunting, that many fail to fulfill it sufficiently. This results in the humility that religious Jews have expressed in the Bible. Jews historically have gotten along well with gentile neighbors, until gentile clergy intervened. SUPREME COURT LETS ARABS BACK ONTO HIGHWAY THEY TERRORIZED Israel built highway 443, 14 kilometers of it across the Green line, some parts of which were annexed by Israel. Some of it lays upon land that had been owned by Jews and Arabs. The government expected mostly Arabs to use it. Arab terrorists used the highway for staging attacks so much, that the Army ordered it closed to them. Representing some Arab petitioners, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to re-open the highway to Arabs. ACRI based its case upon the Geneva Convention, which Israel states it does not have to follow but usually does follow. The Convention holds that an occupier is not supposed to construct something solely for its own use. Last year the Court admitted that the road is used by tens of thousands of Israelis, whose lives would be endangered if Arabs were allowed to share it. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled that Israel should not take land from Arabs solely for its own use. It advised Israel to take other, unspecified measures for security. Dr. Aaron Lerner, head of IMRA, commented, "There isn't another way to put it: The High Court of Justice of Israel ruled that the restoration of access for Palestinians to Highway 443 was more important than the lives of Israeli driving on that road — as well as the lives of the millions of Israelis that terrorists driving on Highway 443 can reach within minutes." "The court argued that the Palestinians should have access since otherwise it would not be proper for Palestinian land to be confiscated for the construction of the road. The court ignores that the road indeed was originally opened for Palestinian use and the restriction was only imposed as a result of Palestinian violence. This is not a matter of 'collective punishment' but instead a decision based on practical security considerations." "The judges can hide behind instructions that measures be taken to insure that security is not impacted by their decision, but they know damn well that there are serious limits to the ability to stop terror activity." (www.imra.org.il, 12/29). What is "Palestinian land?" Does that concept apply within Israel? Background: Israel's Supreme Court is not a democratic institution. It is self-perpetuating, unaccountable to a constitution or separation of powers. Its members predominantly are Far Left. They overrule the elected Knesset, to impose their own views not of the law but what they would like the law to be. This is subversion. The leftist media browbeats as "undemocratic" mere criticism of this non-elected court's abuse of power which aids Arab anti-Zionist efforts. 700 NEW HOMES IN JERUSALEM: Part 1: The News Israel announced that it would allow to be built 700 new housing units in annexed, Jewish areas of Jerusalem. The State Dept. usually condemns "Israeli steps in East Jerusalem as harmful to peace efforts." After a previous announcement for another area, Pres. Obama said that such building did not make Israel safer," it makes peace more difficult to attain. PM Netanyahu has been trying to persuade the P.A. to resume peace negotiation. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian Authority (P.A.) [non-]negotiator asked, if there is supposed to be a housing freeze, what is this increase in housing? Part 2: Analysis Unlike most NY Times articles, this one gives more of the historical background of how territory was distributed. I find this background obscuring the full story almost as much as does the usual absence of background. For example, referring to Israel's policy on Jerusalem, reporter Ethan Bronner wrote, "its assertion that the reunified city would remain under its control as the capital, has won almost no support worldwide." What does not having world support mean? Does it mean that most countries assiduously follow international law and practical solutions? We know that half the countries break international law. Truth is, foreign governments take positions out of prejudice or economic interest. They distort the meaning of international law in order to justify their positions. As for practicality, we know that foreign governments propose as solutions impractical schemes, such as the International Atomic Energy Association that did not detect members' nuclear proliferation and may have fostered it. Another example is as the original proposal for the second partition of what was left of the Palestine Mandate by 1947. The rump, isolated pieces that it suggested form a Jewish state would have been non-viable. When Jerusalem was divided, the Arabs used their nearness to Jewish neighborhoods to fire into them. To want to return to such a situation is foolhardy. Is the U.S. really interested in peace? Then why does it arm Arab belligerents, who repeatedly commit Intifadas, terrorism, or major wars? Why does it demand that Israel withdraw from areas, although earlier withdrawals led to war? Why does it demand that Israel give up areas that would provide the secure borders required by UN Resolution 242 and advised by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff study? Why does it encourage the P.A. to raise its demands upon Israel? What did Israeli building in the Territories have to do with negotiations, until Obama demanded that Israel cease, and Abbas felt he had to make it a condition of negotiating? (For more on that, click here ) How can there be peace when the jihadists prefer conquest? Has the New York Times ever admitted that it and the State Dept. traditionally are anti-Zionist? Mr. Erekat's comment is disingenuous. He knows that Israel announced a freeze in areas outside the State of Israel. He pretends that housing built inside annexed parts of Israel violates the freeze. He and the State Dept. should be asked why the freeze does not apply to building by Arabs? Why does the State Dept. object to "unilateral" steps by Israel and not by the Arabs? Religious discrimination? If President Obama understood Israeli history and studied a map, he would know that Jewish housing does make Israel safer. It blocks P.A. expansion and keeps terrorists further away from Israeli population centers. It provides an anchor for the Army and a breakfront against the waves of jihadists. In the background material, the newspaper reverted to its vague statement of how the 1947 war started — it "broke out." No, the Arabs of Palestine and volunteers from Syria and Iraq attacked Jews. Soon foreign official Arab armies invaded. If the New York Times frankly attributed to the Arabs the start of that and the other wars, it would not be so easy for anti-Zionists to get away with claiming that Israel started the wars. Thus the Times, which knows better, withholds the information, leaving others not to know. It is true, as stated, that Jordan held the eastern part of Jerusalem. Unstated is that such seizure was another act of aggression. Therefore, the eastern part of Jerusalem had not been part of a country since it was part of Judea, the ancient Jewish country there. Therefore, Israel is not an occupier. Still cagey in wording, Bronner puts it that in "1967 — when Israel took the rest of Jerusalem from Jordan." Might have mentioned, in "1967, when Jordan opened fire upon Israel and advanced its army for another invasion..." That would give a fuller picture and show who is responsible for what. At least he admitted that Jordan barred Jews from "the Old City, the site of the ancient Jewish temple" [that the P.A. denies exists, because that denial is convenient for its writing the Jews out of Palestinian history and themselves into it (12/29, A4). ISRAELI POLITICS AND HOW NETANYAHU AND LIVNI ACT PM Netanyahu: (1) Tried to induce of Members of Knesset from the rival Kadima Party to rejoin his Likud Party, from which Ariel Sharon had led them out; and (2) Asked MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into his coalition regime, to form a government of national unity, as it faces the threat of war again. [MK Livni has an internal party rival who is trying to wrest its leadership from her. If half her party bolts, the rival is likely to gain control of the other half.] Kadima's Knesset delegation spurned the coalition offer and the Cabinet posts that came with it. They called it not serious and an attempt to destroy their party. Livni replied, "The cynical use of threats in order to appear to be calling for an emergency government — and bring in parts of Kadima — is not an act worthy of a prime minister." "Mr. Netanyahu expressed regret at Kadima's answer." (New York Times, 12/29, A6.) He wanted all of Kadima in the emergency regime. Since the founder of Kadima had taken MKs from Likud, Netanyahu's attempt to return them is fair turnabout. But simultaneously trying to enlist her as a coalition partner leaves a sour taste. Livni's rejection, however, is unpatriotic politics. Indeed the signs of war are growing. Hamas and Hizbullah are preparing for it. Iran is gathering allies and neutralizing rivals. Iran is closing in on its nuclear weapons goal. Similar circumstances have brought Israelis into wide coalitions, before. A wider coalition does not help prosecute a war, but it can help keep rival parties from exploiting the war for politics at the expense of national security. Shimon Peres of the Labor Party sabotaged Israel's prosecution of the first Lebanon War, because he did not want Prime Minister Menachem Begin's regime, chiefly the Likud Party, to get credit. Here is another Livni motive. She was Foreign Minister before this Netanyahu regime. She shares in the failures of the recent Lebanon and Gaza wars and the resulting build-up of the emergency to which Netanyahu refers. She does not admit her failures, which left Israel the target of tens of thousands of rockets. She pretends that her diplomacy was a success. I find her more polarized and political about it than the U.S. parties. I think that Netanyahu plays dirty with the Jewish people, by promising nationalist policies and reneging, though not 100%, so that the Arabs and the State Dept. claim he is too nationalist. GIVING OBAMA TOO MUCH CREDIT OVER IRAN? The New York Times editors called President Obama "...right to condemn the violence against Iranian citizens and to place the U.S. on their side, as he did in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and in comments on Monday" (12/29). The Wall St. Journal Opinion section welcomes the Monday speech, but feels it must be followed up or it be too little and too late. It felt that the Nobel speech merely mentioned the Iranian people. Indeed, the Iranian protesters started to accuse the President of being against them. The Journal noted Obama's general appeasement of dictators and snubbing of democrats, as with Honduras. If the Iranian people turn anti-American, it would be one of Obama's worst failures. If he were wise, he would have encouraged them, and perhaps assisted in a change of regime before the Islamist one acquires nuclear weapons. Instead, Obama conceitedly appeased the dictators, with whom he felt he could make a deal. He is finding he cannot. Will he learn in time, or is he too obstinately radical? Imagine if George Bush or Ronald Reagan were President now. They most likely would have understood the opportunity for democracy in Iran, would have sided with the people, and would have condemned their evil rulers.
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 and visit his website:
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BETRAYAL BY DM BARAK LEADS TO RABBI'S MURDER
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 29, 2009. |
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The betrayal of the Jewish nation began long before the murder Thursday, December 24th, of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai as his killers, a Fatah Terror squad, came in and exited through the 'removed' checkpoints just 2 weeks ago. Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai (40) lived in Shavei Shomron for 14 years. He was married with 7 children, the youngest of whom is 2 months old. At his levaya (funeral) his family, Eliyahu, the Rabbi's son, said "Father wanted faith; he wanted Torah study; he wanted prayers — no revenge". Ten bullets hit him in the head as he drove home at 4:30 pm Thursday. If you translate his name literally: Meir means Enlightenment; Avshalom means the Father of Peace; and Chai means Life. His murderers, as claimed by an announcement of Fatah that their "Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade" killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. The United States assists the Fatah and its "Al Aksa Martyrs" which are a Terror group whose men receive financial aid and training from the U.S. under General Dayton. This means that the Israeli Government passively and actively agrees with building a Muslim Arab Palestinian Army and, therefore, has indirect responsibility for training and funding the Terror force which murdered Rabbi Meir Chai. There is every indicator that Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak — at the instigation of the U.S. State Department re-adopted the earlier Rabin-Peres-Arafat plan of the early 1980s to drive the Jews out of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem. As reported, former Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met illegally then with Yassir Arafat, head of the PLO, Palestine Liberation Organization (illegal because the PLO was then — as now — a Terrorist organization). Rabin, Peres and Arafat had created a multi-layered pressure scheme to force evacuation of all Jews from Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. Removal of patrols and checkpoints was only one vital point, among others, of the insidious and treasonous plan to ramp up the fear of Terror attacks by Arafat's Terrorists. Other tactics were to interfere with building permits, initially of water, sewage and the electric grid, or otherwise known as "freezing construction". The law at that time was that it was a crime to meet Terrorists but, neither the Leftist Courts nor the Police charged Rabin and Peres for not only breaking the law by meeting with the arch-Terrorist Yassir Arafat but, conducting treasonous planning during the war of Terrorism. Leftists do stick together and nothing is too low to achieve their goals of re-partitioning the State of Israel. When the earlier plan to drive the Jews out of their homes in the territories didn't take hold, they moved to another perfidious plan later, called "The Oslo Accords". This Plan, plotted in secret by Rabin, Peres and Yossi Beilin — with the secret collusion of the Norwegian government, and with the later acquiescence of Yitzhak Rabin — gave Arafat the Oslo surrender of 7 major cities in Judea and Samaria with their surrounding rural areas. Many European nations provided unreported funds to complete and pay for the scheme. After Oslo became "facts on the ground", a Knesset member demanded an investigation of how Oslo came about and who supplied the money. Shimon Peres, then a key part of the "Unity Government", went ballistic and threatened to leave the government IF such an investigation was undertaken. At that time Ariel (Arik) Sharon was Prime Minister (2001-2006) and he immediately quashed any official government investigation, not only to protect Peres but, his reaction to the proposed investigation made it amply clear that he knew about the secret Oslo subversion. Sharon's facade as a Likud person of the political Right began to show major cracks. Who was actually behind his public false face? Now, Netanyahu, Barak and, no doubt, in consultation with Shimon Peres and the Arabist State Department have re-adopted the earlier plans of forcibly evacuating all Jews who live in Judea, Samaria (Jewish Gaza has been sacrificed already) — with the Golan Heights now part of the equation. Removing Checkpoints and Patrols repeats the Rabin-Peres-Arafat 1980s concept of allowing the elevation of Terror to ramp up pressure for what looks like the planned use of Israeli troops to force Jews out of YESHA (Yehuda and Shomron, called the "territories"). The recent expose' of a document from Barak's office calling for special forces (6 Army Divisions), plus Police, helicopters and drones to aggressively and brutally move against Jewish civilians in Judea and Samaria is nothing less than a "coup d'etat" by Netanyahu and Barak. Working with the Arabist State Department with the prompting and approval of President Barack Hussein Obama, amounts to "high treason" during a war when Israel's very survival is at stake. In the time of Neville Chamberlain, when he accepted the word of Adolph Hitler and came back raving that he secured "Peace in Our Time",one could mark this up to sheer stupidity. But, when the plan is to dismember large parts of ancestral Israel — then it is High Treason even when covered up with sweet words like "Peace in Our Time". When Arik Sharon and Ehud Olmert sold out the safety of the Jewish Nation/State by abandoning Gush Katif/Gaza we discovered that the Leftist psyche of surrender was always deep in their thoughts and planning. Now we see that this warped thinking has similarly been in Netanyahu's thinking from the time he gave up 80% of Hebron and the burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah — our forefather and mothers in the Cave of the Machpelah. If that didn't alert us, then his cave in at the Wye River Conference should have more than plainly declared in what direction Bibi was headed. Bibi was always an acceptable candidate for higher office by the Washington crowd, especially the "Shadow Government" that really runs America's foreign policy in the Middle East and is literally joined at the hip with the Saudis and Arab nations. Therefore, their policy decisions have brought the current cruel construction freeze in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the removal of Checkpoints and military Patrols, training the Army to attack Jewish civilians, including minor children — both boys and girls, as was done during the evacuation/eviction of 21 Jewish communities in Gush Katif/Gaza plus 4 in Northern Samaria of 10,000 Jewish men, women and children. (Somehow I keep hearing the shouts of Nazis during one of their round-ups of Jews..."Juden Raus" (Jews Out). The Construction Freeze being implemented by the Army Forces is merely the forerunner of the Greater Push to make Judea and Samaria "Judenrein" for the entry of several million Muslim Arab Palestinians. Today, Bibi and Barak are following the Rabin-Peres-Arafat plans of the early 1980s and have reactivated the same plan of betrayal. The Government of Bibi, Barak, Peres is no longer a Government of the Jewish people of Israel but, rather a puppet Government of the Arabists in Washington, the E.U., the U.N. the Arab Bloc, and Russia. It is a perfidious assembly of Leftists (as we saw with Sharon and Olmert) who have literally overthrown what should have been the sovereign elected Government of Jews, dedicated to the safety and sovereignty of the Jewish people and the preservation of the fragile Jewish Nation/State. Regrettably, it is none of these and should be removed from power forthwith. Clearly, the jews of Likud are not a great deal different than the Leftists of Kadima. Bibi is presently courting Tzipi Livni to join his Government in order to present a solid front when they attack the 300,000 Jewish men, women and children whose homes are in the Jewish settlements in the next forced evacuation. Any leader who adopts dictatorial methods to subjugate their own population has moved to overthrow the system of elected government under cover of being called "Democratic" and is, therefore, a traitor to the Nation. We observed Hitler prepare his army and Gestapo to subjugate the people of his own nation and later all the nations he conquered. His goal was to create a Thousand Year Third Reich of Nazi Domination of the World and he needed obedience of a cowed population. He too used the cover of legal elections at first and then morphed into the dictatorial monster he was. Josef Stalin also had his brutal troops and his KGB. East Germany had their Stasi Secret Services linked to the Soviet KGB. These 70 year old means of evil are now being repeated by the radical Muslim Islamists. Iran has its Republican Guards under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs. Their goal is a Global Caliphate for Islam — not unlike Hitler's planned 1000 year old Reich. Syria has its Army and Secret Services who terrify their own people. The main reason Israel has had peace with Syria is because the IDF sits on the Golan Heights and can see into Damascus if even one tank or plane starts up. Netanyahu and Barak are once again courting Turkey's Muslim leader Erdogan to assist Israel's surrender of the Golan to Syria. Ehud Barak has at numerous times tried to remove Israeli civilians and soldiers from the Golan and gift it to Syria. To its everlasting shame, we observe Washingtonian Arabists assist the Palestinian Terrorist leadership, train and arm their Terrorists with the Muslim Arab Palestinian people totally subjugated as "human shields". If they demonstrate any protest, they are arrested, tortured and murdered — as in Iran. Here again, we see Obama "reaching out" to the Muslim Terror States of Iran and Syria. Who would have even thought that a Jewish nation would adopt these same dictatorial methods to threaten their own Jewish population and all in the interests of foreign nations? To aspire to a dictatorship one needs a warped ideology, arrogance, the need to dominate, mean-spiritedness — mixed together into one poisonous soup, makes for an ugly and dangerous leadership. It is one thing to observe the disgusting corruption that plagues successive Israeli governments but, quite another when the vaunted leadership to re-partition the Jewish Nation/State and commit other subversive acts of political collusion for the benefit of dedicated enemies. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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DON'T RUSH TO JUDGMENT?
Posted by Arnold Beizer, December 29, 2009. |
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In November, Americans soldiers were attacked and mass murdered by a U.S. Army Muslim major at Ft. Hood who had Al Qaeda terror ties and the president defends him and exclaims as a first reaction, Let U.S. not rush to judgment, about this man's motives. On Christmas day, a Muslim terrorist is allowed to board an American Delta jetliner and attempts to set off an incendiary bomb in Detroit while Obama's Chief of the Dept. of Homeland Security assures Americans that the system worked like clockwork and the lone extremist was captured before any harm came to 300 airline passengers (who just happened to luck out when the incompetent Jihad warrior failed to properly ignite his bomb). The President who says there is no war on "terror" and who bans use of the word by his administration wants to close the Camp Gitmo terrorist detention Center in Cuba and send enemy combatant detainees back to Yemen where they can be rehabilitated and then recycled so they can come back again to fight against U.S. another day. Reluctantly, the president acknowledges that there is indeed a catastrophic, systemic failure of our intelligence and security system and the President is so incensed about it that he orders an immediate investigation to determine who is to blame, how to discipline those responsible and to correct the problems identified. But wait a minute, who is in charge of the system that failed and the U.S. intelligence agencies that acted with an utter lack of intelligence and common sense? It seems the president (our Chief Elected Official and Commander In Chief) who gave himself a B-grade on handling the economy, is giving himself a pass-ing grade for ordering an immediate investigation into who failed U.S. on Christmas Day when the Muslim kid bomber so successfully skirted security measures in place designed to protect U.S. from such "man made disasters." If you ask the president he seems to be pointing the finger at those he appointed and those who serve in his administration (at everyone and anyone but himself). They deserve failing grades but he is somehow above it all. He would have us believe that he inherited this mess in which we find ourselves. But the intelligence agencies report to the president and despite the president telling U.S. he inherited a failing economy and a broken security system, wasn't it the president who promised U.S. that he was going to bring U.S. revolutionary, sweeping change. He was going to change America for the better. He said so eloquently in his inauguration speech, America can "emerge into a sunlit harbor, united by the memory of having conquered some of the greatest dangers, domestic and foreign, that it once braved." So tell U.S. what has changed and how is it better? The president wants to appear as if he is on top of this unfortunate and unforeseen situation and issues multiple press releases, special messages and makes presidential appearances from his Hawaiian holiday vacation resort headquarters calculated to inform and insure the American people that he is on the job and has our safety foremost in his mind. He then goes back to his golfing, pick up basketball games with his National Security Adviser teammate and religiously and rigorously gets in his scheduled gym work outs. In Hawaii, Obama is enjoying his time in the sun, yet all the while the enemy is planning another Pearl Harbor! They warn U.S. they will attack our airplanes and Obama and his worshiping mass media fall for this deception as the man made disasters of our own making (according to Obama) plot to bomb our cities and bring bloody terror to our city streets not the airports! The Overseas Contingency Operations supposedly meant to deal with man made disasters over there will not help U.S. when real Terrorists strike over here without warning and with no mercy. What we have over here is a systemic failure of leadership at the highest level. Our problems are of our own making. We have leaders who have stuck their heads in the sand and followers who blindly follow the leader with no vision or battle plan. We are at War. This is no time to take a holiday or a leave of absence. The nation was asleep when Pearl Harbor was attacked. America had sleep in her eyes and was just awakening when the enemy struck the Twin Towers and Pentagon on 9/11. We have once again been lulled to sleep and have become complacent listening to a naïve, inexperienced leader who has already cut back defense spending, who wants to disarm unilaterally, phase out nuclear weapons, and shrink our nuclear arsenal while being unwilling to confront Iran from developing a nuclear capability. The president wants to talk to nations that sponsor terror and to make peace treaties and peace deals with our enemies who will strike U.S. after we disarm and place our trust in them instead of in God. If We The People continue on this present ill conceived course we will soon face another rude awakening only this time it will be a catastrophe of nuclear proportions. God save U.S. In God We Trust not in any false messiah. Contact Arnold Beizer by email at arnybarnie@aol.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: TRACKING EVENTS
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 29, 2009. |
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Sometimes it feels as if it's impossible to keep track of news events without a score card, so quickly does the situation shift. A major project during the course of the day today prevented me from analyzing what is happening in several spheres. Here, I would like to touch base, in an effort to keep on top of events. Most likely my next post will follow on Thursday. ~~~~~~~~~~ Tzipi Livni and members of Kadima have unanimously said no to a "unity government" with Likud, which allows us to sigh with relief, at least for the moment. Kadima's charge was that the offer was not sincere as it didn't provide genuine shared power. Netanyahu, for his part, called Livni a "serial unity refuser" (as he had also offered unity when he was forming his coalition) and said he didn't understand what her problem was, as Kadima would have participated in major government decisions. My take has been to see more than a bit of game-playing in the offer. However, while he was waiting for Kadima's decision, he offered more generous terms as a lure. Did he genuinely want her in the coalition? The possibility exists. What is more surprising than the rejection by Kadima is the fact that Livni used this as a means to rally unity inside her party. Seems those seven who had signed an agreement with Netanyahu will not be bolting the party now and coming back to Likud after all. It had sounded close to a done deal. Livni referred to Netanyahu's attempt to split her party as "gutter politics" and accused him, not without reason, of inappropriately attending to this when more important issues should have occupied him. I would guess that her anger at and mistrust of the prime minister played into her decision not to join his government. Netanyahu, for his part, said he was still determined to broaden his coalition because of the crises we will be facing, and declared that it was only a matter of time until Kadima did split apart. ~~~~~~~~~~ Nowhere is a score card more necessary than with regard to the politics of the Palestinian Arabs: Fatah is the major party of the Palestinian Authority. But it is not synonymous with the PA and is sometimes at odds with it. (More on this follows.) The terrorist Al Aksa Brigades is officially part of Fatah, and protected by it. Some of its members are even part of the PA security forces — if they "renounce terror" it is made possible for them to receive PA salaries. But some Al Aksa members operate outside of the scope of Fatah. On top of all of this, the US, under the supervision of General Keith Dayton, is training some of the PA forces (which means, in the main, Fatah forces), which are supposed to combat terrorism. That should mean terrorism instigated by Hamas (and there is a problem sometimes with this), and certainly terrorism instigated by Al Aksa. Terrorism is terrorism, is it not? Except it depends on the definition, it seems. As it happens, the PA only takes on Hamas when it threatens its stability and not because of attacks on Jews. And terrorism by Al Aksa, well... that's another matter all together. ~~~~~~~~~~ If what I've just written sounds convoluted, I apologize. It is no more than a reflection of a convoluted situation. What has generated the current confusion is the drive-by shooting of Rabbi Chai by three Al Aksa terrorists, who were subsequently pursued and then shot by IDF forces (when they refused to surrender). No Palestinian Arab group and no Palestinian Arab leaders condemned the shooting forthrightly. It is important to understand that doing this is a "no no" in today's climate. It implies siding with the "Zionist enemy" instead of Arab brothers (who undoubtedly were acting against "the occupation"). But, because there is security cooperation in some respects between the IDF and PA security forces (especially those trained by Dayton), and because the IDF pursued the terrorists into Arab areas, on the ground there was coordination. And it seems this has enraged a great number of Palestinian Arabs associated with Fatah. Yesterday, according to Khaled Abu Toameh, Fatah warned of a third intifada. But this one would not be against Israel, it would be against the Palestinian Authority. The funerals of those who shoot Rabbi Chai in the head turned into a major protest in which a demand was made that all security coordination with Israel be stopped and that the PA be dismantled. ~~~~~~~~~~ What fascinates me as I watch this unfold is how oblivious to this the US administration remains, as it continues to tout the idea of "peace negotiations." How, precisely, is a peaceful and stable state supposed to be established in this atmosphere? If Abbas was reluctant to come to the negotiating table before, he has to be doubly so now. I would guess that he would be risking his life to sit down with Netanyahu. According to Palestinian Media Watch, "PA-controlled media have continuously portrayed the killers as Palestinian heroes and Shahids — holy Martyrs — while describing Israel's killing of the three terrorists as 'murder in cold blood' and 'assassination.'" Abbas personally sent envoys to the families of these murders. ~~~~~~~~~~ It would be my guess, however, that when Netanyahu makes all of his very public (and to my ear terribly distasteful) calls to Abbas to stop the games and come sit down to talk, he is not oblivious to this situation. That is, it seems to me he knows, even as he makes his earnest calls, that this cannot happen. ~~~~~~~~~~ But what shall we conclude about Mitchell, who is due back here soon? Does he begin to understand the futility of his stated goals? It is said he is working on "terms of reference," which would theoretically permit agreement so that Netanyahu and Abbas could sit down together. I have checked with analysts whom I respect, who are not overly alarmed by what is transpiring here, as it all very vague. And I will note that Israel has announced, to the displeasure of the US, that we will be building hundreds of new housing units in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem beyond the Green Line. ~~~~~~~~~~ Rumors still abound about the possibility of the Shalit deal going through. The Hamas website is saying that Israel is refusing to release four "heavy-weight" prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti. So perhaps the earlier alleged leaks were incorrect. A refusal to release this man, and three others guilty of particular evil, would be a major step in the right direction, and would make the deal less likely to be completed. (I know, each one who has committed a terrorist act is guilty of particular evil.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Could the averted disaster on the plane bound for Detroit serve as a wake-up call for Obama? He has now said: "When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable." Indeed. But will he now grapple with the root of the systematic failure? ~~~~~~~~~~ Airport security without profiling is a joke: Dry Bones cartoon. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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A MASS GRAVE NO MORE
Posted by Ari Bussel, December 29, 2009. |
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Like an ancient song, the melody has not changed: a group of Palestinians, armed and trained by the USA with Israeli consent, target a single driver in Judea and Samaria. He was just 45 when his life was taken. His only fault: being Jewish. He dies, leaving a wife and seven children behind. A senseless act of murdering another human being is "heroism" to a barbarian. We, the Jewish People, cannot comprehend this murder. Everything we believe points to holding the sanctity of life above all else. Our enemies, animals of the worse type, know nothing of goodness and virtue. Thus, like animals they must be treated. We bury the dead, mourn and try to resume our lives. They view their evil and our strange response as permission to act again, attack once more. Our enemies understand the rules of the game — their rules. They instigate, murder for their convoluted ideals and a merciful god and expect the upper hand. Retaliation or a response are neither warranted nor permitted. After all, it is their "right" as "Freedom Fighters" to kill at their will. If Israel responds, an immediate chain reaction will ensue. Their deterrence works. We lament and go on with our lives. Like a leaf in the wind, we fly, dead and useless. Our enemies only understand strength, and this they must taste every so often. The IDF and the Israeli Security Services (Shin Beit) were able to immediately locate the terrorists. Normally, they would be brought to Israel for interrogation and then off to summer camp. Not this time. Life in prison without any restrictions is a marvelous thing. One sleeps, trains at the gym, watches TV, communicates with one's cohorts via the Internet or cell phone, eats, studies and waits for the next round of releases. In the meantime the person hosted by Israel receives visitors, conducts interviews and from time to time enjoys sex. "Multiple life sentences?" the greater the number, the greater the respect yielded and the higher the monetary rewards from Iran and various Arab countries and organizations to one's family. One of those terrorists had been previously released under the condition he would refrain from engaging in terror. The word "Terror," apparently, was ill defined. Thus, he has done once again what he did before, knowing well there will be no punishment for his crimes. What is the worst that could happen — another few months in an Israeli jail? With pleasure, visitation rights are permitted, after all. When the IDF soldiers approached, the Muslim terrorist used his wife as a live shield. This is definitely permissible, for in Islam the wife's position is that of servitude to the man. Normally, he would not have hesitated for a moment to use any child who might have been around, but it was late in the evening, the children were asleep. Children make the best sort of shields — they protect and provide for wonderful TV coverage if shot or hurt in defense of the defenseless (yet armed to the teeth) Freedom Fighters. Grab a child as you go, wave him in front of you for an added fanfare. It never fails to accomplish your ends. When using children as shields or active participants, casualties-in-action are unlikely, for the stupid Israelis stop; they actually care. We will erect a mourner's tent — just imagine the rewards on this earth and beyond, the honor bestowed on the parents, the virgins awaiting the child (oh, never mind, the virgins will be reserved for the next homicide bomber of an older age; however, if it is a girl, she may be ripe already as a fruit offering to those ascending to this afterlife). The world is messed to the point where children are trained to serve a cause, women participate willingly and the men no longer resemble anything human. We do not speak different languages any more; we represent the clash of good and evil, day and night, light and darkness, life and death. The murderer claims he is just and the victim is silent. To our utter astonishment, the IDF did what a defense force should do. The higher-ranking officers did not go on national or international interview cycle. They did not talk; they acted. To quote Israel National News: "In swift action by the Shin Bet and the IDF the three murderers responsible for the attack were eliminated." Refreshing and unique behavior and what the military is all about. Intelligence was insufficient to prevent this evil deed ("Kill a Jew driving down the highway") but amazingly successful at pinpointing those involved. The operations side then took over, except this time did not bring the perpetrators for a brief rest in Israel. "Purge the evil from within your midst, and those remaining will hear and fear and will not continue doing the same evil thing in your midst. Your eye shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." Deuteronomy 19: 19-21 The murderers become the new "martyrs," and Israel was immediately promised to suffer as a result, but the message was clear and understood. For every action there is reaction. You murder, you pay with your life. No bargains, no discounts, no discussions, no give and give-some-more. The time for retribution has come. The IDF might actually be a step ahead — finally! The other lesson that needs to be embraced is that the best defense is often offense. If one plans to murder, for the sheer madness and pleasure of the act (the more family members that can be butchered at the same time, the greater the satisfaction), he should not remain alive to execute. Was there not a sentence in this regard in the Jewish Bible? But Jews, pigs and apes, have long forgotten their own Holy Book. If one's fantasy is to smash a four-year old skull against a rock or murder a wife, or a father before a child's eyes, it may be the last convoluted sick picture that person sees. If, like Barguti, now on vacation in an Israeli prison, a person sends someone else to explode as a martyr, then goes to his four year old daughter's music lesson, he will no longer be rewarded with a stay in Israel's prisons. Punishment will be swift and unequivocal and even those who do not understand the language or Western values will begin to comprehend the new IDF — our lives are at least as worthy as yours. Treat us with respect, and you will be treated the same. Try to kill us, and you will pay the price, and better an hour earlier. One other reminder to the IDF and to Israel: Those terrorists are armed to the teeth and beyond by arms the USA, the EU and others have supplied, all with Israeli consent. Time to round up the weapons, confiscate them and declare to the users — be caught with a weapon, near or hiding one, and the punishment will be severe, so severe in fact that the perpetrator will not get the opportunity to exercise the same stupidity again. There will be no questions asked, no second, third or fourth chances extended. Act stupidly; pay accordingly, pay heavily, pay and be an example for all to fear. Then again, "stupid," is a function of definitions. Israel thus far has allowed the flow of armaments, without which peace and order could not prevail in the Palestinian authorities. The result: peace and order have not been achieved, but we armed the enemy who now uses the weaponry and know-how against Israel. How can anyone be blamed when the message was clear, it was allowed. Now that the rules of the game are changing, there will be an adjustment period. Normally, the shorter the time frame the greater the shock, the swifter the change. No firearms of any type should mean just that. It is not a child's game, in English or in Arabic. The penalty for continuing to play with other people's lives is one's own life. It has come down to us or them, life or death, a future or an unnamed mass grave. Israel should not consent to walk like a lamb to slaughter. The last mass graves were those in Europe filled with our people. We swore to future generations and the ghosts of the past, "Never Again," and we must always remember that promise. Apparently someone at the IDF finally has! In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point — counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
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TOO LATE?
Posted by Tom McLaughlin, December 29, 2009. |
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Some of us want to win, but a lot of us don't. "Our leaders are a reflection of our culture," my friend said, "and our culture wants our soldiers to fight without hurting anybody." That's impossible, of course, but it does seem to be what too many Americans want — and our elected leaders are willing to pretend it's possible. So we send our finest young men to fight with one arm tied behind their backs because of our asinine rules of engagement. Our soldiers cannot shoot until the bad guys shoot at them first. Fifty-three percent of us elected a president last fall who thinks he can talk our enemies into liking us. Since his inauguration, he's traveled the world bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing for America when there's nothing to apologize for. He says the War on Terror is over and what we've got now are "Overseas Contingency Operations," whatever the hell that means. His interview with ABC News last July is instructive: ABC'S TERRY MORAN: Define victory in Afghanistan, or maybe that's not the right word. What would be wrong with that? If you ask me, it would be wonderful to see Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashir Assad, Mullah Omar, Hassan Nasrallah, and the rest of our enemies lined up to sign unconditional surrenders. Is President Obama forgetting that he's our Commander-in-Chief? We have a C in C who doesn't want to even say victory? I want one who'll settle for nothing less. Meanwhile, all that bowing and groveling doesn't seem to be working very well. Iran — the world's biggest supporter of terrorism — burned Obama in effigy during their annual "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" festival. One of our own army officers shot dozens of American infidels at Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akbar" and our president wasn't even sure he was a terrorist. A wealthy, British-educated, young Nigerian tried to blow up an American passenger plane with 289 people, Obama called him a "suspect" and an "isolated extremist" who "allegedly" tried to set off a device, as if the terrorist were entitled to the same rights American citizens are. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said: "the system has worked really very, very smoothly" and there was "no indication of a larger terror plot." As if there were no connection between all the RADICAL MUSLIM terrorists who've been attacking Americans, Israelis, British, Spanish, Russians, and others for decades. So many of us are so infected with political correctness, we go to astonishing lengths to avoid calling our enemy by its name. So indoctrinated with self-hating, leftist propaganda about the evils of western civilization are we that we think it's no wonder they hate us and want to kill us. 
An increasing number of Americans don't want to do what it takes to win because they don't believe our way of life is worth fighting for. They don't believe America is unique. Their brains are so addled with multicultural malarkey, they think all countries and all cultures are equal — even if they enslave women, kill homosexuals, execute anyone who converts to another religion, and continually promise to kill anyone who isn't like them — it doesn't make them bad people. They're just another part of the wonderfully diverse human family and should be celebrated like any other part, including ours. And now we've installed an entire national government with that world view. How do you like the way they're functioning so far America? Do you feel safe? Just as the leaders we elect are a reflection of us, so are our children. A fellow teacher asked his writing students recently if the America was the best country in the world and most didn't think so. I teach the same kids, and when I asked them which country was better they looked at me blankly. They couldn't name one. They just parroted the diversity doo-doo they were raised with. This is what America is becoming. Is it too late for us? Are we going to lose?
Tom McLaughlin is a teacher and columnist who lives in Lovell, Maine.
His column is published in Maine and New Hampshire newspapers.
Email: tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net
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MUSLIM SHEIKH PAYS SOLIDARITY VISIT TO THE JEWS OF HEVRON
Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, December 29, 2009. |
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Noam Arnon, a spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hevron, told Arutz Sheva about a very unusual guest who came to show his support on Monday. Making the trip from Italy to Hevron for the second time in recent years, the head of the Italian Muslim Assembly, Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, met with local Jewish leaders in a show of solidarity. The sheikh, an Italian national who received his Islamic education from leading mainstream Saudi and Egyptian Sunni institutions, believes that his religion obligates its followers to support Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. In support of his position, Sheikh Palazzi quotes Koranic passages and traditions that affirm God's assignment of this land for the Jews. As Palazzi has written of himself, he is "a Zionist Muslim clergyman and a friend of the Jewish people." "We are talking about a unique personality," Arnon told Arutz Sheva. "A man who connects warmly with everyone he meets. A very brave individual." During Sheikh Palazzi's visit to Hevron, community leaders discussed with him ways in which Islamist fundamentalism might be curbed. "He emphasized Saudi Arabia as responsible for extremism," Arnon said. "It funds mosques in Europe and the United States and then determines who will be allowed to speak in them. In this way, Islam becomes more and more extreme, which is a dangerous trend." In his activities in Italy, Arnon explained, Palazzi teaches what he calls "the real Islam", which he believes includes tolerance, Jewish-Muslim fellowship and Zionism. "He even organized a protest outside the Iranian embassy in Rome when Ahmadinejad talked about destroying Israel," Arnon added. Sheikh Palazzi, who is also the Muslim co-founder of the Islam-Israel Fellowship of the Root & Branch Association, told his Hevron hosts that Italian Jews are now shifting their political positions further to the Right. In the past, according to Palazzi, Jews in Italy were primarily supporters of the Left, but a slow change in underway. Arnon said that Sheikh Palazzi believes his efforts, as a non-Jew supporting Israel, have contributed to that shift. Asked about threats against the Zionist sheikh Arnon was adamant that he was perfectly safe in Hevron. "He walked around [he without bodyguards," he said. However, Arnon said that he would probably be unable to openly enter Gaza or Ramallah under current circumstances. Palazzi's visit in Israel continues for another few days, during which he will be making his way to other communities in Judea and Samaria to express his support for continued Jewish development and sovereignty in those regions. In 1998, Palazzi and Dr. Asher Eder (Jerusalem) co-founded the Islam-Israel Fellowship, promoting a positive Muslim attitude towards Jews and Israel based on what Prof. Palazzi believes are the authentic teachings of Muhammad as expressed in the Qur'an and the Hadith. Prof. Palazzi serves as Muslim Co-Chairman of the Fellowship. Dr. Eder serves as the Jewish Co-Chairman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hadi_Palazzi |
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RABBI'S MURDERERS, THE P.A. & ISRAELI SUPREME COURT; ARAB TRIES TO
STEAL JEWISH FARM; WARS OF THE FUTURE; IRAN'S ALLIANCES
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 29, 2009. |
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RABBI'S MURDERERS AND THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY & ISRAELI SUPREME COURT The three suspected murderers of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai had been convicted of deep involvement in terrorism. They were released by order of Israel's Supreme Court, despite its being warned how dangerous they were. National Union chairman MK Yaakov Katz demanded that the Supreme Court judges be indicted for having released the terrorists. CEO Meir Indor of the organization representing terror victims, Almagor, demands that Israel stop releasing terrorists and re-evaluate Israel's relationship with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) leadership. He claims "that the PA leaks information, training, and arms to Tanzim terrorists on a regular basis." The family of the slain terrorists claimed that their men were not armed and were executed. The P.A. and the so-called human rights organization, B'tselem, reiterated the complaint, which the P.A. made to the U.S., which asked Israel for an explanation (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/27.) The P.A. complaint said the raid was destabilizing; it did not condemn the murder that its citizens committed. I think that shows us what kind of society the P.A. is. These terrorist had been released as "part of the amnesty deal with the P.A. in 2007, in which Israel agreed not to pursue gunmen who lay down their arms (www.imra.org.il, 12/27 from Justice for Pollard). [Other reports described weapons found by them, which tests proved their use in murdering the rabbi, and that their refusal to surrender necessitated opening fire. ] MK Katz did not state what crime the judges should be indicted for. ISRAELIS OWNED FARM ARAB GOT THEM INVITED FOR TRESPASSING ON Four years ago, an Arab started plowing land on the Maon farm, run by Jews. Four farmers put him off the land. The Arab brought charges against them. Police charged them with trespassing. Documents brought in court proved that the Arab did not own the land. His testimony was self-contradictory. Defense attorneys asked that the case be dropped. The judge agreed, but it was up to the police whether to drop it. They did (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/27.) Israel is not known for speedy trials. Shouldn't judges have the power to drop cases? The police have too much power to relentlessly persecute dissidents. In case after case, Arab claimants are found not to own the real estate, and Jews are found not to have assaulted them except in defense of their lives or property. Why wasn't the Arab, who plowed land not his own, indicted for trespassing? Note: There, plowing land starts to establish ownership. Hence the Arab was attempting to usurp the land. It is a common practice. Groups predisposed to sympathize with the Arabs tend to accept Arab claims without proof. How do they justify their indignation without their having proof? WARS OF THE FUTURE, AND ISRAEL 
As usual, I don't go into much technical detail on military matters. This newspaper reporter was upbeat, but his report saddens me. Always preparing for more war may be necessary, but it is a sad comment on the human condition. The U.S. once had hoped that space would be kept a war-free zone. It contains the communications hubs of the world, thereby becoming a target whose destruction could cripple a whole country. Space now contains so much non-recycled junk that it becomes a hazard to navigation. Countries that develop the weapons of the future sell them to other countries, including aggressors, making possible more wars of the future. In this way, some advanced countries make a little money, but lose a lot more in the resulting wars. OBAMA MADE IT HARD FOR ABBAS TO ENTER NEGOTIATIONS? 
"When asked in an interview last week with the Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat how he ended up in the tree, Abbas replied, 'Obama laid down the condition of halting the settlements completely. What could I say to him? Should I say this is too much?' The Palestinian president, it appears, 'blames' his American counterpart for landing him in this diplomatic predicament." In other words, since Obama went too far, Abbas could not demand less, and Netanyahu could not concede that much used (www.imra.org.il, 12/27). Perhaps I was a little too severe about Abbas, who understands his culture, which Obama apparently does not. At least the U.S. seems to be saving travel expenses as envoy Mitchell has less to do now. ISRAELI PEOPLE APPROVE OF PRISONER TRADE By 76% to 14%, according to a Dahaf poll commissioned by Yediot Ahronot, Israelis approve of the proposed prisoner exchange (www.imra.org.il, 12/27). I wonder whether the poll would have found the same, if those opposed to it could have publicized bereaved relatives of hundreds murdered by terrorists released in earlier exchanges or gestures. One of the current stories is about the release of four terrorists who went on to murder an Israeli a few days ago, and then were shot by the IDF. 
IRAN'S STRATEGIC ALLIANCE GROWING 
Ahmadinejad (A.P./Bebeto Matthews) Hizbullah deployed at the Israeli border, in collusion with the Lebanese Army that the U.S. arms, while Lebanon unilaterally declared itself unbound by the mandatory UN ceasefire resolution that Hizbullah must disarm [and not fortify the border]. The Prime Minister of Iran went to Damascus, apparently to submit to its authority, and Syria's Foreign Minister visited Beirut, apparently to issue orders. Turkey signed 47 trade deals with Syria. Syria put it, ""We are working to establish close ties between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq so these countries can act as one regional bloc in order to promote peace, security and stability in the Middle East, while keeping the West's dictates and lust for the region's natural and oil resources at bay." Egypt had just denounced Iran for sponsoring a terrorist plot against it. Then an Iranian envoy visited Egypt, whose President flew to Saudi Arabia. Something big is brewing. For one thing, apparently Egypt reconciled itself to Iran becoming the strongest regional power, long Egypt's supposed prerogative. Israel had hoped the U.S. would take care of Iran's nuclear violations and weapons development. Pres. Obama on the one hand indicated approval of the House of Representatives' intent to levy harsh sanctions against Iran, but on the other hand helped block a similar discussion in the House of the Senate. China still rejects sanctions. Obama is letting Sen. Kerry beg Iran for an audience. Appeasement is Obama's only policy (Caroline Glick, www.imra.org.il, 12/27). IDF FUMBLES IN WAR AND SHUNS RISK, BUT RISKS NATIONAL SECURITY The government of Israel seems oblivious to recent strategic setbacks. It has been distracted by the proposed prisoner exchange, which is not a strategic issue except that the conditions of the exchange imperil Israeli security. The national security adviser criticized the Chief of Staff for approving the exchange [which is a political issue] and without ever having offered the government a plan for freeing Hamas' Israeli captive. IDF forces were ordered not to try, when they recently were entering Gaza. The Israeli media discusses who should have consulted whom, not the substance of the security adviser's criticism. Just as the IDF fumbled the Lebanon war by relying solely upon air power even after that power was found inadequate for the task, the IDF fumbled the Gaza war by various self-restrictions, including not re-taking the Gaza-Egypt border. Now top commanders admit they will have to do so, but at a higher price in lives. Refusing to fight and defeat the enemy, the IDF is pursuing Israelis, before in Gaza, now in Judea-Samaria. One wonders whether the Israel army is a competent defense force (Caroline Glick in www.imra.org.il, 12/27). The problem with the IDF is that it has become politicalized and that its politicians even more narrow-mindedly so. OBAMA OFFICIAL ON ANTISEMITISM BASHES ISRAEL President Obama appointed Hannah Rosenthal to head the Office to
Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Rosenthal belongs to the
anti-Israel lobby, J-Street. J Street organized an Israel-bashing
event. Israeli Ambassador Oren declined to attend. Rosenthal rebuked
him for it.
IDF CLARIFIES WHAT IN GAZA IS A TARGET The Jerusalem Post reported the IDF position that it has a list of targets in Gaza that it will not bomb unless it is attacked from there. My source, IMRA, asked the Post reporter whether the IDF would "respond with force" against buildings used for storing weapons or as a command post. The reporter said his understanding is that the IDF would, even if the firing emanates from another building. An IDF map of Gaza has about 1,500 dots, each representing a hospital, UN facility, school, or home of foreigners and journalists. Those are off-limits to IDF military response. The IDF keeps the map up-to-date. The map reflects a policy different from what the UN accused it of — deliberately firing upon UN and other civilian facilities. Hamas is building large missile silos capable of firing 20 missiles at-a-time (www.imra.org.il, 12/25). When Hamas allows a rocket to be launched against Israel, why does the IDF make only a minor retaliation, such that Hamas claims to be winning? Why doesn't it eradicate half the fortified positions, ammunition dumps, and command posts. Might that not make the price for attacking Israel too high?
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 and visit his website:
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AFTER THE WAR
Posted by Sandra Levy, December 29, 2009. |
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AFTER THE WAR This was written by Liat Collins and it appeared in the
December 27, 2009 Jerusalem Post
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It has been exactly a year since Israel launched what is officially known as Operation Cast Lead, but often referred to as "the war in Gaza." At some point during the campaign, my Sabra next-door neighbor found me in the kitchen helping my son pack a care package for soldiers — part of his elementary school's war effort. "Oh, it's so sad," she sighed. "I don't think there has ever been a generation that hasn't sent packages to soldiers. I remember doing it in the Six Day War." Until Cast Lead was launched on December 27, schoolchildren all over the country had been sending care packages to children in Sderot and other communities close to Gaza which were suffering from constant missile attacks. A friend in Sderot, fed up with the government's policy of restraint, once quipped that she had considered lobbing the stale cakes, cookies, chocolate bars and doughnuts over the border into Gaza as ammunition. When the war finally broke out — after even Ehud Olmert's government couldn't ignore some 80 missiles a day — she felt more relief than fear. Having spent eight years raising her children under fire, she realized
war would not be worse than what had been considered peace until then.
Her family was already used to living with missiles: At home, not
locking the bathroom door and sleeping in the safest part of the
house; when out, automatically judging the location of the closest
shelter. In Sderot, they have just 15 seconds from the Color Red
warning until the missile lands. It's probably the only place in the
world where wearing seat belts was banned as dangerous.
IN ASHKELON, the situation was different. Although under threat, residents hadn't had to live with Kassams before. It was really tough," says Dr. Stephen Malnick, a longtime resident. "There are so many things we had taken for granted that we suddenly couldn't do: like going shopping and walking along the promenade on the beach. My daughter, a student at Sapir College, didn't leave the apartment for two weeks — except once: She went to a salon and had her nails manicured. She told me, 'There are some things a woman just doesn't give up on,'" he recalls. Malnick, who immigrated from England, jokes that one of his strongest memories was missing the end of a sports broadcast in which Manchester United was playing. "I mean, is nothing sacred? Can't a man watch a football match in peace?" he demands, his British sense of humor reminiscent of the spirit that got his parents (and mine) through the Blitz in World War II. Malnick, whose wife's family were also suddenly under attack in Beersheba, says traveling to work in Rehovot, just outside the Kassam/Grad range at that time, was like visiting a different world. "We went to a restaurant and when we mentioned we came from Ashkelon we were treated like war heroes and given a 10 percent reduction." Quickly the Malnicks got used to the situation and even Fluffy, the family dog, learned to recognize the sirens and the need to take shelter. My cat had a similar Pavlovian response to the sirens of the 1991 Gulf War. It's not just generation after generation of children who are learning to live with war, it seems. A veterinarian in Sderot recently told a television interviewer that in addition to the usual work you would expect in a small-town practice, he has to cope with traumatized animals, and sometimes physical injury as a result of the Kassam attacks. My friend swears that all the birds fled the town. Malnick, director of Internal Medicine C Department at Rehovot's Kaplan Medical Center, well knows the effects of stress. He has written papers, together with his colleagues, on what he calls the first known case of "Kassam colon" — the irritable bowel syndrome suffered by a 35-year-old who worked in Sderot. "IBS is very common," he says. "But to the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of IBS triggered by missile attacks or an early warning system." A year after the war, life is back to normal in the South. Actually, it's better than before. Friends in Sderot, Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod report a rise in real estate prices. "Suddenly, everyone realizes that the whole country is in the same boat so it doesn't matter so much where you live," says Malnick. "And we've also learned that the shelters and reinforced rooms really work." Enrollment at both Sapir College, next to Sderot, and Beersheba's
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is up.
THERE ARE plenty of stories that should give our enemies pregnant pause for thought: As in every previous war, Operation Cast Lead has been followed by a baby boom, with proud parents in the South joking that they had had to find some way of reducing tension. (In the 1991 Gulf War, sexologist Ruth Westheimer memorably told Israelis how to make love while wearing gas masks.) Twelve months later, the press is full, too, of opinion pieces debating whether or not the war was a success — hard to assess when the aims were not clearly set out. On the negative side, the world, while grudgingly admitting Israel has a right to defend itself, has condemned the IDF response as disproportionate. This is easy to do when 1,166 Palestinians died compared to 13 Israelis (including 10 soldiers). But it ignores the fact that the terrorists chose to hide behind civilians while Israeli citizens took to shelters. Another failure: Gilad Schalit, abducted by Hamas three and a half years ago, is, at the time I'm writing, still in captivity. And although the rocket fire has been seriously reduced since Cast Lead ended on January 18, it has not stopped and the range of the rockets has even increased. Nonetheless, whereas in 2008, more than 3,200 rockets and mortars were fired on Israel from Gaza, since the end of Cast Lead, that number has dropped to 242. These figures mean that when friends in Sderot and nearby Kibbutz Sa'ad invite me to visit, I don't immediately think "over my dead body." That my friends say "only" 242 missiles is both shocking and sad: What other country thinks that is a reasonable number of rockets aimed at civilian targets in one year? Just how do you define proportionate? I truly feel for the innocent residents of Gaza. They undoubtedly suffered greatly in the war. And, sadly, I suspect they will continue to suffer: While Israel has spent the past year feverishly adding protective rooms and shelters in areas closest to Gaza, Hamas has spent the year digging more tunnels to smuggle in arms. And while my friends have resumed normal life — or in the case of the kids growing up in Sderot started to live one — residents of Gaza have had to cope with the increasing imposition of Shari'a law and ever-stricter Islamist norms. Israelis and Palestinians both know that the current calm won't last. Hamas, and its Iranian backers, pin their hopes on the ever-increasing rocket range which now, quite possibly, reaches as far as Tel Aviv. Israel, on the other hand, is developing new missile defense systems — the Arrow 3 for long-range ballistic missiles, the Iron Dome for short-range rockets and David's Sling for medium-range ones. It is only a matter of time before Israelis are again under attack — from rockets and public opinion. Fortunately, if nothing else, Cast Lead has shown that we will survive and bounce back — with more babies. And we'll all sigh and again express the hope that finally a generation will grow up in peace. Contact Sandra Levy by email at shula2933@gmail.com |
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MITCHELL DRAWING UP 'TERMS OF REFERENCE' FOR RELAUNCH OF TALKS
Posted by Boris Celser, December 29, 2009. |
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My comment to an article on Mitchell shuttling to restart "peace process."
Mitchell is coming with a letter to Israel and another to the Palestinian Authority. According to an Arab diplomat: "The United States is hoping that the two letters will serve as a basis for the relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but we don't know if they will satisfy the Palestinians." The White House worries about satisfying the Palestinians... |
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4. Two draft letters of guarantee — will Israel fall for it again? A few months ago the Obama administration claimed it had no record of any guarantees given by the Bush administration. They seemed to have lost all documents. Will these new letters of guarantee be made available to the world, and authenticated as legitimate by a notary in the US? I mean, what we are talking about here are "guarantees" from him who can not produce even a birth certificate. I also bet that in the future, should any letter go missing, it will be the one given to Israel, not to the Palestinians. Any takers? Bori s — Canada (12/29/2009 06:06) Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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THE JEW FROM KUWAIT
Posted by Roberta Dzubow, December 28, 2009. |
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This was written by Mark Halawa, the Jew from Kuwait. |
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My Muslim background left me unprepared for this shocking discovery.. Growing up in Kuwait, I had the best of everything. My father owned a successful construction company, and provided us five children with amenities like piano lessons, swimming, calligraphy and trips all over the world. Although we were Muslims like everyone else, we were totally secular and my father always aimed to shield us from religious people whom he described as crazies. I grew up being told that Israelis and Jews were the lowest type of creature in existence, put on Earth only to kill us Arabs. In math class the teacher would say, "If one rocket killed X number of Jews, how many would six rockets kill?" My father was rabidly anti-Israel. He was a product of Nasser's school of thought: secular from a Muslim point of view, yet deeply dedicated to the idea of pan-Arab unity. Israel, he believed, was an American proxy in the post-colonial Middle East. 
My father was a supporter of the PLO since the 1960s when Yasser Arafat (who founded the PLO while living in Kuwait) was raising money from wealthy Palestinians working in Gulf States. As an engineer, my father participated in a program where the engineering association in Kuwait would deduct money from his monthly salary to be sent directly to the PLO. He insisted that war and resistance was the only way to deal with Israel. In the summer of 1990, when I was 12 years old, our lives changed completely. We were on vacation when Saddam Hussein invaded and annexed Kuwait. My father's business — along with much of the country — was ravaged. Our savings became worthless pieces of paper. We could not go back to Kuwait, so we immigrated to Canada. My father did manage to sneak back in for a few days to retrieve important busine! ss documents that would later be useful in recovering compensation from a United Nations fund. Praying in the Dark Of my family, I'm the only one who stayed in Canada. My father never really adjusted to life in the New World, and he had good business contacts back in Jordan, so my parents returned there. All my siblings also moved back to the Middle East. One brother runs a successful company in Jordan, two brothers are studying in Egypt (one dentistry and the other business), and my sister lives in Dubai where she works in the banking industry. One evening in 2003, I was studying at the university library in London, Ontario, when I happened to notice an older man. From his chassidic garb, he looked like a religious Jew. My curiosity was aroused, so I approached him and asked, "Are you Jewish?" With a gentle smile on his face, he said, "No, but I like to dress this way." I didn't know whether he was joking or not. All the religious people I had come across in the past were pretty scary. Are Jews supposed to be funny? His name was Dr. Yitzhak Block, a retired professor of philosophy. We exchanged a few words and then he asked about my background. My family history is pretty complex, and I get a headache every time I have to explain it all. So I simply told him that I'm an Arab from Kuwait, and mentioned that my grandmother from my mother's side is Jewish. My mother's parents met in Jerusalem when my grandfather, an Arab from the West Bank, was serving in the Jordanian army fighting the Zionists. He was 18 years old and my grandmother was 16. Her father ran a school in Jerusalem — the same school where she would jump off the wall to meet my handsome, uniformed grandfather. They fell in love, got married, and lived for a number of years in Shechem (Nablus). After my grandfather was discharged from the Jordanian army, the family moved to Kuwait, where oil profits were fueling huge business and construction projects. That's where my mother met my father and got married. 
Knowing about my grandmother's Jewish background always made me curious about Jews. Whenever we were on vacation in Amman, Jordan, I used to constantly watch the Israeli channel — when my parents weren't around. My favorite was the Israeli national anthem, and I would stay up late waiting to hear them play it at the end of the TV transmission. Standing there in the university library, this religious Jew, Dr. Block, looked at me and said, "In Muslim law, you're considered Muslim, since the religion goes by the father. But according to Jewish law, you're Jewish, since Jewish identity is transmitted by the mother." My head started to spin and memories of my childhood in Kuwait began to surface. I recalled how my grandmother had a funny name on her documents, Mizrachi, which I never heard before. She also had a small prayer book with Hebrew letters, and she prayed in the dark crying. (I thought the Wailing Wall was so named because crying was a part of prayer.) Aside from a vague family legend, my grandmother never mentioned anything about being Jewish — but now the pieces were fitting into place. I thanked Dr. Block for the conversation, and ran home to tell my roommate what I heard. He smiled and said, "So you're a Mus-Jew!" I was not amused. I went to my room and called my mother. She rebuffed the story, saying, "Don't listen to people like that. We are Muslims and that's that." 
I decided to call my grandmother myself and bring up the subject. I beat around the bush a bit — after all, she'd been denying it for the past 50 years — and then finally blurted out, "Grandma, are you Jewish?" She didn't answer the question directly, but she started crying and spoke about the years of Arab-Israeli conflict. She told me how her brother Zaki had been killed in Jerusalem before the rebirth of the State. To me that was sufficient confirmation of her Jewishness and I decided to leave it at that. Over the next few months, I avoided the whole issue of Judaism, mainly for the sake of not upsetting my mother. Besides, I was just finishing university, and career was my main priority. I was content with telling myself that I belonged to a mixed-faith family. Streaming Tears About a year later, I was rollerblading one day in my neighborhood when I took a hard fall and badly sprained my wrist. The road was smooth so I couldn't figure out why I had fallen. I couldn't stop thinking that it seemed like a push from Above. These thoughts caught me by surprise, since I wasn't into spirituality and I never had any religious connection. I was a bodybuilder, had tons of friends, and was on the heels of a successful career as a foreign exchange trader. So why had this happened? Because my wrist was heavily bandaged, I was forced to take off work for a few days. Dr.. Block had mentioned the name of his synagogue, so that Saturday morning, I decided to go check out the scene. I was hesitant at the thought of everyone being from European background and me the only Middle Easterner, but I decided to go anyway. I called a cab and got dropped off at the synagogue. As I walked in, the first person I saw looked Indian. He shook my hand, said "Shabbat Shalom," and handed me a kippah. Then I saw a black man which really surprised me. And Dr. Block was there, too. I was handed a prayer book, shown the proper page, and before I knew it everyone was singing, V'Shamru:
Something hit me and I felt as though I knew this song. I just stood there taking in the sounds, the smells and the sights. Everything felt whole and perfect. It was the opposite of everything I'd ever heard about Jews or Judaism. At this point my tears were streaming in freefall. It was the opposite of everything I'd heard about Jews. After the services finished, I met everyone over Kiddush. I spoke with an Egyptian couple and we shared our personal stories. Jews from all backgrounds were gathered together and I was another piece of this puzzle. After Kiddush, I accepted Dr. Block's invitation to join him for lunch. I told him: "I can't believe I'm here, singing and praying in Hebrew. I could never have imagined it." He smiled and said, "It's not so hard to believe. Every Jew is born with a little Torah and a little Menorah inside." He then pressed his shoulder up against mine and said, "All it takes is for another Jew to bump into him and light it up." Dreams of Peace My interest grew from there, and I began studying Torah and keeping Shabbat. Last year I spent a month in Israel touring and studying on Aish HaTorah's Jerusalem Fellowships program. It was a great "homecoming.! " 
I still keep in close contact with my family and old friends. They're wonderful people and I love them very much. Yet it's hard to relate to them on many levels. In the Arab world there are tons of misconceptions and misinformation regarding Israel. So I am working to develop a program to educate Arabs about Jews and Judaism, to dissolve the stereotypes propagated by the Muslim media and schools. I hope that my unique background can help bridge some of that divide. Another way I hope to achieve this is to help establish economic relations between Israel and Arab countries.. That would create trust and shared experience, which could be directed toward the goal of a genuine and lasting peace. Another issue I'm trying to address is how the Arab world is filled with Holocaust denial. This past summer I went to Auschwitz, and I am working to produce the first-ever Arabic documentary about the Holocaust. I want to explain to Muslims in their own language exactly what happened. It often seems like the Arab-Israeli conflict is intractable. Yet I believe in today's world, there is a real opportunity for a breakthrough. Arabs today have a more universal education, which makes them more open and curious. Also they are meeting Israelis and Jews in their travels around the world, which breaks down misconceptions. And as we saw during the recent protests in Iran, many young people in the Muslim world are yearning for reform. On top of all this, they have high-speed Internet access which opens up all kinds of new avenues of communication, and the possibility of forming new friendships unrestricted by borders or political agendas. Perhaps this can be the basis of a grassroots movement to mend relations and hopefully one day achieve peace. My Jewish cousins are all living as Muslims in the Middle East. The other issue that needs urgent attention is intermarriage in Israel. Unfortunately, a story like my grandmother's is not so rare. Many young Jewish women are wooed by Arab men and brought back to live in their villages. The children and grandchildren are never told the truth, especially with political tensions and the emotional unrest this would cause a family. As a result, many Jews are lost to our people. My mother has five sisters, and from there I have a few dozen cousins who are all Jewish — all living as Muslims in the Middle East. I recently met a seventh-generation Israeli, whose cousin married a Palestinian and went to live in Saudi Arabia; her descendents are Jews living in Saudi Arabia. All my relatives know that I'm practicing Judaism, and for the most part they're accepting. I can talk to them about Judaism and they're politely interested. We love and respect each other. My father is resistant, however, given that secularism and war against Israel are the two ideological pillars of his life. When I first became interested in Judaism, I didn't tell him straight out. We were having a political discussion and I mentioned that I support the State of Israel. That ignited a big clash and I've learned to only discuss these matters with him in an indirect way. I always know when I've crossed the line; he gets angry and calls me a "Zionist." The other big exception — not surprisingly — is my grandmother. I've asked her a number of times for more information about her family background, but she refuses to talk about it. Maybe one day I will find the key to opening her up. Growing up, I was taught that Jews were the source of all evil, descended from monkeys and pigs. On the other hand, I had the image of my grandmother holding her small prayer book with the Hebrew letters, praying with tender devotion. She is the sweetest person I know and there's no way she came from a bloodthirsty gang of murderers. She gave me a Jewish soul, and in her own way, it was she who kept my Jewish spark alive.
Contact Roberta Dzubow by email at Roberta@adgforum.com
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WHAT IF ...?
Posted by Paul Lademain, December 28, 2009. |
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The leadership of Israel allowed the US State Dept. to poke its nose into Israel's internal affairs in a way that violates established international law. International law and treaties committed the Balfour Declaration into law that binds the US and the UK and obliges them to recognize then more extensive boundaries for the nation of Israel than BHusseinO and HIllary are currently willing to admit. Their feigned ignorance. however, is of no moment because these two individuals cannot modify established law. Nor may the governments who bound themselves to the Treaty that recognized Israel's boundaries (and Jewish Palestine's paramount claims to its land) repudiate their agreements and this is so despite Barack and Hillary's current attempts to tell Israel where to park its citizens. The State Dept. has damaged Americans and diminished US influence throughout the ME by aligning itself with the Saudis to nobody's benefit other than the members of the Carlyle Group and former Secy. of State James Baker. The Euroids like to talk about refusing to recognize Israel's right to develop its lands. They like to say that refuse to recognize Israel's right to its lands. Their recognition is unnecessary — because the nation of Israel has always had a paramount claims to the lands recognized as "Jewish Palestine" during the Twenties and in 1967 Israel merely asserted authority over lands that already belonged to them and this land includes the West Bank and Gaza and most of the Golan Heigths. Jerusalem is the holy city of Isrel. It is only by the good graces of Israel that Jerusalem is open to religions other than Judaism. Hillary, especially, is prone to forget that Jesus was a Jew. So, what if Israel decided not to "recognize" Belgium? Or Jordan? Something to think about. Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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BRITAIN TO SEND $80 MILLION IN JIZYA TO THE PALESTINIANS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 28, 2009. |
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Thiis was written by Robert Spencer and it appeared today in
Jihad Watch
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Part of the money is earmarked to fight "extremism" — although how this will be spent will be interesting, given that the British authorities have no clue about what exactly constitutes "extremism," and are failing miserably at countering it in Britain itself. "Britain to send £50m to Palestine," by Donald Macintyre in The Independent, December 28 (thanks to Weasel Zippers): Britain yesterday marked the first anniversary of Israel's military onslaught on Gaza by announcing a £50m aid package for Palestinians, including backing for what it called "a drive against extremism" among the territory's young people. Once again the mainstream media fails to note how Hamas launches attacks from civilian areas in order to draw retaliatory fire it can portray as wanton targeting of civilians. The British aid is in part intended to alleviate that crisis. The bulk of the money will go to budget support for the moderate-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. But £7m has been earmarked to help war-stricken Gazans in the winter. Another £5m will pay for 562 teachers in UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in the area.... Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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EUROPE WE HARDLY KNEW YE
Posted by Norma Zager, December 28, 2009. |
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"The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay,
The latest terrorist attempt on a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Detroit is the greatest example and warning to the world that a sleeping giant has awakened. We are all bursting with pride. Obviously, the terrorist had no idea what city he was headed for or he would have thought twice. Detroit? Are you kidding me? Murder capital USA? I can tell you the difference between Detroit and other cities. In Los Angeles they hire people to come to your house and beat you up and call it a personal trainer. In Detroit people come to your house and beat you up for free. They call it a crime statistic. The terrorist attempt may also have been a call to arms to the enormous Arab population that exists just outside Detroit in Dearborn. This latest incident is proof-positive, that although America's leaders are buffoons of the highest order, Americans are not. While Europe is busy doing nothing as Islamic extremists slowly take over each country one by one, Americans will kick your bottom and beat you senseless with their purse if you start with them. I am certain the passengers on that Northwest plane had to be pulled off the bomber or he'd have been beaten to a pulp. He may have been for all we know, no details about his injuries have been released. Europe has already lost the war unaware they were under siege. Americans get it. They know the wind blowing across the Great Plains is a dangerous one and they are up for the challenge. Why, because we're Americans. We belly up to the bar and throw our hats into the ring. We charge full speed ahead and take no prisoners. We are simply the gutsiest, people on earth. Detroit? What was this fool thinking? Detroit? The guy is lucky to be even somewhat alive. No one need apologize for America. Yes, we butt into the world's business too much. More than we'd all like sometimes, but it's because we are the planet's Big Brother. We look out for nations weaker than ourselves. It's what we do and we take plenty of heat for our protective attitude toward this crazy world. And what a world it is now. Lord how I long for the good old days when we wore the badge reading Ugly Americans with pride and dignity. When we walked the streets of European capitals amid scorn and ridicule. Ah, those were the days my friends. I believe the expression became part of popular culture when The Ugly American, a political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer, became a best seller in 1958. We were reviled like a shapely prom queen who is the target of vicious catty attacks by every wallflower at the dance. However, unlike the wallflowers that outgrow their ugliness and bloom into beautiful women, Europe has turned into something neither pretty nor appealing. France, long the arrogance and cowardice capital of the world is in danger of losing Brigitte Bardot to a burka? Wonder if those rude Parisian waiters speak Arabic? Guess English and those "obnoxious American tourists" are looking pretty good to them right about now. Long after the Eiffel Tower is turned into a Mosque, the U.S. will still be waving its flag and singing God Bless America at baseball games on Sunday afternoon. At least France is putting up as much of a fight as the French are capable of, but England and its Westminster Abbey will soon crumble under the oppressive weight of a growing Muslim population. The Queen better save her money because as soon as Islam is running the show in Parliament, royalty will take a backseat to Allah in Buckingham Palace. And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, The Jew-hating-hypocritical-British government is still waging their anti-Semitic war diplomatically, since another crusade would be too high profile. Guilt ridden and fearful after their iffy, trumped-up record against the Muslims in the eighteenth century, Britain has decided to give in and literally hand over the keys to the Kingdom. They safely assert their minimal masculinity through infrequent attempts to show "those Jews in Israel" who's the boss. Scotland, who decided to release the Pan Am terrorist bomber to the heather on the hill is, in a word, useless. By the way Scotland, the bomber ain't dead yet. Maybe you should have just fed him to the Loch Ness monster. Then we have Italy, so full of art, culture and pasta, giver of all things Mafia, the Vatican, Marcello Mastriani and gelato. Don't think anyone ever believed the Mob would roll over for guys with schmatas on their heads. The eternal city is in serious danger of becoming the ghost of pizzas past. What will become of the Catholic Church? Can the armies of the Vatican match the army of Allah? I don't think so! Take a good look at the Israeli churches after the Muslims took over the region and removed every last vestige of Christianity. Germany, once a Fascist republic hell bent on reaching new heights of evil, and succeeding beautifully I might add, has succumbed to reason. As compared with Sweden, Belgium and Norway, Germany today is a breath of fresh air in a Europe so filled with hatred it cannot avoid being crushed under the weight of its own evil deeds. Go figure. I would be remiss if I failed to mention Spain. So tied into its past, Spain is considering reinstating the inquisition. Since Jews are more hated and reviled than ever, who'd care? In Spain, Torquemada still rules, and the U.S. is busy elsewhere pursuing a Miss Congeniality Trophy. At the Solar Decathlon in Europe next summer, where teams from 20 universities around the globe will participate, the team from Israel's Ariel University Center of in the West Bank had qualified, but the Spanish government recently told the team it was removed from the competition because the university is in "occupied territories." They U.S. didn't even utter a peep despite the fact it is one of the event's most significant financial sponsors. But then it is also responsible for the financial wellbeing of yet another organization — the U.N. The similarities are frightening. Yes, the European Union is a thing of beauty all right. It is a sad, pathetic remnant of a continent's former glory. Raggedy and shabby, awash in its own cowardice, it is a testament to the power of Islam and Islam's driving force. The Churchill Museum features a war room intact. The phone sits at the ready to receive calls from Washington and other allies. Sir Winston was unafraid to stand up and shout, "There is evil, we must destroy it." And destroy it they did with lots of help from those "Ugly Americans." All of Europe would easily have succumbed to the powerful Nazi War Machine and would be speaking German had not we joined the battle. Now Europe is rolling over for the Islamic extremist machine while the Ugly Americans are busily apologizing, for what I can't even imagine. Europe has already lost the war. It is under the influence of a new Hitler and a new Mussolini and hatred reigns supreme once again. Their leaders believe they are hurting the Jews, but they are not. They are signing their own death warrant. Israel will do what it must to survive. Long after Britain, Sweden, Spain and all the other pathetic countries of the EU are Muslim, Israel will be a refuge for the Jews in Europe. It will gain in power and prestige and continue to thrive using intellect to further its position and gain might. Israel's leaders are trying to get along and play nice with the world. Make no mistake when the time comes, Israel will not go gently again. The Arabs know this well and although they rage, rant and beat their chests like monkeys at the Bronx Zoo, they don't doubt for a minute Israel will destroy them if pushed too hard. Wake up and smell the hummus guys. Those Ugly Americans aren't going anywhere. Just look toward Detroit and an airplane sitting on a tarmac and that is all the proof you need that Americans got game. In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point — counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
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NO PEACE DEAL IN NEXT 10 TO 20 YEARS
Posted by Truth Provider, December 28, 2009. |
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"We need to tell the world that there are no 'magic solutions,'" Lieberman said. "We will not get to a permanent agreement in the coming decade, or the one after that. The Palestinians are even unable to reach a stable peace agreement among themselves." Dear friends, Even if you do not like Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, it does not mean he is always wrong. In fact, he has proven correct all along. Not one liberal wish or prediction has ever materialized or was proven correct. So why do so many continue to believe in the possibility of a permanent peace rather than learn to read the glaring facts? Why does PM Netanyahu continue to make painful concessions instead of declaring that Israel has tried everything and now it is the Palestinians' turn to do something? Your Truth Provider,
This was written by Herb Keinon and it appeared today in the
Jerusalem Post
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Even as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to lure the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday that he does not see any chance for a comprehensive agreement in the next 10 to 20 years. "We think that if we make more concessions everything will work out," he said at a speech to the country's 140 ambassadors and consul-generals who are participating in a conference this week in Jerusalem. "Even if we return the last grain of sand, and divide Jerusalem, and agree to all the demands, nothing will change and we will be in the same situation." Lieberman cast doubt on the ability of the Palestinian leadership to ever reach an end of the conflict with Israel. "Israel has proved more than any other country that it is ready for painful concessions," he said. "We brought here a group of terrorists from Tunisia, we gave them guns and a government and even gave up Gush Katif." Lieberman said that the leadership of the PA was neither ready nor willing to "sign on a peace agreement whose significance is an end to the conflict. It doesn't matter what we offer, they will always find an excuse to say 'no.'" As proof of his thesis, Lieberman pointed to former prime minister Ehud Olmert who he said agreed to give the Palestinians "everything, including Jerusalem, refugees and a return to the 1967 borders — and nothing happened." The foreign minister said Netanyahu went a long distance toward the Palestinians by delivering his Bar-Ilan University speech on June 14, in which he spoke of a demilitarized Palestinian state, removed numerous roadblocks throughout the West Bank, and declared a 10-month moratorium on housing starts. "We need to tell the world that there are no 'magic solutions,'" Lieberman said. "We will not get to a permanent agreement in the coming decade, or the one after that. The Palestinians are even unable to reach a stable peace agreement among themselves." Lieberman also used the forum to make it perfectly clear that he was opposed to indirect talks with Syria, and especially opposed to mediation from Turkey, whose prime minister has lambasted Israel continuously over the last year. "I am not picking a fight with anyone," Lieberman said, "but unsuitable things were said by the prime minister of Turkey." In an apparent reference to the recent meeting in Copenhagen between President Shimon Peres and Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Lieberman said, "If anyone thinks that there will be meetings at the highest levels, and everything will be okay, they should forget about it. "As long as I am foreign minister, and as long as Israel Beiteinu is the senior member of the coalition, there will not be Turkish mediation between us and Syria, but rather only direct talks, in Jerusalem and in Damascus." Taking a swipe at Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who went to Turkey recently and hinted that Ankara could still play the role of a mediator, Lieberman said that "just because some actors on the fringes in the government offer a role for Turkish mediation, they should forget about it and concentrate on the business of their own ministries." Lieberman said there was no need for secret diplomacy with Syria. "Those who want to be a friend, let them do it publicly." He did not field questions or comments from the ambassadors, but is scheduled to meet with them again during the week. After he left, a number of ambassadors, including Ambassador to the US Michael Oren, Ambassador to the EU Ran Curiel, and Ambassador to Britain Ron Prosor briefed their colleagues on the situation in their respective countries. These briefings were closed to the press. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are scheduled to meet the envoys on Monday. Lieberman's comments about Turkey stood in stark contrast to comments his deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, made three weeks ago to a group of visiting Turkish journalists and academics. "We appreciate Turkish efforts and the previous talks [with Syria] did not fail because of Turkey, but rather because of Syrian intransigence," he said. "However, if in the future we make progress with the Syrians and we will seek assistance from a third party, Turkey will be the first nation we will turn to," he said. Netanyahu, meanwhile, has made clear that he preferred direct talks with Syria, and that if third party mediation was necessary, he would rather see France than Turkey involved. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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ANTI-ZIONISTS FEIGN CONCERN FOR PALESTINIAN ARABS; POST-AMERICAN
PRESIDENT OBAMA & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY; PEACE PROCESS & ISRAEL'S REPUTATION
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 28, 2009. |
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ANTI-ZIONISTS FEIGN CONCERN FOR PALESTINIAN ARABS
They also judge one's standards by one or two articles. Many such folk call for my articles to be shut off, but cry out against any deletion of their ethnic or personal name-calling. Although blind to their double standards, they erroneously decry double standards in others, whose points they have oversimplified or misunderstood, and then imagine reflect double standards. Some of the comments suggest that Israel be atom-bombed, that Jews must be evil to be discriminated against, and that I cause gentiles to hate Jews. They distort the "chosen people" concept and then disparage it. In other words, they don't know what they are talking about. What a lot of baggage to support without citing facts. Apparently they have no understanding of antisemitism having been spread by international ideologies of earlier Christian replacement theology, Islam, Soviet Communism, and Nazism. They do not appreciate the psychological human need for a scapegoat, which, ironically, Judaism may have reflected first in historical lore but using only goats. How little these abusive commentators know about the antisemitism they espouse. I learned about antisemitism on July 4, when I was 5. Two slightly older Catholic boys started hitting me on the head with their American flags, calling me "Christ-killer." They were taking out on an innocent child a perverted notion of inherited guilt because of a judicial act that they mistakenly think that a small proportion of ancient Jews committed thousands of years ago. I had no idea what they were talking about. They think the comments box is for venting bigotry, writing ad hominem, or expressing their view on topics not relevant to the article after which the comments box is placed. A few readers comment a dozen times about the same article and repeatedly about other articles. I sense a type of hysterical insistence upon their way. I delete these. This site is not for verbal brawls. Neither is it for venting. It is for respectful dialog. Many Examiners pay no attention to readers' comments. Some hope that readers will see the sense of their articles, but I find common sense absent and lack of knowledge present. Some Examiners think that responding ends with them down in the gutter with such readers. I try to give new commentators a chance. Having discovered that many readers have too little reliable information, I lay out the facts. Many dismiss the facts because they do not support their positions, and not usually because they can challenge those facts or present others. When I find them unable to discuss the issues maturely, and stop answering them, they think they are betrayed. After I explained and deleted a comment for irrelevancy, the commentator replied, why don't you answer it "if you can." Note the implied sarcasm. When I delete one fellow's many nasty remarks, he keeps reinserting them. Too self-centered. One urges me to read some book and review it. When I don't immediately comply, he asks disrespectfully, what I am afraid of. He does not notice that I answer many comments, do debate, and had just looked up an incriminating quote from another reader as attributed to AIPAC, found it fraudulent, and earlier had posted Congressional denunciation of the fraud. Such readers assume: (1) Their misconceptions have great merit; (2) It is my duty to devote my time mostly to them and right away, to the neglect of my column; (3) They have a right to make irrelevant, personal, or religiously insulting remarks at a low level. They have the petulance of children. My column is not for their therapy, it is a serious column. Some put it like this, "How can you make excuses for racist apartheid Israel? That is not a question. It is a taunt. Is presumes that I know Israel does those thinks but I cover up. How would I know it? They don't provide evidence. The accusations come from fanatics. I find that many readers take these canards for granted or use them as a club, and only a few have some knowledge about the events. What they heard of those events is distorted or fabricated. Some commentators ask, don't I care what happens to the Palestinian Arabs. (1) I deny the accusations. )2) I report much harm to the Arabs by their rulers and ideology. (3) No anti-Zionist commentator has ever expressed sympathy for Arabs oppressed by Arabs. What are the logical deductions? The logical deduction are: Whereas I report real problems of the Palestinian Arabs, these abusive anti-Zionists do not care about the Palestinian Arabs. They use the issue as a pretext for bashing the Jewish state. Some readers reply to my points non-responsively. They ignore my refutation. Instead, they repeat points or documents I have refuted as triumphant answers to my debunking of those very points or documents. How logical is that? Again, they act puzzled when I break off attempts at dialog. With them, real dialog is futile. My series on the big lie technique stresses that lies get repeated until people mistake them for truth. These anti-Zionists judge their views by how much they get repeated. They don't realize how little they know, how much they hate, how poorly they reason), how self-centered they appear, and how immaturely they debate. POST-AMERICAN PRESIDENT OBAMA & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 
President Obama wants to finish with present foreign policy commitments and devote himself to changing the structure of the U.S. economy. Obama does not consider the world as dangerous for the U.S.. He does not worry about terrorism or ideology. This is his neo-isolationist side. We will come to see how he also is a multi-lateralist. Impressed with his own charisma, he thought he would work matters out with China on trade, currency manipulation, Taiwan, and global warming. He thought he would resolve Iranian and N. Korean nuclear weapons development and the Arab-Israel conflict. He undermined the little realistic hope of his objective by excessive deference [to the point of anti-Americanism]. He got nowhere. He does not want to impose our ways on others [except Israel]. Why? [Because, he tells them, we are ordinary. As a result, the U.S. has less influence now than it did when Pres. Bush had the policy that liberals despise. Obama thinks that eliminating our nuclear weapons would induce others to follow suit. [Dangerously naïve!] He is reducing them via budget and agreements. He unilaterally reduced missile defense efforts. He has stalled military high-tech and re-supply of our armed forces [without finding a different military way]. His arrangements with Russia leave them their full capability. He also wants UN agreements and treaties that the US previously rejected. He wants non-treaty-members possessing nuclear arms to give them up. He is drafting an arms trade treaty for conventional weapons that is seen as an end-run around the legislature. But his main interest is in global management of the economy. He would join foreign countries in a statist control of climate behavior. It is part of a leftist practice of internationalizing issues they can't manage to control domestically by our democratic, legislative process. Such issues are gun control, death penalty, abortion, and "rights of the child." [To be fair, our legislative process is becoming an unmanageable travesty.] Executive agreements would be used to avoid treaties, which need Senate ratification. The Law of the Sea Treaty is a backdoor environmental regulation. He joined the UN Human Rights council. He treats international terrorism as a matter of law and order, waiting for plots and crimes to strike us. He does not believe in American law. He is trying to move us, step-by-step into the International Criminal Court [though it is likely to be anti-US.]. Thus he would diminish both our sovereignty and our self-defense (John Bolton, Commentary, 1/2009). The article did not have the space to take up any economic ill effects of Obama policies. I recommend the full article, to see how the author supports his case. I think that Mr. Bolton should have cautioned that U.S. interventionism sometimes has been excessive and ethno-centric. He assumes that people know what I think many do not, that European-type policies largely have failed and that depending on foreign countries to resolve polices, even though many of those regimes are despotisms, is futile. The question is when Americans will realize that Obama's foreign policies already have failed, just as have his domestic policies. PEACE PROCESS & ISRAEL'S REPUTATION Oslo was touted as the way to raise Israel's reputation. It did not. (Indeed, anti-Zionists tried to blame Israel as having offered too little. They were wrong, based on what we knew even then. Now, even more sacrificial spurned offers have been made known.] Unfortunately, the Left does not learn from failure. Suppose Israel offered more. It would make no difference. [The Arabs would just demand more, as they repeatedly have done.] The process left Israel's 'reputation much worse, because the popular onus for the failure is put on Israel. Popular movements to ostracize Israel and only Israel resulted from it. People now question whether Israel should exist. They do not question the existence of failed, vicious, imperialist, or terrorist states. Israeli military operations lead to global protest. [There is no global protest over the terrorism that provoked the operations.] Protests did not occur before Israel had withdrawn, evacuated, or refused to negotiate with the PLO. [Israel raised the PLO to semi-legitimacy.] Oslo led Israel to downplay its known claims to the Territories. In the past, those claims were more widely accepted. Now most people do not know of their prior acceptance. They think that Israel owes land to Palestinian Arabs. Withdrawal is seen more as simple justice than as sacrifice. Israeli concessions have been followed by more terrorism. It therefore is more difficult to justify concessions. So the Left switched from calling it peacemaking to a matter of Arab "rights." Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert then declared withdrawal necessary for Israel for [mistaken] demographic reasons. When such Israeli leaders do not speak up for Jewish rights, more friendly European governments will not do so, either. Israel does not promote its own case to compete with the Arab narrative. [But my anti-Zionist readers imagine a powerful Zionist propaganda machine.] The increases in terrorism mean more deaths of Arabs. Photos of carnage lead to more anti-Israel outrage abroad. By contrast, the presence of the IDF means less terrorism in favor of quiet arrests rather than military reaction and more deaths. Israeli withdrawal energizes anti-Zionist radicals. Handfuls of activists manipulate whole organizations. For example, the British lecturers union has 67,000 members. Only 198 members voted on the matter of academic boycott of Israel. A mere 106 passed it. Some such initiatives occurred during withdrawals, meaning protest occurs because of Israeli weakness, not because of Israeli offensiveness. "Israel's increasingly frantic pursuit of peace has aroused not admiration, but, rather, the instincts of a predator scenting blood." Israel keeps making more concessions for less or nothing in return. Israel's stance deteriorated from no negotiation with terrorists, to no terrorist state, to no concessions on Jerusalem, to no negotiation or withdrawal under fire, to no unilateral withdrawal, all flouted. Radicals and Arabs believe that Israel can be pressed to ignore all "red lines," until a "right of return" is implemented that ends Israel [and the Jews in it]. Ehud Olmert thinks that Israeli survival requires peace, but to get a treaty, he would make concessions that ensure Israel's demise. By following Arab rejections with bigger offers, Israel gave the impression that failure of diplomacy was its fault for not offering more. [The offers encourage Arabs to raise their demands]. The increase in terrorism after concessions shows that peace is not possible. Withdrawals turn areas into safe zones for terrorists. Nevertheless, Israeli leaders continued telling their people that peace is possible. So do U.S. and EU leaders, who know better. Obama is going too far, in attributing Israel's formation to the Holocaust, and denying Jewish history. This may be invoking an adverse reaction, in which even the moderates in Israel reassert Jewish claims. That is the answer. For example, to end terrorism from Gaza, Israel may have to re-take Gaza. There would be protest of that, but such protest usually fades, as casualties go down and the partial blockade would end. Also part of the answer is for Israeli leaders to tell the truth about peace being impossible. Israel must stop seeming to panic, for that emboldens its enemies (Evelyn Gordon, Commentary, 1/2009). What I summarized, Ms. Gordon bolsters with more explanation, so I recommend the full article. She should have explained that peace is not possible while the Arabs have religious bigotry against the non-believers and an ideology of having to conquer them, especially since they once had been conquered by Islam. PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY REMISS AGAINST TERRORISTS 
A former head of Israel's secret service observed that four terrorists successfully plotted a recent murder. One turned himself in to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) police. Did the P.A. use him to discover the others? No. As a result, the IDF had to ferret out the others, itself, and take military action against them. Because the other three refused to come out of their house, and they were experienced and armed, the IDF had to raid them and kill them. Israel praised the P.A. for holding the fourth one and detaining 120 others. The praise is premature. The P.A. has not indicated it would charge the fourth with plotting murder rather than "harming P.A. interests." If the P.A. does not charge him, would Israel file for his transfer to Israel for trial? How did the P.A. view the incident? The Prime Minister of the P.A. presented condolences to the residents of the house where the plotters were killed. He called the plotters martyrs. He called the IDF raid an escalation (www.imra.org.il, 12/27), though Israel raids several times a day. One of the earliest violations of Oslo was P.A. refusal to transfer wanted terrorists to Israel. SWEDISH FIRM BOYCOTTS ISRAELIS, HARMS ARABS A Swedish company, Mul-T-Lock, had a factory over the Green Line, in the Barkan industrial zone. The Swedish Church and other Swedish organizations threatened the company with prosecution, claiming it was illegal for it to operate in an "occupied" area. As a result, the company moved the factory back from the Green Line, to Modiin in Israel. The company plans to invest more in Israel. As a result, many Arab workers lost their jobs (www.imra.org.il, 12/27).
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 and visit his website:
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PA REWARDS HAMAS AND FATAH TERRORISTS FOR LONG JAIL TERMS
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, December 28, 2009. |
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The Palestinian Authority revealed on Sunday that it rewards both Hamas and Fatah terrorists with higher "salaries" for committing more serious terrorist attacks that are followed by convictions for long-term sentences in Israeli prison. Most of the PA's funds come from European Union countries, and the United States earlier this month, for the first time ever, included the PA in its foreign aid package with a $500 million grant. Twenty percent of the American money is earmarked for training the PA's new army, under the guidance of American army General Keith Dayton. A condition of the aid is that the PA recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous agreements with Israel, including a halt to anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist incitement. The PA Minister for Prisoners told the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency Sunday that it pays out three million shekels ($790,000) a month for monthly stipends for prisoners and their families. The minister specifically denied a complaint that Hamas terrorists were being cut off from receiving fund. The monthly payment amount to 1,000 shekels ($260) but rises to four times that amount, more than $1,000, to terrorists who have served more than 25 years in jail for more serious attacks on Israelis. In addition, terrorists who are released by Israel receive another 1,200-2,000 shekels ($316-$525) a month for half a year if they were in prison for at least five years. The total payments for their time in jail and release amount to as much $10,000. This was written by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva
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DANGEROUS MYTHS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 28, 2009. |
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For many people, especially those on the left side of the aisle, there is nothing more disturbing than a reality which reveals the fraudulence of one's ideology. The latest terrorist wannabe, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is yet another proverbial poke in the eye with a sharp stick for the dewy-eyed among us. To wit: Airport security is effective. Time-consuming, annoying, muddle-headed and oh-so politically correct? Absolutely. Effective? Abdulmutallab was one faulty fuse away from blowing a jetliner filled with three hundred passengers out of the sky. His "bomb?" A condom filled with an explosive compound sewn into his pants. Question: what airport security system is ready to start patting down peoples' genital areas? Answer: none. Al Qaeda one, airport security, zero.
Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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AIRLINE TERROR & FOREIGN POLICY
Posted by Susana K-M, December 27, 2009. |
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This ws written by Bill Katz. |
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AIRLINE TERROR AND FOREIGN POLICY — AT 5:51 P.M. ET: ANDY McCARTHY, WHO PROSECUTED MAJOR TERRORIST CASES IN NEW YORK, HAS A FEW COMMENTS ABOUT THE AIRLINE GUY AND HIS RELATION TO OBAMA'S "OUTREACH" TO THE WORLD. FROM NRO: I couldn't help but be struck by this ambiguous passage in the Washington Post's report this morning: "The incident marks the latest apparent attempt by terrorists to bring down a U.S. aircraft through the use of an improvised weapon, and set in motion urgent security measures that disrupted global air travel during the frenetic holiday weekend." No doubt the Post means that "the incident" has "set in motion urgent security measures," but it was just as clearly "an attempt by terrorists" — and a successful attempt, at that — to "set in motion urgent security measures." It sounds trite but it's worth repeating: The object of terrorism is to terrorize, and obviously the mission has been accomplished even if the plane was not brought down. Correct. And McCarthy notes that this incident took place despite all the well-publicized attempts by the Obamans to change American foreign policy and be kind to everyone: I wonder what the media would be saying if George Bush were still president. Yes he has, and he isn't moved. Is anyone surprised, except maybe the so-called "intellectual" elites, who thought it would be so easy? Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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JEWS OCCUPY FRONT-ROW PEW IN CHURCH OF LIBERALISM
Posted by Don Feder, December 27, 2009. |
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Among life's most perplexing mysteries:
My friend Ira, a Hasidic Jew who lives in the Boston-area, once told me if he goes to vote and sees two candidates for an office, and he knows nothing about them other than that one has a Jewish name and the other doesn't, he automatically votes for the non-Jew. He assumes, quite logically, that the gentile is less likely to be mushugana (just plain nuts) than the Jew. President Obama — the clearest evidence yet that most Jews are delusional on matters political — just appointed Hannah Rosenthal the State Department's special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. Apparently, Pat Buchanan was unavailable. Coming soon: Obama appoints "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Rosenthal sits on the board of J Street, the Soros-funded, Jewish cell which wants negotiations with the Hitlerites of Hamas, opposes sanctions on the nuclear-armed Holocaust-deniers of Iran, and believes anti-Semitism is caused mainly by Israel's survival instinct. Obama's policy toward Israel has been exactly what you'd expect from someone who sat in church for 19 years listening to his Afro-centrist preacher spew hatred of America, Israel and Jews, while fawning on Farrakhan. If B.O. can't rouse Jewish voters from their 80-year coma, nothing can. Nothing can. An October 3 headline in The National Catholic Register read, "President Obama Finds Greatest Support Among Atheists and Jews." The story reported on a September Gallup poll that showed 66% of Jewish voters approve of Obama's performance, that's 22 percentage points higher than the president's approval rating among the general public at that point, and 27 points higher than his white Protestant support. Granted, this is considerably lower than Obama's 83% Jewish approval rating in January. But the president's ratings from all segments of the electorate have declined proportionally. Israelis (of necessity more connected to reality then their American cousins) don't share this euphoria. According to an August Jerusalem Post poll, only 4% believe Obama's policies are "pro-Israel," versus the 51% who think Barak Hussein is "pro-Palestinian." People like Norman Podhoretz (admittedly, a great man) keep writing books with titles like "Why Are Jews Liberals?' Every other talk show that I do begins with the question: "Mr. Feder, as a practicing Jew, perhaps you can explain why most American Jews are so liberal, when self-interest and common sense dictate the opposite." I can in less than 10 words: "Liberalism is the religion of secular Jews" — as well as the religion of ex-Catholics, Jack Mormons and evangelicals who've left the fold. Jews and liberalism go together like bagels and cream cheese, blintzes and sour cream — like ACORN and voter-fraud. Podhoretz tells us that since 1928, Democrats have, on average, taken 75% of the Jewish vote in presidential elections. Despite warning signs the size of billboards (surrounded by blinking electric lights), Obama captured 78% of the Jewish vote last year, compared with 53% of the electorate. Other than black voters, Jews remain the Messiah's most reliable constituency. The standard explanations for Jewish leftism are:
These rationalizations can almost be dismissed out of hand.
No, we must look elsewhere for the gnarled roots of Jewish liberalism. Above all, Jews are believers. In fact, they are the original believers. In a world of idols, fertility rites and infant sacrifice — a world where the strong took what they wanted — the Jews came with their belief in an invisible, universal God who demands righteousness and holiness (sacrifices of the heart). More than any other people, Jews must believe in something. When that something isn't Torah, it's something else — scientific determinism, socialism, welfarism, animal rights, global warming, transcendental meditation or real-estate investment trusts. Of these, liberalism is the most satisfying and most closely resembles traditional religion. Like Judaism and Christianity, liberalism offers a vision of salvation (the secular liberal state) and damnation (an eternity of being forced to watch FOX News). It has its roster of saints and sinners. The former include feminists, environmentalists, gay-marriage activists, the ACLU, NOW, Amnesty International and Ted Kennedy. Amongst the latter are gun owners, those who drive SUVs, families with more than four children, oil companies, advocates of intelligent design and Sarah Palin. Each has its rituals. For the left, it's recycling, multiculturalism, sex education, Harvey Milk Day, a woman's "right to choose," and an activist judiciary. Liberalism even has its sacred writings — "The Population Bomb," "The Earth In Balance," "The Feminine Mystique," "Dreams of My Father," and the editorial pages of The New York Times. There is a direct correlation between a lack of involvement with traditional religion and membership in the Church of Liberalism. Voting in the 2000 presidential election precisely paralleled church attendance. Those who went to church more than once a week voted for Bush over Gore by 68% to 32%. Voters who went weekly favored W. by 58% to 42%. Gore captured the occasional churchgoers (59% to 41%). Seldom went to church voted Democratic by 61% to 39%, and the I-don't-believe-in-superstitious-mumbo-jumbo backed Gore by 65% to 35%. Church attendance/religious involvement is a better indicator of voting patterns than income, education, race or employment. Jews, who are more secular than any other segment of the American people, fit this pattern perfectly. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 39% of Americans attend religious services weekly, while 56% say religion plays a "very important" role in their lives. For Jews, those figures are 16% and 31% respectively. How the Jews became so secular is another story. Depending on the country and era, European Jews were circumscribed socially, segregated, limited professionally, stigmatized, attacked, plundered and murdered en mass. Leaving their rabbis and great teachers behind in Europe for the most part, many who came here during the great wave of Jewish immigration (1880-1920) were desperately eager to assimilate and take advantage of American openness and opportunity. There are stories of Jewish men throwing their tfillin (phylacteries) overboard as their ship approached these shores. The exception to Jewish secularism is Orthodox Jews, who attend synagogue religiously and generally vote Republican. Among the Orthodox, affinity for Republicans rises from modern Orthodox to very Orthodox to Hasidic. The latter vote like life-members of the NRA. Of an American Jewish population of 5.3 million, only 10% are Orthodox. That's changing. Among Jews under 21, 20% are Orthodox. American Jews generally have a well-below replacement birth rate — 1.86 children per woman. They not only embrace liberalism, they practice it — in terms of late marriage, no marriage and a desire for small families. In consequence, they are becoming an endangered species. The Jews who do have large families are overwhelmingly Orthodox. Go to the Crown Heights or Boro Park sections of Brooklyn and you'll see Jewish mothers with 4 or 5 children in tow, and a few more at home. (The birth rate for Orthodox Jews ranges from 3.3 for the modern Orthodox to 7.9 for Hasidic Jews.) Go to New York's Upper East Side, and, instead of pushing strollers, you'll see Jewish women cuddling careers in law or investment banking, with a "life-long partner" at home. The problem of Jewish liberalism will correct itself — as the Orthodox become a greater portion of the Jewish population and secular Jews go the way of the dodo bird — which, come to think of it, weren't kosher, just like Jewish liberals.
Don Feder was an opinion writer for the Boston Herald and a syndicated columnist. He is currently a political/media consultant. An earlier version of this commentary appeared on GrassTopsUSA.com |
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KITTY WERTHMANN'S STORY
Posted by Midenise, December 27, 2009. |
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Kitty Werthmann tells a powerful story about what it was like growing up during the Third Reich. |
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What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard, nor will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I will not tell you that the German chancellor took Austria by tanks and guns. I will not distort history. We Austrians elected him by a landslide — 98% of the vote. I've never read that in any American publication. Everyone thinks that the Germans rolled in with tanks and took Austria by force. Not at all. In 1938, Austria was in deep depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily.Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs. My mother was a kind Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people — about 30 daily. The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks in cities like Vienna, Linz, and Graz were destroyed.The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted. We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have employment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed. After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service. Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could return to the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage. Hitler Targets Education — Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children: Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles," (Germany, Germany, Over All) and had physical education. Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had. My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun — no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of big-brother philosophy. Equal Rights Hits Home: In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men. Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and to participate in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service. Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare: When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew that we had been had. Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls: Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into our daily medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government inspectors told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. Since the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it was in control. We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The bureaucrats would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it. "Mercy Killing" Redefined: In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said that they were going to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness. As time passed, letters started to come saying that these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. It was euthanasia. The Final Steps — Gun Laws: Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily. Freedom of speech was diminished by various regulations. Eventually, anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years after 1938 to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought it to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. In 1943, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea is unbelievable now, that the state, little by little can take away our freedom. After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, pre-teen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they burned. We called it "The Burned Earth". Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks in order to be safe. Those who couldn't, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. America truly is the greatest country in the world. We mustn't let freedom slip away! After America, maybe we can move to Canada or Australia. Contact Milton Franks-Lhermann at midenise@zahav. net.il |
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PILOTS' COURSE: FEW KIBBUTZNIKS, SOME RELIGIOUS/TRADITIONAL ZIONISTS
Posted by Gil Ronen, December 27, 2009. |
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The Israel Air Force published statistics about the graduates of the Winter 2009 Pilots' Course. They show that the course is still overwhelmingly dominated by secular soldiers. Two percent of the graduates are religious, and another 16% define themselves as traditional. This is in contrast to other elite units of the IDF, where knit-kippah wearing soldiers make up 25% to 40% of the soldier and officer corps. Regarding the ground forces, it is generally accepted that the religious Zionists have taken the place of the 'kibbutzniks,' or sons of the kibbutz communities — the socialist communal agricultural villages of Israel — who used to be backbone of the IDF's elite units. Five percent of the latest Pilots' Course graduates are 'kibbutzniks,' up from 2008, when there were no kibbutzniks at all among the Pilots' Course graduates. These statistics marks a meaningful downward shift: In the 1980s, about 30% of Pilots' Course graduates were kibbutzniks, and their proportion went down to about 20% in the late 1990s. Kippahs hit a glass ceiling? The proportion of kibbutzniks has dwindled in the IDF's officer corps as well. Less than 5% of recent IDF Officers' Course graduates were kibbutzniks, while over 25% wore knit kippahs. However, while the proportion of religious soldiers is growing in the ground forces, it does not seem to be doing so in the air. There are different opinions as to the reason. An article last year in the now-defunct daily newspaper HaTzofeh determined that the number of religious pilot cadets was shrinking. It speculated that there may be an intentional policy of keeping the religious out of the IDF's most prestigious unit, but did not have conclusive proof. In recent years the pilots' terms of service have been changed to include the acquisition of a bachelor's degree. 49% of the 2009 Pilots' Course graduates chose an academic track in Economics and Management; 20% chose Politics, Government and Management; 19% chose Mathematics and Computer Science and 12% chose Management of Information Systems. Pilots serve three years' of regular service and another nine years in the professional standing army (Tzva Keva). Other statistics from the course: 63% are from central Israel, 28% from the north, and 9% from the south. 54% live in cities, 30% are from small communities, and 7% are from 'moshav' agricultural settlements. Five percent were not born in Israel. 88% studied in a math/science track in high school, 16% in the humanities and 9% in art, music and theater. This was written by Gil Ronen, writer for Arutz Sheva, and it was published today in Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com) |
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IDF OFFICER STALKS OUT OF SHOMRON POST-MURDER MEETING
Posted by Gil Ronen, December 27, 2009. |
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.A meeting between residents of Shavei Shomron in Samaria and the Commander of the Judea and Samaria Regiment, Col. Itzik Bar, ended in discord Saturday evening when Bar walked out angrily. Bar had come to the Shavei Shomron clubhouse building to talk to the residents after the murder of their neighbor Rabbi Meir Chai, in a shooting attack Thursday night. While Israelis are justly proud of the Army Intelligence Services that succeeded in naming and tracking the murderers in record time, they want to know that all the means to prevent terrorism are in force. Thus, the residents of Shavei Shomron echoed many Israelis' worries when they voiced sharp criticism of the defense establishment and said that the removal of an IDF checkpoint near the community helped the terror cell that murdered Rabbi Chai. Col. Bar rejected the criticism and said that the removal of the checkpoint had not harmed security. After a heated discussion, he stalked out of the meeting. "The Regiment Commander spoke arrogantly, and in a condescending and cold-hearted manner, which angered the residents," a participant in the meeting said. "It was a shameful sight. The regiment commander said, with great insensitivity, even said that removing the checkpoint actually improved security. How can you say something like that to 150 people who are mourning the murder of their friend?" Residents noted that this was not the first time Col. Bar showed a condescending attitude. They pointed out his instructions to soldiers not to eat at settlers' homes — an order that was repealed after the Chief of Staff intervened. The Shavei Shomron secretariat did not issue a response after the meeting, stating that the media was not the proper place for working out disagreements with the military. Menorah Chazani of Shavei Shomron told Arutz Sheva that the residents feel that they have been abandoned by the political leadership. She said that Bar admitted that the IDF had failed to prevent the murder. Limor Sohn Har-Melech, whose husband Shalom was murdered six years ago, noted that her husband's killers are among the terrorists that are supposed to go free in the Shalit deal. "After we saw that these terrorists go back to killing, the feelings are very bad," she said. "We feel that releasing the terrorists in a deal with Hamas would set the entire country on fire." This was written by Gil Ronen, writer for Arutz Sheva. It was published today in Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com) |
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EHUD BARACK'S DISMAL RECORD
Posted by Victor Sharpe, December 27, 2009. |
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On Christmas Eve, Palestinian terrorists belonging to a gang linked to the Palestinian Authority's Fatah organization murdered a young rabbi, firing seven bullets into his head in a drive by shooting. The atrocity occurred in Samaria, the northern part of the so-called West Bank and was a direct result of the Israel Defense Forces removal of more roadblocks, perceived as yet one more Israeli gesture toward US President Barack Obama, who has pressured Israel to take "risks for peace." Indeed every time Israel succumbs to requests from a U.S. Administration to provide one more in the endless procession of Israel goodwill gestures to the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, more Jewish civilians perish at the hands of Arab terrorists. The terrible irony is that some of those Arabs who perpetrate such murderous acts may well have been trained by American instructors creating a Palestinian security brigade, which is designed specifically to prevent such terrorism. According to Israel National News, "Israeli soldiers recently removed the concrete cubes and metal gate that made up the roadblock north of Shechem, (Nablus) near Shavei Shomron, despite pleas by Samaria residents to the IDF not to remove it. Israeli residents of Samaria reacted to the murder by saying: "The blood of the murdered man is on the hands of the Defense Minister and the Prime Minister, who have carried out a morally corrupt policy of turning the beloved into an enemy, and the enemy into a loved one. It is time to wake up from illusions for which Jews and their families pay with their lives." The ancient Talmudic saying from the Ethics of the Fathers sums it up. "...Those who are kind to the cruel, end by being cruel to the kind." The Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, does not seem to have ever taken this ancient wisdom to heart. This foolish removal of a security road block is but one more of his dismal acts. It would be instructive, therefore, to look back at some of his many errors in judgment. On May 24, 2000, during Ehud Barak's term in office as Prime Minister, Israeli troops withdrew from the "security zone" in southern Lebanon, ending 18 year's of what had become known as the "Good Fence." Barak caved in to leftwing protests at Israeli military casualties and what the ever misguided Left termed the "purposelessness" of maintaining the 10 mile wide security strip that ran along Israel's northern border with Lebanon. On hindsight we now see how vital that zone was to Israel's security. But Ehud Barak had campaigned during his election for Prime Minister on a promise to bring the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) home from southern Lebanon. As Prime Minister he acted on his problematic promise and almost overnight the hasty withdrawal took place. Many Israelis believe that Israel's Christian Lebanese ally, the Southern Lebanon Army (SLA) was shamefully abandoned after giving almost 18 years of support to Israel's efforts at protecting northern Israel as well as the Christian villages in southern Lebanon threatened by Islamic hostility. Before the zone was created, the massacres of Israeli children by Yasser Arafat's PLO infiltrators from southern Lebanon traumatized Israel. These atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian Arabs based in Lebanon occurred in the northern villages and towns including Avivim, Kiryat Sh'mona, Metullah and Nahariya. The security strip was created in order to protect Israeli civilians in the north of the country from such barbarous acts. The foolish abandonment of the "Good Fence" became one more relic of Barak's dismal record and led inevitably to the growing strength of Hezbollah, which quickly filled the vacuum left by the destruction of the SLA and the withdrawal of the IDF. Barak had gambled that the withdrawal would boost Lebanese friendship towards Israel and that a mutually recognized border would encourage the creation of a strong Lebanese government and a cessation of Arab terrorism against the Jewish state. He could not have been more wrong. Ehud Barak dealt a severe blow to Israel's future security and embittered the lives of loyal Christian SLA soldiers who had fought alongside the IDF, many giving their lives, in protecting Israel's northern border. The hasty rush to vacate southern Lebanon and the commensurate distress caused to past allies is not something Ehud Barak should ever feel proud of. It was clear to most Israelis that the Lebanese army would not fill the vacuum and instead give the Islamist terrorists a golden opportunity to quickly occupy southern Lebanon and use the Muslim Arab settlements there as future bases for aggression against Israel. Those fears have come true. Barak left the door open for Hezbollah, and now the Jewish state has an Iranian Islamist proxy armed with nearly 100,000 deadly missiles aimed at Israel's civilian population centers. Not a very good legacy, Mr. Barak! Now, acting as Defense Minister, he is creating yet again a situation, which is aiding and abetting Israel's sworn enemies. His decision to send elements of the IDF to enforce a shameful, inhumane and humiliating freeze — at the behest of Barack Hussein Obama — on construction within Israel's Jewish villages in Judea and Samaria is divisive and patently hostile to the Jewish communities there. In the meantime, Mr. Barak is turning a blind eye to the feverish and illegal Arab building that is taking place everywhere throughout the territories and in East Jerusalem.[emphasis added] And all has happened as a result of this freeze; this umpteenth Israeli concession in pursuit of a delusional peace with the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. Predictably, Palestinian Arab Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, has reportedly upped the ante even more. He has essentially reneged on the so-called U.S created "Roadmap" by demanding Israel not only cease any building within the territories and East Jerusalem but accept that the Jewish state must withdraw to pre-1967 armistice lines before the Palestinians will talk peace. These are the same borders that in places are only nine miles wide and which the late Israeli statesman, Abba Eban, once described as the "Auschwitz borders." It is also said that when President George Bush was Governor of Texas, he flew with Ariel Sharon over the area, saw the narrow Israel border, and reportedly said: 'Why in Texas we have driveways longer than that." We should remember that it was Ehud Barak who offered to arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, practically all of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) along with East Jerusalem. This breathtaking concession was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leader for the simple reason that Arafat, just like his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, reject a state side by side with Israel: the Arabs want a state without an Israel. Barak is alienating those young patriotic Israeli soldiers who are drawn from the religious seminaries and who are appalled at the orders to tear down Jewish homes and even synagogues if Barak deems they offend the Obama freeze. These questions must be asked. In view of the apparent abandonment of the Roadmap by Abbas, will Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, respond by now abolishing the imposed freeze? Will he order Defense Minister Barak to end the distress caused to the Jewish villagers in Judea and Samaria? Or will he be forced, by the crushing pressure from the U.S., the EU, and the U.N., to keep the immoral freeze in place and, for the sake of his coalition, continue to placate Ehud Barak? How many times must Israeli politicians be reminded that the Muslim Arabs will never accept a Jewish state — however tiny it might become — in land once conquered in the name of Allah? Politicians like Ehud Barak are forever willing to inflict misery upon Jewish villagers and townsfolk rather than refuse the arrogant dictates of foreign leaders who endlessly indulge the oil rich Arab world by outdoing each other in their anti-Israel policies. As a direct result of the removal of a security barrier on orders, presumably from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, yet another Israeli civilian has been gunned down by Palestinian thugs. Such idiotic attempts to placate Barack Hussein Obama, other western leaders, and the Palestinian Authority inevitably result in the slaughter of more Jewish souls. This has been another decision Ehud Barak should never feel proud of. It is also another sad act in a dismal record. Victor Sharpe is a freelance wrier and author of Volumes One and Two of Politicide: The Attempted Murder of the Jewish State. Contact him by email at janvic@verizon.net |
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AFTER THE RAIN
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, December 27, 2009. |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il Go to http://freifenberg-newblog.blogspot.com/ to see more of his graphic art. |
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STOP FINANCIAL AID AND MILITARY TRAINING TO FATAH!
Posted by Dave Alpern, December 27, 2009. |
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Dear Mr. Wolf, I was told that I should contact you for assistance from Senator Brownback regarding this top urgent matter. First, I am a US citizen residing in Israel and registered to vote in Kansas via absentee ballot (voting address below). I write you now regarding the unspeakably monstrous murder of innocent Israeli citizen Rabbi Avshalom Chai in yet another Arab terror attack. The Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, the "military wing" of the "moderate" Fatah organization led by "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") has taken credit for this horrendous crime against humanity and barbaric act of war. For too long now, the US has provided financial aid and military training to Fatah, which does little or nothing toward the stated goal of these actions: combatting and defeating Arab terror against Israel. This is obviously impossible when these same Fatah brigades continue their refusal to recognize Israel's existence and commit these blood-curdling acts. The Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades are classified by American law as an illegal terrorist organization: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm. Therefore, American funding and military training of these brigades are a direct and blatant violation of US law. This patently illegal, immoral, obscene and INSANE situation must be terminated immediately. It can be resumed only upon Fatah's clear and unequivocal renunciation of terror and other "acts of armed resistance" against Israel's citizens, not one moment before. Consequently, I urgently and respectfully ask you to speak with Sen. Brownback and request to do everything possible in both the Senate and House to bring about a swift and complete cessation of the above funding and training following this inexcusable assault on human life and rights. I hope that many other concerned US citizens will also contact their Congressmen and Senators accordingly. Thank you in advance for your attention, cooperation and timely reply. With best wishes for 2010, David Alpern
Registered voting address:
Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
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NOT A SPOOF — MEET ADI KUNTSMAN!
Posted by Steven Plaut, December 27, 2009. |
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If this were my attempt at a spoof, I would agree with you that it is in really poor taste. After all, it is insensitive to invent an Israeli sociologist devoting his or her life to "Queer Studies," claiming he is organizing a special academic journal volume on "Queering the Middle East," promoting transvestism and cross-dressing, and then making up for him or her an insulting mock name to top it off. Only one problem. Even I could not invent such a critter. He or she really exists. In fact, he/she is one of the leaders and founders of the communist-front pro-terror group "Machsom Watch." I keep saying he-or-she because, frankly, I do not know which he-or-she is. I must explain that several web pages describe her as a female, although she sure looks like a male to me. And — please forgive me — this critter's real name is (gulp!!) Adi Kuntsman! No, I did not make that one up, so do not scream at ME for vulgarity! It is what the he-or-she-or-it is now calling itself. His/her web page is here: See also Here is a testimonial about young Adi from his/her anti-Israel
wife/partner: Here is the announcement for the conference: Queering Middle Eastern Cyberscapes 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@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
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THE TRAGIC RESULT OF FREED TERRORISTS
Posted by Justice for Jonathan Pollard, December 27, 2009. |
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This was written by Rabbi Lazer Brody and appeared today on his
website
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Raed Sarkaji, one of Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades members responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Rabbi Meir Chai HY"D, was killed by IDF troops during a daring anti-terrorist operation in Shechem yesterday. The terrorist leader had been interned in an Israeli prison until January 2009. Sarkaji took almost no time in returning to terrorism, the very activity for which he was arrested in the first place. Anan Sabeh, Sarkaji's accomplice whose rifle was found to be compatible with the bullet shells found at the scene of Rabbi Chai's murder, had also been released from an Israeli prison as part of the amnesty deal with the Palestinian Authority in 2007, in which Israel agreed not to hunt down Palestinian gunmen who agreed to lay down their arms. Until Rabbi Chai was murdered, I had expressed my support for the release of terrorists in a deal to gain the freedom of Gilead Shalit. Reality has painfully shown that releasing such terrorists is worse than folly — it costs us more blood. My desire to see Gilead Shalit come home soon simply overcome my better judgment. Stark reality proved me wrong. As much as we want Gilead home, we can't look into the eyes of any more orphans while advocating the release of terrorists. Just today, I heard something unbelievably courageous: The highest echelons in Israel wanted to engineer a swap with the USA and the PA — Marwan Barghouti's freedom for Jonathan Pollard. Jonathan heard about it, and despite 25 years of indescribable anguish in prison, he refused to be a part in any deal that sets him free if a single terrorist will be freed as well. May Hashem free all our prisoners in His own miraculous way! As for us, we have to beef up our prayers for Yehonatan ben Malka and Gilead ben Aviva. Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com |
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DRIVING WHILE JEWISH FATAL IN JUDEA-SAMARIA; TO STOP IRAN
DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS; CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED IN P.A.
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 27, 2009. |
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DRIVING WHILE JEWISH FATAL IN JUDEA-SAMARIA; TO STOP IRAN 
An Israeli man was shot to death while driving "on a road between En av and Shave Shimmering. IDF soldiers are currently searching the area of the incident in order to find those responsible for the shooting. Road blocks have been erected in the area and comprehensive security checks have been implemented at all of the relevant crossings. The Israel Defense Forces will do everything in its power to bring those responsible to justice" (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). "Everything in its power?" How about restoring the checkpoints and roadblocks before more murders? They were removed to please President Obama and former Sec. of State Rice. Those two will not be sued for this, but their policies are partly responsible for some such incidents. ONLY WAY TO STOP IRAN FROM DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS There's Only One Way to Stop Iran," writes Alan J. Kuperman, in the New York Times. Mr. Kuperman directs the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention program of the University of Texas in Austin. 
Pres. Obama had offered Iran a deal via the UN. Iran rejected it. The deal was, Iraq to turn over to Russia 2,000 pounds, or three-fourths of its known supply, of lightly enriched uranium. In a year, Russia would return the material as processed fuel enabling Iran to run its Tehran research reactor for 30 years. The proposal ignored prior UN demands that Iran cease its enrichment program. Thus this deal would be like a reward for Iran's violation. What is more, in a year, Iran probably would be capable of having replenished its stock of enriched uranium, thereby making the deal ineffective against proliferation. Iran could divert some of the enriched fuel to further enrichment for bomb-making. That is a simple technical feat, contrary to Obama administration assurances that further enrichment would not be possible. Indeed, it is more feasible to further enrich fuel of foreign origin, because Iran's fuel has impurities that impede processing. Thus foreign countries would do some of Iran's processing into weapons grade. The research reactor to be kept running by the deal is used to train Iranian scientists in weapons-manufacturing techniques, such as plutonium separation. Iran rationalizes that the reactor produces medical isotopes, but isotopes are available on the market. Mention of isotopes is just an excuse. Suppose there were no deal. In two years, Iran's reactor would run out of fuel that only half a dozen countries could supply. That would give foreign governments some leverage against Iranian weapons development. [I think some of them don't care.] The deal would have helped Iran develop nuclear weapons and would have hindered U.S. attempts to prevent that. Ironically, Iran rejected the deal and the U.S. laments the rejection. Why? Domestic politics in both countries. Pres. Obama wanted the deal so he could deflect GOP criticism now that his "engagement" with Iran was fruitless, although in a year they would find radioactive fruit. Iran first accepted the deal, but then, as objections to the vote count grew, the regime was reluctant to appear subservient to foreign demands, as political opponents accused him of being. Iran probably would continue violating UN requirements in small steps, none of which seem dramatic enough to incur military intervention, until it has weapons. Here is an example of Iranian tactics aimed at stalling the UN while proceeding in its program. Iran permits international inspectors at its declared plant, but ignores orders to close the plant, where it learns how to produce weapons-grade material at secret facilities, like the one discovered near Qom. Upon reneging, Iran threatened to enrich its own fuel, though that may be somewhat of a bluff. The threat was meant to cajole foreign countries to provide the fuel without Iran having to surrender the enriched uranium it already had. So now Iran offers to exchange just a quarter of its enriched uranium for the immediate 10-year supply. The new offer would enable Iran to run its reactor, keep most of its enriched uranium, and process it more. Win, win for Iran! By reneging, Iran demonstrated that its politics prevent if from making even temporary concessions to foreign inducement. Where does that leave us? Acquiescence to Iran's plans is not acceptable. Iran already violates international embargoes of terrorist groups, to supply them with arms. Pres. Ahmadinejad's political opponents support those violations. It might do the same with nuclear weapons. It might bully its neighbors. Invasion would be foolhardy. That leaves the option of aerial bombardment. How feasible is it? Some sites may not be known as targets. Some known targets may be too deep for bombs to penetrate to. Bombing might accelerate Iranian development and unify all factions in Iran. Iran might retaliate against U.S. regional forces and allies. Iran could rebuild them, but the U.S. could bomb them again. Mr. Kuperman cites other successful raids on nuclear facilities [but they weren't so hidden, deep, or hardened]. He cites the air raids on Yugoslavia. They united the country against the U.S., but the people overthrew the regime the next year. Iran already aids enemies of the U.S.. As for retaliating against U.S. forces, Iran might not dare risk stronger U.S. retaliation, if the original raids are restricted to nuclear facilities. Who should conduct the raids? Kuperman nominates the U.S.. The U.S. has better weapons against underground facilities, has enough planes to threaten to expand the bombing if Iran retaliates, and has a global reach so that raiding Iran might inhibit other foreign proliferation. The U.S. tried diplomacy, but it did not work (Op.-Ed.,12/24). Candidate Obama said he would make friends with our enemies. It was a fatuous boast. In any event, Iran doesn't let him even talk with it. A reader had commented that Iran did not reject the deal, and that the US refused to negotiate. The article is a lesson against accepting Iran's excuses and rationalizations. As with other rogue regimes, the U.S. spends years trying to negotiate, but they toy with us. Finally realizing it was played for a fool, the U.S. stops negotiating. In such cases, it is not the U.S. that acted in bad faith, but the rogue regimes. PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS IN PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY 
Yusuf Khoury is a Christian who had to flee from religious persecution in Gaza. Hamas men tried to capture him twice. His sister is under pressure to wear a head scarf. As Muslim religiosity intensifies in Gaza, Christians feel more under siege. Within a year of Gaza's take-over by Hamas, the owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore was abducted and murdered. Christian stores and schools were firebombed. Like most of his friends, Mr. Khoury had enough. He went to the Judea-Samaria part of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). He studies theology in the Bethlehem Bible college. The Western media usually ignore the plight of Christians in the P.A.. They just denounce Israel's security barrier. However, until Arab terrorists "turned Bethlehem into a safe haven for suicide bombers, Bethlehemites were free to enter Israel, just as many Israelis routinely visited Bethlehem" [as I once did]. Israel's security barrier helped restore security in Israel and in the P.A.. Pilgrims and tourists have returned to Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, that P.A. terrorists had defiled in 2002. [How did the barrier foster security in the P.A.?] In Bethlehem, too, life is difficult for Christians. Khoury says that Muslims stand in front of his college to intimidate the students by the way they read the Quran. Other Muslims place their prayer rugs in Manger Square. The college dean would not explain why. He said that Muslims and Christians live in "relative harmony," but admitted that Christians "feel the pressure of Islam..." The head of a Christian TV station denied any "Christian suffering," but then described land theft, beating, and intimidation by Muslims, and his own house's firebombing. Muslim gangs seize Christian-owned land, as P.A. security forces stand by. "always a minority religion upon the predominantly Muslim Palestinians, Christians are...fleeing (Daniel Schwammenthal, Wall St. J., Opinion, 12/24). When Muslim armies conquered the region, Christians were the majority. One hears claims that Israel is compelling Christians to flee. No facts are adduced to explain why would it be just Christians. Truth is, Muslims are compelling a Christian exodus, as they have from other states, in our time, particularly in Lebanon. Some of the pressure is official. When the pressure is individual, P.A. authorities condone it.
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 and visit his website:
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THE MIRACULOUS STORY OF THE JEWS OF ZAKYNTHOS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 27, 2009. |
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This is a very nice story. It was written by Leora Goldberg
and it appeared December 13, 2009 in the Jerusalem Post
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I needed a break at the end of a long and exhausting semester. My family was off to the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula, to an unknown island in Greece. I decided to join them. We flew from Tel Aviv to Athens. From Athens, towards the famous sunrise of the eastern isles, we landed on the island of Zakynthos — "Fiore di Levante" (Flower of the East) — which is also known by its Italian name — Zante. During the ride, I read the travel guide, and learned a little about the history, the agriculture, the weather and finally about the poetic origins of the national anthem. I did not read one word about what I was really about to discover on the island. The drive from the airport to our villa lasted a few minutes. From the coastal plateau, we drove up through twisted village bends to our destination. An old lady, a typical Greek villager dressed all in black, welcomed us with a warm smile into her home. She asked to show us around her beloved mansion. It was obvious that this place was the source of her pride. The landlady gave us a short tour of the old-style bedrooms, bathrooms and salon. In the kitchen, we noticed the beautiful authentic Greek dishes that were hanging over her antique-looking stove. All these were for our use. We explained to her that for religious reasons, unfortunately, we would not be able to enjoy using her kitchenware and that we had brought our own. This is when it all began. She seemed confused. She looked at my dad and suddenly her eyes lit up. She noticed his kippa (yarmulke). We were asked to follow her out to the garden. From the high point where we were standing, we saw a fantastic view of the ocean and the ships. But she pointed the other way completely. "Look over there!" she said. She wanted to know what we saw. "Trees, vegetation," we said. "Look again and focus!" she demanded. "Something unidentified that looks like teeth, white dots," my dad said. She stared at us for a long moment and said: "That is the Jewish cemetery." I was shocked. We were all astounded. Here were were on an isolated island in Greece. Who ever heard of Jews here? I tried reminiscing about stories and experiences I had heard from friends who had visited here. Nothing came to mind. From this moment on until I left Greece, the relaxing summer holiday drinking ouzo on the beach became a fascinating journey. By the end of it, I uncovered an unforgettable story. The next morning, I got on my rented moped and drove to the cemetery. The shudder that went through me started when I first saw the Star of David on the little black gate. The trembling grew as I walked in. It was a huge cemetery containing hundreds of graves from the 16th century up until 1955. The grounds were well-kept and little stones were set on many graves, as if they had had visitors recently. 1955. I thought for a moment. Whoever knows the history of Greece and its islands even faintly knows that there was no place struck harder by the Nazis. Rhodes, Corfu, Salonika, Athens. The loss of Jewish life in Greece was devastating. From 1944, there were almost no Jews left even in the bigger communities. I did not, however, understand the meaning of the "1955" grave, and decided to investigate. In a small house that stood in the heart of the property, I found the cemetery keeper, a third generation of custodians of the Jewish graveyard in Zakynthos. My inability to speak the language prevented me from having a deep conversation with him. I sought to continue my search for the Jewish history of this town, and within five minutes I was at City Hall. When I told the clerk at the front desk what I was after, he asked if I had already been to the synagogue. The question was posed casually, as though it's asked on a daily basis. "Excuse me?" I thought I hadn't heard right. "A synagogue on this island?" He gave me directions. The synagogue was located on a busy road in the center of the island. Off the main street, in a space between two buildings, was a black iron gate, just like the one I had seen not long ago at the cemetery. Above it was a stone arc with an open book. It read, in a loose translation from the original Hebrew, "At this holy place stood the Shalom Synagogue. Here, at the time of the earthquake in 1953, old Torah scrolls, bought before the community was established, were burned." Through the locked gate I saw two statues. Judging by their long beards, they looked to me like rabbis. The writing on the wall proved me wrong: "This plaque commemorates the gratitude of the Jews of Zakynthos to Mayor Karrer and Bishop Chrysostomos." What was the acknowledgment about? Who were these people? Why the statues? What happened here? I had lots of questions. I had to find a lead, if not an answer. I returned to City Hall, excited and trembling. I approached the clerk, who already recognized me, and started questioning him about what had happened here. He referred me to the mayor's deputy on the third floor. I found his room, knocked at his door and asked him if he would spare me a few minutes. He willingly accepted.
HALF an hour later I came out with this: On September 9 1943, the governor of the German occupation named Berenz had asked the mayor, Loukas Karrer, for a list of all Jews on the island. Rejecting the demand after consulting with Bishop Chrysostomos, they decided to go together to the governor's office the next day. When Berenz insisted once again for the list, the bishop explained that these Jews weren't Christians but had lived here in peace and quiet for hundreds of years. They had never bothered anyone, he said. They were Greeks just like all other Greeks, and it would offend all the residents of Zakynthos if they were to leave. But the governor persisted that they give him the names. The bishop then handed him a piece of paper containing only two names: Bishop Chrysostomos and Mayor Karrer. In addition, the bishop wrote a letter to Hitler himself, declaring that the Jews in Zakynthos were under his authority. The speechless governor took both documents and sent them to the Nazi military commander in Berlin. In the meantime, not knowing what would happen, the local Jews were sent by the leaders of the island to hide inside Christian homes in the hills. However, a Nazi order to round up the Jews was soon revoked — thanks to the devoted leaders who risked their lives to save them. In October 1944, the Germans withdrew from the island, leaving behind 275 Jews. The entire Jewish population had survived, while in many other regions Jewish communities were eliminated. THIS unique history is described in the book of Dionyssios Stravolemos, An Act of Heroism — A Justification, and also in the short film of Tony Lykouressis, The Song of Life. According to tour guide Haim Ischakis, in 1947, a large number of Zakynthinote Jews made aliya while others moved to Athens. In 1948, in recognition of the heroism of the Zakynthians during the Holocaust, the Jewish community donated stained glass for the windows of the Church of Saint Dionyssios. In August 1953, the island was struck by a severe earthquake and the entire Jewish quarter, including its two synagogues, was destroyed. Not long afterwards, the remaining 38 Jews moved to Athens. In 1978, Yad Vashem honored Bishop Chrysostomos and Mayor Loukas Karrer with the title of "Righteous among the Nations." In March 1982, the last remaining Jew in Zakynthos, Ermandos Mordos, died on the island and was buried in Athens. Thus the circle of Jewish presence came to its close after five centuries. In 1992, on the site where the Sephardic synagogue stood before the earthquake, the Board of Jewish Communities in Greece erected two marble memorial monuments as a tribute to the bishop and mayor.
A FEW days before I had planned to leave the island and return home, I went into a bank to convert some dollars into euros. But even in a simple place like a bank, I managed to add another piece to this Jewish puzzle. A clerk who had been on the phone and eating a sandwich, called on me when my turn came. When I gave her my dollars to be changed, she handed me the converted money in an envelope without asking for any identification. Later on, when I opened it, I was surprised to see so much money. The money that had been put into the envelope had not been counted properly, and instead of changing $1,000, she had given me the equivalent of $10,000! This was really no surprise to me, because the clerk hadn't paid me any attention. Ultimately, however, once the bank realized that the money was missing, it would have no way of reaching me since no contact information was requested. The following morning, I called the bank and asked to speak to the manager. I inquired to know if there was a problem with the previous night's accounts. "You must be the woman with the dollars," he said, immediately inviting me to his office. An hour later, I was at the bank. When I walked into the office, the man sitting across from the manager moved to another chair and gave me his seat. I shared my bank experience with him, saying how easy it would have been for me to disappear with the money. The manager himself was profusely apologetic about the unprofessional way I was treated and thanked me repeatedly for returning the money. To express his gratitude, he invited me and my family to dinner at an exclusive restaurant. I explained that eating out was too complicated for us due to the fact that we were observant Jews. He asked for my address so he could send us a crate of wine. "That is a problem too," I said. I told him I had come from Israel a week ago for a holiday, but had gotten sidetracked. "A few days after I landed, I was surprised to discover the Jewish community that was here up to 25 years ago," I said. "You don't owe me anything. Indeed, you have given me and my people a lot. The least I can do as a Jew to show my appreciation for what you have done for the Jews of Zakynthos is to return this money that doesn't belong to me and say, 'Thank you!'" There was silence for what appeared to be a long minute. The man who had given me his seat when I walked in and hadn't said a word during the conversation, stood up with tears in his eyes, turned to me and said: "As the grandson of Mayor Karrer, I am extremely overwhelmed and want to thank you!" Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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FOR ISRAEL, GOOD PROSPECTS IN 2010
Posted by Barry Rubin, December 27, 2009. |
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In contrast to my rather gloomy assessment of the Obama Administration's prospects in the Middle East, Israel's prospects look rather good. This is granted, of course, that the chances for any formal peace (note the word "formal") with the Arab states or the Palestinians are close to zero. In addition there are two longer-term threats in the form of Iranian nuclear weapons and Islamists one day taking over one or more Arab states. But let's enjoy ourselves while we can. It's also important to remember in the Middle East, optimism does not mean forecasting blue skies but merely ones only lightly overcast. It's funny, though, how much better Israel's situation is then it's generally perceived. Consider the pluses:
That's not at all a bad list. There are many who think that Israel cannot flourish, perhaps cannot even survive, without having formal peace with the Palestinians or perhaps also Syria and the Arabic-speaking world in general. This is simply untrue. The lack of a signed peace treaty with everyone (not to mention that such documents exist with Egypt and Jordan) is not the same as war. From the usual standards of no war, no peace this is a pretty good one. Of course, there are negatives yet they really don't amount to anywhere near as much as it seems on a superficial glance. The virtual defection of Turkey's regime from the Western alliance (yes, it really is that bad) and the end of the special relationship between Jerusalem and Ankara is a bad thing. But the Turkish semi-Islamist rulers are restrained by their desire to play a role in regional peacemaking and not to make the Americans or Europeans too angry. Most distressing of all is the noise. The virulent hatred of Israel by large sections of the American and especially European intelligentsia goes along with the endless outpouring of academic, media, and EU sniping can be dispiriting. Yet even here there is some silver lining. The more extreme and outright crackpot the attacks, the less credible they are. Public opinion polls, especially in the United States where they are through the roof, are not so bad. In addition, the lies and screaming have little material effect on the region itself. Something to worry about but don't lose sleep. What's most important of all is this: A willingness to assess your problems accurately, guided by reasonable expectations. Not being crippled with ideology, blinded by misconceptions, swayed by bad international advice and the desire to be popular. And with determination and courage to implement policies that do the best with the hand you've been dealt. If only others were doing the same thing, the world-and especially the Middle East-would be a better and more peaceful 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
This article is archived at
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SELECTIVE OUTRAGE: A SUBJECT FOR AN OBJECTIVE ACADEMIC STUDY
Posted by Maurice Ostroff, December 26, 2009. |
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China's Grisly Practices With the launching last month of David Matas and David Kilgour's book "Bloody Harvest" every fair minded person must wonder why there has been no public outrage at its gruesome revelation of wide-scale harvesting of organs from live prisoners of conscience in China. The authors estimate that 41,500 organ transplants using Falun Gong prisoners have been done in the past five years. Their vital organs were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.
This is not merely a journalist's report that can be taken lightly. Matas is a lawyer who received the Order of Canada for his human rights work, and Kilgour, a is former crown prosecutor and former Member of Parliament. The allegations are not new. According to the British Medical
Journal of Nov 24, 2001 prisoners in China can be executed for crimes
such as black market activities, in addition to murder. Ambulances
wait at the site of the executions and the fresh organs from healthy
young persons are harvested, to be transplanted into recipients from
abroad.
10,000 African Albinos in hiding And why, one must ask, is there no outrage at reports by the International Federation for the Red Cross and Crescent societies, that 10,000 Albinos have gone into hiding in East Africa because of the common belief that body parts of albinos have magical powers? http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/732206-- east-african-albinos-flee-murder-dismemberment India's Black Market in Organs And are we too indifferent to express outrage at India's black market organ scandal as reported in Time magazine of Feb 1, 2008, revealing an organ transplant ring that has been harvesting kidneys from poor Indian laborers, sometimes against their wishes? Doctors pay $1000 for the kidneys and sell them for $37,500. Another massive transplant ring in Punjab was uncovered in 2003. Police there believe at least 30 of the donors, died, despite promises that they would receive excellent post-operation medical care. Some donors were forcibly brought to clinics at gunpoint and forced to undergo operations that they didn't want. On Feb 09, 2008 Live.com reported that Amit Kumar, the well known Indian trafficker in human organs who was arrested, claimed that the 3,000 kidney transplants he was involved in were a social service. Even Britain In 2000, pathologist Dick Van Velzen at the Alder Hey Children's
Hospital in Liverpool confessed to removing hundreds of thousands of
organs from children's bodies and storing them in hospitals all over
the country. In addition to over 2,000 hearts, there were a large
number of brain parts, eyes taken from over 15,000 stillborn foetuses
and perhaps most disturbingly of all, a number of children's heads and
bodies.
Gaza's Grisly Trophies And there was not even a hint of outrage when Mideast Dispatch Archive reported on May 11, 2004 that body parts of six murdered Israelis were paraded around in Gaza as trophies by Palestinian mobs, including members of the PA security forces. Some even played football with body parts in the street. One disembodied head was placed on a table so television cameras could film it close up.
But there is no lack of outrage when Israel is in the dock How does one explain the glaring difference between the mild media reactions to the above well documented reports and the immediate frenzied response to the unsubstantiated inference that the IDF harvested body parts of Palestinians, in the article by Donald Bostrom in the Swedish Aftonbladet? And how does one explain the instant fame acquired by the author whose name suddenly achieved over 400,000 Google results. Bostrom's own words confirm that his accusations are based on
flimsy inferences rather than evidence. In an interview with the
Jerusalem Post on August 20, he said critics "think I'm
accusing the IDF of stealing organs. That's not what I'm doing. I just
recorded the Palestinian families saying that." He went on to say "I
don't think there is a connection between the New York thing and what
happened in the West Bank in the 90s." Astonishingly, Mr. Bostrom
nevertheless used the NY story in his leading paragraph together with
a prominent photograph of one of the accused, a bearded Mr. Rosenbaum.
More egregiously, Mr. Bostrom omitted to tell his readers that there
were only five Jews among the 44 people arrested in the NY corruption
and organ brokering scandal, including two New Jersey mayors, an
assemblyman, and a city deputy mayor.
Evidently, when Israel is in the dock, an accusation doesn't need to meet even the minimum requirements of journalistic integrity to be widely accepted. The tenuous nature of Bostrom's accusations are all too obvious when one considers that he refers to hearsay incidents in 1992, to infer that the IDF harvested organs in the Cast Lead operation in 2008-9 Exaggeration In enjoying his new fame, Mr. Bostrom is evidently not averse to exaggeration. On receiving an award for excellence from the National Federation of Algerian Journalists he casually increased the number of Palestinians victims whose body parts had been harvested, to more than 1,000.
Prof. Hiss Most of the articles that followed Bostrom's, see a conspiratorial link between the IDF in 2009 and the unrelated 1990 incident in which Professor Hiss, who was then head of Israel's forensic institute admitted that he had harvested organs from cadavers without permission of their families. This incident closely resembles the Dick Van Velzen case in Britain cited above. Israel's Health Ministry responded that the guidelines at that time were not clear, but that they have been severely tightened and strictly enforced since then. Although Professor Hiss still works as chief pathologist, he was dismissed as head of the forensic institute. Israel's attorney-general Rubenstein at the time decided not to indict him since "there is no suspicion of corruption or profiteering on the part of Prof. Hiss, and the only interest he had was the advancement of medical research." There was a great deal of dissatisfaction with Rubenstein's decision. Former Health Minister Dahan said he was sure that there was room for a criminal investigation but that there was at least one encouraging result, namely, that the questionable practices in the Forensic Institute would not continue. Disgusting as this episode was, it is dishonest journalism to draw a false link from it to the IDF's behavior in Operation Cast Lead. Journalistic standards Even one of Israel's severest critics, Matthew Cassel, assistant editor of The Electronic Intifada, cannot close his eyes to the obvious defects in the Bostrom article. Cassel regards Bostrom's baseless organ theft accusations as a propaganda gift for Israel. He wrote "I support uncovering human rights violations and war crimes wherever they occur, especially in Palestine, where I have worked for many years. I do believe Bostrom's intentions were to do much the same but that his process was highly irresponsible. The problem is not that he is accusing the State of Israel of wrongdoing, but that he is making accusations of what would amount to extremely serious war crimes while providing absolutely no evidence to support his claims.. Conclusion Like all types of incitement to hate, this example of reckless
journalism, is harmful to peace efforts. Like real viruses and
computer viruses they spread and mutate and acquire long lasting lives
of their own. Predictably, Boström's story has spawned cartoons of
Jews stealing body parts and drinking Arab blood. Algeria's
al-Khabar newspaper has fantasized Jewish-directed gangs of
Algerians and Moroccans capturing children for harvesting of their
body parts.
Even Al Jazeera Magazine has been infected with the hysteria. In a December 3, article it refers to an international Israeli conspiracy to kidnap children and harvest their organs and repeats a Pravda story that Israel has brought some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the occupied entity over the past two years in order to harvest their organs. Contact Maurice Ostroff by email at maurice@trendline.co.il |
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WHAT IS JUDAISM?
Posted by Boris Celser, December 26, 2009. |
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This comes from http://www.jewfaq.org. The original article has live links to additional material. The site is well-worth visiting. |
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What is Judaism? What does it mean to be a Jew? Most people, both Jewish and gentile, would instinctively say that Judaism is a religion. And yet, there are militant atheists who insist that they are Jews! Is Judaism a race? If you were to say so, most Jews would think you were an antisemite! So what is Judaism? Is Judaism a Religion? Clearly, there is a religion called Judaism, a set of ideas about the world and the way we should live our lives that is called "Judaism." It is studied in Religious Studies courses and taught to Jewish children in Hebrew schools. See What do Jews Believe? for details. There is a lot of flexibility about certain aspects of those beliefs, and a lot of disagreement about specifics, but that flexibility is built into the organized system of belief that is Judaism. However, many people who call themselves Jews do not believe in that religion at all! More than half of all Jews in Israel today call themselves "secular," and don't believe in G-d or any of the religious beliefs of Judaism. Half of all Jews in the United States don't belong to any synagogue. They may practice some of the rituals of Judaism and celebrate some of the holidays, but they don't think of these actions as religious activities. The most traditional Jews and the most liberal Jews and everyone in between would agree that these secular people are still Jews, regardless of their disbelief. See Who is a Jew? Clearly, then, there is more to being Jewish than just a religion. Are Jews a Race? In the 1980s, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race, at least for purposes of certain anti-discrimination laws. Their reasoning: at the time these laws were passed, people routinely spoke of the "Jewish race" or the "Italian race" as well as the "Negro race," so that is what the legislators intended to protect. But many Jews were deeply offended by that decision, offended by any hint that Jews could be considered a race. The idea of Jews as a race brings to mind nightmarish visions of Nazi Germany, where Jews were declared to be not just a race, but an inferior race that had to be rounded up into ghettos and exterminated like vermin. But setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race. Race is a genetic distinction, and refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic traits. You can't change your race; it's in your DNA. I could never become black or Asian no matter how much I might want to. Common ancestry is not required to be a Jew. Many Jews worldwide share common ancestry, as shown by genetic research; however, you can be a Jew without sharing this common ancestry, for example, by converting. Thus, although I could never become black or Asian, blacks and Asians have become Jews (Sammy Davis Jr. and Connie Chung). Is It a Culture or Ethnic Group? Most secular American Jews think of their Jewishness as a matter of culture or ethnicity. When they think of Jewish culture, they think of the food, of the Yiddish language, of some limited holiday observances, and of cultural values like the emphasis on education. Those secular American Jews would probably be surprised to learn that much of what they think of as Jewish culture is really just Ashkenazic Jewish culture, the culture of Jews whose ancestors come from one part of the world. Jews have lived in many parts of the world and have developed many different traditions. As a Sephardic friend likes to remind me, Yiddish is not part of his culture, nor are bagels and lox, chopped liver, latkes, gefilte fish or matzah ball soup. His idea of Jewish cooking includes bourekas, phyllo dough pastries filled with cheese or spinach. His ancestors probably wouldn't know what to do with a dreidel. There are certainly cultural traits and behaviors that are shared by many Jews, that make us feel more comfortable with other Jews. Jews in many parts of the world share many of those cultural aspects. However, that culture is not shared by all Jews all over the world, and people who do not share that culture are no less Jews because of it. Thus, Judaism must be something more than a culture or an ethnic group. Are the Jews a Nation? The traditional explanation, and the one given in the Torah, is that the Jews are a nation. The Hebrew word, believe it or not, is "goy." The Torah and the rabbis used this term not in the modern sense meaning a territorial and political entity, but in the ancient sense meaning a group of people with a common history, a common destiny, and a sense that we are all connected to each other. Unfortunately, in modern times, the term "nation" has become too contaminated by ugly, jingoistic notions of a country obsessed with its own superiority and bent on world domination. Because of this notion of "nationhood," Jews are often falsely accused of being disloyal to their own country in favor of their loyalty to the Jewish "nation," of being more loyal to Israel than to their home country. Some have gone so far as to use this distorted interpretation of "nationhood" to prove that Jews do, or seek to, control the world. In fact, a surprising number of antisemitic websites and newsgroup postings linked to this page (in an earlier form) as proof of their antisemitic delusions that Jews are nationalistic, that Israel is a colonial power and so forth. Because of the inaccurate connotations that have attached themselves to the term "nation," the term can no longer be used to accurately describe the Jewish people. The Jewish People are a Family It is clear from the discussion above that there is a certain amount of truth in the claims that it is a religion, a race, or an ethnic group, none of these descriptions is entirely adequate to describe what connects Jews to other Jews. And yet, almost all Jews feel a sense of connectedness to each other that many find hard to explain, define, or even understand. Traditionally, this interconnectedness was understood as "nationhood" or "peoplehood," but those terms have become so distorted over time that they are no longer accurate. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has suggested a better analogy for the Jewish people: We are a family. See the third essay in his recent book, We Jews: Who Are We and What Should We Do. But though this is a new book, it is certainly not a new concept: throughout the Bible and Jewish literature, the Jewish people are referred to as "the Children of Israel," a reference to the fact that we are all the physical or spiritual descendants of the Patriarch Jacob, who was later called Israel. In other words, we are part of his extended family. Like a family, we don't always agree with each other. We often argue and criticize each other. We hold each other to the very highest standards, knowing that the shortcomings of any member of the family will be held against all of us. But when someone outside of the family unfairly criticizes a family member or the family as a whole, we are quick to join together in opposition to that unfair criticism. When members of our "family" suffer or are persecuted, we all feel their pain. For example, in the 1980s, when Africa was suffering from droughts and famines, many Jews around the world learned for the first time about the Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia. Their religion, race and culture are quite different from ours, and we had not even known that they existed before the famine. And yet, our hearts went out to them as our fellow Jews during this period of famine, like distant cousins we had never met, and Jews from around the world helped them to emigrate to Israel. When a member of our "family" does something illegal, immoral or shameful, we all feel the shame, and we all feel that it reflects on us. As Jews, many of us were embarrassed by the scandals of Monica Lewinsky, Jack Abramoff and Bernie Madoff, because they are Jews and their actions reflect on us all, even though we disapprove. The Madoff scandal was all the more embarassing, because so many of his victims were Jews and Jewish charities: a Jew robbing from our own "family"! We were shocked when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was killed by a Jew, unable to believe that one Jew would ever kill another member of the "family." And when a member of our "family" accomplishes something significant, we all feel proud. A perfect example of Jews (even completely secular ones) delighting in the accomplishments of our fellow Jews is the perennial popularity of Adam Sandler's Chanukkah songs, listing famous people who are Jewish. We all take pride in scientists like Albert Einstein or political leaders like Joe Lieberman (we don't all agree with his politics or his religious views, but we were all proud to see him on a national ticket). And is there a Jew who doesn't know (or at least feel pride upon learning) that Sandy Koufax declined to pitch in a World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur? Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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AIRLINE SECURITY TERROR UPDATE
Posted by Susana K-M, December 25, 2009. |
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This was written by Bill Katz. |
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TERROR UPDATE — AT 7:04 P.M. ET: A White House official is quoted by Fox as saying the incident aboard the Delta flight today (see below) was an attempted act of terrorism, and that the president is monitoring the situation closely. Congressman Pete King (R-NY) is saying that the Nigerian perpetrator suffered third-degree burns, and that the device he attempted to set off was "fairly sophisticated." He also is saying that the detonator was different from what we've encountered before. Stand by. FURTHER BULLETIN — AT 5:37 P.M. ET: Here is the NBC News report on the airliner incident that we're following, related to the two stories just below: A 23-year-old Nigerian man tried to light a powdery substance aboard a Northwest Airlines flight before landing in Detroit on Friday, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told NBC News. Two people noticed the attempt and a third person jumped on the man and subdued him, an airline official told NBC News. The man is being treated at the burn unit of the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, officials said. COMMENT: The issue, of course, is whether this man acted alone, is the only one to plan such an act today, or whether there are more. You can be sure that this is what counterterrorism people are focusing on right now. BULLETIN — AT 5:24 P.M. ET: Relating to the story just below, the incident aboard the Delta airliner may — repeat may — have been more serious than originally thought. Fox reports: A male passenger reportedly linked to terrorist organization al-Qaeda ignited a powdery substance prior to landing on a Delta Airlines flight to Detroit Friday. The suspect is believed to be Nigerian, Fox News reported. Several people were hurt and one person was admitted to the University of Michigan Medical Center at Ann Arbor, hospital spokeswoman Tracy Justice said. An emergency was declared aboard the flight, operated as Northwest flight 253, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson. The suspect, who suffered second-degree burns, told federal investigators he was directed by al-Qaeda, though authorities are questioning the veracity of that statement, ABC reported. A federal situational awareness bulletin noted that the explosive was acquired in Yemen with instructions as to when it should be used, ABC said. COMMENT: We will follow this very closely. It may well be that the guy was just engaging in bravado when he mentioned al-Qaeda. HOWEVER, we have seen incident after incident where the "authorities" deny at first that an event is terror-related, the better to be politically correct, and then later have to crawl under a rock when the truth comes out. Witness Fort Hood. The fact that a bulletin has been put out noting that the explosive was acquired in Yemen should alert us all. Blowing up an airliner on Christmas day is what al-Qaeda is about. This story may grow. This a Dry Bones cartoon. Yaakov Kirschen is the creator of the Dry Bones cartoons, which he started drawing in January 1973. Contact him at blog@mrdrybones.com 
Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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A LESSON FROM JOSEPH: CONFRONTING YOUR FRIEND'S PAIN
Posted by Tzvi Tauby, December 25, 2009. |
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This week: Parsha Vayigash At the event is the tearful reunion between Joseph and Benjamin described in Genesis 45:14: "And [Joseph] fell on the neck of his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck." The Talmud (Megillah 16b) interprets their weeping on each other's necks as expressions of pain and sorrow over future tragedies in their respective histories: "[Joseph] wept over the two Sanctuaries that were to stand in the territory of Benjamin and were destined to be destroyed ... and Benjamin wept over the Shiloh Sanctuary that was to stand in the territory of Joseph and was destined to be destroyed."[*] Self and Fellow But why did Joseph and Benjamin weep on each other's necks, Joseph crying over Benjamin's two destroyed Sanctuaries, and Benjamin over Joseph's? Were they not distressed by the future breakdown of their own "necks"? The same question arises further on in the Torah's account, when Joseph's reunion with his father, Jacob, is described. The Torah relates that "Joseph readied his chariot, and went up to meet Israel, his father ... he fell upon his neck, and he wept more on his neck" (Genesis 46:29). Here, too, our sages explain Joseph's weeping on Jacob's neck as an expression of distress over the destruction of the Holy Temple. But what about Jacob? Why didn't he weep? Our sages tell us that he was reciting the Shema. But if it was time to recite the Shema, why was Joseph weeping? Indeed, is distress over the negative state of the connection between G-d and His creation inconsistent with the recitation of the Shema? We see a pattern emerging: Joseph weeps over the destruction of the Sanctuaries which lay in Benjamin's province, but not over the Sanctuary which lay in his own. Benjamin weeps over the destruction of Joseph's Sanctuary, but not of his own. And Jacob weeps over neither, since, as the father of all the tribes of Israel, his province includes all Sanctuaries of Israel. The question remains: why should one weep over another's spiritual deficiencies but not over one's own? To address this question, we must first examine the nature of weeping in general. What do tears actually achieve? Tears give vent to the feelings of distress and frustration that accompany the knowledge that something is not as it should be. After a "good cry," a person is somewhat relieved of these feelings, although the situation that prompted his tears remains unchanged. Is this a positive phenomenon? At first glance, it would seem not. Distress and frustration are what drive a person to rectify the negative reality that gave rise to them. To lessen them by other means would seem to counteract their purpose and utility. But what if one has done all there is to be done? In such a case, where weeping cannot be faulted for reducing the impetus for action, one can point to its constructive uses. It may serve to communicate one's empathy with a fellow's troubles. And it may serve to alert others to the gravity of the situation — others who are in a position to do something about it. Thus, Joseph and Benjamin allowed themselves to weep over the destruction of each other's Sanctuaries. Ultimately, only Joseph can repair the destroyed Sanctuary at Shiloh, the "Joseph" dimension of Israel's relationship with the Almighty; Benjamin can only encourage and assist. After contributing all he could to Joseph's efforts, Benjamin wept his agony and concern on his brother's neck. The same applies to Joseph's weeping over the Sanctuaries in Benjamin's domain. Instead of weeping over the destruction of the Holy Temple and the resultant galut ("exile"), Jacob recited the Shema — the Jew's proclamation of the unity of G-d and the imperative to translate his comprehension and awareness of G-d's unity into thoughts in his mind, feelings in his heart, and words in his mouth and concrete actions in his physical life. Instead of giving vent to his pain, Jacob directed his inner turmoil toward the endeavor of rebuilding the damaged necks of Israel. Sixty years ago, the great spiritual leaders of Europe were counting their losses — in the millions! The great Chassidic courts of Poland, the prestigious yeshivas of Lithuania, were all destroyed by the Nazi hordes. What did these righteous people do? Did they sit down and cry? Of course there were tears and mourning and indescribable grief, but the emphasis quickly shifted to rebuilding. And today, thank G-d, those same institutions are alive and well, thriving and pulsating with spirit and energy in Israel and the United States. The leadership focused on the future. And painstakingly, over time, they were able to resuscitate and rejuvenate their decimated communities. Those leaders cried bitter tears for their fallen comrades, but for themselves they did not sit and weep. They set about the task of rebuilding — and succeeded in the most inspiring, miraculous way. When we have problems (and who doesn't?), so many of us simply moan and sigh and heave a good old-fashioned yiddishe krechtz (Jewish groan). How many times have we sighed, What can I do? And what does that leave us with? — with the moaning and groaning and nothing else. There is well known Jewish quote. "One good deed is worth more than a thousand sighs". Good Shabbos. [*] (Each tribe received a portion in the Land of Israel. Although a
significant part of the Temple Mount and the Temple courtyard
[azarah], as well as the rest of the city of Jerusalem, was in the
territory of Judah, the main part of the Holy Temple — the heichal,
the Holy of Holies and the Altar — lay in the adjoining territory of
Benjamin. Both the First Temple, erected by King Solomon in the year
2928 from Creation [832 BCE] and destroyed by the Babylonians 410
years later, and the Second Temple, built on the same site in 3408
[352 BCE] and destroyed by the Romans in 3829 [69 CE], were thus
situated. Preceding the two Temples, however, was the Mishkan, the
portable Sanctuary which served the People of Israel in their
journeys in the desert; following the People of Israel's entry into
the Holy Land in the days of Joshua, the Mishkan was erected in
Shiloh in Joseph's territory, its wooden wall-sections replaced with
walls of stone. The Shiloh Sanctuary served as the spiritual
epicenter of the Jewish people for 369 years, until its destruction
by the Philistines in approximately 2872 [888 BCE].)
The Chabad iVolunteer group is based in Brooklyn. Contact them at
programs@ivolunteerny.com
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ISRAEL'S PTA COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
Posted by Paul Rotenberg, December 25, 2009. |
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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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Unbeknownst to most Israelis, this week marked a critical shift for the worse in the regional balance of power. While IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was busy demanding that the government pay a ransom of more than a thousand terrorists for captive soldier Gilad Schalit, few paid attention to Iran's newest strategic successes. Over the past week Lebanon capitulated to the Iranian axis. Turkey solidified its full membership in the axis. And Egypt began to make its peace with the notion of Iran becoming the strongest state in the region. Less than five years after former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated by Syria, his son Prime Minister Saad Hariri paid a visit to Damascus to express his fealty to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Beirut and began giving the Lebanese government its new marching orders. On Wednesday, Hizbullah forces deployed openly to the border with Israel under the permissive eye of the US-armed Lebanese army. Lebanon announced that it was no longer bound by binding UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that requires Hizbullah to disarm. And Hariri announced that he will soon visit Teheran. While Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his media echo chamber insist that Turkey has buried its hatchet with Israel, on Wednesday Prime Minister Recip Erdogan led a delegation with 10 cabinet ministers to Damascus. There, according to the Syrian and Turkish Foreign Ministries, they signed 47 trade agreements. This Turkish-Syrian rapprochement is not limited to economic issues. It is a strategic realignment. As Assad's spokeswoman Buthaina Shaaban explained to Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam television channel, "We are working to establish close ties between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq so these countries can act as one regional bloc in order to promote peace, security and stability in the Middle East, while keeping the West's dictates and lust for the region's natural and oil resources at bay." For years Egypt has been the most outspoken Arab opponent of Iran's moves towards regional hegemony. This past summer Egypt did not hesitate to accuse Teheran of trying to overthrow the regime when it discovered a network of Iranian-commanded Hizbullah operatives planning a massive terror assault on the Suez Canal. Yet on Sunday, Mubarak hosted Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear boss and current speaker of Iran's parliament in Cairo. Following their meeting Mubarak traveled to the Persian Gulf for consultations on Iran's nuclear program. Given Mubarak's poor health, the fact that his meetings with Larijani sent him flying to Saudi Arabia indicate that something of major importance has just occurred. Many IDF commanders are happy to leave the issue of Iran to the US, which they insist is capable and willing to deal with it. But the fact is that since Iran rejected President Barack Obama's diplomatic overtures, the US has shown clear signs of strategic dissonance. While Israel clings to the hope that sanctions might prevent Iran from going nuclear, this week that notion was exposed as a fiction. Although Obama gave the House of Representatives a green light to vote on sanctions against Iran, he quickly demonstrated that Teheran had no reason to worry. First Obama and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry blocked discussion of sanctions in the Senate. And now — with full White House backing — Kerry is trying again to appease the Iranians by begging them to let him visit Teheran. Clearly appeasement is the only play in Obama's book. Furthermore, China's refusal to back sanctions in the UN Security Council coupled with Lebanon's and Brazil's ascension to the council next month obviate any possibility that a harsh international sanctions regime will be instituted against Iran any time soon.
FOR ISRAEL, Iran's successful moves to preempt American threats to isolate it should have been the top news story and the main issue on the government's and the General Staff's agendas. But it wasn't. Indeed, no one seemed to notice. They were otherwise occupied. For the past week, the government's security cabinet and the IDF's top commanders have devoted themselves entirely to discussing how many terrorists Israel will give Hamas in exchange for captive soldier Gilad Schalit. For three days, the security cabinet met around the clock to discuss this issue alone. And the most insistent advocate for accepting Hamas's demand that Israel release over a thousand terrorists has been IDF Chief of General Staff Ashkenazi. On Monday, Channel 2 reported that National Security Adviser Uzi Arad accused Ashkenazi of acting like the president of the IDF's parents' association rather than the chief of General Staff. Arad criticized Ashkenazi for demanding that Israel ransom the captive soldier while failing to supply the government with any option to use force to rescue Schalit. The media pounced on the Arad-Ashkenazi story like hungry wolves. The national debate was dominated for two days by the burning questions of whether or not Arad would apologize, and whether Netanyahu can continue to retain Arad's services after he insulted Ashkenazi. Conspicuously absent from the media's coverage of the spat was any discussion of the reasonableness of Arad's criticism. So, too, the media ignored the question of what — if anything — Ashkenazi's behavior tells us about the IDF mindset and disposition as Iran consolidates its regional power. The fact is that Arad's criticism was on point. Schalit has been captive in Gaza for more than three years. At no point has the IDF provided the government with an option for rescuing him. A year ago, Ashkenazi sent the IDF's best combat units into Gaza. During their stay, they were not ordered to rescue Schalit. And now, a year later, Ashkenazi is demanding that the government pay for the IDF's failure to rescue Schalit by accepting a deal that will imperil the country. And he is claiming that failure to do so will constitute nothing less than an abdication of Israel's moral responsibility to its soldiers. Following the publication of Arad's attack on Ashkenazi, the IDF's Spokesman's Office issued a statement that army commanders are fulfilling their "professional duties" by insisting that Israel ransom Schalit. This is untrue. It is not the professional duty of IDF commanders to opine on ransom demands. They have no professional qualifications to determine the reasonableness of ransom demands. In Jewish history, the role of ransoming captives has traditionally been the writ of rabbis, not military men. The writ of military men was to rescue them. The professional responsibility of the IDF is to provide the government with military options for achieving its strategic objectives — including rescuing Schalit. By failing to provide such options, the IDF — with Ashkenazi at its helm — has failed to uphold its professional responsibilities. Worse still, by demanding that the government endanger the country to ransom Schalit, Ashkenazi and his generals are telling us something distressing about how they define their role as military commanders. The IDF's apparent confusion about its role is not new. It was this confusion that led the army to fail to present the government with options for defeating Hizbullah in Lebanon in 2006 or for defeating Hamas in Gaza last year. Whereas former prime minister Ehud Olmert properly received most of the blame for Israel's poor performance in the Second Lebanon War and in Operation Cast Lead, the fact is that it was the IDF that failed to deliver the goods. The operations the IDF designed, recommended and carried out in both campaigns were not meant to defeat Israel's enemies. All they were supposed to do was demonstrate Israel's firepower. And even this wasn't done particularly effectively. In 2006, then-chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz rejected a ground invasion of south Lebanon in favor of an air campaign. When it became clear some 24 hours into the operation that an air campaign would be incapable of defeating Hizbullah or even degrading its ability to paralyze northern Israel with short-range rockets and missiles, Halutz and his deputies refused to conduct a ground assault. And, when after three weeks of failure they finally deployed ground forces in significant numbers, they didn't know what to tell them to do. For his part, Ashkenazi sat on his hands for months as southern Israel was pummeled with rockets and mortars from Gaza and refused to offer the government a military option for protecting the South. When last December Hamas forced his hand by announcing that it was abrogating its cease-fire with Israel, Ashkenazi grudgingly agreed to let the IDF respond to its aggression. But even then, he opted for an operational concept that had no chance of defeating Hamas. Ashkenazi rejected the notion of retaking the Gaza-Egypt border. He refused to order IDF forces into Gaza's population centers. By opting not to do these things, Ashkenazi guaranteed that the IDF would accomplish little. Consequently, even top IDF commanders acknowledged this week that the army will be forced to return to Gaza in due course. There, thanks to Ashkenazi's refusal to defeat Hamas, Israel's soldiers will face a far more formidable foe than the one they were not allowed to defeat last year. While refusing to fight Israel's enemies, under Ashkenazi, like under Halutz before him, the IDF has enthusiastically attacked religious Zionists. Since 2002, the only sustained operation the army has carried out successfully was the expulsion of all Israelis from Gaza and northern Samaria in 2005. When Defense Minister Ehud Barak severed the IDF's ties with the Har Bracha Yeshiva last week, he was acting on Ashkenazi's advice. Ashkenazi has promoted anti-settler commanders like Col. Yitzhak Barr. As a brigade commander in Samaria, Barr has reportedly prohibited his soldiers from fraternizing with Israeli families on Shabbat and personally refused to visit IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Avichai Rontzky at his succa during Succot.
EVERY DAY the dangers to Israel's security and very survival mount. At this time, the government and the people of Israel need to be able to trust in the IDF's ability to defend the country. Rather than earning that trust, those tasked with our defense are spending their time berating the political leadership for their own failures. Moreover, they are expressing a disturbing desire to pass the buck on fighting Israel's enemies while aggressively hounding Israelis. This situation is unacceptable. Either Ashkenazi and his generals should prove they are capable of performing their jobs, or they should be replaced. Paul Rotenberg lives in Toronto, Canada. Contact him at pdr@rogers.com |
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MERRY CHRISTMAS TO OUR CHRISTIAN READERS
Posted by Think-Israel, December 25, 2009. |
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We picked this as a fascinating read for today: Amil Imani, "Christmas Spirit and Islam" And this to watch: "A Different Christmas Poem." |
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This is the time of the year that the air is filled with everything Christmas. There is something for everyone: gifts for family and friends, prayers at churches, and Christmas music everywhere. It puts me in a contemplative mood, particularly when I hear the delightful Christian refrain, peace on earth, goodwill to men. This is the gift I want. This is my Christmas. When there is peace on earth and all people dispense and receive good will. Yet, I am saddened to see the world as it is, particularly with what Islam is doing to it, which is the exact opposite of working for peace and extending goodwill to all people. My contemplation takes me to the genesis of Islam. Something I have come to view as a scourge of humanity, and here are a few of my random thoughts about the founder of Islam: the person who launched a religion that has denied peace to mankind right from the start, the person who advanced a religion that began with war, continues with war, and aims to carry on with bloodletting to the end of time. All this makes me think and shake my head in bewilderment. Starting with the premise that an all-knowing powerful God is the creator of this awe-inspiring universe where we humans are an infinitesimally insignificant part of his creation humbles me. Muslims call this creator Allah — a recast of one of 360 idols in the pre-Islamic Idolatry of Mecca — and attribute numerous superhuman qualities to him. It is awe-inspiring to realize that a being of that description may indeed exist. That leads me to some questions: Why would such an indescribably exalted creator, with his ascribed boundless wisdom and resources, pick an illiterate Bedouin to become his prophet for then and forever? The man himself, Muhammad, admitted in the Quran to his own illiteracy. Yet, Allah persisted in choosing this man? Was Allah bored with the rest of his universe and playing a joke on us helpless mortals? Or was it a case of Allah not being able to get any reasonably literate man to take the job? I don't have an answer to this or a bevy of other questions and the answers I have seen so far from Muslims are far from satisfactory. I am forced to mark this as one of the enigmas of life and move on to further look into Muhammad, his claims, his life and the way all might come together with Allah's choreography of our life of drama. Muslims claim that Muhammad was the most perfect man, the kind of saintly man that each and every one of us should adulate and aspire to follow. On the top of their list is the desire to lead their lives in such a way that would please Allah, if they can. Muhammad has done that, Muslims claim. And apparently Allah, in his infinite kindness, does not require the rest of us mortals to do things that we are incapable of doing. And Muhammad has brought us the perfect life manual, the Quran, to help us in our quest, we are told. Besides, a great inducement for me to check Islam out is the promise of eternal life in an indescribably lush sensual paradise of Allah if I make the grade. If I fail, I am told, my forever destination is the dreadful inferno of hell. I have also checked out those schools of thoughts that say life starts here and ends here. End of discussion. Well, buying into the idea that I am going to end up as fertilizer in some desolate cemetery is not something I would like to contemplate. So, I kept looking into this Islam thing since I was born and raised in it. After all 1.5 billion people have bought into it. They can't all be misguided, can they? This quest led me to examine the teachings and life of Muhammad closely. And here are a few of my findings that have thrown me for a loop. Hence, I am sharing my findings with the readers in the hope that someone would supply me with explanations that would relieve me of my perplexities. I have, in my quest, read, re-read, and read again the Quran — purportedly the literal word-for-word of Allah transmitted to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel over the course of some 20 years. Right away I am troubled. Is Allah the same creator who has created the entire universe by a single word of his mouth — kon va yakoon — be and became, as Islam claims? Then why did it take this magnificent all-knowing lightingly-fast-Allah 20 years to get across a dime-novel-size hodgepodge of contradictory and nonsensical verse called the Quran, to us poor creatures? Was it because Muhammad was illiterate and he couldn't write them down? But that can't be. He didn't write down anything himself. He dictated to anyone who could write and was around at the time to do it. Therefore, in the course of some 20 years what is claimed to be the word-for-word dictates of Allah went through a number of intermediaries and materialized in several versions. First the Archangel Gabriel whispered it to Muhammad, then Muhammad found some Arab who could write — not an easy find among the masses of the most backward illiterates of Arabia — and who happened to have a pen of some sort and a parchment to jot down what Muhammad still managed to recall. Perhaps this does explain the several versions of the Quran that popped up after Muhammad's death and the Caliph Othman's choice of one as the genuine and burning of the others. The practice of burning books Muslims don't like to talk about, goes all the way back to their venerated second Caliph, Othman. Now, how could a fallible politician like Othman be the judge of Allah's genuine utterances? Was there another Archangel that helped him out, or he just simply liked that particular version best? One thing you can say about Othman. He was an astute enough politician to realize that you can't have one Islam with several versions of the word-for-word revelation of Allah. Here is another problem. Even the chosen version of the Quran, if you can make any sense of it at all, reads like two different books. The early part is known as the Mecca Quran. This part is much about meekness, tolerance, kindness and so forth. This was the time that Muhammad's wife Khadija — a monotheist Hanif, in contrast to polytheist idolater Muhammad — introduced her young troubled husband to her Christian uncle and exposed him to the teachings of Christianity that influenced his "revelation." During this early phase of his ministry, Muhammad spoke respectfully about the "people of the book," — Christians and Jews, the people from whose book he liberally plagiarized to launch his monotheistic faith with the invaluable encouragements of his wife Khadija. It was Khadija who convinced the young man that he was indeed chosen by Allah to be his spokesperson; that the jinn and angels communicated with him were parts of Allah's plan for him. Muhammad, during his Mecca years, was ridiculed for his confused sayings by his own tribe of Quraish. He was called shaeron majnoon — crazed poet. At this early stage he went by his birth name of Abulqasem. It was later that he took on the new name of Muhammad — Praiseworthy-One — to go better with his ministry. Muhammad, having been judged as a hallucinating insane poet, was tormented by the Meccans in many ways. It got so bad, that after his wife's death he left for Medina where a significant Jewish community provided a safer place for him to gather followers, build a powerbase, reveal his Medina Quran of intolerance and vilification, and launch his religion in full force and by brute force. Once in Medina, Muhammad hit on a most powerful formula for success. He justified everything, on the spot, by saying that Allah wants it this way. And Allah was nothing to trifle with. He held the key to the most magnificent paradise as well as to the dreadful hell. The duty of a good Muslim became unquestioning obedience to everything that Muhammad said and wished. Muhammad became Allah's gatekeeper to paradise and hell. Muhammad's formula worked magic with the Bedouins of Arabia who thrived on robberies and killings. His religion spread like a pandemic disease in no time at all. And here we are in the 21st century, at Christmas time, praying for peace and goodwill to men, while Muhammad's men are working overtime to make sure that men see neither peace nor goodwill. I would like to join the chorus of peace on earth and goodwill to men. Yet, deep in my soul, I find it my solemn duty to keep on sounding the alarm about the fire of Islam even at this poignant moment of Christmas. Peace on earth and goodwill to men is a perennial prayer. It can be only when enough men and women of goodwill, with iron resolve arise and disempower the Islamist people of war and ill-will. Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy
activist residing in the United States of America. Contact him by
email at editor.amilimani@gmail.com. This article is archived at
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RESIDENTS PLAN TO THWART FREEZE; ARMY-YESHIVA CONTROVERSY; DID AIPAC
GET US INTO THE IRAQ WAR?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 25, 2009. |
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FREEZE MODIFIED The Israeli Cabinet has modified the freeze on Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria. The modification would allow repair, renovation, house-expansion, and completion of buildings whose foundation already had been laid. The Cabinet explained that it found that the freeze orders sent out exceeded the authority granted by the Cabinet. National Union Party MK Aryeh Eldad thinks that the government wanted to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits for arbitrary damages (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/24). NETANYAHU TRIES TO ABSORB OPPOSITION PARTIES Israel's Likud Party is offering Cabinet posts to Kadima Party MKs who return to Likud. Kadima MKs, out of power, are restive. Labor Party MKs are disenchanted with their head, Ehud Barak (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/12/23). PM Netanyahu urged MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into a coalition of national unity. Such coalitions tend to be formed in preparation for a major war (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). Yes, but which war? Could be that Netanyahu is diluting the nationalist element in the regime, so that he and Barak can make war on the Jews of Judea-Samaria. As earlier reports revealed, Netanyahu and Barak have committed the entire Border Guard and several battalions of troops to freeze-enforcement. The plan is to cut off cell phone communication among residents, isolate them, impose curfews, etc.. Israel's Likud Party is offering Cabinet posts to Kadima Party MKs who return to Likud. Kadima MKs, out of power, are restive. Labor Party MKs are disenchanted with their head, Ehud Barak (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/12/23). PM Netanyahu urged MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into a coalition of national unity. Such coalitions tend to be formed in preparation for a major war (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). Yes, but which war? Could be that Netanyahu is diluting the nationalist element in the regime, so that he and Barak can make war on the Jews of Judea-Samaria. As earlier reports revealed, Netanyahu and Barak have committed the entire Border Guard and several battalions of troops to freeze-enforcement. The plan is to cut off cell phone communication among residents, isolate them, impose curfews, etc.. Israel's Likud Party is offering Cabinet posts to Kadima Party MKs who return to Likud. Kadima MKs, out of power, are restive. Labor Party MKs are disenchanted with their head, Ehud Barak (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/12/23). PM Netanyahu urged MK Livni, head of Kadima, to bring her party into a coalition of national unity. Such coalitions tend to be formed in preparation for a major war (www.imra.org.il, 12/24). Yes, but which war? Could be that Netanyahu is diluting the nationalist element in the regime, so that he and Barak can make war on the Jews of Judea-Samaria. As earlier reports revealed, Netanyahu and Barak have committed the entire Border Guard and several battalions of troops to freeze-enforcement. The plan is to cut off cell phone communication among residents, isolate them, impose curfews, etc.. RESIDENTS PLAN TO THWART FREEZE 
The Jews of Judea-Samaria do not believe that the freeze order is temporary and isolated. They think its removal from local communities of the power to authorize building is intended to be permanent. "The very day (Friday) after the construction freeze order was signed, and up until the minutes that the Sabbath began, freeze orders were distributed to local mayors. Aerial photos were even taken in order to document the status quo. The speed with which this process was done shows that this was not a sudden decision, but one that was preceded by careful, long planning — far from the eyes of the public and by deceiving the voters." [That kind of military dispatch and with deception was the way Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert managed the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria. It was more a blow to the religious, to Zionism, and to the Right, than anything to do with peace, as it simply let Gaza become a terrorist haven. The expulsion was characterized by approved brutality.] "The next logical step is negotiations and Israeli withdrawal from most of Yesha and the destruction of the towns and expulsion of their residents." "The defense establishment is relating to the enforcement of the freeze as a national mission encompassing the entire IDF, from the Chief of Staff down to the regional brigades in Yesha. Just like before the Gush Katif expulsion, the army is preparing to provide "mental preparation" for the policemen and soldiers who will take part, including motivational talks about how the freeze is critical for national security. Some 40 teams of inspectors, including representatives of the Civil Administration, Border Guard, and IDF guards, will enforce the freeze, driving around in bullet-proof vehicles to the various communities." "They will attempt to create a 'deterrence effect' by arresting individuals who will serve as scapegoats by being punished severely, with the expectation that others will be afraid to follow in their footsteps. This is critical for the government, since they know that they will not be able to deal with thousands of opponents — but if we realize that in truth they cannot punish thousands of us, and we thus break their "deterrence effect," and simply not be afraid of them — we will have won." "We must also employ psychological warfare, in the sense of, "We're upsetting the board and not playing anymore." There must be no dialog with the government or the IDF. Dialog only serves their purposes, of keeping things under control. Their fear of the unknown and lack of control is much greater than ours, and if we don't talk with them, they have more to lose than we do. "Netanyahu, for instance, has humiliated the Yesha leadership by refusing to meet with them ever since he was elected — except for immediately after the freeze orders were issued, when he wished simply to calm us down and neutralize our ability to fight. Meetings of this sort can help us in small things, but the price will be our ability to wage an effective fight." We call upon the mayors, rabbis and community leaders not to meet with or have any contact with anyone connected with the enforcement of the freeze. This "extreme" move will significantly complicate the enforcement, and will also broadcast a message of how grave the construction freeze truly is." "A basic assumption is that the State will not be able to enforce the freeze in the face of thousands and tens of thousands of opponents. Neither will the IDF be able to handle refusals by dozens and hundreds of soldiers." "The struggle must therefore be broad and comprehensive, and supported by public leaders and rabbis. Groups of dozens and hundreds of adults and youths must be organized, where everyone places on brick on a new building. In this relatively simple manner, we will show that enforcing the freeze is impossible and that we will not take it lying down." "We must also not be afraid to be arrested. We must fight their psychological warfare by showing that we are not afraid, and turning this approach to our advantage. The courts will not be able to deal with hundreds and thousands of indictments and arrests. It will not only stop up the court system, it will also broadcast a message of lack of control, of impending catastrophe, of a nationalist party against the public, etc. " (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/24.) In the prior tenure of PM Netanyahu, right after his election, Netanyahu cold-shouldered his nationalist and religious supporters. I discussed with some of them at the time his rebuffs. That is when we realized that his reputation as right-wing is not warranted. The plans would seem wiser if they renounced the yesha Council leadership that betrayed their attempt to prevent the expulsion of Yesha Jewry and if they warned against government spies. ARMY-YESHIVA CONTROVERSY: MORE Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, dean of the Har Bracha Hesder Yeshiva, which helps prepare ultra-Orthodox youth for the Israeli Army, and rabbis in similar institutions, signed a declaration against political protest in the Army. Defense Min. Barak declared that he was severing the Army relationship with Har Bracha, because, "'After two attempts to demonstrate within the army, it turned out that there is a yeshiva whose head openly preaches for refusal of orders, and is unwilling to denounce acts of protest within the IDF,' Barak said in a speech before high school students in Rishon LeTzion." (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/23.) Earlier, Rabbi Melamed had said that he would not volunteer to tell students what to do, but if they consulted him, he would suggest they not demonstrate. I think that Barak has his own agenda, regardless of the facts. ISRAEL INVITING PALESTINIAN ARAB CHRISTIANS FOR HOLY DAYS Israel has offered an unlimited number of permits to Palestinian Christians, to enter Israel for religious and family reasons, for a month during the holidays. So far, 10,000 have accepted. Israel offered a few hundred permits to Christians in Gaza (www.imra.org.il, 12/23). What is the biggest Christmas shopping list in history? The just-passed medical insurance bill. DID AIPAC GET THE U.S. INTO THE IRAQ WAR? More than one reader has claimed that the Jewish lobby got the U.S. into the Iraq war [meaning the continuation of the Gulf War]. One cited an alleged boast by the Executive Director of AIPAC that his organization's influence had that result. I checked with AIPAC, because the accusation does not make sense. (1) Even if true, a lobbyist would not boast about having gotten his country into an unpopular war; and (2) I recall reporters and Israeli leaders asserting that such a war would be a mistake and that they did not want those who prompted such a war to try to bolster their position by claiming it would help Israel. An AIPAC spokesman replied, "Hi and thank you for your note. AIPAC did not lobby for the Iraq war and took no lobbying position on the matter. Assertions to the contrary are patently false, and in some cases, malicious. In fact there was a letter from several members of Congress a few years ago making this point from the Hill's perspective. There was one article that made this claim, but it was false." Links to a news story on this topic and to a letter by Members of Congress rebuking a fellow Representative for making such a claim:
The news story starts: "Sixteen of Democratic Rep. Jim Moran's House colleagues rebuked him in a withering letter Wednesday for saying last week that the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 'pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning.'" (Reply from AIPAC,12/24.) Such fabrications are malicious. Their reiteration is in some cases naive and in others a studied willingness to accept any mud to fling at Israel. ISRAELI VICTIMS SUE HAMAS FOR WAR CRIMES, IN EUROPE Fifteen dual citizens of Israel and Belgium, who suffered injury, property damage, or loss of kin during Hamas bombardment of Israel sued Hamas for war crimes, in a Belgian court. The suit named 10 Hamas leaders. This is the first of a series of cases to be brought in Europe. Plaintiff's hope to bring to public attention Hamas' crimes, hitherto muted, including in the Goldstone Report. They hope to show the difference between Hamas war crimes and the proper way to conduct war that Israel practiced. The Report's brief mention of Hamas' war crimes was noted in the legal brief. Meanwhile, Hamas is advising Europeans on what suits they should bring against Israel (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/24). I think that lawsuits have been abused so as to become a nuisance and are meant as a nuisance. I reported and wrote my own extensive analysis of the Goldstone Report. Anti-Zionists condemned the analysis without addressing them. The comments tried to refute the analysis by citing the original Report that the analysis debunked. Not logical. I have a question for those defenders of the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone mission was sent out specifically to report on Israeli military conduct and not on Hamas military conduct. The lengthy Report had just a brief mention of Hamas war crimes, which were extensive, both in Gaza and against Israel. By then, Hamas had fired between 6,000 and 8,000 rockets at Israel. My question is, how do they reconcile the limited and mild mention of the extensive Hamas war crimes, with the extensive and caustic expounding on the limited alleged IDF war crimes? What does that show about the integrity of the UN and its Report?
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 and visit his website:
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TO FAT ABE FOXMAN ON CARTER'S APOLOGY
Posted by Paul Lademain, December 25, 2009. |
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We are the PC-free Secular Christians for Zion (PC-free SC4Z): To make ourselves clear (nod to BHO) we respond to Jimmy's "apology" to the Jews: Jimmy Carter apologizes to Jewish community
The former U.S. President released an open letter offering an apology for previous remarks. Atlanta (WiredPRNews.com) — Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter recently released an open letter to the Jewish community, apologizing for possible offenses to his previous words or actions. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), Carter, who upset many Jews with a South African apartheid comparison to Israeli treatment of Arabs in a book released while he was in office, spoke of his hopes for respect and cooperation between Israel and its neighbors in the letter initially released to JTA. Carter is quoted by the AP as stating in the letter, "We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel... As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League who criticized Carter's previously stated notions about Israel, is quoted in the report as stating of welcoming Carter's apology, "When a former president reaches out to the Jewish community and asks for forgiveness, it's incumbent of us to accept it... To what extent this is an epiphany, only time will tell. There certainly was a lot of hurt, a lot of angry words that need to be repaired. But this is a good start." _________ The SC4Z awards Carter's apology 2 points out of 10. His apology is not coached in terms of confessing to the magnitude of his offenses against truth — offenses that directly led to the incitement of war against Israeli civilians — but merely expresses his belated sorrow at having said or done things "that upset Jews." Such tepid language! Especially so when considering the miles Carter marched in service of the Saudis, their proxy, Yasser Arafat, and the Israel-hating Texan, Jim Baker (former US State Dept. Secretary.) Jim Baker makes no bones about his hatred for Israel, a Jewish State, and his alliance with if not his allegiance to the Saudi royals who enriched him.* See: Craig Unger's* "House of Bush, House of Saud". (Scribner) "Apologies for possible offenses." Possible? Carter is a university grad, schooled in nuclear technology. He is neither stupid nor dense. His words against Israel and Jews in general were designed with a certainty that forwarded the mawkish propaganda writ by the Saudis on behalf of their proxy, the Egyptian-born terrorist, Yasser Arafat. Jimmy Carter has already spent decades aiding and abetting this terrorist as well as any arab from any arab country who falsely claims to be a "victim of Jewish persecution." Jimmy deliberately ignores the near million Jews who were forced to become refugees when they were attacked and robbed and slaughtered and driven from their ancestral homes in the Muslim-controlled regions surrounding Jewish Palestine during the Forties. Jewish communities in Saudi Arabia — Medina in particular — fled for the lives. Nobody knows exactly where the Muslims who later swarmed into Jewish Palestine originated. With the help of Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat, they simply entered the region formerly called Jewish Palestine and began calling themselves "Palestinians" and the naive and semantically-challenged Jews, many speaking neither English nor Arabic, adopted the self-serving semantics designed by the Muslims to diminish through co-option the Jews' rightful claims to their homeland; lands which had long been referred to as "Palestine, the Jewish Homeland". After WWII, Jews — weakened by persecution and wholesale extermination and eager to be treated as human beings by their traditional persecutors — were easy marks for the Britz, who deliberately abused their assigned powers and simply handed the Hashemite Muslims 90% of what International law and treaty had defined as "Palestine — the Jewish Homeland". Worse still, at that time many Jews, deeply wounded by British insults and trickery, assuaged their humiliation by accepting only "the tail of the chicken" while pretending that British spittle was but a spring rain. The Britz thereafter impeded Israel when this tiny nation, now shorn of 90 % of its land, faced military invasion by the surrounding new arab states created by the British "mandate". The Euroids were shocked when Israel vanquished their would-be conquerors. Jimmy Carter knows all this; he is well aware of the tribulations visited upon Israel and Jews, but still, he deliberately ignored international law, ignored the truth, and used his bully pulpit as X-POTUS to attack Israel with the most scurrilous and false allegations which only malice could imagine. Yes, Mr. Foxman, we know how nice it feels to to "go along to get along" — how wonderful it is supposed to feel to forgive during the Forgiving Season — but we remind you that no Sharia-bound Muslim will entertain similar sentiments nor will Sharia urge Muslims to voluntarily cease attacking non-Muslim civilians. Mr. Foxman, you cautiously hint that Carter ought to back his apology with rehabilitation. But we are the PC-free SC4Z, and we are the majority, and we needn't squirm when we say that WE DEMAND it. Viva to Israel from the Secular Christians for Zion. Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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NETANYAHU, BARAK, PERES AND THE KNESSET DESTROYING THEIR OWN COUNTRY. SOUND FAMILIAR?
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, December 24, 2009. |
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This is by Yehudit Tayar, a veteran spokesperson for the Jewish pioneers living in Yesha. For the past 30 years she and her family have lived in Bet Horon, in the Benjamin Region of the Shomron. |
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It is up to us to save Israel for the Jewish people The Apartheid, anti-Zionistic meticulous plans of the Netanyahu/Barak government against Israeli citizens in the heartland of Israel are an ominous omen for the future of the Jewish State. Think of the amount of money that would be poured into the "operation" that this deceitful company of politicians plans to use in order to destroy Jewish homes, freeze any building, cut off communications to prevent any possible enlistment of people coming out to help to protect their fellow citizens. Think of the number of police, the military forces, the amount of money for aerial photography, etc. Then let us compare this to the current lack of efforts and lack of governmental financial backing for our military operations to protect the citizens in Israel from the continuing violence directed against us. Every day citizens and military all over Israel, not only in Yesha (Judea and Samaria), are being attacked by terrorists with missiles and advanced weaponry. The media has learned nothing from their collaboration in the previous "operation treason" during which the Sharon government promised both quiet to the citizens of Israel and a "solution for every resident" of Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron. The media collaborated with the government and orchestrated the promotion of this deceitful, traitorous plan. When implemented this plan proved disastrous with the uprooting of our families, living and our dead, and the destruction of our towns, villages and synagogues. The entire country has paid the price for the Hamas terror-based Gaza that was the immediate result of the operation. The rocket attacks and subsequently the military operation inside of Gaza were the direct result of the destruction of Gush Katif, the small but vibrant area cultivated by Israelis, that so benefited the Arab economy. Now what will happen to the country following the plans this government has for the center of Israel, the very heartland of Israel — Judea, and Samaria? How will this deter our enemies from within and from outside our borders from planning even more terror against us? One would surmise that the bitter lessons of the mistakes made by previous governments would have been learned. Sadly, the opposite is the case. That leaves the ordinary people, the residents of Israel who understand the implications of this undemocratic, unlawful plan against us, to protest the land in any way we can. To stop this from happening we must continue to build, we must prevent the forces sent to implement these unlawful anti-Jewish decrees from entering our communities. Sometimes it is in the hands of the simple people to change history. We must learn from the bravery of the freedom fighters from the time of the Maccabees and from the heroes of the Mossad L'Aliyah Beth. These brave citizens, who against the wishes of the so-called leadership in Eretz Yisrael, continued to bring in Jews from Nazi Europe during the War of Independence to save their own lives and the existence of the entire country. The compliance by so-called leaders of Israel with the wishes of foreign nations, not in the best interest of the security of Israel, is a tragedy repeated time and time again. It happened first with the British occupying forces in our Land, and now with the pressures from Barak Hussein Obama, Europe and the rest of the world. Those misguided pathetically weak "dreamers of peace at any price" acted like a fifth column. They did not live in reality but rather with some pipe dream that if we only do what the world wants maybe we will be loved or at least left alone. We have finally come home to our Land as a people and we cannot afford to allow weak, misguided politicians to endanger the future of the Jewish State by dangerous, anti-Jewish plans. It is up to us to fight to prevent this not only for ourselves, the Jewish pioneers in Yesha, but for all Israeli citizens who will pay the price if, G-d forbid, a Muslim Palestinian state is allowed inside our borders. 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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POLICE VS. PROTESTERS — WORLD-WIDE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 24, 2009. |
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Police around the world are thinking up new ways to discourage protestors. Their problem is when the protesters are engaged in legal civil disobedience and when the Police are acting as storm troopers on behalf of a dictatorial government. A few weeks ago I saw a brief YouTube clip where the Police were wielding batons on an unarmed crowd. Police on horseback were charging into the crowd. The Police had plastic see-through visors — as did the horses. A small segment of the crowd threw what looked like baking flour which coated the see-through visors of the Police and the horses. The horses simply stopped in their tracks as did the Police. What you can't see, you can't beat on. The surge of attacks against unarmed civilians slowed down and almost ceased while the protesters simply calmed down when the beatings ceased. Windshields of the Police Cars were similarly coated with baking flour. While, no doubt, the Police with their batons were frustrated, it seemed that using passive baking flour was a pretty safe way to protest. Regrettably, I saw this in passing so I didn't notice if this was occurring in China, Belgium, or in Iran. With clouds of baking flour powder in the air, it looked like it was snowing. It was a laughable sight. PLEASE FORWARD TO THOSE WHO MIGHT NEED THIS INFO. ### Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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RABBI MEIR CHAI, FATHER OF SEVEN, IS DEAD IN SAMARIA. SHOT
BY ARAB SNIPER
Posted by Yaacov Levi, December 24, 2009. |
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This article was written by Gil Ronen and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva. |
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(IsraelNN.com) Rabbi Meir Chai, 45, of Shavei Shomron, was mortally wounded in the head Thursday afternoon when terrorists fired at the car he was traveling in, between the Jewish communities of Shavei Shomron and Einav in Samaria, west of Shechem, according to preliminary reports. A spokesperson for Shavei Shomron said that Rabbi Meir Chai worked as an educator at the local school and kindergarten, and that the children were very attached to him. He lived in the community for 14 years and was considered a wise Torah scholar, modest and well-loved. A large force of Israeli soldiers and police has started searching for the terrorists, who escaped the scene. Magen David Adom emergency services declared the victim of the shooting dead late Thursday afternoon. Rabbi Chai was a father of seven children. He was driving on route 57 when terrorists opened fire on him. His car overturned and he was mortally wounded. His wife and a young son were found in good physical condition by Israeli troops, a short time after the shooting, near Einav. Until they were found, security forces were concerned that the terrorists had tried to abduct the two. Fatah faction: we did it The Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction said Thursday evening they were the ones who carried out the terror slaying. The Bethlehem-based Maan news agency says terrorists from a group named after slain Hizbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh carried out the attack and escaped. The murder was the first fatality in a terror attack in more than seven months. The last terror murder victim was Gregory Rabinovitch, 56, a taxi driver murdered May 10 near Gan Yavneh. Two months after the murder, security forces reported that it was carried out by terrorists. Local officials state that it was the Christmass releasing of travel restrictions that enabled the murder to happen. The restriction lifting was to please President Barak Obama. UPDATE 1:
Thousands of people took part in the funeral of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai who was murdered Thursday by a Fatah terror squad. The funeral procession started out at 10:00 AM from the Shamgar Funeral Home and went to the cemetery at the Mount of Olives. Chai (40) lived in Shavei Shomron for 14 years. He was married with seven children, the youngest of whom is two months old. Minister Yaakov Neeman eulogized Rabbi Chai tearfully and paid tribute to his great virtue as a teacher of young children. Samaria Regional Council Head Gershon Mesika said that "Rabbi Meir is a victim of the folly of the government of Israel. His murder is the result of the removal of checkpoints. Two weeks ago the main checkpoint between Shechem and Tulkarm was opened. The government of Israel preferred the Arab's fabric of life to the Jew's life." Mentioning Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Mesika said: "I demand that you face the widow and orphans and ask forgiveness because you cannot say 'our hands did not spill this blood.'" To the Arabs he said: "You have hit the lion in our ranks but you will not break our spirit. We vow to you, Rabbi Meir, that we will continue in your path, to settle in the lands of our forefathers, in spite of them." A father to hundreds MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) said that Rabbi Meir was "a father to all of us and to... hundreds of children whom he taught Torah." MK Yaakov Katz (NU) said: "Rabbi Meir, you are all of Israel; you are a hero of Israel in the instruction of Torah and in fear of the Heavens." Turning to the residents of Judea and Samaria, he said: "We are the few who hold the many. Rabbi Meir, you represent the courage of the settlers. You represent the courage of those who drive at night without guards or security details, you are the hero who shines his countenance to the children at night and in the day. With our devoutness and the willingness to sacrifice we will raise up those who are distant. We need to teach the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister some Torah." Study, not revenge Eliyahu, the Rabbi's son, said: "I want to say to the youth — continue in my father's path. Father wanted faith, he wanted Torah study, he wanted prayers. He could not stand to see that there are no tefillin. He had to see all of the mitzvot (commandments). If you want to memorialize my father these are the things you should do. Not to beat up Arabs with sticks. We are human beings and we will not shoot them in the head for no reason. We are human beings, we are the youth of Samaria... Father would be happiest if he saw us studying." He asked Defense Minister Barak to respect the dedication of the youth of Judea and Samaria. Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai left the community of Einav at 4:30 PM Thursday and drove toward his home in Shavei Shomron. Terrorists in a car that overtook him opened heavy fire at him. Ten bullets hit Meir in the head. He was mortally wounded and died a few minutes later. UPDATE 2:
The announcement by the Al Aksa Martyrs organization that its men are the ones who killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai raises some difficult questions, when one bears in mind that the United States assists the Fatah organization through military training under the supervision of Gen. Keith Dayton. Interviewed by Ben Bresky Thursday night, journalist David Bedein reminded Arutz Sheva's audience that the Al Aksa Martyrs formally joined Fatah's security forces at the Fatah convention in August. Fatah receives military training from US military forces with the full approval of Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Bedein noted that as a journalist, he recently submitted a query to the Minister of Defense and directed a similar question to the US authorities. In his queries he noted that despite their claims otherwise, the Al Aksa Martyrs are a terror group whose men receive financial aid which the US gives the group. He has not received an answer to the query. Bedein's description of the matter means that the United States (headed by President Barack Obama), with the Israeli government's passive agreement, has indirect responsibility for training and funding the terror force which murdered Rabbi Meir Chai. UPDATE 3:
General Security Services in partnership with soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed the murderers of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. All three were convicted terrorists who had been committed to and later released from Israeli prisons.[emphasis added] The Israeli military operation took place on the evening of December 25, the Jewish Sabbath. PA head Mahmoud Abbas was not forewarned of the mission. The homes of three men known to have taken part in the murder were surrounded by special forces units, who tried to arrest them. According to an army spokesperson, the men "refused to cooperate", rejecting calls to surrender. Troops subequently opened fire on the buildings. Nader Raed Sukarji, a 40 year-old inhabitant of Shechem, was arrested in 2002 and suspected of being a top Al Aksa terror group brigade operative and participant in many terror attacks. He also prepared bombs and helped establish explosives factories in Nablus (Shechem). He was released from prison in January 2009. Palestinian sources say Sukarji's wife was also injured in the operation, after her husband used her as a human shield while hiding in their house. Ghassan Abu Sharkh, 39, was imprisoned by security forces in 1990. His brother, Nayef, was the head of the Tanzim terror organization's military wing in Nablus. Nayef facilitated several terror attacks until being killed by IDF forces in June 2004. Anan Suleiman Mustafa Subih, 36, resident of Nablus, was an operative of the "Shuhada al-Aksa" brigade, which was involved in extensive Tanzim military operations as a cell of Tanzim in Nablus. The group was led by Nayef Abu Sharkh, until Nayef's death. Subih worked in trafficking weapons and supplies for use in terror acts. Subih had recently been accepted to Israel's amnesty program for Fatah gunmen. His participation in Tanzim activity was a direct violation of that agreement. In the process of attempting to arrest Subih, Israeli forces found 2 rifles and 2 guns hidden in the house. The weapons have been transferred to police laboratories to determine if they were the ones used to kill Rabbi Chai. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the IDF operation in Shechem, saying it would hurt the Palestinian ability to achieve stability and security. Terror organizations swore they would take revenge for the operation. National Union chairman MK Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz demanded the indictment of the judges of the Supreme Court, for having released the men from jail who went on to commit the murder of Rabbbi Chai and other terror attacks. "[.. prosecute the Supreme Court justices who took part in the freeing of the murderers of Rabbi Meir Chai (may G-d avenge his blood), although they were warned that these men would return to killing," Katz said. "This is the only way we can bring the infamous releases of our people's murderers to an end." CEO Meir Indor of the organization representing terror victims,
Almagor, praised the army's mission, but is urging citizens to contact
the Defense Minister's office and demand a cessation to the release
and pardon of terrorists. He says the government should re-evaluate
its relationship with the PA leadership, claiming that the PA leaks
information, training, and arms to Tanzim terrorists on a regular
basis.
Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com
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NEVER AGAIN IS NOW. IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP.
Posted by Buddy Macy, December 24, 2009. |
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This below was written by Stanley B. Zir. who writes of his experience at the UN Rally in September, 2008. |
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Being an American and a descendant from one of the twelve tribes of Israel, I still consider Israel the refuge of every Jewish person in the world, because only she will extend her hand to us when the rest of the world has turned its back on the Jews. To that end, in September, 2008, I traveled from Long Island to New York City to attend a rally at the United Nations to protest the promise of a nuclear strike against Israel that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has guaranteed he would deliver. For a long time now, I've known that there are two actions we must take to ensure Israel's survival — the elimination of Iran's nuclear threat and Israel's disengagement from the two-state "solution." I know that in order to accomplish the above mission, the worldwide Jewish community must first rid itself of the false hope that sanctions would result in Iran's nuclear disarmament and that peace in the Middle East and economic security in the West would be achieved with the implementation of the two-state 'solution', a policy that validates a negotiation process which would turn over lands inside Israel's borders to people who are determined to destroy the Jewish State. Before I went to the UN rally this past September, I prayed to find a connection to the Jewish People's heart that would serve to unite all factions within the Jewish community under one roof, towards one purpose of mind — the need to pressure the leaders of the Free World to take immediate action to end the threat from those intent on Israel's destruction. I also knew that this connection must provide a message so powerful that it would override the fears that an attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure would lead to a global economic meltdown, a manufactured threat that is now preventing Israel from attacking Iran. At the rally that day, my prayers to find this connection were answered. I arrived at the rally early in order to position myself towards the front of the crowd. I had prepared a three-foot square sign that said "End the Sanctions, Bomb Buscher, Never Again is Now." For more than 2 hours I yelled out these and other words over and over again at the top of my lungs. At times, I hit my fists against the sign and shouted out, "This is the gas chamber of death being built for you by Ahmadinejad where a nuclear bomb will replace Zylon B to do Hitler's bidding. Bomb this place, this place of hell on earth. Bomb this place now." As expected, my protest was greeted mostly with derision and annoyance; some threatened me, some even tried to silence me and take away my sign. Except for Buddy Macy, a pro-Israel activist, and a group of women who emerged from the crowd to offer me their support, I stood alone in my protest. Then something occurred that I could never have imagined or be prepared for that provided me with the guidance and wisdom I prayed for before I went to this event. Every time I wanted to stop protesting, one woman from the group urged me on and said, "Keep yelling at them. These are the same Jews who would not listen when the Nazis took power — I know, because I was there. I am a Holocaust survivor." I thought to myself: "Now such as then, the Jews at this rally would never believe that the world would stand by and not intervene and eliminate Iran's threat to Israel!! Because, they never could imagine that the leaders in Iran, like the Nazis before them, were capable of such acts of horror." I then asked this lady: "If your friends who died in the death camps were here today at this rally, would they also be yelling, 'Bomb Iran?'" Her response, unequivocally, was, "Yes. Do not listen to the people here today," she continued, "these are the same people who did not listen in Germany when the Nazis came to power." Without noticing it at first, I found myself shaking; then weeping!!! I had to leave the rally momentarily to gather myself. This heroic woman had touched something so deep inside me. It connected me to the souls of those who were the only ones truly qualified to tell the Jews of today what we have to do to rescue Israel. This is something that mainstream American Jewish organizations and politicians in the Free World have not been able to understand, because only the Holocaust victims can do this. The survivors I met with at the rally let me know in no uncertain terms that this is what their friends who died in the death camps are calling out from their graves. This is the connection all Jews must make in order to unite and defeat an entrenched enemy which is now dictating to us that the Jews again must go silently into the night. Although it is true that they had died and their voices could not be heard at the UN rally, I heard their voices loud and clear!!! And now, all six million voices must be heard again through us. We must honor the Holocaust victims by ensuring that 'Never Again' is not just a hollow phrase. We must say "No" to the Two-State 'Solution' in their names. Six million voices must be raised by Jews and non-Jews alike. "No more sanctions or dialogue — bomb Iran's nuclear gas chambers now," lest we fail to act and they died in vain because Israel was attacked by Iran or brought down by the insidious two-state "solution" from within. If the world has gone mad again, unlike the past, the Jewish People must now choose to stand alone until it regains its senses. That is why we must make sure that the Holocaust victims' message of "Never again is now" is heard throughout the world. Their voices must be heard in the halls of Congress, by American organizations such as AIPAC, in the synagogues and churches, and by all freedom-loving people of every race and creed. The Holocaust victims are the most powerful allies Israel has in ending the violence against her. Only the Holocaust victims can unify the Jewish People and bring clarity of purpose into the public debate as to what actions we must take against Iran and the two-state Jewicide pact. I am not King David, and I do not have a sling shot to kill Goliath. But I do have a proclamation and a shofar to bring down the wall of ignorance that is preventing us from bombing Iran's nuclear gas chambers and claiming the sovereignty of the State of Israel in King David's name. Today, I am asking you to join with me in this quest!!! Take the name of one Holocaust victim from the list, below, and make it your own. Research their history, and then in their name, call out for the bombing of Iran's nuclear gas chambers and for the elimination of the two-state "solution" — NOW! In closing, we can longer be deterred by nay-sayers or their disenfranchised core — their calls for restraint in the face of certain death has made King David's blood run cold in their veins. Stand up and take action!! Slay the Goliath of self-doubt inside yourself and stand with King David. We as a people have been worshiping G-d at the altar of false hope and compliance for too long; this is not the altar of faith that was built for the people of Israel. The Jews who survived the death camps and came to Israel and America said, "Never Again." Nathan Hale, in an act of defiance, declared, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." What do these two proclamations have in common, and why do they have such a powerful impact on the people of the societies they represent? Each one has captured the essence of the convictions that their fellow citizens can rally around in order to defend against and defeat an enemy that threatens to destroy them. I am convinced that "Never again is now" serves our just purpose and cause. So there is no longer any doubt in any nation in this world about the actions Israel must take to protect her sovereignty...so there is no longer any confusion among the Jewish People that sanctions can never provide a viable solution to end the Iranian threat...in the name of the Holocaust victims as representatives of the Jewish People here and around the world, we, the living, have a moral obligation to speak out for Jews in need and/or peril. Ours must be a unified voice of compassion and justice. It must be an unequivocal voice of strength, reason and protection against the "two-state FINAL solution" that would lead to the destruction of the Jewish State from within, and a mighty call for Israel to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Withdraw your support from those who lack the moral courage to act, and join us; the window of opportunity is small. Only with a unified voice and one purpose of mind, can we and will we rescue Israel now! To view the 'Never Again is Now' poster, click here. Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com |
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I APPLAUD THE AUTHORS OF THE ANTI-FREEZE ACTION PLAN
Posted by Paul Eidelberg, December 24, 2009. |
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Heroes and friends of Israel: I applaud the authors and supporters of the "Anti-Freeze" Action Plan. Allow me to say that the same "no-talking" approach to Israel's government is exactly the approach Israeli prime ministers should have applied to the PLO-Palestinian (terrorist) Organization. This wise and manly "no talk" approach is so fittingly and so splendidly opposed to the servile and spineless "talk-talk" approach of Binyamin Netanyahu. I would urge the heroic people of Judea and Samaria to convey to the citizens of Israel as a whole that upright Jews do not talk to morally retarded ministers of the government. Honorable Jews will not talk to and dignify those who give orders to commit such wicked and cowardly acts as expelling Jewish men and women — young and old — as well as children from their homes — acts which Benzion Netanyahu, the father of the Prime Minister, rightly called a "crime." Furthermore, in the name of reason, justice, and truth, we utterly denounce Defense Minister like Ehud Barak who insults the intelligence of our fellow citizens — yes, Ehud Barak — who even now is preparing to commit fascist acts and does in the name of democracy! Read 'Anti-Freeze' Action Plan Released' by Hillel Fendel here. Prof. Paul Eidelberg is an Internationally known political scientist, author and lecturer. He is President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy, a Jerusalem-based think tank for improving Israel's system of governance. Contact him at list-owner@foundation1.org |
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FREEING 1,000 PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS FOR GILAD SCHALIT WOULD BE A TRAGIC MISTAKE
Posted by ZOA, December 24, 2009. |
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The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed its opposition to the possible decision of the Israeli government to free nearly 1,000 jailed Palestinians, including murderers, attempted murderers, accessories to murder and others involved in terrorism against Israel in return for the freeing of kidnapped Israeli serviceman Corporal Gilad Schalit as a tragic mistake. Corporal Schalit was kidnapped by Hamas infiltrators in 2006 and has been held by the Islamist terrorist organization in Gaza since that date. Hamas's Charter calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7). Among those likely to be freed, for example, will be the woman who drove the 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria bomber, who murdered 15 Israelis and maimed dozens more. Many others will be terrorists who directly committed murders. Also likely to be released with be Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah figure who commanded the Tanzim terror squads during the early years of the Palestinian terror wave beginning in September 2000 and who was arrested by Israeli forces in 2002 and imprisoned after being found guilty on five counts of murder. ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "We oppose this mass release of jailed terrorists for three primary reasons: it will result in more murdered and maimed Israelis, because many freed terrorists have returned to terror and claimed lives in the past. It will encourage more kidnappings of Israelis by Hamas and other terror groups as a means to extract their terrorists from Israeli jails, as they have just again succeeded in doing. And it will also give a boost to the most murderous elements in Palestinian society, especially Hamas, at once rewarding terrorists and encouraging them to continue shedding blood. "This release of 1,000 terrorists in return for one kidnapped Israeli also shows the slippery slope down which Israel is falling. At one time, Israel would release terrorists, but not those with 'blood on their hands' — a misleading euphemism for terrorists who failed to kill or who did not directly commit terrorist murders themselves — and only in return for live Israelis. "By July 2008, however, Israel had agreed to release to Hizballah a gruesome murderer, Samir Kuntar, and four others prisoners in return for the corpses of two kidnapped Israelis. In August 2008, it also freed a further 198 jailed terrorists, including two convicted murderers and 149 others guilty of attempted murder, as a 'confidence-building measure.' In October this year, in return for a mere video of Gilad Schalit, Israel freed 20 Palestinian prisoners. Now it has agreed to release a staggering 980 prisoners to Hamas to secure Schalit's return. "Clearly, Israel is giving more and receiving less — and that is not the worst of it. The fact is that freed terrorists frequently return to terror and end up murdering more Israelis. The evidence for this is clear: Col. Meir Indor, Director of Almagor Terrorist Victims Association (ATVA), disclosed in April 2007 that 177 Israelis killed in terror attacks in the previous five years had been killed by terrorists freed on the basis that they were "without blood on their hands." An earlier ATVA report showed that 123 Israelis had been murdered by terrorists freed during 1993-99. "Evidently, Israelis were fooling themselves if they thought that freeing attempted murderers and accessories to murder carried few risks. Freed terrorists, whether they succeeded to kill or not, often try to kill again. This aspect of the problem is routinely ignored by in discussion of prisoner releases. "Freeing terrorists in exchanges of this type provide a major incentive for more kidnappings of Israelis. As Hamas chief Khaled Mesahaal said only days ago, 'The resistance ... is capable of capturing [another] Schalit and [another] Schalit and [another] Schalit, until not a single prisoner will remain in the enemy's jails.' "Israelis' willingness to release live terrorists in return for even dead soldiers provided the terrorists all the incentive they required. Moreover, where Israel frees terrorists for corpses, it endangers the lives of those kidnapped, because it demonstrates that their deaths pose no obstacle to an exchange. This puts the lives of future kidnap victims in jeopardy. "Have we learned nothing from bitter experience? Freeing even hundreds of terrorists has never improved Israel's standing among Arabs, moderated their demands or mollified their hatreds. As Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shalom Harari of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya noted after this very prisoner release: 'On the morning after ... we heard Fatah blaming Israel. Whatever happens, they will blame Israel and fault everyone except for themselves.' "The appeals to put ourselves in the shoes of the families of the kidnapped are deeply moving and understandable, but remain false and can also be emotionally manipulative. In any event, they cannot be decisive. Would we allow relatives of people held up by bank robbers to decide whether or not the police accede to the demands of their captors? "The duty of the state is to protect its citizens. It follows that the most important consideration must be preventing the loss of further lives to terror. "We deeply sympathize with Israeli families when their sons are kidnapped by bloodthirsty terrorists. We would support virtually any efforts to bring them home safely. But when the record plainly shows that releasing terrorists brings only more terror and tragedy, the painfully necessary course of action is clear — no more rewarding kidnappings through terrorist releases." The Zionist Organization of America (www.zoa.org), founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver. |
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INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT; AL-QAIDA UNITES YEMENI &
SAUDI REBELS AGAINST US; J STREET TIES TO SAUDI ARABIA
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 24, 2009. |
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INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT A reader commented, "Your pronouncements on international law are nonsense, as authorities on the matter almost unanimously recognize. Palestine belongs to Palestinians, not to any mandate and certainly not to Israel, which is an unlawful state because it follows apartheid policies. The laws of occupation apply equally to territories captured offensively or defensively." Let's dissect those statements: 1. "Palestine belongs to Palestinians." It was in anticipation of that simplistic statement that certain Arabs suddenly, a few decades ago, fabricated a separate nationality, Palestinian. Does the reader know what Palestine is? Does he know that it includes Jordan and Israel, sovereign states? Then whom does he think it belongs to? Palestine was not a country, but a concept and a Mandate set up according to ancient Jewish boundaries, for guess whom. Until the Zionist Executive adopted the sovereign name of Israel, the Jews there were called "Palestinians." If one attempted to call the Arabs there "Palestinians," the Arabs objected. They had the same culture, religion, history and language as surrounding Arab areas. They neither felt different from the other Arabs nor did they have a concept of nationality at the time. Then came the PLO Covenant, which called their sub-group Palestinian, but recognized that Arafat's followers were of the Arab nationality. There is no sovereign state, Palestine. Therefore, one cannot say with accuracy that the Territories belong to Palestinian Arabs. The Palestine Mandate was established by the League of Nations as the Jewish homeland incubating a Jewish state. The UN Charter incorporated the Mandate, so it remains in International law. Although Britain abandoned the Mandate, the Territories never fell under any national jurisdiction. They do not legally belong to anyone. The Mandate makes it clear that the primary heir to the Mandate is the Jewish people. 2. "The laws of occupation apply equally to territories captured offensively or defensively." Equally in what respect does the reader mean? Many anti-Zionists claim that Israel's presence in the Territories, which they call an occupation, is illegal. They are mistaken for a couple of reasons, but the most pertinent one here applies to the IDF presence in all the areas taken over after the Six Day War. Israel was attacked. It took over those areas in self-defense, same as the U.S. took over part of Germany and Japan in self-defense. That makes the U.S. occupations legal. Another reason is that UN Resolution 242 does not require any Israeli withdrawal except in exchange for a final peace treaty. Until a treaty makes the final arrangements, Israel's presence is legal. The third is that the Territories do not belong to any state. The Geneva Conventions base occupation on taking part of another's state way, but there was no state for the Territories to belong to, and Israel has the best historical and legal claim to the Territories. 3. Israel cannot acquire the Territories because it "is an unlawful state because it follows apartheid policies." These accusations against Israel are too vague to take seriously. Just name-calling. What connection is there between apartheid and sovereignty? What about the many Arab areas' prohibition of Jewish entry, land ownership, and full citizenship? The Palestinian Authority (P.A.) established capital punishment for any Arab selling land to a Jew. By the author's vague logic, the P.A. is unlawful, so it is not entitled to sovereignty over the Territories. 4. Authorities on international law do not agree. International law is at the same cultural divide as scholarship in general. Besides scholars, there are make-believe historians and tendentious international lawyers. They argue that the law is what they want. They want the Jewish presence in most of the Jewish homeland declared illegal. They don't have the integrity to attempt to refute the legal scholarship preceding their advocacy. They ignore the explanations by those drafting UN Resolution 242 that they chose the wording so as not to require full Israeli withdrawal. The UN and many members have been trying to change international law by eroding it and asserting it means something untrue, so as to gain certain powers hitherto reserved to individual states. This is a kind of fraud and coup. Anti-Zionists keep citing its popularity, but that is bandwagon propaganda. The popularity of a misconception or fraud does not justify it. International laws were devised for civility and justice, have a context, and should be read through where one point modifies another. In conclusion, the reader's concepts of international law and his statements are over-simplified and mistaken or too vague and tendentious to be meaningful. ARAB-ISRAEL PRISONER TRADE: MORE CONSIDERATIONS 
This proposed prisoner exchange, which seems to be approved except for minor adjustments, demonstrates that Israel is sliding down the moral slope. Originally, it would not negotiate with terrorists. Then it did, but would not release prisoners who actually killed or wounded people. Now it plans to release mass-murderers and sadistic murderers. The currently proposed release of about a thousand convicts for one Israeli soldier not convicted of anything is another ethical imbalance. PAKISTAN-U.S. IMPASSE OVER DEALING WITH TALIBAN The U.S. is impressed by Pakistan's routing of terrorist forces during its offensive, but dismayed by Pakistan's refusal to carry the war into tribal areas harboring Taliban. Pakistan does not consider those Taliban a menace to it, and does not want to be seen as a puppet of the U.S. (www.imra.org.il, 12/22). An earlier article included an analyst's opinion that Pakistan makes sense and that there must be another approach. AL-QAIDA UNITES YEMENI & SAUDI REBELS, AGAINST U.S In a rare public appearance, in southern Yemen, unmasked representatives of al-Qaida said they had formed "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula," to unite Islamists of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Their home base would be Yemen. The crowd was told that al-Qaida does not consider the soldiers of Yemen its enemies, only those of the U.S. "and its lackeys." The non-terrorist rebellion in northern Yemen may distract the government from dealing effectively and promptly with the rebels in southern Yemen. "Political analysts say such conflicts, together with falling oil income, water shortages and a humanitarian crisis, add to instability in a region that includes oil superpower Saudi Arabia and one of the world's busiest shipping lanes." (www.imra.org.il, 12/23). (For more on rebels at the Yemen-Saudi border, go here Al-Qaida says it is not against their countries' soldiers, but fights them. IRAQ HAS DIFFICULTY PATROLING BORDER WITH IRAN . Iranians smuggle people and materiel over the long border with Iraq, but Iraq lacks the fuel and equipment to properly guard the border. Iran exerts influence in Iraq in other ways (www.imra.org.il, 12/23). Iraq seems to me like a crippled country, trying to unify itself, while Iran is taking advantage of its impairment to try to fracture it and control it. J STREET TIES TO SAUDI ARABIA 
I just read a lengthy report of ties between Saudi Arabia, the Arab-American Institute, J Street, and support for President Obama. The ties are too involved for me to cover in such detail. George Soros, reputedly the sponsor of J Street, supports Obama and a shift in U.S. policy further against Israel. J Street works with the Arab-American Institute, which has ties to Saudi Arabia. J Street touts the Saudi initiative. Some J Street contributions from Arab sources are known, but the full extent is proprietary information. Part of the nexus developed after 9/11, which involved mostly Saudis. To salvage its reputation, Saudi Arabia contracted for $14 million of public relations help. Some people involved did not register as Saudi agents until investigated and pressed (www.imra.org.il, 12/23. Here is the link to the source of the article I cited: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-saudis-take-a-stroll-on-
j-street/?print=1).
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 and visit his website:
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12TH GRADERS: WE'LL FIGHT FOR ISRAEL AND NOT EXPEL JEWS
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, December 24, 2009. |
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This was written by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva
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(Israelnationalnews.com) Two hundred 12th graders from all parts of Israel, including urban centers, have written Defense Minister Ehud Barak that they want to serve in the army but will not accept orders to expel Jews from their homes. The unprecedented declaration represents another slap in the face of the Defense Minister, whose policies prompted the Hesder yeshiva in Arad to announce on Wednesday it is pulling out of the Hesder program after he threw the Har Brachah yeshiva out of the Torah study army service program. Defense Minister Barak has rejected as insufficient Hesder yeshiva Rabbi Eliezer Melamed's signed statements opposing soldiers publicly protesting the expulsion policy. Barak also has insisted on using soldiers to help carry out police actions to expel Jews. Under the title "Petition to the Security Services," the 12th graders wrote, "We want very much to enlist in the IDF and fight for the defense of our Land of Israel. We consider the use of the army for political purposes and the war against Jews as a danger that can ruin the army, especially when it is involved in a grave sin against settling the Land. "We declare that our faith in the Torah comes before any other law or order, and therefore any [army] order that is against the Torah will be refused. We will not participate in any expulsion of a hilltop community or Jewish community in the Land of Israel. That is the way we will preserve the true values and principles of the IDF." Meir Teller of Haifa, one of the signatories, explained that "we are supposed to fight against enemies and not against citizens who are among our own people." He noted that that the "best soldiers" in the 2006 Second Lebanon War and 2009 Operation Cast Lead were residents of Judea and Samaria "and were not leftists from northern Tel Aviv." The student charged that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak are trying to turn the best soldiers into enemies and to use the army against them. Another signatory is Hanan Liberzon of Kiryat Tivon, a suburb of Haifa. "Barak's hypocrisy is outrageous," he declared. "It is inconceivable that the army sends officers to learn in universities where lecturers and professors incite against the country and against serving in the army, and then Defense Minister Barak targets rabbis who dedicate their lives to educating according to the Torah and to serve in the best units in the IDF." The 12th graders' letter coincides with growing opposition among National Religious rabbis to Barak's actions against the Har Brachah yeshiva and to the continued use of soldiers to raid Jewish communities and expel their residents. Leading rabbis and educators have warned that the Defense Minister is risking the loss of National Religious students who comprise a large part of elite combat units. In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means. 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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ISLAMIZATION OF GAZA FIRST; WHY BOTHER WITH APPEASEMENT?; A LITTLE LIGHT DISPELS DARKNESS
Posted by Steven Shamrak, December 24, 2009. |
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Islamization of Gaza First. A report by the Shin Bet (Israel's secret security) describes how Hamas has institutionalized Islamic law and thought in all areas of Gaza life since its violent takeover of the area. The report emphasizes that the instilling of these and other Hamas ideas into public life is the result of a carefully orchestrated Hamas program. Hamas is also threatening to take over Judea and Samaria, and is favored to win the next elections, if and when they are held. Among the report's main points are these: * A dress code for women on the street, in schools and in courts is enforced. Principals can expel female students who do not wear a head covering and wide dresses. Judges have been instructed not to hold sessions if female lawyers do not appear in Islamic garb. On official Hamas TV, Al-Aqsa, women announcers wear a veil, and Islamic content is increasingly featured in the programs. Israeli police banned Jews from the Temple Mount site during Chanukah celebration, which commemorate the Jews return to the Temple. Season's Greetings to our true friends. Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak Without any prior discussion or debate the United States joined Saudi Arabia in the fight against Al Queda in Yemen, justifying rocket attacks against two terrorist camps in Yemen as a threat to the US national security. For several years the US has been restraining Israel from destroying Iranian nuclear program. Why is the nuclear-armed Iran with ballistic delivery capability not a threat to the US national security? And, why is national security of Israel much less important and Jewish lives are less valuable than American ones? Why Bother with Appeasement? As far as Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas is concerned, Binyamin Netanyahu's building freeze is not really a freeze. "Netanyahu's declaration on a building freeze for ten months is not to be considered a break in settlement activity". PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in effect ditched the American Roadmap plan last Tuesday and issued an ultimatum to Israel that there will be no talks unless Israel agrees ahead of time to surrender all of the land restored in the Six-Day War in 1967. (Israel must drop the idiotic 'Roadmap plan' to nowhere as well and recognize that Judea, Samaria and Gaza are all "Jewish lands". After that, the 'Palestinian' conflict will be easy to solve!) Tel-Aviv in Firing Range. Military Intelligence Chief Major General Amos Yadlin admitted that "Syria, Iran and Hezbollah all have the ability to threaten the Gush Dan. Our enemies have not rested for a moment." Another Mad Dog Barking. During a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Israel of aiming to "exterminate" the Palestinians. Chavez saluted the Palestinians for what he called their "fight against the Yankee empire... against the genocidal state of Israel..., which attempts to exterminate the Palestinian people." Abbas thanked the Chavez government for its support and said: "We're all on the same path." (Jews do not want to exterminate the fake Palestinian people. To remove them from Jewish land is a better option!) Law Against Foreign Political Interference is Needed. The researcher, Adi Arbel, said that European states achieve their aim of influencing Israeli policies by funding groups like Peace Now, Adallah, Yesh Din and B'Tselem. "In the United States there is a law called the 'Foreign Agent Registration Act'," he explained. "The purpose is very clear — to have laws here in Israel, too, that will make it mandatory to have the same transparency as in the US and that will show everyone where the money to these groups comes from." (They would scream "Zionist conspiracy" if Israel actually did it!) Stupidity is the Residue of Labor Party Infestation of IDF. IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi expressed support for a national service system that would draft all Israelis, including the Arab population. (Israeli Arabs are deeply anti-Israel. Must Israel train enemies?) Quote of the Week: "The U.S. Administration, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia's decision to rewrite history by labeling the Territories 'Occupied Territories,' the Settlements as an 'Obstacle to Peace' and 'Not Legitimate,' thus endowing them with an aura of bogus statehood and a false history. The use of these dishonest loaded terms, empowers terrorism and incites Palestinian Arabs with the right to use all measures to expel Israel." — Eli E. Hertz Artificially Kept 'Peace' with Syria. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to prolong the presence of more than 1000 Blue Helmet peacekeeping troops posted on the Syrian-Israeli border for another six months. More anti-Israel International Bigotry. In response to Sweden's proposal to recognize east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in a statement Sunday, "The Europeans should not dictate the outcome of negotiations in advance. This declaration is a dangerous initiative that could hurt efforts to resume negotiations between the parties and will harden the Palestinian position." Jewish Answer to the 'Freeze'. An Israeli minister Benny Begin has predicted that there will be 10,000 more Jews living in West Bank over the next 10 months. Iran's Nuclear Intention is Obvious. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Tehran is reviewing the option of decreasing cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog: "Iran's nuclear issue has been resolved... We will hold no talks (with major powers) over this issue. There is no need for talks," Earlier Iran announced plans to start constructing 10 new uranium enrichment plants in the country over the next two months. The ambitious plans were a bold show by Iran that it is willing to risk further sanctions. (Iran made no secret that its aim is to produce a nuclear weapon with the intention to annihilate Israel!) No One Condemns Vandalism of Synagogues. Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) condemned the attack on the mosque in Kafr Yassuf Friday, adding: "we must remember that there is not a day that goes by when a firebomb is not thrown at a synagogue, or a Jewish institution is defaced by swastikas somewhere in the world. We do not hear about condemnations of these acts." (We must remember that Islamists themselves routinely attack and even destroy mosques in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan!) Less Time to Fight Terrorism. The IDF has reduced its anti-terrorism activities in Judea/Samaria. The IDF is carrying out fewer patrols and fewer initiated actions against Palestinian terrorist elements. Instead, the forces in the area are assigned with providing protection to Civil Administration inspectors who are distributing stop-work orders in the Jewish towns. Quote of the Week: " Israel has earned much more from research over the years than the oil-rich countries have earned from oil. Israel must remain on the leading edge of research in the future." — Israeli President, Shimon Peres — Jewish brains vs Arab oil. Result of Barbaric Refugee Scam. A 15-year-old British girl, Tulay Goren, murdered by her father because she was pregnant. Her father, an ethnic Kurd from Turkey, had moved to Britain claiming asylum in 1996. The prosecution lawyer told the court that the case was a "wake-up call" to the existence of so-called "honour killings" in Britain. (Honour killings, gang rapes of Western girls and other violent crimes are a 'side effect' of Muslim migration to the West.) Israeli Wins Chess World Cup. Grand Master Boris Gelfand of Rishon Letzion won the Chess World Cup, defeating former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in the tie-breaker of the final played in Russia. Gelfand was born in Belarus in 1968 and emigrated to Israel in 1998. Hamastan vs Fatahstan. The Hamas has published on its website a 61-page document on the methods used by the Palestinian Authority to arrest and torture Hamas activists in the West Bank. (As usual, there is no international outrage.) A Little Light Dispels Darkness
An act of defiance — a human initiative, some would call an act of madness. But supreme courage is rewarded beyond the laws of nature. In the mystical Jewish spiritual teachings known as Kabbalah, the phenomenon of Divine leverage is described as the reward for human initiative: allow your effort to push the door ajar and Higher Forces will blow it wide open. The kinetic energy unleashed is the product of potential implicit in human initiative. Take an initiative, even a small act of kindness and generosity. Your humble effort has a multiplier effect leveraging that initiative in a supra-natural manner. A little light dispels much darkness. (Become the defiant true Zionist and dispel the darkness of apathy, hate and hypocrisy!):p> Steven Shamrak was involved in the Moscow Zionist movement. He worked as a construction engineer at the Moscow Olympic Games project and as a computer consultant in Australia. He has been publishing an Internet editorial letter about the Arab-Israel conflict since August 2001 and has a website www.shamrak.com. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com |
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ANYONE FOR A GODLY ISRAEL?
Posted by Yaacov Levi, December 23, 2009. |
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This was written by Professor Paul Eidelberg. |
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Various Zionist organizations in Israel and abroad advocate for a safe as well as for a strong Israel. These organizations have performed an important service. They have exposed the duplicitous and deadly nature of the peace process. They have shown with compelling evidence that the Israel-PLO agreements have armed Israel's enemies, have brought not peace but a war of attrition that has truncated the one and only homeland of the Jewish people. I wonder whether most Jews, Zionists or not, have an adequate understanding of what can make Israel safe and strong. I wonder whether emphasis on a "safe" or "strong" Israel is not counterproductive, in that such emphasis may obscure the one thing needed to make Israel safe and strong. The mere fact that Zionist organizations have failed to have any discernible impact on the land-for-peace policy of Israeli governments from Begin to Netanyahu suggests they need to think more deeply about what Israel is all about. To be for a safe or a strong Israel is certainly meritorious, so long as it does not obscure the dire need of Jews to be, above all, for a Godly Israel, for only a Godly Israel can be truly safe and truly strong. Thus we read in the prophet Zechariah: "Not by armed might, nor by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts" (4:5). Let us try to understand this verse by means of Israel's most sacred symbol, the Menorah. The light of the Menorah symbolizes knowledge, precisely spiritual enlightenment. The source of spiritual enlightenment is of course God. This enlightenment is manifested in the words of the Torah. As King David has written: "The Word of God is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path" (Psalms 119:105). Or as his son King Solomon has written: "For the Commandment is a lamp and the Teaching a light" (Proverbs 6:23). Israel will be safe and strong only if its prime ministers are men of Torah. Only if they imbue every heart and home with the light of the Torah will Israel enjoy peace. "For instruction shall go forth from Me, and I will create a quiet abode for My [people], so that it may shine upon the nations" (Isaiah 51:4). "O House of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of God" (Isaiah 2:5). When Israel suffers murder and misery, it is because "they rebel against the light,[and] do not recognize the ways of God and never seek serenity [or peace] in His paths" (Job 24:13). As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch points out, Scripture uses the words "lamp" and "light" as metaphors for the source of growth and life, of undisturbed progress and happiness. Hence the spirit of God mentioned in Zechariah denotes not only the means for attaining perception, but also the motivation for action. It should be noted that the Menorah resembles a tree with a central shaft generating three branches from one side and three branches from the other side. The central shaft symbolizes the spirit of God. From Isaiah (11:2) we learn that whereas the three branches of one side of the Menorah symbolize wisdom, counsel, and knowledge, the three branches from the other side symbolize understanding, strength, and fear of God. Imbued with the spirit of God, Israel will unite theory and practice, perception and accomplishment. Unless they stem from the spirit of God, what is called "wisdom," "counsel," "knowledge," "understanding," and "strength" will be futile. "I am the Lord ... that turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish" (Isaiah 44:24-25). As for the fear (really awe) of God, this, says King David, is "the beginning of wisdom" (Psalms 111:10). If Israel's leaders feared God, they would not have made a covenant of death and lies with PLO terrorists.
But merely to critically analyze the suicidal stupidity and mendacity of Israel's political elites will have no impact on their behavior, since such knowledge is not linked to the spirit of God. This is why Isaiah says that God "confirms the words of His servant, and fulfills the counsel of His messengers" (44:26). Which means that it is not enough for critics to expose the lies and lethal nature of the "peace process." Their words must be motivated by the desire to sanctify the Name of God. God's Name must be in their hearts and on their lips. "Thus said the Lord, your Redeemer and the One Who formed you [Israel] in the womb: I am the Lord, Who has made everything; Who spread out the heavens by Myself, and formed the earth of My own accord; that frustrates the signs of imposters, and makes rulers mad ..." (Isaiah 44:24-25). Are not Israel's rulers "mad"? Hence I say, all honor to those who are for a safe and strong Israel. But now I ask: Anyone for a Godly Israel? And if not, perhaps this is why Israel has been emasculated and humiliated by nations steeped in nihilism. Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com This article appeared today on Arutz-7 (www.Israelnn.com). |
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GAZA BY THE NUMBERS: ONE YEAR AFTER OPERATION CAST LEAD
Posted by The Israel Project, December 23, 2009. |
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On Dec. 27, 2008, Israel Defense Forces began a defensive operation in Gaza — Operation Cast Lead — to stop Iran-backed Hamas and other terrorist groups from their years-long campaign of firing thousands of rockets, mortars and missiles at Israel.[1] [2] During Operation Cast Lead, Israel focused on dismantling Hamas' terrorist infrastructure while minimizing civilian casualties.[3] The operation, which ended Jan. 18[4], was made more difficult — and dangerous — because of Hamas's widespread use of civilians as human shields.[5] The defensive operation has reduced by 90 percent the number of rocket, missile and mortar attacks on Israel from Gaza.[6] Following are facts and figures about the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza: Key Statistics
Iran-Backed Hamas Terrorism
Israel's Humanitarian Aid to Gaza
Contact Sanne DeWitt by email at skdewitt@comcast.net |
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WHY ARE CHAREIDI GIRLS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BY THE HEALTH MINISTRY?
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, December 23, 2009. |
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This appeared on http://www.vosizneias.com/45431. |
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Jerusalem — My daughter didn't want to study any of the vocational tracks in her school. For years, she had dreamed of becoming a nurse. After discussions with our rabbonim and a gadol, we agreed to let her learn in Laniado hospital's nursing school, the only place we felt that was suitable for a chareidi girl. The school told us she had to complete the matriculation exams and also get a 500 mark on the Psychometry test. My daughter spent half a year and a lot of money on doing these tests to pass the entrance criteria. She passed the matriculation exams with flying colors, but although she got close to 500 points on the Psychometry, she failed to pass. My daughter was devastated when she heard the news. Since the nursing program was 3 years long, we didn't know if it was realistic for her to do the Psychometry again and then begin a 3-year program of studies. In the coming days, I began to hear reports that alerted me to the fact that something was strange. My daughter told me that a friend of hers was attending Machon Tal, a dati framework in Jerusalem that has a B.A. program in nursing. Her friend hadn't even done the Bagrut, and she had gotten in! This college agreed to let her finish her Bagrut over the year while doing her nursing studies. Then we heard about someone else who was accepted to Hadassah hospital despite not making the 500 Psychometry mark. It turned out that Hadassah and other colleges had a "Special Cases Committee" which allows people to study in their nursing school even if they didn't have the requisite entry criteria. This frum woman wanted to learn in Laniado, but the Health Ministry refused to let her. But Hadassah hospital accepted her! What's going on here?! Who's making the rules? Why doesn't it apply to everyone? Do the girls need the Bagrut and Psychometry, or not? It can't be that Hadassah Hospital, which gives a degree, has easier entry criteria than Laniado, which doesn't! I realized that an injustice was being done to the Bais Yaakov girls who wanted to go to Laniado. Together with another 25 girls and their parents who were in the same situation as us, I wrote the Health Ministry Head Nurse Dr. Riva who had made the entrance criteria to Laniado and asked them for special consideration. I explained that our daughters had received high marks in their Bagrut tests, I told her chareidim are successfully studying accounting, business administration, law and architecture without need for any Psychometry. I explained that the requirement to do Bagrut and Psychometry effectively bars chareidi girls from the nursing profession. I asked her to allow our girls complete the Psychometry while doing their nursing studies, which other colleges and universities also allow. Rav Litzman agreed to meet with a delegation of parents together with Dr. Riva. An appointment was set on November 18 at the Knesset. My daughter and I showed up, together with Mrs. E. and her daughter from Ashdod, Mrs. K and her daughter from Kfar Chabad, and Mr. N. from Petach Tikva. Mr. N. asked Dr. Riva how it was possible that his daughter could not be accepted to Laniado, but was accepted in a college program? Dr. Riva ignored the question. I asked Dr. Riva why she allowed Bedouin and Ethiopian woman to learn nursing without matariculation exams and without doing the Psychometry test but not the Bais Yaakov girls? She had no answer for that either. Mrs. K. asked why the hospitals were full of nurses who hadn't done the Psychometry, but our daughters had to do it? We asked not to be treated worse than the Bedouins. We asked for affirmative action not less than them. We said that the government keeps saying it wants chareidim to join the work force. So why isn't she letting our girls study nursing? Dr. Riva ignored our requests. At the end of the meeting, Dr. Riva told us that Laniado school had closed their registration for that year, and that she'll tell them to open a class in April for all the girls who pass the Psychometry in February. (When we called Laniado afterwards, they told us that registration wasn't closed and they have no plans to open in April.) Despite the meeting with Rav Litzman and Dr. Riva being a huge disappointment, Rav Litzman promised to help us out. Mr. N. was in constant touch with Rav Litzman's aides. They kept promising, "Don't worry, your girls will get in." They told us how they were in touch with lawyers and had gotten the director general of the Health Ministry involved and just wait a little more and everything would be arranged. Three weeks later, more letters to Dr. Riva and Rav Litzman, and constant phone calls to Rav Litzman's office, still hadn't yielded results. We decided to consult with a lawyer. Atty. Aviad Hakohen was a lawyer with a high rate of success in Supreme Court cases. After hearing our complaint, Atty. Hacohen was astonished. He told us Dr. Riva was breaking the Freedom of Occupation Law and violating our rights. The Ministry of Health had no right to decide entrance criteria for any school whatsoever. Dr. Riva was breaking the law left and right, and there were Supreme Court precedents against her. He pointed out that the Health Ministry's policy discriminated particularly the chareidi girls, while the universities and colleges had more liberal policies and "special case committees" which let candidates waive criteria. Government ministries had to make the same criteria for all, without giving Bedouins easier conditions over chareidim. He found it strange that people can learn a whole range of professions in which they affect people's lives without doing the Psychometry — such as learning physics and running nuclear reactors — but not nursing. We couldn't believe our ears! On Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 2,-3 Atty. Aviad Hacohen wrote sharp letters to Dr. Riva, Rav Litzman and the Health Ministry General Attorney telling them they were breaking the law, unfairly discriminating against chareidi girls and the Laniado hospital, and another 10 powerful claims. He demanded they allow the girls to learn in Laniado until the legal situation is clarified. They ignored his letters. Other attempts to negotiate with Dr. Riva and the general attorney were rebuffed. On Wednesday, Dec. 9, studies began in Laniado. On to the Supreme Court to demand our rights! A shliach on our behalf visited Rav David Abuchatzera and asked for his brocha. He encouraged us and gave us his blessing. Our lawyer wrote an appeal of 12 pages, with over 100 paragraphs. He filed it on Dec. 17, 2009. It was a terrible setback when the Bagatz judge who received the file gave the State Prosecutors 2 months to answer the appeal. The girls would miss getting in to Laniado this year and would have to do the Psychometry again. But even if all the girls pass the Psychometry again, we decided not to give up. The ramifications for the chareidi public are too huge to ignore, and may have an impact on everyone who wants to study for a profession and finds a government official illegally putting up barriers in his way. What has saddened me above all is that Rav Litzman could decide in one minute that Dr. Riva exceeded her authority and allow the girls to learn in Laniado. He is the man who holds the key. But it looks like 25 girls are going to lose a year of their life because of him. I voted for UTJ, Rav Litzman is my representative that I helped put in power, but when he has the power and could solve the problem for us, all we get are empty promises. What complaints can the chareidi community have against the chilonim who trample us, when our own representatives are no better? Anyone who can contribute in any way to our struggle is invited to email me at laniado25@gmail.com. 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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FRANCE. WHY WOULD YOU GO THERE IF THIS IS TRUE
Posted by Israel Ben-Ami, December 23, 2009. |
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This is from J. Doron. |
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Very sobering and sad news. P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
I received this email tonight and was asked to forward it on. please read! Once again, the real news in France is conveniently not being reported as it should. To give you an idea of what's going on in that country where there are now between 5 and 6 million Muslims and about 600,000 Jews, here is an E-mail that came from a Jew living in France .. Please read! "Will the world say nothing — again — as it did in Hitler's time?" He writes: "I AM A JEW — therefore I am forwarding this to everyone on all my e-mail lists. I will not sit back and do nothing. Nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in France .. In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious centre was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourgand Marseilles ; so was a Jewish school in Creteil — all recently. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus, in Paris, the words 'Dirty Jew' were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months. According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days. Walls in Jewish neighbourhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming 'Jews to the gas chambers' and 'Death to the Jews.' A gunman opened fire on a kosher butcher's shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse, France .. A Jewish couple in their 20's were beaten up by five men in Villeurbanne, France (the woman was pregnant). A Jewish school was broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles, France . This was just in the past week." "So I call on you, whether you are a fellow Jew, a friend, or merely a person with the capacity and desire to distinguish decency from depravity, to do — at least — these three simple things: First, care enough to stay informed. Don't ever let yourself become deluded into thinking that this is not your fight. I remind you of what Pastor Neimoller said in World War II: 'First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.' Second, boycott France and French products. Only the Arab countries are more toxically anti-Semitic and, unlike them, France exports more than just oil and hatred. So boycott their wines and their perfumes. Boycott their clothes and their foodstuffs. Boycott their movies. Definitely boycott their shores. If we are resolved we can exert amazing pressure and, whatever else we may know about the French, we most certainly know that they are like a cobweb in a hurricane in the face of well-directed pressure. Third, send this along to your family, your friends, and your co-workers. Think of all of the people of good conscience that you know and let them know that you — and the people that you care — about need their help. The number one bestselling book in France is....'September 11: The Frightening Fraud' which argues that no plane ever hit the Pentagon! Please Pass This On, Let's not let history repeat itself, thank-you for your time and consideration." Contact Israel Ben-Ami by email at farmer@012.net.il |
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NOT ALL TIDINGS ARE OF GREAT JOY. PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN THE
MIDDLE EAST
Posted by Susana K-M, December 23, 2009. |
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This was written by Jeff Jacoby. |
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As far back as the 5th century, the Monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt was renowned, in the words of one travel guide, for its "exceptional splendor and prestige." In the 21st century, that grandeur is gone and the monastery has become instead a symbol of the abuse and degradation to which Egypt's ancient Coptic Christian community is regularly subjected. On May 31, 2008, a band of Bedouin Muslims armed with automatic weapons stormed Abu Fana, destroying a small church and burning the monastery's farm. Nine monks and monastery employees were wounded, and four others were abducted. "One of the [abducted] monks had his arm and legs broken," the Egyptian lawyer and human-rights activist Nagib Gabriel later testified. "The other two were tied together with ropes, suspended from a tree, and severely beaten with hoses and sticks. Afterwards, they were placed — upside down and still tied together — on the back of a donkey and shoved off. The monks were further commanded to spit on the cross and proclaim the shahada [the Muslim credo that "there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet"], beaten every time they refused, and even threatened with death." Two millennia after Jesus was born in the Middle East, Christians living there often suffer greatly for their faith. Egypt is home to the oldest and largest Christian population in the region, yet the indignities heaped on them are many: They are prevented from building or repairing their churches, barred from many government positions, and treated with disdain when they seek help from the police or the courts. In the wake of the Abu Fana assault, the government arrested two Coptic brothers, who were held for 14 months and released only after the monastery agreed to "reconcile" with the Bedouins — i.e., not to press criminal charges against those who had actually attacked the monastery. When President Obama spoke in Cairo last June, he noted obliquely that "among some Muslims, there's a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of somebody else's faith." But there was nothing oblique about the violence at Abu Fana, or about other recent attacks on Egyptian Christians, including the vandalizing of a Christian center in Ezbet Boshra-East in June, the torching of a Coptic church in Ezbet Basilious in July, or the looting and destruction of Christian-owned businesses in Abou Shousha and Farshoot last month. What is most tragic about the plight of the Copts, however, is that they comprise only a fraction of the estimated 200 million Christians in 60 countries worldwide who face persecution because of their religion. In Iraq, Christians in the northern city of Mosul are being driven out by a wave of violence that has worsened with the approach of Christmas. In recent weeks, a car bomb exploded outside the Church of the Annunciation, grenades were thrown at a nearby Christian school, and terrorists operating in broad daylight leveled the Church of Saint Ephrem. What is underway, says the Archbishop of Kirkuk, is a campaign of "ethnic and religious cleansing." Last week an anonymous source told Asia News: "The Christian community is destined to die." In China, Christians who decline to worship in government-affiliated "patriotic" churches are systematically harassed. "At least 40 Roman Catholic bishops or priests remain imprisoned, detailed, or disappeared," the US Commission on International Religious Freedom noted in its 2009 annual report. "The Beijing Gospel Church, with a membership of 1,000 people, was raided by officials from four different agencies. . . . Local police raided the Chengdu Qiuyu Blessings Church . . . telling church [officials] they were suspected of 'illegal religious practices' and confiscating Bibles, hymnals, and other education materials." In Somalia, at least 11 Christians who had converted from Islam were beheaded in 2009 by the jihadist group al-Shabaab. Another Christian convert was executed in Mogadishu last month; when his body was recovered, it "showed signs of torture," the Compass Direct news service reported. "All of his front teeth were gone, and some of his fingers were broken." To such horrors could be added many others — in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Eritrea, Laos, North Korea, Saudi Arabia. It has been more than 2,000 years since the shepherds abiding in the fields near Bethlehem were told by an angel of the Lord, "Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy." But for millions of persecuted Christians, the fears are all too real. And so therefore is their need for prayer and solidarity from all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, who seek to be our brother's keeper. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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CHINA, US, & INTERNATIONAL LAW/ORDER; RELEASING ARAB CONVICTS
ENCOURAGES KIDNAPPING JEWS; BRITISH ANTI-ZIONISM AND BBC DISHONESTY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 23, 2009. |
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CHINA, THE U.S., & INTERNATIONAL LAW & ORDER How should China, the U.S., and other countries maintain international law and order, without excessive intervention in foreign countries? Two readers expressed these views: (1) Iran should not mistake China's interest in trade with it for military protection; (2) International trade is not to be interfered with; and (3) Countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of others, such as Sudan. I was a boy during the WWII occupation of China. We watched newsreels sympathetic to its plight. Now I would be delighted to start a dialog with Chinese people. They and I are descended from ancient civilizations having much to offer. In this fast-changing world, the problem is how to reconcile worthy values with modernity, and still preserve one's soul. One way is to differentiate between one's culture and one's government, which may not be faithful to the best of that culture. People can get carried away with excessive loyalty to their government officials. My primary loyalty is to our Constitution, incorporating some of the better American values, and less to our Presidents, who may not honor those values. I agree that there is too much foreign interference in countries' internal affairs. It is more difficult to agree what interference is excessive and oppressive. For example, the U.S. imposes sanctions against so many countries over political rights, that one wonders whether it is overdone, whether the U.S. can afford it, and whether it works. For another example, Iran and Syria interfere in Lebanon. Recent articles of mine have reported that European governments quietly grant funds to NGOs in Israel that seek to subvert it. I find such interference improper, even sneaky. Israel, the targeted government, has a right to defend itself. Global trade is more controversial. Clashing economic interests make it so. Governments sign free trade treaties but nevertheless grant their businesses advantages that the treaties are supposed to stop. I do not see my own government as the exception. I am patriotic, but feel that my country and the rest should honor their word and be fair. Am I alone? Some international treaties ban genocide. Sudan's Islamist regime commits genocide. It already murdered two million citizens and dislocated countless others. Shall the rest of the world ignore this violation of Human Rights conventions they all signed? Shall the world ignore Security Council rulings on this? Shall there be no law and order in the world? Can we expect that if we let Sudan do it, the bad example would stop there? No. Jihad is international. It threatens civilization now, just as much as did the Imperial Japanese-Nazi Axis during WWII. History teaches us that Japan and Germany should have been stopped, and reformed, sooner. Wouldn't China want jihadists stopped before they radicalize and arm the Uighurs? The concept that business is just business can go too far. That notion is the Mafia excuse for its criminality, which it calls "just making money." The world has become too inter-connected to ignore certain problems, whether contagious disease, imperialist tendencies, or fanatical movements. On the other hand, self-restraint is valuable. Intervention could be misconceived, ill consequences to follow. Sometimes international agencies, such as the UN, themselves are biased. What do you think? RELEASE OF ARAB CONVICTS ENCOURAGES KIDNAPPING OF ISRAELIS 
Dec. 21, 2009Palestinian Media Watch (Here are the first three pages verbatim] PMW Special Report:
This PMW Special Report includes 50 Palestinian statements concerning the Palestinian kidnapping-for-hostage policy. The statements cover the period since the release of 1000 terrorists by Israel in exchange for a kidnapped Israeli in 2004, until the current negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit in December 2009. These Palestinian statements document that the Palestinian motivation and justification today for continued kidnappings is the direct result of the earlier prisoner releases. Israel's release of prisoners in exchange for hostages is not seen by Palestinian society as merely the last stage of one kidnapping, but as the first stage of the next kidnapping. Executive Summary: Background: More than 10,000 Palestinians are currently in Israeli prisons for terrorism of various degrees. The Palestinian Authority demands that Israel release them all, including murderers of civilians and masterminds of suicide terror who are serving multiple life sentences. Israel argues that they have been imprisoned following proper judicial process and must complete their sentences. PMW Findings: Due to Israel's willingness to release Palestinian terrorists from jail in exchange for freeing kidnapped and imprisoned Israeli hostages, Palestinians have concluded that kidnapping-for-hostage is a valid strategy to achieve the release of additional Palestinian terrorists. This report documents that these opinions are found across the political spectrum and among the Palestinian leadership, both Fatah and Hamas. Case Study 1 2004-2006: 1,000 terrorists released for 1 kidnapped Israeli and bodies of 3 soldiers The first major boost for the Palestinian kidnapping-for-hostage policy came in 2004, after Israel released more than 1,000 jailed terrorists in exchange for one Israeli kidnapped by Hezbollah and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. Palestinians — including both Fatah and Hamas members — expressed support for the Hezbollah achievement as a positive precedent, stressing that kidnapping Israeli hostages would be, from then on, their modus operandi for the release of more prisoners. "Fatah's military branch organized a civilian and military procession yesterday through the streets of Rafah. This event was held in appreciation and gratitude for the efforts Hezbollah made for the release of Arab and Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails as part of the prisoner exchange deal with Israel. In a public statement by the Abu Al-Rish Brigades, Fatah's military wing emphasized the need to follow Hezbollah's example in order to achieve the release of all prisoners." See more statements that followed the 2004 prisoner release, in body of report, below. Case Study 2 2006-2008: 3 Israeli soldiers kidnapped In June 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Shortly thereafter, Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were kidnapped by Hezbollah and taken to Lebanon. Again, both Fatah and Hamas expressed support for the kidnapping-for-hostage tactic: "Fatah spokesman, Ahmad Abd Al-Rahman, conveyed his congratulations to the heroes who carried out the heroic act in southern Lebanon, in support of their Palestinian brethren... and emphasized that the demand to free the Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Israeli soldier [Shalit] is a natural right... He emphasized that the Israeli soldier should be freed only in the event of the release of Palestinian prisoners." See more statements that followed the 2006 prisoner release, in body of report, below. Case Study 3 2008-Present: Israel's release of terrorist murderers seen as precedent In July 2008, for the first time since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Israel released terrorist murderers. In exchange for the bodies of Goldwasser and Regev, Lebanese terrorists were released. This had significant impact on Palestinian resolve because it was seen as breaking the last of Israel's "red lines." Since then Palestinians have argued, that every single Palestinian prisoner, even murderers, will be released, as long as Palestinians continue to kidnap Israelis. The following are some of the reactions immediately following the release of terrorist murderers in 2008: Fatah TV after the release: "[Israel now] will not be able to refuse the Palestinian demands to release
hundreds of prisoners, including heroes who carried out heroic military
actions that led to the killing of Jews, soldiers, etc. Israel is trying to
hide behind criteria that it calls 'those with blood-stained hands,' so as
not to release prisoners, yet this deal includes heroes, such as Samir
Kuntar, who carried out heroic actions in which Jews and soldiers died...
This creates a new precedent."
Hamas TV news after the release: Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza: "Just as today a respectable
exchange took place with the resistance [Hezbollah] in Lebanon, so we too
are determined to achieve a respectable exchange deal for our prisoners in
the jails of the Israeli occupation. The Israelis have to pay a price, and
they must know that they will pay a price."
TV Newsreader: "The Palestinian prisoners regard this deal with great
optimism and hope, now that Hezbollah has managed to break the Zionist
equation which has opposed, for years, the release [of prisoners] who killed
Zionists."
Hamas cleric: "I want to tell the residents of Gaza that the next captives' exchange deal
will be stronger and more painful for the descendants of monkeys and pigs
[i.e. Jews]... you [Israel] will pay dearly for this deal [prisoner
exchange], and in the deals that will follow it, and in the deals that will
follow those."
Additionally, the release of murderers serving life sentences in 2008 was seen by some as the end of Israeli deterrence: Prisoner, Al-Sayed, serving 35 life terms plus additional 150 years: "Life sentences of the occupation are meaningless... the success of the resistance [Hamas and Hezbollah] in kidnapping of occupation soldiers and the carrying out of [prisoner] exchanges have made these [prison] sentences meaningless." Israel, like the U.S., does not define the enemy and pretends the enemy is reasonable. Notice the totalitarian ethical standard of the ends justify the means and the celebration of murder! Mr. Kuntar, their hero, smashed a baby's head, just as did the Nazis, but anti-Zionists call Israelis, who do not do such things, Nazis. Notice antisemitism, not just criticism of particular Israeli policies. Notice that Israel's misguided humanitarianism plays into murderers' hands! Israeli policy erodes deterrence against terrorism. It is counter-productive. What a foolish and disproved notion that Arab prisoner releases engender Arab good will! However much the jihadists violate fundamentals of civilization, the Palestinian Authority and its officials and people consider them soldiers, whereas Israel, following international law, treats them as criminals. Nevertheless, Israel coddles them. PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ON ISRAEL, NEGOTIATION, PEACE Palestinian Authority (P.A.) President Abbas made these statements: 1. He will not allow an uprising, while he retains office, which may not be for long; 2. He denies delaying negotiations, claiming he presented compromise proposals to Israel. The "compromise" was that Israel should institute a complete, 5-month construction freeze behind the Green Line, but need not announce it and draw political opposition. 3. He demanded that Pres. Obama compel Israel to institute that freeze. "Now the ball is in the international community's court and in America's court." He expressed pride in striving for peace (Charles Levinson, Wall St. J., 12/21, A13). If he has the confidence to defer an uprising, while it is convenient for his diplomacy, then perhaps he is not the weak leader that the State Dept. claims he is, when it urges Israel to make concessions to strengthen him. His denial of delaying negotiations proves he is delaying them. He is delaying them until Israel gives him a concession that has no bearing on starting negotiations. The concession would discriminate ethnically. Considering the past P.A. uprisings, his own terrorist career, his encouragement of terrorists, his regime's indoctrination of the people in bigotry, and P.A. failure to abide by the peacemaking terms of Oslo, it hardly seems fair for him to be the one demanding a payment for starting negotiations. Didn't he say he wants peace? His re-packaging of his demand for a freeze invites the government of Israel to deceive its people. In view of the above-stated indications that he remains a jihadist intent on conquest by a combination of diplomacy and war, what is the point of negotiation with him? Barak Obama won election by campaigning more against Pres. Bush than against the GOP candidate. One of the chief complaints against Bush was that he bullied other countries. Abbas demands that Obama and other countries bully Israel to make one-sided concessions in advance of negotiations that are supposed to be mutual consideration of concessions. Based on the P.A. record, if the U.S. reacts, it should be either to tell Abbas he ought to just start negotiating or to suggest Israel resolve the problem itself. What would the U.S. want with a hostile, terrorist state, anyway? SECOND TEMPLE ERA HOUSE EXCAVATED IN NAZARETH 
Excavations for a Christian church building to be atop an old Mamluk wall found the wall standing on the wall of a building from the end of the second Temple period. An artifact in the ancient house was of a type used only by Jews (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/22). BRITISH ANTI-ZIONISM AND BBC DISHONESTY ABOUT IT Here "...is a list of recent anti-Israel policies imposed by the British government: It instructs supermarkets to label products that originate in the West Bank; it denounces the Gaza operation, it imposes partial arms embargo on the Israeli Navy, it finances the group 'Breaking the Silence,' it failed to vote against the Goldstone report and it is in the process of negotiating with Hezbollah and flirting with Hamas. Its legal system is hunting Israeli politicians and military officers and trying to trying to subject them to kangaroo courts. Now to top it off, the new British European foreign minister declares that East Jerusalem is an 'occupied city,' unlike Belfast and Edinburgh." "However, an hour long British television program, called Dispatches, which was aired in November on Channel 4, claims that the British government is staunchly pro-Israeli and the reason for that is simple — Jewish money." The broadcast made several statements along that line. "These repulsive allegations were assisted by two Israeli academics who were interviewed as fig leaves by the documentary makers. One of them, Avi Shlaim of Oxford is certainly no stranger to readers of IsraCampus.Org.il. In recent years Shlaim became the darling of the Anti-Zionist loony left in his adopted country, writing for the notorious Guardian, appearing on public panels advocating so-called "one-state solution," in which Israel is erased, and supporting the notion that Israel endangers Diaspora Jews." [Shlaim was a Communist, notorious for their intellectual dishonesty. He was a revisionist historian who expressed false anti-Zionist notions.] "As one observer put it: 'It was an hour of innuendo about 'pro-Israeli' moneybags controlling the Conservative and Labor Parties; 'pro-Israeli' intimidation of British media; premeditated 'pro-Israeli' abuse of anti-Semitism; and sinister music accompanying photos of 'pro-Israelis' blurred across Israeli and British flags.'" "The BBC? Even its own managerial trust established that on a few occasions in the past its journalists were impartial in favor of the Arabs. Osborne denounced it as in the pocketbook of Israel, thanks to its refusal to broadcast a Palestinian charity appeal after operation "Cast Lead", but he failed to acknowledge the real reason for that. The BBC was reluctant to air it because of domestic guidelines which included the fact that the clip in question was not shot by its staff. This, of course, was ignored by the 'documentarist' who was assisted by these two learned Israeli academics." "But the irony is that after all these allegations Mr. Osborne was forced to admit that the program had not found 'anything faintly resembling a conspiracy.' So what was all the fuss about? Well, he said, 'there was some lack of transparency in some of the organizations we investigated.'" "So what, in the end, did the veteran Channel 4 investigative reporter do? He fabricated a mountain of rumors and speculations, and then admitted, after the act, that they have no substance. After an hour of unfortunate imagery and unfounded suggestions that UK supporters of Israel conspire to influence Parliament and the media utilizing financial leverage, Dispatches finally admitted that this is not the case. How comforting. Alas, the damage has been done and the admission was a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted." By damage, he means, for one thing, that a fascist group became emboldened to repeat the BBC defamation. (Prof. Steven Plaut, 12/21).
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 and visit his website:
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AFTER 500 YEARS, A RETURN TO JUDAISM
Posted by Michael Freund, December 23, 2009. |
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Dear Friend, Below is a moving article that appears in this week's issue of the NY Jewish Week (http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/ c36_a17510/News/New_York.html) regarding a Chueta (a descendant of forcibly converted Jews from Palma de Mallorca, Spain) whom I helped to return to the Jewish people at an emotional ceremony last week. The article was written by Sandee Brawarsky. As the calendar year comes to a close, please consider making a gift to Shavei Israel to help us to continue with our work to reconnect "lost Jews" with Israel and the Jewish people. thanks, Michael Freund
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After emerging from the warm waters of the West Side Mikvah last week, Miquel Seguara, above, said, "I feel a relief, like I'm free, clean, purified." More than five centuries after his ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism, and more than 300 years after a relative was burned at the stake for secretly practicing Judaism, Miquel Segura of Mallorca, Spain, returned to the Jewish people. In a ceremony last week that began with Shachrit prayers at Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York City, and continued with a double dunk into the warm waters of the West Side Mikvah, Segura reaffirmed his connection to his Jewish ancestors. The 65-year-old journalist can trace his family history back, in precise detail, for centuries. Segura is a Chueta, as descendants of Mallorcan Jews who were forcibly converted, are known. Over generations, the Chuetas were persecuted, often tortured and discriminated against. Even the name, Chueta (Xueta in Catalan) is offensive, as it's derived from the word for pig in the Catalan language. Since other Christians wouldn't marry Chuetas, even as these "New Christians" lived in accordance with the Church, the Chuetas have remained as enclosed community. Today, there are an estimated 20,000 Chuetas, most in Mallorca, Spain's largest island, located in the Mediterranean Sea. The ceremony, held on the morning of the sixth day of Chanukah, Rosh Hodesh Tevet, was not a conversion, but a return. The timing was fitting, as the sacred moments symbolized renewal, faith and determination. Rabbi Marc D. Angel, rabbi emeritus of Shearith Israel and founder of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, who officiated at the ceremony, cited an opinion of the Rama, Rabbi Moshe Isserles (16th century) that when a person wishes to return to Judaism, he needs to go to the mikveh, for purification. No bet din is required, as at a conversion. Since Segura's family had married only other Chuetas for generations, as he found through his genealogical research, he is still a Jew. Rabbi Angel receives calls almost weekly from people who want to consult with him about their Jewish roots and possible paths to conversion or return. "Every story is a novel," he says. He has officiated at other return ceremonies, but this was the first time he has done such a ceremony for someone from the Chueta community. When Segura, known in Hebrew as Michael ben Hayyim, emerged from the waters, dressed again in his pinstripe suit, he was beaming, "I feel a relief, like I'm free, clean, purified." He greeted his wife and other guests, who showered him with calls of "Mazel tov" back in the waiting room. "I think this is the most happy day of my life." Graciously, he thanked his wife, who is not a Chueta, and said that without her encouragement and support, the moment would not have been possible. He showed the assembled group a family tree and was presented with a Hebrew/Spanish document that stated, "After five centuries, Miquel Segura of Palma de Mallorca returned to his people." Segura, who has written more than 20 books including "Raices Chuetas, Alas Judias," (Chuetas Roots, Jewish Wings), first learned of his Chueta background when he was 15 and was taunted in school. Previously, his parents avoided the topic. Soon after, when he heard a procession on the street saying that the Chuetas killed Jesus Christ, he began, along with a cousin, to read about their history. Members of the community are easy to identify, as they have one of the 15 family names that have lasted over the centuries, including Aguilo, Forteza, Marti and Valleriola. In Mallorca, persecution of the Jews began in the 1300s, with a wave of violent pogroms in 1391. The Jewish community on the island dates back to the fifth century. Jews in Mallorca were forced to convert, even before the edict of Expulsion in 1492. The Inquisition was formally abolished in 1808, but social, economic and religious discrimination against the Chuetas has continued into the modern era. Only in the past 40 years or so, as the society has opened up more, Chuetas have begun to intermarry. Segura, whose wife is a Catholic, is the first in his family line to marry outside of the group. When asked about any traces of Jewish practices in their home while growing up, he recalls, "My father didn't want to cut cheese and meat with same knife, and no one else could touch this knife. But we really lived as Catholics." In 1994, the publication of his first book on the subject of the history of the Chuetas, "Memoria Xueta" was a sort of coming out, stating publicly that he was a Chueta. A prominent figure in Mallorcan society, Segura was met with debate and personal attacks. He then began thinking about returning to Judaism, to remove the stigma of being a Chueta. Over the last few years, he has traveled to South America, speaking about his books and his own story, and has received much support. Six years ago, at a conference in Barcelona for "Bnei Anousim," the sons and daughters of Jews forcibly converted, Segura met Michael Freund, founder and chairman of Shavei Israel, an Israeli organization that reaches out to descendants of Jews around the world and fosters their connection to Judaism and the State of Israel. Freund, who brought Segura's story to Rabbi Angel's attention, came to New York for the ceremony. "This is proof of the power of Jewish memory and is the best possible revenge for what the Inquisition did to his ancestors," Freund said. To Segura, he said, "I hope that you open the doors to many in Palmas de Mallorca to return to the Jewish people." Another man from the Chueta community has moved to Israel, undergone a formal conversion and was ordained by the chief rabbinate. Rabbi Rabbi Nissan ben Avraham travels frequently to Mallorca and Barcelona to lecture and teach. Segura says that others in the community are also very interested in their Jewish roots and in Jewish culture, but many cannot trace their family trees as he did. He plans to encourage others in the community to reclaim their Judaism. A columnist for the newspaper Ultima Hora, Segura, who has a photograph of a mezuzah on his Web site, says that he longer eats pork and shellfish, won't mix meat and milk, but is "not exactly kosher." He prays the Shema by heart and says that "this prayer makes my identity. Most Friday evenings, he goes to services at the one synagogue in Palma, the capital, established by German and English Jews who've resettled on the island. As Segura explains, members of the shul "do not open their arms" to the Chuetas, and the shul does not count them as part of the minyan. "He is a Jew in every respect, in the eyes of heaven. I hope that he'll also be seen as a Jew in the eyes of other Jews," Freund remarks. The American-born Freund, whose organization has been involved with communities in India, China, Poland and the former Soviet Union, asserts, "I think that the Jewish people have a responsibility toward the Chuetas. We should be embracing them." "Ironically, it was the ongoing exclusion of Mallorca's 'Old Christians' that allowed the Chuetas to preserve their identity well into the 20th century," Freund says. Segura may may be the last Jew in his line, or maybe not. His wife is Catholic, and their two children, a daughter who lives in Mallorca and a son who's a diplomat in Madrid, are not Jewish. But his son is married to a Chueta, and their young son speaks of being Jewish like his grandfather.
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.
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HESDER YESHIVA QUITS ARMY; BARAK: HESDER ARRANGEMENT WITH HAR
BRACHA OVER; DECISION ON SHALIT IN HAMAS' HANDS
Posted by Hillel Fendel, December 23, 2009. |
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Hesder Yeshiva Quits Army
The "unanimous" Hesder Yeshivot declaration of earlier this week was apparently not so unanimous — and has led at least one yeshiva to quit. The head of the Yeshivat Hesder in the Negev city of Arad, Rabbi Yinon Ilani, has sent a letter to the Union of Hesder Yeshivot, asking to be removed from both the Union and the Hesder arrangement with the army. Rabbi Ilani explains, "I apparently do not understand the decision that was made in the honorable forum of all the Yeshiva deans on Sunday, and therefore, to my great sorrow, and despite the great price our yeshiva will have to pay, I cannot be a party to something that I do not understand." The "price" referred to by Rabbi Ilani is a monthly per-student stipend of hundreds of shekels from the Defense Ministry to the Hesder yeshivot. Rabbi Ilani was one of the very few Hesder yeshiva heads who did not take part in the meeting on Sunday. The decision made there stated clear opposition to protests within the army, and also resolved to work to restore Yeshivat Har Bracha, headed by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, to the Hesder arrangement. The statement did not say that Torah law stands above army commands. Meanwhile, an IDF memo reported on IDF Army Radio indicates that the Hesder declaration has not brought about the desired conciliation with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Defense Ministry; the opposite is the case. The memo states that the students of Har Bracha have 60 days in which to find another Hesder yeshiva, or else they will be drafted for full three-year service. Hesder students generally serve for five years, including about 18 months in active duty, and the remainder studying Torah. 'Deans Can't Find Way to Integrate Both? The final straw for Rabbi Ilani and his yeshiva was apparently words of explanation added after the Sunday meeting by Union spokesman Rabbi David Stav. "Rabbi Stav said to the media that the Union is obligated to both State law and Torah law," Rabbi Ilani wrote, "but that it is not yet clear how to integrate both of them. If the Yeshiva heads cannot decide the proper approach, then what can be expected from a simple soldier? Why not say clearly: 'We are loyal to the State and its laws as long as they do not contradict our holy Torah; every law that opposes the Torah is blatantly illegal?'" Rabbi Ilani feels that ideally, protests against orders to evict Jews and destroy their property should be carried out by the rabbis and not by the students — "but since we, the rabbis, did not sound our opinion clearly, the students burst out in 'holy brazenness' and do our work [by protestin... It is the government that is responsible for these protests, by ordering the soldiers to carry out political missions that are against Jewish Law." Rabbi Nixes Anti-Protest Call "The call [by the rabbi against protests in the army is not appropriate for this period," Rabbi Ilani wrote, "especially when we are beginning a campaign for the very existence of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and when the approach towards the residents is as if they were genuine enemies — to the point where I cannot even be sure that orders will not be given to fire on opponents of the construction freeze orders." The reference is to an IDF plan that was publicized this week, showing that the IDF is planning something close to war against the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria (Yesha) regarding the enforcement of the construction-freeze orders. The document indicates that the army is planning to enforce the freeze with the help of six brigades, the entire Border Guard forces of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, Israel Air Forces helicopters and drones, the Shabak (Shin Bet) and police, intelligence forces, and IDF reserve units. 5. Barak: Hesder Arrangement with Har Bracha is Over
Tie to Har Bracha is Over Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday that the IDF's cooperation with the Har Bracha Hesder Yeshiva was over. He made no mention of the fact that the yeshiva's dean, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, signed a declaration against political protests in the military — an act which Hesder yeshiva deans hoped would mollify the minister's anger at Melamed. "After two attempts to demonstrate within the army, it turned out that there is a yeshiva whose head openly preaches for refusal of orders, and is unwilling to denounce acts of protest within the IDF," Barak said in a speech before high school students in Rishon LeTzion. "One of the foundations of a democratic state is a monopoly on the use of force on the one hand; on the other is the state's authority over the citizens," he lectured the students. "The citizens express their stances through political activity and the ballot box. The State has an army and the army is under the authority of the State, and of no other body." "The idea of a military and refusal to do army service are not compatible, and we do not intend to accept this," Barak went on. "This must be clear everywhere. After studying the case and reading the recommendations of the heads of the IDF, I reached the conclusion that the right path is to end the Hesder [arrangemen with this particular yeshiva. Make no mistake, the Hesder yeshiva boys are the IDF's finest soldiers, in all units, and have been for decades. They are also a very important core group in the reserve force afterward. They are excellent people, but just as one should not make generalizations, we should not shut our eyes where there is unworthy and improper behavior.For this reason, the arrangement with this yeshiva is finished. Soldiers from all the other yeshivas are received with a blessing [an apparent pun on the word bracha, or blessing, which is part of the name of Har Bracha — ed. Barak also hinted that IDF soldiers would continue to participate in evictions from outposts. "We are not the only country in the world in which the army is called upon to carry out civilian assignments. When a state reaches the place in which it needs to enforce the law on citizens, in has no choice but to use its army. This instruction must also be carried out and obeyed, this is the true basis of democracy." 6. "New 'Street Name' Law to Streamline Benefits, Taxes"
Law: Street Names, House Numbers It's now the law: All towns and villages, not only cities, must assign street names and house numbers. It will help citizens to receive benefits — and Arab cities to collect taxes. The Knesset passed the final readings of the new law on Monday, instituting into law the proposal by MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union). Until now, only full-fledged cities were required to assign street names and house numbers. "This law is very important from several aspects," Eldad explained. "It will help both the citizens and the authorities. It will enable the latter to enforce the law in an efficient manner, and to collect various fines and fees that various sectors in Israel — and especially the Arab sector — were able to systematically avoid, using the excuse that there was no address or house number." In addition, Eldad said, "The Health Ministry, for instance, has had trouble locating many citizens who don't have an address, and many who are eligible for various benefits sometimes lose out on payments they deserve to receive." Local government bodies that do not fulfill the law and do not assign names to every street and numbers to every house will have to answer to the Interior Ministry, Eldad said, "and they certainly will not receive stimulus payments or grants from the Ministry." 7. Netanyahu Puts Decision on Shalit in Hamas' Hands by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Shalit Issue Now in Hamas' Hands Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and six senior Cabinet ministers have told a German mediator that 100 terrorists must be deported to Arab countries or Gaza before Israel can agree to free nearly 1,000 terrorists and prisoners for the return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. A newspaper in Lebanon stated that Qatar and European countries have agreed to accept more than 20 terrorists, and Israel has insisted that most of the others be sent to Gaza instead of Judea and Samaria. Hamas officials said that the German mediator in negotiations will meet with the terrorist organization on Wednesday. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced Tuesday, "There is no deal for the release of Gilad Shalit and I don't know if there will be." He in effect has thrown the powder keg of the highly charged issue of Shalit back to Hamas, whose officials stated Tuesday that they cannot accept the idea of deportations. The same issue was a major factor in the Cabinet's rejection last February of a similar proposal aimed at bringing Shalit back home. Although most statements from Hamas have come from Gaza, the ultimate decision will be made by Khaled Mashaal, the Syrian-based leader of the terrorist organization. One associate, Beirut-based Hamas leader Osama Hamdan, declared Tuesday night, "Because Hamas, or any other Palestinian faction, cannot agree to the expulsion of Palestinians, we insist that all the prisoners are released to their homes and families." The government has kept silent on any public statements on the negotiations for the return of Shalit, but most reports indicated that the mini-Cabinet of six ministers and the Prime Minister drew the red line on deporting more than 100 terrorists while refusing to release seven or nine others. Foreign media stated that among them are Marwan Barghouti, sentenced five times to life in prison, and Ahmed Sadat, who assassinated Tourist Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, and three Hamas terrorists. Israel recently disclosed to the High Court that it might free 960 terrorists and prisoners, many of them with "blood on their hands," for involvement in killing dozens of Israelis. Intelligence officials have warned that allowing them to return to their homes in Judea and Samaria might leave the lives of millions of Israelis in danger. Terrorists who previously have been released have murdered nearly 180 Israelis after being freed and promising not to return to terror. These items are from the English edition of today's Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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AMERICA ISN'T IMMUNE TO HOMEGROWN TERRORISM
Posted by Family Security Matters, December 23, 2009. |
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This was written by Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman, a historian, lecturer, and author, who also writes for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or http://www.globalthink.net/ |
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A nightmare scenario for America is terrorists in our midst, and unlike those who perpetrated the horror of 9/11, difficult to profile. Our security forces look for young men (aged 16-30) of Middle East or South Asian origin. This is no longer good enough; many wannabe terrorists are American born Muslims or converts recruited in prison and universities. Add to this the occasional woman, for whom we would not usually be on alert. The terrorist next door has become a big concern. Ignorance and poverty might be true for the poor starvelings being brainwashed in Afghan and Pakistani Madrassas, but they are only good for cannon fodder in the hands of their keepers. This profile certainly does not match what we are seeing in the U.S., and unfortunately, more than we had expected. First, consider Maj. Hasan, a native-born U.S. citizen, soldier, and psychiatrist whose education was paid for by the military. This man — neither young, poor, nor ignorant — cold bloodedly murder 14 or his colleagues and wound 34 more before he was wounded himself. All we know about him was that he was a religious fanatic and his "spiritual adviser" with whom he corresponded, was a jihadi who had fled from Virginia to Yemen (he himself born in the U.S.). Then consider a new wrinkle — young Muslims, some native born and some born abroad, from immigrant families that seem to be integrating well — disappearing from the U.S. with intent to become jihadis. The five picked up in Pakistan (along with the father of one of them) are not the first to have been radicalized in the U.S. itself. These five supposedly said nothing to their families or friends about their intentions, but a videotape on Facebook by one of them was obviously a jihadi last will and testament, which frightened the families into seeking FBI help. The community denials are hard to believe. One youth coordinator's hope is that these "nice virgin young men" were probably in Pakistan to bring home brides. (Are there no Muslim brides for them in America?) The Alexandria, Virginia Islamic Center's Imam claims there was no sign that these worshippers were radicalized. The same center was also the place of worship of Maj. Hasan, and its former cleric has fled to Yemen. Something is going on in that center. The thriving Somali community in Minneapolis has also produced young men, some in college, who without a word of warning disappeared to return to Somalia and Yemen to become suicide bombers. At least one is dead, and we don't know the condition of the others. What happens if these lost boys return to carry out a caper in the U.S. itself? They are citizens, and supposedly could travel freely. However, I would hope that traveling from Somalia or Yemen would trigger needed security attention. How can one account for a "nice" immigrant Afghan coffee vendor in New York, Najibullah Zazi, going to Pakistan for explosives training with the intent to stage an attack in the US? He was picked up in Colorado trying to buy chemicals. Most dangerous of all is the Chicagoan, David Coleman Headly, 49, who with that name, age, and money, would never have been profiled as a terrorist. Headly changed his name from Gilani to Headly, a name that would fly below the radar on his passport. He apparently had every advantage of upbringing (American mother), social status, and money. Yet he was a frequent globetrotter scouting sites for al Qaeda's murderous rampages, the most successful of which was the attack on Mumbai that left 166 people dead. Most recently, he was scouting a planned attack on the Danish newspaper that published the Mohammad cartoons. American officials are concerned that jihadis are being recruited for numerous small attacks on the United States so that a really major attack can progress unnoticed. Young wanabe terrorists like the five picked up in Pakistan behave stupidly and are not difficult to catch. More challenging will be visitors carrying European passports, converts to Islam, who do not match the Middle Eastern or South Asian profile. That will be trouble. Contact Family Security Matters (FSM) at info@ familysecuritymatters.org |
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TWENTY YEARS LATER
Posted by Dave Alpern, December 23, 2009. |
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This a Dry Bones cartoon. Yaakov Kirschen is the creator of the Dry Bones cartoons, which he started drawing in January 1973. Contact him at blog@mrdrybones.com Kirschen writes about this cartoon: "Before 2009 comes to an end, I wanted to point out that in this, the 20th anniversary of the reuniting of their divided city of Berlin, the Europeans want to divide our reunited city of Jerusalem |
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Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
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NO LAND CONCESSIONS, NO PALESTINIAN STATE
Posted by Jay Draiman, December 23, 2009. |
| This below was written by Hillel Fendel. |
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Imagine that the various people who settled in the United States for the past 300 years decided one day that they one to parcel the United States into an independent State just for them, would the American public go for it. The Answer is absolutely NO. The situation in Israel today is no different. The Arabs there are not Palestinians, there is no such Arab nation as Palestine or Palestinian people. Europeans countries today are consisting of numerous people from other countries. Would the Europeans people cede part of their country to set up another State in their midst. The answer is absolutely NO. All the Arabs in Israel and surrounding areas are from the various Arab nations, such as Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and other Arab nations. Prominent PLO Arab says there are no 'Palestinians' and no "Palestine" PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein admitted in a March 31, 1977 interview with a Dutch newspaper Trouw. "The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. " The Qur'an 17:104 — states the land belongs to the Jewish people If the historic documents, comments written by eyewitnesses and declarations by the most authoritative Arab scholars are still not enough, let us quote the most important source for Muslim Arabs: "And thereafter we [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: 'Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather you together in a mingled crowd'.". 017.104 YUSUFALI: And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, "Dwell securely in the land (of promise)": but when the second of the warnings came to pass, We gathered you together in a mingled crowd. PICKTHAL: And We said unto the Children of Israel after him: Dwell in the land; but when the promise of the Hereafter cometh to pass We shall bring you as a crowd gathered out of various nations. SHAKIR: And We said to the Israelites after him: Dwell in the land: and when the promise of the next life shall come to pass, we will bring you both together in judgment.
Any sincere Muslim must recognize the Land they call "Palestine" as the Jewish Homeland, according to the book considered by Muslims to be the most sacred word and Allah's ultimate revelation. Sequence of historical events, agreements and a non-broken series of treaties and resolutions, as laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of Nations and the United Nations, gives the Jewish People title to the city of Jerusalem and the rest of Israel totaling approximately 45,000 square miles, as mandated by the League of Nations in July of 1922. The process began at San Remo, Italy, when the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I — Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan — agreed to create a Jewish national home in what is now the Land of Israel. (You might as well break apart Syria which was mandated at the same time). PS "20 Years of Research Reveals Jerusalem Belongs to Jews"
(IsraelNN.com) Jacques Gauthier, a non-Jewish Canadian lawyer who spent 20 years researching the legal status of Jerusalem, has concluded: "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, by international law.". Gauthier has written a doctoral dissertation on the topic of Jerusalem and its legal history, based on international treaties and resolutions of the past 90 years. The dissertation runs some 1,300 pages, with 3,000 footnotes. Gauthier had to present his thesis to a world-famous Jewish historian and two leading international lawyers — the Jewish one of whom has represented the Palestinian Authority on numerous occasions. Gauthier's main point, as summarized by Israpundit editor Ted Belman, is that a non-broken series of treaties and resolutions, as laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of Nations and the United Nations, gives the Jewish People title to the city of Jerusalem. The process began at San Remo, Italy, when the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I — Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan — agreed to create a Jewish national home in what is now the Land of Israel. San Remo The relevant resolution reads as follows: "The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust... the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory [authority that] will be responsible for putting into effect the [Balfour] declaration... in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Gauthier notes that the San Remo treaty specifically notes that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" — but says nothing about any "political" rights of the Arabs living there. The San Remo Resolution also bases itself on Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which declares that it is a "a sacred trust of civilization" to provide for the well-being and development of colonies and territories whose inhabitants are "not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world." Specifically, a resolution was formulated to create a Mandate to form a Jewish national home in Palestine. League of Nations The League of Nations' resolution creating the Palestine Mandate included the following significant clause: "Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." No such recognition of Arab rights in Palestine was granted. In 1945, the United Nations took over from the failed League of Nations — and assumed the latter's obligations. Article 80 of the UN Charter states: "Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed, in or of itself, to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties." UN Partition Plan however, in 1947, the General Assembly of the UN passed Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan. It violated the League of Nations' Mandate for Palestine in that it granted political rights to the Arabs in western Palestine — yet, ironically, the Arabs worked to thwart the plan's passage, while the Jews applauded it. Resolution 181 also provided for a Special regime for Jerusalem, with borders delineated in all four directions: The then-extant municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns up to Abu Dis in the east, Bethlehem in the south, Ein Karem and Motza in the west, and Shuafat in the north. Referendum Scheduled for Jerusalem The UN resolved that the City of Jerusalem shall be established as a separate entity under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations. The regime was to come into effect by October 1948, and was to remain in force for a period of ten years, unless the UN's Trusteeship Council decided otherwise. After the ten years, the residents of Jerusalem "shall be then free to express by means of a referendum their wishes as to possible modifications of regime of the City." The resolution never took effect, because Jordan controlled eastern Jerusalem after the 1948 War of Independence and did not follow its provisions. After 1967 After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel regained Jerusalem and other land west of Jordan. Gauthier notes that the UN Security Council then passed Resolution 242 authorizing Israel to remain in possession of all the land until it had "secure and recognized boundaries." The resolution was notably silent on Jerusalem, and also referred to the "necessity for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem," with no distinction made between Jewish and Arab refugees. Today Given Jerusalem's strong Jewish majority, Gauthier concludes, Israel should be demanding that the long-delayed city referendum on the city's future be held as soon as possible. Not only should Israel be demanding that the referendum be held now, Jerusalem should be the first order of business. "Olmert is sloughing us off by saying [as he did before the Annapolis Conference two months ago], 'Jerusalem is not on the table yet,'" Gauthier concludes. "He should demand that the referendum take place before the balance of the land is negotiated. If the Arabs won't agree to the referendum, there is nothing to talk about." We must unleash the wrath of G-D against the enemies of Israel and those collaborating with the enemy. Contact YJD by email at yjdmd@msn.com |
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CAN THE UN LEGALLY IMPOSE A SOLUTION ON ISRAEL?
Posted by Ted Belman, December 23, 2009. |
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A movement is afoot to get the UN to predetermine borders between Israel and the future 23rd Arab state and to recognize "East Jerusalem" as its capital. Such predetermination would be in violation of the Roadmap which calls for a negotiated solution where "negotiated" implies freedom to say "no". And such predetermination would prejudge the outcome which the world never tires of telling Israel, no one can do. I began doing research on the powers of the UN and on whether such UN predetermination would be ultra-vires its Charter. In other words, would it be legal by international law for the UN to dictate a solution?. I wanted to know what the consequences might be for Israel. I have not yet gotten a good enough fix on these questions to give an opinion. Regardless of the true meaning of the Charter, I fear that the UN would give the same answer that the Queen gave to Alice in Wonderland, "It means what I say it means". Yesterday, David Solway in The United Nations: Public Enemy Number (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/ the-united-nations-public-enemy-number-one/). One recommended that the US withdraw from the UN. He recites in a detailed way what is wrong with the UN and why it is the enemy of the US and freedom. But his polemic, left out reference to the overriding purpose of the UN. In 2001, John F McManus, the then president of the John Birch Society, gave a speech entitled The Plan to Have the UN Rule He quotes from a State Department official in 1945 "... there is no provision in the Charter itself that contemplates ending war. It is true the Charter provides for force to bring peace, but such use of force is itself war.... The Charter is built to prepare for war, not to promote peace.... The Charter is a war document, not a peace document. Not only does the Charter organization not prevent future wars, it makes it practically certain that we shall have future wars, and as to such wars it takes from us the power to declare them, to choose on which side we shall fight, to determine what forces and military equipment we shall use in the war, and to control and command our sons who do the fighting." While the Charter pays lip service to national sovereignty by pledging to maintain "the sovereign equality of all its Members," for no one would have joined otherwise, it is all about limiting such sovereignty. Thus joining negates sovereignty. "No one can understand the reasoning behind self-defeating policies of the United States government without an awareness of the enormously harmful influence of the Council on Foreign Relations. This organization has worked to destroy America's national sovereignty and create a tyrannical world government ever since its inception in 1921. It members are the leaders in government, the mass media, the wealthy foundations, the military, religion, education, the corporate world, and other important segments of our nation's life. They are betrayers from within, and their influence has spread to numerous other parts of the world." That is also what the UN intends achieving. "The Charter's main authors were Americans Alger Hiss and Leo Pasvolsky and the Soviet Union's Vyacheslav Molotov. Hiss was a secret communist and a member of the world-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations. Pasvolsky was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. And Molotov was an official of the murderous Soviet Union whose criminal leaders expected the United Nations to bring about a communist-controlled world. These men surely did not want the nations of the world to remain independent. Instead, they wanted all to become subject to the authority of the United Nations, an organization they expected to control. And they wrote the UN Charter to accomplish that goal." A subsequent step along the way was the creation of the EU which overrides the sovereignty of its members. In fact it may have the illusion of itself being a democratic body with electorates all electing their representatives, in reality it is run by a permanent bureaucracy. In effect the Europeans have been disenfranchised by joining. The supporters of world government need world problems, real or imagined, to justify world solutions. While the planet may or may not be warming, and if warming, may or may not be man made, what is important is that a world solution is needed. Nevermind whether the suggested solutions would work, they would certainly involve the enlargement and power of world government and that is the point. What is envisaged is a stateless world. The nineteenth century was the "age of nationalism". Nationalism is blamed for most the wars which ensued. It is no longer a good thing. Political Zionism was born in that century. As nationalism went into disfavour in the twentieth century so did Zionism. Imperialism is usually associated with nation states and is also decried. In fact in many ways nationalism resisted the imperialism of others. The powers that be, such as CFR, see the doing away with nationalism as doing away with the resistance. In effect they want to substitute corporate imperialism for national imperialism. Islam has no trouble with a stateless world. In fact it seeks a world caliphate in which Islam is supreme. The Caliphate is important, not the state. When noticing how Islamification is aided and abetted by the US and EU governments against the wishes of their citizens, I am reminded of the alliance between the Rome and the Catholic Church in the fourth century AD. The Catholic Church as an agent of Rome, used to suppress the people in the name of God thereby removing popular resistance to Rome. With the fall of Rome, the Church went on to align itself with the ruling aristocracies and monarchies. During the age of colonialism, the Church was an active partner. Similarly Islam is a tool to harass and intimidate the people in the service of the rulers. "Allah" gave Mohammed the rallying cry and justification for conquering the world. Islam maintains itself by a brutal suppression of freedoms. The people are entirely disenfranchised. Thus Islam and World Government are comfortable bedmates and fellow travellers. Pres. Obama is totally supportive of the Caliphate and of the UN. He is working to empower them both. His policies include 1. World nuclear disarmament Will the American people take Solway's advice and get the hell out? Remains to be seen. So what does all this mean for little Israel? With few exceptions Israel has no friends among the nations. The US so far has been willing to to stand by Israel by using its veto in the Security Council or supporting her right to self defense in the Lebanon War and Gaza War. But that support comes with a price, namely that Israel capitulates to the Arabs and accepts their terms for peace. The last three Israel Prime Ministers, Sharon, Olmert and Netanyahu all came up through the ranks of Likud. All have accepted the inevitability of succumbing to American pressure and each tried to salvage what they could for Israel. Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister, was forced by Obama to institute a 10 month settlement freeze, after which according to Netanyahu, construction will fully commence. But nobody believes this. Nothing is being said as to what happens at the end of this period to the peace process. It is inconceivable that the world will give up its efforts to get Israel to withdraw to the greenline and share Jerusalem. Whether we are talking about the Roadmap, Ananapolis or a future Conference in Moscow which is currently being talked about, the end result is clear. Obama has conceded the "Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements". But these borders have been predetermined by Obama to be "based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps". Slim pickings, indeed. Should Israel refuse such a deal, whether by the current government or by a revolt by the people, she will of course be saying, give us your best shot. This will include sanctions and expulsion from the UN. There is also the possibility of military intervention by the UN. McManas comments on this. Chapter VII of the Charter begins with Article 39 by proclaiming that, Serbia learned that lesson. But before it comes to that, Israel would respond by talking the battle to the American people and to the US Congress, their extension. It is a battle that Obama prefers not to fight especially in the lead up to the 2012 elections. Ted Belman
Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. He now lives in Jerusalem. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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WATERMELONS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 22, 2009. |
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This was written by William Katz. |
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CREEPING TOWARD OBLIVION — AT 8:53 A.M. ET: I heard an interesting definition last night. It seems that in Britain they have a rather strong "green" movement — you know, the environmental "activists." But those who are on to them don't call them greens, but "watermelons" — green on the outside, red on the inside. We saw that in Copenhagen. The greatest applause at the "climate change" conference didn't greet President Obama, or even Al Green, uh Al Gore. It greeted Hugo Chavez and his attacks on capitalism. The climate-change movement, like many movements, has a hidden agenda — a move toward socialism and world government. And yet, we're told very little about it by the mainstream media, which regards socialism as just another "narrative." Investors Business Daily, in a fine editorial, discusses our own drift toward socialism, symbolized by the health "reform" package: Health Care: Democrats on the take and in the dead of night pass an execrable piece of legislation that they haven't read, the public doesn't want and only socialists could love. What has happened to this country? And... Let's see if we have this right: What could these people possibly know? Do they live in Manhattan? Beverly Hills? Do they have parties and invite African diplomats? Despite growing public opposition, Democratic members had the nerve to call those who questioned their monstrosity "obstructionists" and worse. Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse called health care bill foes "birthers," "fanatics" and "people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups." Is this what Democrats meant when they said they seek bipartisan solutions to the nation's problems? By bipartisan they mean that far-left Democrats and liberal Democrats will join together. As the nonpartisan Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation put it, "The House and Senate health care bills contain enormous tax hikes to accompany massive increases in government spending." But, of course, in the eyes of the left, those are wonderful things. Progress! What's truly frightening about this bill isn't what it does, but what it sets us on course to do. Democrats have long said they see this bill as a first step toward a total takeover of U.S. health care, regardless of the consequences. COMMENT: It already is a pattern. U.S. Government Wheels & Deals, formerly known as General Motors, is an example. The 1960s left has come roaring back, a little more careful with its propaganda this time, getting protection from the slick rhetoric of Barack Obama, and supported by much of the media. It's pretty clear from the polls that many Americans are in fact aware of what is happening. But we need that 50% plus one at the polls to reverse it. And the clear goal of many on the left is to do what political machines in many cities have done so effectively, going back to the 19th century — make the people so dependent on the party in power that they feel they must vote them in year after year. Tammany did it in New York, the Daley machine does it in Barack Obama's Chicago. Now the machine has gone national, and international. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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ONE PAKISTAN IS ENOUGH
Posted by Moshe Dann, December 22, 2009. |
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Chaos in Pakistan has the world sweating; they have The Bomb — actually, lots of them, and they've already distributed the technology and parts to other countries, like Iran, North Korea and Libya, which send them on. Think of this probability: Under a sovereign state of Palestine, the "West Bank" (and Gaza) resembles Swat Valley. Run by various terrorist and tribal leaders, composed of warring factions, they acquire SAM missiles and small tactical nuclear weapons. If the threat of nuclear proliferation from Pakistan is worrying, allowing Arab Palestinian terrorists access to such WMDs — as part of a sovereign state — invites disaster for the entire region. Both Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority are engaged in civil wars between Muslim secularists and religious extremists, in which the latter seem to be winning. Pakistan is fighting for some form of democracy and has institutional support, but the Taliban are becoming stronger; Palestinians are smothered by totalitarian, terrorist-controlled corrupt regimes and Hamas is predicted to take over, sooner or later. Similar battles being waged in many Muslim countries should trigger alarm: WMDs in the hands of Jihadist terrorists could wipe Israel out and trigger a nuclear world war. A policy of caution and containment, therefore, is essential. It includes the following steps: 1. Albeit hoping for peace, adhere to reality. The PA/Hamas are unreformed supporters of terrorism; neither accepts Israel's right to exist. Under the circumstances, offering them legitimacy and sovereignty increases the danger posed by Islamic terrorists. Jihad is the name of their game; we need to understand those rules. Rather than advance the cause of peace, a sovereign second Arab Palestinian state is just the reverse. The closer Arab Palestinians get to statehood, the more chaotic and violent they become; such a state, therefore, may in fact be 'the greatest obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East.' Without an institutional structure and cultural environment that condemns terrorism, violence and incitement a Palestinian state will become the new Pakistan, and just as dangerous. The average Palestinian knows this better than anyone else. That may explain why, given the choice and chance, hundreds of thousands of Arab Palestinians and refugees escaping Muslim African countries are clamoring to get into Israel. One Pakistan is enough; the world hardly needs another in Palestine. Moshe Dann, a former assistant professor of history, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem. |
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DEATH BY GOVERNMENT
Posted by Boris Celser, December 22, 2009. |
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This is a book review by Professor Richard M. Ebeling from October 1994 of R.J. Rummel's book entitled Death by Government (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994, 496 pages, $49.95.) |
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In 1900, when the 20th century was about to begin, practically all political commentators, social analysts, and newspaper editorialists were sure that the new century would bring greater economic prosperity, more personal liberty and human freedom, and fewer wars and conflicts around the world. Democratic and constitutional government, political and economic liberalism, and the rule of law in both domestic and international affairs were the legacy of the 19th century, it was believed, that would blossom and expand in the 20th century. Unfortunately, the era of classical liberalism, we now know, was at its end. The era of collectivism and the socialist-interventionist-redistributivist state was arriving. In 1900, the British were fighting the Boers in South Africa (and introducing the first modern use of concentration camps). The American Army was brutally subjugating the Philippine Islanders to U. S. rule in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War (during which American forces behaved so violently that all news dispatches back to the States were either heavily censored or banned). And an international force of American, British, German, Austrian, French, Italian, and Japanese forces were crushing the Boxer Rebellion around Peking, China (indiscriminately killing perhaps as many as 25,000 Chinese in the process). Nevertheless, even though the century began with these conflicts around the world, seemingly no one imagined or predicted the degree of violence, mass murder, and totalitarian tyranny that has been experienced during the past ten decades. Only a handful of older classical liberals was warning of the dangers that would arise if socialism and collectivism were triumphant. How many people, in fact, have been killed by government violence in the 20th century? Not deaths in wars and civil wars among military combatants, but mass murder of civilians and innocent victims with either the approval or planning of governments — the intentional killings of their own subjects and citizens or people under their political control? The answer is: 169,198,000. If the deaths of military combatants are added to this figure, governments have killed 203,000,000 in the 20th century. The world population in 1991 is estimated to have been approximately 5,423,000,000. In 1991, Europe's population was about 502,000,000. The United States in 1990 had a population of about 249,000,000. This means that governments killed about 3.7 percent of the human race in this century, or an equivalent of over 40 percent of all the people in Europe, or a number equal to over 80 percent of all the people in the U.S. For over ten years, University of Hawaii political science professor R. J. Rummel has been researching the lethal effects of government upon society. During this time he has published a series of bosoks based on his studies. These books include Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 (1990), Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder (1991), and China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900 (1991). These have detailed governmental mass murder in three of the leading totalitarian states in the 20th century. Now in his latest book, Death by Government, Professor Rummel summarizes government's deadly effect on the world in our century. He has supplied the statistics about global mass murder by the state. In his new work, Professor Rummel focuses in detail on those governments around the world which have killed 1,000,000 or more people. In the companion volume, Statistics of Democide: Estimates, Sources, and Calculations on 20th Century Genocide and Mass Murder, he presents the evidence on all of this century's governmental mass murders, great and small — even those involving the killing of a "mere" 250,000 people here and 500,000 people there. The megamurdering states of the 20th century have been: the U.S.S.R. (1917-1987), 61,911,000; Communist China (1949-1987), 35,236,000; Nazi Germany (1933-1945), 20,946,000; and Nationalist (or Kuomintang) China (1928-1949), 10,076,000. These are followed by the "lesser" megamurdering states: Japan (1936-1945), 5,964,000; Cambodia (1975-1979), 2,035,000; Turkey (1909-1918), 1,883,000; Vietnam (1945-1987), 1,678,000; North Korea (1948-1987), 1,663,000; Poland (1945-1948), 1,585,000; Pakistan (1958-1987), 1,503,000; Mexico (1900-1920), 1,417,000; Yugoslavia (1944-1987), 1,072,000; Czarist Russia (1900-1917), 1,066,000. While the Soviet Union and Communist China have been the super mass-murdering states of the century, they have not been the most lethally dangerous, relative to the populations over which they have ruled. During the 70-year period of Soviet history analyzed by Professor Rummel, the state killed the equivalent of 29.64 percent of the U.S.S.R.'s population, while the Communist Chinese (because of the vastness of China's population) only killed, during the 38 years in his study, the equivalent of 4.49 percent of the people of China. The Nazis killed about 6.46 percent of the peoples under their control in Europe between 1933-1945. On the other hand, during the short four years of its rule in Cambodia, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government killed about 31.25 percent of the entire Cambodian population. Professor Rummel's book is not a mere counting of victims. Each of the chapters on one of these megamurdering governments is a historical narrative of the people, policies, and procedures for implementing mass murder. The most chilling aspect of his exposition is the directness and openness with which many of the participants in these killings have spoken of their deeds. For example, in 1915, during the Turkish massacre of Armenians, the American ambassador reported that the Turkish War Minister "treated the whole matter more or less casually; he could discuss the fate of a race in a parenthesis, and refer to the massacre of children as nonchalantly as we would speak of the weather." The ambassador recounted that this Turkish Minister requested the name of any Armenians who had taken out life insurance policies with American companies. "They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money," the Turkish official said. "It of course all escheats to the State. The Government is the beneficiary now." And during the massacre of East Pakistanis by the West Pakistan government in 1971, one of the senior West Pakistani military officers said: "We are determined to cleanse East Pakistan once and for all . . . even if it means killing two million people and ruling the province as a colony for 30 years." And a West Pakistani captain stated: "We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one." What has motivated governments and their followers and agents to commit murder on this scale against tens of millions of innocent, usually unarmed, victims — men, women and children, young and old? The leading motivations have been ideology (the making of a new socialist man), race (the purifying of or domination by a "superior" racial group), wealth (plundering the most prosperous for the benefit of a select group), or plain cruelty (the imposing of fear and terror to gain control over and obedience from others). To cover all these motivations under one heading, Professor Rummel suggests the term "democide," from the Greek word demos (people) and the Latin word caedere (to kill). "Democide's necessary and sufficient meaning is the intentional government killing of an unarmed person or people," he says. The lesson that Professor Rummel wishes to convey from his research is stated clearly and unequivocally by him: Power kills; absolute Power kills absolutely. . . . The more power a government has, the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. The more constrained the power of governments, the more power is diffused, checked, and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit democide. He argues that all the historical evidence shows that "as the arbitrary power of a regime increases, that is, as we move from democratic through authoritarian to totalitarian regimes, the amount of killing jumps by huge multiples. . . . The empirical and theoretical conclusion is this: The way to end war and virtually eliminate democide appears to be through restricting and checking Power, i.e., through fostering democratic freedom, " by which Professor Rummel means individual liberty; limited, constitutional government; and social tolerance of difference and diversity among the peoples in a society. Unless this lesson is learned, the 21st century could be as politically dangerous and lethal as the one that is just ending. Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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CURRENT WORLDWIDE TERRORIST THREAT LEVELS
Posted by Paul Rotenberg, December 22, 2009. |
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A variation of this is on the internet, author unknown. I though you would appreciate this.
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The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Security levels may soon be raised, yet again, to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666. The Scots raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards" They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line in the British army for the last 300 years. The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability. It's not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides." The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose". Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels. The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy. Americans meanwhile are carrying out pre-emptive strikes on all of their allies, just in case. And in the southern hemisphere... New Zealand has also raised its security levels — from "baaa" to "BAAAA!". Due to continuing defense cutbacks (the air force being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister's bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is "Shit, I hope Australia will come and rescue us". Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, mate". Three more escalation levels remain: "Crikey!', "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend" and "The barbie is cancelled". So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level. Paul Rotenberg lives in Toronto, Canada. Contact him at pdr@rogers.com |
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1ST-TIME DISCOVERY OF 2ND-TEMPLE DWELLING IN NAZARETH
Posted by Hana Levi Julian, December 21, 2009. |
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The remains of a dwelling from the last days of the Second Temple have been uncovered in the heart of the city of Nazareth. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) revealed the remains of the ancient residential area in the northern Israeli Arab city for the first time to reporters on Monday. The structure was exposed during a small-scale excavation that was carried out on a nearby church property in light of municipal plans to build in the area. Archaeologists uncovered in the excavation a large broad wall dating to the Mamluk period (15th century CE) that was built on top of, and "utilizing" the walls of, an ancient building. This earlier building consisted of two rooms and a courtyard which contained a rock-hewn cistern for rainwater. Few artifacts were recovered from inside the building, most of which included fragments of pottery vessels from the early Roman period (1st and 2nd centuries CE). Proof of a Jewish presence was found in several fragments of chalk (stone) vessels that were discovered. Such vessels were only used by Jews during this period, because such vessels were not susceptible to becoming ritually impure. A hewn pit, whose entrance was apparently camouflaged, was also exposed. According to IAA exacavation director Yardenna Alexandre, the pit may have been prepared by the local Jews "to protect themselves during the Great Revolt against the Romans in 67 CE." The nearby church itself was built in 1969 on the spot the Catholic faith identifies with the house of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and rests on the remains of three earlier churches, the oldest of which is ascribed to the Byzantine period (4th century CE). "The building that we found is small and modest and it is most likely typical of the dwellings in Nazareth in that period," observed Alexandre. "From the few written sources that exist, we know that in the first century CE, Nazareth was a small Jewish village located inside a valley. Up to now, a number of tombs... were found in Nazareth, but no settlement remains have been discovered that were attributed to this period." The "Association Mary of Nazareth" intends to conserve and present the remains of the newly discovered house inside the building planned for the International Marian Center of Nazareth, the city where Jesus and his family lived during the period the discovered dwelling stood. Hana Julian writes for Arutz-7 (www.Israelnn.com), where this article appeared. |
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ARAB TERRORISM AND LOGIC; POLL: US SHOULD DEFEND ISRAEL FROM IRAQ; DID U.S. HELP YEMEN BOMB AL-QAIDA?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 21, 2009. |
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ARAB TERRORISM & LOGIC In an earlier piece on terrorism, I stated that a reader contradicted himself. A reader disagreed: "Your reader's two comments are not contradictory. The second comment happens to be false, but were it true it would be consistent with the first. You should not preach the need for logic if you do not command it yourself. Nor are you in command of the facts, as you often demonstrate. In this piece, you falsely allege that Husseini was a Nazi leader, that there was no Zionist terror in Deir Yassin, and that Israel has made many peace offers but been rebuffed. You also ignore crucial context. for example, you write for perspective that 'Mideastern and other Muslim terrorists are wreaking havoc all over the world,' in order to pretend Palestinian terrorism is unrelated to rational causes, but ignore the far deadlier democide and mass terror spread by Europeans for the last 500+ years, which is at least as relevant. then you call Egypt's attack in 1948 terrorist while ignoring Israel's genocidal terrorism that preceded it. You've got a ways to go before you're sensible." (I corrected spelling. Please use spell-check and capitalize proper names.) LOGIC: I reviewed my article and the reader's disagreement. The article explained what was self-contradictory, but the reader's disagreement, above, does not. He just asserts there was no contradiction, fails to show any logic, and chides me for not having a command of logic. Judge for yourselves. HAJ HUSSEINI, NAZI LEADER: Of course Grand Mufti Husseini was a Nazi leader! Does the reader think that only Germans qualify? There were Nazi parties in Holland and other countries outside of Germany. The SS was turned into a Nazi foreign legion. Husseini organized two divisions of Bosnian Muslims to exterminate Jews. Quite the effective Nazi leader. He also spent the war years working with Hitler in Berlin, where he helped influence Hitler to not spare Jewish children. He helped inject Nazi racism into Islamic anti-Semitism. He organized a pro-Axis coup in Iraq. What information has the reader to the contrary? DEIR YASSIN: As compared with the usual simplistic and sweeping condemnation of Israelis, I found an interlocking set of facts that refute accusations of terrorism by Israelis. NEW ISRAELI IMMIGRATION BILL ON ARABS The Knesset Law Committee has postponed until next week a debate on a bill that would incorporate into the Basic Law prohibitions against Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza from automatically becoming Israeli citizens by marrying Arab Israelis." There already is a non-Basic law to that end, which the Supreme Court enforces but indicates dissatisfaction with it over aspects of equality. The Supreme Court does not overturn Basic Law. The bill's sponsor, MK Rotem, said that the country has a right to keep itself a Jewish state and to decide who may join it. Arab and Far Left Jewish MKs called the bill racist. MK Rotem
replied, "I am not preventing marriages. I only am preventing the
entry into Israel of those who do not recognize Israel as a Jewish
State."
We Americans know of marriages arranged for bringing in immigrants. The same scheme is known to exist among Arabs from the Palestinian Authority. The bill might be more palatable and effective if broader, barring immigration from areas in a de jure or de facto state of war with Israel. Also, masses of immigration by people of another culture, even not hostile, into a country of limited absorptive capacity for one's own people, could end Jewish sovereignty and the Jewish nationality's ability to pursue its own destiny. How sincere are the cries of racism? Many Muslim states declare themselves Arab and Islam. The Palestinian Authority and Jordan bar Jewish immigration and ban land sales to Jews. I have not heard criticism of that discrimination by Israeli Arab and far leftist Jews or other anti-Zionists. If anyone hears of some, please bring it to our attention. Otherwise, I conclude that that criticism of Israeli policy toward the Arabs, like the other such criticism of Israel, is not based upon principle, just an excuse to bash Zionism. AMERICANS SUPPORT THE U.S. DEFENDING ISRAEL FROM IRAQ A December poll by the Israel Project: 61% of Americans feel that if the U.S. strikes Iranian nuclear facilities, and Iran retaliates against Israel, the U.S. should help defend Israel. How many Americans favor a strike by the U.S. and its allies [which would include Israel] against Iranian nuclear facilities if that is what it would take to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? 51%. 48% oppose.
In May, a poll found that only 29% of Americans favored a U.S. strike if diplomacy fails to stop Iranian development of nuclear weapons; 69% opposed. Zionist Organization of America's National President Morton A. Klein said, "The results in this poll show the American public to possess an increasingly realistic sense of the looming danger posed to America, Israel and the democratic world generally by an Iranian regime intent on obtaining nuclear weapons." (From a 12/21 press release by ZOA, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member.) The wording of the quoted question seems fair; it is not a leading question. The poll was on policy and not politics, but it would be interesting to know what Americans would feel about President Obama if he stays on present course, which seems to be letting Iran develop nuclear weapons. Israel asked the U.S. not for troops, just not to obstruct its self-defense. It knows the U.S. has more resources for raiding Iran's nuclear facilities, but is prepared to defend the U.S. from an Iranian nuclear threat, as it did for other nuclear threats. SUE TO FORCE ISRAEL TO TRY HAMAS CONVICTS AS WAR CRIMINALS The Israel Law Center is suing to force its government to try Hamas members not just as ordinary criminals but as war criminals. The Center finds the Attorney-General derelict in his duty to have done so, for Israeli law requires it. The murderers whom the government may release would not get released if convicted of war crimes. 
The Center contends that by omitting war crimes trials, the government left itself open to accusations of war crimes as by the Goldstone Commission. The Center did not explain the connection (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/21). PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY BOYCOTTS ISRAELIS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA Hassan Abu Libdeh, Min. of Economy for the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) said that next year will be the last year that the P.A. allows in any of the $500 million worth of goods sold to its people by Jews in Judea-Samaria. It also is discouraging Arabs from doing construction work in Jewish communities there. Arab clans worry about the loss of jobs for them, already started
by the freeze
Interesting that while PM Netanyahu tries to help the P.A. economy, the P.A. tries to harm the Israeli economy. Will he reconsider? Not for now, as he is in idealist/appeasement mode. After all, Israel raised no objection when the P.A. tried to sponsor Arab settlement in or surrounding Jewish areas, including Jerusalem, while making it a capital crime for Arabs to sell land to Jews in the Territories and in Israel. At one time, Israel held the Territories under military rule. Then it let the Arabs elect their towns' mayors. Although the mayors were anti-Israel, Israel went on to grant autonomy for a Palestinian Authority that it let Arafat take over and oppress and turn into a terrorist base. He and successor have used that autonomy to make war and to struggle against Israel. Israeli leaders were shortsighted, plan-less. How ironic that the Israeli governments, unable to foresee and forestall, just to react and not according to any plan, are accused of all sorts of anti-Arab schemes! In a war of attrition, which is what the P.A. wages when conditions are ripe, Israel took a security risk in letting Palestinian Arab workers enter Israel and the Jewish communities. Most work, but a few could spy or be terrorists pretending to seek jobs. It seems strange to boycott Jews for being in their own homeland. DID U.S. HELP YEMEN BOMB AL-QAIDA? The New York Times reports that the U.S. assisted Yemen, at Yemeni government request, in its defense from al-Qaida by firing at suspected Al-Qaida training camps and hide-outs. Yemen denies the story. Witnesses confirm the raids but denied the targets were al-Qaida. The toll was disputed, too. The U.S. had pressed Yemen to do more against terrorism (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/20). The Yemeni regime can't help opposing terrorists trying to take it over. Will those Arabs and Pakistanis whose ideology makes youths more readily become terrorists realize that they cannot keep the resulting strife outside of their own countries? Sound familiar: questions about who authorized, what was struck, and how many died? Here we go, again, now in Yemen! I hope that the U.S. becomes more skilled at verifying whether suspected targets really are enemy ones and whether terrorists still are there right before the raid. Wasn't it President Clinton who had the wrong site bombed? TURKEY FOILED IRANIAN PLOTS AGAINST ISRAELIS AND NATIVE JEWS Western intelligence agencies tipped off Turkey, which foiled six Hizbullah plots against Israeli facilities in Turkey and Turkish Jews. The Turkish media reported that these plots were well organized by Iranian and Syrian intelligence. Israel had been warning Lebanon and Hizbullah against such terrorism. Hizbullah was seeking revenge for the assassination of one of its commanders, which it blamed on Israel (www.imra.org.il, 12/20) without mentioning any evidence. Hizbullah has other enemies. One shouldn't bomb places without evidence. One shouldn't bomb innocent people. I imagine that Turks do not want their buildings blown up because foreign Islamists have a grudge against certain non-believers. LIBEL TOURISM IN BRITAIN I have focused on the "lawfare" aspect of "libel tourism" in Britain. The problem goes beyond lawsuits meant to intimidate opponents of jihad and of Holocaust denial. Here are some examples of how Britain's putting the onus on defendants accused of libel, and of not having truth as a sufficient defense against harming someone's reputation, causes Britain to attract lawsuits from all over. "For example, a Boston company sued a British cardiologist in London for criticism he made at a U.S. conference about the clinical trials of a device used in heart surgery. An article posted about the criticism was posted on an American medical news site accessible from England." The suit could bankrupt the cardiologist. An Icelandic businessman sued an Icelandic academic for posting on the University of Iceland web site. He sued in Britain. A Ukrainian business sued in London a Ukrainian site. "A Tunisian successfully used English courts to sue an Arabic-language television network based in Dubai that could be viewed via satellite in Britain." You get the idea. Reform is being considered. One proposal is to restrict such suits to instances in which at least 10% of the readers are in Britain (L. Gordon Krovitz, Wall St. Journal, 12/21, Op.-Ed.). In other words, Britain should not pay for its courts so that foreigners can shake down or stifle foreigners or even British citizens. The law should not be a club for injustice. Why not just make truth a full defense? Let the plaintiff have to prove falsity! In the U.S., it can be too difficult to sue for redress. Plaintiffs have to prove not only falsity, but intentional falsity. Seldom can one prove intent to defame. Ariel Sharon once sued an American magazine for having accused him
of intentionally letting the Lebanese Phalangist militia massacre
several hundred Palestinian Arabs. The case brought out the fact that
the magazine knowingly relied totally upon a reporter well-known for
fabrication. They jury verdict favored Sharon, but under U.S. law,
requiring proof of intent and not just negligence, it could not award
him stiff damages.
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 and visit his website:
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THE OBAMAS WATCH BUT DON'T SEE THE TRAGIC FATE OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN: A FOUR-PICTURE ALLEGORY
Posted by Barry Rubin, December 22, 2009. |
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Turkey used to be a secular state striving for modernization and a place in the Western world. That dream is turning into a nightmare. The AKP regime, despite its pretense of being a center-right, family values, good government party, is moving Turkey toward Islamism. Washington and the West in general doesn't seem to notice though horrified Turkish secularists and liberals are yelling for help. Look at the photos below of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his wife arriving in Washington to meet the Obamas. It's not so much that his wife, Ermine, is wearing a hijab (in Turkey called a turban) but look at her slumped over and self-effacing like a slave. I'm of no importance, is what her posture seems to say. Compare her abject stance to the three others in the picture standing tall and proud. In the first photo her sleeves are so long to conceal her hands that she can't even control them. Her head is slumped in a pose conveying submissiveness and shame at being a woman. And then in the fourth photo, she slinks off, like a servant who has been dismissed. The sequence seems to symbollize the fate stalking Turkish woman, subverting the equality envisioned under the Ataturk republic to a status of servility and second-class citizenship. This holds true in much of the Muslim-majority countries and it is getting worse — Egypt and Iraq come to mind — not better. Yet the Obamas don't even notice what's going on before their eyes. To them, Turkey is the very model of a moderate Muslim democracy, a good model to be encouraged rather than a NATO ally slipping steadily into the Iranian-Syrian alliance. Take a look at those photos below and shiver. But for sheer insanity there's this New York Times article. It celebrates the growing Turkish-Syrian alignment, claiming that this means Syria is becoming more moderate! The author actually states: "For some [in Syria], the new closeness with secular, moderate Turkey represents a move away from Syria's controversial alliance with Iran. For others, it suggests an embrace of Turkey's more open, cosmopolitan society. And for many — including Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad — it conjures different dreams of a revitalized regional economy, less vulnerable to Western sanctions or pressure." Let me explain something. When a former ally joins your enemies you don't cheer about how your enemy is becoming your friend. Why should Turkey-Syria friendship mean Syria-Iran coolness, especially when Turkey and Iran are acting like great buddies? This article is just a pitiful parroting of Syrian disinformation. Shameful. It isn't that Syria is aping a moderate pro-West Turkey but Turkey imitating an Islamist Iran. Want to see where Turkey is headed? Look at the photos below: 
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
This article is archived at
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GOOD QUESTION FOR HANNAH ROSENTHAL
Posted by David Bedein, December 21, 2009. |
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Hannah Rosenthal, appointed last week as the United States State Department's official envoy to combat anti-Semitism, delivered an address on Wednesday to more than 500 people who participated in the Jerusalem-based Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism. Ms. Rosenthal opened her address by invoking her own father, who was the only member of his family to live through the ordeal of the Nazi concentration camps and then went on to delineate her job description. Ms. Rosenthal said that she has been delegated to create a policy of vigilance against anti-Semitism and to coordinate her task assignment with all diplomatic missions of the United States throughout the world. She stated that she would focus a special effort to monitor expressions of anti-Semitism at the United Nations, noting that Israel is being held to a double standard. Ms. Rosenthal's passionate speech was widely acclaimed and quoted in the Israeli media. The Bulletin asked Ms. Rosenthal after her speech about whether she would indeed apply her principled statement to combat the virulent antisemitism that emanates from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA), an entity which has received wide support from the American foreign policy establishment. Ms. Rosenthal responded that her mandate was global and would be applied everywhere. Asked specifically about whether she would take on the anti-Semitism of the Palestinian Authority, Ms. Rosenthal said that she would consider the question. In that context, The Bulletin dispatched a letter to Ms. Rosenthal's office, asking for a policy statement concerning official Palestinian Authority anti-Semitism. Previous administrations of President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush had made it official policy to ignore official Palestinian Authority anti-Semitism that emanates from the media, the new constitution and the new schoolbooks of the Palestinian Authority. At the Annapolis Summit in Nov. 2007, hosted by President Bush, The Bulletin asked representatives of the State Department and White House as to whether the U.S. would ask the PA to put an end to official anti-Semitic policies in PA education, PA media and the PA public domain. The answer was "no." Since Ms. Rosenthal invoked her father as an inspiration in her new task assignment, it will be instructive to see how she copes with the fact that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warmly receive Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, while overlooking the fact that Mr. Abbas remains one of the world's greatest holocaust deniers. Mr. Abbas wrote a Ph.D. thesis entitled "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism" which describes Nazi persecution of the Jews as a "Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed." Mr. Abbas' Ph.D. is now widely used as a prime text in Palestinian Authority schools and Palestinian Authority Universities. 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 |
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SF CHRONICLE: ISRAEL TOOK ORGANS IN '90S WITHOUT PERMISSION
Posted by David Meir-Levi, December 21, 2009. |
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So the reality seems to be that back in the late 1990's, a few Israeli doctors at one site secretly harvested organs [minor organs such as corneas, skin from dead Israelis, mostly Jewish and a few Arabs] from various deceased in order to have a supply of organs for transplants in to patients who needed them. The motive for this illegal (and certainly quite perilous, since it opens the doctors and the entire institution to massive law suits from families of the deceased whose organs were harvested, and to legal action from their superiors) activity seems to have been the very low level of organ donation in Israel due to Jewish traditional opposition to organ harvesting and transplanting. When this activity was discovered and came to the attention of medical and judicial authorities in Israel, the practise was stopped. No one was murdered for these organs.
But the Palestinian propaganda machinery exploits this reality to recycle a new iteration of the age-old blood libel. The Palestinian accusation that the Israeli military intentionally kills Palestinian children in order to harvest their organs for "spare parts" for Israelis needing operations first surfaced in 2001 shortly after the intifada broke out. Ghoulisn pictures of children's corpses sewn up with crude stitching (akin to the sort of stuff one sees in a Frankenstein horror flick) appeared in Arab newspapers. But the west did not pick up on it. So the propaganda machinery of the Palestinian Authority dropped the accusation. Then following the Israeli military operation in Gaza in 2008, the accusation suddenly re-appeared in Aftenbladet, a popular Swedish newspaper. While pleading the need for "free speech," the editor admitted that his reporter had confessed that there was absolutely no evidence to support this accusation, which was based solely upon some statements made by several Palestinians in Gaza. Nor had the reporter attempted in any way to validate the claims of these Palestinian informants. Yet the very first on the list of Journalistic ethics is: "Test the
accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid
inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible." Although it relegates the rebuttal of this new blood-libel accusation to the last paragraph in its article (The bodies belonged to people who died from various causes, including diseases, accidents and Israeli-Palestinian violence, but there has been no evidence to back up the claim in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians for their organs.") the San Francisco Chronicle does handle the issue with even-handed accuracy in today's article (see below). For further details of the Israeli investigation in to the illegal organ harvesting, See the article below. But what I believe is most important to point out is the fact that this new 'blood libel" is another excellent example of how the Palestinian Authority propaganda machinery seeks assiduously any opportunity to spread defamation and hate-inspiring accusations against Israel, and finds welcoming supporters willing to spread the lies under the legitimizing canopy of "news". I think that what we must conclude from this newest piece of demonization is:
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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HARD LINE ON ILLEGAL ORGAN TRAFFICKING
Posted by Susana K-M, December 21, 2009. |
| This comes from The Israel Project. Contact Marchus Sheff at marcuss@theisraelproject.org and Leah Soibel at leahs@theisraelproject.org. |
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Israel Reiterates Hard Line on Illegal Organ Trafficking Following Revelations of Decade-old Case In response to an Associated Press report that an Israeli forensics specialist a decade ago was removing organs from deceased Israeli soldiers and civilians as well as Palestinians without their families' permission, the Israeli Ministry of Health on Monday (Dec. 21) issued a statement underscoring that it has made such practices illegal.[1] The ministry said that the Segelson Commission, established in 2001, investigated the matter and forbade organ removal from deceased persons without family permission. This practice has been discontinued and has not occurred since the issue came to light, officials said.[2] Organs from deceased persons were removed at the Abu Kabir forensic institute to treat other patients; they were not sold or trafficked.[3] Relatives of Israeli soldiers and civilians as well as Palestinian families made formal complaints against Abu Kabir in 2004. The bodies were those of Israelis and Palestinians who had died due to a variety of reasons such as disease, accidents and through Israeli-Palestinian violence.[4] The doctor responsible for the removal of organs at the institute was dismissed from his position as director.[5] A number of organ trafficking cases have arisen in Israel in recent years, prompting the government to tighten legislation on the issue, break up organ trafficking rings and prosecute those involved both directly and indirectly. "This reprinting of old information must not be allowed to become the occasion for mischief, blasphemous lies or distortions," Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Chairman Alan Solow and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein said in a statement released Monday. Media interviews surrounding the reports "provided no evidence to indicate that any Palestinian was killed to 'harvest organs.' Such accusations can inflame the region, incite violence and undermine the chances of peace." In March 2008, the Knesset (Israeli parliament) passed the Organ Donation Law, forbidding trafficking and selling organs whether in Israel or outside of the country. The law also forbids anyone from brokering such deals or acting in any way as an intermediary for organ sales.[6] According to the law, "anyone who receives or gives compensation for an organ from a person not his relative, or a broker who gives or receives, or a physician who performs such a transplant will be sentenced to six months in prison or a financial penalty..." The law applies to all cases — whether within Israel or abroad. [7] The law won the backing of Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar and other major rabbinical authorities.[8] The Law of Brain Death, passed at the same time, establishes brain death as a standard for defining the death of a potential donor.[9] According to that law, brain death can only be declared after certain criteria are met and with authorization from at least two senior doctors — neither of them involved in the patient's treatment or organ transplantation.[10] But transplants in Israel remain a problem because of Jewish religious restrictions, which prohibit the needless mutilation of corpses, benefitting from a corpse or delaying burial. However, Judaism also teaches the principle of pikuach nefesh, or saving a life — one of the religion's most important commandments.[11] Israel has been working to increase organ donation among its citizens. In 1993, the National Organ Transplant Center was established to recruit and match potential donors with those in need of organ transplants. As of June 2002, about 130,000 Israelis had signed up for the program; as a result, between 2000 and 2002, the number of donors increased from 300 Israelis signing donor cards monthly to 3,500 per month in 2002.[12] Other, independent efforts by Jews and Israelis also have helped encourage Israelis to become organ donors. One of them, the Halachic (Jewish law) Organ Donor Society (www.hods.org) was founded in 1991 to increase the number of organ donations among Jews in Israel and beyond. The nonprofit group educates about the importance of organ donation and addresses Jewish law and medical issues related to organ donation.[13] In 1991, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis — the Rabbinical Council of America — endorsed organ donation from brain-dead patients.[14] Despite the laws and efforts to increase organ donation, in December 2007, two Israeli men from the city of Haifa were convicted of aiding and abetting human trafficking to harvest organs. The two men, John Allan (formerly Mohammad Gheit) and Hassan Zakhalka, received sentences of four years and 20 months respectively. [15] In August 2008, Michael Zis, an Israeli surgeon who had been arrested in Ukraine for performing illegal organ transplants, was extradited from Ukraine to Israel. The man was part of the same organ trafficking ring as Allan and Zakhalka.[16] "Given that Israel has one of the lowest organ donor consent rates in the Western world, there is and always has been a severe shortage of organ donation in the country," said Robert Berman, founder and director of the Halachic Organ Donor Society. "It is in this context that [the forensic specialist] inappropriately removed body parts from corpses, such as heart valves, in order to save ailing patients, Arabs and Jews alike. Recent Israeli legislation by the Knesset and enforcement by the Ministry of Health has prevented such actions from reoccurring." In November 2009, two Jerusalem residents, Sammy Shem-Tov and Dmitry Orenstein, were arrested for allegedly mediating between buyers and sellers of kidneys.[18] Experts available for interviews In Israel Robby Berman
Gadi Ben Dror
Tamar Ashkenazi
Prof. Yonatan Halevy
United States Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
Malcolm Hoenlein
Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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BRITISH THREAT TO FREE SPEECH
Posted by Naomi Ragen, December 21, 2009. |
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This was written by Rachel Ehrenfeld. It appeared yesterday in Opinion Europe. Ms. Ehrenfeld is the director of the American Center for Democracy and the Economic Warfare Institute and the author of several books on terror financing. The U.S. Congress is considering legislation to protect American writers from the threat of suppressive libel lawsuits in the U.K. |
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The recent movement to change British libel laws to allow for greater freedom of expression has its origins in New York City and New York State. I am a New York-based scholar specializing in research on terror financing and economic warfare. In my book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed-and How To Stop It," I alleged that Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz funded al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorists organizations through his charitable fronts. In 2005, Mr. Mahfouz sued me for libel in London, where my book had never been published or marketed. He chose London due to its antiquated libel laws, which are plaintiff-friendly. As recently noted by New York Times correspondent Sara Lyall, London is known as the "Libel Mecca" of the world, and Mr. Mahfouz was the most notorious abuser of the British system. A one-man wrecking crew of Americans' free speech rights, Mr. Mahfouz exploited British libel laws and courts, threatening or suing more than 40 writers and publishers, including many Americans. These cases were never tried on the merits. Mr. Mahfouz's litigiousness and deep pockets helped to silence and intimidate Americans and others who tried to expose his terrorist connections. Except for me. I refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the British courts, asserting my rights as a U.S. citizen. Unimpressed, the British judge rendered a default judgment in favor of Mr. Mahfouz. I was ordered to pay the Saudi more than $225,000, publish apologies in major international newspapers, and destroy all copies of my book internationally. I sued in New York to prevent enforcement of the British judgment in the United States, petitioning the court to declare that the foreign judgment violated my First Amendment rights and was therefore unenforceable. When the New York courts ruled that they could not assert jurisdiction over Mr. Mahfouz, New York legislators, led by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (a Democrat) and Dean Skelos (a Republican), introduced the Libel Terrorism Protection Act (aka "Rachel's Law"). The law, passed in April 2008, protects New York-based publishers and writers from the enforcement of foreign libel judgments obtained in jurisdictions lacking First Amendment-level protections for freedom of expression. Since then, California, Florida and Illinois have passed similar laws. But these laws provide only patchwork protection, leaving U.S. writers in 46 other states vulnerable to repressive foreign libel laws. Even the recent movement to change British libel laws will not remove the Sword of Damocles dangling over American academicians, reporters, producers, scientists, and everyone who publishes in print and on the Internet. The threat emanates not only from Britain, but from many other countries as well. It extends to an infinite number of issues, including national security, the travel industry, and science and medicine. Two recent cases demonstrate the urgent need for the enactment of national protection against suppressive foreign libel suits. Joseph Sharkey, a New Jersey-based freelance travel journalist, is being sued in Brazil for "insulting the dignity" of the nation in the aftermath of a lethal plane crash that he and few others survived. Mr. Sharkey, who criticized Brazil's incompetent air control on his blog, was sued for defamation, and the Brazilian government is moving to criminalize his case. In Toronto, Canada, Pennsylvania-based writer Paul L. Williams is being sued for libel because he revealed that al Qaeda members who attended the McMaster's College of Engineering in Hamilton, Ontario, apparently left the school in 2004 with 180 pounds of nuclear waste. Those al Qaeda members have been designated as terrorists by the United States, and each has a $5 million bounty on his head. Yet McMaster's University is suing Mr. Williams for libel. His trial is scheduled for April. Messrs. Sharkey and Williams and all Americans can be protected from such frivolous foreign libel suits by the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, now pending in Congress. The bill (S. 449), proposed by Senators Arlen Specter and Joseph Lieberman, and co-sponsored by Charles Schumer and Ron Wyden, stems from New York's Rachel's Law, and has sharper teeth. It prevents the enforcement of foreign libel judgments, providing for legal expenses and-possibly-for damages. As Mr. Sharkey's and Mr. Williams' cases show, The Free Speech Protection Act is urgently needed. Since the bill enjoys wide bipartisan support and requires no budgetary allocations, there is no reason for delay. Now that the British are considering reforming their libel laws to include protection similar to American laws, the U.S. should continue to lead the world in the protection of freedom of expression. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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CUT ALL DEALS WITH ISLAMIC "PALESTINIANS"
Posted by Paul Lademain, December 21, 2009. |
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There are many reasons why bargaining with the arabs who call themselves "palestinians" must be stopped. They have no right to bargain about anything. Israel must raise new leadership; leaders who are willing and intellectually able to enforce international laws and treaties that define Israel's boundaries. These boundaries were set in the Twenties and cannot and may not, be abrogated. Not even by the UK. (Which might explain the wily and dishonest propaganda ploys engaged in by the British Foreign Office operatives in order to divert Israel's uneducated politicians away from history and the body of international law set in place on behalf of Jewish Palestine during the Twenties. As noted by Prof. Grief, Lord Curzon referred to these laws and the treaty as the "Jewish Magna Carta."For the past three decades, Israel's naive or corrupt or fearful leadership has engaged in ultra vires acts which must and can be set aside at any time. The time for doing so is NOW! Before Nettie and his fat and soft colleague, Ehud Barak, further piece away additional remnants of "Jewish Palestine". Every Jew and every supporter of Israel must study Prof. Howard Grief's magnum opus: "The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law", Every Jew should be forced to memorize ... ... the laws described as "Israel's Magna Carta" and then they must bestir themselves to remove Israel's "despotic managers" who ignore the legal basis for Jews to have "a room of their own." If Jews understood the law and the powers it bestows upon Jewish Palestine (the remnants of which is now known as 'Israel') they would stop whimpering to Islamics and begging to be "recognized" by them. The law, below, demands of Jews to reclaim ALL their lands. Including most of Jordan. We say: Be not afraid! Whatever foolish decisions made by Israel's past leadership can be undone (for instance, by applying the principles of 'ultra vires') and accomplishing this requires a new leadership by strong people who will not bend to bribery, bullying, or threats ... and who dare to be daring. This body of law, below, is circulating amongst the Christians for Zion (UCI and CAFI) and therefor we say there is no justification, nor can there be any excuse, for the irrational activities of the Peres and Barak cliques who feign ignorance of what Lord Curzon declared to be the Magna Carta of the Jewish People. The oil-enriched arabs have been led to believe by the willfully blind and oil-idolizing US State Dept. that the Jewish Magna Carta doesn't exist. Worse still, the Islamics are eager to believe that Barak and all other fat and soft Jews (Ehud Barak comes to mind) who ignore the Jewish Magna Carta are weaklings trembling with fear that they might have to tear their manicured cuticles actually fighting to repel the onslaught of arab squatters who were allowed into Israel by the nouveau riche class (they being Rabin, Shimon Peres, Barak and Sharon, who needed cheap labor.) To quote from William Mehlman's review of "The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law" by Howard Grief. "Rooted in the premise that the best antidote to a myriad of small and medium sized fabrications is the exposure of the whole cloth from which they've been woven, The Legal Foundation lays bare two dominant myths that have shaped popular perspectives on Israel. The first is the fallacy that Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel was the joint product of the 1947 United Nations Partition and the May 15th, 1948 termination of the British Mandate for Palestine. In fact, as Grief points out, Jewish sovereignty in Palestine had been validated under international law 28 years earlier. "The legal title of the Jewish People to the mandated territory of Palestine in all of its historical parts," he informs us, was first recognized on April 24, 1920 when the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council (Britain, France, Italy and Japan), meeting in San Remo, Italy, "converted the 1917 'Balfour Declaration' into a binding legal document."Read the full review here. Read the book! Open your eyes and stiffen your backs. Hitler bombed London after Neville Chamberlain "made nice" and the Islamics most assuredly will do the same to Israel, regardless of any "bargain or agreement." The time has come to reject the notions advanced by Barack Hussein Obama and Ehud Barak and their wily abettors. It's not that they don't understand the damage they're doing. They do. But they just don't care. So read Prof. Grief's book and get cracking! Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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WHEN ARABS WAGED CONVENTIONAL WARS AGAINST ISRAEL; IRAN AND IRAQ
CONTEST OIL FIELD; JEWISH SPY FOR ARABS SENTENCED IN US
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 21, 2009. |
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WHEN ARABS WAGED CONVENTIONAL WARS AGAINST ISRAEL A reader commented, "Your recitation of the facts is also nonsense. The Golan was captured in a war that Israel initiated by attacking Syria. The West Bank was conquered by Israel in a war in which Jordan had a defensive treaty with Egypt, which was attacked by Israel. You know why thinking people despise Zionists? In large part because of the nonstop garbage that they keep spewing." Israel suffered three major wars in 1947, 1967, and 1973, and several minor ones. It started losing the first and third ones, and was widely expected to lose the first and second ones. I remember the Six-Day War of 1967. I don't have to read books about it for the basics, though I have for more details and perspective, and now am forgetting minor aspects. In June, 1967, I was the second Jew hired by Morgan Guaranty, the first one also being a systems analyst. Previously, one needed a recommendation from one's priest, to apply. The prelude to the war started our apprehension. Egypt's leader, Nasser was expansionist, charismatic, and organized Arab states into an alliance whose purpose was described as the destruction of Israel and to drive the Jews into the sea. Considering the preponderance of Arab forces, their goal seemed feasible. Nasser called on his allies to mobilize at the border Obviously this was an offensive alliance, contrary to that reader's comment. Indeed, the Arab declarations amounted to a declaration of war. That point usually is not addressed, but it seems to me that that was the start of the war. Usually, the mobilization of Arab armies at the border of Israel is considered the first act of the 1967 war. We in New York read the reports and saw newspaper maps of the encirclement of Israel. We heard of enemy forces advancing from further out, probably from Morocco. We wondered whether they would get there in time to participate. Equally an act of war was Egypt's imposing a blockade on Israel's port, Eilat. Since actual shooting had not started, it is clear that Egypt was the aggressor. Another act of war and signaling of intent was Nasser's demand that the UN peacekeepers evacuate from the Sinai, where they had been stationed between Egypt and Israel, in order to prevent a war. Most of my sources criticize UN Secretary-General U Thant for meekly complying, but the huge Egyptian Army was already upon his scanty force, leaving him little choice. My critics describe Israel as a violator of UN Resolutions, not explaining which ones and how, but fail to describe the Arabs as a violator, though the instances are clear. The situation seemed like a nutcracker closing upon a weak-shelled peanut. The people of Israel were depressed. They no more expected to win than did the rest of the world. The Israeli troops had an unpublicized self-confidence, but it is difficult to imagine, under those conditions, Israel wishing to attack the superior Arab forces, contrary to Zionist ideology and the people's yearning for peace. The Arabs, by contrast, were gripped by hysteria for war. On June 6, I gathered by my colleague's radio, when the shooting commenced. We listened every day. Israel was not communicative, focusing solely on the war. Partly misled by the Soviets, the Arabs boasted every day, of having destroyed the Israeli Air Force, of wiping out Israeli armor, and of advancing into Israel. On the basis of those claims, Jordan opened fire upon western Jerusalem, despite Israeli pleas for its neutrality. Jordan wanted to share in the spoils of war. So much for the reliability of Arab accounts. We at the radio were perplexed and dismayed. We did not know that Israel had a strategic plan for bombing the Arab air forces, that PM Rabin opposed the plan, that he had a physical breakdown removing him from command, and that Air Force commander Ezer Weissman implemented the plan. He succeeded. Then the IDF demolished Arab armor. Then it pursued Arab forces through the Sinai, through the Golan, and through the Territories. This is the opposite of Arab boasts. We later learned that Israel dropped water to the Egyptian foot-soldiers fleeing in the desert, and that Nasser's forces machine-gunned many of those who did reach the Suez Canal, lest they inform the public that Israel defeated them. To this day, some Arab governments officially do not admit to that defeat. This is another lesson for those who accept Arab accounts and not Israel's. When my colleague and I learned that Israel had won resoundingly, we were taken by surprise. Now compare that experience to the reader's comment. He claimed that Israel attacked Jordan, as if the simple-minded fact that Israel fired the first shot makes it the aggressor. He called the Arab alliance defensive, which it most assuredly was not. He said that Jordan had an obligation to pitch in, which it need not have fulfilled. He described Israel's defeat of Syria and conquest of the Golan as if it were separate from the Six-Day War. His logic is that Jordan had to fight because it was in the alliance, but Syria, in that same alliance, did not have to. Remember, Syria had major military forces and an eagerness for combat. How did that reader, who includes himself among "thinking people," get the logic and facts backward? Let's consider the typical reader of similar views. Probably too young to have lived through the events. Also probably never read the older books, when scholarship was in vogue; the fashion now leans more heavily toward starting with a view and narrating to justify it. Many readers lack grounding in history, and accept, without critical thinking, smatterings from propagandists. I have pointed out many inconsistencies in anti-Zionism, but anti-Zionists will not admit their double standards. What then is the basis for their anger against Israel? U.S. MANAGEMENT OF TERRORIST PRISONERS The American way of dealing with problems that occurred in some building is primarily to take it out on the building symbolizing the problems. Now the site is Guantanamo Prison [and before that it was Abu Graib and various public schools]. The cry goes up to shut the building. U.S. confusion over anti-terrorist and immigration policies, practices, malpractices, appropriate judicial procedure under new circumstances developing after procedure had been developed, political correctness, and partisanship has led to a collection of prisoners of undetermined guilt. [some can't be convicted in civilian courts, lest vital intelligence be revealed, but for others, there was no evidence of guilt. That is unjust.] President Obama is trying to straighten matters out, without he and Congress developing and disseminating suitable standards. Most Americans fear that he will release ex-Guantanamo prisoners in the U.S., where they can harm us, or abroad where they can resume terrorism. Residents of Thomson, IL., however, welcome the influx into its prison, for the boost to its local economy. Obma assures Americans that he will not do that. But he does not speak for the courts, which may very well order him to release such people from that prison. One of the deportation rules that hamstrings the U.S. is not to release prisoners to countries that may torture or execute them. [In some cases, the prisoners really are terrorists, for whom execution would be justice. In other cases, they are brutal adversaries of brutal states, no better than those states.] The U.S. has just released half a dozen more Guantanamo alumni to Yemen, for imprisonment there. Yemen either releases most of the terrorists, even though the regime there is fighting an insurgency that uses terrorism, or the terrorists escape. Many resume terrorism (Wall St. J, 12/19, especially articles by Jay Solomon, Evan Perez and Joe Barrett) as like releases to against Israel. GAZA ARABS SHOOT AT EGYPTIAN ANTI-SMUGGLING WALL Arabs in Gaza fired shots at Egyptians building the iron wall that Egypt and the U.S. claim would block smugglers' tunnels. Hamas promised to squelch the firing (www.imra.org.il, 12/19). Arabs, Jewish leftists, and foreign anarchists in Samaria throw firebombs at workers building the security fence there. One does not hear of thorough Israeli deportation of such foreign anarchists. U.S. TRANSFERRING MISSILES TO EGYPT AND SAUDI ARABIA The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency declared intent to transfer 450 anti-tank missiles to Egypt with spare parts, equipment, training, and logistical support. The notice's boilerplate wording described Egypt as "a friendly country which has been and continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East." Further boilerplate wording explained, "Egypt needs these missiles in order to defend its own borders and to remain militarily viable in the region." (www.imra.org.il, 12/19). A similar announcement was made for the potential sale of 2,742 TOW missiles to Saudi Arabia (www.imra.org.il, 12/19). The Israel lobby, that Professors Mearsheimer and Walt claim dominate the U.S., has not blocked these proposed arms deals nor almost all of the numerous others in the past decade. People who allege that "the Jews" control the world, fail to see or acknowledge these deals that strengthen the Arabs against Israel. What Egypt acquires may be called a sale, but the U.S. has given Egypt tens of billions of dollars that it used primarily to acquire advanced arms. Egypt is a repeat aggressor, but the U.S. claims to hope that these gifts would keep Egypt from starting another war. It seems like strange logic, furnishing the means for war as if that engenders a motive, beyond the initial period of build-up, for peace. Egypt's backward economy is not progressing. Its failure and governmental oppression have resulted in Islamist popularity, rendering Egypt unstable. Those U.S. arms are likely to fall into the hands of the Islamists, who would be more inclined to immediate aggression. Egypt needs means of neutralizing the Islamists within. It does not have enemies threatening assault on it with modern armies. Israel, lulled by a non-aggression pact with Egypt, doesn't even include Egypt in the array of enemy states to defend against. Egypt's military doctrine posits Israel as the enemy to invade. Hence, in my opinion, the acquisition of anti-tank missiles. Israel has many tanks. Saudi Arabia does have enemies. Iran is a menace both directly and indirectly, by efforts to expand its control over Lebanon and Iraq and by aid to Yemeni insurgents who seem to be dragging Saudi Arabia into warfare. U.S. ASKS ISRAEL TO INCLUDE FATAH PRISONERS IN TRADE WITH HAMAS The U.S. asked Israel to release Fatah prisoners as part of an Israel-Hamas trade. The U.S. rationale is that Abbas needs to be strengthened. Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA suggests that if the U.S. wants its request fulfilled, it should offer to release Jonathan Pollard (www.imra.org.il, 12/19). Mr. Pollard opposes a mass-terrorist release and his exchange for terrorists. He says it would be wrong and would endanger innocent people. If Israel agreed to the U.S. request, it should require the U.S. to release Pollard before it releases any Arabs. Can't trust the U.S.. President Clinton had promised to release Pollard during PM Netanyahu's first term, got what he wanted from Israel, but did not release Pollard. Israel would be within its rights to remind the U.S. of that broken promise and to demand that Pollard be released now, because Israel already paid the U.S. for him. Abbas has acted and declared his regime Israel's existential enemy. It makes no sense for Israel to strengthen him. Nor do the many concessions that Israel made strengthen him. Releasing his terrorists does not strengthen Israel, either. IRAN AND IRAQ CONTEST OIL FIELD 
The border between Iran and Iraq is not clearly delineated. [Same goes for other areas in the Mideast, leading to border conflicts.] An oil field is at their border. According to Iraq, the whole oil field is on the Iraqi side. It accuses Iran of drilling downward and then, where it cannot be seen, drilling sideways into the oil pool. For a while, Iranian troops seized the area (Chip Cummins and Hasan Hafidh, Wall St. Journal, 12/19, A10) but seem to have departed, The Gulf War started when Saddam accused Kuwait of taking more than its share of oil from a pool under both sides of their border but which mostly was on the Iraqi side. JEWISH SPY FOR ARABS SENTENCED IN U.S. Shammai Leibowitz, an Israeli Jew known as a far-leftist, was defense counsel for Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah terrorist leader now serving five consecutive life terms in Israeli prison. The New Israel Fund paid his fees. Mr. Leibowitz came to the U.S. where he became a translator for the FBI. In that position, he leaked sensitive documents to a pro-Arab Palestinian group, among others. He just pleaded guilty, and got a sentence of 20 months. What does it say about the FBI's ability in counter-terrorism, that it hired an ally of terrorists? Why did Leibowitz get such a light sentence compared with Pollard, who did not betray the U.S. to enemies? Was it because he was pro-Arab? Arab spies have gotten light sentences, here (Prof. Steven Plaut, 12/19). The light sentences for those who spy in behalf of U.S. enemies does not provoke indignation from people who fulminate against Pollard, whose indictment indicated he did not harm the U.S. and against whom there is no evidence that he did, just deliberate rumors. Facts do not impress the anti-Zionists, including the admission by Pollard's original chief antagonist, former Defense Sec. Weinberger, that the outcry against Pollard had been exaggerated. This story is another instance in which the New Israel Fund subsidizes people and organizations trying to destroy Israel. The New Israel Fund, like J Street, which takes positions antithetical to Israeli security, elicits funds from American Jews in ads that claim to be pro-Israel. CRITIQUE OF ISRAELI DEFENSE MIN. BARAK 
"Columnist Menachem Benn of Maariv attacked Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a scathing weekend column, following Barak's decision to cut off the Har Bracha yeshiva from the Hesder arrangement with the Defense Ministry." "'After he destroyed his party and left it bleeding hatred and divided,' Ehud Barak is more than ready to destroy the country, too, if we only let him," Benn wrote. 'He is already dividing the IDF and pitting its finest knit-kippah combat soldiers against it. He is already traveling to Turkey... and trying to convince us, against the will of the Foreign Minister who is trying to block the move, that the anti-Semitic Erdogan can be an excellent broker between us and Syria.'" Other comments from the same source suggest that Barak has a conflict of interest. On the one hand, he has a responsibility to the country. On the other hand, he is striving to retain control over the Labor Party, which commentators thing he is doing by taking more extreme stands deleterious to national survival. PM Netanyahu has a conflict, too. He wants to keep Barak in the Cabinet. In my opinion, it is not much of a conflict for Netanyahu, who caves in to pressure. Other news is about Barak's secret plan for having large military forces dash into Judea-Samaria to demolish unauthorized Jewish structures.
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 and visit his website:
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THE DARK CLOUDS OF THE EXPULSION HAVE RETURNED
Posted by Paul Rotenberg, December 21, 2009. |
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We cannot leave the residents of the Biblical Heartland defenseless. The Legal Forum is calling for cameras to document police violence in the Territories — the Biblical Heartland of Israel. |
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Dear Friends, With the onset of the moratorium on building in Judea and Samaria, the Legal Forum has requested donations towards the purchase of cameras. Unfortunately, our predictions were proven to be true as news reports have reported that since the freeze went into effect police brutality has escalated to highs that we have not experienced in the past. These cameras we have requested, regrettably, are needed in order to document security forces activities and violence that will ensue in enforcing the freeze. The only weapons we have to defend ourselves with are cameras! Almost four years after the pogrom at Amona, human rights activists are still identifying the perpetrators from photographs we took. Slowly the police are being brought to court, where these photographs serve as evidence. To this day, we work together with other human rights organizations to supply photographic evidence of police brutality. Peace Now regularly photographs IDF activities and provides cameras to Palestinians in the area. A battalion commander (Magad) was dismissed on the basis of a video clip taken by an Arab girl from 100 meters (!) away. Peace Now, as we all know, is funded by the EU, and has unlimited funds. We do not. To do the work properly, we need many, many more cameras, and we must teach people to use them! In addition, cameras damaged or confiscated in confrontations with the authorities must be replaced. Friends have suggested sending camcorders from abroad. We prefer to buy them here in Israel for the sake of uniformity. This way, if our photographers have been trained to use one specific model, they won't have to waste time with an unfamiliar model. Parts can be transferred from one camera to the other. Finally, service availability in Israel is a vital factor. We are fighting to protect human rights of Israeli citizens with the only democratic means available to us. Your support is crucial. We will keep you informed of further developments. Estimate Canon FS200 Camcorder
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel acts to protect human rights in Israel, ensure sound government, and preserve the national interests of the State of Israel and the Jewish People. Visit our website: http://www.haforum.org.il
Paul Rotenberg lives in Toronto, Canada. Contact him at pdr@rogers.com |
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IT'S SETTLED; CLIMATE CIRCUS WAS A FAIRY TALE
Posted by Susana K-M, December 21, 2009. |
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This is by Mark Steyn |
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The best summation of the UN climate circus in Denmark comes from Andrew Bolt of Australia's Herald Sun: "Nothing is real in Copenhagen — not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the 'solution'." Just so. Reuters, for example, carried a moving account of the speech by Ian Fry, lead negotiator for Tuvalu, the beleaguered Pacific island nation soon to be under water because of a planet-devastating combination of your SUV and unsustainable bovine flatulence from Vermont farms. "The fate of my country rests in your hands," Fry told the meeting. "I make this as a strong and impassioned plea ... I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit," he continued, "his voice choking with emotion," in the Reuters reporter's words. Who could fail to be moved? "My country, 'tis of thee Alas, nowhere in this emotionally harrowing dispatch was there room to mention that Ian Fry's country is not Tuvalu but Australia, where he lives relatively safe from rising sea levels given that he's a hundred miles inland. A career doom-monger, he's resided in Queanbeyan, New South Wales for over a decade while working his way, in the revealing phrase of his neighbor Michelle Ormay, to being "very high up in climate change." As to whether the emotion-choked lachrymose pleader has ever lived in "his" endangered country of Tuvalu, his wife told Samantha Maiden of The Australian that she would "rather not comment." Like his fellow Copenhagen delegate Brad Pitt, Ian Fry is an actor: He's not a Tuvaluan, but he plays one on the world stage. Whether he's an Aussie or a Tuvaluan, Fry's future king is Welsh, since under the British Commonwealth's environmentally responsible king-share program, the Prince of Wales is simultaneously heir to the thrones of Britain, Australian, Tuvalu and a bunch of other countries. His Royal Highness was also in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates that there were now only seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he's known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, His Highness was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force's fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months' of an average Brit's annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate. But relax, it's all cool, because he offsets! According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. "Investing" as in "using your own money", you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers' money. So he'll "offset" the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant's carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant's money and tossing it down some sinkhole. No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don't worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: Seventy pounds. Which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been. So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that "hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying," flew 443,226 miles on "IPCC business" in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum. All of the above are, as that ersatz Tuvaluan delegate's neighbor would say, "very high up in climate change". But what about all the non-high-ups? Not just the low-level toadies like Associated Press "science" reporter Seth Borenstein, who dutifully pooh-poohed the idea that the leaked Climategate e-mails were of any significance and for his pains was rewarded by having to stand in line with thousands of other no-name warm-mongers for seven hours in the freezing streets of Copenhagen. All because the IPCC accredited 45,000 delegates to a space that accommodates 15,000 — but don't worry, when it comes to recalibrating the planet's climate, I'm sure they'll run the numbers more carefully. But forget Borenstein and other hangers-on. Even making allowances for the stupidity of youthful idealism, the protesters in the streets of Copenhagen seem especially obtuse. Far from sticking it to the Man, they're cheerleading for the biggest Man of all: they're supporting a new globalized feudalism in which Prince Charles, Prince Al, Prince Rajendra and others "very high up in climate change" jet around the world at public expense telling the rest of us we need to stay put. A British parliamentarian recently proposed that everyone be issued with an annual "carbon allowance" that would be drawn down every time he booked a flight, or filled up his car, or bought a washer and dryer instead of beating his laundry on the rocks down by the river with the village women every week. You think the Prince of Wales or any other member of the new global elite will be subject to that "allowance"? If you're young and you fall for this, you're a sap. Indeed, you're oozing so much sap the settled scientists should be measuring your tree rings. Remember that story a couple of weeks ago about how Danish prostitutes were offering free sex to Copenhagen delegates for the duration of the conference? I initially assumed it was just an amusing marketing cash-in by savvy Nordic strumpets. But no, the local "sex workers' union" Sexarbejdernes Interesseorganisation was responding to the municipal government's campaign to discourage attendees from partaking of prostitutes. The City of Copenhagen distributed cards to every hotel room showing a lady of the evening at a seedy street corner over the slogan "BE SUSTAINABLE: Don't Buy Sex." "Be sustainable"? Prostitution happens to be legal in Copenhagen, and the "sex workers" were understandably peeved at being lumped into the same category of planet-wreckers as Big Oil, car manufacturers, travel agents and other notorious pariahs. So Big Sex decided they weren't going to take it lying down. Yet, in an odd way, that municipal postcard gets to the heart of what's going on: Government can — and will — use a "sustainable" environment as a pretext for anything that tickles its fancy. All ambitious projects — Communism, the new Caliphate — have global ambitions, but, when the globe itself is the cover for those ambitions, freeborn citizens should beware. Nico Little, a Canadian leftie at the Rabble Web site, distilled the logic into a single headline: "Hookers Are Killing Polar Bears And Now You Can't Water Your Lawn." Write that down. And next time the Prince of Wales, Al Gore, Dr. Pachauri or the delegation from Tuvalu give an "impassioned" speech, keep it handy as a useful précis. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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THE ROPE COULD TEAR
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 20, 2009. |
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This was written by Israel Harel and it appeared December
17, 2009 in Haaretz
What he has exposed in the following will blow your mind. You will learn that the subversion of Israel has been going on from the inside for a long time. THE WORST, AND THE MOST ORWELLISTIC, HYPOCRISY IN ZION. Read it for yourself. |
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One can imagine the uproar that would have ensued if 350 hesder-yeshiva rabbis issued a petition calling on their students to disobey their military commanders' orders, say, for the uprooting from the Gaza Strip. Such a document has never been released, nor will it be, of course. But 350 university "rabbis" have signed a petition calling on soldiers to refuse to serve in the territories. And this was not the only petition. The education minister did not summon these institutions' heads for a hearing, nor did he suspend the subverters' leaders. These people take advantage of their academic, state-financed prestige to revile the state and encourage insubordination. The hesder yeshivas are the darling of religious Zionism. This segment of society strongly opposes insubordination, for the most part. It is an obedient, bourgeois-oriented community that serves the state unconditionally. In recent years it has felt that the more it contributes, the worse it is treated by the state. It also feels discriminated against. This community will never understand the lenient, even respectful treatment of the Israel Defense Forces, Education Ministry and justice system toward academics and media people who speak out publicly against joining the army and urge recruits to refuse to fight the enemy. Preaching and aiding draft evasion and insubordination are criminal offenses. At the same time they throw the book at Rabbi Eliezer Melamed and his yeshiva, although his students didn't really disobey orders even during the uprooting from the Gaza Strip. The IDF also has a hesder (arrangement) with the University of Haifa, where some 40 staff members signed a petition calling for insubordination. At that university, senior officers from the National Security College study for a master's degree (Ilan Pappe also taught in that program). In addition, naval cadets and officers from Military Intelligence study there for bachelor's degrees. And lo and behold, in the university's central computer, in a file entitled "war criminals," a group called Aleph published photographs of dozens of officers and by doing so blacklisted them. (The list includes Gabi Ashkenazi, Yohanan Locker, Yigal Slovik, Yoav Mordechai, Avi Blot, Yuval Halamish, Herzi Halevi and Gur Rosenblatt, as well as former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.) Why, it must be asked, has the chief of staff recommend rescinding the hesder arrangement with the Har Bracha yeshiva, while upholding the (far more expensive and complex) hesder arrangements with the University of Haifa? At Ben-Gurion University, where trainee pilots study for their bachelor's degrees, some 40 lecturers signed the insubordination petition. Niv Gordon also called for international sanctions on Israel. Academics who have called for insubordination regularly teach IDF workshops. Three senior academics who support insubordination were included in a senior IDF committee headed by the commander of the IDF's personnel directorate. Students at the National Security College have recently visited the Israel Democracy Institute to hear Prof. Yaron Ezrahi, who signed a petition saying that "while we categorically denounce terror activity against innocent civilians, we see Palestinian violence in general a legitimate rebellion against the colonialist occupation." The General Staff Forum also appeared at that institute no less than nine times. In what way is the "academic freedom" of 104 Tel Aviv University lecturers or some 100 Hebrew University lecturers — who in the petition of the 350 encouraged insubordination to prevent soldiers from serving against the enemy — preferable to Rabbi Melamed's? He objects to evacuating settlements, but encourages his students to report to the front before all others. Is this, perhaps, why he has been targeted? "How can you even compare?" academics will probably ask, trying to legitimize this abominable situation. But those who lit the fire must understand that the long-winded specious arguments they use to prove that academia is permitted what the yeshivas are forbidden infringes on thousands of people's most basic sense of justice, especially young people. If this feeling continues to be impinged upon, the protest started by two young recruits from the Shimshon Battalion could sweep thousands in its path, unless someone stands up and ensures that justice is done. The rope could tear. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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THE WAR OVER JERUSALEM
Posted by Daniel Mandel, December 20, 2009. |
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Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are foredoomed for now. The party conference of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah in August — where the platform, resolutions and speakers from Abbas down rejected Israel's self-identity as a Jewish state and any attempt to delegitimize terrorism against her — tells us as much. But diplomatic flurry often obscures matters, and one might believe that issues like refugees or borders remain the key — or Jerusalem. In recent weeks, President Barack Obama returned Jerusalem to the limelight when he described continued Jewish apartment building in eastern parts of the city as being "very dangerous" — a euphemism for the threat of Palestinian violence. Then, this past week, the European Union backed Palestinian demands that eastern Jerusalem become a future Palestinian capital. Jerusalem has been a diplomatic flashpoint since 1949. That is one of the less fortunate legacies of Dr. H.V. Evatt, Australian external affairs minister at the time. In 1947, Evatt played a pivotal role in persuading the UN to adopt a partition plan calling for Arab and Jewish states in British-controlled Palestine. However, facing elections at home in December 1949 and with an eye to the large Australian Catholic vote, on which his Labor government depended, he ensured the plan called for internationalizing Jerusalem, which neither side wanted, but which the Vatican did. It did not work out that way. Arabs rejected partition, with the result that Palestine was partitioned by war, not agreement. Jerusalem ended up divided between Israel and Jordan. Both opposed internationalization when Evatt successfully introduced a U.N. resolution to that effect this month sixty years ago. International fixation on Jerusalem has been with us since, even if enthusiasm for internationalizing the city quickly receded. U.N. committees and trusteeship proposals devoted to Jerusalem provided a special, exploitable focus for the anti-Israel cause. But this was afforded practical outlet only when Israel came into possession of the city's eastern half after repelling Jordanian assault in 1967. Historically and religiously of relatively low importance to Islam — it is never mentioned in the Quran — Jerusalem used to transfix few Muslims, while its Jewish roots had once been freely acknowledged by them. Under Jordanian control (1948-67) eastern Jerusalem had degenerated into a provincial backwater, of little interest to Arab rulers. Saudi princes never dropped in to Jerusalem to pray at the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa mosque when visiting the fleshpots of nearby Beirut. As late as the 1920s, publications of the Jerusalem waqf, the Muslim religious trust, spoke plainly of the Temple Mount, upon which the mosques are built, as the historical site of Jewry's Temple. Today, however, the picture is diametrically opposite. In Khomeinist Iran, an annual Jerusalem Day parade instituted in 1979 and attended by crowds of up to 300,000 tops all other dates in the regime's activist calendar. Fatah, which only mentions Jerusalem en passant in its constitutive documents, today boasts a terror group called the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. A profusion of Palestinian statements and Muslim clerical rulings on Jerusalem speak variously of an historical Jewish presence, if at all, as having been brief; of the non-existence of the biblical temples, or of their location elsewhere; and of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest extant site, being actually a Muslim one. Such sentiments are disseminated widely in the Arab world. A popular piece of Egyptian graffiti declares "It's our mosque, not their Temple." Moreover, Jerusalem has been successfully exploited by violence for diplomatic profit by Palestinian leaders. In 1996, Palestinian riots on the back of Yasser Arafat's trumped up charge that Israel's opening of an archeological tunnel endangered the mosques on Temple Mount produced criticism of Israeli provocation. In 2000, a visit to Temple Mount by Israeli politician Ariel Sharon, pre-arranged with Arafat, was distorted by Palestinian media into a violation of Muslim sanctuaries (which had not in fact been entered), leading to international criticism of Israel and a Palestinian terror wave. It would therefore appear that President Obama, to put the best construction on his words, did not know what he was doing when he spoke as though there was some correspondence between Israelis building apartments and Palestinians rioting — or worse. To speak in these terms places a premium on Palestinian violence and increases the probability of its occurrence: the record shows it to be a paying proposition. Noting the European Union's willingness to publicly side with Palestinian positions rather than support unprejudiced negotiations, Palestinians now have reason to believe that political capital might be exacted by a little violence. That means that trouble might follow, quite soon. All of which carries the following implications. For the foreseeable future, peace negotiations will either not resume at all, or lead nowhere, certainly not to a lasting peace. Jerusalem will remain a flashpoint, with violence easily encouraged by public stances taken in favor of Palestinian positions. And Dr. Evatt's 1949 resolution — conceived in a different world, motivated by domestic political calculations long forgotten — will demonstrate anew the law of unintended consequences. Daniel Mandel (PhD Melbourne, 1999) is a Research Fellow in the Department of History at Melbourne University and author of H.V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (Routledge, London, 2004). This article appeared in History News Net
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MK ARIEL: 'PM TAKES CONTROL OF JERUSALEM DEMOLITIONS'
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 20, 2009. |
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How did Israel's Government and her Supreme Court become an extension of American territorial rights or, in effect, annexing Israel's sovereignty. The smoking gun would be the orders issued by President Barack Hussein Obama — through the U.S. State Department, accepted and implemented by Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak would be that "smoking gun". There seems to be little doubt that the U.S. has funded Hanan Ashrari, Faisal Husseini (before he died), and Saeb Erekat to secretly represent the U.S. State Department secret policies against Israel for many years. Was such funding also available to Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Bibi Netanyahu, Ehud Barak to also represent the U.S. and its oil interests in the Muslim Arab nations? One day the records of these briberies will see daylight. Then the Jews of Israel and the world will be shocked. This below was written
by Dan Izenberg, Abe Selig and Herb Keinon,
and it appeared Dec. 14, 2009 in the Jerusalem Post.
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has taken a more active role in determining the fate of east Jerusalem demolition orders by giving his military attache the final word on whether the Jerusalem Municipality can destroy illegal buildings in the Arab sections of Jerusalem, MK Uri Ariel informed the Knesset Law Committee on Sunday. Ariel made the disclosure during an urgent discussion on the fate of Beit Yonatan, the illegal seven-story residential structure built in Silwan in 2002 by Ateret Cohanim, a nationalist-religious movement seeking to settle Jews in the city's Arab neighborhoods. "The prime minister has issued a directive that all [prospective] demolitions in east Jerusalem be brought to his attention [via the military attache]," Ariel complained to the committee. "The state of affairs in whichthe military attache is involved in this matter is intolerable and unreasonable to a extreme degree. It must be ended." Ariel explained that the commander of the Jerusalem Police district, who knows about all demolition orders in the city, informs the chief of police, who informs the prime minister's military attache. "If the military attache does not want the demolition to be carried out, it won't happen," said Ariel. "His hand is the one on the switch. This is a problem of proper administration. If necessary, we will correct it by legislation." Diplomatic sources responded by saying that house demolitions, when they are carried out, are done "only according to law." However, the sources said, the prime minister does have a say regarding the timing of the demolitions, and can take into account such considerations as security, public order, and even international ramifications. A left-wing activist welcomed the new arrangement. "Until now, the status of demolitions in Jerusalem has been odd, in that no one from the Prime Minister's Office was involved at all," he told The Jerusalem Post on condition of anonymity. "Now, it's quite clear that Netanyahu understands this is not just a municipal problem and that any house demolition in east Jerusalem could provoke negative responses both domestically and internationally." By the same token, right-wing elements in Jerusalem criticized the new policy. One activist charged that it was reflective of a "heavy political agenda," and would allow more political nuances to enter the debate. "It's a bad decision," the activist told the Post. "It means the prime minister will now be intervening in matters that should be purely municipal and this only opens the door to more political considerations. Nothing good can come of that." The law committee convened at the urgent request of four right-wing MKs, Ze'ev Elkin and Yariv Levin (Likud Party), Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi) and Ariel (National Union). They charged that municipal legal adviser Yossi Habilio had singled out Beit Yonatan for political reasons and insisted on carrying out a court order to seal the building and expel the seven families living there, while ignoring hundreds of court-ordered demolitions against illegal Arab construction. Orlev charged that Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz was behind the city'sinsistence that Beit Yonatan be sealed. "On the one hand there are more than 300 court orders for demolitions [against Arabs]. On the other, there is Beit Yonatan," Orlev said. "The elected officials say that the decision to seal Beit Yonatan is stupid. The mayor says the same. But the legal adviser is unwilling to consider the mayor's alternatives. This constitutes a political agenda on the part of the lawyers, but we will set things straight and put the lawyers in their place." The original order to seal the building and expel the residents was issued on February 11, 2007. Since then, the residents have appealed against the decision seven times in all of the court echelons — from magistrate's court to district court to the Supreme Court. In each case, the court upheld the original decision to seal the building and expel them. The city, however, has postponed carrying out the order, even though Habilio has insisted that it be implemented. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who attended the law committee meeting, said he was working on a new plan for Silwan, to change local zoning so that all buildings may be four stories high instead of two, the scheme that currently prevails. Barkat explained that the law would apply equally to Jewish and Palestinian construction. Under his proposal, the first four stories of Beit Yonatan would be legalized, while the top floors would either be sealed or demolished. Barkat said his proposal would legalize 90 percent of the currently illegal structures in that area of Silwan. "It is important to provide a uniform and equal arrangement," he said. "We should act according to a simple rule which can be easily explained." The right-wing MKs did not respond to Barkat's proposal. They returned to the immediate fate of Beit Yonatan and insisted on hearing explanations from Mazuz and Habilio as to why they insisted on carrying out the court order. Having accused the two of "selective enforcement" and
discrimination against the Jewish sector in favor of the Arabs, the
right-wing MKs ignored figures presented by Meretz Deputy Mayor Pepe
Allalo, who told them that since 2000, some 800 Palestinian homes have
been demolished in their entirety, as opposed to none in the Jewish
sector.
Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His
articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the
Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For
Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm).
Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org
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FROM ISRAEL: NUMBING
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 20, 2009. |
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That's the news. If one is devoted to Israel, it's impossible to absorb information about what's happening without reeling. Or weeping. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is in the process of playing tough guy, winning points with the left of his own party, and tearing the nation apart. There are two issues, although they are connected. They both touch upon our rights in Judea and Samaria, and how the army is used against residents of the communities there. ~~~~~~~~~~ First, is the continuing matter of the (former) Hesder Yeshiva, Har Bracha, headed by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed. Barak removed this yeshiva from the Hesder program when Rabbi Melamed said he would advise his students to refuse to serve to dismantle Judea and Samaria. The heads of the sixty yeshivas of the Hesder movement — led by Rabbi Haim Druckman, head of the Union of Hesder Yeshivas — met today in an effort to resolve the situation. Declaring that yeshiva heads were opposed to the exclusion of Har Bracha, and that he would do everything in his power to prevent this exclusion, Rabbi Druckman released a statement: "A move excluding a yeshiva from the accord is severe and has dangerous, nationally dire consequences. We oppose this, and will do anything to prevent it from happening. Together we will find a way," There is no word on resolution of the issue as I write, but there are now several suggestions floating, including an appeal to the High Court and an action by heads of yeshivas to keep their students from going into the army. This afternoon, a spokesman for the Union released a statement. The Union, he said first, was opposed to demonstrations in the IDF. ~~~~~~~~~~ And this requires a bit of explanation. In the course of a public ceremony in October, members of the Kfir Brigade raised signs saying they would not participate in evacuation of residents from Judea and Samaria (in that instance, specifically, Homesh). There was considerable flack about this, with the issue of free speech for soldiers raised, but Rabbi Druckman and others within the Hesder program coming out against public demonstrations. Now, with the current crisis, there was talk about Rabbi Eliezer signing a letter that said he would oppose demonstrations. This would have been seen as a backing down by him. Ultimately, he refused to sign such a letter, both because he didn't believe it would make a difference with Barak, and, more significantly, because he feared that Barak's office would make it seem that military rules had precedence over Torah law, and he could not be a party to this. This stand helps make clear why he is admired as a man of principle and integrity. Whether he is implicitly included in the statement made by the Union is unclear to me. ~~~~~~~~~~ Public demonstrations, however, are not equivalent to a quiet refusal to serve in certain circumstances. And that leads us to the second demand of the Union: ...that "the army take our soldiers out of all activity with a civilian character." That is, the Hesder soldiers would be utilized only for defense of the nation. Amen and amen on this. But so far Barak is being stiff-necked and will strike no compromise. What he is doing, which I've already indicated, is damaging the very core of the army, locking horns with those who represent our best soldiers — with this whole issue evolving as a result of the use of the army against Jews instead of against the enemy. What happens when the inevitable occurs, and we are attacked by Hamas, or by Hezbollah, and the morale of the IDF has been weakened? What happens when we need our best soldiers to defend us, and they have been worn down? There are those who say that the morale of the IDF was so shattered with the expulsion from Gaza that it lead to a weaker fighting effort in Lebanon. Has our "defense minister" considered this? ~~~~~~~~~~ I rather like the comment of Yael Mishali, writing in YNet: "I am not a devout follower of Jewish law, and I never followed a rabbi formally; however, in my view any group of Zionist rabbis is preferable to any group of politicians that includes Ehud Barak." ~~~~~~~~~~ The question of using our soldiers against Jews leads us directly to the next issue: The Jerusalem Post has obtained a 17-page IDF document drawn up by the Central Command, which indicates that the military intends to use "paralyzing power" to enforce the building freeze in Judea and Samaria. Paralyzing power. The Jewish residents — who are blocking the freeze both out of a sense of their rights and the fear that this represents the beginning of a disengagement — are about to be turned into the enemy. If this plan is enacted, building they have done since the freeze is in place would be destroyed. The Air Force would be used to do overhead reconnaissance. Cell phone reception would be shut down, and the press banned. And the army, which would surround areas, would move in as needed. Shameful is the first word that occurs to me. With painful a close second. ~~~~~~~~~~ Said MK Michael Ben Ari (Ehud Leumi), "It's an outrageous document that teaches us that the Likud government has declared war on the settlers." Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, declared: "This is quite simply deployment for a military operation against an enemy. This is not the way to enforce a government's decision applying to citizens in a democratic state." Dayan is of the — not unreasonable — opinion that the defense minister is conducting himself in this fashion "to appease [Labor MKs] Daniel Ben Simon and Ophir Pines" — the rebels who threaten the cohesiveness of the Labor party. The Yesha Council, after an emergency meeting, released a statement indicating they would do everything possible to foil the plans: "Anyone using military resources meant to fight terror against 'enemies' the likes of young couples who want to build their home in Judea and Samaria has lost his senses along with any restraint." One military source explained that the document was drawn up in detail to account for all exigencies because, "This is what we do when we are given orders by the defense minister. It is our responsibility to prepare as detailed a document [as necessary]..." Orders by the defense minister. ~~~~~~~~~~ I want to thank commentator Moshe Dann for pointing out that the current situation with regard to use of the army against Israeli civilians is exacerbated by the fact that we never established civil law over Judea and Samaria: the defense minister has a sort of jurisdiction in a region still under military law that simply would not exist in a region under civil law. ~~~~~~~~~~ Many here in Israel are asking where our prime minister is in all of this. He is all together too silent, as he permits Barak free reign. ~~~~~~~~~~ I strongly recommend Caroline Glick's column from last Friday, which deals with Netanyahu — with regard both to how he has been conducting himself and what is required of him at this juncture: "It is hard to seize the initiative. The consequences of acting are frightening. It is always better to let others go first. But sometimes that is impossible. Today it is becoming clear that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has no choice but to lead. Since the Suez Operation in 1956, says Glick, it has been Israeli policy to sign off with the US before taking military action. But this is not how the current scenario is playing out, and this time Israel must act without a nod from the US. She presents evidence for the very real possibility that others — most notably France — will join us if only Netanyahu will take that lead.
~~~~~~~~~~ I think the time has definitely come for us — in large numbers! — to let Prime Minister Netanyahu know that he is expected to stand up and lead — as this is why he was elected. First, to lead by putting an end to the current shameful mess being wrought in this country by Barak. And then, most significantly, to take the lead in attacking Iran. Remind him that no one else will do this, and that the world thus depends upon him. In your own words, please, let him know that he faces the choice between making a mark on history for all time, or going out of office an abysmal failure who leaves his nation and the western world considerably weaker.
When possible, send a fax rather than an e-mail — it's more effective. And encourage others to do the same! ~~~~~~~~~~ "The Good News Corner" Boy, do we need good news! In a study done at the Department of Psychology at Haifa University, Dr. Irit Akirav has discovered that the active chemical ingredients of marijuana can relieve the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Additional research on potential side effects must be done to ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks. __________ A new "green" battery based on silicon has been developed in Israel by Professor Yair Ein-Eli, working in collaboration with other scientists. The battery, which requires only one electrode, utilizes oxidized silicone, which turns to sand when the battery is depleted. At present the battery is not re-chargeable, but lasts for thousands of hours. __________ The Safari Park in Ramat Gan, outside of Tel Aviv, has become the world's largest exporter of hippos. Is this "good" news? Who knows. But it's interesting, light-hearted news. The Park had a surplus of hippos, with a high birth rate, and so decided to send some elsewhere. To date, 14 have been shipped, by sea and air, to Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam. The way to go about it is to sneak up on the hippo while it is sleeping and inject it with a tranquilizer. If the hippo runs into the water, it becomes near impossible to sedate it, and this animal is something less than docile. The hippo, once tranquilized, is lifted into a crate by a bulldozer. __________ Fresh red plums have five times as much antioxidant as red wine, apples and bananas, and three times as much as pomegranates, Prof. Joseph Kanner, of the Department of Food Science at thse Volcani Institute, has discovered. Eating one plum counteracts the oxidizing effects of a seven-ounce portion of meat. __________ With acknowledgment to Israel21C for the above items. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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INTERNATIONAL LAW, INTERNATIONAL SCAPEGOAT; ARABS SPREAD
PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION; ARAB ORIGIN OF MIDEAST TERRORISM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 20, 2009. |
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INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INTERNATIONAL SCAPEGOAT Some of the comments I receive about international law are amusing but sad, because they can impair civilization. One comment claimed that international law requires all conquered territory to be returned. To back up his point, he advised me to read UN Resolution 242. Well of course I had read it, along with learned discussion about it. I am not sure the commenter had read it. It refutes his point. Its drafters deliberately did not specify "all" the territories. International law permits annexation of territory conquered in self-defense, to protect against future attacks. That makes sense. International law is supposed to protect against aggression and prevent it. Returning all territory to aggressors puts some of those aggressors back into a strategic position to renew aggression. That is the position that these comments would support. It is an unthinking position. To be fair, they are not sufficiently grounded in recent history to know which side was the aggressor. It would be interesting to attempt to apply the comment's notion globally, since many countries' borders are the result of conquest. Start with Russia, which incorporated parts of several countries in the post-War period. Another comment was that most countries dispute my interpretation of international law. That is bandwagon propaganda. I learned in college not to follow the bandwagon. Pity others haven't learned. Numbers do not make right. Indeed, globalization is not only of the economy and of data-exchange, but also of advocacy journalism, antisemitism, and scapegoats. This degrades current application of international law. Majorities in the UN try to reduce national sovereignty so that they can encroach on other countries' rights. They disregard the meaning and intent of international law. The Security Council, can revise it to suit popular malice or political correctness (another modern affliction). Advocacy journalism reflects situational ethics. Scholarship has degraded, especially as Western universities become dominated by leftists and Islamists who abuse their positions to indoctrinate rather than educate. Older books made reasonable attempts at accuracy. Newer sources spread unsubstantiated, propagandistic revisionism, basically lying about history. To that, mix in the partisanship we see in U.S. politics and the close-mindedness that has people rejecting without thought any facts and opinions at odds with their smattering of notions. Their tendentiousness enfeebles their logic. Their most common error in logic is to use analogies inappropriately on the basis of shallow similarity and as an argument rather than as an illustration. This may be due to incompetence or to prejudice and unscrupulousness. U.S. SUPREME COURT HEARING ON "LAWFARE" A former Somali government official was sued in the U.S. for acts he performed when in office. His defense was immunity under the Federal Foreign Sovereignty Immunity Act. The local court dismissed the suit, as most courts have. However, the Fourth Circuit Court upheld the right to sue. The Circuit Court said that persons may be sued but not governments. Now the Supreme Court is hearing the question of jurisdiction. ZOA and others have submitted a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that immunity should apply to officials and former officials. Otherwise, our courts will incur a torrent of such cases. Many foreign officials would refrain from traveling here and sharing their ideas with Americans. ARABS SPREADING FORGED PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION In a December 11, 2009 column titled "The Zionist Cockroach" in the Kuwaiti
daily Al-Qabas, Kuwaiti columnist Fakhir Hashem Al-Sayed Rajab compared the
Zionists to cockroaches capable of survival in any situation who use
dishonorable means to assure their continued existence. He wrote that the
Zionists had taken over the world and caused everyone worldwide to hate the
Arabs and the Muslims — and stated that this was in light of the absence of
any unified Arab stance. To read the full dispatch, visit
"In the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra, columnist Dr. Alexander Luqa,
formerly on the staff of the Syrian president's office, said that the plan for world domination set out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is being implemented today. To read the full dispatch, visit
"On October 1, 2009, the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram published an article by author Ilham Sharshar stating that recent events in the Middle East — including what she called the "inevitable" clash between Iran and Israel — were all part of the Zionist plan to establish a Jewish kingdom to rule the world, in accordance with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. To read the full dispatch, visit
The "Protocols" were proved a forgery. To contend, on the basis of it, that the Jewish people and State, on the defensive against dozens of hostile countries, seek to take over the world, contrary to Jewish ideology, is demented. Dementia does not stop millions from believing it. This example should give anti-Zionists who mean well second thoughts about their support for the Arab cause. Did you see the movie, "Hotel Rwanda," about the genocide there that the UN peacekeepers might have prevented but refused to act against? Hutu agitators de-humanized Tutsis in the eyes of their fellow Hutus by calling them "cockroaches." In a December 11, 2009 column titled "The Zionist Cockroach" in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, Kuwaiti columnist Fakhir Hashem Al-Sayed Rajab compared the Zionists to cockroaches capable of survival in any situation who use dishonorable means to assure their continued existence. He wrote that the Zionists had taken over the world and caused everyone worldwide to hate the Arabs and the Muslims — and stated that this was in light of the absence of any unified Arab stance. To read the full dispatch, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3849.htm. " "In the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra, columnist Dr. Alexander Luqa, formerly on the staff of the Syrian president's office, said that the plan for world domination set out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is being implemented today. To read the full dispatch, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3848.htm. " "On October 1, 2009, the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram published an
article by author Ilham Sharshar stating that recent events in the Middle
East — including what she called the "inevitable" clash between Iran and
Israel — were all part of the Zionist plan to establish a Jewish kingdom to
rule the world, in accordance with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The "Protocols" were proved a forgery. To contend, on the basis of it, that the Jewish people and State, on the defensive against dozens of hostile countries, seek to take over the world, contrary to Jewish ideology, is demented. Dementia does not stop millions from believing it. This example should give anti-Zionists who mean well second thoughts about their support for the Arab cause. Did you see the movie, "Hotel Rwanda," about the genocide there that the UN peacekeepers might have prevented but refused to act against? Hutu agitators de-humanized Tutsis in the eyes of their fellow Hutus by calling them "cockroaches." IDF DOUBLE STANDARD AGAINST OBSERVANT JEWS As you know, a Jewish Orthodox school that helps prepare youth for military service, was cut off from the program and IDF funding, in a dispute between the principal and Defense Min. Barak. The students are staunchly for national defense, but some would refuse orders to expel Jews from their houses for political reasons. The principal had said that if asked by students, he would advise them to obey, despite his personal objection to expulsion. Not cut off from IDF programs and funding were leftist universities where 350 professors signed a petition urging students to refuse to serve in the Territories [even for national defense]. Advocating and abetting desertion are criminal offenses. Some professors signed a petition calling Arab violence a legitimate reaction (Prof. Steven Plaut, 12/18). Terrorism is not legitimate. Negotiations would be legitimate, as the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) agreed with Israel to do. If the P.A. had ended terrorism, Israel would not have to impose security measures. But the P.A. does not end terrorism, does not negotiate, commits terrorism, and then it and its sympathizers justify its violence? Those professors who try to justify terrorism, and against their own people, have emotional problems. One wonders when they will call the Protocols scholarly. ISRAEL HIRES 3,000 ARAB POLICE 
Israel plans to hire 3,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs as police. Israeli Arab mayors support the program. Bedouin, Druse, and Circassians already have joined it. "Even mayors in the Arab sector now understand that the entire population must contribute to the state," said a [Public Security] ministry official. "If not in the army, then in the police, or in education, welfare or health care. It can be people acting within the local community and on its behalf." The Arab police are hoped to help stanch the high crime rate in Arab areas. Their training will start soon. "The new officers will be placed with the traffic police, prison service and Magen David Adom ambulance service." "After completing their service, the new police officers will receive the same benefits offered to newly released soldiers, including preference in university acceptance, housing, loans and the grants provided to demobilized soldiers." (www.imra.org.il, 12/18). This is an exciting and risky experiment in integration. A similarly exciting but non-risky effort could be one solution for reducing deferments for Jewish ultra-Orthodox youth. I prefer making the Army inviting. OBAMA TALKS TO CHINA ABOUT POTENTIAL ISRAELI STRIKE AT IRAN To persuade China to agree to stiff sanctions on Iran, President Obama told China that as Israel perceives its danger from an Iranian nuclear attack imminent, he would not be able to restrain Israel from neutralizing that danger. 
Working with the U.S. on this, Saudi Arabia offered to sell China the same amount of oil that Iran does, but at a lower price, if China agrees to the boycott. China declined the offer (www.imra.org.il, 12/18). What do you suppose China's motive is? Does China fear that examples of applying international law and order may set precedent that interfere with China's economic relationship other rogue states? Does China want other countries to exhaust themselves in wars? On the other hand, war wastes scarce resources that China should want to preserve. What resources would be saved if China did not build a navy to prevent U.S. defense of Taiwan, and if it let Taiwan be independent but invited it to join China! Imagine what suffering would be spared millions of people if China were willing to impose sanctions against genocide, as in Sudan! ISRAEL TO START POST-FREEZE CONSTRUCTION PLANNING Since the freeze applies only to actual construction, Minister of Internal Affairs Eli Yeshai instructed his office to accelerate planning now for construction after the freeze (www.imra.org.il, 12/18). Min. Yeshai assumes that the freeze would be temporary. IS 'WITHDRAWAL' SO HARD FOR ISRAEL TO UNDERSTAND In contending that the Israeli presence in the territories is illegal, Yasir Shallal's December 15 letter to the Wall St. Journal suggests that international law can be interpreted from a quote out of context. For disagreeing with him, Mr. Shallal accuses Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren of a "a sleight of hand." Mr. Shallal quotes from the 1967 UN Resolution 242, "1. (1) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." Mr. Shallal should have read or quoted 242 more fully and carefully. It conditions Israeli withdrawal upon a final peace agreement, which has not occurred. Therefore, Israel's presence in the territories is not illegal. The wording, "from territories," was deliberately picked so as not to say it must be from "all the territories." The drafters of 242 did not want to require full withdrawal. Israel already withdrew from the Sinai, much larger than Judea-Samaria. Therefore, Israel could make a good case that it met 242 terms already. Wouldn't it be ironic if an old Security Council Resolution meant to promote peace instead promoted formation of a PLO or Hamas terrorist state that favored war? PM OLMERT'S SCHEME FOR DEAL WITH ARABS Quoting from my mini-series about Hamas admitting its goal is all of Palestine, a reader sent me this: "'When Ehud Olmert was Prime Minister of Israel, he offered Abbas 100% beyond the Green Line.' What did Ehud Olmert tell Abbas was going to happen to the 500,000 Israeli Jews who live beyond the Green Line? And what did he tell those 500,000 Jews? Tell us the whole story." The reader implies sinister withholding of news. Nonsense! One constraint on news journalism is space. Articles must be relatively brief and focused. The focus of this article was the exclusivist Arab ideology about territory compared with the Israeli ideology of compromise. That was the story I related. About what Olmert told Jews beyond the Green Line is no story. Olmert was at a secret meeting, at an early stage of discussing the scheme with Abbas. He did not discuss it with the Israeli public. Recent Israeli Prime Ministers do not concern themselves with what their people want. The reader's figures are an exaggeration. My source,
What do I think he would have told the one-fourth he expected to force out of the area? We saw how he handled the expulsion of Jews from Gaza. They amounted to only ten thousand, a fraction of what he intended for Judea-Samaria as a whole. Nevertheless, the government was unprepared or unconcerned that it was ruining their livelihoods and lives. The government at the time, of which he was part, forced out with brutality those whom they could not bribe out. The Left for years has been denigrating those Jews. Imagine what would happen to ten or twenty times as many to expel! Prime Ministers say dolefully that Israelis must make great sacrifices for peace. The Prime Ministers do not share the sacrifices, but ordinary Israelis share the Arab-instigated wars that follow withdrawal. What is the motive for Israel's anti-Zionist policies? Is it the stated desire for peace, which if sincere would be naïve? It would be naïve, because the Arabs keep proving they are exclusivist and prefer war to compromise. Is it bribery or leftist Attorney-Generals' extortion — do it or be imprisoned for corruption? Foreign pressure? Or is it anti-Zionism? The Israeli Left gets less patriotic and loyal to the Jewish people, the more leftward it leans and the fewer their numbers. Israel does practice ethnic cleansing in big ways and small, of Jews and not of Arabs. THE ARAB ORIGIN OF MIDEAST TERRORISM My recent two-part article on Hamas featured Hamas admitting it seeks all of Palestine, including Israel, not just the Territories as land-for-peace proponents suggest. A reader's first comment was: "There has been terrorism in Palestine by Jews against Palestinians since first Zionist settlers arrived over 120 years ago. Unsurprisingly Palestinians responded with terrorism of their own against Jews. Showing that Zionists were not going to achieve their goal without killing and being killed in return." His second comment was: "'When Ehud Olmert was Prime Minister of Israel, he offered Abbas 100% beyond the Green Line.' What did Ehud Olmert tell Abbas was going to happen to the 500,000 Israeli Jews who live beyond the Green Line? And what did he tell those 500,000 Jews? Tell us the whole story." I already dealt with the second comment in another context, but included it again, because it contradicts that reader's first comment. The two comments together are illogical. The first comment alleges Zionist relentlessness in achieving their goal, by murder if necessary. The second comment demonstrates that Israeli leaders offer to cede territory that the first one implies they want to expand into. Note that the comments make grave explanations without explanation to back them up. Logic is difficult for many people. So are facts. Facts take work to elicit and knowledge to verify. Unfortunately, facts can be inconvenient to one's views, often formed before having discovered facts. Anti-Zionists solve that problem by rewriting history to uphold their views and by calling scholarship biased. (For more on the big lie technique, click here What are the facts about modern Mideast terrorism, Arabs, and Jews? To give the issue perspective, Mideastern and other Muslim terrorists are wreaking havoc all over the world, including in Muslim countries. Terrorism in the Philippines, Pakistan and Iraq, for example, have nothing to do with the Arab-Israel conflict. Before the Gulf war, there was the Iraq war on Iran. Saddam bombed Iranian cities. That was terrorism. Beware of those who blame everything on the Jews. Modern Zionists returned to their homeland, from the late 1880s. They did not prepare for cultivating the wrecked country they found and for the Bedouin bandits who found them. Far from resorting to terrorists, they had to hire gentile guards. Most early Zionists were socialist idealists. They hoped to share the country with the Arabs. Martin Buber and Judah Magnes, founder of Hebrew University, tried to interest the Arabs in a bi-national state. The Arabs showed no interest in working together in peace. The Zionist idealism proved naïve, though it takes more than proof to convince many Israeli leftists. After a while, the Jews formed their own guards. Then Haj Husseini, later Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and a Nazi leader, organized terrorist bands. First he attacked mostly Arabs, to bring them under his control. Then he attacked the British and the Jews. By about 1920, he organized a major pogrom. There were many Arab attacks, not all organized. Finding that the British either did not maintain the law or colluded with terrorists, right-wing Jews formed the Haganah, for defense. They did not commit terrorism. As the Haganah turned leftist, it defended less vigorously. Right-wingers then formed the Irgun. The Irgun later fought and ousted the British troops. The British call that terrorism, but calling it so does not make it so. Terrorism is targeting civilians for political ends. Irgun might have performed one or two terrorist acts. Deplorable, if so. Irgun was falsely accused of terrorism in bombing the King David Hotel. Some civilians in it were killed, but so were many British soldiers. It was British military headquarters! Irgun had warned the British to evacuate the headquarters, to spare lives, but the British refused Irgun was too staid for Yair Stern, who formed a more radical organization, Lehi. His group committed a few acts of terrorism. More deplorable! Both groups were assigned to capture Deir Yassin, an Arab village from which terrorists emerged to harass Jews on the road, below. The raiders acted honorably, and this has been proved. Unfortunately, their rivals in Haganah maligned them. Although Arab witnesses vindicated them, Arabs joined the calumny campaign, eventually retracted by the Labor Party. The only terrorism there was by residents of Deir Yassin. Arab terrorism was extensive, murdering Jews all across the Mandate. Israel offered many times to make peace with the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states. Refusal after refusal. The comment that the Arabs found they could not make peace with the Jews was incorrect. So was the comment that Zionist terrorists showed the Arabs they had to fight back. Indeed, Egypt started its 1948 invasion of Israel by aerial bombing of Tel Aviv. That was terrorism. Israel had done nothing to Egypt. Egypt later organized terrorist raids on Israel. And so it went. There was extensive Arab terrorism, it started early, and there was no excuse for attacking innocent people. BOYCOTT BRITISH & JEWISH GOODS 
Britain resolved to recommend that British retailers label goods from Judea-Samaria and the Golan as either "Israeli settlement produce" or "Palestinian produce." All such goods now are labeled "product of Israel." The change would facilitate consumer boycott of products by Jews in the Territories for political reasons. A few dozen Members of Knesset proposed to encourage Israelis to boycott British produce, in retaliation and as an incentive to Britain to rescind its resolution. The proposal mentions the pernicious effect of trade wars. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) supports the Knesset move. It wants fellow democracies to refrain from such an economic boycott and other hostile acts. ZOA perceives the British measure as an attempt to impede legal Israeli development in the Territories and an attempt to harm Israel, itself (ZOA press release, 12/17). Instead of demanding that the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) negotiate a final peace agreement that resolves these issues, negotiations that P.A. head Abbas refuses, many countries and NGOs devise means of pressuring Israel to concede to Abbas' demands. It is wrong of Britain to try to compel Israel to agree to what Britain wants of it. They do not know or care that Abbas' goal is conquest, not peace. Some people are guided in these matters by international law, when it suits them. What is the law, here? The Golan was legally annexed by Israel, having conquered it in self-defense and retaining it for national security against a repeat aggressor. Boycotting products from the Golan is boycotting Israel. That is indeed, a hostile act. It disputes the annexation. Judea and Samaria were not legally annexed by any state. They are unallocated parts of the Palestine Mandate for a Jewish national home, to which Israel is the paramount heir. They are in the Land of Israel but not the State of Israel. It is not semantically accurate to label products from there as "product of Israel," meaning the State. Labeling them according to the ethnicity of maker, however, as Britain demands, would pander to prejudice. It would reflect British anti-Zionism. These problems result from Israeli leaders' lack of courage and imagination to institute a Zionist policy of building up and annexing most of the Territories' Jewish communities and vacant areas, especially once they found, early on, that the Arabs were not going to exchange genuine peace for them. What many anti-Zionist governments and groups do is ponder how they can harm Israel, then come up with phony justification. This case is one of hairsplitting legality based on false legal premises about areas being "occupied." British parliamentarians' feign moral indignation but forget that Israel acquired these areas legally in self-defense against Arab efforts to exterminate the Jews, and Judea and Samaria do not belong to any country but to the Mandate, of which Israel is chief heir. Britain was complicit enough in the first Holocaust, when it violated its Mandate by forcing Jews to stay where the Nazis could murder them. Then it tried to assist the Arabs to capture the Holocaust survivors. Ironically, Britain is going down, letting itself get submerged by Muslim immigrants. so much for British ethics and strategy. ISRAELI DISCRIMINATION AGAINST JEWS IN HEBRON .jpg)
For years, loudspeakers calling Muslims to prayer in Hebron have been extremely loud. Much lower levels of Jewish religious music emanated from the Gutnick Center, next door to the Cave of the Patriarchs. Ordinances on permissible levels of sound were not enforced. Now, with a new military commander there, police forbid the Gutnick Center from playing the music, disabled the speakers, and threatened a Center's director with arrest, but do not forbid the Muslim broadcast. A petition was circulated protesting this religious discrimination
I think that military commanders should be kept out of civil affairs.
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 and visit his website:
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HESDER RABBIS ATTEMPTING TO PRESENT UNITED FRONT; 'BARAK ONLY UNDERSTANDS FORCE'
Posted by Arutz-Sheva, December 20, 2009. |
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1. "Hesder Rabbis Attempting to Present United Front"
60 deans of Hesder yeshivas are convening and trying to formulate a uniform response to Barak's removal of Har Bracha from the "arrangement." On the agenda are two very loaded questions. One is whether Rabbi Eliezer Melamed — head of the Har Brachah yeshiva — will sign a statement expressing his opposition to political protests in the army. Rabbi Melamed long ago wrote that he would have advised against holding such protests, though he added that once such a protest was held, its positive points should be recognized. Rabbi Melamed has agreed to sign the statement, but his consent is under reconsideration in light of Defense Minister Ehud Barak's statement Sunday morning that it will not change his decision regarding Har Brachah. "Why should he sign," some rabbis asked, "if it won't make a difference?" The second question is whether the Hesder Yeshivot Union will present a unified front in support of Har Brachah and against Barak's decision. An unknown number of rabbis currently feel that this is a battle that should not be waged, while others feel that Barak's decision, if left unchallenged, will render every statement made by a Hesder yeshiva head subject to "review" by the Defense Ministry. The rabbis began their meeting around 9:30 AM, but by 1:30 PM had not issued a statement. The head of the Hesder yeshiva in the Negev city of Arad, Rabbi Yinon Ilani, has already announced his position, however: "If the Hesder Union does not issue a strong, unambiguous statement to the effect that rabbis are not under the army's thumb, our yeshiva will be forced to quit the Union, despite the heavy price we will have to pay." The Defense Ministry subsidizes Hesder yeshiva students to the tune of millions of shekels each year per yeshiva. A yeshiva that loses or gives up its Hesder status will thus lose a significant chunk of its financial base. A group of Deans of non-Hesder religious-Zionist yeshivot have joined the head of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav Kook, Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, in a statement against the closure of Yeshivat Har Bracha as a Heser yeshiva. They are: Rabbi Shabtai Sabato, Yeshivat Meor Tuviah in Mitzpeh Yericho 2. 'Barak Only Understands Force'
Dr. Aryeh Bachrach of the Almagor Parents' Forum advised the Hesder yeshiva heads to select more aggressive representatives who will "put Defense Minister Ehud Barak in his proper place." in the current crisis. "Rabbi [Chai Druckman is an important personage but he is least suited for the goals," Bachrach told Arutz Sheva Sunday, referring to the head of the Hesder Yeshiva Union. "What we need now is not a man of peace but a man of war." "Just as we must not exhibit weakness before the Palestinians, so we must not be weak with Barak," Bachrach continued. "The State-oriented attitude approach is not the proper one at this time. When the doctors went on strike, no one asked them how far they were willing to go in their protests, so why do people who fight for their homes have to draw boundaries and red lines to their struggle? This is not Barak's private army and we will not be threatened by him." The yeshiva heads should be the ones threatening Barak and not the other way around, Bachrach said: "As long as he does not take action against the [leftis lecturers who incite in the universities, he should not be taking action against us. If he does not want the Hesder yeshivas, we will be the ones to throw the 'divorce papers' at him; we will not wait for him to hand it to us." Asked whom he had in mind as tough representatives, Bachrach mentioned Rabbis Dov Lior and Yisrael Ariel. He voiced doubt regarding the Hesder yeshivas' ability to handle the crisis properly. "I did not see them speaking out until now, except for Rabbi [Elieze Waldman. It is time to fight and stop being such nice guys." The heads of the Hesder yeshivas convened Sunday morning under the leadership of Rabbi Chaim Druckman to try and find a solution to the crisis between the Defense Ministry and Har Bracha yeshiva. Barak decided to stop the 'hesder' arrangement with the yeshiva, because of the opinions of its head, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, regarding conscientious objection in case of an order to expel Jews from their homes. 3. MKs on Anti-Yesha Military Plan: Where's Netanyahu?
Responses to Defense Minister Ehud Barak's military plan against Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria have been sharp. The Civil Rights Organization of Judea and Samaria released this statement: "This plan against the settler public will trample into the dust their most basic human rights. We call upon the government to wake up before it loses its right to be called the only democracy in the Middle East." MK Prof. Aryeh Eldad (National Union): "The police and army are cooperating in a rape of the settler public. This set of commands is formulated as if the intention is to conquer an enemy country. It shows the insanity of subjugating the Central Command, its intelligence branches, and the Shabak together with the Air Force for the purpose of destroying Jewish homes." "The crime is two-fold," Eldad said: "Using the IDF for a political mission against Jews, and not using it against the Arab enemy. Netanyahu and his entire government are to blame for their collaboration." Even MK Ophir Akunis (Likud), a political ally of Prime Minister Netanyahu, came out against the plan, and MK Tzipi Hotovely, also of the Likud, called on Netanyahu to "intervene and revoke this disproportionate deployment." MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) said the document is "shocking" and "shows that the Likud government has declared war on the settlers. Bibi [Netanya is continuing the path of [comatose former Prime Minister Arie Sharon who destroyed the IDF in his war against the Jews and left a crushed IDF to deal with Hizbullah [in the Second Lebanon Wa." "The IDF's function is to fight our enemies and to prepare for that," Ben-Ari continued, "and whoever changes its function, thus tears the nation in half and destroys the State." Danny Dayan, the Chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, said, "This plan is simply a deployment for an army operation against an enemy." 4. Columnist Warns Barak: We Won't Forget by Gil Ronen Pundit: 'Barak, We Won't Forget' Columnist Menachem Benn of Maariv attacked Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a scathing weekend column, following Barak's decision to cut off the Har Bracha yeshiva from the Hesder arrangemen with the Defense Ministry. "After he destroyed his party and left it bleeding hatred and divided, Ehud Barak is more than ready to destroy the country, too, if we only let him," Benn wrote. "He is already dividing the IDF and pitting its finest knit-kippah combat soldiers against it. He is already traveling to Turkey... and trying to convince us, against the will of the Foreign Minister who is trying to block the move, that the anti-Semitic Erdogan can be an excellent broker between us and Syria." "Barak is also maneuvering the Prime Minister of Israel, after long talks with Obama and Mitchell, into a damaging and grave partial freeze, which Netanyahu never wanted from the outset, and promises to give Abu Mazen at least what he already gave Arafat: agreement to a near-full withdrawal from all of Judea and Samaria and full territorial repayment inside tiny Israel, in accordance with the terrible formula offered by Olmert, who was willing to sell everything in order to be liked by the Left, in the hope that he would be 'etrogized' as Sharon was etrogized." In Jewish tradition, an etrog is a citron fruit which is kept wrapped and stored in a special box throughout the Sukkot holiday. The term has recently also come to denote a politician who enjoys special treatment from the media and law enforcement establishment, because he is carrying out policies that are to their liking. 'Etrogization' Barak desperately needs "etrog" status now, Benn states. "We shall remember the PR firm established by his wife after he was already appointed Defense Minister, promising all sorts of millionaires to utilize all sorts of connections for them. We will remember the State Comptroller's investigation about sums in millions that were transferred within his family, after he was appointed Defense Minister. We shall remember the luxurious hotel in Paris. We shall remember his illegal Philippine housemaid." "How is it that he never bothered to ask his wife and find out if the Filipina was legal or not? How could he not understand that there was something wrong with his wife's PR firm, when she promised to make use of connections with the world's rich and powerful people? And why does his party hate him so much? Can this person be trusted with all of the diplomatic and security matters? This is a man who now wants to rob the public of its right to determine, through referendum, if it should — G-d forbid — retreat from the Golan. Barak, being Barak, expects us to trust his judgment, without bothering to keep us in the loop. After all, this is the man who was about to sell Arafat everything, without asking anyone, at a time when it had become completely clear that the nation would boot him from office. Barak is a danger to himself and trips himself up all the time, but this is something we can live with. The problem is that he trips up Israel as well." 5. Settlers: Secret Plan Renders Barak 'War Criminal' by Hillel Fendel Settlers: Barak is War Criminal A secret document that has been made public shows that the IDF is planning something close to war against the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria (Yesha), local councils accuse. The secret document, which has clandestinely reached Arutz-7, shows that the army is planning to enforce the government-ordered construction freeze on Jewish towns in Yesha with the help of six brigades, the entire Border Guard forces of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, Israel Air Forces helicopters and drones, the Shabak (Shin Bet) and police, intelligence forces, and IDF reserve units. The forces are required to submit a daily report to the General Staff and the Defense Minister by 1 PM each day. The Shomron Residents Committee released a sharp statement in response: "This war plan formulated against the pioneering settlement enterprise in Samaria and Judea, together with the plan against the hesder yeshivot which produce the best of Israel's soldiers, turns [Defense Ministe Ehud Barak into a war criminal." The document states that the plan is on the "General Staff" level, and outlines the plan to destroy new Jewish buildings throughout Judea and Samaria. It appears that the plan is set to be put into operation within two weeks. "The security forces will display zero tolerance vis-à-vis violence against the forces engaged in enforcing the construction freeze, demolitions and evictions," the document states. Other excerpts from the military plan: "The basic assumption is that no one will agree to leave when required to, and therefore the eviction will require force. The settlers will see these actions as the beginning of the disengagement [i.e., unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria — ed, and they will therefore attempt to block the demolition in any way they can." "There is no concrete information that the settlers will use weapons, but every scenario must be taken into account." "The sector must be isolated; very large forces must arrive in order to carry out the eviction, based on the assumption that 'tremendous force will silence any opposition.' There must be tactical surprise, and those who disturb the peace must be dealt with in the courts as quickly as possible, including publication of the verdicts." "The media must not be allowed to enter the inner circle [of the actio." Some media outlets are already planning to protest to the Supreme Court against this violation of freedom of the press. "The nearby communities must be totally closed off, and people may be allowed to leave only for urgent needs. Cellular communication will be blocked off for the entire area in order to prevent [the settlers fro alerting and calling each other to arrive at the site." Barak's Response: Just Do What You're Told Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded to the release of the plan and to the criticism as follows: "All that is required of the settlement leaders and the settlers is to fulfill the government decision regarding the freeze of new construction during this defined period [of ten month, and then there will be no need for force or hostilities with the security forces." |
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THE FIRST ALL-INCLUSIVE YESHAH BUSINESS ON-LINE DIRECTORY
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, December 20, 2009. |
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As you are all know, there are various movements advocating an indiscriminate boycott of Jewish products and services based in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley (Yesha). These Yesha businesses have been severely affected and some have even closed down as a result of the boycotts, coming in conjunction with the global economic situation. Moral support is important, but hiring and patronizing the businesses is the only practical solution to fending off their collapse. Therefore, in the interest of strengthening the local Yesha economy and the population whose livelihood has been endangered, we developed the following international internet resource tool:
The Dapei Katom site is the first all-inclusive Yesha business on-line directory (currently in Hebrew) and will eventually include thousands of Jewish owned businesses, large and small. In addition to the ease of finding the services you need, there will be specials and sales that can save you money, making this a win-win situation. You have received this letter to inform you of this new project so that you can partner with us to ensure its success. Please refer others to this site, through your personal and community lists in Israel and abroad, so that it will gain exposure and attract interest and income for our fellow Israelis whose only "crime" is their politically incorrect location in the heartland of our Homeland. (Quote from the Rambam re the highest level of tzadaka helping someone earn a living.) In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means. Have a nice day
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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ARAB HONOUR AND THE PEACE PROCESS
Posted by Ted Belman, December 20, 2009. |
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Arab honour is at the root of Arab rejectionism and intransigence. It prevents Arabs from accepting blame or compromising. It also prevents Arabs from losing land to Israel or ending the conflict. Arab honour is closely linked to Islamic concepts of jihad and dhimmitude. Arab honour impells them to seek domination. Failure to dominate, dishonours them. Accepting responsibility is an anathema to their honour.. Muslim violence against the publication in Denmark of cartoons featuring Mohammed is a prime example of their refusal to accept the rule of law or western norms that are at odds with what their honour demands. The same goes for their reaction to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Prof Richard Landes covers this phenomenon in Part III of "Paradigms and the Middle East Conflict." titled "HJP: Honour Jihad paradigm"
"The HJP understands the Arab-Israeli conflict through the prism of honor-shame culture and Islamic jihad. These elements of Arab culture are the main factors that have made it impossible to reach a solution to the conflict. Arab leaders view any compromise with Israel as "losing face," since such an agreement would mean recognizing as a "worthy foe" an inferior group that should be subject. Such a blow to Arab honor cannot be tolerated for cultural and political reasons: losing face means to feel utter humiliation, to lose public credibility, and to lose power. Denis Schulz on Honor and Islam writes "The less honor reposing in a person or a group, the more angry and violent the response to any challenge, real or imagined, by said person or group."and " The peace process, if not the existence of Israel itself, is closely tied to the necessitudes of Arab honour. The Arabs simply refuse to accept responsibility for the problem and therein lies the problem. Using Shulz's insight, the bigger the defeat, the greater the need to be fully vindicated. In The refugees, still essential to peace, Rami G. Khouri* claims the Arabs wish to achieve a negotiated, peaceful end to their conflict. I beg to differ. If the Arabs were so willing, why aren't they willing to compromise by agreeing to accept 95% of the land. The truth is, they are willing to end the conflict, if at all, only on their terms. For Khouri, "Israel's refusal to come to grips with the core issue that matters for the Palestinians, which is their status as refugees." is what is preventing peace. While he acknowledges "half the people were forced into exile, either by deliberate Zionist ethnic cleansing or by the normal dynamics of war that caused civilians to flee temporarily to safer areas." he fails to mention that the Arabs started the '48 war or that the invading Arab armies counseled the Arabs to leave. He makes the ahistorical claim that "the national community of Palestinians was shattered" whereas no such community existed at the time. He demands that "Israel acknowledges its role in the refugeehood of the Palestinians and takes steps to end that problem. The Arabs have all accepted the demand that they coexist in peace and normal relations with an Israeli state that is predominantly Jewish, as it is now, with Jews comprising around 80 percent of the population. The Israelis in return have not moved at all toward coming to terms with the legal, political and moral decisions they must take to play their central role in resolving Palestinian refugeehood — since they were the principal party in bringing it about. " I would argue that but for Arab aggression against Israel, there would be no refugee problem, I would further argue that but for Arab refusal to resettle the refugees as Israel did Jewish refugees from Arab countries, there would be no such problem. But he does make an interesting analogy, The current Israeli superiority in military power will not bring it lasting peace and security because the Palestinians will not simply disappear into history — no more than the exiled Jews in Babylon went away to never return. [..] He shamelessly takes from the Palestine Mandate which called for the "reconstituting their (Jews) national home in that country (Palestine)" by arguing on behalf of he Arabs, for "the eventual return and national reconstitution in the (Arab) ancestral homeland." Then he returns to the solution. For now, the Palestinians and all Arabs have expressed a willingness to coexist with Zionism — if the Israelis in turn come to terms with how critical it is to acknowledge and resolve the refugee issue in a reasonable and fair manner that does not negate the idea of a predominantly Jewish state. Why should such "willingness to co-exist" be considered a concession. And why is it only "for now"? Israel was legally created and recognized by most states in the world in 1948. Yet the Arabs refuse to abide by the rule of law and accept it. Their honour demands that they not. Their honour demands that they destroy, or at least, dominate Israel. Reading between the lines is the thought that Israel can accept some refugees back into Israel, because it is 80% Jewish, and still remain "predominantly Jewish", i.e. one hundred thousand, or even two hundred thousand, barely alters the percentage. If this was so important to the Arabs why don't they agree to Israel retaining 10% of the disputed lands in exchange? Nowhere does he ascribe to the Arabs, responsibility for causing the problem or for maintaining the problem, not just by refusing to allow refugees to be settled but also by inculcating in them the desire to return. But for this inculcation, there would not have been a national consensus or desire to return. The analogy above noted is really a false one. Prior to the Jewish expulsion to Babylonia, Jews had a nation and a country. Prior to the '48 war, the "Palestinians" had neither. Furthermore, to fight for only 5% of the 4.5 million "refugees" to be returned, is to fight to get Israel to take responsibility for the problem. That would exculpate the Arabs. But, accepting less than every inch of land back is something they will not do. And that assumes that the Arabs are prepared to end the conflict rather than to just coexist for now. If that weren't enough,, their honour doesn't permit them to end the conflict. Islam requires all lands over which Islam is supreme to be retained or recovered, if lost. It would be an enormous loss of honour to end the conflict without destroying Israel. Jonathan Dohoah-Halevi comments on the matter in a JCPA article, "Osama bin Laden has written: "We request of Allah...that the [Islamic] nation should regain its honor and prestige, should raise again the unique flag of Allah on all stolen Islamic land, from Palestine to Andalus." Bin Laden's mentor, Abdullah Azzam, established that the Islamic obligation to wage jihad in order to recover lost Islamic territories applies to Andalusia. Abbas is not returning to negotiations because he is not prepared to accept President Obama's terms that the Arabs recognize Israel as a Jewish state and end the conflict. Professor Barry Rubin, in his latest article on why Obama's offer was rejected, referred to Arafat's rejection of Barak's offer at Camp David because it didn't contain the "Right of Return". "As for the Right of Return demand, it was in line with something Qaddumi had said in March 2002: "The Right of Return of the refugees to Haifa and Jaffa is more important than statehood." [..] Nothing has changed for the better. Nothing will change. [*] Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. He now lives in Jerusalem. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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BARAK: MILITARY WILL USE 'PARALYZING POWER' TO ENFORCE MORATORIUM
Posted by Yaacov Levi, December 20, 2009. |
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This was written by Tovah Lazaroff and Yaakov Katz. |
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The military plans to use "paralyzing power" to demolish illegal settler construction where building has continued in defiance of the 10-month freeze on such activity, according to an IDF document obtained by The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night. 
The 17-page document outlines military orders that had been drawn up by the Central Command after the government decided last month to impose a 10-month moratorium on new settlement construction in the West Bank. Under the moratorium, settlers and contractors working on projects in which the foundations had not been finished must stop work for 10 months. But many settlers have vowed to continue building, anyway. The IDF, therefore, is planning a second phase of enforcing the freeze, which will involve entering settlements to demolish all illegal construction work. In the last few weeks, the civil administration and the Border Police have gone into most settlements to hand out stop-work orders and monitor compliance with the moratorium. In a number of settlements, residents blocked the path of security forces and clashes ensued. In the second phase, the Border Police will oversee the demolitions and evacuate protesters, while the IDF will secure the perimeter. The IDF will move in only in cases of extreme violence. Physical force would have to be used against the settlers, since it is assumed they would not peacefully stop work and evacuate construction sites when ordered to do so, the document states. The settlers believe the moratorium is the start of a second disengagement and will do everything possible to prevent the demolitions, the document said. There is no concrete information that the settlers intend to take up arms, said the document, but it added that anything was possible. The document goes into great detail, outlining different scenarios that could occur. It also distinguishes between "moderate" and "violent" settlements, such as Yitzhar, Tapuach and Itamar. Initially, the IDF would try to come to a verbal resolution with the settlers, but if that fails, they would surprise the settlers with what the army termed "paralyzing force." The air force is expected to get involved by doing reconnaissance flights over the area. The IDF plans to shut down cellular phone services during the enforcement operation and to ban reporters from the scene. Commanders have been told to prepare for incidents of insubordination. "It's an outrageous document that teaches us that the Likud government has declared a war against the settlers," MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union) said. Sources in the Central Command explained that the orders were written in such detail because the document was being distributed to various units throughout the West Bank and needed to take into consideration all possible scenarios. "This is what we do when we are given orders by the defense minister," one source explained. "It is our responsibility to prepare as detailed a document [as necessary] to take into consideration all of the different possible scenarios." The document discusses the different command-and-control mechanisms that were put in place when the moratorium went into effect last month. Every week, the paper says, a forum will be convened by the OC Central Command — called the "commanders forum" — to discuss strategy and tactics. Other members of the forum include the head of the civil administration as well as representatives from the Judea and Samaria Police, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the Judea and Samaria Division and Division 162, which is based in the Jordan Valley. The order also called for the establishment of a "command center" from
which orders would be issued every day by 1 p.m. for the next day, and
then distributed to the various units spread out in the West Bank.
Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com
This article appeared today on Arutz-7 (www.Israelnn.com).
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MK ELDAD: 'BARAK HAS GONE INSANE'
Posted by Yaacov Levi, December 20, 2009. |
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In an interview with Israel Radio Sunday morning, MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) said that the IDF's plan to use large forces to demolish buildings said that "we will resist, and block with our bodies the destroying forces. I recommend that Barak issue a general emergency draft call for as many soldiers as he can. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has gone insane." Eldad added that "this is a double crime — using IDF force against Jews, but not against Arabs. Both Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are guilty of this crime, and they are being aided by the government's ministers." MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) said that "this shocking document shows that the Likud has gone to war against residents of Judea and Samaria. Netanyahu is continuing in the way of Ariel Sharon, who destroyed the IDF in an internal Jewish war, and left Hizbullah a destroyed IDF." Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com This article appeared today on Arutz-7 (www.Israelnn.com). |
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IRAN CLAIN MISSILES ONLY FOR DEFENSE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 18, 2009. |
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Upon testing a solid-fuel missile of intermediate range, within which are Israel and part of Europe, Iran claimed that its missiles would be used only in self-defense (Wall St. Journal, 12/19). How much credence should one put in Iran's claim?
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 and visit his website:
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MADNESS IN HIGH PLACES
Posted by UCI, December 18, 2009. | ||||||||||
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This was written by David Basch. David Basch is an architect and city planner in New York as well as the Freeman Center's political philosopher. Basch is also an expert on Shakespeare and the author of the book, The Hidden Shakespeare, which proves through talmudic and other Jewish sources that Shakespeare was in fact Jewish. | ||||||||||
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"As relevant as Caroline Glick's recent observations are concerning the rampant madness among world leaders, it seems that some focus ought to be given to the kind of persistent madness that afflicts Israel's leaders...." "What has to be worrisome is that all the noted dire outcomes Israel faces were the results of deliberate policies of Israel's leaders. If this is not evidence of Israeli madness, what is? It is a phenomenon crying for examination...." Caroline Glick recently described the madness, the narcissistic and ego driven views, that characterizes that of many world governments that zealously seek to combat the "global warming problem," doing so at horrendous cost and suicidal risk to past ways and traditions. This persists despite recent exposures of scientific fraud in establishing this undertaking as a valid goal. Nevertheless, Glick notes that these misbegotten goals remain at center stage while real world dangers, such as the nuclearization of Iran, are ignored. She wonders whether "this is simply the Era of Madness." As relevant as Glick's observations of this madness are, it seems that a useful focus could be given to the madness that afflicts Israel's leaders. What else but madness can have led a victorious Israel to pursue an Oslo process that restored the defeated Arab enemy, returning from exile Arafat and his terrorist army, giving them control of Israeli lands, weaponry, and adopting the enemy's definition of the war between Israel and the Arabs, in which Israel emerges as the robber and "occupier" of alleged "Arab lands"? And even when the dire consequences of this Oslo madness was brought painfully home through tens of thousands of Israeli deaths and maiming, this did not deter Israel's leaders from continuing this madness. Thus, following Oslo, Prime Minister Ehud Barak unilaterally withdrew Israeli forces from the buffer in Lebanon that had for 18 years protected northern Israel and he offered Arafat — who had violated all his promises and obligations under the Oslo process — a virtually complete withdrawal from Israel's territories, including portions of Jerusalem. Again the Arab response to Barak's "gestures" was dismal. Arafat prosecuted a new and more violent intifada and Arab forces moved into the Lebanese vacuum to bombard the entire northern tier of Israel with tens of thousands of rockets and they hold even more rockets still aimed at Israel. Astonishingly, these consequences did not halt the Israeli madness. For soon after, Ariel Sharon embarked Israel on a shameful conquest of herself in the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish communities of Gaza and the surrender of the Gaza strip — a policy supported by Netanyahu. This exercise of madness opened Gaza to direct military supply from the Arab world and brought the entire southern tier of Israel under Arab bombardment by tens of thousands of rockets and a like number held in reserve and capable of reaching as far as Tel Aviv. Recent videos have shown a massive and exultant Arab populace vowing to use the Gaza beachhead to conquer all of Israel. What has to be worrisome is that all these dire outcomes were the results of the deliberate Israeli policies. If this is not madness, what is? It cries for examination. Conveniently, Ehud Barak's leadership offers a paradigm. Who can fail to remember Ehud Barak's declaration almost a decade ago that, had be been an Arab, he too would be doing what the Arabs were doing, that is, mounting violent attacks against Israel. Not only did Barak think he understood the Arab mind — it was, he thought, none other than his own kind of thinking — he was also sympathetic to it. Here is an illustration liberal ideology in action, a view that regards all men, down deep, as sharing common values of peace and brotherhood, as Barak thought he shared with the Arabs. Barak's explanation for the enmity of the peace-loving Arabs that his ideology told him were there was that Israel had egregiously provoked the Arabs by seizing their land. Hence, were Israel to withdraw, peace would be sure to break. That is the way Barak would have reacted and he understood the Arab mind. Of course, Barak's view ignored the fact that the Arabs attacked Israel in 1948 and 1967 when Israel held no such "Arab" territory. This revealed how distorted was Barak's view of events, his blindness a product of his obsession with liberal ideology that took precedence over reality, in other words, his madness. Of course, the Arab response to Barak's "gestures" told that they do not think like Barak. Rather, they follow a different drummer, namely, the behests of Islam and its jihad that demands expansion of the Islamic realm, including recovery of all lands once held under Islamic rule, like the land of Israel. Unless the Arabs were to change their religious beliefs, they could have no willing peace with infidel nations like Israel, hence the Arabs could be depended on to continue their war on Israel unless decisively defeated. But persons driven by madness — liberal obsessions — refuse to recognize such reality. Moreover, they are encouraged in their madness by the reigning propaganda of a liberal media and academia that offer liberal leaders the praise that is so satisfying to the egos of such leaders. They are hailed as "wise statesmen" and exemplars of "high morality," reputations further used to win and hold the adulation of the public. But believing in high-sounding values is not the same as being wise and moral. Thus, Barak's surrender of hard-won Israeli military positions that had kept dangerous enemies at bay because he thinks they are really not so bad and are enemies only because Israel holds their territory may have seemed to Barak a noble gesture, but it turns out not to have been that at all. It was rather a betrayal of the security and safety owed to Israel's people. With Barak as the paradigm, is it not evident how obsessed, moralistic Israeli leaders — blind to a reality that contradicts their ideology — could bring back and strengthen defeated enemies? Is it not also clear how with these same views, Netanyahu could openly exult when he turned over the Hebron region to the Arabs that seek to destroy Israel, having betrayed those who voted for him, succumbing to what he regarded as a misshapen "higher morality"? And can we not visualize the moralistic tremors of joy when Israel's leaders turned over Gaza to dangerous enemies — dangers rendered unseen by a flawed ideology — without a shred of thought to security down sides or even to the pain inflicted on dispossessed, innocent Jews? This is hardly the expression of a higher morality. We come now to what may well be the latest phase of Israeli madness. Netanyahu has announced his acceptance of a new Arab state on Israel's lands, the very lands set aside for the Jewish people by the League of Nations, and he has declared a freeze on Jewish construction in them. The implications of this are frightening, presaging a new round of Jewish ethnic cleansing. This time it could amount to hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled and the transformation of the West Bank into another version of Gaza/Lebanon, from which Israel's population centers will face new rocket bombardments. Rightly anticipating these developments, anxious Jews, including Israeli soldiers, declare that this time they do not intend to sit passively in the face of such advents. Ominously, these anxieties are not responded to by government assurances that this will not occur. Rather, fears are denigrated by Israeli officials as "insubordination" and "threats to democracy" — as though the many surrenders by Israel's government in violation of the people's will expressed in elections were not in themselves "threats to democracy" and "insubordination" to the rule of the people. The fear is that Netanyahu has reverted to the earlier policies, for which his right wing constituency ousted him. Here again is seen the same liberal craving to demonstrate "high morality" and "statesmanship" by now surrendering the Israeli heartland to the same Arabs that have again and again betrayed earlier agreements. As occurred with the Gaza surrender, such policies of surrender are called practical and wise. But, as we have seen, such views are made possible by liberal obsession not to recognize that Israel faces an Arab enemy that is implacably determined to destroy her. The only difference now is Netanyahu's eagerness to demonstrate his depthful understanding of economics. On this trip, he thinks this will change past outcomes since he believes past agreements failed — not because the Arabs are implacably opposed to the acceptance of infidel Israel, a thought precluded by liberal ideology — but because necessary economic underpinnings were absent. However, now, Netanyahu proudly declares that under his leadership the economic infrastructure of the territories will be developed with Israel's help. Such thinking reveals Netanyahu as another version of Barak with the variation in thought that Karl Marx's economic determinism will yield the peace impossible before. It seems, once again, just like the moth is attracted to the flame, an Israeli leader is lured by his liberal obsession to engage in a new Israeli surrender. This is the dismal trajectory of liberal madness that Netanyahu seems to be embracing. That is the story, unless he is preparing to pull a rabbit out of his hat and change Israeli and Jewish history by embracing policies to confront the nuclear danger coming from Iran and the danger of Arab forces that surround Israel to this day. These are the Readers' Comments
UCI — The Unity Coalition for Israel
(http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) — is "the largest worldwide
coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200
groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we
have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and
Secure Israel." |
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MOSHE ARENS: BARAK'S OUSTER OF HESDER YESHIVA 'ENDANGERS ISRAEL'
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, December 18, 2009. |
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Professor Moshe Arens, former Defense Minister and Ambassador to the US, told Arutz 7 Thursday that Defense Minister Ehud Barak "is endangering the country" by ousting the Har Bracha yeshiva from the Hesder Torah study-soldier program. Arens, who immigrated to Israel from the United States, charged that Barak's decision was a "big mistake" that may cost the army the price of losing Hesder students, who often serve in elite combat units. He said that the government is wrong for involving the army in politics by using soldiers for police actions to expel Jews from their homes. Barak has argued that Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, head of Har Bracha, is mixing politics with the army by suggesting that soldiers not obey expulsion orders, which he and many rabbis consider a violation of Torah law. Arens, who served three times as Defense Minister, argued that the government has not learned its lesson from the mass expulsions in the "Disengagement" program in 2005, when soldiers helped police expel nearly 10,000 Jews from their homes. "In the Disengagement, the government deployed soldiers against civilians who had not violated any law. This is not the duty of the IDF, and today, most of the public agrees that the Disengagement was a mistake", Arens told Arutz 7. He noted that IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi also has said that it would be preferable not to involve the army in civilian expulsions. "If the IDF were not involved in the issue, this problem [with Hesder yes would go away and what has happened would be seen as a tempest in a teacup." Media Bias The dispute with Rabbi Melamed escalated after he refused to make a sweeping denouncement of protests against expulsion orders to soldiers. However, he explicitly stated that if soldiers had asked for his advice, he would have recommended that they not stage protests within the IDF. Israeli media generally played down or ignored that statement until after Barak announced Sunday night he will remove Har Brachah from the Hesder program. Rabbi Melamed said that Barak's decision must be overturned because otherwise "the Defense Minister will decide to close another yeshiva because of something he does not like. We are not his soldiers. We are willing to listen, but expect respect from him." Support for Rabbi Melamed Ramat Gan Rabbi Yaakov Ariel backed Rabbi Melamed, saying that "Barak did something that should not be done. Summoning him to a hearing is a humiliation, as if the rabbi is some sort of clerk. Is that the way Barak would act with an academic professor? The real question is whether a democratic country allows freedom of expression — except for rabbis who say what they think." Hesder yeshiva rabbis have rallied around Rabbi Melamed. Kiryat Arba yeshiva head, Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, a former American, called Barak's decision "very grave and in violation of 40-year-old agreements between the IDF and the Hesder yeshivas." Otniel Hesder yeshiva head, Rabbi Benny Kalmanzon told Arutz 7 that Barak has found a "new sacrificial lamb" to cover up charges of corruption that have followed the Defense Minister for several years. "Barak has succeeded in destroying the Labor party and now wants a spin to free himself from another issue of corruption on someone else's account," according to Rabbi Kalmanzon. "He was caught red-handed recently employing an illegal foreign worker in his home, and now he has found a convenient target by picking on Rabbi Melamed to save himself from charges of corruption. "I am against refusing orders, and I think that the army must be kept out of the political arena, but I call on Hesder yeshiva rabbis to stand as one with the yeshiva," Rabbi Kalmezon said. He also noted that professors in universities, where he lectures, often preach anti-Israel messages to their students with impunity. "This is an absurd situation when lecturers call for boycotting Israel while receiving salaries from the government," he explained. Regarding the proposed removal of Har Bracha from the Hesder program, he said, "I do not understand the logic of causing students not to serve in the army and then complaining that they do not serve." Bnei Akiva yeshiva Rabbi Avraham Zuckerman also supported Rabbi Melamed"s refusal to answer Barak's summons for a "hearing." The use of the word is means that "Barak decided that Rabbi Melamed sinned. A hearing is for someone who is accused of being guilty," explained Rabbi Zuckerman. Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu writes for Arutz-7, where this article appeared today. |
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JEWISH MUSIC BANNED AT HOLY SITE
Posted by Avi Yelllin, December 18, 2009. | |
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The Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria has accused Israeli authorities of unfairly and selectively enforcing laws for Jewish and Arab residents of the mixed city of Hevron. For years, visitors arriving at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the holy city have been greeted by Jewish music emanating from loudspeakers atop the Gutnick Center next door to the ancient site. But on Thursday, the music was banned and Ofer Ochana, a resident of nearby Kiryat Arba, was interrogated and threatened by the police. Following the investigation, Ochana was warned that if he attempted to broadcast music over the speakers again he would be arrested and brought up on charges. From information received by the Hevron Jewish community, this police action was most likely a direct order from the new military commander of the central region, who also reportedly demanded that the police carefully examine the law and find a criminal offense that could be attributed to Ochana. The police discovered several laws relating to noise being broadcast publicly from a business in a residential neighborhood. Ochana, who also directs a store and banquet hall inside the building, was then summoned, interrogated and warned. His speakers were disabled and the music was silenced. As a result of these measures, the Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria sent a letter to regional police commander Itzik Rachamim, titled "Selective law enforcement regarding loudspeakers in the vicinity of Ma'arat HaMachpela."
A Copy of this letter was sent to the Minister of Religious Affairs, other ministers and to several members of Knesset.
Avi Yellin write for Arutz-7 (www.IsraelNN.com), where this was
published today.
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PM NETANYAHU A PEACEMAKER?; ISRAELI CONFERENCE ON FUTURE OF OIL SUPPLIES; WOULD YOU EXPEL YOUR FRIENDS?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 18, 2009. |
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PM NETANYAHU A PEACEMAKER? 
Aluf Benn, columnist for the Israeli leftist newspaper, Haaretz, perceives PM Netanyahu as a peacemaker. Fellow leftists there doubt he is; the NY Times columnist is surprised by the idea that Netanyahu might make peace. The Arabs suggest that Netanyahu is pretending, but really seeks to expand Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria until they preclude statehood for Arabs there. Netanyahu's imposition of a building freeze persuaded Benn. He thinks that Netanyahu is willing to make concessions to the Palestinian Arabs that would bring peace. Others add an alleged approval by Netanyahu to statehood for the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) his removal of checkpoints, and his boost to the P.A. economy. Some people suggest that Netanyahu values relations with the U.S. so highly, that he imposed the freeze as a compromise with U.S. demands. They note that other Israel hawks became doves when heading the Cabinet (Ethan Bronner, NY Times, 12/16, A8). The NY Times and others expressed several misconceptions: Candidates for the premiership make security-minded speeches and promises; elected candidates make appeasement-minded decisions. More astute Israeli observers discount election campaign promises. The Times purports to take those promises and speeches seriously. On their basis, it labels the Likud candidates as hawks. Then it uses the mistaken label as a basis for speculation. Using the label as a pejorative puts pressure upon the individual to support policies that the Times does. Pressure is something that Netanyahu is notorious for caving in to. He did that in his first term, withdrawing from the area around Hebron for nothing and arming P.A. police, who shot Israelis with those rifles. Having proved himself an appeaser, nevertheless, Netanyahu still is thought right-wing by the Times? All Israeli prime ministers want peace. The Times is insulting to suggest that some do not. Netanyahu is boosting the P.A. economy, on the theory that better lives make better neighbors. He thinks peace the ultimate result. In boosting the P.A. economy, that supposed right-winger is dashing Zionist hopes to develop in that corner of Palestine. I think that Netanyahu does value good relations with the U.S.. Does Obama value good relations with Israel? I think not. Does Israel need good relations with the President of the U.S.? I think it overvalues such relations. Appeasement of the President worsens relations with the U.S. and with the Arabs, because such appeasement raises foreign expectations of more appeasement, they demand more, and they grow more impatient for them. Netanyahu should try to persuade the U.S. that the P.A. is jihadist, an enemy of U.S. strategic security. P.A. statehood would degrade U.S. national security. Nor did Netanyahu approve of sovereignty for the P.A.. He was pressed to say something, but he talked about less than full sovereignty and preconditioned it on the P.A. ceasing its indoctrination in Jew-hate and on dismantling the terrorist infrastructure, which would be steps toward peace. The notion that Israel should make any concessions to the P.A. and that this would get peace contradicts experience and the ideology of the P.A.. Israel has made many concessions, for which it got back ill will and demands for more concessions. Some of its concessions were used for renewing war on Israel. Problem is, the P.A. does not want peace. The P.A. teaches its people that all of Palestine, including Israel, belongs to them and that they must fight for it. Strengthening the P.A. economy and expanding its territorial control would permit a stronger fight. The fight is guided by religious and ethnic imperialism, not by want of a better standard of living. After all, Israel had greatly improved the standard of living of Arabs in Israel and in the Territories. That did not make those people more peaceable. Finally, what should one make of what the Arabs say? Their statements are geared to their diplomatic effort, which, in turn, is geared to their war effort. They are professional skeptics of Israel, for propaganda. The Arabs, who have broken all their agreements with Israel, are in a poor position to claim that Israel must prove good faith by concessions, especially since Israel kept its agreements with the P.A. until P.A. violations became too flagrant. (For more on this about Netanyahu, goto:
SAUDI LEADER LAMENTS FOR PALESTINIAN ARABS A.P. photo/ Ron Edward — reigning King. The Prince is the son of an assassinated king. The long-time Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia repeatedly expressed a lament for Palestinian Arabs and regret he could not solve their problems. He thinks Israel is being stubborn because, he alleges, it has "the absolute backing of the U.S.." Prince Saud al-Feisal also expressed concern that Lebanon is subordinate to the Hizbullah army and Iran is not pursuing peaceful nuclear development. He also suggests that Israel be pressed to abandon its nuclear arsenal (Michael Slackman, NY Times, 12/17, A18). The Foreign Minister did not explain why Israel should be pressed to abandon its nuclear arsenal now that Iran, which threatens Israel, is developing one. He did not reconcile the many different policies that the U.S. urges upon Israel, the latest being the freeze, and other recent ones being to remove from Judea-Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, as well as its refusal to recognize even western Jerusalem as Israel's capital with his claim that the U.S. gives Israel its "absolute backing," a backing he did not define. Saudi Arabia could have solved the problems of the Palestinian Arabs. (1) It could have discouraged them and other Arabs from repeatedly making wars and raids upon Israel. (2) It could have accepted Israel's invitations to negotiate peace, instead of, in the last couple of years, demanding that Israel put itself into a position to be both overrun by Arab immigrants and conquered by foreign Arab armies without negotiation, which is called the "Saudi initiative." (3) It could have paid to disperse the Palestinian Arabs among the many Arab states and integrate them there. To be fair, Saudi Arabia did hire several hundred thousand Palestinian Arabs, but expelled them when the Palestinian Arabs in Kuwait acted as a fifth column for Saddam's invaders. (For an example of problems created or exacerbated by the
Palestinian Arabs,
go here:
ISRAELI CONFERENCE TO TAKE UP FUTURE OF OIL SUPPLIES On December 21-22, a conference on the Mideast will be held at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a prominent topic being the future of oil. Experts will discuss the growing international dependence upon oil and the growing vulnerability of oil supplies. Regional instability, terrorism, and a rising Iranian armed militancy represent the menace (www.imra.org.il, 12/17). 
ISRAELI BORDER POLICE TO YOUNG RECRUIT: WOULD YOU EXPEL YOUR FRIENDS? 
A security officer of a border police unit dedicated to fighting
terrorism asked an applicant whether he would be willing to expel
friends from his own town. The youth needed time to think. The officer
rejected him. Protest reinstated him
HAMAS ADMITS GOAL IS ALL OF Palestine: Part 1. Goal versus peace 
Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh declared that Hamas' goal is to take over all of Palestine. That would include Israel. Up to now, some Israelis talked themselves into believing that some elements in Hamas, such as Mr. Haniyeh, were moderate, just wanted the area beyond the Green Line, and would live in peace. Haniyeh's declaration disproves it. Nor is Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) in Judea-Samaria, much better. When Ehud Olmert was Prime Minister of Israel, he offered Abbas 100% beyond the Green Line. Abbas never responded. Over the years, Israel made a number of offers to the P.A.. The P.A. rejected or ignored them [or made war], and never made a counter-offer. Remember the hopes at Camp David, Geneva, and Annapolis? Abbas talks about peace, but he is unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state in Israel [code for retaining the goal of conquering it], unwilling to demilitarize [or dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and indoctrination in bigotry, conquest, and terrorism],and unwilling to drop the demand to flood Israel with Arab descendants of refugees [so as to take over Israel, and then what do you think they would do with the Jews there]. Mr. Shavit asks, what could negotiations accomplish with such people, but he also suggests an Israeli plan [which means negotiation and the likelihood of further rejection]. Alternatively, he suggests more withdrawal (www.imra.org.il, 12/17) like the one that let Gaza turn into a terrorist base. Why is there no indignation against the Palestinian Arabs for making war and not peace? Part 2: Does Israeli presence in Judea undermine Israel? In discussing whether and how to make peace, Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit contends, "The occupation is destroying Israel. It is undermining Israel's ethical, democratic and diplomatic foundations." Dr. Aaron Lerner, head of IMRA, disputes that notion. He explains, "I would suggest that, in retrospect, much of the activity surrounding Oslo has been 'undermining Israel's ethical, democratic and diplomatic foundations.'" The Oslo policy of appeasement and withdrawal failed repeatedly. It can't help but fail, given the fanatical drive behind the Muslim goal of conquering Israel. If Israel's' presence in Judea-Samaria is undermining Israel, proponents of that view ought to explain how. Perhaps there would be some way to deal with it. I have seen the claim often, but the explanation never. Views should be explained, not just asserted. In making the case for that view, proponents should have to explain when, the removal if Israelis' presence from Gaza and southern Lebanon, which led to wars and terrorism and a strategic defeat for Israel, would not be compounded by removal from Judea-Samaria. Younger or less informed readers may not understand the combination of international law, history, religion, and metaphysics, and not just of national security, but barring Jews from Judea, especially Jerusalem, would undermine the Jewish claim to the rest of the Land of Israel and probably would destroy the Zionist morale for the Return.
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 and visit his website:
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THE HANUKKAH CHRONICLES
Posted by David Wilder, December 18, 2009. |
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'(After the war) ...the Jewish leaders strengthened Jerusalem and refused to allow the enemy to raise his head. When the enemy leader saw that the Jews were strong, he feared them and began moving his large army. The Jewish leaders suspected the enemy and also began moving his army too. When the enemy saw the huge Jewish army he decided to act utilizing deception. He sent representatives with kind words, promised not to harm them, and invited them to a meal with him. The Jewish leader believed the deceptive promises, sent his soldiers home, and arrived with little protection. The enemy leader entrapped him, captured him, and after a few days, murdered him and his sons. Who is this tragic Jewish leader, felled by words and promises of peace? Sounds very familiar, no? We've been hearing these deceptions for how many years now? This could be written and titled the 'annals of Oslo.' But no, this story is slightly older than Oslo, Rabin, Peres, Sharon, Olmert, Livni and the others. The above paragraph is an approximate translation from Dr. Haggi Ben-Artzi's publication called the Scroll of Hanukkah, based upon the "Books of the Maccabees" The leader, murdered by the Greek Tarifon, was none other than Yonatan, one of the five sons of Mattetayhu, who liberated Beit HaMikdash and Eretz Yisrael from the Greeks. This truly heroic warrior feel for the trick. He believed the call for peace. But after it happened then, well over 2,000 years ago, why do we, Am Yisrael, continue to fall prey to the same exact scenario? The only factors that have changed are the names and the nationality of the enemy. Otherwise, the situation is virtually identical. Yet we continue to send home the soldiers, only to be stabbed in the back. Yesterday we all read Ehud Olmert's 'peace plan, offered to today's Tarifon, called Abu Mazen or Mahmud Abbas, so-called president of the Palestinian terrorist organization. Thank G-d, just as in Egypt, God hardened Pharoh's heart, so too, with Abu Mazen, who rejected Olmert's offer, which included expulsion of tens and tens and more tens of thousands of Jews, and destruction of places such as Hebron, Kiryat Arba and many more communities in Judea and Samaria. There are no words. It is totally unbelievable, incomprehensible. This week, the week of Hanukkah, the holiday of revealed miracle, we witnessed other such disasters, such as Barak's frontal attack on religious Judaism (shades of Hellenized Jews). Another example of anti-Jewish, selective law enforcement happened here in Hebron, only two days ago. Kiryat Arba resident Ofer Ochana was detained by police and interrogated because he dared to play Jewish music from loudspeakers atop the Gutnick Center, outside Ma'arat HaMachpela. Following the interrogation he was warned that should he again sound music from the loudspeakers, he would be immediately arrested. The organization for Human Rights in Yesha, led by Hebron's Orit
Struck, wrote a letter to police officials and others, questioning
this action, accusing them of 'selective law enforcement: "For years
Jewish worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs have complained about
the unreasonable and illegal noise of loudspeakers sounding the Muslim
calls to prayer into the area assigned exclusively for Jewish worship,
and in the Machpela courtyard. There is no need for this because these
areas are not used for Muslim prayer (excepting 10 days a year). Two
years ago a professional examination was carried out in order to
measure the noise level compared to conventional criteria. The
results, delivered to the Hevron DCO reported that 'if the regulations
to prevent hazards (unreasonable noise) from 1990 were applied in this
case, the noise levels recorded very highly exceed permissible
levels....Your action yesterday can only be defined as selective law
enforcement, represents serious denial of freedom of expression and
freedom of worship, and only encourages violent reactions. I ask you
to explain why this extreme step was taken and, why you do not enforce
the law equally, allowing freedom of expression and worship equally to
the two religions." (See full text
Let's keep in mind that the building atop the caves of Machpela was built by Herod some 600 years before Muhammad was born, but that makes no difference to a confused Hellenized Israel leadership, who prefer to not to follow in the footsteps of the Maccabees. Such a decree is preposterous. Then again, there are miracles today, as there were then. Today, the eve of the last night of Hanukkah, 20 year old Tzviya Sariel was released from jail, after being held for over 45 days because she refused to identify herself and cooperate with the 'authorities' following expulsion from an 'illegal settlement' outside Migron in the Binyamin region. When the judge ordered her release the state appealed to a Municipal court — releasing this little terrorist is unheard of! — but the judge overruled the appeal and tonight, finally, she'll be able to participate in candle-lighting with her family. A true Hanukkah miracle. This week in Hebron we witnesses another kind of Jewish hero.
Visiting with us was Dmitiry Salita, a 27 year old Russian born Jew,
presently living in Brooklyn with his new wife Alona. Last week Salita
competed for the World Boxing Association's welterweight championship.
(It was the first match he ever lost.) A Ba'al Tshuva (a Jew returning
to observant, orthodox Judaism) at the age of 14, Dmitiry began boxing
a year earlier and is today, one of the best in the world. True, it is
unusual to find Jewish boxers, especially orthodox ones, but when I
asked him about this he said, 'G-d gives people different talents.
This is mine and through boxing I can, in my way, further Israel and
Judaism.' Salita's boxing trunks are adorned with a Magen David, a
star of David. (The interview with Dmitiry Salita can be seen at: I'm not sure I'd ever want to be a boxer, or get into the ring with Dmitiry Salita, but seeing a Jew with no fear, willing to get into that ring, leaves me with a feeling of pride and honor. Hanukkah is a holiday of light and faith. A little light pushes away a lot of darkness. A little faith displaces much doubt. One last miracle. Lately the 'human rights' organization, B'tzelem, has requested that a representative from Hebron speak with groups they bring into the city. (That, in and of itself is a miracle!) I spoke with one of those groups not too long ago, for about 25 minutes, answering their questions. One of the women on the group was kind enough to record the conversation and transcribe it. The transcription isn't 100% accurate, but, relatively speaking, it's not bad. The last question I was asked dealt with whether or not we, in Hebron, had failed in achieving our goals. My answer, as she transcribed it: Look, success and failure are very relative. If you're asking me, do I think we've failed? No, I don't think we've failed. The fact that I live here today, as far as I'm concerned is a success. The fact that there are things we haven't succeeded to do, there are ups and there are downs, we've been exiled from Israel for the last 2000 years, Hebron for the last 700 years. It's very difficult to get everything. There are problems and there are issues we have to deal with, sometimes you're able to achieve what you want, sometimes it takes long to achieve what you want. I think that most of the goals you're trying to achieve, you eventually will achieve. I don't believe that God brought us back after 2000 years to throw us out again. I know it sounds weird but I think our presence today in Israel everywhere — in Hebron, in Tel Aviv, in Haifa or Be'er Sheba is a miracle, it's also a miracle, because if anybody here had been behind the fences in Auschwitz in 1944 and someone came and poked you on the shoulder and on one side there's chimneys and smoke and the other side of that there's fences, and somebody says 'you know something, don't worry about it, everything's going to be ok, in another 40 years we're going to have a Jewish state and there are going to be people that come and invade us, and we're going to win', then the guy would look at you and say 'you're nuts, you're out of your mind, you need to wake up! This is the fence and we can't get out and there's the smoke and that's it'. And we're here today. And if that's not a miracle, nothing is. 1967 was a miracle, 1973 was a larger miracle and — I don't have time now — but I can give you miracles that happen here in Hebron one after the other after the other. You know, it's tangible, you can touch it. Do I think that we have problems? Of course we have problems. There are things we haven't succeeded, we haven't succeeded perhaps in explaining ourselves well enough. But in order to be able to express yourself you have to have a form in which to express yourself. We know where the media is, the Israeli media and the world media and that's one of the ways I ask you also... And I do thank you very much for this opportunity because in most cases groups like this that come in aren't interested in even hearing what the other side have to say and I think it's very praiseworthy that despite differences of opinion that are huge there's a willingness at least to allow people to hear a little bit of another side and I think that's important and significant and so I thank you for that. But do I think I've failed. It's difficult but whether I call that failure, no. [http://shwaiarabe.blogspot.com/] Wishing all of you continued light, enabling you to see the miracles that occur all the time, even after Hanukkah is over.
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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JUST SOME THOUGHTS...
Posted by Marc Prowisor, December 18, 2009. |
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Everyone, start preparing your anti Israel responses and press statements now, save time and be efficient. Write your articles and prepare the UN reports now, get a jump on everyone. One of the newest countries in the Middle East, Gazastan, and its leaders stated they will continue their fight against Israel until they establish "Palestine" on all of the land. This week Israeli media reported an update regarding the rearming of Hamas in Gazastan. They now have missiles that supposedly reach up to 80 kilometers, adding Dizengoff Center and other nice places to the inventory of targets. We all know it is coming the question is when? The IDF has been arresting Hamas activists in Yehuda and Shomron at an increased rate as Dayton's boys are having some difficulty. Now that they see Hamas gaining power, they don't want to shoot themselves in the foot, or deficate in their own bed. Abbas is feeling the hot breath of Iza Din Kassam on his neck. The arms flow continues in Yehuda and Shomron, as they draw their own lines of engagement prior to a changing of the guard. Our media has been publicizing prior offers to the Arabs by previous Israeli leaders regarding "Land for Peace", and now that Israelis are understanding better that the Arabs of Yehuda, Shomron and Gaza are not interested in peace, the consensus is changing. Exercises are being held in order to prepare for these scenarios. Soon, our politicians might even reflect this change, who knows? So now that we know the next round is on the way, and will be more brutal, it is best to prepare your anti Israel statements now. You better make them good, because you are going to find a different audience in Israel than the last time. More and more Israelis are waking to the fact that there is no partner for peace in this region. Boring, yawn, change the channel please, we have heard it all before. The reign of violence will continue in Israel, between Arabs and Jews for a long time to come. I read an ad for a Palestinian Peace Group, that will be long lived, why do you think Arabs try to escape the Middle East, they must know something we don't. I have a theory that will set everything back on track. No it does not include a building freeze or throwing Jews out of our land, I know, I've just lost half of you. It doesn't include throwing the Arabs out of our land, oops, there goes the other half of you. The world around uses Israel as its playground for everything, and I mean everything. "Bleeding Heart Liberals" looking for a cause to alleviate some trauma they suffered in their youth, have it all here. They can pick from a plethora of mushrooms growing in manure. Imagine, you can be a world-renowned author and go down to Gaza and support women's rights and protest Israel's "Human rights" violations in one of the most oppressive societies known today. Even if you can't find friends to come with you on your holy mission to save the poor "Palestinians", for a few bucks, which you can easily raise at home in the US, or just ask the EU, you will find plenty of extras, both Israeli and Arab to play out your fantasy. They will drive tractors, plant trees, and film and confront the "Evil Jews" as you "kvell" to high heaven. Parents give you too much or not enough religion as kids? Come to Israel where you can hate your own people or self. You can go against everything that was pushed down your throat during your younger years. There is even a newspaper in English that will publish any and all the hatred you can spew, in the name of Intellectuality, and Equal Rights. You will always be welcome in some of the best clubs in Tel Aviv. Where else can you find entire Political parties dedicated to taking the Jew out of Judaism while they ignore their own heritage and embrace those that hate them more than themselves, only in Israel! Is the little terrorist in you asking for a little "action"? Well you are in luck again, with your foreign passport, you can come in and "get involved". Imagine, living the life you have only seen in the movies, collect intelligence, transport weapons and terrorists while posing as a peace activist, and you thought ambulances could only be used for sick people. Get training, network and meet new friends before you go off to fight the infidel, either in Iraq, Afghanistan or back home. Where else to can you get these offers under one roof? Do you want a front row seat for the "End of the World"? This is the place, put on your robes, turbans and grab your Shofar 'cause your destiny awaits, it is time to reveal yourself to the world. Remember, if you don't fit in at home, you will always fit in here, somewhere. So that is the idea, from now on, we charge everyone from the outside who wants to interfere with our lives here. You go to an amusement park, you pay admission, why not here? It will not be cheap, this I can promise. You get on a ride, you pay, just like at the Amusement Park. If you want the extended stay, you have to help the maintenance people here fix what gets broken. Governments that wish to be involved will have to support improved sewage projects and systems to enable us to remove all of the "waste" they create and leave. The best part about this park is you get to leave whenever you want to and don't worry — our crew will clean up after you.
Marc Prowisor served as the Chief Army Security Coordinator for
the Shilo Region in Israel from 1996 through 2006. Contact him by
email at marc@friendsofyesha.com. And visit |
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WE KILLED SIX MILLION JEWS AND REPLACED THEM WITH 20 MILLION MUSLIMS
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, December 18, 2009. |
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I have come to the end of my rope about worrying about the "cultural" differences with Muslims. Let's get real. This below is a Spanish newspaper article. Keep it foremost in your thinking that this was written by a Spanish writer about Spain and Europe. It was written by Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez |
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I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth — Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned. And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride. They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts. And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death,for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs. What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe. *********************************** This is a translation of an article from a Spanish newspaper. A lot of Americans have become so insulated from reality that they imagine America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves. Absolutely No Profiling! Pause a moment, reflect back, and take the following multiple choice test. These events are actual events from history. They really happened! Do you remember? 1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by
2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by
3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:
13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
No, I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people. They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winning and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim males between the ages 17 and 40 alone lest they be guilty of profiling. Let's send this to as many people as we can so that the Gloria Aldreds and other dunder-headed attorneys along with Federal Justices that want to thwart common sense, feel ashamed of themselves — if they have any such sense As the writer of the award winning story "Forrest Gump" so aptly put it, "Stupid is as stupid does." Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il |
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THE LAW EVERY JEW SHOULD MEMORIZE ....
Posted by Paul Lademain, December 18, 2009. |
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... the laws described as "Israel's Magna Carta" and then they must bestir themselves to remove Israel's "despotic managers" who ignore the legal basis for Jews to have "a room of their own." If Jews understood the law and the powers it bestows upon Jewish Palestine, they would stop whimpering to Islamics and begging to be "recognized" by them. The law, below, demands of Jews to reclaim ALL their lands. Including most of Jordan. We say: Be not afraid! Whatever foolish decisions made by Israel's past leadership can be undone and all this requires is leadership by strong people who will not bend to bribery, bullying, or threats ... and who dare to be daring. This body of law, below, is circulating amongst the Christians for Zion (UCI and CAFI) and therefore we say there is no justification, nor can there be any excuse, for the irrational activities of the Peres and Barak clans who feign ignorance of what Lord Curzon declared to be the Magna Carta of the Jewish People. The arabs have been led to believe by the willfully blind and oil-idolizing US State Dept. that the Jewish Magna Carta doesn't exist. Worse still, the arabs are eager to believe that Barak and all other fat and soft Jews ignore the Jewish Magna Carta because they are weaklings beset with fear that they might have to tear their manicured cuticles actually fighting to repel the onslaught of arab squatters who were allowed into Israel by the nouveau riche class (they being Rabin and Shimon Peres, who needed cheap labor.) Here is an excerpt from The Women in Green who also sent this around: "Dear Friends, This below is a book review by William Mehlman of Howard Grief's
William Mehlman is Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI)'s representative in Israel. Howard Grief's book is sold on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This article appeared in the October 2009 issue of Mideast Outpost http://mideastoutpost.com/archives/000590.html. It can also be read on Think-Israel here. |
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Pub Date: October 2008
With The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law (Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem) Canadian-born Israeli constitutional scholar and lawyer Howard Grief has given us a book that shatters every myth, lie, misrepresentation and distortion employed over the 61 years of Israel's existence to negate the sovereign rights of the Jewish People to their national home. It is a lengthy treatise — 660 pages plus a 50-page appendix — but the Jewish people's long and tortuous struggle to retrieve theirstolen patrimony deserves nothing less than full disclosure. Anyone who has ever been at a loss to counter the slanders and calumnies that are the stock in trade of the Israel-bashers and anti-Semites on both the Left and Right will treasure every one of its 20 illuminating chapters. Rooted in the premise that the best antidote to a myriad of small and medium sized fabrications is the exposure of the whole cloth from which they've been woven, The Legal Foundation lays bare two dominant myths that have shaped popular perspectives on Israel. The first is the fallacy that Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel was the joint product of the 1947 United Nations Partition and the May 15th, 1948 termination of the British Mandate for Palestine. In fact, as Grief points out, Jewish sovereignty in Palestine had been validated under international law 28 years earlier. "The legal title of the Jewish People to the mandated territory of Palestine in all of its historical parts," he informs us, was first recognized on April 24, 1920 when the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council (Britain, France, Italy and Japan), meeting in San Remo, Italy, "converted the 1917 'Balfour Declaration' into a binding legal document." How "binding" may be construed from the fact that its wording gave effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations and became incorporated into the Mandate for Palestine. Indeed, the "San Remo Resolution," within which the Allied Supreme Council's decision is contained, constitutes what the author terms "the foundation document of the State of Israel, the legal existence of which is directly traceable from that document." That the Jewish People were unable to exercise their sovereignty in Palestine for 28 years — it being assigned to the British Mandatory power as their de facto agent — did in no way detract from their de jure rights to the land under international law during that interregnum. In this thesis, Grief is ironically supported by both a passionate Zionist, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis and one of Zionism's most implacable opponents, post World War I British Foreign Secretary Lord George Nathaniel Curzon. Brandeis believed that with the passage of the San Remo Resolution, the debate over who owned Palestine was effectively over. Curzon called the Resolution the "Magna Carta" of the Jewish People. From the initial misattribution of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine to the 1947 Partition Plan rather than the 1920 San Remo Resolution, it was just a hop and a skip to a second major misrepresentation of Israel's international legal status — the erroneous assumption that the Partition Plan and the May 1948 termination of the British Mandate somehow erased the Jewish People's rights to Palestine in all its historical parts and dimensions enunciated at San Remo, and implemented under the terms of the League of Nations Covenant. Those "parts and dimensions" were defined inter alia, as including the northwestern portions of the Golan and most of present day Jordan by the "Franco-British Boundary Convention" in Paris. The presumptive cancellation of those rights, Grief submits, is thoroughly discredited by "the principle of acquired rights,"codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the "Law of Treaties," and the "doctrine of estoppel." The first, he asserts, insures that "the fundamental rights of the Jewish people did not lapse with the international process [the San Remo Resolution] which brought them into existence. The second further guarantees that these rights cannot "simply be abrogated or denied by those states which previously recognized their existence." Taken together, they provide what the author terms a "definitive answer [to] anyone who claims that Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over all of Palestine and the land of Israel did not continue after the Mandate for Palestine... except in the allotted boundaries of the UN Partition Plan..." Noteworthy among the states that wholeheartedly endorsed Jewish sovereignty over Palestine in all its "historical parts and dimensions" was the United States of America — the same U.S.A that today regards Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria as an illegal "occupation" of lands upon which it favors the creation of a Palestinian State. The Obama administration and the Bush administration that preceded it are either unaware or have chosen to be unaware of the fact that the 1924 Anglo-American Convention on Palestine made the U.S. a "contracting party" to the Mandate, further reinforcing a unanimously passed Joint Resolution of the 67th Congress two years earlier, signed by President Warren G. Harding, recognizing a future Jewish State in "the whole of Palestine." It needs to be borne in mind, Grief notes, that the Mandate for Palestine that was ceremoniously incorporated into U.S. law in 1924 "was a constitution for the projected Jewish state that made no provision for an Arab state and which especially prohibited the partition of the country." Thus, he concludes, the fierce exception the U.S. has taken to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and its unremitting pressure for creation of a "Palestinian State" amount to a repudiation of its signature to the Anglo-American Convention on Palestine. It is in violation of American law and America's obligations under international law. The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law is the product of 25 years of independent research by Grief, a former adviser on international law to the late Professor Yuval Ne'eman, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure in the Shamir government and the father of Israel's nuclear energy program. It is the kind of seminal work that seems destined to become both an indispensible source for defenders of Israel's rights under international law and a mirror on the events and personalities that transformed a November 2, 1917 letter from British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild into the trumpet call that awakened Jewish nationhood from a 1,900-year coma. The author's unsparing portrayal of France's opposition to the creation of a Jewish state at San Remo and, when thwarted, its efforts at the Franco-British Boundary Convention to confine it to the narrowest geographical limits, should dismiss any notion that French anti-Zionism began with De Gaulle. By the same token, the Zionist sympathies attributed to Winston Churchill by Martin Gilbert and other historians withers in the face of the 1922 "White Paper" attached to his name as then Colonial Secretary. Grief offers irrefutable evidence of its having not only "negated" the Jewish state in Palestine that the Mandate "required" of Britain, but of having elevated "Arab pretensions and aspirations to such an extent that everything thereafter became muddled...subject to continuous disputes as to what was really intended in the Mandate for Palestine." For the actual authorship of that document and the wreckage it made of the original plan for the establishment of a Jewish state in all its "historic parts and dimensions" under British tutelage, we have Herbert Samuel "to thank" — the same Herbert Samuel who worked closely with Chaim Weizmann in the Zionist Organization and was later to pack it in for a "Lordship" and an appointment as British High Commissioner to Palestine. In ironic contrast, Lord Curzon, Balfour's successor as Foreign Secretary, who "detested" the idea of a Jewish state, put loyalty above personal feelings at San Remo and Paris in arguing manfully for the realization of Prime Minister David Lloyd George's vision of a Jewish state comprised of all its ancient Biblical territories. On the Jewish side, nobody comes off better in this saga than Brandeis, who Grief portrays as "the only Zionist leader...who properly understood the natural consequences of the legal recognition of the Balfour Declaration embodied in the San Remo Resolution." Had Brandeis headed the Zionist Organization, the author believes, "there is little doubt that he would have successfully halted Britain's gross violation of its [Mandatory] obligation ...to rebuild the Jewish state." At the end of the day, it was Menachem Begin who provided the most heartbreaking counterpoint to Lloyd George's vision of a Jewish state reconstituted in most, if not all of its Biblical parts, Grief submits. Begin, national Zionism's anointed champion, bearer of the torch lit by Herzl and passed to Jabotinsky, not only failed to make Israel constitutionally whole by annexing Judea, Samaria and Gaza (as he was expected to do), but in what the author describes as an act of "unimaginable folly," brought to the Knesset in 1977 a plan to establish Arab "self-rule" over those critical portions of the Jewish estate. In so doing, he opened the portals wide for their identification as "unalloted," "disputed" and finally "occupied" territories. Nine months later, in September 1978, Begin crowned his "achievement" by injecting the "self-rule" proposal into the negotiations with Egypt at Camp David, offering to leave the final determination of sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Gaza to their inhabitants and "local representatives. " Thirty one years later, Israel remains bedeviled by that fateful decision. Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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TWO COURAGEOUS WOMEN VISIT BOSTON: NONIE DARWISH AND WAFA SULTAN
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, December 17, 2009. |
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This was written by Jerry Gordon and it appeared December 3, 2009 in the Iconoclast. |
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Two colleagues and co-founders of Former Muslims United, Nonie Darwish and Dr. Wafa Sultan were in Boston within 24 hours of each other. They both confronted threats to their security. Both went on to make their presentations, despite daunting intimidation and security arrangements that confront apostates from Islam who speak out at universities and communities in America. Last night, prior to Nonie Darwish's scheduled speech at a CAMERA Campus event at Boston University, a suspicious fire broke out in women's rest room on the second floor of the Boston University (BU) College of Arts and Sciences, not far from the room in which Darwish was going to speak. The BU Student newspaper, The Daily Free Press had this report, "CAS evacuated after bathroom fire — Boston Fire Dept. suspects vandalism: Two Boston Fire Department trucks and four Boston University police cars responded to a fire Wednesday night in the women's bathroom on the second floor of the College of Arts and Sciences. When I spoke with Darwish last night, she said that as they were approaching the College of Arts and Sciences Building, the original site of last night's program they notice the fire apparatus. They were told by BU police at the scene that the building was closed and evacuated. Her CAMERA Campus talk was displaced to Hillel House also on the BU Campus, where she spoke to a limited audience. Darwish remarked that during the past several months she had experienced the worst treatment in endeavoring to speak on college campuses since she started doing that in the wake of 9/11. She noted the disruptive Muslim Students at the Univesity of Seattle, as well as, the ecent cancellation of speaking engagements at two Ivy League schools, Princeton and Columbia. The University of Seattle event was harrowing. Darwish's talk was disrupted by a group of Muslim students lead by a faculty member, a Palestinian from Jordan, who accused her of insulting Muslims. Darwish soldiered on despite the accusations. After the talk she was approached by several Muslim students from Egypt, Palestine, the Sudan and Saudi Arabia, who thanked her for coming to speak and argued with fellow Muslim students, that their antics confirmed what she was talking about-invasion of free speech rights here in America. Darwish noted that these events at university campuses where she had been scheduled to speak are particularly troubling as they all occurred after the mass shooting event by Major Nidal Hasan. Muslim student opponents of her appearances may have been emboldened committed by Major Hasan's Jihad at Fort Hood. That is why the suspicious fire at B.U. last night is questionable. If the allegations are proven it marks a new phase in intimidation to shut down events by apostates like Darwish, Sultan and other critics of Islam. On Monday, November 30th, a New York Daily News editorial, "Gagged by the Ivies: Columbia and Princeton won't let woman critical of Islam speak," discussed Darwish: So much for the vigorous exchange of ideas, however controversial, at even the finest of American universities. The concept doesn't apply to Nonie Darwish, a commentator and advocate who espouses strong views on Islam. We understand from Darwish that the New York Post and the New York Jewish Week will also be running columns on what transpired at both Ivy League campuses. At least these mainstream general and American Jewish newspapers are getting the message about what is happening to free speech. Another courageous woman and critic of Islam, Dr. Wafa Sultan, was in Boston for a series of radio talk show interviews and an appearance at the synagogue of Rabbi Jon Hausman, Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Hausman made history by being the first American rabbi to sponsor a talk by controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders in the US. Wilders gave him the title of 'warrior rabbi', which has since become a cache. I talked with Hausman this afternoon about the Darwish event of last night. He extended an open invitation for Darwish to speak at his synagogue. Hausman explained that neither he nor his congregation take security of speakers like Sultan or Darwish lightly. "It's the first thing on our list of to-dos," to make sure that these signature events come off. Hausman said they do multiple sweeps and lockdowns of the facility. Personal security is provided from portal to portal from the time they arrive at Boston's Logan Airport until their departure. There will be a compliment of local police, both uniformed and plainclothes personnel, inside the social hall, conducting screenings, augmented by former Army and Marine specialists in counterterrorism. Notwithstanding this, Dr. Sultan asked Rabbi Hausman if her talk tonight caused any disruptions. Rabbi Hausman told her there had been emails accusing her of being a bigot, un-American and requesting that the synagogue cancel her appearance. Hausman said: "we act accordingly. We simply make sure that the speaker has security to speak freely." Hausman has learned from experience how to deal with audience members who are disruptive during events sponsored by his synagogue. After an appearance by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., founder and President of the Center for Security Policy when a disruptive audience member was ejected, his synagogue put up a sign at the entrance of the synagogue social hall saying: "no disruptive behavior will be tolerated; such people will be escorted off the property." Both Darwish and Sultan are accomplished speakers. Darwish is one of the more effective speakers on college campuses primarily because she doesn't engage in ad hominem attacks instead focusing on criticizing Sharia and Jihad doctrine. Sultan is a fearless critic of Islam and the environment of subjugation it has created for Muslim women. The BU incident may cast a pall on future events for both women, as Muslim advocates on college campuses appear to be emboldened while faculties and fellow students are intimated into remaining silent. That development is an ominous one, as it vitally affects the exercise of free speech as guaranteed under our Constitution's First Amendment. However, conscious security arrangements like those provided for Gaffney, Wilders and Sultan at the Stoughton events are exemplary of what one has to do to assure civil discourse in an open forum. Gerald A. Honigman, a Florida educator, has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in both the print media and on websites. Contact him at honigman6@msn.com or go to his website: http://geraldahonigman.com/blog.php. He is author of "The Quest for Justice in the Middle East: the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Greater Perspective." |
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OBAMA ADOPTS NEW PALESTINIAN HARD-LINE POSITIONS
Posted by Bryna Berch, December 17, 2009. |
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This comes from Israel Today
After a double-take, I had to read it twice. I first thought it was a typo. The Palestinians had never carryed out the minimum they were supposed to do: they were supposed to accept Israel as a Jewish state and forego terrorism. Actually they were supposed to do this way back for the Oslo Accord and never did. Instead, here they are setting policy and making conditions that Israel had to accept or else the Palestinians won't show up to claim their new state. You would think this would be enough kill the push for a phony peace deal. Instead, it is Israel that is being treated as a defeated enemy by the U.S.A. It is being squeezed from the getgo — not even any face-saving sweetners, no honest-broker talk-talk. The U.S. Administration had early-on decided to resurrect the Arab-Israeli peace process, and it is one of the few foreign policy activities that hasn't already blown up in the Administration's face. So the Palestinians — seeing they were dealing with a weak incompetent American president — demanded more than usual and insisted they could not coaxed back unless they got what they asked for. For starters. They'll raise the ante later. Why can the P.A. terror-thugs think get away with this? Obama has pushed for a 2-state solution — the PAls want to earn it by first destroying Israel — so he thinks he has his prestige at stake. (Frankly, it has mostly gone down the drain, and it won't be long before the American people treat him with the contempt the Europeans and Arabs do.) So he has to make something happen. He has to push someone. The Arabs did as Nancy Reagen always advised. They just said: NO. That leaves only the Jews to squeeze. So unless a miracle happens, the Israeli non-leadership will do what they always do. They will be so anxious to show what nice, caring guys they are, they will cave in — to Israel's detriment. The US Administration will declare it a victory, even if the soggy deal collapses a minute and a half later. Things are pretty bad if a weak sister like Abbas can start demanding concessions so blatently. Legally, his term of office has expired. America is training his "police force" or acting as stand-ins to make sure the PA look good. And Israel is keeping him from being chopped up by Hamas. And he can say, 'Nyet' to a supposedly powerful U.S.A. Can you believe? |
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Israel made what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called "unprecedented" gestures to get the peace process back on track. But the Palestinians refused, and instead introduced new hard-line positions. So, naturally, Washington and other international peace brokers are going to appease the Palestinians amid their most recent tantrum and adopt their new positions. That according to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who told the pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat this week that the Palestinian refusal to conduct unconditional talks had forced the Obama Administration to stop relying on Israeli gestures, and instead force Israel to fully accept Arab demands. "Once they realized their earlier approach had failed, the Americans see themselves forced to change direction," said Gheit. The new peace initiative, which, according to Gheit, will be spearheaded by the US, Egypt and France, will be based on Israel implementing a full building freeze in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem at the outset of talks and a commitment by Israel to recognize a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, effectively prejudging the outcome of the negotiations. Those conditions are fully in line with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' new positions, which he introduced days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implemented a partial 10-month freeze on Jewish construction in order to facilitate a return to the negotiating table. The US at first praised Netanyahu's decision, and indirectly accused Abbas of holding up the peace process. But as in the past, the US and international power brokers realize they cannot strong-arm the Palestinians without risking other regional assets, so they will apparently once again strong-arm Israel, which will upset no-one. US Middle East envoy George Mitchell is expected to arrive in the coming weeks to get the new peace process rolling. |
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ISRAEL HATERS BOYCOTT AHAVA DEAD SEA PRODUCTS
Posted by Victor Sharpe, December 17, 2009. |
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Friends: Israel haters are now targeting Ahava Dead Sea products. This is part of the growing ant-Israel boycott that originates among leftist supporters of those Arabs who call themselves Paslestinians. It is not unreasonable at all to believe that dark anti-Jewish feelings also play a major part in this pernicious campaign. As you will see below, Dutch socialists are at the heart of the boycott in Holland and it will no doubt spread throughout Europe and Britain. My wife loves Ahava and Ahava means in Hebrew, love. We have recommended Ahava products to many Jews and non-Jews alike and they have all expressed delight with the different items available in the Ahava product line. I am hoping that you will make a definite point of purchasing Ahava in direct opposition to the miserable efforts of the boycotters. Not only will you help protect this amazing company, help Israel's economy, but you will earn the opportunity to truly enjoy the beneficial results of using Ahava. I am not in any way associated with the company. I am just urging all who love Israel to frustrate the haters by buying Ahava repeatedly. Various retailers from time to time have sold Ahava including T.J. Max, Costco, Ross and others. Thank you.
This article below is entitled "PA Confiscates, Destroys $50,000 Worth of Israeli Goods." It was written by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, who writes for Arutz-7, where this article appeared. |
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PA Destroys Israeli Products The Palestinian Authority, encouraged by European Union boycotts of products in Judea and Samaria, dumped $50,000 worth of Dead Sea cosmetics in trash containers on Wednesday. The Dead Sea beauty products, including shampoo, face cream and hand lotion, are manufactured under the widely known Ahava brand. The company's headquarters on a kibbutz located less than a mile from the Dead Sea and part of the land restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967. PA authorities also confiscated candies from the Barkan industrial area in Samaria, according to the French news agency AFP. A PA statement alleged that the confiscated goods exceeded their expiration date, but Munthar Erakat, described by the Jordan Times as a "local official," said, "This destruction ... is in keeping with the decision of the Palestinian leadership to prevent the import and sale of products produced in the settlements." The Ahava products have grown from a small stand 20 years ago to an internationally-known company that sells more than $150 million worth of products in 35 countries. The American investment firm Shamrock Holdings owns 20 percent of the company. The company was not available for comment on the PA's confiscation. It has been the target of several boycotts. Pro-Arabs lobbied the London department store Harrods in 2002 to take Ahava products off its shelves along with other Israeli products, ranging from pretzels to wine. Earlier this week, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen asked the Dutch Finance Ministry to investigate the status of Ahava products at the behest of Dutch Socialist Party parliamentarian Harry van Bommel, an avid pro-Palestinian activist. Ahava products are exported to Holland with a "Made in Israel" stamp, but Dutch socialists say the beneficial minerals infused in Ahava products belong to Arabs. Contact Victor Sharpe by email at janvic@verizon.net |
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CHECKBOOKS OUT — COPENHAGEN
Posted by Susana K-M, December 17, 2009. |
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This essay was written by Wiliam Katz. |
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We've made a cash commitment at the Copenhagen hot-air conference,
but it's much less than I'd feared. The quotes below (indents) are from Fox
The United States extended a $100 billion carrot to the rest of world Thursday, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Copenhagen the United States is willing to commit up to $10 billion a year by 2012, and would support a global fund of $100 billion a year to help developing nations deal with climate change, provided the nations here are willing live up to the 'transparency' demanded by the U.S. I like the fact that there are strings attached. I'd expected we'd be in for much more. If we actually enforce the "transparency" provision, the money might actually do some good. But there will be those in Congress, on the left, who'll try to strike that provision through legislation, the better to suck up to African dictators. Clinton said the money was "conditional." Clinton's words were directed at China, which has refused to meet the monitoring and verification requirements requested by the U.S. when it comes to promises of carbon reductions. Again, good. "Transparency" and "conditional" are musical words. Clinton, who is one of six cabinet members accompanying President Obama to the climate summit, said climate change "is an undeniable and unforgiving fact." And the U.S. was willing to work with other nations to reduce C02 emissions, but any agreement here must have "full transparency." Bad note. Don't use terms like "undeniable and unforgiving fact." You may wake up to a scientific surprise. Critics have accused the U.S. of trying to 'buy' support for a climate treaty that meets U.S. approval. I would certainly hope we would. Stiff the critics. On Wednesday, negotiators from Britain and the developing nations came to agree on the $100 billion figure by 2020, a reduction from $400 billion African and the poorest nations had previously insisted upon. One of these days we'll ask the question, "How long does it take a 'developing' nation to develop?" Some of these "developing nations" don't lift a finger to help themselves, and some have among the highest birth rates in the world. Meanwhile, world leaders starting flooding into Copenhagen on Thursday, even as a Danish official acknowledged that hope was running out for a comprehensive climate deal because the negotiations between rich and poor countries were deadlocked. That's probably good news for all involved. Next time, don't hold a conference shot through with arrogance, scientific hustling, trendiness, and, above all, fashionable leftist politics. The huge ovations for Hugo Chavez yesterday should tell us just what this crowd is about. We have no obligation to eat the forbidden fruit. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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TEMPLE-ERA DNA REVEALS OLDEST CASE OF LEPROSY
Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, December 17, 2009. |
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The DNA of a man buried near Jerusalem's Old City in the first century Common Era reveals the earliest identifiable case of leprosy, according to researchers from Israel and North America. The burial shroud may also disprove the claim that the Shroud of Turin is from first-century Jerusalem. The burial cave in which the remains were found, which is known as the Tomb of the Shroud, is located in the lower Hinnom Valley and is part of a first-century C.E. cemetery. The shrouded man, whose bones were dated by radiocarbon methods to 1-50 C.E., did not receive the customary secondary burial in an ossuary (small stone container for bones) common at the time. The entrance to the part of the tomb where this individual was buried was completely sealed with plaster. The Hebrew University's Prof. Mark Spigelman, one of the leading researchers who studied the molecular evidence from the tomb, believes the isolation was due to the fact that the shrouded man suffered from leprosy and died of tuberculosis. The DNA of both diseases was found in his bones. The excavation also found a clump of the shrouded man's hair, which had been ritually cut prior to his burial. These are both unique discoveries, as explained by Hebrew University spokespeople, because organic remains are hardly ever preserved in the Jerusalem area owing to high humidity levels in the ground. The evidence revealed by the remains indicate that tuberculosis and leprosy may have crossed social boundaries in the first-century C.E. Jerusalem. A number of clues — the size of the tomb, its location alongside a High Priest, the type of textiles used as shroud wrappings, and the clean state of the man's hair — suggest that the shrouded individual was a fairly affluent member of society in Jerusalem or a priest himself. Furthermore, according to Prof. Shimon Gibson of Hebrew University, the tomb would have faced directly toward the Jewish Temple of the time. Disproves Turin Shroud? This is also the first time fragments of a burial shroud have been found from the time Jesus was alleged to have been active in Jerusalem. The shroud is very different from that of the Shroud of Turin, hitherto claimed to be the one used to wrap the body of Jesus. Unlike the complex weave of the Turin Shroud, the recently discovered shroud is made up of a simple two-way weave, as the textiles historian Dr. Orit Shamir was able to show. Based on the assumption that this is representative of a typical burial shroud widely used at the time of Jesus, researchers concluded that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Second Temple-era Jerusalem. Further details of the discovery are published in the December 16, 2009, issue of PloS ONE Journal for peer-reviewed scientific and medical research. Nissan Ratzlav-Katz writes for Arutz-7 (www.Israelnn.com), where this article appeared today. |
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MUSLIMS AGAINST MUSLIMS IN IRAQ; SUING ISRAELI LEADERS ABROAD FOR "WAR CRIMES"; IRAQ AND POSTERS AND CARTOON
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 17, 2009. |
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U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PASSES TOUGHER GASOLINE SANCTIONS ON IRAN The House of Representatives passed a bill closing loopholes in the gasoline sanctions against Iran (press release by United Against Nuclear Iran, 12/15). The House's intent is well meant, not that habitual critics of American notice that the modern U.S., more than other countries, takes the lead in trying to improve international security and human rights. Unfortunately, the U.S. economy may no longer be strong enough for its boycotts to work. The U.S. waited too long to get this far. First, Iran has had years to make itself more independent of boycotts. Second, now that Iran is so close to possessing nuclear weapons, its regime willingly would suffer, if necessary, to attain its decades-long goal. This bill closes loopholes. Having a large research staff and opportunities to consult experienced people, why do legislators regularly draft bills with loopholes? Is it done knowingly, to suit lobbies? Or are they unable to ask what counter-measures the targets of boycotts may take. MUSLIMS AGAINST MUSLIMS IN IRAQ 
"Bombings killed nine people in two Iraqi cities, raising fresh questions about Baghdad's ability to provide security (Wall St. Journal, 12/16, A1). Muslims are killing each other in Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Those who are indignant when Israel or the U.S. kills Muslims in self-defense, seem to have no indignation left for this other killing of Muslims, not by Israel or the U.S.. Why the inconsistency? SUING ISRAELI LEADERS ABROAD FOR "WAR CRIMES" "Israel reacted angrily to a British arrest warrant for former Foreign Minister Livni on war crimes charges" (Wall St. Journal, 12/16, A1). How did this kind of" "lawfare" arise? Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, explains. The judicial foundation of such lawsuits rests upon distortion and abuse of "universal jurisdiction." "Universal jurisdiction" originated centuries ago to deal with hostes humani generi, (the enemies of all mankind), such as pirates or slavers, who were not under any state's control, but legitimately concerned them all." [A good case has been made that terrorism is a form of piracy.] The principle and practice have degenerated into an attempt by ostensible human rights activists to criminalize what they do not like abroad. This is not a legal matter but one of morality [stemming from a specific ideology]. Neither do the countries of venue have a particular interest in the issue raised in court. Now private individuals are bringing suits. This increases the number of such cases [and degrades their quality]. "It is no accident that arrest warrants never seem to be issued for" notorious war criminals and perpetrators of major crimes against humanity. "...the real targets of universal jurisdiction these days are Western nations. Ultimately, what it targets is the very ideas of sovereign accountability and political independence. These goals largely motivated the 198 Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, itself a step toward constraining states' ability to police their own affairs.' The Obama administration yearns to sign the Statute. "Transferring accountability for decisions from democratic politics to the criminal justice system understandably intimidates policy makers from making perfectly justifiable choices, such as defending against terrorist threats." Officials responsible for stopping such criminality as terrorism would become liable for what the courts might find is knowledge their subordinates were committing crimes. If foreign interests that do not like a defense policy, they could sue to punish it. Lawfare is a blow to democracy. Better for democracies to keep their responsibility for making decisions than to cede them to foreign judges (John Bolton, Wall St. Journal, 12/16, Op.-Ed.). Lawfare is abused so as to harass and to impose legal costs. It has become a tool in the Muslim-Israel conflict. Suggestions have been made to expand it to hamper U.S. sovereignty. So far, judges have dismissed most such cases, but in a hostile, emotion-driven political climate, who knows whether fairness would last? IRAQ AND POSTERS AND CARTOONS 
"Iranian students held rival rallies over TV footage of the burning of a picture of the Islamic republic's founder" (Wall St. Journal, 12/16, A1). (One source says "burned," another, "torn up.) The founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, was their Supreme Leader. Not fully analogous but illustrative of mood is the rioting after a newspaper in Denmark published cartoons of the religion's founder. I would discuss the issues without personalizing them. Personalizing them unnecessarily offends people and distracts from the issues.
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 and visit his website:
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YAALON: ARABS RESORTING TO PROPAGANDA AFTER LOSING WARS
Posted by Daily Alert, December 17, 2009. |
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Israel's enemies turn to de-legitimization after realizing they can't defeat Israel on battlefield, deputy PM says
This was written by Roni Sofer and details an interview with
Moshe Yaalon. It appeared in Ynet
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Israel's Arab enemies have resorted to a propaganda campaign after realizing they cannot defeat the Jewish State on the battlefield, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe (Bogi) Yaalon says. "When the Arabs realized they cannot defeat us with their armies, they turned to terrorism and rockets," Yaalon told Ynet in a special interview Wednesday. "Now they are realizing that they cannot defeat us this way either, so they are taking the path of de-legitimization." Arab propaganda efforts had an effect mostly in Europe and in some parts of the United States, the deputy PM said. "The success of Israel's de-legitimization stems from several elements, such as the new anti-Semitism, which at this time is manifested through anti-Israel sentiments in practice," he said. "There is another group, the liberals, some of whom are radicals while others are naïve. People who compare our security fence to the Berlin Wall, for example, are naïve." 'Flawed British policy' Yaalon said he believes that Israel's diplomats across the world are at fault for the current situation. "For years we neglected public diplomacy. We haven't done enough," he said. "Not always those who represent us are worthy of representing us, especially when we examine the manner in which they do so. During my travels I encountered some people who simply cannot be representing us. This is why the government decided to travel and speak across the world. Ministers, including myself, are traveling abroad and explaining our position." Addressing the recent arrest warrant issued against former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in England, Yaalon said he warned former British Prime Minister Tony Blair more than two years ago about the "flawed policy in respect to arrest warrants against myself and other senior Israeli officials." "To my regret, nothing had been then since then, and now Britain is the only state where we are facing such problem," he said. "We need to tell the Brits that we're in the same boat, as their commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan clearly say." 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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PALESTINIAN GIRL'S MURDER HIGHLIGHTS GROWING NUMBER OF 'HONOR KILLINGS'
Posted by Susana K-M, December 17, 2009. |
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This is the real "Arab narrative" . See the face of horror — How would you like to live like this? This below was written by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson. It appeared November 14, 2003 in Knight Ridder Newspapers. Nelson is currently with National Public Radio. She directs the NPR bureau in Afghanistan. They kill their own, too. And the world expects "peace"? |
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ABU QASH — Rofayda Qaoud — raped by her brothers and impregnated — refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder. Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick. Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor." The guilty brothers are in jail. Qaoud's confessed crime, for which she must appear before a three-judge panel on Dec. 3, is one repeated almost weekly among Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. Female virtue and virginity define a family's reputation in Arab cultures, so it's women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as sullied. Victims' rights groups say the number of "honor crimes" appears to be climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East Jerusalem. Police in Israel investigated at least 18 honor killings in the past three years. Palestinian police reported 31 cases in 2002 — up from five during the first half of 1999 — the last time such incidents were counted before the current Palestinian uprising began, according to the center's study. But the number of killings is likely higher, given that Palestinian police investigate only crimes that have been reported, said Yousef Tarifi, the Ramallah prosecutor assigned to Qaoud's case. Shalhoub-Kevorkian says her past research showed the likely number to be 15 times higher than the number of reported cases. According to court records, Rofayda was raped by her brothers, Fahdi, 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the family's three-room house. On Nov. 26, 2002, doctors at a nearby hospital who were treating Rofayda for an injured leg discovered she was eight months pregnant. Palestinian authorities whisked her off to a women's shelter in Bethlehem, where she gave birth to a healthy boy on Dec. 23. He has since been adopted by another Palestinian family, court records show. Rofayda, meanwhile, wanted to return to her parents in the Ramallah suburb of Abu Qash. Ramallah Gov. Mustafa Isa called a meeting with the family and village elders, demanding they pledge in writing not to harm the girl. "He asked me if everyone in the family and the village would promise not to bother this girl, but I told him I couldn't give him a guarantee," Abu Qash Mayor Faik Shalout says. Rofayda returned home in late January without notifying the authorities. The shame was unbearable, Qaoud said. Relatives and friends refused to speak to her family. Her elder daughters' husbands wouldn't allow them to visit because Rofayda had returned home. On Jan. 27, Rofayda sent word that she was in danger to crisis counselors at Abu-Dayyeh's center in East Jerusalem. They, in turn, called Palestinian police in Ramallah, who have jurisdiction over Abu Qash. Qaoud, meanwhile, sent her husband, who suffers from heart disease, to a doctor in the nearby village of Bir Zeit. Her three youngest children went to a cousin's house. At 11:30 p.m. she killed Rofayda, court records show. Tarifi says he's convinced Qaoud had an accomplice, but Qaoud insists she acted alone. Qaoud turned herself in and, after four months in jail, was released pending the resolution of her case. While honor killings committed in the heat of the moment — for example, by a husband who catches his wife in bed with another man — generally carry a six-month to one-year jail term, Qaoud will likely be sentenced to three to five years in prison, Tarifi says. The fact she is a mother who was trying to protect her family's honor mitigates the crime of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death under Palestinian law, he adds. The brothers are serving minimum 10-year sentences in a Palestinian jail in the West Bank city of Jericho for statutory rape of a relative, Tarifi says. No trace of Rofayda or her brothers remains in the family home. Qaoud says she ripped up all of their photographs and burned their clothes. The bedroom in which she killed her daughter is now a storeroom. Erasing the memories is harder, she admits. She eases her pain by doting on her three children still living at home, especially the youngest, Fatima, 9, whom she lavishes with kisses. The children say they've forgiven Qaoud and return her affection. "My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. Leaning into Qaoud's arms, the little girl adds: "I love my mother much more now than before."
Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com
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FAR MORE NEGATIVE, FAR MORE DANGEROUS
Posted by Isi Leibler, December 17, 2009. |
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The Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism has assembled in Jerusalem this week for its annual conference. The gathering of such a distinguished group of Jewish and non-Jewish legislators and others of distinction for the express purpose of condemning anti-Semitism in itself represents a remarkable achievement, and would not have been possible without the involvement of the government of Israel. In fact, without the dedication, enthusiasm and skill of Foreign Ministry coordinator and forum chairwoman Aviva Raz-Schecter, it would never have taken off altogether. However, the endeavor suffers from a serious flaw. Despite repeated pleas from participants at every meeting, it has failed to create a global secretariat to operate between conferences and act as a clearing house for the exchange of views and a vehicle to coordinate efforts between leaders and communities to combat anti-Semitism.This failure is the inevitable consequence of the government's refusal to set aside funds to finance the project. As a result, this year's conference appears to be a rerun of its predecessors, with the same scholars providing those engaged in the battle against anti-Semitism with information to which most are already privy, and with the same kind of general calls for taking action. For example, though a session on Holocaust denial is on the schedule, there does not appear to be any emphasis on the far more damaging actions by anti-Semites and enemies of Israel who now manipulate and distort the Holocaust as a means of demonizing the Jewish state. Because the Holocaust has been transformed into a major international industry, with so many European countries incorporating its commemoration in their calendars, our tendency is to reflect a sense of achievement. However, this concern for dead Jews is regrettably not matched by concern for live ones — particularly those who reside in Israel.
TO MAKE matters worse, there is actual ongoing, almost frenzied, activity on the part of some Diaspora Jews to suppress Holocaust denial and revisionism, which is often diverted into counterproductive debates on whether legislation criminalizing such activity would constitute an infringement of freedom of expression. This is particularly disturbing considering the fact that in recent years Holocaust denial has been overtaken by a new and far more potent challenge: the sophisticated trivialization, distortion and inversion of the Holocaust. This "Holocaust inversion" has a far more negative impact than outright Holocaust denial, which (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and jihadists aside) is primarily associated with crackpots. And it has climaxed with successful efforts to demonize Israelis as Nazis for allegedly committing war crimes against Palestinians — as exemplified by the British arrest warrant directed against Tzipi Livni and potentially against other Israeli leaders. The first serious study of this phenomenon appears in an important book by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses, published jointly by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and the Anti-Defamation League. Gerstenfeld, a former international business strategist who currently heads the Board of Fellows of the JCPA, has established a reputation for prodigious productivity of high-quality studies in the field of post-Holocaust anti-Semitism. This, his 11th book, may well be regarded as his magnum opus. In it he systematically defines the new anti-Semitism, presents a chronology of its development, provides an analysis of its various components (including dejudaization, obliteration of Holocaust memory, trivialization, equivalence and inversion) and draws a template for how it should be neutralized. The book's most important chapter covers Holocaust inversion, with special emphasis on the false portrayal of Israelis and Jews behaving like Nazis. This equation had its genesis with the Soviet UN resolution equating Zionism with racism, but has been finessed and widened under the direction of Arab and far-left agitators. The evil mantra reiterated again and again is that "the victims have become the perpetrators." An extreme example of this is Spain, where in some locations Holocaust Remembrance Day was broadened to commemorate the "genocide of the Palestinian people." Nazi arch-propagandist Joseph Goebbels's technique of repeating a lie ad nauseam until is taken to be the truth by the masses has certainly proven to be effective in this, the greatest of all contemporary libels and defamation directed against the Jewish people. In a chapter titled "Holocaust Deflection and Whitewashing," Gerstenfeld deals with the efforts by many European countries to present themselves as victims of Nazi persecution, to deflect the role of their own key citizens in having assisted the Nazis in the deportations of Jews and even in participating directly in their mass murder. Austria is particularly notorious for its longtime insistence that it was a victim, rather than a participant, in the Nazi atrocities. But in 1985, with the emergence of what came to be known as the "Waldheim Affair," evidence was revealed indicating that a majority of Austrians had welcomed and collaborated with Hitler.
ANOTHER CASE in point is that of the Baltic countries, whose governments have been campaigning to apply moral equivalence to Nazi genocidal policies and communist tyranny. They are thus are calling for textbooks to be amended and demanding that Holocaust commemorations include victims of communist crimes. This blatantly revisionist effort to distort history, combined with attempts to suppress the knowledge of the evil perpetrated against Jews during the Holocaust by indigenous citizens in Baltic countries, was embodied in the "Prague Declaration," issued at a conference there in June 2008. John Mann MP, the initiator of the UK parliamentary commission into anti-Semitism, has described it as a "sinister document." As if that was not shocking enough, in recent years, Lithuanian prosecutors have been calling for "war crime investigations" of elderly Holocaust survivors and partisans (including former Yad Vashem director Yitzhak Arad) who are rightly regarded as heroes throughout most of the Western world for having fought in anti-Nazi resistance movements. It is therefore truly incomprehensible that Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas was invited to participate in the opening session of this week's conference. Regrettably, realpolitik may demand that Israel occasionally cooperate with some odious governments which failed to prosecute those of their citizens who collaborated with the Nazi extermination of their Jewish populations. But inviting the foreign minister of a government which failed to prosecute its own war criminals and is a world leader in seeking to obfuscate the Holocaust by bracketing Nazi genocidal policies with Stalinist crimes to participate in an Israeli government-sponsored conference on anti-Semitism is surely unacceptable. This brings us back to Gerstenfeld's crucial book — a must-read for anyone interested in anti-Semitism or involved in the fight against it. Combating Holocaust inversion, it concludes, "requires first understanding the nature of the abuse which must then be followed by exposing the perpetrators who must be turned into the accused." Contact Isi Leibler at ileibler@netvision.net.il This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post.http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=1959 |
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THE E.U.'S "EAST JERUSALEM" CHRISTMAS GIFT
Posted by Moshe Phillips, December 17, 2009. |
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Christmas came early for Israel's enemies this holiday season. On December 1 a "draft statement" from the European Union calling for the immediate restart of negotiations leading to a "viable state of Palestine...with East Jerusalem as its capital" made worldwide news. And this is very curious because, after all, "East Jerusalem" does not actually exist. At least not yet. Let's remember that "East Jerusalem" is what the Bible means when it refers to Jerusalem. Words, and especially names, have meaning. Especially in the Middle East. The European Union obviously chose to use the words of Israel's enemies deliberately. So, just what is "East Jerusalem" and why is adding the word "East" to describe part of Judaism's holiest city and Israel's capital of any serious magnitude? East and West in Israel are not simple geographic terms as they are in the U.S. Northeast Philadelphia, the Upper East Side in Manhattan and East L.A. are used to denote neighborhoods and sections of a city. In Israel, where Judea and Samaria have been labeled as the West Bank, things are different. The term West Bank was created by Arab propagandists to de-emphasize the area's inherent Jewishness and to disassociate the land from the State of Israel. East Jerusalem was similarly invented. What is "East Jerusalem"? In the Christian Bible every single instance when a specific location in Jerusalem is mentioned it refers to an area that the E.U. would now see given to the Palestinians. The term "East Jerusalem" cannot be found in a Christian Bible. And that is because "East Jerusalem" is about as real as Santa Claus. The expression "the Lights of Chanukah" refers to the Menorah in the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The EU sees the Temple Mount (the site of the Holy Temple in Biblical times) as included as part of this mythical creation of "East Jerusalem" in its unholy Palestinian state. There is no "East Jerusalem" in Judaism. According to Wikipedia: "East Jerusalem refers to the part of Jerusalem captured by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and subsequently by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. It includes Jerusalem's Old City and some of the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, such as the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher." So, "East Jerusalem" is Jerusalem's Old City and its surrounding neighborhoods. The original and oldest parts of Jerusalem are in this "East Jerusalem". There has never been in history an independent municipal entity known as "East Jerusalem". And, for the record, there has never been an independent national entity known as Palestine...But, that is another story. When anti-Israel extremists created the term "East Jerusalem" it was for one reason. They wanted to rip Israel's capital apart in order to defeat Israel. This effort tragically gained full force with the Oslo Accords. This was fully explained in the B'tzedek Online Journal on December 30, 1996 in an editorial titled The War Has Just Begun: "The Oslo Accords are indeed the fulfillment of the PLO "salami" strategy. That is to say, Israel shall be destroyed not through overt military action of Arab nations, but through the whittling away of Israeli resolve and slow but determined territorial expansion of a Palestinian state. Slice by slice Israel will be carved away by the knife of terrorism and world opinion, both deftly handled by the Israeli created Palestinian entity." The very name Jerusalem means city of peace, city of completeness and city of perfection. This was something that Bible believing Americans of all faiths in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were taught. See Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (1869) and Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) for more on the fascinating derivation of the name Jerusalem. A Jerusalem that is not complete is just not Jerusalem. The United States can do much to confront the EU on Jerusalem. The late Senator Jesse Helms wrote in 1996 that "Israel is the only nation in the world denied the right to choose its own capital. This second class citizenship among nations must end". Now is the time for friends of Israel to apply more pressure on the Obama Administration to move America's Embassy. The U.S. government has failed to relocate the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv for over ten years. The Jerusalem Embassy Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on October 23, 1995 and the law reads that "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999". "For Zion's sake I am not silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I do not rest," reads Isaiah 62:1. For Jerusalem's sake contact your Congressman today and demand that the Jerusalem Embassy Act be honored. Moshe Phillips is a member of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI. The chapter's website is at: www.phillyafsi.com and Moshe's blog can be found at http://phillyafsi.blogtownhall.com. |
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IT IS TIME TO THANK A COW
Posted by Susana K-M, December 16, 2009. |
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This was written by Bill Katz. |
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AND NOW THE TRUTH — AT 10:55 A.M. ET: Well, finally it's out there, for the world to see. Many of us knew this, but were waiting for final, scientific confirmation before going public: The real secret to saving the planet is...cows. It was always the cows. But our own bigotry and lack of cultural sensitivity made us blind to the reality. Now, we've got to get past that dark period. The truth hurts, as Fox reports: The United States is counting on cows to help save the planet. U.S. Secretary Tom Vilsack announced an agreement with the American dairy industry Tuesday to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020, mostly by convincing farmers to capture the methane from cow manure that otherwise would be released into the atmosphere. "This historic agreement, the first of its kind, will help us achieve the ambitious goal of drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions while benefiting farmers," Vilsack said at the U.N. climate talks. "(The) use of manure of technology is a win for everyone." Agriculture accounts for about 7 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The plan calls for persuading more American farmers to purchase an anaerobic digester, which essentially converts cow manure into electricity. The problem is that, so far, only 2 percent of U.S. dairy farmers are using the technology, mostly because it is too costly for family farmers. Oh, but now the technology will spread. And someday, when you see Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid on some device powered by electricity, you'll understand what's making their voices possible. You know, historians tell us that Joe McCarthy was advised by his mentors to stop his Congressional hearings and spend his time advancing Wisconsin cows. If he'd done that, Joe could've been president. But he had that same demeaning attitude toward cows that the rest of us did, and he went down the wrong path. It's time to thank a cow. If a cow moos at you, just say, "Thanks Elsie, and thanks for my microwave oven and vacuum cleaner." No glass of milk will ever taste the same. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: THE BUM RAP
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 16, 2009. |
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What I begin with today is a thematic follow-up to what I wrote yesterday about the mosque in Yasuf. Whether it turns out that "radicals" in the Jewish community of Samaria were responsible for the vandalism in that mosque or not, what disturbs me is the alacrity with which many people — Jews included — rushed to make the assumption that they were, even when evidence was lacking (and there was plenty of evidence that it might have been Arabs who did it). I've written, and will continue to write, about the bad press and vilification that the Jews of Judea and Samaria are subject to. These "right wing settlers" who create a stumbling block to negotiations and cause Arabs difficulties. Or so it goes. ~~~~~~~~~~ Here I want to touch upon a similar story, which makes the same point: Back in December 2008, charges were made that when the police were evacuating Beit Hashalom in Hevron one officer was injured when an activist resisting the police action threw acid in his face. This was reported in the Jerusalem Post. There was doubt within the community of Hevron regarding the authenticity of this claim. And so a request was made to the Post that it be checked out. Yisrael Medad has written about this in his blog (http://myrightword.blogspot.com) but it is unclear to me as to whether it was he who actually made the request to the Post. Time dragged on without confirmation or resolution of the issue. At some point Medad then made a very specific suggestion: "why not ask the police medical department if any policeman was treated for acid burns and ask the payments section if any policeman received sick leave and compensation for his acid wounds." It was then Susie Dym, an activist who heads Mattot Arim, who followed through. She founded it particularly disturbing that this incident was referred to time and again as an example of "settler violence," even though it had never been verified. She saw this as just one of a litany of false charges that are leveled at "settlers." And guess what? The Post has now printed an article stating that the claim was unsubstantiated. No one was ever charged in connection with this alleged act. Said Dym, "They [residents of Judea and Samaria] have not committed one-thousandth of the [crimes] of which they have been accused." ~~~~~~~~~~ I raise the next issue reluctantly. I have, in fact, resisted writing about this for an international audience, because I believe it is very much an internal Israeli affair. But it has made the press in such significant measure, that it seemed to me time to explore the issues for my readers: It involves, at core, the use of the IDF for police work, rather than reserving our armed forces for defense of our nation. We are the exception among democracies in this respect: in most — if not all — other democracies, armies can be used only for national defense. Not here. The army was used in the evacuation in Gush Katif, and is used in certain actions in Judea and Samaria. These political actions pit Jew against Jew, splitting the nation apart and destroying army morale. ~~~~~~~~~~ Underlying the current situation we see these basic facts: Religious nationalist young men serve most eagerly in the IDF, volunteering in disproportionate numbers for elite combat units and exhibiting an exemplary bravery and loyalty. Their religious underpinning gives them an understanding of why defense of Israel is important. What is more, the religious nationalist educational institutions — yeshivas of a particular stripe — teach this point of view. It is deeply bred into the perspective of these young men, as religious Israelis with an obligation to the nation and the people. When you read a story, during war time, of a young commander who throws himself on a grenade, for example, to save his unit, it is most likely to be a person who was a religious nationalist. For decades, the IDF has run a five-year "Hesder" program, which allows these religious young men to combine religious study in participating yeshivas with army service. There are 7,500 who are enrolled this program, and tens of thousands of Hesder graduates who serve in the reserves. ~~~~~~~~~ In Samaria, there is a yeshiva called Har Bracha, headed by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, which until just days ago was part of the Hesder program. Rabbi Melamed, concerned with Jewish teachings and law about the sanctity of the land for Jews, told his students who were going to be serving in the army that they should refuse orders regarding a building freeze or evacuation of Jews in Judea and Samaria. Minister of Defense Ehud Barak — hard-nosed, secular and left-wing — was furious because it is essential to maintain discipline in the army. He cut Rabbi Melamed's yeshiva from the Hesder program. Now, Barak has a point about the need for army discipline. A soldier in the field absolutely must obey orders or the whole system breaks down. However (and this is a big "however"), that is the case when the army is fighting an enemy and acting to protect the nation. The problem has arisen because the army is being used in political actions as well. There were perhaps ways of handling this other than the way Barak chose. Certainly it could have been decided that the army would no longer be used for political tasks (with a law ultimately passed with regard to this) — that only the police and related law enforcement units would be involved. Or — though more complicated — possibly some sort of "conscientious objection" principle could have been instituted, exempting soldiers who believe they are bound by Jewish law to retain and develop Judea and Samaria from participating in actions that restrict or prohibit Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. ~~~~~~~~~~ Barak's approach is counterproductive. He is acting against and alienating the very best soldiers that the IDF has. Not a smart move, nor one that expresses appreciation and respect for these soldiers. The very religious conviction that makes them the best of soldiers because of their devotion to the land and their desire to defend it, also makes them devoted to the retention of Judea and Samaria as a matter of religious belief. This week, dozens of reserve soldiers and officers who had been educated in Hesder yeshivas sent a petition to Barak: "Many of us fought in the Second Lebanon War and in Cast Lead with a willingness to carry out any order and even to give our lives for the protection of the State of Israel. Rabbis who head other yeshivas in the Hesder program have rallied to the support of Rabbi Melamed, who is seen as exhibiting enormous clarity of moral vision. Additionally, interest by high school students in attending Har Bracha yeshiva after graduation has grown considerably. I don't know if there can or will be a positive resolution to this situation, or if it will be allowed to fester. The prime minister has refused to get involved. Since the time of the Gush Katif evacuation, I have felt that any major threat to Judea and Samaria would lead us toward civil war. This is just a hint of what might come if, G-d forbid, we were to see attempts to move out the residents of Judea and Samaria. May such a day never come. ~~~~~~~~~~ A small correction from yesterday. Abbas is not demanding that WE recognize that we must pull back to the '67 lines, including in Jerusalem, before he'll come to the table. He is demanding this recognition from the international community. For this we can thank, first, Obama, and then, the EU. Abbas is convinced that he can get what he wants without negotiation. From us, at this point, he is demanding a complete and total freeze everywhere beyond the Green Line. He says that he will bring this to the Security Council, and ask that body to recognize a Palestinian state within these lines. With regard to this happening, I remain essentially dubious. ~~~~~~~~~~ More after Chanukah is over. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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EICHLER: MEDIA IS AFRAID RELIGIOUS SOLDIERS WILL TAKE OVER
Posted by Gil Ronen, December 16, 2009. |
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Journalist and former Knesset member Rabbi Yisrael Eichler thinks that the crisis regarding the Hesder yeshivas is a gift from G-d, Who is revealing the hellenizing element in the nation on Chanukah, the holiday which marks the victory of the true believers over the hellenizers. "The media is waging a long-term battle against the religious soldiers in the army because it fears that they may take command and establish a Jewish state here," Eichler said. "The slogan — 'the Rabbi's command or the commander's command' — essentially says that Man is sovereign, not the Sovereign of the World [Ribono shel olam in Hebrew — one of the names for G. Warning from Ketzaleh The Chairman of the National Union, MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh), enumerated Monday in the Knesset plenum the decrees promulgated against the Nation of Israel throughout history. He also mentioned the latest edicts by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, including the freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria and the decision to cut off the Har Bracha Hesder yeshiva. "The Nation of Israel will not let you forget your deeds," He warned Netanyahu. "The Prime Minister will be remembered not as one who followed the footsteps of [early Zionist leader Ze Jabotinsky and [former prime minister Yitzcha Shamir, but as one who is a link in the chain of leaders who pass edicts against Israel," Ketzaleh said. MK Uri Orbach (Jewish Home) also attacked the Defense Minister following his decision to discontinue the military's arrangement with the Har Bracha yeshiva, using the opportunity for a swipe at Barak over his alleged employment of an illegal domestic worker from the Phillipines. "Barak thinks the heads of the Hesder yeshivas are his Filipino workers," he said. "He needs to be told that the yeshiva heads are not his illegal Filipinos but citizens with equal rights." "Did Barak make his decision because Rabbi Melamed did not show up with polished military shoes and a beret?" he asked. This was written by Gil Ronen, writer for Arutz Sheva and it was published today in Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com) |
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JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN SAMARIA FIND FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK
Posted by Hana Levi Julian, December 16, 2009. |
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Jewish communities in Samaria have discovered a new way to get their message out to the world — through the Facebook social networking web site. "We are using web-based social media to network international support for the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria," explained David Ha'Ivri, executive director of the Shomron Liaison Office in Samaria. Ha'Ivri makes a point of posting the latest news and information about events being held at Jewish communities nestled among the hills in the region on the organization's Facebook page several times a day. Its Info page, "Friends of the Jewish Communities in the Shomron,"
The page has garnered "hundreds of members a day for the past two weeks," according to Ha'Ivri — 2,434 official members of the group, actually — who the activist said have been meeting at the site "to organize real live events at international locations. In the past two weeks, the group has been involved in demonstrations and events in Melbourne, Australia, New York City, Loveland, Colorado, and New Mexico, opposing the building freeze in Judea and Samaria. At last count, there were 2,434 official members of the group, with an active board of administrators that includes students and professionals, Jews and non-Jews, "even a dentist from Nairobi," noted Ha'Ivri. The group is also organizing web-based activities for "armchair activists," he said. "An armchair activist is a person whose activism is realized via his ability to do things on the Internet, blog, talkback, send faxes and emails to elected officials, web design, produce content for web sites and edit Wikipedia," he explained. "There are people around the globe who support Jewish rights in Judea and Samaria — this forum is giving them a platform to unite and work together to actually do something," he added. In the "Discussions" area, the group shares photos and information about violent police actions in the region. There is also a media response team that monitors and responds to reports on Judea and Samaria around the world, and a group that plans for ecological pilot projects in Samaria communities, Ha'Ivri said. "It's not all about the struggle with the building freeze. It's about supporting the Jewish communities in Samaria" "Some members have already donated funds for needs that they learned about via the group, like the Itai Zar Legal Fund, and planting trees in Samaria to symbolize Jewish growth and setting down roots." Hana Julian writes for Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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EUROPEANS FINANCE ISRAELI NGOS ADVOCATING DRAFT-DODGING;
RADICAL INDOCTRINATION IN PAKISTAN; P.A. ESCALATES DEMANDS
Posted by Richad H. Shulman, December 16, 2009. |
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EUROPEANS FINANCE ISRAELI NGOS ADVOCATING DRAFT-DODGING NGO Monitor finds that the EU, the Netherlands, and a Dutch sect finance a radical Israeli NGO, New Profile, that advocates draft-dodging in Israel. "As reported in the Jerusalem Post, New Profile has been prohibited from making presentations in public schools due to its calls for Israelis to refuse to serve in the military." (www.imra.org.il, 12/14). Many people assert a devotion to democracy. Here is an example of a foreign country trying to subvert a supposed democracy and its national security. MORE EVIDENCE IRAN PURSUED NUCLEAR WEAPONS Foreign intelligence services have discovered evidence that Iran was testing how to trigger a nuclear weapon. Iran did this after U.S. intelligence estimated that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program (www.imra.org.il, 12/14). FOREIGNERS INDOCTRINATED IN PAKISTAN IN RADICAL ISLAM 
Hundreds of Muslim youth, mostly from Asia and Africa, enter Pakistan on student visas. They seek a cheap Islamic education. Many also receive Radical indoctrination. They may return to their own countries ready to commit terrorism. Pakistan said it tries to bar them, and has not issued student visas since 2005, but they come on student visas (A.P. and Washington Post in www.imra.org.il, 12/14). If Pakistan does not issue student visas, where do the students get them? If it doesn't want foreign students, why does it admit them? ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER TAKES CONTROL OF JERUSALEM DEMOLITIONS PM Netanyahu has taken control of house demolition in Jerusalem. No court order to demolish may be implemented without his permission, now. Apparently he is taking foreign criticism into effect (www.imra.org.il, 12/14). Netanyahu asserts that Israel is independent, Jerusalem belongs to Israel, and Israel will decide what to do with it. That is what he says. What he does, however, is cave in to foreign pressure, negating his assertions. He lets foreign pressure rule Jerusalem. He may think he is clever in dealing with the U.S.. Actually, he encourages further interference, making that interference seem part of the natural order. This is not clever at all. Another of my sources, Winston Mideast Report & Analysis, finds that Netanyahu and Barak have resorted to their old and futile policies of appeasement of foreigners. They show no initiative to solve problems or to defend the country better. In Winston's opinion, as before, they are letting the Palestinian Authority build up a momentum for another Intifada, rather than stopping it. Personally, I think they suffer from a lack of loyalty, courage, and imagination but not from a lack of egotism. ARAB TERRORISTS STOPPED AT ISRAELI CHECKPOINT 
Two Palestinian Arabs approached an Israeli checkpoint near Nablus. The soldiers told them to halt, but they tried to get by, until the troops fired warning shots. The Arabs were carrying a stun grenade and an explosive device. Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA reminds us that people complain that checkpoints humiliate people, but this is one of many instances in which checkpoints sever their purpose, terrorist crime-prevention www.imra.org.il, 12/14). Every time we Americans check into an airport, we have to pass a checkpoint. We wish we did not have to, but we do not feel humiliated. Claims of humiliation are suspect. This is especially true, because Arabs have checkpoints, too. The PLO used to have them in Jordan and Lebanon. They don't mind checkpoints in principle. If the people passing through checkpoints are not groped or insulted, there is no humiliation. On the other hand, the Arabs do insult the guards. They are encouraged to do so by an organization of leftist Israeli Jews, Machsom Watch, so perhaps it is the Israelis who are humiliated at checkpoints, necessary barriers to terrorism. PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ESCALATES DEMANDS OF ISRAEL 
Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), has escalated his demands of Israel. First, he would not negotiate a final peace agreement, unless Israel froze all building beyond the Green Line. Now he demands that first Israel agree to withdraw from beyond the Green Line. This is contrary to the Road Map to which he had agreed (www.imra.org.il, 12/15) and to the Oslo Accords. There would not be much to negotiate, if Israel agreed. Now Israel's lack of policy and propaganda in the national interest manifests most clearly. Here is Abbas, a terrorist, violator of agreements, afraid to run for re-election, and surely an extremist. There is Israel, releasing dozens of checkpoints, thousands of convicted terrorists, and millions of dollars among other measures to "strengthen Abbas." He never is strong enough, except to make trouble for Israel. Isn't it now clear that Israeli policy of appeasement failed? All those years Israel wasted by waiting for Arab peace offers that never came, creating the Palestinian Authority Frankenstein in the first place (which imposed a PLO dictatorship upon resident Arabs), and assisting the P.A. even though the P.A. works to topple Israel and not just seize the disputed Territories. Israel failed to maintain its independence from agreements such as Oslo and Road Map involving foreigners. Israel failed to institute a policy for Jewish national development in its core homeland, Judea and Samaria. It let Jews build where they would instead of expanding and annexing steadily outward from the State of Israel and in a way that would enhance security instead of allowing a hodgepodge mixture of communities such that terrorists could attack or menace Jewish ones. Israel forgot the Talmudic notion that can be interpreted that if Israel does not stand up for itself, who would. YESHIVA HEAD REBUKES ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER Some Israeli students from institutions that combine yeshiva training with pre-military training indicated they would not follow IDF orders to expel Jews from their houses in Judea-Samaria. Defense Minister Barak demanded that Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, head of the Har Bracha Yeshiva, denounce the students. The principal says that he does not advise the students what to do, and will not denounce their exercise of conscience. Unable to bully the Rabbi, the Minister cut off funding for the whole institution. Rabbi Melamed has rebuked the Defense Minister. He said, "They attack us and say that a soldier must have a commander and that the commander cannot be his rabbi. The Defense Minister accuses us of destabilizing the foundations of democracy and inciting the students to refusal, and of damaging the spirit of the IDF." The rabbi then gave examples of his supporting operations of military
defense
In my opinion, those political operations impair national defense. Territorial withdrawals have led to wars, for which Barak shares in the guilt of facilitating. They have put Israel in a dire strategic position, as tens of thousands of enemy rockets now are trained on Israel. They contradict the sober assessment by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff that Israel must retain most of the Territories, in order to be able to defend itself. And of course, they forfeit Jewish national rights to enemies.
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 and visit his website:
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MAKING YOUR TRAVELS MEANINGFUL FOR OTHERS
Posted by Partners in Kindness, December 16, 2009. |
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Articles for Partners in Kindness are edited by Shmuel Greenbaum. The author wishes to remain anonymous. |
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I received this e-mail about a woman in Israel who collects toiletries for the poor: About a month ago, two very poor-looking, tiny, thin women knocked on my door, begging for anything. They weren't at all unlikable and I felt so badly; they must have been so desperate to even have the courage to do this. See the website: http://www.PartnersInKindness.org |
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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: HAPPY CHANUKAH
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, December 16, 2009. |
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This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: One of the great joys of photography is creating images that cannot be seen with normal viewing. There are two ways of achieving this: by random experimentation or by pre-visualization and intent to create what one envisions. This photograph was made via the latter method, in an attempt to take a frequently-photographed subject and make something entirely fresh. This shot required fooling the camera into shooting what it
considers to be a mistake, namely a subject that is way out of focus.
I have my camera set so that the shutter triggers only when the camera
locks on focus. In order to throw the intended subject out of focus, I
had to point the camera at a distant object, press halfway down on the
shutter release button to activate auto-focus and then, without
releasing the shutter, recompose the image with the closer, but now
blurred, subject. May the light of the menorah shed new light on all
your creative adventures. Chag Urim Sameach.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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11 HURT, 3 ARRESTED AT SHOMRON COMMUNITY TZUFIM
Posted by David Ha'Ivri, December 15, 2009. |
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After five and half hour protest Civil Administration Freeze inspectors impound Bulldozer from Shomron community Tzufim via alternate exit way. Hundreds of towns people block main entrance for over five hours. Today at about 15:00 Civil Administration building inspectors impounded a bulldozer from a building site that had already been approved and foundations poured before the building Freeze decree came into effect. Three hours into the protest police representatives announced that they acknowledge their mistake and that they would release the heavy machinery and called on the protesters to return to their homes. Only then did it become known that this was a trick and that the riot police where being called in to deal with the situation and open the way for the trailer to truck out the bulldozer. At least 11 residents were injured in police violence and three other were arrested. See report below from Tzufim resident, Gila Slonin, below.
See also
Thank you,
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Tzufim is usually known to be a quiet yishuv, less hard core then most of the yishuvim in the Shomron. 
Today however and yesterday we saw something at Tzufim that has never happened before, as the Minhal Ezrachi came into the yishuv they were greeted by barbed wire fencing and and a human barrier and other obstacles. They had come to administer stop work orders on housing for which building had commenced some time ago and foundations were built. The work orders were shown to the "pakachim" but they were not prepared to listen. They had come for a battle and battle they did! The violence meted out by the border police and the yasam were horrifying. As they tried to remove the large trailer with earthworks vehicle they had confiscated the protests were tremendous. However, it is very difficult to stand up to a vehicle of this size as it reverses into the crowd. This did not succeed so they tried to drive forward into the crowd.a fight ensued and then it was agreed to discuss the situation and and try to reach an agreement. Meanwhile chanukah candles were lit in a most uplifting way and peace reigned for a few short minutes. The violence then began again as the border police and yasam attacked men, women and children and the truck drove into the crowd as the border police brutally removed people. 
Amid great protest the truck left the Yishuv through a secondary exit. This is a sad day for democracy law and order.! If you see headlines about a border police woman being attacked the
facts are that she walked into a crowd of youths who were protesting.
They yelled at her and she then began vomiting. NO ATTACKS or violence
were directed at her!
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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FROM ISRAEL: RUSH TO JUDGMENT
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 15, 2009. |
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Last Friday, in the Arab village of Yasuf, in Samaria, near the Jewish community of Tapuach, a mosque was vandalized. News reports spoke of the fact of "mosque arson," but in point of fact the mosque wasn't torched. Korans and prayer rugs were burned, while the mosque was left intact — this fact visible from photos. Graffiti was written in Hebrew on the wall of the mosque: "Price tag — Greetings from Effi." This is presumed to represent a radical group of "settlers" who have vowed to extract a price from the Arab population every time the Israeli government restricts development by Jews in Judea and Samaria. It is thus being assumed in many quarters that Jews did this in "revenge" for Netanyahu's building freeze. Across Israel there have been condemnations of this act — including by law enforcement officials and rabbis. The fact that they felt the need to condemn this passionately seems to indicate that they were assuming that it was likely Jews who did it. There were statements by law enforcement officials about how it's time to get tougher with the "extremists" in Judea and Samaria. ~~~~~~~~~~ I believe that the assumption that "extremist" Jews did this IS a rush to judgment. There is a mind-set that tends to paint the "settlers" as bad, a danger to peace. This perception has been shaped by Arab and leftist PR and been assimilated to a large degree. And the assumption that Jews who live in Samaria set fire to a mosque fits right in with that. If it turns out that Jews did do this, I will roundly condemn them. But I am not prepared to do so yet, for a host of reasons: the law enforcement officials have come out full force in investigating this. But as I write, there is not only no suspect, but no lead. Clearly, they keep close tab on those Jews considered to be radical. That there is not even a "lead" after four days gives pause. The fact that there was an ostensible graffiti "signature" from a radical group does not, of course, mean that this group really did the vandalizing. As the Regional Council of Samaria pointed out, "Who would be stupid enough to leave a name?" ~~~~~~~~~~ And there is more: Reports I received today indicate that the mosque has already been cleaned up, so that a police investigation of the "scene of the crime" is impossible. (News reports did say that the PA was going to be doing the clean-up.) As it was, the damage was relatively minimal. Not destruction of a mosque, but of the accessories of prayer — just enough destruction to make press and to make a fuss over. ~~~~~~~~~~ Over a period of years, there have been accusations of Jewish "radicals" cutting down Arab olive trees, but on several occasions it turned out that Arabs themselves had cut down the trees to make Jews in the area look bad. Seems strange from our perspective, that they would damage their own property. But that's because we don't think as these Arabs do. The same thinking takes place in Gaza. Terrorists target the crossings from Israel into Gaza, making it necessary for Israel to close the crossings for a period. This means that the supplies don't get to the people. But that's OK, for it's more important to make Israel look bad for closing crossings. Ponder this carefully. The working assumption is that the mosque was vandalized by a radical Jewish group in "retaliation" for the government freeze. But the freeze wasn't just announced. It's a good couple of weeks old. So why now? What is new is the priority map, which was just announced last week by Netanyahu. It indicates which communities will receive special attention. And guess what? A number of communities in Judea and Samaria were included (more follows on this below). How threatening to the Arabs who want to see us move back to the Green Line. Is it coincidence that the "arson" took place last Friday, just two days after the announcement? When a contingent of rabbis from the Shomron (Samaria) tried to visit Yasuf, they were rebuffed. The residents there said these rabbis were radicals, or associated with radicals. I though this a little strange, as one of the rabbis was Rabbi Froman of Tekoa, who has a reputation of sustaining warm relationships with Arabs, and he had brought his Arabic-speaking son with him. What did the Yasuf villagers say? That they need the land to be rid of "settlers." No peaceful co-existence. No acceptance of peaceful gestures. Get out. I noted this carefully when it was said, and everyone else needs to note it, as well. The vandalized mosque potentially provides "evidence" for the world to see of why Jews should not live in Judea and Samaria. ~~~~~~~~~~ As to that priority map: It has caused considerable dissension within the government. To me what has been taking place is schizoid, with one arm of the government unclear as to what the other is doing. As I noted last week after the priority map was announced (announced just as there was a demonstration against the freeze taking place), it seemed to give a very mixed message with regard to that freeze. And, sure enough, it made the Obama administration uneasy, so that reassurances had to be provided. The communities in Judea and Samaria which were on the map would receive other kinds of assistance, our government said, but not housing assistance. Not clear is whether this set of parameters was for the ten months of the freeze only, or would continue thereafter. The map was approved by the Cabinet on Sunday, after announcements that the decision might be delayed because of objections. Shas objected, and with good reason, because communities where those who were expelled from Gush Katif are settling were not given priority. But the major source of tension with regard to the priorities set by the map emanates from the Labor party. Four party "rebels" have been discontented for some time with Barak's participation in Netanyahu's coalition. (It is likely that the ferocity with which Barak administered the freeze on the ground, adding strictures that weren't in the original announcement, was an attempt by him to show these rebels how tough he is with "settlers.") Now the rebels — Eitan Cabel, Shelly Yacimovich, Yuli Tamir, and Ophir Paz-Pines — say that clearly Barak knew what the priority map would include, and that this is the proverbial straw. According to a spokesman for the rebels, "The chances of us making peace with Barak are the same that this government will make peace with the Palestinians." What is being demanded is that within two to three months Labor leave the government if progress has not been made in the "peace process." The insistence of the left wing in blaming Israel for a failure of the "peace process" drives me to distraction. How, precisely, do they think "progress" is supposed to be achieved when Abbas won't come to the table? (See below on this.) At any rate, this is one of those situations that will bear close watching, as the political implications are real. ~~~~~~~~~~ There are other issues with regard to communities in Judea and Samaria that I will return to as soon as possible. It seems today that there is more to write about than time to do the writing. It is almost time for candle-lighting and then celebration with friends. Here I will simply report that Abbas has announced that he is abandoning the format of the Road Map and refusing to come to the negotiating table until we agree to return to the '67 lines. There is much to say about this, in due course, although we've been watching this unfold; it's not exactly unexpected. (The PLO, by the way, will be formally extending Abbas's term as PA president, until there are elections.) Today in the village of Yasuf, Arabs demonstrated with the demand that Jews get out of the West Bank. And, while I might be mistaken, it seems to me all of a piece. How convenient that they have the "evidence" of the Jews having vandalized their mosque, to show the world why we cannot remain. I am incensed, by the way, that the president of the EU has made a statement about this mosque. How many times, pray tell, has the president of the EU made statements when Arabs killed innocent Jews in Judea and Samaria? Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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THE GREATEST BATTLE OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Posted by Phyllis Chesler, December 15, 2009. |
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I do not think that radical Islamists can yield on the
subject of women's rights any more than they can yield on the subject
of Israel's right to exist, true democracy, freedom of religion, or
tolerance for homosexuals and for dissent. Here, then, is exactly
where the greatest battle of the 21st century is joined.
This is just out in English and Norwegian in Human Rights Service an
online publication based in Norway and read by the Scandinavians.
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For years, the world stood by and did nothing as the Palestinians perfected their diabolical arts of airplane hijacking and suicide terrorism against the tiny Jewish state. On the contrary, the world cheered the terrorists on. Palestinian terrorists were seen as victims or as freedom fighters, Israelis were viewed as the "genocidal" aggressors. Suddenly, the Palestinians became the "new Jews," while the Jewish Israelis became the "new Nazis." Western progressives, including feminists, became more concerned with the occupation of a country that never existed (Palestine) than they were with the occupation of womens' bodies, world-wide. This "narrative" Romance was well funded by the Soviets and the Arab League, housed by the United Nations, supported by the Arab and Western media and professoriate, and by international human rights groups. The bombing of synagogues, the boycotting of Israeli academics, demonstrations against the Israeli "occupation" of Muslim land, and the shunning of Israeli athletes became routine all over Europe. The Arab and Muslim media, joined by their mainstream western counterparts have accused the Jews and the Zionists — falsely — of deliberately shooting down a young Palestinian boy, committing a massacre in Jenin, poisoning Palestinian water, spreading cancer and AIDS among Palestinians, rendering Palestinian men sterile, and harvesting the organs of Palestinian prisoners for profit. The targeting and isolating of Israel continues. Just last week, the EU resolved to promote East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. And, the British government resolved to label products produced by Jewish settlers in order to help consumers boycott them. In the United States, anti-Israel fanatics have started a boycott of Trader Joe's for carrying Israeli products, even going so far as removing Israeli items from the shelves and putting anti-Israel stickers on them. Most recently, on the evening of December 12th, in Vienna, while
Chabad Rabbi Dov Gruzman was conducting the annual ceremony to light
the public Chanukah menorah in Stefanzplatz, a Muslim ran in cursing
Jews, who then began punching and kicking the Rabbi; he then bit off
part of the rabbi's finger. The rabbi was rushed to the hospital where
they re-attached his finger. The attacker was arrested. Chabad's
response was to plan an even larger public ceremony with free jelly
doughnuts for 700, as opposed to the usual 50-60 participants. According to Israeli diplomat Aviva Raz-Schechter, on December 16th-17th in Jerusalem, the Israeli government will be holding a global conference on combating anti-Semitism. This is an important conference and one that should also be held in every major capital of the world. Clearly, that is not happening. If the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority have their way, they hope to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state — without having to negotiate with Israel. And, as mentioned, the Swedes and the EU hope to declare East Jerusalem the capital of that state. Do you really think Jews and Christians will be able to pray at their holy sites in East Jerusalem? Or that a conference on anti-Semitism would ever be held there? Let me be clear. Soon enough, what happens to the Jews happens to others. Thus, 9/11, 3/11, 7/7, and 11/26 were all direct hits on modernity, democracy, Western values, women's rights, and human rights — values which the Israeli state symbolizes. Of course, since the world chose not to stop jihadic terrorism against Jewish Israel, that same terrorism soon went global; a whirlwind of suicide bombings, airplane hijackings, hostage-takings, and massacres have now taken place on every continent. The well integrated, highly assimilated, peaceful Semites (Jews) who were slaughtered by Hitler in a real Holocaust have now been replaced by a less assimilated, more demanding, less peaceful group of Semites (Muslims) who are challenging core Western and European values. Contrary to the politically correct progressive opinion in the West, we, Israelis, Americans, and Europeans, have not "caused" this jihad. I know this in my bones — and I learned it the hard way, the best way. Once, long ago (as my readers here already know), I lived in Kabul, Afghanistan. Almost every day, my Afghan mother-in-law pressured me to convert to Islam. (Yes — my first marriage was to a descendant of Abraham's first son, Ishmael.) Thus, long before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or the emergence of the Taliban, I experienced Islamic gender and religious apartheid up close and personal. Women wore shrouds, sheets, and sat at the back of the bus. Servants were treated like slaves. I was endangered there as a Jew, as a woman, and as an American. I learned that Islamic fundamentalism and doctrines of superiority, which include fear, suspicion, and hatred of the "infidel," are not caused by the West, the Zionists, the imperialists, or the colonialists. Orwell would best understand how language has been used to pervert the truth. Israel is not an apartheid state. Rather, Islam is the largest practitioner of apartheid and of slavery. Israel is not a colonialist, occupying power; rather, it is Islamic history that is characterized by imperialism, colonialism, conversion by the sword, and suppression of dissent. Freud would also understand how the jihadic mind projects and scapegoats Jews and Israel for the sins and crimes of Islam. Still, Islamic gender and religious apartheid is a human rights violation and cannot be justified in the name of cultural relativism, tolerance, anti-racism, diversity, or political correctness. As long as Islamist groups continue to deny, minimize, or obfuscate the problem, and to project their own crimes onto Israel, we all remain in danger. By we, I do not mean only the West. I am also including Muslim dissidents, Muslim feminists, Muslim homosexuals, Muslim freedom lovers — and the large number of Muslims who simply want to lead peaceful lives free from tyranny. In my view, the larger battle of good versus evil, of modernity versus barbarism, the battle for the preservation of western values, will ultimately be won or lost as a function of whether the world supports or sacrifices Israel — and on the field of womens' rights. I do not think that radical Islamists can yield on the subject of women's rights any more than they can yield on the subject of Israel's right to exist, true democracy, freedom of religion, or tolerance for homosexuals and for dissent. Here, then, is exactly where the greatest battle of the 21st century is joined. Dr. Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at City University of New York. She is an author and lecturer and co-founder of the still ongoing Association for Women in Psychology (1969). Visit her website at http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/phyllischesler/ |
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WELL-DEFINED INTENTION OF 'PALESTINIANS'; PALESTINIAN STATE IS
VIOLATION OF AMERICAN LAW; THE CONTAINMENT PLAN
Posted by Sheven Shamrak, December 15, 2009. |
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Happy Hanukkah! The world must understand that the realization of the Jewish National Goal is an intricate part of the global war against Islamic terror and its intention for world domination by Islam! The War on Terror — the Containment Plan by Steven Shamrak (20/10/2006) We hear quite often that it is the fault of the West that the Muslim world hates us so much. They claim that it is Western demands for implementation of democracy, perceived as arrogance by Muslims, that are responsible for the escalation of Muslim terrorism worldwide. They say that Muslims feel disrespected and insulted by Western superiority and the life style, which the West tries to impose on the Muslim world. The message of hate toward the West is loud and clear! I am totally sympathetic with their concerns and agree that we, Western countries, must not impose our values on our Muslim neighbours. We must completely refrain from interference in their way of life! If the governments of Muslim countries and their population do not want to live by and obey the rules of mutual respect and peaceful co-existence with other nations, cultures and religions, we must let them live the way they desire! Therefore, total isolation must be imposed upon them and we have to let them live in complete and total disengagement from us. They want to live in accordance with and under Sharia Law, a genuine Muslim life style and in an environment of malignant terror and hate. Let them enjoy it in complete self-containment! The wishes of the countries and peoples who hate us so much should be respected by Western society. We must allow them to maintain their ignorant life style and let them impose terror and hate on themselves only. This is the Containment Plan: 1. Start active development and implementation of alternative sources of energy, with complete dedication of financial and human resources. Dear Friends, please Support this independent publication with some of your Hanukkah gelt and/or join Ha'Uma network of Zionist supporters of Israel! Well-Defined Intention of 'Palestinians'. Prime Minister Ismail Haniya on Monday told tens of thousands of Hamas supporters his group remains committed to the elimination of Israel, on the 22nd anniversary of its founding: "We will never give up on Palestine from the river to the sea," referring to the pre-1948 borders of the British Palestine Mandate between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. "It is not enough for Hamas to liberate Gaza, nor to establish an emirate in Gaza, nor a state, nor an independent entity... Hamas strives to liberate all of Palestine." Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak After a long history of political indecisiveness, which was detrimental to the interests of both Israel and Jewish people, the Labor and Kadima parties have marginalised themselves to the point of oblivion. Why does Netanyahu follow the footsteps of the self-hating losers and put the political future of Israel, Jewish people and the Likud party in danger? Interference in Justice Process. Government lawyers asked the Supreme Court to reject a petition by Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and others calling for an injunction against the freeze on construction in the communities. (The custom of interference in the judicial process is an ugly habit which has been established by decades of the corrupt reign of the Labor party.) Girls' Power. Last week Dozens of girls succeeded in preventing building freeze inspectors from entering the community of Maaleh Levonah in Samaria while a second group of girls surrounded inspectors in Revava until special Yassam policemen arrived and pushed the youth out of the way, allowing the inspectors to make a quick getaway. There Should be Other Way to Save Shalit. Marwan Barghouti, serving five life terms in prison for involvement in murderous attacks on Israelis, told CNN that he has not changed his political views and that he expects to be one of hundreds terrorists Hamas wants released for the safe return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. (How many Jewish lives will be lost if 1000 terrorist are released.) We Must not Tolerate Self-Haters. Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, has taken an unprecedented swipe at the 'pro-peace' J Street lobby, funded by billionaire George Soros, that also accepts Hamas, saying the two-year-old group is "significantly out of the mainstream." (The same should be said about Israeli politicians, who have been betraying the future of Jewish people!) How Many Burned by Arabs Torahs Have Muslims Replaced? A delegation of Israelis from the West Bank on Sunday brought copies of the Koran to the Palestinian village of Yasuf, where two days earlier a mosque was torched and vandalized Quote of the Week: "They spend a lot of money, even in places where they don't have congregations, they build mosques, they build hospitals, they build anything. They come to Africans and say, "Christianity is asking you to marry only one wife. We will give you four!" ...That is the type of evangelism they are doing: mass-production, so if you have four wives, four children, sixteen children, very soon you will be a village." — Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, recently elected Primate of Nigeria. Likud Against Its Own Platform. Member of Knesset Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) attacked the government's edict to ban Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. The lawmaker asserted that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has broken his promises to Likud voters: "The Likud is now working against its own platform. The struggle is not only the Land of Israel but the bankruptcy of Israeli democracy." (Likud needs a popular uprising from within to restore party ideals! The Israeli leadership uses a dictatorial approach, disregarding the party platform and election promises, placing in danger the future of the Jewish people and stat Palestinian State is Violation of American and International law!
Conclusive proof of Israel's rights under International Law (have been and) will be ignored or over-laid with other, newer Laws designed to cover over original and prior proof texts. Noteworthy among the states that wholeheartedly endorsed Jewish sovereignty over Palestine in all its "historical parts and dimensions" was the United States of America — the same USA that calls Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria an illegal "occupation", supports the creation of a Palestinian State and ignoring that the 1924 Anglo-American Convention on Palestine made the U.S. a "contracting party" to the Mandate. Neither the UN, the EU, the Church nor this American President will give full status to the Jewish Nation/State of Israel under International Law or any Law (it deserved and they actually recognized in the past). Perhaps Jews do not need to wait for Justice to be given to them under the laws of man. Perhaps G-d's Law will prevail or is already prevailing as the Nations spiral down within that proclamation: "I will bless those who bless thee; and curse those who curse thee." (It is time for Jews to take back what is rightfully ours — legally, morally, historically and "The legal title of the Jewish People to the mandated territory of Palestine in all of its historical parts, &converted the 1917 'Balfour Declaration' into a binding legal document." This was recognized on April 24, 1920, when the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council (Britain, France, Italy and Japan), meeting in San Remo, Italy. The provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations and became incorporated into the Mandate for Palestine. Indeed, the "San Remo Resolution," within which the Allied Supreme Council's decision is contained, constitutes what the author terms "the foundation document of the State of Israel, the legal existence of which is directly traceable from that document." The Jewish People were unable to exercise their sovereignty in Palestine for 28 years — it being assigned to the British Mandatory power as their de facto agent (which ignored the League of Nations' resolution and had done everything to deprive Jews of their homeland) — did in no way detract from their 'de jure' rights to the land under international law during that interregnum. The Mandate for Palestine that was ceremoniously incorporated into the US law in 1924 "was a constitution for the projected Jewish state that made no provision for an Arab state and which especially prohibited the partition of the country." Thus the fierce exception the U.S. has taken to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and its unremitting pressure for creation of a "Palestinian State" amount to a repudiation of its signature to the Anglo-American Convention on Palestine. It is in violation of American law and America's obligations under international law. Steven Shamrak was involved in the Moscow Zionist movement. He worked as a construction engineer at the Moscow Olympic Games project and as a computer consultant in Australia. He has been publishing an Internet editorial letter about the Arab-Israel conflict since August 2001 and has a website www.shamrak.com. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com |
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JRSLM MAYOR LEGALIZING ARAB HOUSING; ARAB STABS WOMAN IN
JUDEA-SAMARIA; MUSLIM PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 15, 2009. |
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JERUSALEM MAYOR TO LEGALIZE MUCH ARAB HOUSING About "...the King's Garden area, which is believed to have been an orchard since First Temple times but which has been built over by Arabs in recent years, [Jerusalem Mayor) Barkat said that there are 43 illegal structures against which demolition orders have been issued," and more are "facing court proceedings." "In Silwan, there are 71 structures against which demolition orders have been issued. The new municipal plan would allow construction of apartment buildings up to four stories high in that zone, thus making all but four of the new buildings retroactively legal." Both neighborhoods are near the City of David area. The Mayor's plan would "on the one hand, conserve the valley, and on the other hand, lead to its development and find solutions to some of the homes that already exist on the ground, while developing the entire area for tourism, commerce and housing solutions." The plan aims to "reduce the gaps that currently exist" between the official plans and the reality on the ground, and to "encourage the public to follow the law and public order." The City "would grant retroactive approval to as many structures as it can possibly include in the new plans, but vows to adopt a tough policy of punishment regarding new construction violations." "Barkat's bureau said that in 2009 the municipality carried out 112 demolition orders — 49 of them in western Jerusalem and 63 in eastern Jerusalem." (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/13). The 49 and 63 all involve illegally built housing; almost half of them are in western Jerusalem. From what I have seen of housing statistics, the City refrained from many demolition orders against Arabs, who build illegally much more often. The low numbers here demonstrate the absurdity and hysteria of claims that Israel has been ethnically cleansing Jerusalem, which has tens of thousands of dwelling units. The policy of legalizing already built houses does not "encourage the public to follow the law and public order." It encourages the opposite. Arabs will build illegally, complain, and get anti-Zionist foreign supporters to bully Israel into retroactively legalizing further Arab encroachment, in the struggle to take over. Doubt my prediction? Tens of thousands of Bedouin units in Israel have gotten retroactive legalization and even subsidy in the same way and accompanied by threats of violence and actual violence. Israel is not a country of law and order. What explains the mayor's caving in? I think it is that the psyche of many of my fellow Jews has been damaged by centuries of oppression and defamation, making them oversensitive to criticism by hostiles who cannot be appeased. ANTI-FREEZE EFFORT CHILLS ISRAELI SECURITY 
The IDF reports reductions in its anti-terrorist raids on the Palestinian Arab areas to a bare minimum. It diverts forces to escort building inspectors enforcing the freeze against Jews in Judea-Samaria who resist the inspectors' incursion and notices (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/13). This impairs national security in the short run. It is a sad trade off against resisting the freeze, which may be followed by extensive ethnic cleansing of masses of Jews, which would destroy national security in the intermediate run. See the U.S. Chiefs of Staff report that found Israeli defense dependent on retaining most of the Territories. ARAB STABS WOMAN IN JUDEA-SAMARIA 
An Arab man stabbed a Jewish woman in the back on a road between Jerusalem and Hebron and Kiryat Arba. The assailant fled into a nearby Arab village. The Highway 60 intersection where the woman was waiting for the bus formerly had an IDF checkpoint, because terrorists found it a convenient route to several Jewish communities. To improve the quality of life for PM Netanyahu removed that and most checkpoints in Judea-Samaria (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/14). Or was it a vain attempt to appease the hostile U.S. State Dept.? After all my reports of Arab terrorism, no critic of Israel has commented against the terrorism. Will our media ignore this terrorism, and then praise the Palestinian Authority for halting terrorism? CHIEF RABBIS IN SOLIDARITY WITH VANDALIZED MOSQUE IN SAMARIA An Israeli Chief Rabbi and many rabbis from Judea-Samaria condemned the vandalism of a mosque in Samaria. Some rabbis and Cabinet members pointed out that every day Jews are attacked somewhere, without foreign sympathy or outcry, whereas the occasional incident of this sort receives both (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/14). U.S. PRESSES ISRAEL TO REMOVE IDF FROM NORTHERN GHAJAR Ghajar is a town straddling the Lebanon-Israel border, from whose Lebanese side the U.S. is pressing Israel to remove its troops. Many residents do not want to come under Hizbullah control, and ones on the Israeli side fear that Hizbullah would get to them, too. The U.S. contends that this withdrawal would remove Hizbullah's excuse for retaining its arms (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/14). Is that a considered argument, but cynical or naive? Hizbullah would find another excuse or just say it has to protect against future Israeli "aggression." It already has another excuse, claiming another area. A jihadist movement is not bound by ethical logic, as the State Dept. would have us suppose. By what logic is the State Dept. bound, with this naïve or cynical argument? METHODS FOR U.S. AGAINST AL-QAIDA 
The U.S. may not be using enough practical methods against Al-Qaida. Problem in Afghanistan is that we may be taking on large segments of the population. Thus the number of troops we have is less important than how many natives join the enemy or us. The people do not like the corrupt regime we support there. Neither are they loyal to central governments imposed on them. Trying to raise their standard of living may not help much. Unless we are careful, we may motivate the Pashtun, who comprise most of the Taliban, and most of whom are not allied with al-Qaida, to work with al-Qaida. Pakistani Pashtun do not have an international agenda against the U.S.. The greater danger to the U.S. turns out to be from Muslim youth in the U.S., radicalized to become terrorists. As for al-Qaida, it has lost popularity among Muslims and has much less funding. It agents are being hunted down. It is less of a menace than before. Where anti-terrorism efforts are local and understand what binds terrorist networks, the efforts work. The most binding ties in Afghanistan and Pakistan are tribal, familial, and cultural. [Religion is not mentioned, perhaps because it is not relevant to the issue.] Other ties are forged with combat buddies. Authorities in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia ascertain which schools and families produce most jihadists. They follow those ties, and gain access to terrorist networks they then shut down. Indonesia and the Philippines achieving successes that have reduced once feared organizations into minor kidnapping gangs. What role does culture play? The Pashtun tribes depend on their tribal code to tamp down strife. That code includes autonomy. right to bear arms, women's purity, the right to personal revenge, sanctity of guests, and sanctuary. Hence, rewards for turning in Bin Laden, who has applied for sanctuary, have not induced his betrayal. [This code may be repugnant to Western states.] The Pashtun would not turn bin Laden in, but since he brought them trouble, they asked him to leave. Instead of letting this work out, the U.S. bombed the Pashtun. Hence Pakistani Pashtun offered help to Afghan Pashtun. Likewise U.S. demands that Pashtun disarm and obey a national government instead of their tribe arouse hostility. "My research with colleagues on group conflict in India, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories found that helping to improve lives materially does little to reduce support for violence, and can even increase it if people feel such help compromises their most cherished values. The U.S. may be helping to preserve the Taliban alliance. The U.S. should be helping the Pashtun resist Taliban efforts to centralize rule over the tribes (Scott Atran, NY Times, 12/13, Wk11). MUSLIM PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS "Every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries, according to a human rights organization that is visiting Israel starting Sunday." "Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth," said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities." "During their visit to Israel the delegation will hold a conference on human rights and persecuted minorities at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. The conference will provide new statistics on the persecution of minorities in Muslim countries." "El Shafie said that between 200-300 million Christians are being persecuted in the world, 80 percent of whom lived in Muslim countries and the rest in communist and other countries." Mr. El Shafie himself a convert from Islam to Christianity, was tortured in Egypt. He estimates his membership as 3,000, spread over many countries, including Muslim ones (Jerusalem Post in www.imra.org.il, 12/13). I cannot vouch for those figures, just the problem. RADICAL ISLALMIST SAUDI IDEOLOGY GROWING IN EGYPT Saudi Arabia's Radical Islamist ideology, Wahhabi Salafism, is growing in Egypt. As a result, Egypt's Moslem Brotherhood, barred from elections, nevertheless entered candidates as if independents, and won 20% of the seats. Dr. Aaron Lerner worries about the U.S. donation to Egypt of billions of dollars worth of the best and latest weapons. Those weapons could fall into the hands of Radical Islam. That would have an immediate adverse effect on Israel and an adverse strategic effect on the U.S.. The U.S. has been defending itself from Radical Islam, and hoped to stabilize the Mideast. If Egypt turns Radical, the U.S. would suffer a great defeat in the struggle for civilization (UPI in www.imra.org.il, 12/13). Governments should think through the probable results of policies. Same for U.S. military aid to the PLO and to the Lebanese Army. It is an old mistake.
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 and visit his website:
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MUSLIM SUICIDE BOMBERS TO GO ON STRIKE. (SORRY, IT'S SATIRE)
Posted by Susana K-M, December 15, 2009. |
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Dear Readers, this is the funniest thing I have ever read . British newspapers will faint flat on the floor in the blink of an eye. Poor journalists !!, they are earning their living ; and when your bosses are sponsored by oil-money, well.....bias is nice. And I will be full of spam, e.g . : "Lucky Winner!!!"...."UK Lotery, contact immediatelly."..., "You have won Microsoft Promotion" , "from Mr Amhed Rashid Rajah, dear I need....", "Editor Bob ...how would you like....?" and ON; ON and ON I have always wondered about the 72 "virgins in heaven" : how would they cope with so many "martyrs "? I am serious ! And now this turbaned are going on strike........ Maybe a kick in the head would be more appropriate, then they may wake up to what it's all about. Not sure who wrote it. |
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Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far failed to produce an agreement. The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 25% next January from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife. The suicide bombers' union, the British Organisation of Occupational Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action. General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of jihad. We don't ask for much in return, but to be treated like this by management is a kick in the teeth." Mr. Amir accepted the limited availability of virgins but pointed out that the cutbacks were expected to be borne entirely by the workforce and not by management. "Last Christmas Abu Hamza alone was awarded an annual bonus of 250,000 virgins," complains Amir. "And you can be sure they'll all be pretty ones, too. How can Al Qaeda afford that for members of the management but not 72 for the people who do the real work?" Speaking from the shed in the West Midlands where he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained: "We sympathise with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day jihad, in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up." He defended management bonuses by claiming these were necessary to attract good fanatical clerics. "How am I supposed to attract the best people if I can't compete with the private sector?" asked Mr. Bin-Laden. Talks broke down this morning after management's last-ditch proposal of a virgin-sharing scheme was rejected outright after a failure to agree on orifice allocation quotas. One virgin, who refused to be named, was quoted as saying "I'll be buggered if I'm agreeing to anything like that........it's too much of a mouthful to swallow." Unless some sort of agreement is reached over the weekend, suicide bombers will abandon their explosives at midday on Monday. Most branches are supporting the strike. Only the North London branch, which has a different union, is likely to continue working. However, some members of that branch will only be using waist-down explosives in order to express solidarity with their striking brethren. Further talks will be held... Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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TURKS REFUSE TO PLAY HATIKVAH FOR ISRAELI CHESS TOURNAMENT WINNER
Posted by Israel Ben-Ami, December 15, 2009. | |
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Double standard — rampant — but will gladly use all of Israel aids inventions and medical procedures plus plus plus. Sad day for Turkey !!!! | |
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Malignant Turks refuse to play Israeli national anthem for Israeli chess tournament winner, who stands defiant 
Marcel Efroimski, a 13-year-old Israeli chess prodigy, yesterday became the Girls' Under-14 World Chess Champion when she won the Gold Medal for her age group at the World Youth Chess Championships held in Turkey. This in itself is not of any interest to Jihad Watch — except that during the awards ceremony, the malignant (if not turban'd) and increasingly Islamic supremacist Turkish authorities refused to play the Israeli National Anthem, as is required at such ceremonies. However, young Marcel would not play the dhimmi. She stood on the podium and raised her trophy with an expression of defiance — as you can see from the photo, in which she stands in front of an image of the malignant and unturban'd Ataturk. Kudos, Marcel. With that, you became more than just a winner. You became a hero.
In response the president of the Turkish Chess Federation merely
repeats the time excuse.
Contact Israel Ben-Ami by email at farmer@012.net.il
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HAS HIZBULLAH CHANGED?
Posted by JCPA, December 15, 2009. |
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This below is a summary of "Has Hizbullah Changed? The 7th Hizbullah General Conference and Its Continued Ideology of Resistance." that was written by Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira, a senior research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The full article is JCPA Jerusalem Issue Brief Vol 9, No. 15 December
2009, available at |
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A HANUKKAH GIFT
Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, December 15, 2009. |
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I was born on the 25th Kislev, the month of dreams and the first day of Hanukkah, the day of re-dedication and victory... About ten years ago when my son was twelve and a half, my Mom sent us a Hanukkah gift. It was a blue plastic candle-holder and small candle; one of those little items that comes in cheap colored cardboard wrapped in hard, form-fitting plastic. It was Hanukkah and my son was with me: hence my Mom's sweet remembrance. Before supper we took out the candle and set it on our collage table by the dining room windows near our familiar Hanukkiyot and precious items like the copper plate my maternal grandparents brought back from the Promised Land in the 1960s, incised with a picture of the huge Eshkol (Bamidbar 14). The little candle was supposed to burn for fifteen minutes, the writing on the cardboard said, and the base would play Maoz Tzur for thirty minutes. "Wonderful," we thought. How sweet and homey, like Mom Mom. The miracle began when we lit the new arrival, shortly after saying the blessings and lighting the nairot in our two standby menorahs. Surely it is not mere coincidence that the word for candles or lamps is cognate with our name... We were reading some wonderful Hanukkah stories and noticed that the little candle had been burning a long time, much longer than advertised; we marveled at it, talking delightedly. The little light flamed for more than half an hour. Beautiful, a little miracle, something special: Mom's love for us and the joy of being together after another long absence. We read, and watched it, and marveled; it made our special time even more special; the power of Hanukkah blending with our happiness in the glad familiarity of our long-time home. Then we realized something more remarkable was happening; in its perky, piping drone, the candle was 'singing' Maoz Tzur for much longer than thirty minutes. We started to pay attention: forty-five minutes, fifty, an hour; an hour and fifteen minutes. It took our thoughts from the stories and the sports flashing on the television. An hour and a half; then a few minutes more: we looked at each other with amazement and awe filled our delight. More time passed; it was singing, determined and lively of the victory over Edom and all the oppressors and invaders; something very special was happening that put our precious time together on an even more special level. Our eyes and hearts were sparkling. With the enthusiasm and wonder of youth, my son went to the table and looked closely at the candle: how could this be? We were the secret, our simple joy and the joy of Hanukkah. But youth has to learn: he reached his hand gently to the little blue plastic toy and picked it up: the song ended. We were a bit dismayed but our wonder reached new heights and with it some questions that will never be completelyll answered: it had been very precious indeed, a moment vivid to this day and always... "Establish for us the seven shepherds..." I was born on 25th Kislev, the first day of Hanukkah when the Temple had been purified and the Menorah lit again, a testimony to the love and rationality of providence, of the Creator's design. When I was a boy in middle school, already I loved to read even as much as I loved baseball, and that was a very great deal. Already I was devouring the great texts, literature and history of Western culture. When I got to College and then again in Graduate School of course I read the "Old Testament," as everyone is taught to call it, with special interest. But still it was part of my studies. After thqt watershed of modern goddess rapture, the cult of divorce and throw-away fathers, amid my struggles to protect my son's relation to me I began to study Judaism as a Jew who had an extensive knowledge of the culture of the West, the culture of Edom built largely of Jewish wisdom it deformed, just as rubble from the Second Temple was used to build the coliseum in Rome: no starker contrast of two cultures is possible. The more I studied Derekh Yehudi, the more I discovered its profound wisdom for living; I gained a greater and deeper perspective on the uniqueness and unique madness and denial of the West and understood with deep appreciation the dictum of the sages that "it is an iron law of nature that Esau hates Jacob." Not scholars of the classical Humanities, they didn't know how right they were, how profound was their knowledge. I wrote increasingly on this topic and began using it as a template for understanding the West; it informs the last three books I've written and even more so the one I'm at work on now, a study that contains no politics, focusing solely on the West as a cultural project that tries to establish a "pure" identity via art, an identity, however conscious of the desire it may be, to slough off its Jewish content that is so radically opposed to its worship of a constructed, idealized image, an image whose beauty or dazzle buries the confusion in its murderous, hybrid heart. I call it the Head of Orpheus and invite seekers of truth, cultural peace, and an end to terrors and fictional history to contribute to it. It seems that the structure and spirit built into my birth date is asserting itself as I grow older; and I see how it has given pattern to my life and studies. I have prepared myself to know and appreciate what the West is to its core and in all its glorious "golden boughs"; my love and struggle for my son, and to keep him attached to my parents and our traditions imbued the study of Judaism the finally enables me to see the West whole, from the outside as well as the inside. As told in a brilliant passage of Midrash HaGadol, Esau will not rest until he involves Ishmael in the murder of Isaac and Jacob, — and then takes him to court, in the Hague, no doubt, piously wringing his pig's knuckles about genocide and gathering his most brilliant architects to build yet another holocaust memorial, their favorite "artifice of eternity..." As I watch the candles burn, candles I lit three hours ago with my son on a cement window sill in a far away land, I think of that small miraculous blue candle and its spirited song, a song that goes on forever, until the appointed time and perhaps during it. And I, I stand astride the greatest cultural divide in history untangling its confusion and identifying the morbid predations of Esau for what they are; the sane joy and wisdom of Derekh Yehudi for what it is and can be. I see that the light of 25th Kislev has been glowing within me and structuring my difficult and unique road. Something of the persistence and courage of the Maccabees and all the House of Israel, I hope, is there too; it must be: were it not, I would not be here with you and still trying to separate the oil and water, the glaring deep darkness from the beautiful warm glow and chessed of the nairot that are rebuilding the Temple. Professor Eugene Narrett is the author of hundreds of articles,
columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He
writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism. His new book
is WW III: the War on the Jews and the Rise of the World Security
State, (www.lightcatcherbooks.com). Contact him by email at
culturtalk@aol.com and visit his website at www.israelendtimes.com
The article appeared on the "Israel End Times" website December 14, 2009
and is archived at
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JEWISH NATIONAL HOMELAND BEING BOUGHT UP BY THE ARABS
Posted by Allan E. Mallenbaum, December 14, 2009. |
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When I was a youngster, in the days when we collected money for the Jewish National Fund to purchase land on which the Jews of Palestine could build their towns and schools, and where they could create their kibbutzim, there was a little ditty often chanted. The lyrics spoke about buying "a dunam of land here, a dunam there, one clod of soil after another." That, effectively, is how Israel was created within the ancient Jewish historic lands, then called Palestine Now, the Arab-muslims want to emulate this technique in order to destroy the Jewish nation from within. Since they've been unable to remove "the Jewish cancer" from the middle east after multiple attempts using the strength of their military, they are trying to do it by the strength of their petro-dollars — your gasoline money, my home-heating oil money, America's power-generating fuel from the Arabian peninsula. This serious and successful sabotage of Israel's right to remain THE Jewish Homeland has gone unreported and unrecognized. Perhaps it's time to revisit and revise Israel's overly-generous policy of granting citizenship to its sworn enemies. Learn about it here. Be prepared for the consequences. And while everyone is focused on the "big issues" like the Iranian Nuclear Threat; Obama's obsession with freezing Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria; the Palestinian Unwillingness to Return to the Negotiation Table, or the Goldstone Report, few are noticing an insidious program by the Arabs to chip away at the Jewish State from within, by purchasing bits and pieces of the Galilee and the Negev's Jewish land. Saudi and Arab Gulf money is transferred to Arab-Israeli citizens with the aim of purchasing Jewish farm lands. The same Arab-Israelis deliberately bankrupt Jewish farmers by setting their crops on fire, stealing herds, and farm equipment. The Galilee is being Arabized and the Negev is getting there...for the rest of the story check below... WORTH CIRCULATING! This below is by Joseph Puder and is entitled "Arabs Find New Way To Beat Israel." |
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The Arab world has found a new way to destroy Israel in bits and pieces. The Arab world is being aided in this endeavor by the European Union and the Swiss government who are targeting the notion of the "Jewish State." The secular, post Christian Europeans seek to undermine the Jewish State and replace it with an Israeli State for "all its citizens." In other words, the European Union believes peace can be achieved by creating a universalist Israel that does away with The Law of Return and the particularistic Jewish nature of the State of Israel. For the Arab world Israel continues to be regarded as a cancer that must be eliminated. Israeli democracy poses too much of a challenge to the arbitrary rulers of the Arab states. For the Saudis, however, Israel is an intrusion into "Dar al-Islam" or the domain of Islam. For the Syrians, they continue to dream of creating a Greater Syria that includes Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, while Egypt views Israel as a strategic competitor. All of the Arab states keep up the pretence of caring about the Palestinians and demanding "justice for the Palestinians" as the excuse to eliminate or shrink the Jewish State into oblivion. The Arabs have employed conventional war and terrorism against Israel ; neither of which has managed to weaken the Jewish State. The Arab League's economic boycott of Israel has not stemmed Israel's economic growth. Diplomatic pressure especially, on the EU, buffeted by huge oil revenue and great purchasing power has helped to isolate Israel, and make it a target for UN condemnation, but that too has not yet produced a feebler Israel. Saudi and Arab Gulf tycoons with billions in cash have arrived at a new and most effective formula. Arab-Israelis and Bedouins are bankrupting Jewish-Israeli farmers in the Galilee and the Negev through theft of herds, the burning of crops, and the stealing of agricultural machinery. Numerous Jewish farmers, as a result, have put their land up for sale. Arab-Israelis with Saudi and Gulf cash are making offers that, in light of the devastating circumstances, are simply irresistible. In the Negev (southern Israel ) the Bedouins (nomadic Arabs) are furiously expanding on government lands, building makeshift towns with Arab Gulf money as well. According to the Absolute Astronomy website, of the 1.2 million residents living in the Galilee area in 2006, 53.1% were of various minorities, while only 46.9% were Jewish. In the Negev the Bedouins represent 32% (175,000) of the Negev population of approximately 554,000 and have a growth rate of close to 4% per annum. At least 80,000 Bedouins live in unrecognized villages situated on Israeli government lands. The unwillingness of the Israeli government to forcibly evict the Bedouins, and the reluctance of the police to interfere is posing a great long term threat to the Jewish State. The Netanyahu government is considering enacting a reform of the Israel Land Administration with the aim of privatizing government lands (80% of Israel's total land). Opposition leaders as well as some coalition members consider such a policy "misguided," and many believe that it would result in Gulf Arabs buying up even more of the Galilee . In the meantime an official with the Israel Land Administration told Israel Radio "that the governmental body which owns most of the country's land is legally powerless to intervene and halt the sale since the transactions involved privately-owned land." And, Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon recently told Israeli radio that the "matter is not under his jurisdiction." A group calling itself Hashomer HaHadash (New Guard) was founded with the aim of protecting farm lands from arson and preventing an Arab takeover of Jewish lands. Its founder, Yoel Silberman, along with fellow former IDF soldiers, established the organization two years ago, which now has 300 members. At a press conference in Tivon last August, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Ram Shmueli declared that Israel is losing the Negev . "This country," he said, "was not conquered by the soldier's sword, but by the farmer's plough. There is no Right or Left here. Our future is in holding on to State lands. It is a deposit no government has the right to get rid of. The State of Israel has a national mission to protect the 4 million dunam that are being stolen from under our noses." Another member of Hashomer Hahadash, Erez Eshel pointed out that, "It shouldn't be that a farmer is afraid to work his land. It starts with bullying on farm lands and ends with bullying on the Tel Aviv promenade. Therefore, what goes on here needs to worry not just a handful of people, but the entire country." While the Gulf Arabs are funding the purchase of Israeli lands in the Galilee and the Negev, the European (EU) governments have provided millions to such groups as Peace Now. The Norwegian government provided the group with 800,000 Israeli Shekels; the EU gave it 451,000 Shekels, and the British government a sum of 540,000 Shekels. The European government donations were given to Peace Now for a project which would track down and publicize Jewish growth in Judea and Samaria known as "Settlement Watch." Not to be left out, the Swiss and Spanish governments funded an NGO named Profil Hadash (New Profile), which encouraged Israeli youth to become draft dodgers. This concerted effort to weaken Israel resulted in a decisive reaction being taken by the Israeli Supreme Court. The court defined Profil Hadash as seditious, and MK Danny Danon of the Likud has called on the Registrar of Non-Profit organizations to drop Peace Now from its list. Danon accused Peace Now of breaking the law by failing to publicize its funding from foreign governments. The Arab strategy is to create a Palestinian State in Judea and Samaria (so-called "West Bank.") An Arab majority in the Galilee, with little prompting from the Arab world, but with ever greater cash promises, would then call for a plebiscite that would demand that the Galilee be joined with Arab Palestine. Similarly, the Arab-Bedouins in the Negev flush with Gulf cash would demand secession from Israel. By funding one dunam at the time, the Saudis and the Gulf Arabs found a way to stab the underbelly of the Jewish State. Contact Allan E. Mallenbaum at aem@optonline.net |
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IRAN. EXPLOSIVE DECEIT
Posted by Susana K-M, December 14, 2009. |
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Below the quotations (indented, font: sans serif) are from a December 14,
2009 Times Online Op-Ed
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OUTSTANDING — AT 9:01 A.M. ET: More on Iran. The Times of London publishes the best editorial on Iran that I've read in months. It sets the scene perfectly for President Obama and what the president faces. A must read: Winston Churchill described the actions of Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The nuclear diplomacy of Iran is constructed more simply: it is one lie after another. Western diplomacy has proved susceptible to the tactic. A US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in December 2007 concluded that Iran was "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005". Documents obtained by The Times reveal that this assessment was worthless. Nice to have clarity of thought, isn't it? ...Iran has sought a nuclear capability. Its efforts have been accelerated in the past decade. The prospect of an Iranian bomb is alarming. They're not very constrained now. Becoming a nuclear power will give them a sense of invincibility. Second, a nuclear stand-off in the Gulf is unlikely to replicate the stable deterrence of the Cold War. In the adversarial relationship of the old superpowers, the threat of massive retaliation deterred the Soviet Union from military expansionism. Communism was brutal, but the Soviet gerontocracy after Stalin was risk-averse. Iran's leadership is not like that. An absolutely critical point, ignored by the armies of "multiculturalism" in America. The Russians wanted to live. The Iranian regime is part of the "we love death more than you love life" fringe of militant Islam. We have a very childish tendency to laugh off that ideology, but we learned on 9-11 that it's very real. Third, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seeks the annihilation of Israel, a sovereign member of the United Nations. The notion that his noisome anti-Semitic rhetoric is somehow explained by a faulty translation from the Farsi is one of the more bleakly fatuous suggestions of recent diplomatic debate. Israel was founded by a people that had doggedly clung to survival through persecution, pogrom and genocide. Israel's leaders have not only the right but the historic obligation to take at face value the threats of a religious millenarian who looks forward to a second Holocaust while denying that the first one ever happened. Finally, someone says that clearly, without a nod to the fashionable leftist antagonism toward Israel. Fourth, Iran invariably seeks to aggravate regional disputes. It was not the aggressor in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, but its retaliation included mining international waters and attacking Kuwaiti oil tankers. We have to assume our Navy is preparing to counter new moves like that.
Finally... Anticipating the end of America's brief post-war nuclear monopoly, Churchill also declared: "We ought not to go jogging along improvident, incompetent, waiting for something to turn up, by which I mean waiting for something bad for us to turn up." Sixty years later, that is precisely what Western diplomacy is doing.COMMENT: All right, Mr. Obama, just what are you going to do about it? Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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AMERICA'S HANUKKAH WISHES FOR 2009
Posted by Rock Peters, December 14, 2009. |
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Oh Lord at Hanukkah you've always been good to me
From Heaven, Lord, I know you look down and see
Jumbo jets flying into World Trade Center Muslim terrorists want to destroy the State of Israel
On top of al-Qaeda's terror
If people just kept the "Ten Commandments"
Moses. Holding the Tablets Oh, Lord, in the "Post 9/11 World"
So that I may feel joy
Bring our soldiers home quickly and victoriously from Iraq and Afghanistan
The White House occupant Resident Barack Obama's spiritual mentor
Oh, God, you will have our
At Hanukah we celebrate the miracle of light
Hanukkah is a time of rededication
We will not surrender to Islamic Fascism
"Israel is my resting place
"The "Stars and Stripes" and the "Star of David" are united forever in the common cause of liberty."
Rock Peters is an author, songwriter, poet and patriot. His
multimedia website — www.godsaveusa.com — is dedicated to
fighting Muslim terrorism. It is both factual and attractive. Contact
him at rockpeters@aol.com
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Posted by Richard Shulman, December 14, 2009. |
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PALESTINIAN ARAB MOSQUE VANDALIZED 
Israel's "Civil Administration received a complaint of vandalism of a mosque in Kfar Yasuf, located southwest of Nablus." The government is investigating. So far, it found hate-filled messages in Hebrew and burning carpet and bookshelves. Israeli security forces are investigating (www.imra.org.il, 12/11). There is no excuse for attacking a mosque, unless it is used as a firing platform. I deplore it. I would like to know who did it. I hope that the Israeli government's undemocratic, anti-Jewish, lawless policies are not bringing a vigilante response. It is difficult to tell, because the government has agents provocateurs. LEBANESE ARMY BARRED FROM PALESTINIAN ARAB BASES IN LEBANON Palestinian Arab terrorists run military training bases in Lebanon, from which Syria bars the Lebanese Army. Every night, Lebanese hear machine gun firing. In the Beqaa Valley town of Sultan Yaqoub, there was an explosion in the base of the PFLP, probably a land mine. The Lebanese Army could not investigate. The Lebanese Army has checkpoints outside the bases (www.imra.org.il, 12/10). The Lebanese Army also has checkpoints outside the towns of descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees, which towns it has agreed not to enter. When terrorists used one of those towns as a haven from which to attack the Lebanese Army, however, the Army fought back, using artillery. Checkpoints against terrorists? Oh my, one can expect Presidents Obama and Carter and Bishop Tutu to denounce them. ABBAS CRACKING DOWN ON HAMAS? Palestinian Authority (P.A.) police arrested 10 Hamas men in four cities, and warned dozens of others (www.imra.org.il, 12/12). What does that mean? Past crackdowns have come and gone, niehter thorough nor permanent. Prisoners got released. Abbas may be more serious about it now, finding Hamas a threat to his rule and his life. But what does that mean? Suppose Abbas were to eradicate Hamas in the Judea-Samaria part of the P.A.. That would leave different terrorists in charge of Gaza and the Judea-Samaria part of the P.A.. Even if Abbas miraculously ousted Hamas from Gaza, his entity still would be jihadist. His Fatah, like Hamas, has ties to Iran. NEW ANTI-SMUGGLING EFFORT BY U.S., EGYPT, ISRAEL The U.S. has installed sensors 15 meters below ground at Rafiah, the site of Sinai-Gaza smuggling. The sensors detect the sounds of smuggling goods and of digging new tunnels. The U.S. states that it will advise Israel of findings. This is in addition to Egypt's clandestine emplacement of steel plates provided by the U.S. to physically block tunnels. Egypt bought some land in Rafiah to make room for the plates. The government of Egypt is reluctant to acknowledge its role in the plates (www.imra.org.il, 12/12). What is the practical effect of all this? Will the U.S. pass on intelligence to Israel? Will Israel bomb all the tunnels? Are Egypt, the U.S., and Israel prepared to face criticism over turning the largely bypassed embargo of Gaza into a very effective one, excepting only humanitarian goods? HAMAS AND HIZBULLAH IN NEXT WAR
Hamas and Hizbullah present new problems in their next war on Israel. Hizbullah has become a major part of Lebanon's government coalition, which, contrary to a Security Council Resolution, has excused Hizbullah from disarming. The Lebanese Army seldom challenges Hizbullah, and usually cooperates with it. PM Netanyahu has concluded that Hizbullah dominates Lebanon and that the Lebanese Army colludes with it. He is considering including the Lebanese Army as targets in Hizbullah's next war. The U.S. keeps spending $410 million a year provisioning the Lebanese Army, despite U.S. concern that Hizbullah would control those arms. Hamas has smuggled in anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and longer range ground-to-ground missiles. Hamas has turned more mosques and apartment houses into dual-use arms depots and command centers. It built more inter-connected tunnels for mobilizing forces between different fronts (www.imra.org.il, 12/12). Using civilian buildings for arms depots and command posts in wartime is a war crime. The Goldstone UN mission was oblivious to that before, in its eagerness to dig up something against Israel. Likewise, the bombardment of Israeli cities, which diminished but ended, is another. The Goldstone report acknowledged that firing those rockets was a series of war crimes, but hardly concerned itself with them. The report therefore lent much "international community" support to Radical Muslim aggression. Accordingly, I have a suggestion for the UN to economize. It reaches its decisions in advance of dispatching investigators. Why bother sending the investigators to make a biased report? Save the money. Just write the report. PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY DEMANDS ALL LAND PAST GREEN LINE Palestinian Authority (P.A.) Prime Minister Fayad demands all the land over the Green Line, the armistice line in effect up until 1967 (www.imra.org.il, 12/12). That would involve massive ethnic cleansing of Jews. He makes it sound as if that land belonged to the P.A. and its people; it did not; the P.A. was formed in 1992. It was the unallocated area within the Palestine Mandate for a Jewish national home, which area was seized by invading, foreign Armies from Jordan and Egypt, in an attempt to conquer Israel. Egypt and Jordan ruled it, oppressively or by neglect. They expelled the Jews living there. SAUDI-YEMEN BORDER WAR: UPDATE 
Saudi Arabia claims to be mopping up Yemeni rebel forces that raided its territory. I do not report much on this, because the mutual claims are by participants and are not vetted by Western reporters. Saudi Arabia claims that the Houthi rebels are resorting to war crimes — using human shields and Yemeni army uniforms — similar to tactics Hamas used against Israel (www.imra.org.il, 12/12). Will Saudi disseminators of a Radical Islamic ideology that breeds
terrorism realize they are bringing strife to themselves?
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 and visit his website:
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SYRIA HITS ISRAEL 'CONFLICT DIAMOND' LEADERSHIP
Posted by Daily Alert, December 14, 2009. |
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This was written by Peter James Spielmann. |
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UNITED NATIONS — Israel, chosen last month to oversee global efforts to end the trade in "blood diamonds" that stokes guerrilla wars, was put on the spot Friday when Syria asked the U.N. General Assembly to delete any mention of the Jewish state's leadership role. The General Assembly suspended its deliberations for consultations Friday morning after the United States, Canada and Israel challenged the Syrian parliamentary maneuver and expressed confusion over what it meant and what effect it would have. After a recess, the General Assembly reconvened, and the Syrian amendment was defeated 90-6, with 18 abstentions. Iran and North Korea joined Syria and some Arab nations in voting against Israel. The Syrian objection came as the Assembly was poised to adopt a Namibia-sponsored resolution welcoming progress over the past year in efforts to cut the trade in "conflict diamonds," which have provoked some of Africa's most vicious civil wars and rebel movements. Syria objected to a passing reference near the end of the six-page resolution that simply noted that nations involved in the Kimberley Process "selected Israel to chair" their efforts in 2010. The decision was made at an annual meeting in November in Namibia. The Kimberley Process imposes stringent requirements on its 49 members to certify shipments of rough diamonds as "conflict-free." The group consists of states and regional economic organizations that trade in rough diamonds, representing 75 countries. Israel is a global trading center for rough diamonds, and was among the founders of the Kimberley Process. The "conflict diamond" issue attracted increased public awareness because of the 2006 Hollywood film "Blood Diamond," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly, which showed how "conflict diamonds" financed civil war in Sierra Leone. Now Ivory Coast is the main remaining offender under watch by the Kimberley Process. 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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ALULID DOLL
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, December 14, 2009. |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il Go to http://freifenberg-newblog.blogspot.com/ to see more of his graphic art. |
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CHIEF RABBI OF TZFAT: ALL RABBIS MUST OPPOSE BARAK'S DECISION
Posted by Hillel Fendel, December 14, 2009. |
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(IsraelNN.com) The Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, plans to initiate an urgent session of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, in light of the decision by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to remove the Har Brachah yeshiva from the Hesder arrangement with the army. Rabbi Eliyahu said he will work to recruit all the rabbis of the country against Barak's decision. The Yesha Rabbis Council of Judea and Samaria, co-headed by Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba and Rabbi Zalman Melamed of Beit El, has already announced its support of Yeshivat Har Brachah and its dean's right and obligation to teach Torah without the army telling him what not to say. Rabbi Eliyahu similarly said that Barak has no right to attempt to undermine the independence of the yeshivot. "The Torah sages throughout the generations were willing to sacrifice themselves in order to maintain the independence of those who hand down Halakhic [Jewish legal] rulings," he said. "We expect the Chief Rabbinate to call upon all rabbis, from all camps, to stand in a united front against the Defense Minister's intentions." One for All and All for One Though not all rabbis in the Hesder Yeshivot Union agree with the strong stance presented by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed of Har Brachah against adhering to orders to demolish Jewish homes and expel Jews from the Land of Israel, the organization says Barak's decision is a "very grave precedent." The Union says in a statement that it will hold an emergency meeting in the coming days to discuss its response, "and we will work to make sure the decision is revoked." One rabbi said it is expected that the rabbis will tell Barak, "We are all for one and one for all," and will not accept Barak's decision to remove the yeshiva from the Hesder arrangement. Hesder Union rabbis also said that it appears that Barak's decision was "made in advance," and that it will act as a boomerang against him. This, because it was learned that Rabbi Melamed had drafted a response that could have been acceptable to the Defense Ministry, but it was turned down just before Barak announced his decision. Rabbi Melamed's response reiterated his previously expressed stance against public protests by soldiers-in-uniform regarding the demolitions — but Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, to whom it was addressed, told Rabbi Melamed, "It's too late; it's out of my hands." Just hours later, on Sunday evening, Barak announced his decision removing Har Brachah from the Hesder arrangement. It is also thought that the increasing popularity of Yeshivat Har Brachah among potential students that has been noted since the beginning of the current clash between Rabbi Melamed and the Defense Ministry will continue. In addition, it is likely that many students who under normal circumstances would have chosen the Hesder path of combining army service and Torah studies, will now choose full-time Torah learning — thus costing the army some of its best soldiers. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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FROM ISRAEL: CHANUKAH
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 13, 2009. |
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Chanukah candles There are two parts to the Chanukah story, and two occurrences that are celebrated: There is our history. In the second century BCE, under the oppressive reign of the Selucid Greek Antiochus IV, Jews were not allowed to practice their religion and the Temple was desecrated. The Hellenists were defeated by the Hasmonean Mattathias, a priest, and his son Judah Maccabee, and their band. The few overcame the many, and their victory was a victory for religious freedom and for religious observance over assimilation. There is the story in the Talmud. When the Temple was cleaned and rededicated, there was enough oil to light the menorah for only one day, and yet it burned for eight days. This is counted as a miracle. We light our candles for eight nights in commemoration of this. But...after we light the candles we sing "al hanisim" — we light for the miracles. And we mention wonders, and redemption and wars, done for our ancestors in that time. So we have the miracle of the victory, not just the miracle of the oil. The victory of the few over the many, and of righteousness over repression. ~~~~~~~~~~ In these terrible and crazy times, it's easy to approach despair, even though it is forbidden to us. It cannot be a secret that every so often I feel it clutching at my heart. But every year, Chanukah comes to remind us not to despair, because of the miracles. And it's not just the miracle of the Maccabean victory. Modern Israel is a victory. Our War of Independence was a miracle. The Six Day War was a miracle. We must draw strength from this. We need miracles to defeat our enemies, who surround us, gathering their missiles and working to delegitimize us. But we also need miracles to be strong against those of our own who would surrender to the enemies. Just days ago a "priority map" was announced by the prime minister, pinpointing communities that are to receive special attention. And — horrors! — some of those identified communities are in Judea and Samaria. The day after the announcement, MK Ophir Paz-Pines (Labor) declared that approval of this map would isolate Israel as the "ultimate anti-peace state." Providing support for communities in the heartland of our heritage represents "anti-peace" because it means we are not surrendering to the Arab demands, and surrendering to those demands (which is how he defines "peace"), not supporting our heritage, is what concerns him. This made me crazy, until I realized anew: Chanukah comes to remind us that there were assimilated Jews in the time of Antiochus, who were willing to go along with what he imposed. But it was the priest Mattathias and his family who received the miracle, and were successful. ~~~~~~~~~~ 
So let us light our candles, and tell of the miracles. Let us rejoice and sing. Our job is to stay strong and focused, and to hold fast to the faith. Here's a link to traditional Chanukah tunes. Soon enough I will return to share more news and analysis.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il
and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
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FOREWARNINGS OF TERRORISM ABOVE AND BELOW THE CANADIAN-AMERICAN BORDER
Posted by Susana K-M, December 13, 2009. |
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This was written by Bill Katz. |
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AND NOW CANADA — AT 10:33 A.M. ET: As readers know, we've been following the inordinate number of recent terror-related incidents in the United States, or involving American citizens abroad. Now Canada is in the news. It's a pattern we've seen here. Five Somali men from Toronto have disappeared. From the Toronto Star: Their passports are missing and they haven't called home. The overwhelming fear is that — like at least 20 young Somali-American men in Minneapolis who have disappeared in the past two years, and others from Australia, Sweden and Britain — the young men are en route to Somalia to fight alongside al Shabaab, an Islamist youth militia aligned with Al Qaeda. The Shabaab, which is fighting the government, is often called Somalia's Taliban. Its increasingly savvy online presence is being blamed as a possible reason for the disappearance of the five Canadians. And Somali community leaders fear other young people will be targeted as long as they feel alienated in this country, and embraced by another. "These people can speak in their language and lure them from right under our nose," said Ahmed Hussen, the Ottawa-based president of the Canadian Somali Congress, adding people in the community have told him chat rooms were also used to lure the missing men. "We won't even know what's going on." Yeah, we saw nothing. We saw absolutely nothing. There were just trains going by, heading east. How many times have we heard this line? And yet, I saw a CNN documentry on homegrown terrorism that reported that, in Canada, those convicted of planning terror incidents get comparatively light sentences. And in the United States, we plan to try the mastermind of 9-11 in an ordinary civilian courtroom in New York, with all the uncertainties of a jury trial. It's time to get serious, both above and below the Canadian-American border. There are too many warnings flying our way. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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DAY TO MOURN, NOT CELEBRATE, HUMAN RIGHTS
Posted by Gerald M. Steinberg, December 13, 2009. |
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THIS year has been another bad year for human rights, and there is little to celebrate on International Human Rights Day. Mass killings have continued in Darfur, the Congo and elsewhere in Africa, with only minor and sporadic attention from the media or the UN. Dictatorships in North Korea and Burma terrorise their citizens daily, with no end in sight. In Iran, a rigged election brought thousands of democracy protesters into the streets, where they were attacked (at least 70 people, including Neda Agha-Soltan, were reportedly killed) and arrested, followed by Stalinist show trials designed to intimidate these advocates. Tragically, Human Rights Day, which marks the anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Conventions, now serves as a reminder of the abject failure of the international community in living up to its moral commitments. Ignoring the pleas of victims around the world, the UN Human Rights Council is locked on to a political agenda that uses the rhetoric of international law as a weapon in the political war targeting Israel. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which controls the UNHRCs agenda and chooses its officials, has no interest in opening a discussion of the systematic oppression of women or minorities in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Gaza, etc. Israel is a convenient diversion, which explains the obsessive focus on "war crimes" claims, including the biased mandate of the Goldstone report on the Gaza conflict. To make matters worse, the non-governmental human rights watchdogs that were created to offset the unethical behaviour and biases of governments, have become accomplices in promoting oppression. Superpowers like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights and similar groups with multi-million-dollar budgets work closely with and support the agendas of the UNHRC and other international frameworks. Instead of speaking truth to this blatant abuse of power, officials of these self-proclaimed human rights groups are part of the problem, remaining largely silent while the abuses in Africa, Asia or the Arab world continue. The past year has seen even greater co-operation between the UN and the NGOs in twisting human rights values beyond recognition. Human Rights Watch was caught attempting to raise funds from wealthy members of Saudi Arabia's elite. Instead of leading the campaign against the abuses imposed by the Wahabi religious police, this "watchdog" hosted a member of the Shura council at a dinner which featured more Israel-bashing and dark warnings of the power of "pro-Israel pressure groups". Other scandals, including the suspension of HRW's "senior military analyst", and unanswered questions about his professional qualifications, further tarnished this organisation. In parallel, Amnesty International and the other groups have accelerated the effort to transform human rights and international law into ideological platforms used against Western democracies and open societies. Like HRW, a highly disproportionate percentage of Amnesty's reports and campaigns focus on criticising the US and NATO countries for alleged infractions in Iraq and Afghanistan, while terrorists and their state supporters get relatively little attention. This is a paternalistic and patronising distortion, which assumes that Muslims in al-Qa'ida or Afghan Taliban "militants" are exempt from human rights requirements, and are held to a lower standard. But at the end of 2009 there are some signs of hope for the human rights community. The "halo effect" that had protected powerful groups from research and criticism has begun to break down. HRW founder Robert Bernstein published an oped in The New York Times in which he denounced his own organisation for betraying its moral principles. Although HRW officials launched a campaign to discredit Bernstein and other critics (particularly NGO Monitor), in order to restore their lost credibility, others realise the need for an entirely new and unbiased leadership, particularly in activities related to the Middle East. On another front, the Canadian government has moved to halt the funnelling of millions of taxpayer funds to organisations that exploit the rhetoric of human rights in order to promote radical ideologies that undermine these values. In the 1970s, radical groups that claimed to promote "social progress" and "solidarity" politics were able to obtain substantial funding from sympathetic officials in Canada and in liberal European governments. By putting an end to this inversion, the Canadians can also contribute to a return to the core moral and universal principles of human rights. For people committed to the substance, and not only the language, of human rights, these developments suggest that a tipping point has been reached. The absurdity of a Libyan official chairing UN human rights sessions in which Iran, Darfur and China are erased from the agenda, with the assistance of groups like Amnesty and HRW, may finally be too great to ignore. Mr. Steinberg is executive director of NGO Monitor and chairman of the
Political Studies Department at Bar Ilan University.
This article appeared in the Australian
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ATTACK ON A HOUSE OF WORSHIP OF THE ONE G-D, REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCE, IS TO BE CONDEMNED
Posted by Dov Stein, December 13, 2009. |
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This is from: Sanhedrin — Great Court of 71 |
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In the name of G-D king of the universe 26th of Kislev, 5770
Attack on a House of Worship of the One G-d, Regardless of Circumstance, is to be Condemned Elements in the government and the press are quick, as usual, to hurl accusations against "right-wing elements". There are no "left-wing elements" in their lexicon. This attempt proves that most of the attacks are the result of activities with governmental involvement, in order to accuse the rightwing elements of blood libels. The most famous example is the libel of the murder of Yitzchak Rabin, the most well-proven is the Kahalani Brothers Affair. In this affair, government agents confiscated their weapons and accused them of a blood libel, for which they sat for years in prison. If Jews become entangled in criminal acts of a nationalist nature, it is only because they lost their sanity due to the persecutions of the enemy who troubles them — the state authorities, who have sold themselves to foreign interests and the hatred of Israel — has caused them to go insane. It should be noted that it is the norm among the Arabs to use mosques as human shields, weapon storehouses, and launch sites for rockets; and it is the norm of those who wave the banner of freedom of religion and democracy; proven to be evil plotting, for when the subject at hand is Jewish houses of prayer, cemeteries, and holy sites, they show double standards. In Gush Katif, the "democratic" government decided and acted to burn, smash, and destroy all traces of Israeli houses of prayer and holy sites, including uprooting graves, like the vision of the Palestinian poet Mohammed Darwish, may the name of the wicked rot. On the matter of the Temple Mount, the government, which prides itself for upholding freedom of religion, helped the Arabs throw the remains of our Temple to dumpsters. Therefore, it has no reason to complain about the desecration of holy places. It would be better if the people in the government would take a look in the mirror and understand how the government is the very one bringing a new holocaust on the children of Israel, and who is guilty of turning faithful Jewish citizens in to the frustrated oppressed people who find their relief by attacking illegitimate targets. In spite of all of this, if it would be proven that there is an Israeli hand in this matter, from any side, we hereby condemn it completely. We expect that the Union of Muslim States, which happily takes advantage of the attack on the Muslim mosque, will show its sincerity by its condemnation of the burning of Jewish houses of prayer and the destruction in Gush Katif and Northern Samaria, and the religious rights of the children of Israel in all breadth of the Land of Israel as stated in the Torah and recognized in the Qur'an — the book of their own faith. Rabbi Professor Hill Weiss — Spokesman of the Sanhedrin
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ISRAEL ARMY-YESHIVA CONTROVERSY;
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 13, 2009. |
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ISRAEL ARMY-YESHIVA CONTROVERSY The source for this news assumes that its readers understand the background of this controversy. Outsiders would not understand. They assume that issues are clear-cut, and take them at face value. At face value, the government orders the Army to do certain tasks, soldiers organize refusal, non-governmental agencies support refusal, hence fiscal retaliation. There are deeper issues, here. The government orders the army to undertake non-military, political tasks that the people do not approve and that they keep electing governments pledged not to do, but which renege. The government claims it is enforcing the law against Jews in Judea-Samaria, but that is questionable. The IDF has an anti-Jewish culture, acts against the Zionist purpose of the state and in behalf of the existential Arab enemy, but usually does not enforce the law against real violations by Arabs. I have reported the IDF helping or not foiling Arabs attacking Jews in Judea-Samaria and hardly arresting Arabs attacking themselves. Therefore, this is a struggle for national survival; the regime is on the wrong side. The tit-for-tat retaliation tends to harm innocent people and national security. How far may citizens go in opposing their army? Must they always follow orders, however illegal, cruel (the Army but more the police have acted with gratuitous cruelty), undemocratic (as in ignoring referendums the Prime Minister pledged to heed). If Israel were a government of law, the government legitimately could insist on following the law. But the Supreme Court usually and whimsically rewrites law against Jews and Judaism, the Attorney-General enforces law selectively in favor of Arabs, the media, including parts controlled by government, censors news, and police do not enforce many court orders against Arabs and let the Arabs break laws on land, housing, taxes, and immigration with impunity. As I have reported, Arabs have attacked Jews, file police complaints against the victims, and lack evidence, but police arrest the accused Jews and not the Arabs. Such government forfeits moral standing. I think that the underlying problems are too little ideology in favor of Jewish national and religious rights and development, too little democracy, and too many police state tactics, including police brutality. That still leaves open the question of how far may citizens go to save their lives, freedom, and culture, from a government that often favors the enemy. JERUSALEM SOLIDARITY AGAINST FOREIGN HARASSMENT 
Every Sabbath, Jews in the mixed Nahlat Shimon/Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem hold services, but now they are asking people from a wider area to join them in solidarity against harassment by foreigners. This story began half a year ago. Police implemented a court order to evacuate Arab squatters from houses owned by some Jews. Since then, foreign activists have been harassing Jews there, and incite local Arabs to do likewise. The invitation for solidarity is drawing prominent Israelis in
support of retaining a united Jerusalem
The larger issues are a Jewish state and its united capital. The Arab side improperly uses squatting, the judicial system to stave off law enforcement, and harassment of residents. Police are loathe to enforce the law. Were Israel a self-respecting Jewish state and a nation of law, it would enforce the law promptly and would deport foreigners who come just to harass. The methods used by the foreigners forfeit their claim to idealism. (To check out another type of foreign harassment of Israel, go here:
ISRAEL ARRESTS ARAB LEADER OF SECURITY FENCE RIOTS In a raid on Ramallah, IDF forces captured Abdullah Abu Rameh, leader of weekly riots at the security fence near an Arab village involved in a court dispute over the route of the security fence. An initial ruling favored the villagers, but the government is appealing. Foreigners are the spearhead of the demonstrators, who often turn
violent. Throwing rocks, they cost one soldier an eye. Their riots
grew until hundreds of people on both sides were wounded. Jimmy Carter
and Desmond Tutu approve of the protests
Now let's hear Carter and Tutu disapprove of the protesters' violence! Notice, this is Arab and foreigner violence, not "settler" violence. The ringleader's arrest should have been made early on, to prevent riots from escalating into hundreds of injuries. By having let the riots get out of hand, Israel again made itself a caricature of meekness, far from the caricature of aggressiveness that foreign critics bestow on it. Blind are those critics to aggressiveness by the Arabs and foreigners. Are they really interested in justice or is it in violence against Jews? Israeli courts have intervened highhandedly in non-judicial, security matters, making their judgment more ideological than matters of law. More than not, Israeli courts have a Far Left viewpoint, taking an anti-Zionist position. While the world condemns Israel's fence, Egypt is building another, though the issues are somewhat different . CHRISTIAN PALESTINIAN ARABS COMPLAIN ABOUT ISRAEL A dozen leaders of Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, and Baptist Palestinian Arab Christians issued pages of vague complaints about Israel. It followed the Palestinian Arab narrative of the current situation, except for an unusual addition of Christian religious statements. The manifesto is too long to reproduce here and too commonplace to warrant much comment except for the following, more salient points: (1) Assertion that it was the "occupation" that caused terrorism, which the manifesto calls "resistance;" (2) Novel objection to religious states by either the Jews or the Muslims; (3) Plea to release the thousands of Arabs imprisoned by Israel; (4) Claim that "...Jerusalem continues to be emptied of its Palestinian citizens, Christians and Muslims;" and (5) Let's all live in the same country, in peace and in tolerance (www.imra.org.il, 12/11). The manifesto's context is the old, Mideast Christian strategy for coping with Muslim domination by adopting Arab nationalism. Judging by the flight of millions of oppressed Christians, the strategy failed. Along the way, that strategy has defamed and harmed Jews. Thus, for all the moralizing in the manifesto, it is an unethical document and stance. I wish that the tens of millions of American Evangelist Christians, who support Zionism, also raised an outcry against Muslim Arab oppression of Christians. The world needs perspective on that. Further lack of perspective in the manifesto is failure to find any wrongdoing by the Palestinian Arabs, who have committed aggression, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism. The notion that Israel's presence in the Territories induces Arab terrorism has it backward. Arab terrorism long precedes the presence of Israeli forces in the Territories, those forces coming there in self-defense against Arab aggression, and Arab terrorism. Those forces would have left, if the Arabs had negotiated and made peace. Whose fault is that? The manifesto was all about occupation versus rights, but what about the right of the Jewish people, under international law, to live in their own homeland, including Judea-Samaria, where the Jewish people forged nationhood and there is no rival sovereignty to claim it? Israel is not a theocracy. It allows each religion freedom, especially non-Jewish ones. By contrast, the Arab states and Iran establish Islam and restrict or forbid other ones. Iran persecutes its Bahai, who have found it safer to set up headquarters in Israel. Visit their beautiful building and grounds in Haifa! Here was an opportunity for the manifesto to denounce the establishment of Islam and the persecution of Christians, except they would be martyred if they did. The manifesto expresses a misconceived notion of prisoners. The Israeli captive of Hamas was kidnapped. By contrast, the thousands of Arabs imprisoned by Israel were convicted of terrorism. The one is improperly held; the thousands would be improperly released. Do the Palestinian Arab Christians endorse terrorism and not consider it a crime to attack innocent civilians? Do they consider it wrong of Israel to imprison those who attack their children? So few Arabs have been evicted, all for cause, compared with the many moving into Jerusalem, that the accusation that the city is being "emptied" of them is gross libel. Nor are they citizens, mostly. Even the call for all faiths to live peacefully in the same country is misguided. Why should a nationality let its culture and national development be submerged by another's? What is the practicality of the call, inasmuch as the Muslims are mostly driven by revanchist revenge for reconquest? GAZA TRANSFERS ILL BABY TO ISRAELI HOSPITAL A newborn baby girl in Gaza had a bad heart. She was transferred to an Israeli hospital for immediate treatment. Israel's humanitarian program accepted 10,000 sick Arabs and escorts from Gaza for treatment in Israel or Palestinian Authority, in 2009 (www.imra.org.il, 12/11). This program renders more plausible Israel's explanation that its measures against Gaza are not abuse but for security against terrorism, which terrorism continues. It is a wonder that Israel takes further risk with those admissions, some of which are terrorist plants. ARREST 5 AMERICANS FOR SEEKING OUT TALIBAN Five American college students from Pakistan and Ethiopia, busy with studies and charitable work, suddenly disappeared. They were arrested in Pakistan, where they sought out the Taliban for military training for jihad. Some expressed hostility toward the U.S.. They had seemed very Americanized (Zahid Hussein, Sloban Gorman, & Neil King Jr., Wall St. Journal, 12/11, A3). They had the makings of good citizens. Then Radical Muslims got hold of them. About a week ago, several Americans of Somali origin did the same. There is a trend toward this strife. Most troubling. Are our security agencies trying to figure out how to prevent this phenomenon? OBAMA'S NOBEL SPEECH 
Obama examining his peace prize (A.P./Susan Walsh) President Obama came to Oslo, to accept a Nobel Peace Prize that, ironically, he admitted he had not earned. In his speech, Obama described the war in Afghanistan, which he just escalated, as a "just" war against "evil." [Next will he call allies of our enemy there part of an "evil axis?"] Obama continued to denigrate "unilateralism," although he said it may be necessary and this time he did not apologize for America. He also upheld his policy of "engagement." Rahm Emanuel cited as policy success "increased cooperation on Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea, and momentum toward an international agreement to combat climate change." In recommitting the US to closing the Guantanamo military prison, he refrained from his usual blaming of everything on his predecessor. Conservatives found some praiseworthy elements in the speech (Elizabeth Williamson & Jonathan Weisman, Wall St. J., 12/11, A1). The prison didn't do anything wrong. Why take it out on the prison? Change policy, if necessary. "Unilateralism" is a poor description of Bush policy. The U.S. did not refuse to work with other countries. It organized what coalitions it could. It is difficult to work with the UN, dominated by jihadists and rogue states. In modern times, unless the US leads efforts at international security, there are few such efforts. Many European states rely upon U.S. protection to save themselves the expense of military forces, but criticize our attempts to protect them and ourselves. What "increased cooperation?" So far, it is just talk, and probably too late. As for climate change, we just found out that the evidence is partly exaggerated so as to seem meaningful, fudged, censored of contrary evidence, and based on models that are too complicated for contemporary science to be sure of validity. They do not prove there is global warming but more important, they do not prove humans are a significant cause of it. The measures Obama approves would be canceled out by foreign countries he is "engaging" with, while he would break the US economy on his hasty plan. He should back off. TOTALITARIAN MIND & ISLAM Jean-Francois Revel wrote Last Exit to Utopia, a rational, "pre-eminent political philosopher." Its topic is the French Left's major inability to accept the fact that Communism committed enormous crimes. Their apologetics for it really made them second-degree accomplices in mass-murder. Nevertheless, "murderous ideologies still compete for legitimacy and 'enlightened' understanding by the Western intelligentsia." Communism, like totalitarianism in general, had more than a murderous ideology. It had "deceit and disturbing psychological attractions." It attracted praise by people who condemned the U.S.. The problem is that some people want to exercise totalitarian power or submit to it. They rationalized that the Communist regimes simply were not Communist enough. Former Communist fellow travelers may have denounced the USSR, but continue their mindset against liberal-democratic principles. They condemn without offering an alternative. That makes them just nihilist. Now, Western "progressives," who favor gays and abortion, make
common cause with totalitarian Radical Muslims, who repress both. They
have in common a hatred for the U.S. and Israel. Their outlook really
is primitive (reviewed by Bret Stephens, Wall St. Journal, 12/11, Opinion).
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 and visit his website:
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NEW U.S. ANTI-SEMITISM ENVOY FACING FORMIDABLE TASK
Posted by Susana K-M, December 13, 2009. |
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This was written by Gregg Rickman and Rafael Medoff.
Gregg Rickman served as the first U.S. special envoy to monitor and
combat anti-Semitism, from 2006 to 2009. Rafael Medoff is director of
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
This article appeared December 8, 2009 in Jewish Journal
http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/new_us_ anti-semitism_envoy_facing_formidable_task_20091208/ |
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — Hannah Rosenthal, President Obama's nominee for the post of special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, certainly has her work cut out for her. According to the latest report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, hate crimes remain "a serious problem" in the OSCE's 56 member states. Yet, incredibly, only eight of the 56 governments provided the OSCE with data on recent anti-Semitic incidents in their countries. Clearly there are regimes that hope to preserve their country's image by whitewashing local anti-Semitism. Confronting them will be one of Ms. Rosenthal's many challenges. There can be no doubt that anti-Semitism continues to manifest itself across the globe, and in a wide range of forms. In Sweden, a prominent newspaper recently accused Israelis of kidnapping Arabs in order to harvest their organs. In Honduras, political figures and pundits are blaming Jews for the country's political crisis. In Hungary and Austria, far-right extremists are exploiting the democratic system to significantly increase their representation in parliament. And here at home, in Edison, N.J., a yeshiva student was assaulted by anti-Semitic thugs on Rosh Hashanah and a synagogue was daubed with swastikas on Yom Kippur. The position of U.S. envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism was established in 2004 in response to the frightening proliferation of anti-Jewish hatred around the world. The late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), later joined by Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), initiated the legislation that created the position. Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, saw echoes of a dark past in our own era, both in the spread of anti-Semitism worldwide and the failure of Western democracies to speak out against it. Obviously there are vast differences between the Hitler period and our own era. At the same time, it is important to recognize today's serious dangers. When Iranian leaders threaten to annihilate Israel — and actively try to develop the weapons that would enable them to do that — they should be taken as seriously as anti-Semitic leaders in the 1930s should have been taken. When Arab regimes teach their schoolchildren to hate Jews while glorifying violence and denying the Holocaust ever took place, they must be challenged — especially when the United States is in a position to use its aid and influence with those regimes as leverage. When Holocaust deniers claim that the Nazis' slaughter of 6 million Jews is a myth circulated by an international Jewish propaganda machine — that, too, must be recognized as anti-Semitism. When extremists cynically manipulate United Nations forums to blame Israel and "Zionists" for all the ills of the world, they must be denounced. When fanatics in any country try to mask their anti-Semitism as opposition to Israel or Zionism, they must be exposed. The U.S. position on this question, as articulated in last year's report by the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, is that "the demonization of Israel or vilification of Israeli leaders, sometimes through comparisons with Nazi leaders, and through the use of Nazi symbols to caricature them, indicates an anti-Semitic bias rather than a valid criticism of policy concerning a controversial issue." Some of the governments that Ms. Rosenthal investigates surely will lean on her to go easy on them in her reports. She may find herself under pressure from U.S. government officials who believe that having friendly relations with a particular regime is more important than speaking out against anti-Semitism in that country. We hope she resists these pressures and stands up for those who were denied such help during the darkest of period in human history, the Holocaust. If she does, she will have served her office well and upheld our nation's noble humanitarian legacy.
Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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BARKAT CAVES IN ON ARAB ILLEGAL CONSTRUCTION
Posted by Gil Ronen, December 13, 2009. |
| Jerusalem mayor reveals plans to give retroactive approval to much illegal Arab construction, starting with the City of David area. |
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The Jerusalem Municipality intends to grant retroactive approval to many illegally constructed structures in Arab-populated eastern Jerusalem, Mayor Nir Barkat told the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Sunday. The new policy will be tested in areas in which illegal construction is especially rife: the Silwan and King's Garden areas, which are adjacent to the City of David. Regarding the King's Garden area, which is believed to have been an orchard since First Temple times but which has been built over by Arabs in recent years, Barkat said that there are 43 illegal structures against which demolition orders have been issued. The rest of the structures are facing court proceedings. The municipality is advancing a plan that would "on the one hand, conserve the valley, and on the other hand, lead to its development and find solutions to some of the homes that already exist on the ground, while developing the entire area for tourism, commerce and housing solutions." Four Out of 71 to be Legalized In Silwan, there are 71 structures against which demolition orders have been issued. The new municipal plan would allow construction of apartment buildings up to four stories high in that zone, thus making all but four of the new buildings retroactively legal. The objective of the new policy, Barkat said, is to "reduce the gaps that currently exist" between the official plans and the reality on the ground, and to "encourage the public to follow the law and public order." As part of the plan, the municipality will grant retroactive approval to as many structures as it can possibly include in the new plans, but vows to adopt an tough policy of punishment regarding new construction violations. The mayor has instructed the relevant municipal offices to replan zoning in a way that "causes enforcement policy to conform with the general policy" and which includes "giving the possibility and time for resolving infractions that can be resolved based on the new policy while deepening enforcement regarding new violations." Barkat's bureau said that in 2009 the municipality carried out 112 demolition orders — 49 of them in western Jerusalem and 63 in eastern Jerusalem. This was written by Gil Ronen, writer for Arutz Sheva and it was published today in Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com) |
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IDF BUSY WITH FREEZE, LESS TIME TO FIGHT TERRORISM
Posted by Hillel Fendel, December 13, 2009. |
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(IsraelNN.com) Over the past week, the IDF has reduced its anti-terrorism activities in Judea and Samaria — because its forces are busy helping enforce the freeze on Jewish construction. Specifically, the IDF is carrying out fewer patrols and fewer initiated actions against Palestinian terrorist elements. Instead, the forces in the area are assigned with providing protection to Civil Administration inspectors who are distributing stop-work orders in the Jewish towns. Military affairs correspondent Haggai Huberman reports that an officer serving in Judea and Samaria said, "We are barely doing patrols or initiating actions against terrorists, except for the bare necessary minimum." Security responsibility in Judea and Samaria is shared by the police, Border Guard and the IDF. In addition to routine police work, manning checkpoints, and other anti-terrorist activity, two more areas have been added of late: dealing with anti-Arab "Price Tag" activities — billed as a response to increased enforcement against Jews — and escorting Civil Administration inspectors as they attempt to enforce the construction freeze in the Jewish towns. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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AMERICANS FOR PEACE NOW ARE IN POSSIBLE VIOLATION OF FARA
Posted by Dave Alpern, December 13, 2009. |
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Mr. John J. Dion,
13 December 2009 Dear Chief Dion: I am an American citizen registered to vote in the US, and I have been a proud resident of Israel for more than 31 years. I am deeply concerned and disturbed by reports about a group known as "Peace Now." This group is registered in the US under the name "Americans for Peace Now." Despite this, many of its members and activities are located in Israel. Peace now is not a registered legal entity in Israel. However, the government of Norway has granted large amounts of funding to Peace Now since 2001, including approx. 1.35 million Norwegian kroner in 2009 alone (see below). Nevertheless, there is apparently no record of Peace Now having registered itself as a foreign agent, in accordance with the American Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). If this is indeed true, it is a blatant and grave violation of the Act, and Peace Now should be subject to criminal penalties accordiingly. Therefore, I respectfully request that the US DOJ immediately open an investigation into "Americans for Peace Now" and filing charges against it if your investigation determines that such charges are warranted. Thank you in advance for your prompt attention and action in this matter. I will appreciate your timely response. Best seasonal greetings, David Alpern
Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
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ROBIN SHEPHERD'S ROBUST DEFENSE OF ISRAEL
Posted by One Jerusalem Organization, December 12, 2009. | |
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Why should a secular non-Jew support the Jewish State of Israel? Foreign policy expert, Robin Shepherd convincingly answers this and related questions in his important new book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem With Israel. Shepherd is a non-Jew whose defense of Israel led to his dismissal from a prominent British policy institute. But despite this set back he continues to be a vigorous defender of the Jewish State. Shepherd is an effective advocate because he is not a knee-jerk Zionist ideologue. In Beyond the Pale he explores why European elites have turned from advocates for Israel to vociferous critics. His analysis is based on facts, not emotions, and he counters their bias with rational reasoning. Shepherd understands that Europe's turn against Israel is part of Europe's turn against itself. Europe no longer believes in its own values so why should we expect it to come to the defense of Israel, the West's outpost in the Middle East? Europe is allowing foreign cultures to profoundly change its own societies. Europe refuses to defend its own values as it bends over backward to accommodate the most outrageous demands of its Muslim immigrants. If, for example, Europe had any strong beliefs in its Western values would it have made excuses for the violent reactions to the Mohammad cartoons? Would Europe be creating systems of Sharia finance that compete with its established financial systems? Would Europe be ostracizing Israel (the latest being the labeling of West Bank products being sold in the UK) while tolerating the inhuman actions of Iran's dictatorial regime? Why does Europe side with terrorists who attack innocent Israeli civilians? Europe's identity crisis (and a tinge of anti-Semitism) coupled with its belief that international institutions like the United Nations can solve all the world's conflicts are major influences on Europe's policy toward Israel. For the Europeans, negotiations are central to relations among adversaries. They are not shaken from this belief by adversaries (like Iran and North Korea) who use negotiations to buy time not to come to mutually beneficial agreements. Shepherd's reasoning is impeccable and his writing is wonderful. This is not a dull intellectual tome. It is a pleasurable and an important read. Every friend of Israel will benefit for buying and reading A State Beyond The Pale.
Contact One Jerusalem at its website, www.OneJerusalem.org,
and by email at info@OneJerusalem.org. This article is archived at
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CROSSING THE SYRIAN-ISRAELI BORDER
Posted by Ari Bussel, December 12, 2009. |
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The Jordan River A family friend is a professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The city is located at the confluence of the McKenzie and the Willamette rivers. I vividly remember looking at awe at a river, thinking of God's power, the enormity of nature and the fragility of man. Thursday, I was standing near the Jordan River, gazing at the water surface. It was a serene picture, playing with my senses. The water still like glass, on the opposite bank two men fished, the distance shorter than the cement-Los Angeles River. Although just a miniature of the "River" in Los Angeles, the greenery on both banks of the Jordan River was overwhelming. Even the birds, en route to spend the winter in warmer climates in Africa, expressed their awe singing, flying up and down. As if confused, they needed to get closer to the ground — "Is that what one calls a 'river?!?'" they asked in utter astonishment? I, too, was confused. I heard water flowing into the river, but I would never have called this waterway a "river." We were on the way to the Golan Heights, in the North East part of Israel. Israel's water shortage is severe, so the driver asked to stop to "help water nature." It was clearly unnecessary — the green all around was strong and alive, a feeling of healthy growth and rejuvenation. We were at the Hula Valley in Upper Galilee. Millions of birds pass by every year, some staying to enjoy the winter here. Once a lake surrounded by swamps, this fertile area is now a nature reservoir and major environmental attraction for nature lovers. We started our ascent to the Golan Heights, looking back down at the Jewish settlements subject to daily sniper hits from the Syrian military that prior to 1967 controlled the area. One of these is Kibbutz Dafna, where my mother and my uncle lived upon arriving from the ovens of the Holocaust. The love of life, innate survival instinct and the fight against extinction constituted a force like an eruption of magna, thousands of degrees burning from inside the earth to its cold surface. Survivors of the concentration camps, mere shadows of human beings, skeletons scarred with unimaginable and unspeakable horrors, brought with them a will found nowhere else. Like a river of lava, they captured the essence of life in their wake, the swamps and malaria of the Hula, the daily routine of the Syrians shooting at their nurseries, schools and homes, the annual migration patterns of birds and the cycles of emergence from the dryness and death of the summer to the sprouting of the winter and flowering of the spring. Drawing from the Zionist ideals of my grandparents, the children grew to become productive adults in the modern country of Israel. They raised their own children and built the country. Like hardened lava, they have become a rock, possessing a unique strength. The realization we must protect our Land of Israel, our only home, galvanized a determination like lava. They served as officers in Israel's Defense Forces and taught their children this debt to country. They embedded values of life and the meaning of being a good person with a craving for peace in future generations. The Ascent to the Golan Heights Subjected to the forces of nature over millions of years, the lava has created the fertile valley from which we were now ascending. Once we reached the Golan Heights, we were on a plateau, awash with vineyards and apple orchards. The morning was cold, but now the sun was appearing. We approached the Hermon Mountains, a large, barren mass overlooking the plateau. At the bottom were towns, cutting into the very foundation of the mountains like rows of beautiful buildings, three and four story villas and private residences. These are two of four Druze "villages:" Mas-ada and Majdel-Shams. We are in Israel, yet the residents of these villages do not have Israeli passports. Instead, they receive "travel documents." They cannot vote in Israeli elections and do not serve in the Israeli military. Many, some say most, are hostile to Israel. Their families, clans of a sort called Hamulot are divided by a man-made border between Israel and Syria. I stood at the border crossing at Kuneitra with the Deputy Minister in charge of development of the Galilee and the Negev. With us there was an elderly lady, covered in traditional clothes, lamenting her son who had gone to study in Syria some nine years earlier. After two years he disappeared. Since Syria and Israel are in a state of war, travel between the two is not permitted. Given the humanitarian nature of this case, the mother was granted a special permission to go to Syria to look for her son. Some say he is in prison, others claim he disappeared and will never surface again (apparently a somewhat common occurrence in Syria). The mother had returned empty-handed, with no knowledge of the whereabouts of her son. I cannot help thinking of the five Israeli soldiers captured by foreign enemies and who to this very day remain POW-MIAs. But this case is different. Syria actively promotes young Druze to come to study there. Druze families from both sides of the border inter-marry, and thus there are families in Israel where the Syrian wife has not been to see her parents and siblings for many years. We were sitting with one such Syrian Druze whose father passed away, her mother's health is very poor and yet she cannot return to her homeland to visit. The Deputy Minister, a Druze himself, is working to change that. He believes that by allowing free passage between Israel and Syria via the very same border crossing where we stood, relations can improve and a beneficial exchange can be fostered where both sides can benefit. The Deputy Minister Plowing Peace The day has turned sunny and engulfs us in warmth. We are standing at the border crossing, Israeli soldiers on one side, UN forces in the middle and a Syrian flag a mere walking distance away. Two Israeli flags were blowing in the light wind, proud and alive, extending a hand in peace to the flag on the other side. The UN forces are not needed and want little to do with the enemies on either side. They want to return safely to their home countries, alive, whole and healthy. Little if anything is required of these "peacekeeping forces" for the UN resolutions are usually unenforceable, lacking any teeth thus with little effect. The UN enclave and quarters remind me of a vacation spot, a surreal implant in this area. The Deputy Minister reminds us of a previous exchange he had orchestrated. The Governor of Kuneitra was standing on the Syrian side, he — a member of the Israeli Cabinet and a close contact of Prime Minister Netanyahu — standing on our side, and the prospects of peace real. Israel is exporting Golan Heights apples to Syria and other Arab countries. It can likewise export other products and commodities, but more importantly, it can provide knowledge and experience — in agriculture and industry. The Deputy Minister's vision and enthusiasm are contagious. Peace looks achievable, we can see it just beyond the separating fences, feel it in the warm sunny day. Suddenly, it eludes us, reminding that the Syrian Arab Republic that gained independence on April 17th, 1946, from the League of Nations mandate under French administration and is currently ruled by President Bashar al-Asad does not truly want peace. It remains in a state of war against Israel, still seeking destruction of the Jewish Homeland. I am reminded of the endless possibilities that exist between members of the same families in Florida and Cuba. I look around certain a day will come when I visit here again, show my passport and be allowed to cross by foot to be greeted on the other side by a driver who will take me onward on my journey. For decades Israelis dreamed of visiting Petra in Jordan, considered a wonder of the world. Many young dreamers tried to reach Petra, and gave their lives for that adventure; still others' fates remain unknown. Jordan and Israel were enemies once, the countries at war. Today, one can take a day's excursion from Eilat, Israel, to Petra, Jordan. How close and possible this is to becoming a reality between Israel and Syria, right here at the Kuneitra border crossing. In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point — counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
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MISSIONARIES EXPLOIT CHABAD
Posted by Jewish Israel, December 12, 2009. |
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Zev Isaacs of the Messianic Prophecy Bible Project recently sent out a newsletter featuring his infiltration of a Chabad Yeshiva. This mailing entitled, "Lubavitcher Jews in Israel SECRETLY BELIEVE in Yeshua as their Messiah!" is purportedly used to raise funds for the production of missionary literature. Zev Isaac's tactics are absolutely despicable as he has sent his evangelizing team to disrupt those praying at the Kotel; upset those preparing for Yom Kippur; and he has gone as far as to desecrate the memory of the dead in a Jewish cemetery for PR and marketing purposes. Evangelizing Christians frequently use their spin on the beliefs of Chabad's so-called meshichist faction to bolster arguments for the legitimacy of "messianic Judaism" in Eretz Yisrael. At present, numerous Christian sects — who have purportedly abandoned their belief in the trinity, while retaining a belief in jesus as the Jewish messiah — are vying for legitimacy as branches of normative Judaism in Israel. They justify their beliefs by comparing them to the positions of certain factions of Chabad. And Israel's courts and media are hearing the following from evangelical lawyers representing "messianic jews" in Israel: "It is about time that they [Orthodox Jews] stop having a monopoly over determining who is a Jew. The beauty of the Jewish world is the diversity. If you can still be considered a Jew even if you believe that the Lubavitch Rebbe [Menachem Mendel Schneerson] is the messiah, the same thing should hold true if you believe Jesus is." Jewish Israel feels it would be the ultimate desecration of the Rebbe's name and all of his good work if the meshichist distortion is used by Christian sources to legitimize apostasy in Eretz Yisrael (G-d forbid). At this troubled time, we respectfully call upon mainline Chabad leaders to take responsibility and issue a clear, unequivocal statement which draws the line between Christianity and Judaism and allays all misconceptions about Chabad's beliefs. Chabad is no stranger to optimistic and effective PR campaigns. Their messages often have universal appeal and are infused with special warmth, wisdom and Jewish humor. But this is no laughing matter. Jewish Israel hopes that responsible parties within Chabad will answer our challenge. This is a report that should be read in full at Jewish Israel. Chanukah Sameach from Jewish Israel. Contact Jewish Israel by email at info@jewishisrael.com. |
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HANUKKAH, THE NATION'S NATIONAL WAR
Posted by Yaacov Levi, December 12, 2009. |
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This below was written by Nadia Matar. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org. Contact them by email at wfit2@womeningreen.org |
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Dear Friends, Yair Stern, the leader of Lehi (Lohamei Herut Yisrael), wrote an article on the holiday of Hanukkah entitled "The Miracle of Hanukkah." It was written on the eve of Hanukkah 1942, and was published in the Kislev 5702 issue of the organization's internal newspaper Bamahteret: The miracle of Hanukkah [...] What is a miracle? A cruse of oil that seemed as if it would burn for only a single day, burned for eight days. The miracle of Hanukkah — like every miracle — was not what was visible, what could be measured, what could be calculated. A miracle is something that cannot be calculated by arithmetic, nor can it be perceived by the intellect, since it is elevated above the intellect and exalted above any comprehension. The miracle is [...] something that forcefully and daringly breaches the boundary of the reality. The miracle is the grandeur of majesty and the sublimity of holiness. This is what Yair said about Hanukkah. Dear friends, the freeze decrees not allowing any Jewish building in Israel's Biblical Heartland are a declaration of war against the Jews of Judea and Samaria. Let it be clear to all: the freeze decrees are the first step on the way to the elimination of all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and the expulsion of 350,000 Jews from their homeland, for the purpose of establishing in their stead a Palestinian state, that, as is well-known, will constitute a threat to the little pre-'67 State of Israel. Our opposition to the freeze decrees is therefore a struggle for the survival of the entire state. We must set forth on a resolute and uncompromising struggle against these decrees. Protests are important, but not enough. There was a large demonstration on Wednesday. It is important to raise our voices against the decrees, but we should not invest all our energy in this. The lesson of Gush Katif is that quiet, organized, and orderly demonstrations will not decide the outcome and will not change decrees because Israel is no longer a democratic country. In a country in which the electorate votes right and nevertheless receives policies of the left, politicians are not influenced by old-fashioned demonstrations; at least not here in Israel. (In contrast, demonstrations in front of the Israeli consulates abroad are important, because they put pressure on Israel; see below, for details on the demonstration by Americans For a Safe Israel.) Here in Israel, the government must receive a stiff message from the field, that we simply will not let this happen. The blocking of the communities by tens of residents to the inspectors from the Civil Administration was a good start. Now the struggle must intensify. So that this time there will really be a struggle, and not a fake struggle as there was five years ago in Gush Katif, Moetzet Yesha (the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza) cannot be allowed to head the camp. Moetzet Yesha is limited. It is dependent on government budgets, and therefore it is capable of engaging only in protests, large but quiet demonstrations (like Wednesday's), and political pressure. All these tactics were used in Gush Katif but did not prevent the expulsion. The true struggle must be waged by extraparliamentary bodies. What is struggle? Struggle today is to rebel against the immoral and anti-Jewish decrees, to proudly violate them, and to send a clear message to all: Never again! They will never again succeed in carrying out a destruction program. Jews will never again be expelled from their homeland. In our humble opinion, the main struggle now must be conducted in two arenas: 1) Construction, construction, and more construction throughout Judea and Samaria. A few days ago our movement, Women in Green, issued a call to establish a fund for light construction for couples and families on the hilltops. In the coming days we will, with God's help, distribute a short video that will exemplify and explain this step. God willing, the lovers of Eretz Israel will mobilize for this project, and we will succeed in erecting houses throughout Judea and Samaria,especially outside the boundaries of the existing communities. We must pass on a clear message: we will not agree to be ghettoized or limited. The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel and we will continue to settle, build and expand in it. The more successful we will be in the two areas described above, the more it will put real pressure on the politicians and make it clear that unlike five years ago, when our camp was so well-behaved and docile during the expulsion of our brothers from Gush Katif and Northern Shomron, this time, we are determined to fight for the right of the Jewish People to their G-d given Biblical Homeland. As Yair Stern wrote: we, the people, are in a "national war. The nation's war for its honor, its freedom, and its life." May it be His will that we receive inspiration from the heroic Maccabees, who did not fear and proved that the little Jewish people is capable of fighting and besting great empires. Like then, today as well, the struggle, unfortunately, is not only against the Greeks, but also against the Jewish Hellenizers who collaborated with the Greeks. If we succeed in awakening and in understanding that the responsibility and obligation to join the struggle is incumbent on each and every one of us — then we will do and, with God's help, we will prevail. A happy Hanukkah holiday and Shavua Tov,
AMERICANS FOR A SAFE ISRAEL/AFSI will lead a demonstration on Sunday, Dec. 13, 2009, from 11AM-12 noon, in front of the Israeli Consulate, 42nd Street and Second Avenue, NYC. People of conscience will gather to protest against the immoral, illegal, discriminatory construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, ordered by PM Bibi Netanyahu. Participants will carry menorahs to signify that on this second day of Chanukah, the warmth and courage of the Chanukah lights will melt the freeze. Signs will read, "Let My People Grow", "End the Freeze of Appeasement", "Likud — Honor Your Mandate to Preserve the Land of Israel", "Bibi — You were elected to save Israel, not sell it out," "Obama — Stop Iranian Nukes — Not Jewish Homes." Speakers will be grass roots activists following the cry of Judah Maccabee — "All who are faithful follow me!" Contact the AFSI office, 212-828-2424; 1-800-235-3658; afsi@rcn.com for additional information. http://www.afsi.org/ Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
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WELCOME TO THE CLUB, FELLAS
Posted by Susana K-M, December 12, 2009. |
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This below was written by Bill Katz. |
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WELCOME TO THE CLUB, FELLAS — AT 10:53 A.M. ET: Remarkably, both The New York Times and the Washington Post, the pillars of journalistic liberalism, have major stories this morning on the danger of homegrown Muslim terrorism in the U.S. Congratulations, guys. What took you so long? From the Times's story: WASHINGTON — As the years passed after Sept. 11, 2001, without another major attack on American soil and with no sign of hidden terrorist cells, many counterterrorism specialists reached a comforting conclusion: Muslims in the United States were not very vulnerable to radicalization... That's a relief. But you can be sure that some, including members of our own Justice Department, will stick with the old dinner-party narrative — no threat, no threat, just friends and neighbors. But there's been a disturbing series of incidents: There were the November shootings that took 13 lives at Fort Hood, with murder charges pending against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim and an Army psychiatrist. And others are listed. There's no silver lining, but maybe a bit of one: Yet amid the concern about the five Virginia men and the impact of the wars on Muslim opinion, Audrey Kurth Cronin of the National War College in Washington said she found something to take comfort in. "To me, the most interesting thing about the five guys is that it was their parents that went immediately to the F.B.I.," she said. "It was members of the American Muslim community that put a stop to whatever those men may have been planning." Oh, no, no. It was the Pakistani government, joined by our FBI, that put a stop to that. Even at the National War College we see political correctness. But, true, the parents did go to the FBI, and that is a good sign. Trouble is, it's one of the rare good signs. We may not be that lucky next time. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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A YIDDISH LESSON FOR MY GENTILE FRIENDS...
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, December 12, 2009. |
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Hey...I don't even like the language. Don't get me wrong, I realize the importance it played for one portion of my people's history. But it also represents the plight of a conquered people, forced into dispersion, sold as slaves wherever the conquering Roman armies traveled, and having to adapt to a new life as a downtrodden, oppressed people. Yiddish is not the language of my forefathers...Hebrew is. The language of a new, resurrected Israel which was a least partially reborn to end the Jews' latter, millennially powerless condition. Jews fleeing or sold into slavery elsewhere besides northern Europe adapted likewise...The languages of Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and such thus also emerged as a result of the Great Diaspora. Before the Roman assault, it is also true that Jews had also spread out — or had been spread out — elsewhere as well, for a variety of reasons. Yiddish was thus the concoction of German, Hebrew, Slavic, and some other languages that most European Jews invented in order to survive in their new surroundings. The spoken language was/is written in the Hebrew alphabet. For some reason, Jews have a number of ways of expressing the male body part for use as a means of derision. So, getting ready for your first Yiddish lesson... Schmuck equals putz equals... Well, let me give you an example of what acting like a putz is like. Israel has been behaving like the classic putz supreme for decades now regarding a few crucial issues. While I have written about this before, the current disturbing events surrounding the captured Israel soldier, Sergeant Gilad Shalit, make it necessary to rehash this yet again. As a father, my heart especially goes out to the Shalit family. But there is a very serious problem associated with this, one that Israel never seems to learn the lesson from. Repeatedly, Israel has taken alive known Arab murderers and wannabes who have butchered and planned to butcher innocent Jewish civilians. This is often a big mistake which oftens turns out biting Israel on its collective tuchas ... another Yiddish word for you know what. Trying to be a biblical light unto the nations in its moral behavior has only backfired on it big time — over and over again. Dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning Arab civilians to get out of harm's way, calling them on cell phones, and so forth (and thus telegraphing its punch to Hamas & Co. as well) didn't do it any good after israel finally went after Hamas in Gaza last year. The United Nations still blamed the Jews anyway. Attempting to behave so in a very humanly imperfect world — especially the neighborhood in which Israel is located — has only led to such nauseating scenarios as we are now seeing played out in the Shalit Affair. Not that long ago, Israel traded a load of other live and well Arab disembowelers and such of Jews for the remains of a few of the latter. Among those that Arabs got back in good health was the proud murderer of a small Jewish girl (he crushed her skull on a rock with his rifle butt) and her father — whom he drowned after shooting. Samir Kuntar, of course, was greeted as a glorious hero upon his arrival back in Lebanon — parade and all. Now, since I've already brought up biblical before, let's get biblical again... For those of you who think that one of the ten commandments says "thou shalt not kill," I've got some news. The Hebrew word does not say that; rather, it commands, "thou shalt not murder." The verb used in the Hebrew text is indeed different with a different meaning. The same way other words and concepts have been mistranslated (often deliberately) for one reason or another when translated into other languages from the original Hebrew, this same thing happened in this example as well. Indeed, there is a lot of killing going on in the historical portion of the Hebrew Bible — some murdering too. The current issue of the day involves the proposed trade of Sgt. Shalit, who was kidnapped on the Israeli side of the border by the same Hamas crew who killed two of his comrades, for a thousand Arabs who either murdered or plotted to murder Jews and to destroy their state. There are those who are against capital punishment. They have the right to be wrong. I wish I could claim ownership to the saying I am about to either quote or paraphrase, but I can't... Trying to be human to the inhumane only results too often in being inhumane to the humane. Why should innocent people have to pay tens of thousands of dollars each year to keep alive those who deliberately target and slaughter innocents? If there is a question of guilt, I agree that perhaps a different fate may be appropriate. But, in far too many cases (as with Samir Kuntar), there is no question — and the guilty only live to laugh at the society which worries more about them than those whom they have butchered and others left behind in mourning and having to deal with all the other consequences of those crimes. At times, those freed have lived to murder yet again. Israel is currently now set to release many more of such prisoners — again, one thousand, this time — to try to gain the freedom of Shalit. If this "deal" happens, Israel must finally learn the lesson here — and stop behaving like the proverbial Yiddish putz. Israel must quickly enact capital punishment — permitted by the Hebrew Bible against murderers — and get rid of too many Jew idiots who now serve as judges weeping more for murderers than for their victims. Regardless of their geographical location, Jews too often everywhere confuse the compassion of the Hebrew Prophets to translate into serious problems or even suicide for themselves. Just look at how too many choose to vote as just one example of this phenomenon. I don't say these things as a blatant right winger... I am simply repeating the same justice that my Hebrew forbearers had the wisdom to promote in the very religious teaching of my own people. Lastly, the problem that Israel and other nations face today indeed involves those who would murder and subjugate others — given the chance — using our own sense of "liberal" values and freedoms which are perverted to advance their own religio-political agendas. The question then becomes, will Israel and others still be foolish enough to allow this to continue? America's own recent tragic experience at Fort Hood, Texas, with a Jihadi Arab (Nidal Malik Hasan) — who should have never been allowed to occupy the position in the army that he was in anyway given the solid evidence in his background pointing to serious problems — is but another sorry example of what we face here in our own country — and yet another sorry example of how we may use some of those Yiddish words I have taught you above. Gerald A. Honigman, a Florida educator, has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in both the print media and on websites. Contact him at honigman6@msn.com or go to his website: http://geraldahonigman.com/blog.php. He is author of "The Quest for Justice in the Middle East: the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Greater Perspective." |
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GLOBAL WARMING LIES CONTINUE ON NPR AND OTHER MEDIA
Posted by Truth Provider, December 12, 2009. |
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Dear friends,
Below is my attempt to explain, in fundamental basic terms, the myth
of Global Warming. Please read it, but if you decide not to, do me a
small favor.
Click here and watch the film. That's all I am asking.
I am talking to you Scott! Your Truth provider,
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GW Lies continue on NPR and other Media Listen to NPR and their daily nonsense about "Global Warming" and wonder who are these so called journalists? You do not need to be a scientist to expose their lies. A little intelligence and some personal observations is all you need. Here is a quote from a piece about Florida on NPR's All things
Considered, Friday, Dec 11, 2009.
Read it and see how many mistakes you can spot. I am sure you will easily find some idiotic claims. OK, I'll help a little: From the broadcast: Quote: "In South Florida, the issues of global warming and rising seas are more than theoretical. Florida is one of the parts of the country most vulnerable to a rise in sea level, and officials are beginning to plan how they'll cope with it. Scientists say the sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice age. The concern now is how fast it's rising, and whether cities and natural ecosystems can adapt fast enough to avoid being devastated." As you know very well, water rises equally everywhere if connected. In other words, if the sea rises in FL, it also rises in South Carolina and every other part of the world, including Japan. "Scientists" say (which scientists?) the sea level has been rising since the ice age. Read it again, "since the ice age." Well, is this not a proof that mankind has nothing to do with it? If these "scientists" are correct, and the sea has been rising since the ice age, how come it is caused by CO2 emitted by people? How large was industry in the ice age and how many cars did people drive then? And if since the ice age it has not yet covered FL, why the sudden hysteria right now? You can listen or read the rest of the article and discover more such nonsense. You see? You do not need to be a scientist to discover NPR's climate nonsense. This morning (Dec. 12, 2009), on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, a panicked official from one of the islands somewhere, exclaimed from Copenhagen that for his island's people, "Global Warming" is not an economic issue, it is a question of survival. All I can do is shouting at the radio: You stupid man, go out of your house and take a look. Did the sea rise even 1cm since you were born? If not, you can go back inside the house and continue to sleep quietly, no need to worry. You see, those of us who live near the sea (we have had a place on the beach in SC for 30 years) can actually look at the sea and tell if it has risen. It has not. The sea is exactly where it was 30 years ago when we bought the property. According to laws of physics, if the pacific island or the Seychelles are threatened, so is SC and FL and vice-a-versa. Furthermore, Houston Texas had snow storm this week and in 2008 for the first time since 1944. "This was the earliest snow on record, breaking the old record set just last year on December 10, 2008 as well as December 10, 1944. This was also the first time measurable snow fell in Houston on two consecutive years. A trace of snow fell in Galveston, also the earliest snow on record." http://weatherblog.abc13.com
So did Arizona, where people from the north go to warm up in the winter!!! And let me calm you down, rising sea levels, as a result of warmer atmosphere, do not cause the ice caps to melt. In fact it causes them to enlarge. Here is how: Warmer weather (if true) causes more evaporation of sea water which returns to earth as rain, most of which falls on the vast areas of the 40(-) ice caps and freeze again. It is really that simple. If the UN "scientists" are correct and the earth will warm up by 2 degrees (Have you paid attention to the fact that Al Gore and the same Wako scientists predicted 20 degrees a mere two years ago?) the ice caps which are normally 60(-) degrees, will warm up to 58(-) degrees, still plenty cold to freeze the extra rain that will drop there. Another favorite threat NPR likes to talk about is the spread of malaria as result of GW, because mosquitos thrive in warmer weather. Well, any of you, like me, who ever visited the cold northern hemisphere, such as Canada and Finland, know very well that mosquitos thrive in cold weather. In fact in Edmonton, where my wife comes from, the joke is that the mosquitos, which are huge, are the national bird of Alberta... Now, friends, these are all logical conclusions that do not require you to be a scientist. But if you still believe in the alarmist conclusions of the so called UN "IPCC scientists," be a little more responsible and try to elicit answers to the above questions. Be a little more diligent and inquisitive. Don't just stand there and let the liberal media lie to you. Most people shy away from science and the logic of science, and that is precisely the reason why the UN and the liberal media succeed in duping so many people. So, to conclude, do yourself and all of us a big favor, watch the following British Channel 4 TV documentary in which REAL scientists prove the points I make much better than I can. After you watch the film ask yourself the following question: Does NPR have a financial interest in perpetuating the myth of "Global Warming?" Does it and the BBC also have a financial interest in perpetuating the Middle East conflict? Just maybe, do Arab funds flow to NPR and BBC? How did a theory about climate turn into a political ideology? If you didn't click on the video above, click here now. For your convenience, here is a menu by minutes of the above video. You can slide the mark to the desired minute:
Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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IRAN ON UN OBSERVATORY IN TURKEY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 12, 2009. |
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Iran commented on the UN observatory being built in Turkmenistan near the border with Iran, to help monitor Iranian nuclear development: "Espionage." (www.imra.org.il, 12/10.) Iran signed a treaty obliging it to keep the UN's International Atomic Energy Association informed about its nuclear development. Iran violates that treaty. What does it expect the UN to do? Many readers' comments on my articles refer vaguely and incorrectly to Israel violating UN resolutions. Here, among other Iranian and Arab violations, is an actual violation. No comments received objecting to the Iranian and Arab ones. This inconsistency makes one wonder.
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 and visit his website:
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ABOUT IRAN
Posted by Babak Aryan, December 12, 2009. |
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What is happening in future? 1- Why usa failed?Is it asign of non economic correct of USA in world?and Global aristocersay? 2- what is your idea bout Iran occurances? Some body call this occurance anew revoloution like 1979, or like 1980 ... and some body say, the revolution of 1979 or 1980 were the forced system without willingly poeple some body say the revoloutions of 1979,1980 were the fight between goodness and devil and other hand other poepel they were dicatorism what is your idea? Thank you
Contact Babak Aryan at homeyaryan@yahoo.com |
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A BRILLIANT PROPOSAL
Posted by Truth Provider, December 11, 2009. |
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Dear friends, You heard on the news this week that Sweden led a charge in the European Union to re-divide Jerusalem and declare East Jerusalem the capital of a "Palestinian" state.
The attempt failed. Some important European contries voted down the crazy Swedish proposal. In view of this lunatic attempt by Sweden to put the cart before the horses, here is a brilliant proposal by Ami Isseroff.
It is entitled "Breakthrough Report: Israeli peace initiative to give
Palestinians a capital" and it is archived at
Enjoy! Your Truth Provider,
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An unnamed official source in Jerusalem has informed us that Israel is about to make the Palestinians a generous offer for a capital city in the framework of peace negotiations. "We are going to make this proposal to get the peace talks going, so the Palestinians do not feel so bad about having to give up their demands for a settlement freeze and stock in Israeli high tech companies," the source said. "We understand that such gestures are needed to advance dialogue, and in view of our unbreakable bond with the United States, we want to help President Obama, who has been so helpful in advancing suggestions for peaceful compromises that Israel should make," the source continued. "Likewise, we do not want to lag behind the Europeans, especially the Swedes, who have been so generous with Israeli concessions." "What we are proposing is that the Palestinians will get a part of Stockholm as their capital. The idea has been broached with Palestinians and they are not averse. Stockholm is a Muslim holy place. According to a 2000 nanosecond — old Muslim tradition, the prophet Muhammad tethered his flying horse on the Kungsholmgatan when he had to make a rest stop in his journey to heaven. We are sure that the Swedish government, especially Mr. Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, will gladly make this minor sacrifice for peace," the official noted. "The big advantage of this plan is that Stockholm consists of different islands, so it will be relatively easy to divide it up between the Swedes and the Palestinians," the official pointed out. "If the Swedish government should nonetheless object to this excellent plan for advancing the Palestinian cause, we warn them not to try and drive a wedge between Israel and the Palestinians on this issue. Divide and conquer will not work here. . U.S. State Department officials were excited about the new proposal. "This is certainly in the spirit of the Nobel prize that President Obama got for not being Geourge Bush. The United States is always happy to back a peace plan that involves concessions from others," a high official commented. Ami Isseroff Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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DONT SETTLE FOR FREEZE ON SETTLEMENTS
Posted by UCI, December 11, 2009. |
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It is discouraging to see Israeli officials continuing to implement an ineffective policy of withdrawal and weakness. After the disengagement of Gaza in August 2005, the Palestinians responded with terrorist acts and rocket launches. Why should Israel continue down this road of withdrawal and appeasement? The Palestinians did not reciprocate Israel's withdrawal with a peaceful response such as the recognition of the State of Israel, the reduction of terrorist activities, the elimination of hate education in their schools or even the willingness to negotiate. Land give aways and terrorist releases by Israel have proven to be totally ineffective and actually stimulate terrorism. Israel must stand strong against the Palestinians and international pressure in order to remain a viable, democratic country. Help us to get this message out by making a tax-deductible gift to UCI! All donations are most appreciated! This a Dry Bones cartoon. Yaakov Kirschen is the creator of the Dry Bones cartoons, which he started drawing in January 1973. Contact him at blog@mrdrybones.com 
UCI — The Unity Coalition for Israel
(http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) — is "the largest worldwide
coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200
groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we
have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and
Secure Israel." |
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MESSAGE FROM THE MAYOR ON THE BUILDING FREEZE
Posted by Saul Goldman, December 11, 2009. |
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Dear Friends, Please read the letter below from Ron Nachman, the mayor of Ariel a so-called "illegal settlement". Throughout history various agencies from the Church to the German Government de-legitimized and dis-enfranchised Jews. Today the movement to invalidate our identity and claims to our own land are being led by Barak Obama. Please resist such an effort by writing and calling your legislators and by showing your support for cities like Ariel. I do not believe that the United States is represented by Obama's policies. Our country was forged out of a Biblical vision of liberty and justice. In the words of the colonial preacher, Amiel Abbott, we are the American Israel. Do not let America fall to a corrupting ideology that would alienate Americans from Israelis because some in Washington confuse the peace of justice with the peace of surrender and accomodation. Rabbi Saul Goldman |
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Dear Rabbi Saul, On Friday afternoon at 3:00pm, just one hour before Shabbat, I received a call from an Israeli Defense Forces officer. He came to bring me the building freeze orders. What had been presented as a government statement, to be implemented at a reasonable pace and with sufficient warning, was all of a sudden propelled into immediate and heavy handed motion. Young families, who took out mortgages to buy homes that were under construction will no longer be able to afford their payments, now that the entry date to their new homes has been pushed off by 10 months. The Netzarim community, which resides in Ariel since the 2005 Disengagement from Gush Katif, has finally received the necessary licenses and permits to begin building a neighborhood of 100 homes in Ariel. The building freeze stops them in their tracks, leaving them in their trailers and shipping containers for yet another 10 months. Businesses that chose to invest in the region and build their factories in Ariel's Industrial Zone are set back 10 months, paralyzing their marketing programs and threatening them with economic collapse. Unfortunately, the aggressive implementation of the freeze has grossly oversimplified a complex issue. Even the environment is at risk, with concerns that Ariel's connection to the Dan Region Wastewater Treatment Plant may be postponed, or that its budget may be routed elsewhere for lack of progress on the long awaited project. Prime Minister Netanyahu has succumbed to extreme and relentless pressure from the Obama administration and from Europe. I met with him last week, along with other representatives from Samaria and Judea. He explained that the 10 month building freeze throughout Judea and Samaria is a gesture to the international community, indicating that Israel is willing to take practical steps towards a so-called "peace" arrangement. Though he has not personally changed his belief system, he has initiated an unbearable situation with far reaching implications. The City of Ariel, along with 14 other cities and regional councils, has issued a claim against the government's recent actions. The Supreme Court responded that it will address the case in the coming days. We have been frozen in the past, but we have always persevered. In 1980 Prime Minister begin froze us for 3 months, but that didn't stop us. In 1992 Prime Minister Rabin froze us for 4 years. There have been many long term affects to that policy, but Ariel remains an undeniable reality. Notwithstanding our strength, we need to understand the threatening nature of this building freeze. It means that we can't absorb new immigrants, because we can't build new homes. It means that we can't attract young couples to Ariel, resulting in kindergartens closing and schools shrinking. It means that people don't know what to expect from day to day, or what their community will look like a year from now. No less harmful than the freeze are the government's budget cutbacks. Funding that went to Ariel as a national developmental priority has been discontinued. The repercussions are felt in the city's Department of Education, Social Services, Youth Department and in private households. Families who receive a 90% discount on childcare and nursery school are now required to pay 100% of the required tuition. No grants are given for young families to purchase homes in Ariel. No incentives are given to educators to come and teach in Ariel. Peace will not emerge from this building freeze, just as no good has emerged from the previous so-called peace initiatives, beginning with the 1993 Oslo Accords. This building freeze is yet another Israeli gesture towards an unwilling group of Palestinians. In the meantime, it causes unnecessary hardships to the people of Samaria and Judea, and it serves to delegitimize future attempts at creating some form of peace in the eyes of the Israeli people. What will emerge is a strong Ariel. Without a strong Samaria the State of Israel cannot survive. Without a strong Ariel there would be no Samaria. The geo-political situation in Israel continues to become increasingly more obvious to Israelis and even to the Western World. The City of Ariel will continue to provide jobs for our Arab neighbors. We will continue to provide them with water and electricity. We will continue to contribute to a meaningful and lasting peace in the region. After all is said and done it is our commitment to progress and to peace that will prevail. Sincerely,
Contact Saul Goldman at gold7910@bellsouth.net |
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SELECTIVE SELF-DETERMINATION
Posted by Michael Freund, December 11, 2009. |
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Is every "right to self-determination" created equally? The answer is clearly 'no', as I point out in the column below from the Jerusalem Post. Even as various countries such as France and Russia urge Israel to grant the Palestinians statehood, they themselves have proven to be far less amenable to the idea of self-determination when it comes to contentious issues in their own backyards. With the International Court of Justice in the Hague now holding hearings on the legality of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia last year, the inconsistency of many countries' positions is on display for all to see. it behooves Israel to follow the matter closely and take notice. Comments and feedback may be sent to: letters@jpost.com or to me directly. thanks, and have a Happy Hanukkah,
This article appeared yesterday in the Jerusalem Post
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Last week, hearings began at the International Court of Justice in The Hague which could prove to be of immense importance to Israel. Although the case in question relates to the legality of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia last year, it touches upon a deeper and far more contentious issue in international relations: the right to and limits of self-determination. And while issues of international law usually evoke little more than yawns from most of us, this is one debate that we should all try to stay awake for and perhaps even follow closely, if only because of its potential ramifications for the conflict in the Middle East. The question before the court is whether the province of Kosovo had the legal right to break away from Serbia. The region's population is more than 90 percent ethnic Albanian, many of whom have been agitating for independence since the breakup of the Yugoslav federation in the 1990s. Ten years ago, Kosovo was the scene of intensifying violence, leading NATO to launch a bombing campaign between March and June 1999 with the goal of driving Serbian military forces from the area. Subsequently, the UN began to administer the province, and in February 2008 Kosovar leaders formally declared their independence. Some 63 countries, including most Western states, have recognized Kosovo as a sovereign state, but many, such as Serbia and Russia, do not, and Belgrade has asked the World Court to issue an advisory ruling regarding the legitimacy of the Kosovar move.
WHAT DOES any of this have to do with Israel, you might be asking? Well, the answer is: quite a lot. To begin with, the right of self-determination is one that the Palestinians regularly invoke to justify their demand for statehood. There is hardly a speech that is made in the halls of the UN on the subject that does not summon this "right" in an effort to substantiate the Palestinian claim. Where this right begins, and ends, in international relations is of course hardly ever discussed. Indeed, just what exactly are its limits? For example, as a matter of principle, could residents of Brooklyn claim to be a unique nation with their own history, geography and even accent, and seek to break away from the US and form their own state? It might sound silly, or even absurd, but where exactly does one draw the line? Perhaps Gazan Arabs can assert their uniqueness and distinction from their brethren in Judea and Samaria, and insist on separating from them as well, in the process giving new meaning to the term "two states for two peoples". That is what makes the court ruling on Kosovo potentially so significant, because of the impact it may have on the commonly held, yet vaguely defined notion of just who has the right under international law to seek sovereignty and independence. As a result, it could indirectly strengthen, or possibly even weaken, the Palestinian argument on this issue. But even more compelling than all the legalities is the usual spectacle of duplicity that is on display, as various countries weigh in on the matter with what can only be described as a selective approach to self-determination. Take Russia, for example. Moscow has vigorously defended Serbia's right to Kosovo and rejected the province's arguments in favor of independence. And yet, it was just last year that Russia supported moves by the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to break away from the Caucasus nation of Georgia.
VARIOUS EUROPEAN countries are no less incoherent. France was one of the first countries to recognize Kosovo, and it has even opened an embassy in the province's capital of Pristina. But in Paris' own backyard, it has proven far less amenable to the idea of self-determination when it comes to either the Corsicans or Basques, many of whom would like to be free of French rule. Apparently, not all "rights to self-determination" were created equal. This, too, is another reason why Israel should be following events at the World Court closely. After all, we regularly take a battering from various countries who preach to us about the need to grant statehood to the Palestinians. They stand on principle in lecturing us about Ramallah's right to self-rule, even as they adopt wildly inconsistent positions on a range of other international disputes. However briefly, the hearings at The Hague will cast a spotlight on the hypocrisy of their stance. It behooves us to take notice, and to remind our critics of it with unflinching frequency. 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. |
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EGYPT BUILDING IRON FENCE ALONG GAZA BORDER; TERRITORY REFERENDUM BILL ANALYSIS; GEERT WILDERS SPEAKS IN NEW YORK
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 11, 2009. | |
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EGYPT BUILDING IRON FENCE ALONG GAZA BORDER Egypt is building an iron wall that goes down to as much as 30 meters below ground, purportedly to stop smugglers. The project would benefit: (1) Building contractors and laborers; (2) Egyptian officials bribed by the contractors; (3) The U.S., which could tell Israel to stop complaining about smuggling, it is spending a fortune on the project; (4) The Egyptian government, which could say that this time it is serious about stopping smuggling, instead of closing a few tunnels out of hundreds, for periodic publicity; and (5) Smugglers, who would continue operations unabated — their tunnels are 35 meters below surface, which is somewhat below the fence. Israeli officials are not likely to comment on this latest farce. But it shows the unreliability of third-party efforts against smuggling. If Egypt wanted to stop the smuggling, all it need do would be to pay compensation and move the town of Rafiah a few kilometers deeper inside the Sinai, so its houses could no longer hide tunnel entrances (www.imra.org.il, 12/9). Will anti-Zionists call it an "apartheid wall?" FATAH NEGLECTS FAMILIES, TO PREPARE FOR WAR From the Official Fatah web site, www.Fateh.org, Dec. 9, 2009, referring to its members in Gaza: "With the renewal of the threats emanating from the Zionist military establishment to carry out a new attack on the Gaza Strip... the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades... warned of a harsh and painful response that the occupation state is not expecting. This response was conveyed by one of the heads of the Brigades in the Gaza Strip, Abu Ahed..." "Jihad fighters?" I thought this was a territorial dispute and that jihad means a personal struggle against temptation. (Just kidding.) They can have their deprived families complain to Associated Press that the Israeli blockade is starving them. I have heard of no such Israeli threats. Aggressors usually try to cover their own aggression with false accusations. Hitler claimed that Poland attacked Germany. Whom the aggressors think they are deceiving at the time? Later, revisionist historians have tried to exonerate Arab aggressors. They succeeded with some younger readers whose comments deny historical events that I lived through. Abbas, who heads Fatah, is not a man of peace. TERRITORY REFERENDUM BILL ANALYSIS Earlier we reported a bill in Knesset that would offer to put to a referendum any Israeli government proposal to cede sovereign territory to a new Arab state. The bill's sponsors contemplated applying this to proposals to cede the Golan or part of eastern Jerusalem. It also could apply to ceding other parts of the State for border adjustments. Some people have proposed keeping areas of Judea-Samaria housing Jews but giving the Palestinian Authority parts of Israel along the border housing Arabs. The bill offers the referendum if the government passes a measure alienating sovereign Israeli territory by less than 80 out of the 140 Members of Knesset. The bill then has a complicated formula for conditions for holding the referendum. The formula has a loophole. The formula states that if there is a national election soon after the vote, the election would be considered a referendum, since the proposed land cession would be a major issue in the election. Loophole: the election might be won by a false promise to reject the vote for cession. Once in office, the new regime could renege. This is not farfetched (12/9), Indeed it is not. Prime Ministers Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak, and Sharon won office by promising a more nationalist or security-minded regime than they implemented. Once in office, they favored appeasement. DANGER OF PAKISTAN-INDIA WAR Embattled Pakistan has not relieved tensions with India. Al-Qaida and allies have taken some initiative against the Pakistani army, by attacking its headquarters. At the same time, it taunts the army by accusing it of killing Muslims. Although the U.S. asks Pakistan to do more against terrorists, and to keep them from attacking India, Pakistan cannot keep terrorists from attacking it. Suppose the terrorists deliberately provoke a war between the two sub-continental nuclear powers. India might strike at terrorist bases in Pakistan. Although that would assist the government of Pakistan militarily, it would cost the Pakistani army prestige. It would fight back. Destabilization (www.imra.org.il, 12/9). TURKEY FOILS IRANIAN PLOT AGAINST ISRAEL 
Iran's security agency has phony Iranian tourists enter Turkey to prepare an attack against Israeli facilities there. The hope was to damage Israel without giving it a reason to retaliate against Hizbullah in Lebanon. Turkish forces foiled the plot (www.imra.org.il, 12/9). No further details yet. GEERT WILDERS SPEAKS IN NEW YORK 
This is his speech verbatim, just a few lines omitted. It is far stronger than what I write. It breaks down my distinction between Radical and moderate Islam. It also discusses some of the more sensitive aspects of Islam, such as its prophet, which I do not. I examined the speech for errors. Didn't find any. I suppose that the population statistic includes eastern Europe, part of which is in Russia. Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem:
POST-9/11 REHEARSAL — UPDATE First, the story that Air Tran gave out to the media: The plane was delayed when a passenger refused to turn off his cell phone before take-off. The captain returned the plane to the hangar, the passenger complied with requests to disembark, and the plane proceeded 2.5 hours later (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575558,00.html ) Now the story reported to my source by a passenger of Air Tran Airways' November 17 flight 297 from Atlanta to Dallas: "I was in 1st class coming home. 11 Muslim men got on the plane in full attire. 2 sat in 1st class and the rest peppered themselves throughout the plane all the way to the back. As the plane taxied to the runway the stewardesses gave the safety spiel we are all so familiar with. At that time, one of the men got on his cell and called one of his companions in the back and proceeded to talk on the phone in Arabic very loudly and very aggressively. This took the 1st stewardess out of the picture for she repeatedly told the man that cell phones were not permitted at the time. He ignored her as if she was not there." "The 2nd man who answered the phone did the same and this took out the 2nd stewardess. In the back of the plane at this time, 2 younger Muslims, one in the back, aisle, and one in front of him, window, began to show footage of a porno they had taped the night before, and were very loud about it. Now....they are only permitted to do this prior to Jihad." "The 3rd stewardess informed them that they were not to have electronic devices on at this time. To which one of the men said 'shut up infidel dog!' She went to take the camcorder and he began to scream in her face in Arabic. At that exact moment, all 11 of them got up and started to walk the cabin. This is where I had had enough! I got up and started to the back where I heard a voice behind me from another Texan twice my size say 'I got your back'" I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said "you WILL go sit down or you Will be thrown from this plane!' As I 'led' him around me to take his seat, the fellow Texan grabbed him by the back of his neck and his waist and headed out with him." "I then grabbed the 2nd man and said, "You WILL do the same!" He protested but adrenaline was flowing now and he was going to go. As I escorted him forward the plane doors open and 3 TSA agents and 4 police officers entered. Me and my new Texan friend were told to cease and desist for they had this under control. I was happy to oblige actually. There was some commotion in the back, but within moments, all 11 were escorted off the plane. They then unloaded their luggage." "We talked about the occurrence and were in disbelief that it had happen, when suddenly, the door open again and on walked all 11!! Stone faced, eyes front and robotic (the only way I can describe it). The stewardess from the back had been in tears and when she saw this, she was having NONE of it! Being that I was up front, I heard and saw the whole ordeal. She told the TSA agent there was NO WAY she was staying on the plane with these men. The agent told her they had searched them and were going to go through their luggage with a fine tooth comb and that they were allowed to proceed to Houston. The captain and co-captain came out and told the agent 'we and our crew will not fly this plane!' After a word or two, the entire crew, luggage in tow, left the plane. 5 minutes later, the cabin door opened again and a whole new crew walked on." "Again.....this is where I had had enough!!! I got up and asked 'What the hell is going on!?!?' I was told to take my seat. They were sorry for the delay and I would be home shortly. I said 'I'm getting off this plane]. The stewardess sternly told me that she could not allow me to get off. (now I'm mad!)" "I said 'I am a grown man who bought this ticket, who's time is mine with a family at home and I am going through that door, or I'm going through that door with you under my arm!! But I am going through that door!!' And I heard a voice behind me say 'so am I'. "Then everyone behind us started to get up and say the same. Within 2 minutes, I was walking off that plane where I was met with more agents who asked me to write a statement. I had 5 hours to kill at this point so why the hell not. Due to the amount of people who got off that flight, it was canceled. I was supposed to be in Houston at 6pm. I got here at 12:30 a.m." "If this wasn't a dry run, I don't know what one is. The terrorists wanted to see how TSA would handle it, how the crew would handle it, and how the passengers would handle it." (Winston Mideast Analysis & Commentary, 12/9.) How do you think the authorities handled this situation? Defiance of safety rules but no arrests, menacing behavior (as in all walking toward the cabin), special flight crew for disturbers of the peace, no stated investigation of them, and a press report that ignored the Muslim and Arab language and behavior imitating that of 9/11. The Muslim passengers' arrogance was matched by officialdom's obsequiousness. The only saving grace was the Texans' "cowboy" behavior and the crew's dignity. The government did not "send a shot across the bow" of terrorists. FREEZE MOTIVE, ACCORDING TO NEW YORK TIMES "About 10,000 W. Bank settlers and their backers demonstrated in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday, pledging to defy a temporary ban imposed by PM Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The relatively large turnout reflected increasingly fierce settler resistance to the government ban." The explanation seems strange. Why should Israel help a hostile Obama administration? It was that Administration whose denunciation of Israel seemed to have encouraged Abbas' resistance to negotiation without precondition. More likely, PM Netanyahu caved in to Obama demands. Israel would be wiser to keep third parties out of negotiations, because they side with the Arabs. Negotiations do not make sense, either. It is one thing to be willing to negotiate, as PM Netanyahu is. It is another thing to anticipate positive results. Obama's goal is another Arab state, without his having to justify why and without Abbas having to make it a non-jihad, non-terrorist, non-anti-Western state that really would keep a peace agreement. It is not keeping its current peace agreements. I think that Israel should insist that until the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) complies with its existing agreements, the example of its non-compliance demonstrates that the P.A. does not want peace and therefore Israel won't negotiate for nothing.
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 and visit his website:
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CHANUKAH 2009 GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, December 11, 2009. |
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Chanukah has a special significance in Montana these days. In Billings in 1993, vandals broke windows in homes that were displaying menorahs. In a response organized by local church leaders, more than 10,000 of the city's residents and shopkeepers put make-shift menorahs in their own windows, to protect the city's three dozen or so Jewish families. The vandalism stopped" (New York Times, Dec. 4, 2009, Eric Stern, senior counselor to Gov. Brian Schweitzer). 1. Historical context Alexander The Great — who held Judaism in high esteem and whose Egyptian heir, Ptolemy II, translated the Torah to Greek — died in 323BCE following 12 glorious years. Consequently, the Greek Empire disintegrated into five, and thirty years later into three, kingdoms: Macedonia, Syria and Egypt. The Land of Israel was militarily contested by Syria and Egypt. In 198BCE, Israel was conquered by the Syrian kingdom. In 175BCE, a new king assumed power in Syria, Antiochus (IV) Epiphanies, who viewed the Jews as pro-Egyptians and held Judaism with contempt. In 169BC, upon his return to Syria from a war against Egypt, he devastated Jerusalem, massacred the Jews, forbade the practice of Judaism (including the Sabbath, circumcision, etc.) and desecrated Jerusalem and the Temple. The 167BCE-launched rebellion against the Syrian (Seleucid) kingdom featured the Hasmonean (Maccabee) family: Mattityahu, a priest from the town of Modi'in, and his five sons, Yochanan, Yehuda, Shimon, Yonatan and Elazar. The heroic (and tactically creative) battles conducted by the Maccabees, were consistent with the reputation of Jews as superb warriors, who were hired frequently as mercenaries by Egypt, Syria, Rome and other global and regional powers. 2. The Hasmonean dynasty
3. Inspiration to Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" and New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die." The Maccabees' sacrifice and political-incorrectness has preserved and inspired today's Jewish religion, language, culture and sovereignty. They followed in the footsteps of Abraham, Phineas the High Priest, Joshua & Calev, King David and Elijah the Prophet, who walked against the grain, in defiance of the establishment and conventional "wisdom." 4. An early version of "In God We Trust" was the Maccabees' battle cry, which adopted Moses' battle cry against the builders of the Golden Calf. A literal translation of the battle cry is "Whoever trusts G-D; join me!" 5. Key geographic Maccabee sites, the cradle of Judaism and today's Jewish State: Modi'in, Mitzpah (Nebi Samuel), Beit Horon, Ma'aleh Beit Horon, Hadashah, Beit Zur, Adora'yim, Elazar, Ma'aleh Levona, Ame'os, Michmash, Judean Desert, Jericho. Other than Modi'in, the rest are beyond the "Pre-1967 Lines." Are they currently "occupied" by the descendants of the Maccabees or are they the epitome of Jewish moral high-ground and Statehood? 6. Chanukah's uniqueness. Chanukah is the only Jewish holiday which commemorates a Land-of-Israel national liberation struggle, unlike Passover (Exodus from Egypt), Sukkot/Tabernacles & Shavouot/Pentacost (on the way from Egypt to the Land of Israel), Purim (deliverance of Jews in Persia), etc. Chanukah is the longest Jewish holiday (8 days) with the most intense level of Light (8 consecutive nights of candle lighting). 7. The origin of the name — Chanukah — is also education-oriented. According to the first book of Maccabees, Yehuda (who succeeded Mattityahu) ordered the Jewish People to observe an eight day holiday on the 25th day of the month of Kislev, 165BCE, in order to commemorate the inauguration (Chanukah, חנוכה, in Hebrew) of the holy altar and the Temple, following Syrian desecration. A key feature of Chanukah is education of the family (Chinuch, חינוך, in Hebrew). The Hebrew word, Chanukah, consists of two words, Chanu, חנו,(they rested/stationed) and Kah, כה, (25 in Hebrew), which refers to the fact that the Maccabees re-consecrated the Temple on the 25th day of the month of Kislev (purging it from the idolatries installed by the Syrians/Seleucids). Some have suggested that the celebration of Christmas on December 25th and the celebration of the New Year 8 days later (January 1) have their origin in the 25th day of Kislev (which always "accompanies" December) and the 8 days of Chanukah as well as the 8 days of circumcision. 8. Holiday of light and remembrance. The first day of Chanukah is on the 25th day of Kislev, the month of miracles (e.g. Noah's Rainbow appeared in Kislev). The first and last Hebrew letters of Kislev — וכ — equal (in Jewish numerology) 26, which the total sum of the Hebrew spelling of Jehovah. Moses completed the construction of the Holy Ark on the 25th day of Kislev, as was the date of the laying the foundation of the Second Temple by Nehemaya. The 25th (Hebrew) word in Genesis is Light (OR, אור, in Hebrew). A Jewish metaphor for the Torah is light. The 25th stop of the People of Israel — on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land — was Hashmona (same root as Hasmoneans in Hebrew). Chanukah commemorates the victory of Light (Maccabees) over Darkness and Remembrance over Forgetfulness (the Hebrew spelling of darkness — חשכה — employs the same letters as forgetulness — שכחה). 9. The origin of the name, Maccabee (מכבי or מקבי). Yehuda's middle name was Maccabee, derived possibly from the Hebrew word Makevet (מקבת), Power Hammer), which described Yehuda's tenacious and decisive fighting capabilities. It may have derived from the Hebrew verb Cabeh (כבה, to extinguish), which described the fate of Yehuda's adversaries. Another source of the name suggests that Maccabee, מכבי, is the Hebrew acronym of "Who could resemble you among Gods, Jehovah" ("Mi Camokha Ba'elim Adonai" מי כמוך באלים י'). 10. Eight days of Chanukah represent divine capabilities and optimism. The ancient Temple Menorah consisted of seven branches, which commemorated the seven days of creation. The Chanukah Menorah has eight branches, reflecting the additional level of divine capabilities over and beyond human expectations: The victory of the few over the many and the lasting of one day supply of oil for eight days. Some have suggested that the eight day celebration was designed to make up for the holiday of Tabernacles, which could not be celebrated by the Maccabees due to their war of liberation. The shape of the digit 8 represents infinity: No end to divine capabilities to enhance human fortunes, as evidenced by the survival of the Jewish People against all odds. The root of the Hebrew word for 8 (Shmoneh, שמונה) is "oil" (Shemen, שמנ), which is also the root of "Hasmonean" (Hashmonayim, חשמונאים). 11. The legacy of Shimon the Maccabee. He succeeded Yehuda and Yonatan the Maccabees, while responding to an ultimatum by the Syrian emperor, Antiochus (Book of Maccabees A, Chapter 15, verse 33): "We have not occupied a foreign land; We have not ruled a foreign land; We have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation." Thus he responded to a super-power's ultimatum to end "occupation" of Jaffa, Jerusalem, Gezer, Ekron and Gaza. 12. Chanukah-Purim-Passover. The heroes of Passover and Purim had no choice but to defy their enemies. The Maccabees turned down the option of physical peace in return for spiritual assimilation. They refused to sellout the cradle of Jewish history. They were willing to pay any price for adherence to their roots, values and heritage. Chanukah symbolizes the victory of conviction over short-term convenience and opportunism/cynicism (sometime presented as "realism" or "pragmatism"). 13. Seven Chanukah (inauguration)-like events: Chanukah of the Creation (Genesis 2:1-3), Chanukah of the Sanctuary (Numbers 7:1-11), Chanukah of the First Temple (Kings 1, 7:51, 8:1-11 & 62-66), Chanukah of the Second Temple and the Ingathering (Ezra 6:13-18), Chanukah of Jerusalem's Wall (Nehemiah 6:15-16), Chanukah of the Temple Priests in 165BC (Maccabees 1, 4), Chanukah of the After World. Some attach the significance of each such Chanukah to a corresponding day of the Creation. 14. Inspiration to Benjamin Franklin's "Rebellion against Tyrants is obedience to God." The Maccabees were a tiny minority of "rebels" — condemned by the "loyalists/pragmatists" — rising against an oppressive super-power. They were condemned, by the Jewish establishment, as "enemies of peace" and "extremists." They prevailed due to their principle-driven, determined and can-do state-of-mind and adherence to roots and long-term vision against any odds. They demonstrated the victory of the few over the many, right over wrong, moral over immoral, truth over lies, faith over cynicism and opportunism. The Maccabees became a role-model for the US' Founding Fathers, including Paul Revere (who was referred to as a "modern day Maccabee") and the organizers of the Boston Tea Party. They realized that no free lunches were available for freedom-seeking nations, especially in the conflict-ridden Middle East. 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. He can be contacted at yoramtex@netvision.net.il |
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SHOMRON REGIONAL COUNCIL ON ALLEGED ASSAULT ON MOSQUE IN YASUF
Posted by David Ha'Ivri, December 11, 2009. |
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Statement of Shomron Regional Council on alleged assault on Mosque in the vallage of Yasuf in the region. The Shomron Regional Council rejected on Friday morning reports that Jews were responsible for a fire at a mosque in Kafr Yasuf, south of Shechem. The council noted that some books and a carpet were burned and not the mosque itself, adding that on the surface, the vandalism described by the Israel Defense Forces' Spokesperson's Office was that of a mentally-ill person or a provocation. Who'd be stupid enough to leave a name? A statement by the council called on the police to investigate well, given the number of times Arabs have burned the Tomb of Yosef, which they turned into a mosque. The council added that its position against harming the holy places of other religions is well known. The council stressed that the IDF's announcement said the mosque was vandalized by unknown individuals and various media took it upon themselves to blame area Jewish residents, and called on media to be responsible and stick to the facts and not to personal opinions. 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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ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS ARE MORE THAN LEGITIMATE
Posted by Daily Alert, December 11, 2009. |
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This is an opinion piece written by Eric Rozenman, which
appeared today in the Los Angeles Times
Eric Rozenman is Washington director of CAMERA, the Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. |
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President Obama asserts, seconded by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" in the West Bank. Both have praised the 10-month freeze on new residential building — excluding eastern Jerusalem — that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late last month. Netanyahu now calls for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations or take the blame for lack of progress when the "one-time-only" freeze expires. Abbas' precondition — adopted after Washington's pronouncements — is that all Israeli construction, including in eastern Jerusalem, must cease permanently. Too bad international diplomacy doesn't have a replay button. If it did, the parties could look back at history, which would show that Israeli settlements not only are legitimate under international law but positively encouraged. The basic relevant provision, the League of Nations' 1922 British Mandate for Palestine, Article 6, encourages "close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public use." Most Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been built on land that was state land under the Ottomans, British, Jordanians and, after the 1967 Six-Day War, under the Israelis, or on property that has been privately purchased.[emphasis added] The United States endorsed Article 6 by signing the 1924 Anglo-American Convention, a treaty stipulating acceptance of the mandate. The League of Nations is long gone, but Article 6 remains in force. The United Nations' 1945 Charter, Article 80 — sometimes known as "the Palestine article" — notes among other things that "nothing in the charter shall be construed to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or peoples or the terms of existing international instruments." Eugene Rostow, U.S. undersecretary of State for President Lyndon Johnson — who is an authority on international law and the coauthor of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which outlines requirements for Arab-Israeli peace — reaffirmed this principle. In 1990, he said: "The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the same provisions of the mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem before the state of Israel was created." As for Resolution 242's call for "secure and recognized boundaries," according to Rostow in 1991 in another piece, a careful look at the wrangling over the resolution in 1967 makes it clear that it did not mandate Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai peninsula to the post-1948 armistice lines. Many who allege that Jewish communities in the West Bank violate international law cite the 4th Geneva Convention, Article 49. It states that an occupying power "shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." But Julius Stone, like Rostow a leading legal theorist, wrote in his 1981 book, "Israel and Palestine: An Assault on the Law of Nations," that the effort to designate Israeli settlements as illegal was a "subversion ... of basic international law principles." Stone, Stephen Schwebel, a former judge on the International Court of Justice, and others have distinguished between territory acquired in an "aggressive conquest" (such as Nazi Germany's seizures during World War II) and territory taken in self-defense (such as Israeli conquests in 1967). The distinction is especially sharp when the territory acquired had been held illegally, as Jordan had held the West Bank, which it seized during the Arab states' 1948-49 war against Israel. Further, Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention was intended to outlaw the Nazi practice of forcibly transporting populations into or out of occupied territories to labor or death camps. Israelis were not forcibly transferred to the West Bank, nor were Palestinian Arabs forced out of it. Two years after President Carter's State Department determined that Israeli settlements violated international law, President Reagan said flatly that they were "not illegal." One can argue, as Reagan did and Obama does, that Israel's establishing towns in the disputed territories after 1967 obstructs diplomacy, or, as some Israeli critics do, that building Jewish communities near Palestinian Arab population centers disperses the country's Jewish majority too widely. But one cannot accurately declare the settlements illegal. 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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FAKING CANCER TO GET OUT OF GAZA
Posted by Naomi Ragen, December 11, 2009. |
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Dear Friends,
Who remembers the beautiful villages of Gush Katif? The flowering
greenhouses exporting organic strawberries and vegetables that brought
residents millions in revenue? The quiet, tree-lined streets, the lovely
red-roofed villas? The shopping centers and synagogues?
This land, together with all the greenhouses and synagogues, was turned over
to Hamas. It is now hell on earth.
And so will be any other land turned over to Palestinians under their
present leadership. Mr. Obama, are you listening? Israelis aren't the
problem. Palestinian leaders are the problem.
The news item below comes from Fox News:
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A healthy man in blockaded Gaza faked cancer, hoping the deadly disease would be his ticket out of the territory that has become an open-air prison for its 1.4 million residents. His ploy failed, but several thousand others succeeded in fleeing this shabby sliver of land this year using bribes and fake medical reports, a sign of Gazans' desperation over growing poverty and misery under the strict border closure enforced by Egypt and Israel since Hamas militants overran Gaza in June 2007. The blockade has few loopholes. Israel allows passage to top business people and a limited number of Gazans seeking treatment for serious illnesses. Egypt sporadically opens its border for university students and those with residency abroad. Everyone else is stuck, even as Palestinian polls suggest nearly half the population would like to leave if they could. Deepening the Gazans' sense of imprisonment, they must now also obtain permission from the Hamas government before attempting to leave, further complicating an obstacle-ridden path to freedom. Those trying to bribe their way out usually approach middlemen who put them in touch with local doctors, Palestinian health officials or Egyptian bureaucrats and military officials. Akram Ghneim, 31, an unemployed father of six living off food handouts, told The Associated Press he promised $260 to a Palestinian middleman, who obtained for him a bogus medical report saying he had cancer. Ghneim said he hoped he'd get a rare spot on the list of Gaza patients with life-threatening illnesses who are allowed to enter Israel for treatment. Once in Israel, he planned to disappear and work illegally. But Israeli intelligence officials, who review applications, rejected him last summer, saying his cancer report was forged. "This is what the blockade does," said Ran Yaron, of the Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights, which helps bring Gazans into Israel for treatment by lobbing Israeli defense officials. "Most are frustrated and devastated people." Yaron said fakers are a minority, but clog up the system for real patients who have to go through longer checks as a result. Of more than 7,000 Gazans who crossed into Israel this year to seek medical treatment, some 500 haven't returned, said Col. Moshe Levi, an Israeli defense official. Some stay in Israel, while others move to the West Bank, a territory controlled by Israel but partly administered by Palestinians loyal to Fatah, bitter rivals of Hamas. One Fatah loyalist, a healthy 30-year-old woman, said she was desperate to leave Gaza after being harassed by Hamas officials. She bribed a Gaza doctor with $100 to certify she had "whatever cancer could only be treated in Israel." The doctor then paid off a physician serving on a Palestinian committee that certifies medical reports for Israeli military officials, the woman said. She eventually succeed in reaching the West Bank and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being sent back to Gaza by the Israeli authorities. Israeli intelligence officials investigate Gazans applying to enter Israel to ensure they are not militants and to check whether medical certificates are genuine, but tend to rely on the Palestinian committee to confirm that the patient is actually sick. The head of the Palestinian committee, Bassam Badri, denied members accept bribes. Omar Masri of the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said the issue was "too stupid for a response." But Palestinians who have successfully used bogus transfers said some health officials accept payments, anything from $100 to $500. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the illicit system. Others pay bribes to get out through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt, said a senior Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to alienate Egyptian authorities. Payments range from $400 to $5,000, according to Rafah residents familiar with the system, known among Gazans as "Egyptian coordination." An Egyptian security official at the border denied Egyptian officers take bribes to allow crossings. He said that three months ago, two Palestinian officials posted on the Egyptian side were removed on suspicion of taking bribes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press. Depending on the sum, the middleman's talents and luck, bribe-paying Gazans can sometimes leave immediately through the crossing, with Egyptian officials stamping them through, even when it's closed, Rafah residents said. Otherwise, bribe-payers wait for one of the official border openings by Egypt, usually lasting for around three days every month or two. About 2,000 Gazans get through each time the border opens. Only half are on the official list and the rest are handled directly by the Egyptian authorities, said Ehab Ghussein, the Interior Ministry spokesman in Gaza. Thousands more have applied to leave but don't make the list, he said. Numerous tunnels run under the Gaza-Egypt borders in a thriving smuggling trade bringing goods into the territory. But few Gazans use them to sneak into Egypt, because once on the other side they would have no official status and be more vulnerable to Egyptian police. But even paying bribes isn't a guaranteed exit strategy. Hazem Riyashi, 27, says he paid a middleman $1,000 in July to cross through Egypt, hoping to reach the Gulf emirate of Dubai, where his family lives. But the middleman disappeared and has not returned his calls. Riyashi hasn't given up, and is looking for someone else to pay off. "I think everybody should leave Gaza," he said. "Even the air smells cleaner abroad." Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION "ASSURES JEWISH EVACUATION"
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 10, 2009. |
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If there was any doubt that Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are traitors to the Jewish Nation/State of Israel and have committed treason against the people of Israel, the following will remove all your doubts.
When men betray their own people and nations, they bring a curse upon themselves and end up in the cursed place — Kafa Kella...a place below Hell.
But, what of the nations and leaders who recruited Israel's leaders to betray their own people?
I have no doubt they and their nations will suffer in ways that only Pharaoh could testify to.
There is a prayer calling upon G-d for retribution. It's called "Pulsa de Nura". It is time that G-d was asked for His assistance and that He no longer withhold His anger. But, Israel's enemies do not believe in the G-d of the Jews so they have nothing to worry about — Right?
As civilization spirals down, perhaps they can blame it all on global warming!
This below was written by Aaron Klein and appeared today on
World Net Daily PA official says U.S. won't counter proposal giving Temple Mount to Palestinians |
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JERUSALEM — Members of the Obama administration recently assured the Palestinian Authority that most Jewish communities in the strategic West Bank will be evacuated, a top PA official told WND yesterday. The official also said Obama will soon offer the Palestinians a public pledge that a Palestinian state will encompass most of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem with the exception of what is known as the three main settlement blocs — Ariel, Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim. The pledge will likely be oral and not in the form of a letter, said the PA official. Further, both the PA official and a source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office told WND the Obama administration refused to counter a European Union draft document that supports the division of Jerusalem, with the Temple Mount going to the Palestinians. The White House yesterday issued a statement that the status of Jerusalem should be determined by Israel and the Palestinians, but the statement stopped short of countering the EU proposal. Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency, last week presented to Israel and the PA the draft document, which recognizes all of eastern Jerusalem — including the Temple Mount — as the capital of a future Palestinian state. "The EU will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem," said the EU ministerial draft, referring to all of eastern Jerusalem. "If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states," EU foreign ministers agreed in a statement released last Tuesday. Israel's Foreign Ministry, for its part, warned the proposal would damage the EU's ability to be a Mideast mediator. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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TERROR & HOMEGROWN
Posted by Susana K-M, December 10, 2009. |
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This was written by Bill Katz. |
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AND THE REALITY THAT WE FACE — AT 8:34 A.M. ET: This is a follow-up to the final story we posted last night. Once again, the words "terror" and "homegrown" are linked. From Fox News: ISLAMABAD — Five Americans arrested at a house linked to a militant group in eastern Pakistan have told investigators they came to the country to take part in "jihad" or holy war, police said Thursday. COMMENT: Let's now hope that our law enforcement authorities take this seriously, and don't engage in another embarrassing series of politically correct excuses or explanations. There has been one incident after another in the last year involving American citizens. Some law enforcement agencies have done a great job of nailing the would-be terrorists on our own soil, while others continue to spout the politically correct party line. Americans have had it with that. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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DOVES JOIN FORCES
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, December 7, 2009. |
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This was written by Ron Kampeas, JTA's Washington bureau chief.
It is archived at
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CORRECTION: The original version of this story listed New Israel Fund as one of the participating organizations, but NIF denies that it was ever a part of the informal coalition. WASHINGTON (JTA) — A funny thing happened on the way to modifying punitive legislation targeting Palestinians — Jewish and non-Jewish groups backing aggressive peacemaking established a coalition. The groups succeeded in toning down the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006. In the process they forged an unofficial coalition of so-called "pro-peace" groups that now routinely consults on issues ranging from Israel-Palestinian matters to how best to deal with Iran — most participants oppose new sanctions. Participants say the Jewish groups in the new coalition include Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum, as well as two groups in the process of merging: J Street and Brit Tzedek V'Shalom. Officials with the groups unabashedly defend their growing ties with their non-Jewish partners, insisting that the non-Jewish groups back a two-state solution and favor other policies that will help Israel by improving chances for peace in the region. The list of organizations from outside the Jewish community includes narrow-interest groups such as the Arab American Institute, the American Task Force on Palestine, Churches for Middle East Peace and, more recently, the National Iranian American Council. At times the informal coalition also has included liberal think tanks such as the New America Foundation, the Open Society Institute and the Center for American Progress. The loose-knit coalition has persisted and even expanded since the election of President Obama, who is friendly to its goals of active engagement. Many of the organizations had an active role, or even helped sponsor, J Street's inaugural national conference in October. Participants attend each other's strategy meetings and, during intense periods — for instance, in crafting the modifications to the 2006 Palestinian legislation — speak routinely in conference calls. "It's informal and it's based on personal relationships that we've developed over the months and years," said Warren Clark, the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace, an umbrella body for mainstream church groups from Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox streams. For years, liberal activists — including some associated with the budding coalition — have protested the willingness of establishment Jewish organizations to embrace pro-Israel Evangelical Christians, citing their conservative views on domestic social issues and hawkish foreign policy positions. In recent weeks, however, Conservative journalists and bloggers have criticized the willingness of dovish Jewish groups to work with non-Jewish groups that have been critical of Israeli policies and oppose Iran sanctions. Many pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations, have made sanctions a top priority, portraying them as a means of leveraging Iran into abandoning its suspected nuclear weapons program. Several members of the informal dovish coalition oppose such steps, with the National Iranian American Council leading the way. Conservative critics have focused on alleged links between J Street and the Iranian group, lumping together the two organizations. Yet J Street officials have always stopped short of publicly ruling out sanctions, arguing that the time was not right for tougher measures, but might be in the future to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. And, indeed, J Street this week came out in favor of proposed sanctions legislation being considered in the U.S. Congress. Americans for Peace Now, on the other hand, has joined the Iranian group, known by the acronym NIAC, in portraying the sanctions as inhumane and likely to reinforce support for the regime. In at least one mass e-mail, Americans for Peace Now directed readers to NIAC's talking points outlining the case for opposing sanctions targeting Iran's energy sector. In the wake of Obama's election, NIAC called a meeting to strategize among like minds on Iran sanctions. Lara Friedman, an Americans for Peace Now lobbyist, attended the meeting. So did Joel Rubin, then a staffer at J Street, though participants say he took part in a personal capacity. In any case, the proposed language that emerged from the Nov. 12, 2008 meeting is broad to the point of meaninglessness, underlining the difficulties of pleasing all parties in such coalitions. "Obviously with such a diverse group, it will be difficult to coalesce behind any specific position," the minutes of the meeting stated. "But we all share a view that advocates a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, opposes military action against Iran, and agrees that sanctions are no substitute for diplomatic engagement." Ori Nir, spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, said Friedman's presence was unexceptional. "We seek advice and guidance, including those that don't share the views of NIAC — including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, of which we are a member," he said. "Lara participated in this meeting and other meetings that included NIAC and other meetings of groups that have an interest in Iran policy." Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
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EX OBAMA ADVISOR SAYS FEW US TROOPS WILL RETURN HOME
Posted by Kenneth Timmerman, December 10, 2009. |
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Dear friends, The main body of today's story
Best,
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Newsmax asked Benjamin how the Obama administration could wage war against global Islamic jihad if it didn't mention the word "Islam." Benjamin said the administration felt it was "counterproductive" to look at global terrorism as primarily a Muslim phenomenon. "Al-Qaida has appropriated texts of Islam, but there is nothing to be gained by describing this as an Islamic problem. That is not going to get us where we want to go," he said. He said the goal of administration policy was to "undermine the al-Qaida narrative" and to attack the sources of "real or perceived deprivation" by focusing on the "underlying conditions" that lead to extremism. "When children have no hope of education, and young people have no hope for a job, this pushes people to radicalization," he said. Kenneth R. Timmerman is a Contributing editor, Newsmax.com. His articles are archived at www.newsmax.com/timmerman/ Contact him by email at timmerman.road@verizon.net |
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ANALYSIS OF OBAMA'S MIDDLE EAST POLICY TO DATE
Posted by David Meir-Levi, December 10, 2009. |
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Sh'lom Y'all, If you don't subscribe to the Rubin Reports, you should. This is the most accurate analysis of Obama's foreign policy that I have read so far. I agree with everything Barry Rubin wrote, except: "....This Administration doesn't understand the use of threats, leverage, credibility, and deterrence in international relations. It has only one gear in its policy: be nice and hope the other side will reciprocate....." In my opinion Mr. Rubin has misspoken. This Administration is not stupid. Smart people do some times act unwisely. Obama certainly must understand the use of threats, leverage, credibilitiy, deterrence, etc...iin international relations. So why does he choose to behave otherwise? He chooses, however, not to use any of the above, and instead, chooses to "...take pride in being weak, refusing to face up to confrontations, rejecting pressure, always seeing the other (enemy) guy's point of view, and seeking consensus as the highest priority......(and so).... it.... (appears as though the current Administration)....has only one gear in its policy: be nice and hope the other side will reciprocate." Why does Obama make such a seemingly unwise (and to date quite unsuccessful) choice? I see three possibilities: a. he is truly naif and has discounted the value of threats, leverage, etc....., in the belief that his "mr. nice guy" approach will bear fruit and achieve the USA's goals. A bona fide naif should not be the commander-in-chief of our armed forces. I am hoping for #b....but, as I am sure you all know, hope is not a contraceptive.
The article below is called
"Let's Get Real: Obama's Foreign Policy is Failing; Time to Wake Up,
Change Course, and Do It Right" by Barry Rubin.
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It's astonishing to watch people try to pretend or convince themselves that this U.S. government has the knowledge, ideas, and attitudes needed to deal with the vital Middle East issues facing by the Unied States. Maybe next year but not at present. Don't get me wrong. I'd be delighted to think, but foolish to pretend, otherwise. The best outcome of all would be if the Obama Administration itself took the blindfold off its eyes, pulled the stoppers out of its ears, and faced reality without flinching. A number of friends and colleagues have been asking, in amazement, if they truly understand President Barack Obama's plan for Afghanistan. Is he really saying what we think he's saying? Yes, indeed. In effect, Obama's signaling the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies: Hey, we're sending in some troops for 18 months but don't worry. If you don't surrender by then we'll be leaving. So you have two choices: attack hard and claim victory when the U.S. withdraws or lay low and just emerge when the troops go home. In his West Point speech on Afghanistan, Obama sounded like a Winston Churchill impersonator reading a speech written by Neville Chamberlain. This is what he's asking American soldiers to risk or even give their lives for: A show that says to hawks that the administration has done something tough and to doves that it is really getting out of Afghanistan? The Afghan policy — and I say this as someone who opposes a big troop commitment to Afghanistan — follows the same pattern as the administration's Iran policy, though in that case there's even less of a false veneer of toughness. What is the real problem? In Afghanistan as with almost every other international issue, the Obama Administration takes pride in being weak, refusing to face up to confrontations, rejecting pressure, always seeing the other (enemy) guy's point of view, and seeking consensus as the highest priority. This Administration doesn't understand the use of threats, leverage, credibility, and deterrence in international relations. It has only one gear in its policy: be nice and hope the other side will reciprocate. [I reread that previous sentence several times. Is it an exaggeration? Not at all.] Perhaps Obama's Nobel prize acceptance speech in which he laid out conditions for fighting wars is the beginning of a turning point; perhaps not. Take Iran, for example, the administration gave Tehran a September deadline for raising sanctions and then abandoned it. Apparently the December 31 deadline will be missed also, despite endless warnings of U.S. patience wearing thin, now the butt of jokes among America's enemies. The Europeans now say they will consider higher sanctions at their January 25-26 meeting which means the earliest possible time for higher sanctions will be February 2010. If things go later than that you will know that the Iranian challenge is going to go unmet. Meanwhile, U.S. national security adviser Jim Jones said on December 6 that Washington is still open to nuclear negotiations with Iran, but that the picture is not a "good one." Jones said, the "clock is ticking." Yes, we know the clock is ticking but when will the alarm sound and wake these people up? Or rather will it be a case of ask not for whom the bell tolls because, buddy, it tolls for thee. What, then, should the president of the United States be doing? Showing leadership; displaying toughness. The British, French, Germans, Italians, Canadians, and others are ready to stop coddling Iran. Announce much higher sanctions with these partners and anyone else who will agree. That won't be perfect but would send a signal and others would be encouraged to join in especially if faced by problems for those who break the sanctions, i.e., a Dutch company selling gasoline to Iran. Also, he should start sounding credible, as if he would actually do something to a country insulting the United States, trampling on U.S. interests, and acting aggressively toward U.S. allies. Let him show there's a new Obama. Make one of those, "My fellow Americans" speeches which in effect says, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Point out the stolen election; the repression; the defense minister who is a wanted terrorist. Say enough is enough. We tried sincerely, they don't want engagement. The door has closed. (Even while secretly being ready to reassess if Iran — don't hold your breath — made some real concessions. That's how a president should behave. and yet the need to write that previous paragraph as a reminder demonstrates all too well how far things have gone wrong, how much the first principles of statecraft have been forgotten, how bizarre is American leaders' misreading of how international affairs work or how anti-American aggressive dictatorships áct. It shows even more how far things have gone that such simple, obvious, and traditional restatements of reality are taken in many circles as crazed reactionary nonsense. Analysts and journalists who know better are now struggling hard to maintain the emperor has clothes, that the president knows what he's doing and is behaving in a competent manner. That he is trying to balance toughness with the new America — non-adversarial, collegial, using all types of diplomacy. But it's a transparent lie, I'm sorry to say. More people are understanding this fact. The things I was writing about such things six months ago are starting to appear with increasing regularity in the mainstream media. Here's the simple bottom line: If the United States is strong and shows leadership it is a force for global stability. If it is weak and indecisive, that is a source of more instability, new violence, fleeing allies cutting a deal to save themselves or changing side altogether, and extended influence for America's enemies. Basically, we and much of the world may be in the same situation as the Taliban: trying to survive a set period of time — three or seven years in our case — waiting for Obama to go away. Since all articles like this must end on a note of hope, here it is for the U.S. government: Please learn fast or be swept away. We prefer you learn fast. Here's a series of historical precedents of how presidents have fallen that should greatly sharpen your mind: Herbert Hoover: Great Depression Or if that's not enough, ponder the wonderful poem by Percy Shelley, Ozymandias, about another world leader who failed despite the pomp and glory that surrounded him: I met a traveller from an antique land
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 10, 2009. |
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A few days ago, a father brought his daughter up on Har HaBayit (The Temple Mount). She is due to be married soon, and he wanted her to have this spiritual experience. His son, who does tours on the Mount, accompanied them. While they were up there, an Israeli policeman (who happens to have been an Arab) claimed to have seen their lips moving — which meant, to him that they were praying even though praying by Jews on the Mount is forbidden. He arrested them, and brought them down to the police station, where they were retained for some hours and pushed to sign something. The police did not treat the bride kindly. This is not the first time such a thing has happened, but it is the first time I had an opportunity to speak directly with those involved, as they happen to be neighbors of my daughter, Sharon. I have not completed my investigation of this, and in due course expect to have a great deal more to say (with a larger story to follow). But I wanted to mention this here, because this fits right in with the issue of the freeze. It is just one more way in which we indulge in self-abasement as we act to appease. (Appease Arabs, appease Obama.) That Jews should be unable to pray anywhere in our land is an outrage, but all the more so on our holiest site. Clearly, the police seek to restrict praying on the Mount because the Arabs (who have been led to believe they possess it) would riot and cause difficulties. But what a price to pay — diminishment of our national integrity — in order to avoid "difficulties." ~~~~~~~~~~ Last night a major rally was held in Paris Square (in front of the Kings hotel) in Jerusalem, in order to protest the freeze. Thousands — according to some reports it was tens of thousands — attended. (From inside the crowd where I stood, it was not possible to get a sense of the size of the crowd.) The Yesha Council, which helped to sponsor this, brought some 20 buses in from Judea and Samaria. It is good to gather with others who feel passionately about the issue, and to show the world that there is determination to fight that freeze. (A branch of the American consulate is right down the street from Paris Square and undoubtedly a report went back to the White House.) The strong Zionist message, both from speakers and on signs that were born aloft, was two-fold: We are dedicated to continue building in Judea and Samaria, and we are furious with our prime minister, who has let us down. MK Aryeh Eldad (Ihud Leumi) spoke with fervor about the disappointment with Likud, warning that it was the prime minister's intention to create a Palestinian state in the midst of Israel. "Do you trust Netanyahu?" he asked the crowd, which yelled back, "No!" MK Michael Ben-Ari (Ihud Leumi) declared that: "The message from here has to be very clear. The Jews have been exiled enough!" Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council, stated unequivocally: "We will continue to build the land. We say in a clear voice, we want to do it together with a Jewish government. But if the government is tired and does not have the power to stand up to foreign influence, we will push on without it." Making it clear he was not seeking compromise with regard to the freeze, he stated: "We want the government to rescind the freeze. MK Danny Danon (Likud), held up the phone number for the White House and encouraged everyone to call and tell Obama to leave our communities alone. While MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) reminded us that: "[The battle] is a fight for Israeli sovereignty. It is a fight for us to determine our own fate and not cave to foreign demands." She recalled that 60 years ago, David Ben-Gurion declared that Jerusalem was Israel's capital. After he made his announcement, the United Nations sent him a message saying that Israel's was the only vote in favor of this. Ben-Gurion responded that "our voice was the only determining voice." Ah, for such leaders today. ~~~~~~~~~~ With all this, do I think it will cause Netanyahu to overtly reverse his policy? I do not. That is not his style. He may not stand tough elsewhere — in the fashion of Ben Gurion — but he plays tough politics. In a Likud faction meeting held before the rally, he let it be known that he intended to hold fast to his decision, saying it had already been cleared by the Security Cabinet (which he apparently referred to, strangely, as "the executive"). In response to pressure from MK Danny Danon, the prime minister said it wasn't necessary to call for a vote on the freeze either in the faction or in the Central Committee of Likud, which is scheduled to meet later this month. In point of fact, at a prior faction meeting Netanyahu had done a great deal to silence opposition, telling his party members that unity was essential. Do I understand the acquiescence? I do not. ~~~~~~~~~~ But then, as the rally was proceeding, the prime minister's office made a surprising announcement, sharing with reporters a map of "priority areas" in Israel. These are areas slated to receive preferential treatment in terms of developing education, employment, housing and more, with various ministries sanctioned to do spending. Included in these areas — which encompass about 25% of the Israeli population and about 40% of Israeli Arabs — are some communities in Judea and Samaria, primarily in the Jordan Valley, and including as well Ariel, Nili, Betar Illit, Itamar, and others. The reason given for the selection of these communities, most of which are not in the large settlement blocs, was security considerations. Accusations that this was advanced now to mollify the demonstrators were fiercely denied. The claim that this project was months in the planning does not explain the timing of the announcement, of course. Done to mollify those protesting the freeze or not, it certainly adds further to my bewilderment with regard to what Netanyahu intends to accomplish with the freeze. First announce a ten-month prohibition on building in Judea and Samaria, and then, following closely on the heels of this announcement, declare that some of the communities in Judea and Samaria where no housing can be built now will after the freeze be the recipient of special attention from the government. What is his audience, and what is he attempting to accomplish? ~~~~~~~~~~ And then, there has been news of another sort that is vastly encouraging. A bill commonly referred to as the Jerusalem-Golan bill is being brought back to life for a second and third reading, in hopes it will be voted into law. What this law says is that no area within Israeli sovereignty can be transferred without approval by national referendum and by a majority of the Knesset. This would apply to Jerusalem and the Golan, but would also be relevant, for example, if it were to be suggested that we do a land-swap in negotiations with the PA, and let the Arabs have part of the Negev in return for retention of some communities in Judea and Samaria. Before the vote can be taken, details must be worked out specifying how the referendum would be run. And there are a couple of "outs": If a two-thirds majority of the Knesset passes a transfer of land, the referendum would not be required. As well, if the Knesset were to disband within six months a referendum would not be held. However, this brings great hope that the ability of the prime minister and a small cadre of ministers to give away parts of our nation would be blocked. That over 80 members of the Knesset voted to consider the bills seems to suggest that it has a very reasonable chance of passing. ~~~~~~~~~~ I cannot leave this subject without noting the reaction of Ehud Barak to the bill. It would, he lamented, make the world think we're not interested in peace. Well, his comment is just about enough to make me want to bang my head against the wall. But I wanted to share this because it illustrates the absolute perversity, the abominable cravenness, of the appeasing mentality. ~~~~~~~~~~ I had not expected to mention the receipt today by President Barack Obama of the Nobel Peace prize. Saw little reason to do so, as it is an award devoid of merit. But his talk has caught my attention, and for the very first time I begin to see that there may be changes in him, as he has come smack up against reality. Wham! What he has said in Oslo was not what he was saying right before and after he was elected, when he pronounced a new world, in which dialogue would win the day. Now he addressed the concept of a just war, saying: "A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history." "I face the world as it is," he declared. Now all we have to do is convince him that there is a war to be fought against radical, jihadist Islam at a global level, and that Israel is the canary in the mine with regard to this fight. Right? ~~~~~~~~~~ My intentions were sincere when I indicated I would focus on particular communities in Judea and Samaria, as well as provide additional information on how to help. But other news items have intervened. Hopefully, this will be possible in the next few days. ~~~~~~~~~~ As it is, we are approaching Chanukah — with the first candle to be lit right before the start of Shabbat tomorrow. There will still be postings during the coming week, but perhaps fewer than usual — as I'm off to light candles with family and indulge in latkes. (Note that in this I observe Chanukah as I always did in the US; I do not care for the donuts, the sufganiyot, that are eaten in Israel on Chanukah.) And so I now wish Chag Sameach! to those who will be lighting those candles for eight days Hopefully over the holiday I'll return to speak further about its implications. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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TOM FRIEDMAN HAS THE WRONG NARRATIVE ON ISLAMIC HATRED
Posted by Moshe Dann, December 10, 2009. |
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Thomas Friedman's explanation[1] of why Major Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people at Ft. Hood, and why Arabs and Muslims hate America, misses the point. How does such a bright, articulate journalist get it so wrong? Friedman correctly blames what he calls "The Narrative" — the "cocktail of half-truths, propaganda, and outright lies about America." For example, there is the Arab perception of an "American/Crusader/Zionist conspiracy" against Muslims. However, his analysis misunderstands the problem and misleads readers by ignoring the central place of jihad in Muslim and Arab thinking. Asking why Muslims "take to the streets" over a cartooned Muhammad (minus the murder and mayhem) but won't protest Muslim suicide bombers is a proper recognition of fault, but it also confuses the nature of the conflict. Jihad is to Islam what belief in Jesus is to Christianity or following Torah is to Judaism. Jihad is essential to "The Narrative," and understanding the threat of jihad is essential to non-Muslims. As interpreted by Muslim clerics, jihad means enforcing the superiority of Muslims and Muslim law over anything and anyone else. Islam does not preach tolerance. It is a religion of totalitarianism. Friedman laments: Don't they appreciate how much we've done for them ... trillions of dollars, thousands of American and allied soldiers lives lost to bring democracy and stability to Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course they do not appreciate what we have done. For many, Israel is the "oppressor of Muslims" and the "occupier of Arab land." A reasonable conclusion might suggest the U.S. drop relations with Israel in order to improve relationships with Arabs and Muslims. This seems to be Obama's policy — weaken Israel, force it back to the armistice lines of 1949, and arm Palestinians to the teeth. Then, miraculously, Arabs and Muslims will embrace America's "crusade" against Muslim countries. No more 9/11s and Ft. Hoods. A second Arab Palestinian state will make things better! No more nasty jihad! Hardly. As smart as Friedman is, he distorts the conflict (and "The Narrative") between Israel and Arab Palestinians by defining it as territorial rather than existential. He and his colleagues at the New York Times fail to understand the true nature of "Palestinianism,"[2] in which Maj. Nidal Hasan believed, and its jihadist roots. Israel's presence in any form is unacceptable, and anyone who supports Israel deserves death. The "occupation of Palestine" did not begin in 1967; it began in 1948, when Israel was established. The root of "Palestinianism," as Matthias Kuntzel points out in Jihad and Jew-hatred,q Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11,[3] is "the narrative" of jihad. Israel represents everything America and Western civilization stand for — democracy, tolerance, modernity — which is precisely what Islamists and jihadists despise. Naively, Friedman calls on Muslims to promote a "positive interpretation" of Islam. Nice, if you don't get murdered trying. And what about "liberating Palestine"? If "ending the occupation" is a prerequisite for rapprochement, as Friedman proposes, let's get that narrative straight. If "Palestinianism," wiping out Israel, is simply another form of jihadism, then why not include that in "The Narrative"? When genocidal calls to eliminate Israel are not only tolerated but applauded in the United Nations; when Israel is vilified daily, not only by the Arab world, but by the media, including the Times; when Arab terrorists are called "activists" and Arabs preaching incitement and Jew-hatred receive U.S. and EU funding, why isn't that part of "The Narrative"? "The Narrative" against which Friedman writes so eloquently is not only about Islamists; it is also about those who preach "Palestinianism" as another form of jihad, masking a fake and virulent nationalism supported by the international community that seeks Israel's elimination. Homicidal Muslim leaders aren't the only danger — so are the respectable politicians and journalists who believe that giving Arab Palestinians a state and appeasing terrorists will end the violence. Friedman's take on "The Narrative" is not a solution. It's part of the problem. Footnotes [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/opinion/
[2] http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/
[3] http://www.amazon.com/
Moshe Dann, a former assistant professor of history, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem.
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E.U., JERUSALEM, AND PALESTINIAN ARABS; ISRAEL PUNISHES JEWS ON
TEMPLE MOUNT; GAZA MEDICAL BLOCKADE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 10, 2009. |
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EUROPEAN UNION, JERUSALEM, AND PALESTINIAN ARABS The European Union rejected a Swedish proposal to recognize a Palestinian Arab claim to eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. Israel expressed satisfaction over the reaction. The EU Foreign Affairs Council, however, suggested that it be left to negotiations to reach that outcome. It endorsed the notion of statehood for the western Palestinian Arabs (New York Times, 12/9, A12). Israel's satisfaction is like the satisfaction of a convict who persuades the state to use lethal injection rather than the electric chair. Similar outcomes. Sweden was impatient to dictate terms. The EU as a whole insists on the outcome of negotiations. That would turn negotiations having a pre-determined outcome into a charade. It sounds ridiculous to demand part of some other country's capital for a future state that may or may not materialize. The EU does not explain what the requirements for a state are and how the Palestinian Authority meets them, the consequences of statehood, nor why the candidates deserve it after years of murder to secure it. Neither does the EU explain why it is interfering in another country's affairs. Nor has it expressed concern about the anti-Western ideology and jihad that sovereignty would enable Palestinian Arabs to wield against it. ISRAEL PRAISEWORTHY FOR PRISONER DEAL? Ethan Bronner of the New York Times engaged in rare praise for Israel, when he discussed the potential prisoner exchange between Israel and the Arabs. He emphasized an admirable Jewish tradition of redeeming hostages. He claimed that polls show most Israelis in favor of this proposed exchange. Israel has had several lopsided prisoner exchanges, before. As if being fair to opposing opinion, the article quoted an official opposed to the deal. The quotation called the deal names without giving reasons. One of the reasons is hinted at in the immediately following argument against that opposition. "But others say that the risk from those expected to be released is exaggerated for two reasons. First, the combination of Israel and Palestinian security forces in the W. Bank is keeping a lid on violence." "And second, the prisoners are part of a political organization with which Israel is trying to make peace." "'These people, although they are murderers, do it for a political cause, and even if they don't represent a country they are being sent by a military organization that is our rival and one day will make peace with us,' Mr. Liet, the former diplomat, said. 'They are not regular criminals. We know that sooner or later when we have a peace deal they will be released." Jewish virtue in striving to get hostages released is called "thrilling" (12/9, A6). Chilling, in this case. The article omitted the rabbinical warning that it is unethical to redeem captives at too high a price. The price here is too steep, not that it would impoverish the whole community, but that it would empower terrorists to inflict more suffering on Israelis than the redemption of one Israeli would relieve. The article omitted the recidivism rate of released terrorists, about 40%. The release of an estimated 1,000 terrorists would vindicate 1,000 and enable about 400 terrorists to resume operations. They easily could kill 100 Israelis, which would be 100 times the one life saved by the trade. I've discussed this before, so I won't exhaust it again. But consider how difficult Hamas is finding it to recruit and train 400 terrorists. Here Israel returns 400 trained terrorists to Hamas ranks! Palestinian Arab and Hizbullah leaders have made enough statements while the current trade was being negotiated, to indicate that Israel's willingness to make lopsided trades induces the Arabs to make kidnapping a strategy. Thus the alleged good deed of getting one Jew released, is likely to get more captured. Instead of reducing terrorism, the trade multiplies it. Multiplies evil. Those considerations make a mockery of polls that purport to show Israelis favoring the trade. Polls don't rectify folly. Nor are polls inherently reliable. They have become manipulated for propaganda, not to measure opinion, but to form or distort public opinion. Questions rarely are accompanied by the facts or put in a form that elicits a definitive answer. The argument that Israel need not worry about repercussions, because the western part of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) is putting a lid on terrorism is specious for several reasons. It is false — the P.A. does restrict Hamas operatives outside of Gaza somewhat (and inside Gaza?), for its own survival, but does not dismantle its own terrorist infrastructure. The P.A. encourages a pro-terrorist ethos, threatens to unleash terrorism if negotiations fail, and is planning another Intifada. Terrorist attempts still get made. Any reduction in terrorism is temporary. The release of Israeli prisoners is permanent. The credit for reduced terrorism belongs to Israeli security forces, who raid the P.A. daily, arresting about 10 wanted terrorists. This lopsided release is a slap in their faces. What does that do to morale? Releasing hundreds of terrorists means some will get through. Yes, Arab terrorists are not ordinary criminals. They are far worse. They are serial killers, worse than pirates, who are deemed common enemies of mankind. That is not politics. It is a perversion of religious imperialism into fanaticism. It would be wrong to ever release them. Having deliberately violated the rules of war, they are not POWs entitled to be released at the end of the war. For the Israeli diplomat to assume that there will be peace is unfounded. Religious fanatics do not seek peace, but conquest. Lopsided prisoner exchange fosters that conquest. What is more heinous? ISRAEL PUNISHES JEWS ON TEMPLE MOUNT A Jewish family of former New Yorkers moved to Israel, where one, Eli, volunteered to conduct tours on the Temple Mount. The day before his sister's scheduled wedding, he showed archaeological evidence on the Mount to their father and her. A policeman, an Arab, rushed over and arrested father and daughter. The policeman claimed that the father had moved his lips in Jewish prayer, and that his daughter had nodded her head. The Waqf and Israeli police forbid Jews from praying aloud on the Mount. Police [afraid of Muslim riots of intolerance] enforce the Muslim ban, although, as Eli explained, "The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the holy sites of all religions have to be protected and respected — that explicitly includes the rights of Jews on the Temple Mount." Eli remarked, "The fact that a father comes to the holiest place of the Jewish people and can be arrested simply for allegedly moving his lips is an outrage." The father said he moved his lips but was not praying. He wonders whether, if his daughter had nodded, what offense that would have been. Denying the accusation, the father asked the policeman how would he know. He said they couldn't fool him. After a few hours, police asked the pair to sign a promise not to return to the Mount for 15 days. They were told that unless they signed it, they would be held hours longer, perhaps missing the wedding. Agitated, they signed, and found out it was an admission of having disturbed the peace (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/9). Compare news like that with accusations that Israel engages in ethnic cleansing of Muslims. ISRAELI CABINET ENDORSES GOLAN-JERUSALEM REFERENDUM BILL The government of Israel endorsed a bill to hold a referendum, if the government proposes alienating part of the State of Israel. The referendum could veto governmental intent. The bill had in mind the Golan and eastern Jerusalem, both of which Israel had annexed. Cabinet Minister Meridor had appealed against the bill on the grounds that it would frustrate potential negotiations with Syria. He favors ceding the Golan to Syria, in return for a treaty in which Syria pledges peace. The Knesset rejected the appeal (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/9). A promise by Syria is not reliable. Meridor would accept it. The Cabinet reputedly is right wing, but actually, is not. BILL DEFINES ISRAEL AS A JEWISH STATE THAT HAPPENS TO BE A DEMOCRACY 
Israel's "Basic Law today specifies that Israel is a "Jewish and democratic" country. Two legislators offer a bill stating that Israel is "a Jewish State that is democratic." "'The High Court has turned the Basic Law, that recognizes the values and freedom of mankind, into a tool to justify rulings that ignore the Jewish identity of the State of Israel,' said MK Yariv Levin, a Likud legislator and chairman of the Knesset House Committee. 'This new bill will return Zionism to a basis for judicial rulings and determine...that Israel is first and foremost a Jewish State.'" (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/9.) The explanation belongs in the law. Unless specified clearly, the High, or Supreme Court, would interpret the law to suit their alienation from Jewish values. Note, if all by "Jewish national home" the Palestine Mandate meant Jews could come in, but it would be within a state that Arabs control, there would be no point to it, because the Arabs could then put the Jews out. GAZA MEDICAL BLOCKADE 
In the past three months, about 3,000 Arabs left Gaza for medical treatment. 214 went to Jordan, 516 went to Egypt, and the rest, 2, 270, went to Israel for the treatment, costing Israel $6.5 million. Israel shipped in 10,000 doses of swine flu vaccine, and transfers in hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid and lets through medical equipment and new ambulances, some of which Hamas confiscated. Thousands of Arabs have crossed the border into Egypt, and returned (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/9). IDF DOES PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ARMY'S JOB 
Shechem [Nablus] is the pride of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) army, which it calls "police," trained by U.S. General Dayton. However, that army was unable to carry out the arrest of a major terrorist. The IDF had to go in and do the job. The IDF remarked that it is the party keeping law and order in the P.A.. Is the IDF stayed out of there, Hamas and allies would overthrow the P.A.. General Dayton and the media deceive themselves about the efficacy of P.A. forces, the IDF believes.
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 and visit his website:
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EUROPE SEEKS TO DIVIDE JERUSALEM
Posted by JCPA, December 10, 2009. |
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Below is a summary of an article written by Dore Gold. The full
article is JCPA Jerusalem Issue Brief Vol 9, No. 14 December 2009,
available at
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Contact the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) by email at jcpa@netvision.net.il and visit their website: http://www.jcpa.org |
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CHANUKAH
Posted by Manhigut Yehudit, December 10, 2009. |
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This below was written by Michael Fuah.
Additional paintings are to be found at the Temple Institute Gallery
http://www.templeinstitute.org/ |
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'Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in your midst, says G-d. And many nations shall join themselves to G-d in that day, and shall be My people, and I will dwell in your midst; and you will know that the G-d of hosts has sent me to you. And G-d willl inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. (From this week's haftarah, Zecharia 2:14-16) 
"Things are tough in the Land of Israel," said the Jews who made aliyah after the Cyrus Declaration. "We can't make ends meet, the Samarians who were brought to the Land harm us, and the good, fat exile beckons." And then, Zecharia the prophet makes an odd declaration. He calls upon the suffering new immigrants to build the Temple in Jerusalem as a solution to all their problems. G-d will imbue the Land with His Divine Presence, the non-Jews will admire Israel and Judah will inherit its Land. It sounds out of touch with reality. But reality proves that when a nation has a spiritual focal point, it flourishes. When Zechariah related his prophecy, Israel still did not have political independence, but the building of the Temple restored vitality to the nation and the Land of Israel regained its status as spiritual center of the Jewish Nation. The nation that had been exiled from its Land 70 years ago and was apparently doomed to extinction triumphantly returned to the stage of history. Two hundred years later, evil winds once again gusted through the Land. This time, the main danger was internal. The Hellenist globalization process had been at work for years and in the Land of Israel, many succumbed to assimilation and loss of their Jewish identity. The public leaders were Hellenists and used their power — even the position of High Priest — to achieve their goals. Most of the public was enchanted with Greek culture and sport and did not notice that it was losing its identity, its uniqueness and most of all — its Jewish destiny. But the Hellenists were impatient. They wanted to finish the process quickly and what they could not achieve with the lures of their culture, they chose to achieve by coercion. "Use force against Israel," wrote Gideon Levi of the Ha'aretz newspaper to Barack Obama. The Hellenist leaders in Jerusalem used the same logic and convinced Antiochus to impose his evil decrees against the Jews. That is the point where the tables turned. The Nation of Israel came back to its senses. When the traditional Jews felt that they had to choose between their loyalty to their nation, Land and G-d or the charms of universal culture, they quite unexpectedly chose their loyalty to their Jewish identity. Their choice had implications much more serious than a few weeks in a military prison or loss of their source of income. It was a choice between life and death. Perhaps because the choice was so fateful, the answer was so loud and clear. 
The holiday of Chanukah is the holiday of the triumph of Jewish identity. "Not with military might and not with power, but with My spirit, says the G-d of hosts." (From this week's haftara, Zecharia 4:6) We will continue to struggle for Jewish leadership that will build the Holy Temple and re-fashion the State of Israel as the spiritual center that illuminates the entire world. The Jewish People always triumphs and with G-d's help, we will triumph this time, as well. Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah.
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EUROPE HAS FORSAKEN ISRAEL
Posted by Isi Leibler, December 10, 2009. |
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It was ironic but no surprise to learn that immediately after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's settlement freeze, the response of the Swedish head of the European Union was to preempt negotiations with the Palestinians and make further harsh demands upon the Israelis. This brought to mind a dramatic verbal exchange I encountered as a participant in the Europe Israel Dialogue which took place recently in Jerusalem under the auspices of Lord Weidenfeld. I had disagreed with those who were arguing that we should seek support from the Europeans and rely less on the US. I said that notwithstanding the problems Israel faces with the Obama administration, our dependency on support from a superpower rested with the US and that the Europeans had proven to be untrustworthy allies and repeatedly betrayed us. I also noted that in contrast to the American people who overwhelmingly support Israel, opinion polls taken in Europe confirm that the prevailing consensus perceives Israel as a rogue state posing a greater threat to world peace and stability than even Iran or North Korea. I also related to the craven European appeasement of the Arabs and their willingness to sacrifice Israel on the altar of expediency. My views were not well received by the predominantly liberal gathering, many of whom shared the illusion that if only Israel were to employ better PR, the enlightened Western traditions which we purportedly share with Europe would somehow enable us to overcome all differences.
TO MY astonishment, one of the leading participants, Dr. Mathias Dopfner, the highly charismatic chief executive of the powerful German Axel Springer Company, entered the discussion and not only endorsed my views, but passionately stated that I had in fact understated the depth of hostility against Israel radiating from Europe. He provided a chilling evaluation of the situation and warned that even Germany, now still bound to Israel because of its special relationship, would in all likelihood also distance itself from us in the future. It was extraordinary hearing a prominent German speaking in such frank terms and warning Israel not to rely on Europe. Subsequently, I read Robin Shepherd's fascinating new book A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel, an in-depth analysis of Europe's relationship with Israel. The book makes painful reading. Shepherd, who is not Jewish, was formerly a senior executive of Chatham House, the Royal Institute for International Affairs, heading its European desk. He was unceremoniously dumped when he wrote an article in The Times favorable to Israel. Today he is the director of international affairs at the Henry Jackson Society and among other pursuits, publishes a daily blog dealing with the double standards employed against Israel in the United Kingdom. The basic thesis of Shepherd's book is that without discounting the appalling inroads of the new anti-Semitism and the impact of Islamic extremism, the real source of the problem in Europe rests with the indigenous opinion makers who have become profoundly tired and discontented. He observes that many of the elites had absorbed ideological strains from the far left, including nihilism, pacifism, colonial guilt, moral relativism and an antipathy to nationalism. This eroded their will to defend their values and fight for the maintenance of their civilization and culminated with an unholy alliance between the radical left and Islamism. People who had spent their lives campaigning for the rights of women, homosexuals, ethnic minorities and pacifism are now making common cause with some of the most violent religious bigots on the planet. This has also encouraged European elites to labor under the false illusion that they can coexist with radical jihadist elements by appeasing them. Shepherd also describes how the Jews, who in the immediate post-war era still enjoyed warm relations with liberals and the left, have now been rejected by them. He shows in brutal terms, how these groups continue expressing concern and commemorate dead Jews, but are less inclined to support the living, especially when it comes to those residing in their Jewish homeland where, to use the lexicon of Engels, they became transformed into a "reactionary people." Shepherd says that "something has clearly gone wrong when it has becomes increasingly difficult to tell the difference between some of the language, tone and content of mainstream commentary on Israel in Europe from the daily polemic against the Jewish state in the Arab and Muslim world." He observes that the vilest depictions of Israel such as "shitty," "Nazi," "apartheid" and "war criminal" have been absorbed into the everyday chatter of elite groups. He concludes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is effectively a litmus test of Europe's failure to survive in the face of Islamic extremism. He says that "the anti-Israeli agenda in Europe is a stain on its integrity... There are hundreds of reasons for Europe to clean up its act on Israel. Self-preservation and self-respect are just two of them". This superbly written and meticulously documented book is possibly the best study published analyzing the obsessive and virulent bias which Europe radiates toward Israel. It should be read by scholars and laymen alike, especially those engaged in Middle East affairs.
ANOTHER RECENT book release which complements that of
Shepherd is Christopher Caldwell"s Reflections on the Revolution in
Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West. Caldwell, a highly regarded
London Financial Times journalist, deals with Islam in Europe and
depicts how uncontrolled Muslim immigration has resulted in
catastrophic unintended consequences. He highlights the abject failure
of multiculturalism, noting that second-generation Muslim immigrants
have become less integrated than the first and that the third
generation is even worse.
The demographic future he projects is very gloomy. Native Europeans have insufficient children to maintain replacement, while Muslim immigrants continue having large families. He demonstrates how, unless current trends are reversed, within half a century Islam will be the majority religion of young people in many European countries.
He describes how a combination of complacency and a refusal to face up to reality, combined with moral relativism, has encouraged European governments to stand by while agents of radical Islam made headway in many communities and are now in the process of displacing Western civilization and transforming Europe.
Caldwell is emphatic that as a determined adversary culture, Islam has the potential of conquering Europe unless European governments display the courage to demand that migrants accept the secularism, tolerance and equality of Western culture.
In this context, one would expect Europeans to be concentrating their energies on devising strategies to retain their heritage and way of life, rather than appeasing the extremist Islamic groups which are undermining their Judeo-Christian civilization.
Were they to move in this direction there is every probability that the European penchant to demonize and try to delegitimize Israel might also be directed toward more constructive objectives.
Contact Isi Leibler at ileibler@netvision.net.il
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post.
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NEGOTIATIONS
Posted by Dave Alpern, December 9, 2009. |
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Another tragic commentary on the crazy Middle East. This a Dry Bones cartoon from 1973. December 18, 1973 to be exact. Yaakov Kirschen is the creator of the Dry Bones cartoons, which he started drawing in January 1973. Contact him at blog@mrdrybones.com |
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Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
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ARIEH ELDAD: AFTER THE DECISION TO FREEZE BUILDING IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Posted by Paul Rotenberg, December 9, 2009. |
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Arieh Eldad is one Israeli MK who is principled, a clear thinker and a straight talker. He is a medical doctor who decided to give up his practice for the country and ran for office. Unfortunately this is not a profile that will get him a position in the government and he has, to date, remained in opposition. Here are his comments on the current situation. |
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The Left is Superfluous Anyone who wondered after the last election why the Israeli Left had shrunk to microscopic proportions got his answer this week. There is no need for a Left if the Likud is implementing Peace Now's program. The microscopes that were being used to measure the size of the Left can now be used to measure the differences — if there are any — between Netanyahu and Tzippi Livni, between Gidon Sa'ar and Ehud Barak, or between Benny Begin and Benjamin "Fuad" Ben-Eliezer. All of the above support the establishment of a Palestinian state, or at least are supporting Netanyahu who is supporting a Palestinian state, and this week all of them, including those calling themselves the "Land of Israel Faithful," raised their hands in support of a construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. But if we try hard enough we can find one important difference between them: their shoes. Barak's shoes shine. Because he hasn't gone far. But Benny Begin's shoes are worn out from the road he has traveled. The man who once stood on the right side of the Likud and headed the "National Union" has come to the point where he supports a construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. Begin, who certainly knows that you "can't be just a little pregnant," also knows that stopping construction is an anti-Zionist decree that eats away at our fundamental values and there's no way to make excuses based on the limited length of the freeze. And he should know that the seeds planted by Netanyahu in his newly decreed "White Paper" against the settlement in Judea and Samaria will give birth to a monster. This decree prohibiting Jews from building in the heart of their homeland is the first step of the Likud towards establishing a Palestinian state. And this is really Netanyahu's intention. It's not a ploy to deal with the pressure from Obama. Netanyahu who once said, "Anyone who says 'Yes' to a Palestinian State says No to the State of Israel," now says 'Yes' to a Palestinian state and this week even said 'No' to the right of natural population growth of Jews in Judea and Samaria. Ministers Begin, Ya'alon, Sa'ar, Livnat, Erdan, Kachlon, Lieberman, Hershkowitz — all of them are partners in this and all of them share responsibility. They and no less than them Moshe Feiglin and his followers who misled large numbers of loyal people and convinced them to vote for the Likud "because you can only have influence within the ruling party" — they strengthened the Likud and gave Netanyahu the power to freeze construction and establish a Palestinian state. Autumn is upon us. The leaves are falling from the trees, and with them the fig leaf that covered Netanyahu's shame. Anyone who thought that this man who had previously voted in the Knesset for the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif had changed — erred because in the last elections Bibi hid behind Begin and Ya'alon. Autumn has come. Obama has blown. Netanyahu has collapsed. And the fig leaf has fallen. The Likud headed by Menachem Begin destroyed Yamit and its environs. The Likud headed by Sharon destroyed the communities of Gush Katif. And the Likud headed by Netanyahu is threatening to destroy settlement in Judea and Samaria. He recognizes the right of Arabs and Americans to dictate where Jews may build. Don't let Netanyahu's slippery tongue or Benny Begin's deceptions fool you. Surrender and abandoning values and principles bear witness to character and there's nothing temporary about doing so. Some claim the freeze is a political maneuver; it is not a maneuver, it is idiocy. It is political idiocy because the imposition of a "temporary" freeze in Ma'ale Adumim immediately brought demands for Jerusalem. There is only one cure for this freeze: To build. And build more. To act morally and as Zionists by violating orders that negate our right to build in the Land of Israel. May the Council leaders who ripped up the written orders be blessed. If tens of thousands of residents rise to build with their own hands, even those who tend to surrender will understand: the nation is stronger than its leaders. Paul Rotenberg lives in Toronto, Canada. Contact him at pdr@rogers.com |
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TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
Posted by Susana K-M, December 9, 2009. |
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This was written by Marilyn Penn and it appeared on the
Political Mavens website:
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On its surface, there's nothing immediately wrong with a moderate Muslim group buying a building in Tribeca for the purpose of worship and community. In a pluralistic society, different religions have the right to own property and to assemble as a congregation provided that this jives with zoning regulations. However, just as you can't operate sex shops near public schools or put movie theaters on Park Avenue, it seems fair to ask whether it's appropriate for a Muslim center to border Ground Zero where Muslims killed almost 3,000 innocent Americans and brought havoc to this city, this country and the world. The Imam who leads the services at Park Place, two blocks north of where the Twin Towers once stood, is a Sufi who is heavily invested in interfaith dialogue. But isn't the presence of large groups of Muslim men bowing to Mecca a legitimate affront to the firemen, policemen and tens of thousands of family members, friends of the deceased and ordinary New Yorkers who were victimized and traumatized on 9/11 all in the name of Allah? Ground Zero has become a shrine to those who lost their lives and who gave their lives in responding to this attack on America. If the Japanese tried to erect a Shinto temple at Pearl Harbor, would Americans not object? Similarly, if we attempted to put an American memorial with our flag next to the memorial at Hiroshima, would this not fly in the face of diplomatic tact? Interfaith dialogue is predicated on the notion that people of differing faiths don't quite understand each other and that talking directly to one another will clear up their mistaken confusion, thus leading to peaceful relations and harmony. This is the Tower of Babel concept that people can't understand each other only because their language is garbled. But what if there is no confusion in communication? What if differing religions, lifestyles and beliefs simply stand in irreconcilable opposition to each other? If you believe that sharia law takes precedence over civil law, not much will be gained by re-stating your beliefs and those of your opponent. The Koran stands in opposition to many tenets of western democracy. Those Muslims who can comfortably resolve this culture clash already live in western societies peacefully and prosperously. They are the very people who should be most sensitive to not exacerbating a wound by erecting a large Muslim edifice so close to Ground Zero, at what is after all, a symbolic cemetery for people killed by the sword of Allah. There are many other Muslims living in western Europe and in the United States who are antagonistic to our lifestyle, convinced that it stands in opposition to Islam and must be undermined and overthrown. What will stop them from congregating at the projected Muslim Center in Tribeca? Since 9/11, the Muslim presence in New York has become more visible and more assertive. Almost immediately after the tragedy, all national services conducted in Washington included a Muslim Imam as if this were simply business as usual in American protocol. Our current president considers Islam one of the major religions of the United States despite its prominent invisibility in the development of our national culture. The fear of a backlash against American Muslims routinely gets mentioned simultaneously with all reportings of Muslim aggression, most recently after the cold-blooded murders at Fort Hood by a Muslim army psychiatrist. Americans are being instructed to behave defensively even though we have fought wars and sacrificed American lives to protect the rights of Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo and Kuwait. It's time to stop this apologetic behavior and save our sensitivity for the people who were the true victims of 9/11. Compassional Muslim-Americans should consider this before deciding whether to build their center at the epicenter of our grief. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com
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TOO FEW TROOPS, TOO MUCH SPIN
Posted by Susana K-M, December 9, 2009. |
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This was written by Tony Blankley and is archived at
Tony Blankley is executive vice president of Edelman public relations in Washington. E-mail him at TonyBlankley@gmail.com. The Creators Syndicate website is at www.creators.com. |
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A sense of unreality overshadows our debate on Afghan war policy across the spectrum of opinions. The unreality derives from the simple fact that we do not have enough troops to rationally implement an adequate defense of our national interests. So every argument for Afghanistan policy tends to seem unserious, perhaps pointless. For example, Gen. Stanley McChrystal's proposal calls for a counterinsurgency, or COIN, war modeled on the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, developed by Gen. David Petraeus with strong input from Gen. McChrystal. Pursuant to that standard, to fully man a COIN strategy, we would need 20 to 25 troops per 1,000 residents in Afghanistan. That would require 600,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops and police. According to CNN, at the height of the Iraq surge, there were 29 troops for every 1,000 residents. Currently, there are about 260,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops on the ground, about 11 troops per 1,000 residents. With the additional 30,000 U.S. troops plus 5,000 more NATO troops, the force density rate will go up to 12.5 troops for every 1,000 residents — barely half of what is needed to reasonably hope for success. Moreover, the history of COINs — from the Philippines to Algeria to Malaya to Vietnam — is that they will take many years to succeed, if then. Notwithstanding that guidance, Gen. McChrystal asked for only 40,000 more troops because, obviously, we do not have another 340,000 troops available. And given that the word from some of our troops in Afghanistan is that the Afghan National Army more or less refuses to fight, we are not going to find another 300,000 adequate fighting soldiers from the locals in the next year or two. Notwithstanding the insufficient number of troops requested by the general, President Barack Obama basically has endorsed the McChrystal recommendations — with a time-sensitive exit strategy added on. In the president's words: "I do not make this decision lightly. I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al-Qaida. ... This is no idle danger, no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards and al-Qaida can operate with impunity." The president went on in his West Point speech to explain why he was not endorsing the calls of others for "a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort": "I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost and what we need to achieve to secure our interests." So even though "our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan," we must make do without goals that are "beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost." Note that the reason the president said he is increasing our troop strength is to "deny al-Qaida a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government." Yet because we don't have sufficient troops, our strategy is merely to hold larger cities and towns, do what we can to build up the Afghan army and government, and start leaving in 18 months — inevitably al-Qaida will continue to have "safe haven" in much of the countryside bordering Pakistan — even if we succeed wherever we try to regain control. Along with that critical strategic shortcoming of our new Afghanistan/Pakistan policy, critics of the president's escalation point out that al-Qaida easily can find safe haven in Yemen, as well as Somalia and other parts of the Horn of Africa. (The jungles of South America and Central America could be added to that list, as could parts of the dense cities of Hamburg, London, Paris, Rotterdam and Falls Church, Va.) But because we clearly don't have enough troops to gain control of those other areas, the administration and its Republican defenders largely ignore that gibe. The failure of the war advocates to match up their correct description of the danger from radical Islamic terror violence with the U.S. troop strength needed to hold it back is what gives an unrealistic, almost insincere, air to the entire debate. On Dec. 8, 1941, when the United States declared war on Japan, the U.S. Army's strength was about 1.6 million. The Navy level was about 330,000. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not limit his strategy to what his generals could do with those soldier and sailor levels. FDR designed a strategy for victory — and back-engineered the necessary troop levels. By December 1942, the Army was up to about 5.4 million. By the spring of 1945, it was more than 8 million, and the Navy had more than 4 million men (out of a total U.S. population of 139 million). Victory can come at that high a price. But neither former President George W. Bush nor President Obama (nor, I'm sure, the American public) would consider, for example, a draft (as I advocated in my most recent book, "American Grit") to increase our fighting capacity. That level of sacrifice, necessary to gain safety from the still-gathering threat of radical Islam, is beyond current American sensibilities. So United States governments (both Republican and Democratic) propose half-measures — and receive only half-support. People reasonably ask themselves why we should sacrifice life and treasure for a plan that won't even work. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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FATAH FIGHTERS BUYING GUNS INSTEAD OF FOOD FOR KIDS,
PREPARING FOR WAR WITH ISRAEL
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, December 9, 2009. |
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Members of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are arming themselves for war against Israel by buying guns instead of food for their kids and by selling their wives' jewelry, according to the official Fatah website. The website says that the Brigades, the so-called "military wing" of Fatah, are preparing a "harsh and painful" response to any Israeli attacks on Gaza. According to one of the heads of the Brigades, the fighters have to buy their own weapons to replace weapons confiscated by Hamas. Following is the transcript of the item from the Fatah web site: "With the renewal of the threats emanating from the Zionist military establishment to carry out a new attack on the Gaza Strip... the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades... warned of a harsh and painful response that the occupation state is not expecting. This response was conveyed by one of the heads of the Brigades in the Gaza Strip, Abu Ahed... Itamar Marcus, Director of Palestinian Media Watch (http://www.pmw.org.il), was Israeli representative to the Tri-Lateral Anti Incitement Committee established under the Wye accords, and has written reports on Palestinian Authority, Syrian and Jordanian schoolbooks. Barbara Crook, a writer and university lecturer based in Ottawa, Canada, is PMW's North American representative. |
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DOES ISRAEL OR HAMAS KEEP GAZANS FROM HOSPITAL?; QUESTIONNAIRE FOR ADVOCATES OF "PALESTINIANS"
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 9, 2009. |
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DOES ISRAEL OR HAMAS KEEP GAZANS FROM HOSPITAL? Arabs in Gaza have made appointments with hospitals in Israel or in the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). Hamas, however, requires permits for exiting Gaza. Applications require all sorts of documents. Permission often is not granted except at night. Dozens of patients were held back. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights criticized the Hamas regime for violating patients' rights under P.A. basic law. The Center criticized Israel for barring most Gazan exit (www.imra.org.il, 12/7). The Center should consider the state of war that exists between Israel and Gaza, before it thinks the people of Gaza have a right to pass into Israel. As for passing into Egypt, on Gaza's other side, Hamas uses border-passage to commit terrorism or get terrorist training abroad. Egypt hesitates to allow that. There are other reasons, probably including that Israel gave up Gaza-Sinai border control because it expected that Egypt would perform that function. Remember, Gaza is not independent and it has imperialist aims. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR ADVOCATES OF "PALESTINIANS" This was written by Yashiko Sagamori. If you are so sure that ' Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history,' I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine : 1. When was it founded and by whom? You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation.. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of? And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over — or thrown out of — the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War? I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won't work here. The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel ; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the 'West Bank' and Gaza, respectively? The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so-called 'Palestinians' have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" — or anything else except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled. In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning? (Winston Mideast Analysis & Commentary, 12/7, verbatim.) 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 and visit his website:
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TEMPLE MOUNT COP ARRESTS BRIDE FOR CRIME OF MOVING LIPS
Posted by Hana Levi Julian, December 9, 2009. |
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A Jewish bride and her father were arrested on the Temple Mount the day before her wedding, after an Arab policeman claimed he saw the father muttering prayers and the bride nodding her head. The father and daughter were being taken around the site on Wednesday morning by her brother Eli, a volunteer who conducts regular tours at the Temple Mount, when suddenly they were accosted by the Jerusalem policeman. "We were in the northern part, and I was showing them the archaeological evidence when suddenly a police officer came over to us, Mahmoud Hativ was his name, and he claimed that my father had muttered prayers. "We tried to argue with him and said it wasn't true, but he said, 'You can't fool me,' and insisted that my father had prayed," Eli told Israel National News. "My sister was just standing there silently, not moving at all. She didn't say a word. It was her first time at the Mount. Other cops came over, Mahmoud said that she had also been involved, and they decided to arrest them both," he continued. "He let me go right away, because he couldn't make any claim against me." His sister and father were taken to the Kishla police station near the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. 'Lack of Will to Exercise Israeli Sovereignty' "The fact that a father comes to the holiest place of the Jewish people and can be arrested simply for allegedly moving his lips is an outrage," Eli said. "The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the holy sites of all religions have to be protected and respected — that explicitly includes the rights of Jews on the Temple Mount. Jerusalem police continue to ignore that ruling." Asked if he believes U.S. pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority had anything to do with the incident, Eli said, 'No. It is a result of the lack of will of the Jerusalem police to exercise Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish holy places in Jerusalem, not U.S. pressure on Israel. It is unheard of to arrest someone just for praying in their own religion. In the U.S. that wouldn't fly. There is no public place in the U.S. where a Jew could not pray. It is unfortunate, and sad." The family, which immigrated to Israel from New York in 1996, lives in Beit Shemesh. 'Police Misled Them to Sign Confession' The two were held for several hours. At approximately 11:30 a.m., the two were ordered to sign a declaration which they were told said they would promise not to return to the Temple Mount for 15 days. However, the father, who spoke with Israel National News from the courtyard of the police station while waiting to be questioned by the police commander, said that further examination of the paper showed they had been misinformed. The declaration actually said that they were confessing to have violated a law about disturbing the public order. It was also made equally clear that if they did not sign the paper, they might not be freed for hours — perhaps not even in time for the young woman to make it to her own wedding. Officers at Jaffa Gate Station Mocked the Bride "The police officers talked very improperly to my daughter. She was very upset — in tears — and they ridiculed her. 'What's the matter, are you baby?' they mocked her." Her father immediately fired back, "That's how you talk to someone?" The father said that the officer in charge threatened to keep them longer in response. "Be careful," the cop warned. "If you talk to me that way, I can keep you here for a few more hours." "So I asked them: 'How would it be if we arrested a young lady for praying anywhere else in the State of Israel? Or maybe a Muslim woman for praying in Mecca? This is about police enforcement — so enforce the law! And they answered me, 'It's a very sensitive issue. This is the law.' That's what they answered me," said the father. "So I shut up, because I wanted to get out of there, and he would have kept us for hours. We signed the paper, and we will deal with it in the court of public opinion." The father was not praying although he was, in fact, moving his lips. "They asked me if my daughter was nodding her head. I said I didn't know — but if she can now be arrested for nodding her head... well, anyway, in the end, that's what they got her for. Nodding her head. That's the nature of the public order." Hana Julian writes for Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). |
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ANNOUNCING THE NEXT NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER: CLIMATEGATE HACKER
Posted by Susana K-M, December 9, 2009. |
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This was written by Michael LeGault, author of Think! Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye. |
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One can almost feel the vibration of the wheels spinning as climate research laboratories, universities, NGOs, bureaucrats, the liberal media and even the White House push into overdrive on damage control over the dirty little secrets revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, Climate Research Unit. We can be sure that no rock will go unturned to discredit skepticism about man-made global warming theory and find plausible cause for Saint Obama to still save us from ourselves. But if indisputable evidence of scientists conspiring to cook science is enough to put the kibosh once and for all on a dubious, untestable theory based mostly on computer models, we have somewhere in our midst a new hero, namely the man or woman who purloined the emails from the computers of the global-warming Tribunal. Even the Nobel committee charged with deciding the yearly Peace Prize should be able to appreciate the great service performed on behalf of humanity by our intrepid hacker. One immediate benefit will be the millions of tons of emissions saved each year by abrogating the requirement to fly tens of thousands of global warming groupies to hundreds of climate change conferences. Preliminary computer models indicate a cooling effect equivalent to at least the 5,000 cases of ice cold beer consumed at any LSU football game. Then, of course, there is money. Oh boy, money by the super oil tanker full, freed up from the cancellation of research grants and salaries of climate-change scientists. Enough money to buy a chicken for every African displaced by a civil war, help Hugo Chavez procure more votes and pay for advanced medical care for Fidel Castro. Last but not least, as the global warming debate is finally put to rest, we will all have more time to identify, contemplate and propose solutions to the next apocalypse requiring UN oversight and massive amounts of funding. All that remains is for our cyber savant to identify him or her self. If he or she is reading this, come now, give it up. Peace is a cause worth serving. Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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EUROPEAN UNION OFFICIALLY CALLS FOR DIVISION OF JERUSALEM
Posted by One Jerusalem, December 9, 2009. |
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This was written by Allen Roth and David Goder of the One Jerusalem organization. |
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Dear Friend of Jerusalem, As we have reported, the European Union's movement against a free and united Jerusalem has resulted in a formal declaration that Jerusalem should be divided. UPDATE :: European Union Officially Calls for Division of JerusalemThe EU states, "The Council recalls that it has never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem. If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. The Council calls calls for the reopening of Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem in accordance with the Road Map. It also calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem." In other words, the future of Jerusalem is officially an international football, and at the end of the game, the Palestinians are to get their wish: To call Jerusalem their capital. This is an unprecedented intrusion into Israeli affairs. It completely ignores the facts on the ground. Before Israel controlled Jerusalem, Christians and Jews were barred from the Old City. The Jewish Quarter was destroyed and Jews were expelled and many killed. Under Israeli rule, all people are permitted to live in and visit Jerusalem. Forcing an official Palestinian presence on this situation will cause unnecessary tensions and increase the danger level. Imagine the Field Day that terrorists will have launching attacks on visitors — right from land in the Old City. Remember the carnage that resulted from the pull-out from Gaza? This will be a disaster. It will also be a victory of another sort for the Palestinian leaders, like Abbas, who believe that Jews never lived in Jerusalem. They deny the existence of the Jewish Temples. Even under Israeli control, the Palestinians have destroyed thousands of years worth of Christian and Jewish antiquities. Imagine the carnage if they are ever put in control. It is puzzling that Israel's official response to the EU declaration did not defend a united Jerusalem under the State of Israel. We need to defend a united Jerusalem every opportunity we get. One Jerusalem is committed to fighting for the defense of Israel's united, undivided capital. To do so, we need your help. Many of you have contributed generously and we thank you. For those who haven't, we ask you to please do so. It is only through your generous contributions that we can continue to to fight the battle for a united Jerusalem, a battle that we must win. Contact OneJerusalem at its website, www.OneJerusalem.org, and by email at info@OneJerusalem.org |
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ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: CHANUKAH SUFGANIYOT
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, December 8, 2009. |
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This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: An old man leaned in to me and whispered in my ear, "I know where you can get 10 for 10 shekels." A good price, indeed, I thought, but I told him, "I don't eat 'em, just shoot 'em." One of the cultural bumps many American immigrants to Israel seem never to hurdle is the idea that donuts symbolize Chanukah. We have too much health consciousness ingrained in our souls to ever enjoy a oil-soaked donut guilt free. Israelis, on the other hand, buy them by the box. Well, they do look good and smell delicious and kids love 'em. This shot was taken with one of my new kit toys, a digital remake of the classic Nikon 50 mm f1.4 lens. The huge aperture allows for shooting in natural light in almost any situation, especially when you can raise the camera's ISO to 1600 or more without degrading image quality. I left the ISO at 400, however, because this tray of freshly baked sufganiyot were on display near the front of the bakery, where light poured in through a huge window looking out onto Agrippas Street in Jerusalem's Machane Yehuda market. I opened up to f2.8, which squashed the depth of field and formed a nice blurred background, perfect for overlaying the holiday greeting. May the light of the menorah renew our faith in miracles.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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FROM ISRAEL: NO FRIENDS HERE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 8, 2009. |
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The EU Council met in Brussels today, and when they were done they had passed a resolution on "The Middle East Process" that encourages the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the PA. It further states that: "The European Union will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties." What this says is that, while they are not in a position to impose a solution, the position of the EU is solidly with the PA demands. Understand that were we to return to 1967 lines in Jerusalem (G-d forbid), we would be relinquishing the Jewish Quarter, with the Kotel and Har HaBayit. And the Europeans care not a bit. There is no concern for our needs or rights. Not even a lame suggestion about sharing the holy places or putting them under international supervision. ~~~~~ Is there any bright spot here? Well, it's not quite as bad as the original Swedish proposal — it doesn't refer to "Palestine" or recognize a "Palestinian State" as a fait accompli. And there is relief in Jerusalem in this regard. It additionally gives a nod in the direction of negotiations (see more on this below). Other issues: [] It calls for a complete opening of all crossings into Gaza. As Aaron Lerner, in his IMRA commentary, points out, there is a recognition of Israeli security needs, but there is no acknowledgement of our right to act for the sake of those same security needs. You can see the full document at:
~~~~~~~~~~ Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, bless him, rejected the resolution out of hand. There will be no division of Jerusalem, he says. Dividing a city has never worked. Our Foreign Ministry released a statement charging that the EU position does not contribute to the renewal of negotiations. By taking the PA side so completely, instead of saying that only negotiations will determine the allocation of Jerusalem, it gives the impression that there is no need to negotiate — the international community will force Israel to relinquish everything. ~~~~~~~~~~ Netanyahu has insisted that the "freeze" would benefit us, putting us in a more solid position with the international community. And my guess would be that he would persist in this argument, pointing out that the original Swedish proposal was softened. But I myself would find this a pathetically small source of comfort. The EU resolution says it takes "positive note of the recent decision of the Government of Israel on a partial and temporary settlement freeze as a first step in the right direction." A first step? Sure enough. For then, "The Council urges the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities, in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank and including natural growth." Is our prime minister ready to learn this lesson yet? Caving does not bring rewards, it brings more demands. ~~~~~~~~~~ Let me share with you one illustration of how draconian that "first step" freeze is. I learned today of a woman who lives in a community beyond the Green Line. She has a large family, and they frequently come to visit. Because of this, she found the dining room overcrowded and had recently decided to enlarge the dining room and get a bigger table. Now with the freeze, she cannot do it. ~~~~~~~~~~ Defense Minister Barak made a statement yesterday that the settlers must "obey the law." And I wondered: is this declared freeze really law? It wasn't passed by the Knesset, or by the Cabinet — which is the government. It was passed only by a Security Cabinet, in which only some ministers participate. And, indeed, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel doesn't think it's a law. In fact, the Forum has taken this to the High Court, asking that the freeze be overturned because it does not have a solid legal footing, and because it is prejudicial, as Arabs are not being restricted in their building, only Jews. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Forum — which includes some 400 lawyers now, most working pro-bono or for very little — is doing a fantastic job: [] They are distributing cameras in Judea and Samaria to be used to record any violence on the part of the police, for use in court. One more action is under consideration. There are Jewish Israeli citizens who are also American citizens, and they are in some cases suffering deprivation of their rights, whereas there are American citizens who are Muslim, who are being permitted to continue as usual. Because American citizens of Jewish heritage are being discriminated against, the Forum is considering securing American lawyers to represent them. If you are an American lawyer, and would be interested in helping with this, should it be pursued, e-mail:
If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to help defray the Forum's legal costs, e-mail at the same address for further instructions. ~~~~~~~~~~ Tomorrow, hopefully, we will pick up with the profile of another community in Judea-Samaria, and more. I am working on securing additional information for readers on how they might help with regard to the freeze situation. ~~~~~~~~~~ In the meantime: There will be a protest against the construction freeze
~~~~~~~~~~ Let me end with something a representative of the Legal Forum said to me tonight. I hope and trust that, as I am not identifying him, he will not mind that I share this: "I'm frightened for Israel," I told him. "Don't be frightened," he said. "Can a soldier going into fire afford to be frightened? We just have to keep on fighting to the very best of our ability." ~~~~~~~~~~ I'm going to be running Dry Bones cartoons from time to time.
(1999) Dry Bones cartoon: Israelis demonstrate against withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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UNITED AGAINST A NUCLEAR IRAN; ISRAEL ADMITS FREEZING MORE THAN INTENDED; ISRAEL BUILDS SUPPORT WITH EU
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 8, 2009. |
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INTRODUCING UNITED AGAINST A NUCLEAR IRAN United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a coalition having a high-powered advisory council, local chapters, meetings, press releases and other news, a store selling usable items bearing slogans, a list of companies trading with Iran and which you may select from to send a petition against doing business there. The next UANI event is a panel discussion by Senators Coats and Robb and Gen. Charles Wald (ret.) at the 92d Street Y, November 23, 8 p.m. on "the true level of threat and how should we meet it? How should we balance diplomatic, economic and military options?" An example of a news brief is one on December 4, that a UN group has built a station in Turkmenistan near the Iran border, for detecting nuclear blasts. Iran refuses to advise the IAEA about Iran's new facility that seems designed for nuclear weapons testing, including a 1,300-foot shaft. (Maybe the shaft is for dumping CO2 or dissidents.) The brief has a link to the full article in Bloomberg News. UANI issued a press release on Russia's relationship with Iranian nuclear development. UANI Board Member Henry Sokolski had asserted that Russia supports Iran's nuclear weapons program. Here are his points: Iran has a two-point detonation warhead that would increase the range of any nuclear missiles. Its Arak heavy water reactor would make plutonium usable in a weapon. Iran is developing long-range rockets. All these, Mr. Sokolski suggested, Russia aided Iran in developing. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued an indirect response that Russia would find Iranian nuclear weaponry as unacceptable as would the U.S.. UANI President Mark Wallace replied, "We call on Russia to act on its assertion that the emergence of nuclear weapons in Iran would be unacceptable, by joining the international community to impose crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime. We also call on Russian companies to cease doing business in Iran and to send a clear message of isolation to the Iranian regime." On December 8, UANI issued a press release about its correspondence with Huntsman, a company that sells polyurethane to Iran. The company replied that its produce has civilian usage, but did not confirm that its material cannot be used for military purposes. The reply stated that the company complies with U.S. law. UANI finds that reply unsatisfactory, because the U.S. is trying to impose sanctions on Iran's economy. UANI wonders how Ambassador Huntsman, after whom that company is named, can persuade China to reduce business with Iran, when the Huntsman company does not. My comment: Much of the technology for nuclear weapons-manufacture is learned when installing technology for nuclear generation of electricity. A rogue state can start with what seems innocent, and take a relatively short time to finish with nuclear weaponry, and even use civilian production as a cover for military production. Some of Iran's facilities are of potentially dual use, making it difficult to accuse it of wrong intent, but making it more responsible morally, under its treaty with the UN, to submit to inspection, which Iran does not do. Experts believe that some of Iran's facilities are solely of military utility. That would be damning. How much help did Iran get from other rogue states, such as Pakistan and N. Korea? ISRAEL ADMITS FREEZING MORE THAN INTENDED PM Netanyahu admits that the Israeli Defense Ministry has frozen already started construction for Jews in Judea-Samaria, although he has exempted started buildings from the freeze. He did not address the reason Defense officials were overzealous and whether he is correcting them (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/7). ISRAEL BUILDS INCREASING SUPPORT WITH EU Echoing earlier statements by Israel's Foreign Minister Lieberman, Deputy Foreign Min. Danny Ayalon asserted that their concerted efforts in meetings with European leaders have produced a growing block of EU countries, including France, Hungary, and Bulgaria, that support Israel's position. At EU meetings, this block either opposes anti-Israel resolutions or proposes toning them down (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/7). An obstacle to Israel's diplomatic effort is that the European media report almost entirely the Arab version of events and rights. This turns the public against Israel. European officials not only read the same press, they also have to be careful about flouting public opinion. MAYOR'S IDEA TO EASE HOUSING SHORTAGE IN JERUSALEM Jerusalem's Mayor proposes a way to ease his city's severe housing shortage. He urges foreign purchasers of apartments there for sporadic use to rent out them out during unused periods. That way, young families who otherwise cannot afford the high purchase prices for scarce apartments could live there (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/7). Travelers sometimes rent people's apartments for a season. The mayor probably is proposing a longer period and greater participation in the practice. 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 and visit his website:
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MIKY IN MONTANA
Posted by Benami, December 8, 2009. |
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This was published December 4, 2009 in the New York Times It was written by Eric A. Stern, who lives in Helena, Mont. and is senior counselor to Gov. Brian Schweitzer. |
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In Montana, a rabbi is an unusual sight. So when a Hasidic one walked into the State Capitol last December, with his long beard, black hat and long black coat, a police officer grabbed his bomb-sniffing German shepherd and went to ask the exotic visitor a few questions. Officer John Fosket of the Helena Police Department and Miky, a bomb-sniffing dog trained by the Israeli Defense Forces. Though there are few Jews in Montana today, there once were many. In the late 19th century, there were thriving Jewish populations in the mining towns, where Jews emigrated to work as butchers, clothiers, jewelers, tailors and the like. The city of Butte had kosher markets, a Jewish mayor, a B'nai B'rith lodge and three synagogues. Helena, the capital city, had Temple Emanu-El, built in 1891 with a seating capacity of 500. The elegant original facade still stands, but the building was sold and converted to offices in the 1930s, when the congregation had dwindled to almost nothing, the Jewish population having mostly assimilated or moved on to bigger cities. There is a Jewish cemetery in Helena, too, with tombstones dating to 1866. But more Jews are buried in Helena than currently live here. And yet, in a minor revival, Montana now has three rabbis, two in Bozeman and one (appropriately) in Whitefish. They were all at the Capitol on the first night of Hannukah last year to light a menorah in the ornate Capitol rotunda, amid 100-year-old murals depicting Sacajawea meeting Lewis and Clark, the Indians beating Custer, and the railway being built. The security officer and the dog followed the rabbi into the rotunda, to size him up. Hanukkah has a special significance in Montana these days. In Billings in 1993, vandals broke windows in homes that were displaying menorahs. In a response organized by local church leaders, more than 10,000 of the city's residents and shopkeepers put make-shift menorahs in their own windows, to protect the city's three dozen or so Jewish families. The vandalism stopped. Lately, the only commotion about Hanukkah has been the annual haggling among the rabbis over who gets to light the menorah at the Capitol. (It has since been resolved — at this year's lighting, on Dec. 16, they will each light a candle; in the future they will take turns going first.) Last year, the rabbinic debate resumed as the hour of lighting neared and 20 or so Jewish Montanans filed into the Capitol. One woman could be heard reporting, excitedly, that a supermarket in Great Falls would be carrying matzo next Passover; a guy from Missoula was telling everyone that he had just gotten a shipment of pastrami from Katz's Deli in New York. The menorah was lighted and Hebrew prayers chanted, while the officer watched from a distance with his dog. He figured he would let it all go down and then move in when the ceremony was done. The dog sat at attention, watching the ceremony with a peculiar expression on its face, a look of intense interest. When the ceremony was over, the officer approached the Hasidic rabbi. "I'm Officer John Fosket of the Helena Police," he said. "This is Miky, our security dog. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" Miky, pronounced Mikey, is in a Diaspora of his own. He was born in an animal shelter in Holland and shipped as a puppy to Israel, where he was trained by the Israeli Defense Forces to sniff out explosives. Then one day, Miky got a plane ticket to America. Rather than spend the standard $20,000 on a bomb dog, the Helena Police Department had shopped around and discovered that it could import a surplus bomb dog from the Israeli forces for the price of the flight. So Miky came to his new home in Helena, to join the police force. The problem, the officer explained, was that Miky had been trained entirely in Hebrew. When Officer Fosket got Miky, he was handed a list of a dozen Hebrew commands and expressions, like "Hi' sha' er" (stay!), Ch'pess (search!), and "Kelev tov" (good doggy). He made flashcards and tried practicing with Miky. But poor Miky didn't respond. Officer Fosket (who is not Jewish) suspected he wasn't pronouncing the words properly. He tried a Hebrew instructional audio-book from the local library, but no luck. The dog didn't always understand what he was being ordered to do. Or maybe Miky was just using his owner's bad pronunciation as an excuse to ignore him. Either way, the policeman needed a rabbi. And now he had found one. They worked through a few pronunciations, and the rabbi, Chaim Bruk, is now on call to work with Miky and his owner as needed. Officer Fosket has since learned to pronounce the tricky Israeli "ch" sound, and Miky has become a new star on the police force. The two were even brought in by the Secret Service to work a recent presidential visit. So all is well in the Jewish community here because the Hasidic rabbi is helping the Montana cop speak Hebrew to his dog. It is good news all around. The officer keeps the Capitol safe, and the Hebrew pooch is feeling more at home hearing his native tongue. But the big winner is the rabbi, a recent arrival from Brooklyn who is working hard (against tough odds) to bring his Lubavitch movement to Montana. He has been scouring the state for anyone who can speak Hebrew, and is elated to have found a German shepherd he can talk to.
Contact Benami by email at farme@012.net.il
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GERSHON BASKIN
Posted by Boris Celser, December 8, 2009. | |||
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Gershon Baskin wrote "Encountering Peace: 2 capitals for 2 states for
2 peoples" and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post
These are some comments by readers:
Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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HAPPY HANUKKAH; ISRAEL MUST NOT WASTE TIME ON REBUKE; WORLD HAS NOT LEARNED THE LESSON
Posted by Steven Shamrak, December 7, 2009. |
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Must NOT Waste Time on Rebuke! Endless amounts of time and millions of dollars are wasted on rebuking false accusations and deliberate distortions of the facts of history as well as the current 'reality' invented by Arabs, made by traditional anti-Semites, self-hating Jews and all sorts of sophisticated and primitive xenophobes. Uncountable numbers of petitions have been in circulation to counteract statements made by politicians in the United Nations, parliaments around the world and/or on the front page of the papers and TV shows. The present flavour of the month that attracts so much Jewish enthusiasm are calls for boycotts of Israeli produced goods, investment in Israel and scientific cooperation. I only wish that Jews would show the same level of enthusiasm in support of our Zionist ideals! At the same time, the Internet has provided an ideal meeting place for traditional, brainless anti-Semites and mentally disturbed, xenophobic attention seekers. They feed and thrive on the attention that they provoke from people who are justifiably disgusted with their uncontrolled activities on the Net. Therefore if you really want to hurt them, the only way to deal with them is to stop dignifying their outrageous anti-Israel behaviour with any response and deprive them of any attention. The Internet is becoming the major wasteful vent of people's energy where they express themselves with no results — just like a Japanese stress-relief dummy! We must not confuse activities with accomplishments! Only by focusing on the Jewish National goal, the establishment of Eretz-Israel on Jewish ancestral land, we will make it reality! Therefore, the main question we have to ask is: Do we really have to fight all of those idiots, including the Presidents and the Prime ministers, and their politically or psychologically distorted accusations? The record of the previous efforts made by Israel and Jewish communities has proved that we must not waste our time and resources on them. For example, a hundred years ago in Europe, in spite of explicit contrary statements in the Torah about the use of blood, Jews were accused of using blood of Christian children in preparation of Matza. Jewish communities had won several court cases but it did not convince our enemies and the idea is still subscribed to by some Christians and is being propagated in Muslim countries as well. The change of world opinion and respect toward Israel and Jews was achieved several times after the victories of the Independence war, the Six Day war and the Yom Kippur war — when Israel was able to affirm itself as a strong, sovereign and equal nation. Unfortunately it did not last long and the governments of Israel were unable or unwilling to use the political momentum created by those victories, largely due to the galut (slave) mentality Jews developed during life in hostile and anti-Semitic environments, and the tradition of international anti-Semitism prevailed again. Israel must realize that Jews do not have many friends who would be interested in helping Israel to reach the Jewish national goal. We must stop wasting time, resources and energy on rebuking our enemies. It is a distraction! Although it makes people feel good, it does not produce long lasting results. We must focus on our goals and strategies in order to achieve them. Anything else is just another useless activity, which takes us further from the Permanent Peace, even if it feels important and good at times. Line Must be Drawn. Students and future IDF soldiers have written a letter to PM Netanyahu opposed to the prisoner exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit: ''In spite of the pain, we believe that a state that loves life must not give in to terrorists and must not bow to emotional blackmail'' (A state must not negotiate with terrorists! To put an end this bizarre situation, Israel has only one option — release Jewish land, Gaza, from its terrorist enemy population.) Quote of the Week: "During the Holocaust, all the nations of the world (untruly) claimed they did not know about the death camps and today they all know and hear that Iran on one hand and Hamas on the other wants to destroy us, if they all know, why is the world so silent?" — Meir Rosen, former Israeli ambassador to the United States and France. — They are not silent now! The UN, the US and the EU, as well as other 'small' oil hungry bigots, have been passionately and actively supporting Islamic attempts to destroy Israel! Arabs Throw Stones at Fire-fighters. Fire-fighters responding to an alarm in Shuafat in Jerusalem were pelted by rocks thrown by Arabs. The fires were set by warring gangs in the area; one Arab was killed in the massive gang fight, involving hundreds of Arabs. Two apartments and a gas station were on fire. (They may kill each other if they must — like in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan — but please remove this hateful trash from Jewish land) European Funding of anti-Zionist NGOs in Israel. 16 Israeli NGOs received a total of about $8 million, in European funding between the years 2006 and 2009: B'Tselem, HaMoked and Yesh Din each received about $1 million, B'Tselem about $3 million. (I am still 'waiting' for their support of my publication :) Hypocricy of the Headlines. "Abbas: Netanyahu chose occupation over peace" — Haaretz.com — This idiotic headline was invented by an Israeli leftist publication and has been propagated all over the world by willing idiots. The headline has nothing to do with the context of the article, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez charged that Israel aims to "terminate the Palestinian people". Why do those self-hating thugs in Haaretz not write a headline: "Abbas has never abandoned terrorism and has only the destruction of Israel in mind" ? Steven Shamrak was involved in the Moscow Zionist movement. He worked as a construction engineer at the Moscow Olympic Games project and as a computer consultant in Australia. He has been publishing an Internet editorial letter about the Arab-Israel conflict since August 2001 and has a website www.shamrak.com. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com |
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BARAK INSISTS: STATE WILL ENFORCE ITS 'MASTERY' OVER CITIZENS
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 7, 2009. |
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Clearly, what some call the "Poison Dwarf" has exposed his Napoleon pathology that controls his mind and actions. Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak — as a stunted figure — wishes to play the "master" over all citizens of Israel. Such a person demands obsequious obedience to prove what he is certain is his superiority over all other humans. It would seem Barak is meant to play Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's sword against the Jews of Judea and Samaria. Bibi is no innocent player in Barak's attacks! We also see this trait in Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who seems to believe that he is the "resurrected Mahdi" (the Muslim messiah returned to earth) and "master" over the Iranian people. Throughout history, small men who resented their lack of stature, turn vicious once allowed a position of power. They can be exceedingly dangerous and quick to exact vengeance on whoever thwarts their orders or ambitious. Ehud Barak is certainly earning the nickname "Poison Dwarf" — a derogatory title once held by Caspar Weinberger as Secretary of Defense among his peers in Washington. This was written by Gil Ronen, writer for Arutz Sheva and it was published today in Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com) |
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(Israelnationalnews.com) Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that the orders to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria "are under the government's sponsorship, they need to be enforced and they will be enforced." He said the enforcement would be carried out "in a way that is attentive to the nuances of the reality on the ground, but they will be enforced and we will make sure that the State will enforce its mastery over its citizens." Barak used the Hebrew word marut, which can be translated as "authority" but has overtones of forcefulness and control, and also means "mastery" or "overlordship." He chose the word over the much more common samchut, which means "authority." Barak's words were an indirect response to statements by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who hinted that inspectors had gone too far, told the Knesset that the freeze "has nothing to do with building that has already started" and that "there must be coordination between the decision and its implementation." Speaking at the start of a gathering of the Labor Knesset faction, Barak said: "The freeze was carried out in order to exhaust all means of renewing the negotiations in order to kick-start an arrangement with the goal of ending the conflict and a reality of two states for two nations — a Palestinian state that lives beside Israel and whose existence ends the occupation and our control over another nation. This goal is still distant, however, and there are negotiations." Eyal Gabbai, Director of the Prime Minister's Office, was also present at the Labor meeting. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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THE THREAT
Posted by Susana K-M, December 7, 2009. |
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This was written by William Katz. It appeared in The Los Angeles Times. |
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THE THREAT — AT 8:01 A.M. ET: We observe December 7th, as our generation has observed it for decades, as the "day of infamy," when the United States, in the midst of peace negotiations with Japan, was suddenly attacked by that nation. Pearl Harbor was the center of the assault, with attacks elsewhere in the Pacific as well. Since December 7, 1941, the notion of a sudden, sneak attack has resonated with Americans. On September 11, 2001, we learned again the reality of a sneak attack. More Americans died that day than at Pearl Harbor. The threat is still very real. The great Ed Lasky of American Thinker alerts us to a piece in the Los Angeles Times that reports on just how real it is: Reporting from Washington — The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism. Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia. Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said: And yet, there has also been a studied indifference by much of the mainstream media. Indeed, it often goes beyond indifference. After the Fort Hood massacre, mainstream journalists did backflips to avoid mentioning the possibility that this was an act of terrorism, although the evidence was plainly there. We were assured that Major Hasan, the shooter, was just one stressed out guy. Just a few days ago, a professor in Binghamton, New York, was shot to death by a Muslim graduate student. News reports say the student had made extremist comments, believed he was persecuted, and, today, we find out he ridiculed his Christian roommates over their religion. The deceased professor was apparently a Muslim convert to Judaism, and his wife worked for a Jewish organization. Yet, we look in vain this morning for any detailed examination of this murder by the mainstream media. Nothing to see here folks, nothing to see. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat. And... Some feel radicalization in the United States has been worse than authorities thought for some time. Finally: In contrast to the heightened extremist activity in the United States, Europe has remained relatively calm this year. But the West needs to keep up its guard on both sides of the Atlantic, said Farhad Khosrokhavar, an Iranian French scholar who interviewed jailed extremists for his book "Inside Jihadism." Contact Susana K-M at suanema@gmail.com |
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RABBI MELAMED NOT AFRAID OF DEFENSE MINISTRY
Posted by Hillel Fendel, December 7, 2009. |
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Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, who has called publicly upon soldiers to refuse orders to destroy Jewish homes, says he is not afraid the government will remove the yeshiva he heads from the "hesder" arrangement. In a rare media interview on Monday — he has said that the media often distorts the remarks of its interviewees, so why bother? — he told Arutz Sheva's Shimon Cohen that he will continue to "speak the truth as I see it, based on the Torah." Rabbi Melamed's weekly Torah-and-current-events column was recently announced as the most widely-read column in the weekly B'Sheva newspaper. "It's hard for me to believe that they would actually close or detach our yeshiva from the hesder program," Rabbi Melamed said. Students in the five-year program serve in the army for 16-18 months, and study in yeshiva for the remainder of the period. The interview came a day after IDF Central Commander Gen. Avi Mizrachi called for the closing of the hesder program in Rabbi Melamed's yeshiva, Har Brachah in the Shomron. Gen. Mizrachi took offense at Rabbi Melamed's remarks that corruption abounds within the ranks of the IDF officers, and that the top officers are concerned with "their pensions, careers and politics." Mizrachi said, "This is what Rabbi Melamed teaches in his yeshiva. I will act that this yeshiva be removed from the hesder program, and whoever wants to study there can continue to do so [and not be in the arm." Rabbis are not soldiers Rabbi Melamed said that not only were his words taken out of context, but also, "There are some commanders in the army who think that the rabbis are their soldiers and that their job is to answer Amen to whatever the officers say. They don't understand that the yeshivas are independent institutions, and that the rabbis' job in the yeshiva is to speak the truth according to their understanding based on the study of Torah. We will insist on our right and obligation to do that." "It would be hard to believe that the army would be so crazy as to stop our arrangement with the army. Let's not forget that there are universities and colleges to where IDF soldiers and officers are sent for courses and even for degrees — even though one can often hear there very sharp attacks against the IDF, even including saying that the IDF carries out Nazi policies... I don't believe that they would close us down, but I personally will say what I believe even if it costs me my job as head of the yeshiva." "If a rabbi cannot say what he believes, then he will be considered a rabbi-for-hire who will never be able to know for sure if he's saying what he truly believes or is just the result of how the government might react." Quoted out of context Rabbi Melamed corrected a misimpression communicated by some IDF officers: "Hesder yeshivot are not an integral part of the army. They are independent yeshivot in every sense, in the framework of which students enlist in the army." Regarding the corruption he said he finds among IDF officers, the rabbi explained that he was quoted partially and out of context: "I was responding to soldiers who had just gone through the trauma of the expulsion of Gush Katif, and they were asking about the proper approach to the senior army commanders who were part of the Disengagement. I told them that the mitzvah of enlisting in the army still applies." The selection by Rabbi Melamed in which he wrote, "It's been years that for many officers, personal advancement is their principal goal," was preceded by this: "The mitzvah of defending the nation and land even at the risk to one's life still very much applies — and this can only be done in a national army framework. Therefore, even if the top brass is problematic, it is better to stand together against our enemy than to break down and surrender. For with all the criticism, the general goal of the politicians and commanders is to protect the Nation of Israel. The risk of coming under the command of corrupt commanders is less than the risk of detracting from our military strength... We must therefore strengthen ourselves in Torah deeds and enlist in the army to help our nation." The other hesder yeshiva deans are united on the need to ensure that no one silence them or control what they say — even though they have different opinions on the matter at hand. "There are those who support me very strongly," Rabbi Melamed said, "and they have called me, or even spoke out in the media. There are those who think we should condemn the yeshiva soldiers who unfurled the banners [in favor of refusing demolition order — but they too feel no yeshiva must be removed from hesder because of the rabbis' opinions. They are aware, as we all are, that though this is the issue today, tomorrow it might be another one..." Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE OF PALESTINIAN ARABS BY PALESTINIAN ARABS
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, December 7, 2009. |
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This was written by Gregory R. Smith, an attorney in Los Angeles and a partner emeritus in the law firm of Irell & Manella. This article originally appeared in The Jewish Journal. Bassem Eid wants the world to know about human rights abuse by Palestinians. It is self-inflicted abuse. |
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Human Rights Watch founder Robert L. Bernstein has been roundly criticized for arguing that his own organization, which by its repeated reports suggests that Israel's human rights record is so reprehensible as to warrant heightened condemnation, has unfairly demonized Israel. To get a first-hand account of this ongoing argument, I arranged to accompany my son, a documentary filmmaker in Israel, on a recent appointment to tape an interview with Bassem Eid, the general director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. Apprehensively, we drive north out of West Jerusalem into the East Jerusalem neighborhood known as Beit Hanina. Israel's reviled security barrier, a concrete scar rising into the sky, dominates the landscape. The streets, crowded with top-of-the-line Mercedes, VW's and BMW's, as well as vehicular detritus that would easily qualify for America's cash-for-clunkers program, teem with Arabs, mostly young, but some bent with age. Other than a singled parked Israeli police car with two bored (and when we ask for directions, unhelpful) police officers, there are no Jews to be seen. Up a narrow, unevenly paved street, in a non-descript building, is the neat office of the Monitoring Group, staffed, in addition to Eid, by three Palestinian women — one Muslim, one Christian and one unidentifiable. Bassem Eid is a short, dark-complexioned Muslim with a quick smile and a vibrant energy who lives in a refugee camp. My son and I are late for the interview, having gotten lost in the unfamiliar streets of East Jerusalem, but Eid's hospitality predominates over his impatience. As he sits in front of the camera and my son begins to ask questions, Eid quickly warms to his subject. Eid spent many years working with B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group that focuses on Israeli abuses in the territories. My son and I were pretty sure what we would hear: the usual catalogue of complaints about Israel's barriers to travel, humiliating searches and police harassment. But although Eid is critical of Israel, and in particular its West Bank settlements, this is not at all his focus. It turns out that he formed the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group when he concluded that a major element in the abuse of Palestinians — the abuse of Palestinians by the Palestinian Authority — was being overlooked. And on this subject, he is an expert. To Eid, Palestinians' self-inflicted abuses are more serious that any by Israelis. He describes the human rights situation in the Palestinian Authority as "very disturbing," and marked by "illegal detention ... political arrests, [and] torture inside the PA detention centers." Eid, who himself has been arrested by the PA, says he has seen the signs of torture on the bodies of Palestinians held by the PA. He notes that the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza present an "equal picture," and that there is "no difference" between them. Each uses imprisonment for years, without trial and without charges, and torture against opponents. Each is deeply corrupt, looking after personal interests "to build themselves rather than to build the society itself." Nor can the West have a clear picture of these abuses. "I do not think," Eid says, "that there is any kind of open media anywhere in the Palestinian territories, neither in Gaza nor the West Bank." Journalists continue to be confined in West Bank prisons, and critical media, he says, has been closed down. "Mr. Abbas," says Eid, "may talk about free media where he is ruling but in my opinion, as a human rights organization, we are receiving a lot of reports how the right of free expression is being completely violated by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and by the Hamas in the Gaza strip." Moreover, according to Eid, these government abuses result in self-censorship, since journalists, once imprisoned and sometimes tortured in both the West Bank and Gaza, prefer to avoid a return visit. Eid notes that Western reporters are largely shielded from what is actually occurring in Gaza and the West Bank. "Foreign journalists are based more in Jerusalem rather than in Gaza or the West Bank. For their safety, they prefer Jerusalem." So, says Eid, they rely on local journalists, who lack the objectivity that is expected from Western media. In America and in Europe, reports emphasizing Israeli abuses (like those of Hamas Rights Watch) are widely publicized, creating an image of downtrodden Palestinians thirsting to be free of the Israeli boot while anxious to exercise a right of return. Eid rejects this picture. He has visited refugee camps in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, and says that 70 percent of the refuges would prefer compensation over the right of return, because they understand the political reality that "return" means they would have to live within the borders of a Palestinian state and not inside Israel. Palestinians, whether they reside in Lebanon, or Jordan, or in East Jerusalem, cautions Eid, "can see what is going on in Ramallah, what is going on in Nablus, [and] what is going on in Gaza. And nobody wants to be part of such a troubled life." Focusing on his neighbors in East Jerusalem, Eid concludes that they much prefer life in Israel, with its health benefits and, even for Palestinians, relatively open society, to life under the Palestinian Authority. "These people," he says, "don't want to become a part of the Palestinian Authority.... [They] are happy where they are right now." Critics in the West, and enemies in the Arab world, may suggest a moral equivalency between Israel, Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, but Palestinians, says Eid, know better. It is time for Western critics of Israel to know better as well... Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
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SHALIT DEAL MOTIVATES MORE KIDNAPPINGS & STRENGTHENS HAMAS
Posted by AFSI, December 7, 2009. |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Americans for a Safe Israel recognizes the extraordinary difficulty in coming to a decision regarding the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for PA terrorists, many of whom have blood on their hands and are serving life sentences for murder. It is our belief that the Israeli government might know where Gilad Shalit is being held prisoner and if so, should use its military might and expertise to rescue Shalit from his captors. Instead, it has put the Shalit family and the country through the torturous exercise that seems to be heading for the exchange of Shalit for 1,000 unrepentant terrorists. The record shows that released terrorists return to their pattern of murder and mayhem bringing death and suffering to innocent Israelis. Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik quote from this month's Al Ayam. Hani Al-Masri, Dec. 1, asserts that "Israel understands only the language of force, since kidnapping is the only thing that leaves open the gates of hope for freedom for prisoners with long prison terms. This encourages others towards self-sacrifice for the sake of the homeland..." Abdallah Awad writes, Dec. 3, "Only, only-says the Hebrew state — by force, detainment, capture, and kidnapping of occupation soldiers, is it possible to free Palestinian prisoners "whose hands are stained with blood..." Similar quotes have been heard throughout the debate on the prisoner exchange. Can Israel really open the gates wide on future kidnappings and attacks on Israeli citizens? We believe that especially at this time of Chanukah and miracles and the bravery of Judas Maccabeus, the Israeli government must act to instill pride and strength in its people. It can only do this by "Just saying NO" to internal and external pressures that would have Israel appease its enemies and weaken itself. Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website: www.afsi.org. Helen Freedman is Executive Director. |
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TRADING ISRAELI GILAD SHALIT FOR PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS — AN ILLEGAL AND PERILOUS EXCHANGE
Posted by Louis Rene Beres, December 7, 2009. |
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Under long-standing international law, every state has a primary obligation to protect its citizens. Yet, it appears that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may soon be prepared to exchange Palestinian terrorists for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Any such exchange, however humane to Shalit and his family, would imperil thousands of other Israelis. A core element of all civilized legal systems is the rule of Nullum crimen sine poena, "No crime without a punishment." This principle, drawn originally from the law of Ancient Israel and reaffirmed at the post-War Nuremberg Trials, is part of all international law. It applies here. To the extent that U.S. President Barack Obama should concur in this impending deal — effectively, an American act of complicity with terrorists — our own country would be in violation not only of international law, but also the law of the United States. Such violation would be two-fold because all international law has been made part of US law (the "supreme law of the land") by Article 6 of the Constitution, and by a number of landmark Supreme Court decisions. For Israel, there is also a pertinent and portentous history of terrorist exchanges. In June 2003, the Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, in anticipation of then-planned terrorist releases, condemned Israel's freeing of 100 Palestinian prisoners. Later, almost five times that number were freed by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In her letter to the Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet, Shurat HaDin, Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, wrote that releasing terrorists for any reason would reignite Arab terrorism against defenseless Jewish men, women and especially children. Nitsana was correct. Soon thereafter, at least two newly released Palestinian terrorists proceeded to launch suicide bomb attacks in Israel. In these attacks, one "military target" of the heroic fighters was a cafe filled with mothers and their babies. Every state has an indisputable core obligation under international law to prosecute and punish terrorists. This obligation derives in part from "No crime without a punishment." It is codified directly in many authoritative sources, and is also deducible from the binding Nuremberg Principles (1950). According to Principle 1: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment." Terrorism is a serious crime under international law. The precise offenses that comprise this crime can be found at The European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism. Some of the Palestinian terrorists previously released were also guilty of related crimes of war and crimes against humanity. These are Nuremberg-category crimes, so egregious that the perpetrators are known in law as Hostes humani generis, "Common enemies of humankind." International law presumes solidarity between states in the fight against all crime, including terrorism. This presumption is mentioned as early as the seventeenth century in Hugo Grotius' The Law of War and Peace. Although Israel has a clear jurisdiction to punish any crimes committed on its own territory, it also has the right to act under broader principles of "universal jurisdiction." Its case for such universal jurisdiction, which derives from an expectation of interstate solidarity, is found at the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. These Conventions impose upon the High Contracting Parties the obligation to punish "Grave Breaches." No government now has the legal right to free terrorists in exchange for its own kidnapped citizens, military or civilian. Terrorism is a criminally sanctionable violation of international law that is not subject to manipulation by individual countries. In the United States, it is clear from the Constitution that the President's power to pardon does not encompass violations of international law. Rather, this power is always limited precisely to "Offenses against the United States." In originally capturing and punishing Palestinian terrorists, Israel acted on behalf of all states. Moreover, because some of the terrorists had committed their crimes against other states, Israel cannot properly pardon these offenses against other sovereigns. Although Mr. Netanyahu's impending prisoner exchange would not, strictly speaking, represent a "pardon," it would have exactly the same effect. No state possesses the authority to pardon violations of international law. No matter what might be permissible under its own Basic Law, any impending political freeing of terrorists by Israel would be impermissible. The fundamental principle is also established in law that, by virtue of such releases, the releasing state itself must assume responsibility for past criminal acts, and for future ones. Under international law, Prime Minister Netanyahu's impending exchange — effectively analogous to a mass pardoning of criminals — would implicate the Jewish State for a "denial of justice." This could have practical consequences. Although it is arguable that punishment, which is central to justice, does not always deter future crimes, such an Israeli freeing of terrorists would undermine the Jewish State's legal obligation to incapacitate violent criminals from committing new acts of mass murder. A tragic aspect of modern international law is sometimes the need to make hard and painful choices in order to safeguard larger populations from future harms. Mr. Netanyahu should now act accordingly. Louis René Beres is author of many books and articles dealing with international criminal law. |
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STUDENT DEMONSTRATIONS CONFOUND REGIME
Posted by Kenneth Timmerman, December 7, 2009. |
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Dear friends, Tens of thousands of Iranian students are staging protests at universities across Iran today, calling for an end to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The coordinated demonstrations at dozens of universities are expected to stretch thin the capabilities of the Revolutionary Guards and their anti-riot squads to maintain order. This is an important story that is not getting a great deal of coverage from the national media. I urge you to take a look at it, and then look again at the White House policy to reach out to the regime of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Why is the Obama administration so intent on befriending our enemies, and making enemies of our friends (in this case, the people of Iran?). |
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Tens of thousands of Iranian students are staging protests at universities across Iran today, calling for an end to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The coordinated demonstrations at dozens of universities are expected to stretch thin the capabilities of the Revolutionary Guards and their anti-riot squads to maintain order. "We expect the regime will only be able to stage a show of force against a handful of these demonstrations," Revolutionary Guards founder Mohsen Sazegara told Newsmax on Sunday. These days, Sazegara is calling for an end to the regime and is a commentator for Voice of America. During the previous wave of anti-regime demonstrations in November, the anti-riot squads, known as Basijis, virtually deserted, leading Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to send them to barracks without arms. "They had to hire 3,500 people, paying them $400 each per day, in order to crack down on the November demonstrations," Sazegara told Newsmax. "We have succeeded in destroying the Basij force as it has been known until now. Today, it is only a name." A senior Revolutionary Guards commander for Tehran announced on Saturday that he had ordered his troops to give flowers to student demonstrators on Monday. "We are ready for that," Sazegara told Newsmax. "We are happy to show that IRGC troops are refusing to fire on demonstrators. One of our strategies is to call on them and the regular Army to join the nation against the regime." In previous years, the Islamic regime has staged mass demonstrations on Dec. 7 to commemorate student protests against Vice President Richard Nixon's visit to Iran in 1953. But in the wake of the disputed June election that returned Ahmadinejad to power, his opponents have performed political jui-jitsu and used pro-regime slogans and commemorations against the regime, a tactic U.S. political strategist Gene Sharp first described in 1973. "This is the first time that all opposition groups, from the green movement to the monarchists, from the religious to the secular, have called for joint demonstrations," said Roozbeh Farahanipour, a leader of the 1999 student revolt who supports the movement against the regime. The regime has been fighting back on several fronts. In recent weeks, it has restricted Internet access to users inside Iran to opposition sites hosted outside the country, stepped up the monitoring of e-mail and text messages, and detained student leaders inside Iran. During the weekend, the regime shut down many Internet service providers inside Iran, Newsmax has learned. The regime also has launched a massive campaign of harassment and intimidation aimed at Iranian exiles. This latest campaign "involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad," then threatening their relatives inside Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. "Dozens of individuals in the U.S. and Europe who criticized Iran on Facebook or Twitter said their relatives back in Iran were questioned or temporarily detained because of their postings," the Journal reported. Opposition Web sites reported that several prominent leaders of the student movement inside Iran have been arrested in recent days, apparently in an attempt to prevent them from playing a role in Monday's protests. "They are going to be very surprised," said Ardeshir Zarezadeh, a former student leader now living in the United States. "They think they have arrested the leadership of Monday's demonstrations. But the demonstrations will take place even bigger than planned." Zarezadeh told Newsmax he had just spoken to Heshmatollah Tabarzadeh, one of the leaders of Solidarity for Democracy in Iran, a coalition movement inside Iran that has brought together leaders of the green movement, student groups, and more tradition secular parties such as the Iran Nation's Party. "Tabarzadeh was told that he had been sentenced to a new prison term by a religious court, although he was unaware of the charges and was never summoned to court," Zarezadeh said. In the past, Tabarzadeh and other members of the green movement have said that they favored reforming the Islamic regime from within. But the violent crackdown on all forms of protest since June has changed the nature of the movement. "Today, the goal is overthrowing the regime," Zarezadeh said. Ali Afshari, another former student leader who fled to the United States after he was released from jail a few years ago, has infuriated hard-core opposition activists for years. An adviser to former President Mohammad Khatami, Afshari has long argued that the regime can be reformed from within. But recent events have changed his mind, he told Newsmax at a rally at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. "The Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] must go," he said. "The key today is to change the constitution of the Islamic Republic through a massive non-violent movement of civil disobedience." That means getting rid of the supreme leader and the clerics' absolute rule, Afshari said. The constitution Ayatollah Khomeini dictated in 1980 defines the clerics' role. Regime agents overseas have been working overtime to create confusion and dissension among anti-regime activists. On Saturday, for example, Iranian students at the University of Toronto staged a rally to commemorate Iranian Students Day, but they insisted they were not protesting against the regime and did not want to change it. "It is difficult to understand how anyone can claim to support the Iranian students and yet organize an event that is not anti-regime," said Sayeh Hassan, a Canadian-Iranian lawyer and prominent blogger. "If an event is not anti-regime, then what can it be? Pro regime? There doesn't seem to be a middle ground," she wrote on her blog, shiro-khorshid-forever. About 70 percent of the Iranian expat students studying in Canada have come on Iranian government scholarships, she told Newsmax. "They don't want to create any sort of conflict" that might cause problems for themselves or their families back in Iran. Former Revolutionary Guards founder and reformist publisher Mohsen Sazegara was upbeat about the prospects for regime change in the coming months. "For the first time we have succeeded in working with each other and tolerating each other [in the opposition] by concentrating on a single goal — bringing down the government of [president] Ahmadinejad," he told Newsmax on Sunday. Because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has tied his political horse to Ahmadinejad's spurs, this means he inevitably will suffer the same fate as the unpopular president. "Our immediate goal is to allow the president-elect to come to power," he told Newsmax, referring to defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the titular head of the green movement and a former prime minister in the 1980s. Kenneth R. Timmerman is President, Middle East Data Project, Inc. He
authored "Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran"
and is a contributing editor to Newsmax.com His latest non-fiction
books is a thriller called Honor Killing, available at
www.kentimmerman.com. Contact him by email at
timmerman.road@verizon.net
This article is archived at
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FROM ISRAEL: DEFINING FOCUS
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 7, 2009. |
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Or, perhaps better, redefining my focus in these postings. I will continue to take a look at important news events. But I have decided that the current situation also calls for some other approaches. First, I want to encourage readers to get the word out with regard to good things about Israel — and there are so very many good things. You can offer a genuine service to Israel by doing this. To that end, I will from time to time be providing links that can be shared with others. Today, I provide these: A video of the dedication of a 9/11 Memorial in Jerusalem. It makes clear what are our shared values and concerns. Americans should be pleased by this. (With thanks to Donald S.)
Just for fun, to show a joyous side of Israel, I provide a link to the Nefesh B'Nefesh Chanukah celebration video, with 150 olim (new immigrants) dancing on Ben Yehuda Street in the center of Jerusalem. (With thanks to the many who shared this.)
More to follow. ~~~~~~~~~~~ You can also help Israel by broadly sharing this link, for which I thank Gil Z. This provides pictures taken in Gaza very recently for Eid celebrations — they ran in an Palestinian Arab paper. Were you under the impression that the Gazans were starving (because of big bad Israel)? You'll change after seeing this:
~~~~~~~~~ Then, and most importantly, I want to use these posting to educate people about "the settlers" and "the settlements," as they are so much at the heart of current political dissension right now. I continue to get feedback about how residents in our communities in Judea and Samaria are seen as "radicals" and "crazies" and "troublemakers." It's time to set the record straight. Judea (or Yehuda, which is to the south) and Samaria (or Shomron, to the north) are the two regions in Israel between the Green Line and the Jordan River, and represent the heart of our ancient tradition in the land. Today, because of communication I received yesterday from a resident, I want to focus on the Samarian town of Kedumim. Kedumim was founded during Chanukah 1975 by a nuclear group (a garin) of young people convinced of the Jewish right to live in the ancient homeland. Founded on the site of what had been the city of Samaria, capital of the ancient northern kingdom of Israel, it was the first modern Jewish city in Samaria, situated not far from Shechem. Today it boasts a host of cultural activities and youth programs; a library; a number of schools (including a school geared to ADD boys, one of the finest innovative high schools for girls in the country, and a center for science and technology); a yeshiva; and 14 synagogues, including three Yemenite. Samaria is a mountainous region, and Kedumim has been established on a number of hilltops. Its location, overlooking the Ben Gurion airport, makes it important from a security perspective. ~~~~~~~~~~ Always eager to teach the world about the good of Israel, I shudder as I write this, deeply ashamed of the law enforcement techniques applied here by Jews against Jews. But this is a story that needs to be told. Residents of the town came out yesterday in large numbers to block the entry into Kedumim of building inspectors from the Civil Administration intent on serving "stop-work" papers. This represented the fourth time that the inspectors had been on the site — residents had previously prevented their entry. Why did they block the inspectors? Certainly because of their ideological conviction regarding the right of Jews to live and build in their ancient homeland. But also because, in the words of the resident who wrote to me (who shall remain anonymous): "...freezing" is illegal...since it is not a law or decree for anyone except Jews in a particular region and discriminates against a minority (in Judea and Samaria Arabs outnumber Jews in many places)." This is a refrain I've encountered several times now. The anger is great because Arabs are still building. It is a Jewish government that has put only Jews in the position of being restricted. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so yesterday, the police came out in force — some 200 strong, with several vehicles. According to Arutz Sheva: "The Shomron Residents Committee reports that on their way to Kedumim, the forces drove through three nearby Arab villages — Funduk, Haja, and Kadoum — places that the army generally considers too dangerous to enter in order to apprehend terrorists or confiscate weapons. Ouch! Just as distressing was the fact that the police were accompanied by Yassamnikim. (Yassam is an abbreviation for Special Reconnaissance Unit — a Yassamnik is a member of Yassam.) The unit was set in place during the second Intifada, but has been retained for "special" circumstances. These guys, who actually wear black, are experts in strong arm techniques. According to the Post, Kedumim mayor, Hananel Durani, said that he was sitting with the protesters, but was then was beaten and dragged away by police. Additionally, Yassamnikim were caught on video manhandling young girls. ~~~~~~~~~~ My resident correspondent described the situation this way: "...if you could have seen the pathetic bravado of hundreds of police and Yasamim against a handful of high school kids this morning in Kedumim, you would weep some more for the lost compassion and love for fellow Jews and the grandeur of the Zionist vision that our so-called nationalist leaders have lost." ~~~~~~~~~~ This is the situation that our prime minister, and defense minister, and a limited security cabinet (not the whole government) have wrought. Do they imagine this will strengthen us? Additional words would be superfluous here, but I'll have more to say soon... Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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ON ISRAEL'S CONSTRUCTION FREEZE: U.S. FAILS TO DELIVER: INSTEAD OF PRAISING, EUROPE DEMANDS MORE
Posted by Barry Rubin, December 7, 2009. |
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Israel acceded to a U.S. request to freeze construction on existing Jewish settlements; the Palestinian Authority (PA) refuses even to negotiate or to give anything in exchange for this concession. Who did Europe reward and was the United States able to mobilize praise for the former or criticism for the latter? Need you ask? It is now confirmed that my analysis of the State Department statement on the construction freeze was correct. It was intended as a statement supporting key Israeli demands — recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and changes in the 1967 borders — while also meeting major Palestinian demands, an independent state based on those borders. Equally unnoticed, however, is the fact that the United States did not even get its European allies to endorse its new position. Once again, despite all the Obama Administration's apologies, flattery, and concessions, it could not even obtain the smallest things in exchange from those given such rewards. The main U.S. effort was to get the Quartet of mediators (U.S., Europe Union, Russia, and UN) to endorse the new U.S. stance. The proposed statement would have urged resumed negotiations without preconditions to seek an agreement which: "would fulfill the Palestinian goal of establishing an independent, viable state, based on the 1967 borders, agreed upon exchanges [of territory], and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect the developments [which occurred on the ground] and which fulfill the Israeli security requirements." Reportedly, the Russians rejected the Jewish state and reflecting developments on the ground positions. This explains why the Quartet couldn't issue a statement. But why didn't the United States obtain the same statement from the European Union alone? Instead, after making still another unilateral concession, Israel now has to fight off a hostile EU resolution calling for east Jerusalem to be capital of a Palestinian state without any mention of Israeli goals, including mention of west Jerusalem as Israel's capital, an easy way of making the resolution more even-handed. So once again Israel is given the message, here reinforced by inept U.S. diplomacy, that the reward for making a concession are demands to make more concessions. This is not, however, to underestimate the importance of the new U.S. position as expressed in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement. The question, of course, is how long and whether the Obama Administration will stick to its new set of promises. 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 This article is archived at
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LEBANON'S LEGACY IN AFGHANISTAN
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 6, 2009. |
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There is little doubt that a number of Israeli Prime Ministers have colluded with foreign governments to represent their interests as opposed to representing Israel's sovereign interests and her security. American law would define that as 'treason' and surrendering vital defensive Land, freezing home building, releasing caught, convicted and jailed Terrorists (50% of whom are known to return to committing Terror) are clearly treasonous acts against the Israeli people and the Jewish Nation/State of Israel. This below was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared
December 4, 2009 in the Jerusalem Post
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The day after US President Barack Obama announced that he was deploying additional US forces to Afghanistan, an event occurred in Beirut that brought home the stakes in that battle. 
In this 2007 photo, Lebanese army soldiers sit on their tank, during a patrol in front of destroyed buildings, that were destroyed during the fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah Islam group, inside the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. On Wednesday, Hamas leaders flew to Beirut to pay their respects to Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah. The Sunni jihadists reportedly came to the commander of the Shi'ite jihadist Iranian proxy terror force to receive Nasrallah's blessing for the deal they are now negotiating with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government. If the deal resembles what is being reported, it will represent the worst non-territorial capitulation of a free nation to jihadist forces in recent years. According to media reports this week, Israel has agreed to release up to 2,000 Muslim terrorists from its prisons in exchange for the release of Israeli hostage Gilad Schalit. If the deal goes through, it will constitute a massive victory for Hamas. The fact that as they stand at the precipice of such a great triumph, Hamas's leaders felt it necessary to come on bended knee to Nasrallah demonstrates Hizbullah's power. Hizbullah won two strategic victories against Israel. First in May 2000, then prime minister Ehud Barak gave Hizbullah southern Lebanon on a silver platter by withdrawing IDF forces from the area after 18 years. Barak's decision to withdraw from Lebanon came at the end of a year of strategic dithering during which he refused to adopt a strategy for victory over the Iranian proxy. Instead Barak wildly understated or ignored the threat a Hizbullah-controlled south Lebanon would constitute for Israel, and repeatedly announced his intention to leave without victory which — due to his understatement of the Hizbullah threat — was supposed to be unnecessary. In the months that preceded Israel's withdrawal, Israeli officials gave frequent media interviews in which they condemned as corrupt and ineffective Israel's Lebanese partners in the South Lebanese Army. Incidents of SLA soldiers and officers acting as double agents for Hizbullah were given wide coverage in the Israeli media. At the same time the rationale for their defection to Hizbullah was studiously ignored by the pacifist news editors who championed Barak's strategy of retreat. Most of the SLA soldiers who spied for Hizbullah in the months preceding Israel's withdrawal were spurred to act as they did because Barak's declared intention of withdrawing IDF forces from the country without first defeating Hizbullah left them in a lurch. Unlike Barak and his protean chorus in the Israeli media, SLA forces understood that an Israeli withdrawal meant a Hizbullah victory. Anticipating that victory, spying for Hizbullah became their life insurance policy. Only by switching sides could they hope to spare their families from the swords of the victorious Iranian-controlled mujahadin. As for their SLA comrades who remained loyal to Israel to the bitter end, they fled to the Israeli border by the thousands with their families in the hours that followed Israel's middle-of-the-night retreat. Today the former fighters live in penury as stateless refugees among the Israelis who betrayed them. After Israel withdrew, Hizbullah was heralded as the hero of the Islamic world. Iran's currency rose. Nasrallah built a terror state in south Lebanon and began making inroads in the Lebanese political arena incrementally increasing Hizbullah's influence over the Lebanese state. The Palestinians took a lesson from Lebanon. Yasser Arafat's response to Hizbullah's victory was to reject peace and prepare for a renewed terror war against Israel. In June 2000 Arafat tasked Fatah commander Marwan Barghouti with forging operational alliances with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and forming the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group from Fatah forces. Hizbullah's rise was stymied temporarily in 2003 with the US-led invasion of Iraq. Hizbullah received a body blow following the Syrian-ordered February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. In the aftermath of Hariri's murder, the anti-Syrian, pro-Western March 14 movement in Lebanon forced Syria to withdraw its forces from the country. For a brief moment, there was hope that denied Syrian protection Hizbullah would be unable to maintain its control over south Lebanon. Alas, it wasn't to be. Israel, then on the brink of reenacting the failed withdrawal from south Lebanon in Gaza, was unwilling to help the March 14 forces. And the US, distracted by the escalating insurgency in Iraq, would do nothing substantive to protect the March 14 forces from the far stronger Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah. So in the end, despite the temporary setbacks, Hizbullah was able to strong-arm its way into Fuad Siniora's government and received governmental support for its state-within-a-state in south Lebanon. Israel was given a second opportunity to defeat Hizbullah in July 2006. After Hizbullah attacked an IDF border patrol, abducted two soldiers and began bombarding the North with rockets and missiles, prime minister Ehud Olmert declared that Israel would return to Lebanon and defeat Hizbullah. But then Olmert changed his mind. Upon reflection, Olmert decided that he wasn't interested in victory. He knew that he needed to do something because the public demanded action. But to actually defeat Hizbullah as he had promised, he would have had to order the IDF to reconquer south Lebanon. Ordering such an operation would constitute an implicit repudiation of his government's central goal — reenacting the withdrawals from Lebanon and from Gaza in Judea and Samaria. And so, Olmert opted for a sound and light show. He sent IDF forces into battles with no strategic purpose. He called up the reserves but then failed to deploy them in sufficient numbers in battle until after the UN Security Council had already passed a ceasefire resolution that legitimated Hizbullah and ignored its state sponsors in Syria and Iran. This week, Israel was condemned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon for protecting Jewish property rights in Jerusalem. Israel was also condemned during the annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians in their war against Israel. At the same time, Lebanon was elected to the UN Security Council. Since last month's unity government agreement between the enfeebled March 14 movement and Hizbullah gave Hizbullah control over Lebanese Foreign Ministry, what Lebanon's election to the Security Council means is that come January, Hizbullah will be a member of the Council.
THIS STATE of affairs in all its depressing detail gained new relevance on Tuesday night as a non-committal, clearly unhappy US President Barack Obama announced his plan to deploy an additional 30,000 US forces to Afghanistan and then withdraw them in 18 months. When Obama entered office in January, he was presented with a situation in Afghanistan where thanks to the 2001 NATO invasion, the Taliban had been sidelined but not destroyed, and the Western-backed Karzai government was too weak to defeat them. The question that presented itself to the new president was how to effect the final defeat of the Taliban and a permanent victory for the US and its allies. But that was not a question that Obama was interested in asking. And so he didn't. Instead of asking what was required for victory, like Olmert before him, Obama asked two questions. First, he asked what he needed to do to placate a public that views him as soft on defense. And second, just as Olmert did in Lebanon (and later in Gaza), Obama asked what policy he should adopt in Afghanistan that would not hurt him too much with his anti-war political base. And so he arrived at Tuesday's announcement at West Point. The US will not pursue victory. It won't even do much to strengthen the Afghan government's ability to fight the Taliban on its own. Indeed, it views the Taliban as a legitimate force in Afghanistan. What Obama agreed to do was lend his commander on the ground, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, 30,000 troops for 18 months. But the message he sent US forces is far from resolute. With the forces' rules of engagement constrained by the Obama Justice Department's penchant for prosecuting US servicemen and intelligence officials for aggressively pursuing their enemies, it isn't clear how many risks those forces will be willing to take. Moreover, it is hard to imagine fighting with decisiveness under a commander-in-chief whose vocabulary does not include the word victory. Then there is the message he sent the Afghans. Just as Barak and Olmert discouraged the Lebanese from cooperating with IDF operations against Hizbullah when they declared that the IDF would not remain in Lebanon, so by announcing a timeline for withdrawal at the same time he announced his force build-up, Obama told the Afghan people that they have no reason to collaborate with US and NATO forces on the ground. For Obama personally, this is a win-win situation. If McChrystal is able to make headway, Obama will take the credit. If not, Obama will blame McChrystal, and the Afghans, and NATO, and the Republicans, and George W. Bush for his failure. Then he will withdraw all US forces from the country, and watch as a disinterested observer as the Taliban retake control of Afghanistan — all to the rousing applause of his anti-war political base. On the other hand, for the American people and for the free world as a whole, this is a lose-lose situation. The sound and light show strategy Obama announced will enable al-Qaida and the Taliban to grow stronger as they wait out the American withdrawal. Likewise, just as Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon emboldened the Palestinians to initiate their terror war in September 2000, so the US retreat from Afghanistan will embolden terror forces and their state sponsors the world over to attack US and Western targets.
IN ISRAEL, the refusal of successive governments to fight our jihadist enemies to victory served to demoralize the public by making it believe that the IDF is incapable of truly protecting the country. The path that Obama has now embarked upon in Afghanistan will likely have the same impact on many Americans. This posture of weakness and helplessness will be sharply contrasted with the emboldened stance of America's enemies. From the time the Netanyahu government took office in late March until its recent moves to cut a shockingly dangerous deal with Hamas and prohibit Jewish building in Judea and Samaria, there was a sense that Israel had turned a corner. The public rejected the Barak-Olmert legacy of defeat and elected Netanyahu to change the course of the country. Depressingly, today it is less apparent that Netanyahu has in fact abandoned their legacy of defeat. What is absolutely certain, however, is that until both Israel and the US change course and defeat our enemies, we will not be safe. Moreover, we must recognize the infuriating fact that even if both countries decide to defeat their enemies, their embrace of victory will come too late for the soldiers killed in futile and pointless battles and for civilians murdered in terror attacks that could have been prevented.
Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His
articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the
Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For
Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm).
Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org
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ISRAEL'S TITLE TO PALESTINE UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW; MUSLIM IMAM GETS
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY SPEECH CANCELED; INTRODUCING DAVID PROJECT
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 6, 2009. |
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ISRAEL'S TITLE TO PALESTINE, UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW From The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law by Howard Grief, international lawyer, 10/2008, mazopublishers@gmail.com), ISBN-10: 9657344522, ISBN-13: 9789657344521), 710 pages... Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel did not arise from the UN's 1947 partition plan (which was merely advisory) or from British abandonment of the Mandate over Palestine in 1948. Rather, Jewish sovereignty was recognized in 1920 when the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council (Britain, France, Italy and Japan), meeting in San Remo, Italy, "converted the 1917 'Balfour Declaration' into a binding legal document." "Binding?" "...its wording gave effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations and became incorporated into the Mandate for Palestine." The Jewish people retained sovereignty despite the British acting as their agents by running the Mandate. The end of the Mandate did not terminate the Jewish people's rights to all of Palestine as it had been defined, to also include northwestern Golan and Jordan. Under the doctrine of estoppel, those rights cannot be abrogated by countries that formerly had recognized them. For example, "The U.S. endorsed Jewish sovereignty over Palestine in all its 'historical parts and dimensions.' The U.S. cannot now declare Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria as an illegal 'occupation' of lands upon which it favors the creation of a Palestinian State. The 1924 Anglo-American Convention on Palestine made the U.S. a 'contracting party' to the Mandate, further reinforcing a unanimously passed Joint Resolution of the 67th Congress two years earlier, signed by President Warren G. Harding, recognizing a future Jewish State in 'the whole of Palestine.'" The "...Mandate for Palestine that was ceremoniously incorporated into U.S. law in 1924 'was a constitution for the projected Jewish state that made no provision for an Arab state and which especially prohibited the partition of the country. Thus, he concludes, the fierce exception the U.S. has taken to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and its unremitting pressure for creation of a "Palestinian State" amount to a repudiation of its signature to the Anglo-American Convention on Palestine. It is in violation of American law and America's obligations under international law." If PM Begin had annexed Judea, Samaria, and Gaza right away, they would not have gone through stages in the popular mind from non-allocated to disputed to "occupied" (Winston Mideast Analysis, 12/3). MUSLIM IMAM GETS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY SPEECH CANCELED Princeton imam Sohaib Sultan took major responsibility for getting Nonie Darwish's Nov. 16-18 speech canceled just hours before due. Ms. Darwish wrote "Cruel And Usual Punishment" and Now They Call Me Infidel. The imam said "Darwish's appearance on campus could offend the Muslim community." Darwish responded that he means that Islam considers questioning of Islam as a capital offense. Apparently, Jewish organizations rescinded the invitation. Darwish explained that those organizations are trying to get along with Muslim groups there, want to show that they can get along, and want to avoid harassment by those groups. Getting along on an equal basis did not occur during centuries of Muslim control over the Mideast. Islamic law does not allow religious minorities equal rights. The Arabs have dominated non-Arab Muslims, too. Darwish specifically cited Copts, Jews, Kurds, Lebanese Christians, and Assyrians. Millions have fled being forced to convert to Islam or to adopt Arab nationality. Darwish challenged the imam: "Did the good imam ever write to El-Azhar University demanding a change in the definition of jihad in Muslim scriptures, which state 'jihad is to war with non-Muslims to establish the religion.' Did he ever send an open letter to imams across the Middle East demanding an end to characterizing Jews as 'apes, pigs and enemies of Allah'? Did he ever campaign against honor and apostate killings? Does he denounce outright lies about Jews such as 'Jews are behind 9/11 and the death of Arafat'? Does he condemn imams who recite the Hadith commanding Muslims to kill Jews wherever they find them? Do imams on Arab TV appall him when they promote terrorism against Jews worldwide? Does he think Hamas and Hezbollah are terror groups? Does he agree with the recent fatwa of death for apostasy that El-Azhar and 5,000 mosques in Egypt issued against Egyptian intellectual and reformist Sayed El Qemany?" "Instead, the imam stifled inquiry of the above atrocities and characterized those who question as personal attackers of all Muslims. In the process he created a hostile environment where his friendships are determined by compliance. Blasphemy Shariah laws are now creeping into many institutions of higher learning in the U.S.." She said it is no wonder that the imam doesn't want witnesses to come and reveal what really happens in the Mideast under Islamic rule. Her speech would have explained, "I want to stress that I am not here to offend the good and peace-loving Muslims. Most people, including myself, don't want or care to criticize religion, in the sense that it is a personal relationship with God. But if a religion, any religion, expands itself to the point of a one-party political and legal system while condemning those who question to death, then it makes perfect sense that such a religion has put itself in the realm of criticism. No religion or ideology can be beyond questioning when human rights are at stake...The rights of any one religion must never supersede human rights or the rights of other religions to flourish. Tolerating intolerance is not a virtue; it is gross negligence." Sacrificing one culture, at the demand of another, is not multi-culturalism. The United States of American into which I was born was one of expanding freedom. Under a leftist political correctness, that freedom is shrinking. It would have been unthinkable years ago, to curb freedom of speech to appease a lobby, many of whose members make truly offensive statements, such as in examples Darwish cited. Our founding fathers believed that freedom of speech would enable the people will figure out the truth. At Princeton, supposedly educating to a high quality, students won't get certain opportunities to figure out the truth. INTRODUCING DAVID PROJECT — CHALLENGING THE DIVESTMENT/APARTHEID CAMPAIGN The David Project, located in New York City, Boston, and Israel, works through education and with related organizations. It prepares material for school curricula, offers a speakers' bureau, advises students how to respond to challenging ideologies on campus, etc.. For example, on January 17-19, Sunday-Tuesday, in mid-Manhattan, David Project will conduct teacher-training on the Arab-Israel conflict. During "Israel Apartheid Week," David Project enlisted people to attend events on campus, distribute flyers, question debaters, and expose errors. David Project helped students work out a strategy and later review results. A David Project presentation at Wayne State University helped defeat a divestment petition. Hearing that an anti-Israel organization had gotten its material presented at a public school and perhaps inserted in the curriculum, David Project asked to make its own presentation. Afterwards, students said they could see faults in the original material. The website for the organization is www.davidproject.org. My sense of the situation is that the anti-Israel position now is encountering some challenge at universities, and students are more open-minded than some conservatives have suggested. 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 and visit his website:
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SHALIT DEAL MOTIVATES MORE KIDNAPPINGS AND STRENGTHENS HAMAS
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, December 6, 2009. |
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As both Arab and Israeli sources report that an impending prisoner exchange will trade kidnapped Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit for Palestinian terrorists serving life sentences for murder, Palestinian sources report that this move will increase the motivation to kidnap Israeli soldiers. PMW has reported similar statements in the past in response to earlier prisoner exchanges. In addition, the deal will improve the position of Hamas internationally and internally: Internationally, because Israel's demand that the world boycott Hamas will be weakened as Israel itself has negotiated this release with Hamas; and internally, because Hamas will be strengthened among the Palestinian population as the movement that succeeded in releasing prisoners. The following are the recent articles: Headline: "The effect of the prisoner exchange deal on the Palestinian map" Itamar Marcus is director of PMW — Palestinian Media Watch — (http://www.pmw.org.il). PMW is based in Jerusalem. |
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FROM ISRAEL: PATHETICALLY STUPID
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 6, 2009. |
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I'm sorry, I'm referring to words of the prime minister, but have no other way to describe them. At the Cabinet meeting this morning, Netanyahu is reported to have said that the decision to freeze settlements for 10 months proves that Israel wants peace. How much groveling is he planning to do? This reminds me of the "Peace Now" types who maintain that they're "for peace" and everyone who isn't with them is not "for peace." Making more and more concessions is NOT the way to achieve peace. And a world that doesn't already know that we want peace is not going to be convinced by what we're doing now. They'll say (as Abbas is already saying) that we're not freezing construction in Jerusalem and so we're not sincere. The corollary to his statement was that the PA's continued refusal to come to the table proves that they're not "for peace." But, hell, we knew that already. Knew that because they won't recognize us as a Jewish state, and because they are still teaching their school kids about the wonders of jihad and "martyrdom," and because they're thinking of getting in bed with Hamas (actually are part-way in already). But this is what it's all about [barring, still, some hidden factor]: Netanyahu being able to say, to Obama, first, and then the Western world more generally: See, see, we're the good guys, not the PA. What he should be doing is standing tall and showing the world in a dozen different ways what the insincerity of the Palestinian Arabs is: Look! This is actual text that they teach their kids. Look, this is what happened at the Fatah conference this summer when they voted not to renounce "armed resistance." Look! and Look! and Look! ~~~~~~~~~~ With all of this, what truly infuriates me is what he's implying about the residents of communities in Judea and Samaria. For all his presumably conciliatory words to them, he's drawing lines, making a distinction, and painting them the "bad" guys, This is how the world chooses to see them in any event. But does he have to make it easier for the world? Does he have to say that those who are for the freeze are "for peace," thus implying that those who are fighting the freeze are not? The fact is that these loyal Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria, and their many supporters, may yet save us. They are wary in the extreme of what may be coming down the road after this "temporary" freeze — which Netanyahu continues to swear will end in 10 months not matter what. (Already Minister Avishai Braverman of Labor is saying that some areas, which we know — we do? — will be turned over to the Palestinian Arabs should have building frozen permanently.) They are intensifying their battle in every possible way with the significant exception of calls for violence. They must, and can, win, they say, overturning the freeze without violence. With everything else — the injustice regarding how the freeze was done; the potential illegality of it; the undemocratic spirit, as this is not what Likud stood for — there is among those who live in Judea and Samaria another understanding. In the final analysis, it is their presence in this part of our land that helps protect us. Thus is genuine peace ensured, rather than via withdrawals — or implied willingness to withdraw. ~~~~~~~~~~ My friends, I am getting more commentaries on the subject of the freeze than I am able to read, never mind comment upon. I do not intend to even try. I have no desire to take all of you, or myself, in circles. I am grieving, as are many of you. Bitter indeed is the disappointment, not just with Netanyahu, but even more so with certain party stalwarts who were thought to be genuine nationalists, such as Benny Begin. He's now going to sit on a committee with Barak to help decide compensation packages for those who are suffering financially and logistically from the freeze, and make sure that building continues where it is permitted. This is an endorsement of the freeze, if done "fairly." This is not speaking out against it. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Chairman of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, Sha'ul Goldstein, sent out a letter today, in which he said that he and other heads of councils are working on challenging the freeze legally. He estimates that lawsuits will run in total more than 1 billion shekels (over $250 million). He says he had met with government ministers, but, "It seems that American pressure is much more frightening than the threats by Likud members. "I would like to send you a very clear and strong message. Do not falter! We will continue to live in Gush Etzion and develop it for our children and our children's children! We have been through tough times in the past and it always seems like this is the worst it has ever been. Despite this, we have grown and we have built magnificent communities! This time, too, we shall continue to build and we shall emerge stronger and more resolute. ~~~~~~~~~~ Gush Etzion is a bloc of communities roughly south-east of Jerusalem, in Judea. Starting in 1927, the first settlements in the area were established and re-established after massacres of the inhabitants — Kfar Etzion, Messuot Yitzhak, Revadim, and Ein Tzurim. They served to protect Jerusalem from the south, but all opportunity to maintain them was lost when Jordan occupied the area after 1948. After 1967, when we again acquired the region, communities were rebuilt and in some instances children of the original founders returned — first to Kfar Etzion. In addition, new communities have been established in the region — including in the Judean Hills. Today, Efrat, Tekoa, Alon Shvut, Har Gilo, Nokdim, Beitar Illit, Neve Daniel, Bat Ayin, and a number more can be counted. The Regional Council serves some communities outside the bloc. To learn more, see:
You will see links to information about all of the communities and videos as well, including a very recent one regarding the freeze in which Sha'ul Goldstein speaks — to the right of the text, and others below. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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ROCKET THREAT PROPELS LAUNCH OF NEW ISRAELI TRADE SHOW
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 6, 2009. |
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I am definitely for a missile shield but, believe strong pre-emptive offense is preferable to waiting to be hit by a full scale launching of missiles. I have written about the unacceptable risks of a saturation missile attacks for years, long before the Gaza surrender and the Lebanon War. In U.S. Defense News of November 23rd, Barbara Opall-Rome wrote an article which speaks of Israel and her decisions to invest heavily in anti-missile defense systems. The article starts as follows: "Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak used the first annual Israeli Aerospace international conference and exhibition here to offer a mea culpa of sorts for the decades of military ambivalence, if not outright resistance, to active rocket and missile defenses. In an unusually candid critique of the military mind-set that traditionally disparaged the need "to invest $1 Billion [to defend] against a few flying pieces of metal," Barak insisted, "I say whoever calculates cost-benefits this way is mistaken." "In the next Lebanon war, Barak warned that Israel could be targeted by 20,000 Hezb'Allah rockets and missiles, five times the approximately 4,000 launched in the 2006 war. "Even if a quarter of those fall in populated areas, and only 1 percent of those hit buildings, the cost when you add it all up are enormous," he said." (1) What was left out was Ehud Barak's history as a Leftist, nurtured by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in the incubator of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to insure his political future in the Labor Party. They loaded him with medals but his true self, of a bumbling decision-maker, was always kept under cover. They touted him as a great thinker when he was not. Barak now speaks of creating an anti-missile defense which he always opposed. Barak has climbed aboard the U.S. policy of Israel relying on a missile shield so he has an excuse to NOT pre-emptively strike Hamas or Hezb'Allah or Iran which is in line with the Arabist U.S. State Department and President Barack Hussein Obama's decision to allow Iran to go Nuclear. When Barak was Prime Minister from May 17, 1999 to March 7, 2001, he cut an under-the-table deal with then President Clinton for $800 million dollars if Barak abandoned Israel's vital defensive security position in Southern Lebanon established to keep Terrorists away from Israel's Northern border. So, in the middle of the night 'our hero' ran like a rat from Israel's Northern Security Buffer Zone. Barak abandoned Israel's Christian Lebanese allies in a secret betrayal to the tender mercies of the Hezb'Allah. In his rush to get out and complete his under-the-table deal with Clinton, he left behind long range 120mm artillery, pallets of artillery shells, later used against Israel by Hezb'Allah, four tanks which Israeli Air Force had to destroy and other weapons. Clinton reneged and never did pay that $800 Million. Now the area Barak abandoned is filled with Hebz'Allah, tunnels to hide the Katyusha rockets and other missile systems. They have camouflaged trap doors that open hydraulically so missile launchers can roll out, fire their missiles, pull back and the trap door closes. Now over 40,000 missiles are ready to fire at Northern Israel from Lebanon alone. Some, which are supplied by Iran and Syria, can reach Haifa and Tel Aviv. Syria is known to have missiles with chemical warheads. UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon) was ordered to stop turning Southern Lebanon into a missile launching site which then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni negotiated but, that negotiation was a colossal failure. I recall Barak as Chief of Staff on June 15, 1992, the runner, attending a Tze'elim training exercise where an errant missile hit an elite combat unit, killing five, wounding six. Barak didn't try to help any of the wounded. Instead, Barak, the runner, jumped in his helicopter to make a get away before any newspapers printed the story. (Even the Leftist papers, like Ha'aretz, occasionally had to print the truth.) Barak's helicopter could have been used to transport critically wounded soldiers back to hospital but, Barak, the runner, needed it to keep his carefully constructed 'hero' reputation intact for the day he left the Army and ran for Prime Minister. Subsequent investigative reports held conflicting views. Barak, the runner, should have been sentenced to life in prison for several acts and decisions that put Israel's people in clear and present danger. But, at the insistence of the Arabist U.S. State Department, Barak was kept on as Defense Minister by Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. They needed a dedicated Leftist 'Runner' in the Government, left over from Ehud Olmert's regime, so he could run out of Judea and Samaria which he and Bibi are trying to do now. Actually, the State Department preferred to have Livni remain as their mole to disrupt any plans of the new Netanyahu Government but, she refused — so they settled for Barak and Bibi accepted. Barak was against building an anti-missile shield and now he is for it. Several problems always occupied Israel's decision-making abilities, mainly incompetent politicians and the intruding Arabist U.S. State Department. One was that the politicians were considered the "thinkers" in defensive and offensive military research and developments. Regrettably, their decisions were watered down by personal political concerns or "What will this do for or against my career?" Their next deep thought was that there were too many PC (Politically Correct) career officers, tied to the Labor Left Party. From the time of David Ben Gurion the Leftists recognized that the people so admired the Army that the PC (Politically Correct) would have high name recognition and do well when they became politicians. Some were good field officers. (Note! I said "Some".) But, often they were lacking necessary skills to be politically capable. Yitzhak Rabin, for instance, was never a good military leader (if you read his uncensored history by Uri Milstein and some others) but, he was protected by the 'Ole Boys' gang of Generals who always shielded their own. Generals of the political Right were always kept down lest they become popular with the public and gain political power by their own merit. Leftist ideology was to remain dominant regardless of who was in power Labor or Likud. Let us get to the matter of a "Defensive Missile Shield". Here again, politics, favoritism and pure ignorance played a decisive role. Recall how former head of the Histadrut (State Labor Union), Amir Peretz was appointed to be Defense Minister in May 2006 by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He knew nothing about the military. In one instance before he was dismissed, he was tasked with choosing between 2 anti-missile systems. This man, Peretz, was photographed observing a field exercise in the North while looking through field binoculars with their lens caps on — while making comments about what he pretended to see near the Golan Heights. Imagine, an ignorant, non-technical politician choosing a weapons' system on its merits — all based on his lack of knowledge! This incompetent was charged with picking the best anti-missile system, with all the complex technology inherent in both. Keep in mind that is was a Leftist lawyer (Olmert) who selected Peretz as Defense Minister. "What is much more serious is that Israel's national security interests were damaged as a result of Peretz's appointment. He had no experience, no conception and no skills that qualified him to stand at the head of the huge and complex security establishment that safeguards our lives. Peretz's very willingness to take on this job proves that he understood nothing about it. The silence of the lambs of the other leaders of the Labor Party, those who did not get up to tell him "You are not the man for this job," proves that the only thing that interests them is their share in the government, at any price." (2) Today we have Ehud Barak as Defense Minister, selected by Bibi Netanyahu — on instructions from the Arabist U.S. State Department. It's not that he is as dumb as a sack of hammers. It's just that his military decisions are based solely on Leftist politics, in coordination with the Arabists in Washington and NOT the defense of the Jewish Nation/State of Israel against an implacable enemy, the Islamist Jihadis of all types. So, let's get on to Israel's choices of defense and against whom. First, it's not affordable to send high tech missiles, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars against inexpensive Russian supplied Katyusha rockets and much cheaper missiles. An anti-missile that brings down a Nuclear, Biological, Chemical or even large conventional missile warheads is certainly worthwhile. But, there is no guarantee that the anti-missile system will be 100% effective against a saturation missile attack and thus some missiles could get through. Let's look at this from another point of view. If you haven't noticed the missiles coming to Iran's proxy Terrorists, Hezb'Allah and Hamas are NOT surgical strike devices but, are rather designed to strike somewhere in civilian cities. These Kassam missiles are loaded with nails (some dipped in poison) and ball bearings to cause as much damage to human bodies, as possible. Israeli civilians are Muslim Terrorists' main targets, although the world demands Israel cause no collateral damage when she is fighting for the lives of her people. Or, for that matter, when America fights against Al Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Terrorists may hit any civilian target they can reach with impunity with no complaint from the U.N. Israel is NOT like vast America's territory, far away from Jihadi (warriors for Islam) Terrorist armies — except for those Muslims the Arabist U.S. State Department and a few Presidents have allowed to set up residence in America proper. The American people must wait in proper fear for these Muslim cells and the so-called Muslim Civilians to switch these to active mode and blow up American cities. Israel is only 300 miles long and fifty miles wide (including our ancient heartland of Judea and Samaria — but only 9 miles wide IF that vital Land is surrendered — as demanded by President Obama). Israel is bordered by some of the most hostile Muslim Arab neighbors pledge in all their Charters to destroy the Jewish Nation/State and every man, woman and child in it. They are self-declared dedicated enemies, not given to following the antiquated rules of war — like the Geneva Convention. They say they hate and want to kill Jews (men, women and children) in order to wipe Israel off the earth in deference to their moon god, Zin, aka Allah. When the Muslims try to fight Israel's Air Force or professional IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the Muslims will predictably be the losers — as they have always been. Fighting Israeli armor is also expensive because the tanks the Arab Muslims will lose are surely costly. But, firing missiles at Israel's population centers — now that is worthwhile for them in casualties and the privilege of a fast trip to Allah's courtyard. The only "smart" munitions the Muslim world produces, builds or buys from Russia, China or North Korea are those that can hit Dimona, Israel's airfields and international airport, the cities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. Or, the human variety that strap explosives on their bodies and kill Jews by dying in explosive suicide bombs as Shahids (martyrs for Islam). To them a civilian war is not only acceptable, it's preferable. What then is the solution — and what method matches the situation? First, dispense with any restrictive convention or rule of warfare adopted by the nations who will likely insist Israel play by such 'rules of engagement' — because the Arab Muslims will not and never have followed such rules. Since the Arabs, Muslims, Islamists and Jihadists (warriors for Islam) have established their own rules of engagement (meaning 'no' rules) then fight by their rules. And fight to win!!! For Israel, that is called in Hebrew Ein Breira or No Choice. Adopt Sherman's "March to the Sea" or the firebombing of Dresden — or better yet, Truman's decision to level Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Nuclear Bombs. America did not start those wars but, she definitely won and ended them as quickly as possible. While Israel can continue to use smart munitions to take out leading Terrorists, better to use deep, penetrating area-wide weapons in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza to collapse the tunnel infrastructure — a favorite of the Terrorists to hide themselves, their weapons and explosives. Of course, they build them under civilian buildings using their own Muslim people as willing (or at least cooperative) "human shields" but, then again the Muslim civilians support the Terrorists in any way possible — by choice or by orders from the Muslim Terrorist army. I recall in the first Gulf War, Desert Storm 1991, Saddam Hussein had dug deep trenches for his civilian soldiers to fight America. U.S. tanks with bulldozer blades simply rolled along the edges of the trenches and plowed the mounds of earth over Saddam's civilian soldiers which finished off one layer of Saddam's defenses. Most of Saddam's front-line soldiers were civilian conscripts and the American army buried them alive. War is not a social tea party. Civilians play a significant role when Muslim Arabs go to war. Israel can no longer play the sacrificial lamb for America's commercial interests. To pacify and appease Muslim Arab nations, Israel is (always) in what may be her last fight for her life. Israel cannot risk elimination because Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens to close the sea lanes for oil ships and Obama is reluctant to take out what can only be described as this era's Muslim Hitler bent on world domination to make a Global Caliphate for Islam. Regrettably, President Barack Hussein Obama has clearly demonstrated his absolute ineptness in military matters and seems not to care if an American Ally is eliminated. Ahmadinejad seems to have the same attitude about America who played willing host to his speeches at the U.N. and Columbia University. Remember the missiles which Ahmadinejad has tested can reach as far as Europe, Russia and American bases in the Middle East which house between 250,000 and 500,000 American soldiers. We remember when Czechoslovakia was forced to sacrifice her Sudetenland to Hitler for the European nations' benefit — which turned out to be a Faustian Bargain with the Devil. The next time Israel is attacked, she should leave a wide path of destruction all the way to Teheran and Damascus. If Iran builds or buys a nuclear weapon to use on Israel, building more memorials for dead Jews will not serve the interests of the victims. While the American people and the American Congress support Israel, that embattled Jewish Nation/State cannot count on the Obama regime to intercede in real time. The Dogs of War have been unleashed by Islam against the civilized world and no amount of negotiations will pacify them. To paraphrase what is said: "Kill them all and let their god Allah pick and choose who shall be called a Shahid (martyr for Islam)". ### 1. "ROCKET THREAT PROPELS LAUNCH OF NEW ISRAELI TRADE SHOW" by Barbara Opall-Rome U.S. Defense News November 23, 2009 2. "Defense Minister Amir Peretz?" by Uri Dan, Jerusalem Post, April 26, 2006 Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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JEWISH COUNCILLOR IN JERUSALEM WORKS AGAINST THE CITY WITH THE EU
Posted by Boris Celser, December 5, 2009. |
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This is entitled "EU faces 'last chance' for peace in Israel" and
was written by Andrew Rettman and it appeared yesterday at |
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EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS — The EU must put real pressure on Israel to halt settlement growth in East Jerusalem or risk seeing an escalation of the Middle East conflict that could spill into Europe, a Jewish politician on the front line of the peace process has warned. "We have reached the last moment when it is still possible to divide and share Jerusalem. If it [decisive action] does not happen this year, it will become impossible to implement any plan like the two-state solution," Meir Margalit, a Jerusalem city councillor, told EUobserver in a phone interview on Thursday (3 December). "This is not an internal conflict. You [the EU] are part of this conflict," he added. "I am talking about terrorism. I am talking about another London, about the clash of civilisations. The clash of civilisations started in Jerusalem and it will end in Jerusalem," Mr Margalit said, referring to the tube bombing in the UK capital in 2005. The councillor in the 1970s himself helped build a Jewish settlement in Gaza and was wounded while fighting for the Israeli army. He later joined the left-wing Meretz political party and is a co-founder of the Jerusalem-based NGO, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Mr Margolit in recent months worked with EU diplomats based in the occupied Palestinian territories to write a study called the "EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem." The EU paper, dated 23 November, was exposed by Israeli newspaper Haaretz earlier this week and has also been seen by this website. "Israeli plans for Jerusalem, implemented at an accelerated rate, are undermining prospects for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and incrementally render a sustainable two-state solution unfeasible," the report says. It describes how government-backed Jewish communities in the Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah districts of the occupied city are driving out Palestinian residents to encircle the Holy Basin, an area containing sacred sites in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. If the Holy Basin is cut off, Muslims will be forced to seek passage to the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest place in Islam, through a cordon of hard-right Jewish settlers, creating a recipe for violence. Encirclement would also make it impossible for the old parts of the city to be part of the future capital of a Palestinian state — a red line for Palestinian negotiators. The Israeli actions in districts such as Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah "represent both an immediate and long-term strategic threat to European interests," the EU report says. EU moots mini-sanctions The EU document makes a series of prickly recommendations, including the "adoption of appropriate EU legislation" to stop EU financial transactions which aid settler activity and halting exports to the EU of Israeli products made in settlements. It adds that "senior" EU officials who visit EU missions in the occupied territories should hold "dinners" with Palestinian officials as a sign of good will, but should refrain from traveling with Israeli security corteges or meeting Israeli officials on the occupied side. The EU document represents the agreed position of the 21 EU diplomatic delegations in the region and will form part of the background for discussions on Israel when EU foreign minsters meet in Brussels next week. Israel-friendly EU countries Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic are among the 21 delegations which subscribed to the 23 November text even though they have a track-record of blocking Israel-hostile initiatives in the EU capital. The Swedish EU presidency declined to comment. But Israeli diplomatic sources in Brussels highlighted that the government recently announced a temporary freeze on some settlements outside the old part of East Jerusalem. The idea of encircling the Holy Basin is a "conspiracy theory," one contact said. 'Bring your sons' Meanwhile, Mr Margalit believes the situation has reached such a dangerous point that the EU should consider economic sanctions against Israel. The councillor rejected the argument that Europe cannot influence Israeli policy unless it acts jointly with the US. "The EU is not a bunch of boy scouts," he said. "It is the biggest power here after the US. It must realise that what happens here will impact what happens in Europe much more than what happens in the US." Hitting out at European apologists of Israel's occupation, Mr Margolit added: "It is easy to say such things from London or Brussels. I invite them to bring their sons here to serve in the army, as my sons have done." Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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EARLIER U.S. PRESSURE ON ISRAEL ASSESSED; ISRAELI GOVERNMENT
INFILTRATES FREEZE PROTESTS; WHAT ISRAELIS THINK OF THE FREEZE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 5, 2009. |
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Fact: In 1950, the US Administration pressured Israel to refrain from Jewish construction in Jerusalem and from declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel — Prime Minister Ben Gurion built, relocated government agencies and thousands of immigrants to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish State. In 1967, the US Administration pressured against annexation of East Jerusalem — Prime Minister Eshkol annexed, reunited Jerusalem, and built the formidable Ramat Eshkol neighborhood. In 1970, the US Administration pressured Israel to relinquish control over parts of Jerusalem — Prime Minister Golda Meir constructed the neighborhoods of Gilo, Ramot and Neveh Yaakov (current population over 100,000!). The US Administration pressured, Israel constructed, Jerusalem expanded and the Jewish State earned strategic respect. Fact: In 1948, the US Department of State, Pentagon and CIA pressured Ben Gurion to avoid a declaration of independence. In 1961, President Kennedy pressured to stop the construction of Israel's nuclear reactor. In 1967, President Johnson pressured against pre-empting the Egypt-Syria-Jordan military offensive. In 1977, President Carter pressured Prime Minister Begin to abstain from direct negotiation with President Sadat and participate — instead — in an international conference, focusing on the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem. In 1981, President Reagan pressured Prime Minister Begin against bombing Iraq's nuclear reactor. Defiance of pressure entails short-term cost but enhances long-term national security. Submission to pressure exacerbates pressure. Fending off pressure is required, in order to attain strategic goals. Avoiding pressure — through concessions — leads to departure from strategic goals. Fact: US public and Congressional support of Israel is robust. "The Rasmussen Report" documents a 70% support (Aug. 10, 2009) and "Gallup" ranks Israel as the fourth-favored ally (March 3, 2009). 71 Senators signed an August 10, 2009 letter calling upon President Obama to shift pressure from Israel to Arab countries. The Democratic Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Howard Berman, called upon Obama to end his preoccupation with settlements. The Democratic Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, resents Obama's opposition to Jewish construction in East Jerusalem. The strongest (Democratic) Senator, Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is the most effective supporter of the US-Israel connection since 1948. Obama cannot get his legislative agenda without Inouye's support. While Congress has reservations about Israel's settlements policy, Congress opposes sanctions against Israel. Fact: Following the 1991 Gulf War, Israel asked for emergency assistance, which Bush/Baker rejected, Congress supported and Israel received $650MN in cash and $700MN in military systems. In 1990, Bush/Baker attempted to cut 5% of the foreign aid to Israel, on account of Israel's settlements activity. Congress opposed and the initiative was rescinded. The Legislature and the Executive are equal-in-power and fully independent of each other. The US Congress has been a systematic bastion of support of the Jewish State since before 1948. Fact: President Obama has been transformed from a coattail President to an anchor-chained President, taking a dive from a 65% approval rating in January to less than 50% in September, the sharpest decline in recent decades, other than President Ford's (due to his pardon of Nixon). Thus, Democratic House candidates/members are experiencing the lowest ebb in two years, while Republicans enjoy a systematic edge. Obama is confronted by an effective Blue Dog Democratic opposition. Fact: President Obama exercises psychological pressure against Israel. He cannot exert an effective tangible pressure. He was not elected to uproot Jewish settlements and prevent Jewish construction in Jerusalem. His political future — and that of Democratic legislators — does not depend on these issues. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not among Obama's top priorities, and his position on Israel is not compatible with most Democrats. Obama needs the support of Israel's friends on Capitol Hill, in order to advance his primary domestic and national security/international agendas (Yoram Ettinger in Winston Mideast Analysis, 11/29). The last sentence is offensive to me. It is one thing for Congress to protect Israel, as a U.S. ally against terrorism, from Presidential discrimination against it. It would be misguided to support Israel by impeding legislation about other matters of importance to the U.S.. Mr. Ettinger might have contrasted his examples of Israel gaining security by defying U.S. pressure, with examples of Israel losing security by succumbing to U.S. demands. Here is an example. Fact: in 1973, the U.S. demanded that Israel again not take pre-emptive military action even when Israel knew that Egypt and Syria were preparing aggression against it. As a result, Israel was not prepared, and almost lost the war. That would have meant mass-expulsion. I think it would have resulted in genocide. ISRAELI GOVERNMENT INFILTRATES FREEZE PROTESTS The Israeli government has infiltrated the protest movement against the freeze. Protesters, mostly residing in Judea-Samaria, perceive the freeze as the start of their mass-expulsion from there, much greater than the Gaza expulsion. People are trying different means of protest. Realizing that government agents stir among them, protesters may be trying to keep the movement decentralized and their plans released without much notice. During the Gaza expulsion, Pinchas Wallerstein, head of the "settlers'" Yesha Council, put himself at the head of protest. His instructions kept the mass of protesters too split and too slow to be effective. He had them wandering around in the heat, in the cold, and in the rain, until spent. Hence they failed. Was he just foolish? Too much of a pattern to be coincidental. He was filmed coordinating with the police how to counteract or undermine the protest. He is speaking up again in favor of protest, but trying to insinuate himself as the leader. He is trying to get masses to spend hours waiting in the rain and cold, again away from the action, in effectual protest (Barry Chamish, 12/3). Why didn't his constituency hold him to account? Why is he still their titular head? This situation is complex and delicate. On the surface, the protesters are acting unlawfully. That would justify deploying undercover agents to build cases. Just below the surface, however, are questions about the government acting illegally. (The government also has acted deceitfully, which breaks the democratic compact between government and governed.) The government has employed agents provocateurs, who incited to violence and committed violence. PM Sharon trained a special, anti-settler police force ordered to commit police brutality. The whole justice system has been distorted so that in most cases it favors Arabs and discriminates against Jews. This country is not one of law. The prime ministers now abuse the Cabinet system, firing Cabinet members who do not vote for their policies, until they get a favorable vote and then claim their policy is official because it secured a Cabinet vote. The freeze was voted by only part of the Cabinet, so it may not be official, but PM Netanyahu acts on it. Deeper still, Israeli law requires wider approval to alienate territory controlled by Israel. This purpose was to prevent politicians from using their power to compel drastic measures that the public rejects. In the case of freeze or withdrawal, such ideological or foreign public relations measures, risk national security and have led to wars. These measures threaten to forfeit much of the national heritage, which is located in Judea-Samaria, and even get the country destroyed. Therefore, protest and civil disobedience are warranted. How far should it go? PLO LEADER CALLS FREEZE POINTLESS PLO leader Ahmed Qureia, formerly head of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), told European officials that Israel's freeze is pointless. He said that since it does not go as far has the PLO wants it to, the Arabs will not negotiate with Israel (www.imra.org.il, 12/3). The last signed agreements were the series of Oslo Accords. They did not require an Israeli building freeze, but did require the P.A. to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and incitement to terrorism. The P.A. did not comply. Now it expresses indignation that Israel is not freezing building. I have observed the Arabs making no concessions and raising their demands, even in advance of negotiations. It is reasonable to demand a ceasefire, before negotiating peace. It is not reasonable to demand what should be taken up in negotiations. One should not hold peace hostage to such demands. If there is no point to the partial freeze, and since a partial freeze covering only construction for Jews is discriminatory, and since a total freeze would undermine Israeli's legal position, and since it likely would lead to further Arab demands, Israel may as well rescind the freeze. It would get Israel taken more seriously. It would give PM Netanyahu an opportunity to explain Israel's rights to build in the frozen areas. I think he will not do it. WHAT ISRAELIS THINK OF THE FREEZE By majorities or large pluralities, polled Israelis think that the freeze resulted from PM Netanyahu's weakness under pressure and not from anything to do with peace, that each time Israel yields to pressure, pressure is redirected to another demand, that it broke his election pledge and his pledge of reciprocity rather than unilateral concession by Israel, that it should not have been implemented without approval by the whole Knesset, that during the freeze Israel should vigorously enforce the building code against Arab violations, and that they doubt Netanyahu would terminate it at the end of the 10-month period he set for it with assurances that it is temporary (www.imra.org.il, which commissioned the poll, 12/4). U.S. TO COOPERATE WITH LEBANON BUT NOT WITH HIZBULAH CABINET MEMBERS 
The U.S. has announced intent to cooperate with the government of Lebanon but not with Hizbullah Cabinet members (www.imra.org.il, 12/4). Will the U.S. keep subsidizing an ally of Hizbullah, the Lebanese Army, even while Hizbullah is part of the government supposedly controlling that Army? KNESSET TO REGISTER EU-SUBSIDIZED NGOS? Israeli Cabinet Member Michael Eitan held a conference in the Knesset to consider the problem of EU-subsidized NGOs. Public discussion of this is new. "The amount of foreign governmental support for selected, usually very left-wing political NGOs is enormous, millions of shekel each year." That subsidy is what makes possible their "political campaigns, including demonstrations, ads in the media, world tours of their spokesmen, lobbying in the Knesset and law suits in the High Court, without such massive outside support." Benefiting from European funding are Adallah, Btzelem, Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now and Ir Amim. "Although invited to partsicipate in the conference, the organizations chose not to attend, and instead published attacks on the conference and on the proposed law." Public discussion of the issue started fairly recently. This (secretly done) subsidy infringes on Israeli sovereignty. Min. Eitan introduced a bill to register such NGOs as foreign agents. These NGOs would be required to disclose their foreign governmental subsidies (12/4 press release by ZOA, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member). Eitan's bill is different from one proposed by MK Danny Danon, which I reported earlier, and would ban political activity by organizations financed from abroad. AMERICAN EFFORT TO REGISTER FOREIGN-GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDIZED NGOS The U.S. has a Foreign Agent Registration Act. Organizations in the U.S. that received funds from foreign governments must to register as foreign agents. Peace Now or its U.S. affiliate, Americans for Peace Now, has registered with the U.S. but not as a foreign agent. A Philadelphia attorney, Lee Bender, asked the Justice Dept. to investigate whether Peace Now must register as a foreign agent. Peace Now claims that all its donations are received legally, but when one was cited, its head denied knowledge of it. That makes his claim questionable. In 2006, Peace Now claimed that much Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria is on land that Arabs own privately," including 86.4% of Ma'ale Adumim and much of Revava. Proved wrong, Peace Now reduced its Ma'ale Adumim figure to 0.54% and had to pay Revava a fine for libel. European-financed Peace Now has been demanding Israeli withdrawal and blaming Israel for lack of peace, although withdrawals failed and the Palestinian Authority failed to fulfill its peace-making obligations (ZOA, 12/4 press release).
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 and visit his website:
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LIFE ON THE WEST BANK
Posted by Boris Celser, December 5, 2009. |
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This was written by Melanie Philips and it appeared December
3, 2009 in the Spectator
Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is Londonistan, published by Encounter and Gibson Square. |
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In the Wall Street Journal, Tom Gross provides an eye-opening antidote to the usual boilerplate fantasies about Palestinian deprivation: Wandering around downtown Nablus the shops and restaurants I saw were full. There were plenty of expensive cars on the streets. Indeed I counted considerably more BMWs and Mercedes than I've seen, for example, in downtown Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. When might we read this in the British press or hear it on the BBC? Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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BATTLE OF WILLS
Posted by Ted Belman, December 5, 2009. |
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For Israel, the moment of truth is now. This analysis ignores the possibility that the choice exercised by Netanyahu with the agreement of Yaalon and Begin is the best short term policy. They are privy to much that we are totally unaware of. |
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According to David Horovitz, editor of Jerusalem Post, The Battle of Wills[1] has begun. He is referring of course to the will of the settlers to resist the freeze and the will of the international community to impose it. Although Netanyahu was at pains to assure the settlers that after the ten months are over, construction will resume as before. Begin went so far as to emphasize that the amount of construction would return to what it was before Olmert instituted a defacto freeze last summer. But no one is buying it. To modify the old Cat Stevens song, the first halt is the hardest. Ten months from now, Iran will likely be a more urgent threat; internal Palestinian rivalries will be still more acute, possibly following Hamas electoral successes; the international community will probably be yet more critical of Israel and still more supportive of unilateral Palestinian moves to statehood; and American pressure for positive Israeli measures will be even more intense. For all Netanyahu's protestations to the contrary, it is hard to conceive that, 10 months from now, the man who gave us 2009's West Bank Moratorium would resist 2010's Moratorium II. Netanyahu argues that this painful decision was in the "wider national interest". That's the rational. But he doesn't tell us in what way. Perhaps he is referring to international resolve to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. Although Obama is now talking about stronger sanctions in January, that's a far cry from bombing Iran while there is still time. Or perhaps he is thinking of avoiding the Tools of Persuasion[2] that could be applied. He also argues that this freeze was necessary to get Abbas to return to negotiations. This doesn't make sense. He could have said as soon as Abbas returns to negotiations we will institute a 10 month freeze. That would make mores sense but in either case why would Abbas return to negotiations? With the current freeze he could stay away for nine months letting Israel suffer and then return to negotiations with the conditions that so long as negotiations are ongoing, the freeze must continue. In the latter situation he would not return to negotiation that are certain to end in ten months. The fact that the freeze didn't make an exception for Ariel and Maalah Adumin has increased the opposition to it. Why stop the construction in places we are resolved to keep. As for Jerusalem, even though 800 units have been released, nobody believes that it is really excepted from the freeze. There has been a defacto freeze for years. Just ask residents of Efrat and Gush Etzion. Obama has come down squarely on the need to return the equivalent of 100% of the "occupied" territories made possible by agreeing to land swaps so that some settlement blocks can be retained. The Quartet will not allow Israel to keep east Jerusalem. As for the solution to the refugee problem he probably wants some refugees to be allowed into Israel and compensation for the rest. On the one hand the Quartet demand that no unilateral steps be taken that would pre-judge the outcome of negotiations as provided in the Roadmap, yet they themselves take unilateral steps, as do the Arabs, in violation of the Roadmap. Israel is not obligated to freeze construction unless and until the Arabs end incitement and terror. The Quartet ignores the fact that the there are now two governments ruling the Arabs and to various degrees they are both dedicated to Israel's destruction. Furthermore by weighing in on what the final solution should be they are pre-judging the outcome. By not allowing Israel to negotiate freely without coercion it is forcing a solution on Israel. Its plain to see where all this is headed. The Saudi Plan is being imposed on Israel. When Powell at the last minute inserted the Saudi Plan into the Roadmap and told Sharon to shut up and sign on because it was "only a process", the handwriting was on the wall. The Saudi Plan has effectively replaced Res 242 which was silent on Jerusalem and entitled Israel to secure borders and did not require the evacuation of 100% of the land. I see little difference between the Goldstone Commission and the peace process. Both are unfair to Israel in denial of her rights, both represent an abusive process, both demonize and blame Israel and both prejudge the outcome. This is the moment of truth. The battle lines must be drawn now. Footnotes [1.] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid =1259831458005&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull [2.] http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=15088.
Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com
website, an activist pro-Israel website. He now lives in Jerusalem.
Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com
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A TALLER TREE
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, December 5, 2009. |
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A Taller Tree 
Into the Future Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il Go to http://freifenberg-newblog.blogspot.com/ to see more of his graphic art. |
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RESPONSE TO MUNAYYER'S SF CHRONICLE ARTICLE
Posted by David Meir-Levi, December 4, 2009. |
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To the Editor, Munayyer's "Israeli concession is no concession at all" (SF Chronicle, 12.4.09) is a litany of misrepresentations. Space precludes a full list, but exemplary are: "..the Road Map...set forth that the first Israeli obligation was to stop settlements." The first sentence of Paragraph I states that the Palestinian Authority must unilaterally and unconditionally and immediately stop terrorism and incitement. When, far from stopping terrorism, the Palestinian Authority supported it, the Israeli government saw no reason to stop the expansion of Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Munayyer is ignorant of the facts, or he hopes that your readers are. David Meir-Levi This article below is called "Israeli concession is no concession at
all" and was written by Yousef Munayyer. Yousef Munayyer is the executive director of the Palestine Center. To learn more, go to www.thejerusalemfund.org. NOTE below: David Meir-Levi's comments are in CAPS. |
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The Israelis finally agreed to a 10-month moratorium on settlements in the occupied West Bank. This proposal does not include East Jerusalem, also occupied in 1967, and the would-be capital of a Palestinian state. Israel will attempt to characterize this as a painful concession in a sincere quest for peace, but in reality this is no concession at all. In 2003, the Road Map for Peace adopted by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and the Russian Federation, set forth that the first Israeli obligation was to stop settlements. FALSE. THE FIRST LINE OF THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OF THE FIRST SECTION OF PART I OF THE ROAD MAP SAYS UNEQUIVOCALLY THAT THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IMMEDIATELY AND UNCONDITIONALLY PUT A STOP TO ALL TERRORISM AND INCITEMENT. ISRAEL MUST STOP SETTLEMENTS....BUT THAT CAME LATER IN THE DOCUMENT. WHEN ISRAEL SAW THAT, FAR FROM STOPPING TERRORISM AND INCITEMENT, THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY WAS SUPPORTING IT, THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SAW NO REASON TO STOP SETTLEMENTS. Yet, in every year since 1994, when the Oslo Accords established a framework for peace negotiations, the world has seen more settlers, settlements and the expansion of existing settlements. FALSE. THERE IS NO US POLICY REGARDING THE LEGITIMACY OF ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS. MOST PRESIDENTS HAVE APPROVED OF THEM, JIMMY CARTER CONSIDERED THEM ILLEGAL. BUT A PRESIDENT'S OPINION IS NOT POLICY. Settlements contravene U.S. policy on this issue and international law. A plethora of U.N. resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention (to which Israel is a signatory) decry the colonization of Palestinian land. FALSE. WHILE A PLETHORA OF RESOLUTIONS EMMINATING FROM THE ARAB-CONTROLLED GENERAL ASSEMBLY DO INDEED BASH ISRAEL ABOUT A VARIETY OF ISSUES, THE STATE OF ISRAEL IN NO WAY TRANSGRESSES THE THE FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION IN ITS SUPPORT FOR ISRAELI RESIDENCE IN COMMUNITIES IN THE WEST BANK (AND FORMERLY IN THE GAZA STRIP). MOREOVER, THE FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION HAS NO AUTHORITY OVER THE WEST BANK OR THE GAZA STRIP BECAUSE THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IS NOT A SIGNATORY TO IT. MOREOVER, THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP ARE NOT "PALESTINIAN LAND." LEGALLY THESE ARE "DISPUTED TERRITORIES" WITH TWO OR MORE CLAIMANTS TO THE SAME TERRITORY. HISTORICALLY, THESE WERE PART OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE FOR 400 YEARS. THEN THEY CAME UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE FOR PALESTINE AFTER WORLD WAR I. THEN THE UN PASSED ITS PARTITION PLAN RESOLUTION #181 IN 1947 AND ALLOCATED LAND TO BOTH ISRAEL AND AN AS YET UNNAMED ARAB STATE. WHILE ISRAEL SUCCEEDED IN DEFEATING THE 7 ARAB ARMIES WHICH INVADED, CONTRARY TO THE UN RESOLUTION, THE ARABS OF THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP FELL PREY TO THE INVADING ARAB FORCES SUCH THAT THE LAND THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BECOME AN ARAB STATE IN BRITISH MANDATORY PALESTINE BECAME INSTEAD PART OF THE KINGDOM OF JORDAN (WEST BANK) AND PART OF EGYPT (THE GAZA STRIP). NOWHERE, AND AT NO TIME, IN ALL OF HISTORY, HAS THERE EVER BEEN ANY TERRITORY WHICH BELONGED TO OR WAS PART OF ANY PALESTINIAN COUNTRY OR STATE. In effect, what the Israeli prime minister has said is "I'll stop breaking the law, in only some places, and only for a limited period of time." This does not meet the Road Map expectations of 2003, so to frame this as a concession in 2009 makes it clear to the Palestinians that Israel will not be held accountable by any American administration. PROBLEM: ISRAEL ACCEPTED THE ROAD MAP, WITH RESERVATIONS. THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY AND HAMAS BOTH REJECTED THE ROAD MAP. HAMAS IN WORD AND DEED, BY CONTINUING TERRORISM AND INCITEMENT; AND THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IN DEED ONLY, OFFERING VERBAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE ROAD MAP BUT CONTINUING TERRORISM AND INCITEMENT. WHEN THE ARAB TERRORISM AND INCITEMENT CONTINUED, ISRAEL WAS LEGALLY AND MORALLY NO LONGER BOUND BY THE ROAD MAP AGREEMENTS. WHY DOES MUNAYYER BEMOAN ISRAEL'S SETTLEMENTS WHILE IGNORING THE TERRORISM AND INCITEMENT OF THE ARAB SIDE? Israeli spokesmen tell Americans that they want peace, but their consistent acts of colonization speak to different intentions. QUESTION: WHAT IS A GREATER DETERRENT TO PEACE: 28,000 TERROR ATTACKS IN WHICH ALMOST 2000 ARE KILLED AND 7000 WOUNDED, AND 10,000 ROCKET ATTACKS, AND VITRIOLIC HATE-FILLED INCITEMENT TO MURDER AND GENOCIDE, OR BUILDING APARTMENT HOUSES ON LAND THAT INTERNATIONAL LAW DECLARES IS DISPUTED? WHY DOES MUNAYYER HEAP OPROBRIUM ON ISRAEL FOR ITS BUILDING ACTIVITY WHILE IGNORING THE MURDER AND MASS MURDER AND ATTEMPTED MASS MURDER BY THE ARAB TERRORISTS? Palestinians would be fools to fall for this ploy again after years of seeing Israel disregard its obligations while Palestinians continue to live under occupation and the threat of sanctions if they do not march to the beat of Washington's drum. In fact, only days after the announcement of this moratorium, Israel has approved many new settlement homes in the West Bank. FALSE: NETANYAHU HAS AGREED TO A 10-MONTH MORATORIUM. THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY HAS AGREED TO NOTHING. HAMAS CONTINUES ITS TERRORISM. WHICH IS THE REAL ROAD BLOCK TO PEACE? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's exclusion of East Jerusalem is especially problematic. When Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, it unilaterally increased the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem from 6.5 square kilometers to 71 square kilometers. This encompassed many Palestinian towns, including all of Arab East Jerusalem — home to more than 260,000 Palestinians. Through active policies of home demolition, evictions and the revocation of residencies, Israel pursues ethnic cleansing in the epicenter of this conflict. FALSE. HOME DEMOLITIONS WERE EFFECTIVE AS A DETERRENT TO SUICIDE BOMBERS. ISRAEL DECLARED A MORATORIUM ON HOME DEMOLITIONS SEVEAL YEARS AGO. EVICTIONS AND REVOCATIONS OF RESIDENCY HAVE BEEN ALMOST ENTIRELY BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF RENT. ONLY THE PROPAGANDA PROFLIGACY OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY CAN TRANSMOGRIFY SUCH LEGAL ACTIONS IN TO AN ISRAELI CAMPAIGN OF "ETHNIC CLEANSING". AND SPEAKING OF ETHNIC CLEANSING: MUNAYYER SEEMS NOT TO KNOW THAT THE ARAB POPULATION OF THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP IN 1967 WAS C. 995,000. IN 1994, AFTER 27 YEARS OF ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY, THAT POPULATION WAS ALMOST 3,000,000. ETHNIC CLEANSING? In fact, Israel has revoked the residencies of 4,500 Palestinians from Jerusalem in 2008, far more than any other year since 1967. TRUE: PER ABOVE, DUE TO ILLEGAL ACTIVITY OR COLLABORATION WITH TERRORISTS OR PERPETRATING TERROR ACTS. To enter into negotiations without a complete stop to expanding or creating settlements, including in Jerusalem, would be a de facto relinquishing of Jerusalem as a central demand for Palestinians and political suicide for any Palestinian leader. THIS IS UTTER NONSENSE. MUNAYYER SIMPLY MADE IT UP. ABBAS HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN NUMEROUS NEGOTIATIONS WHILE SETTLEMENTS WERE EXPANDING, AND SETTLEMENT ACTIVITY WAS ON THE AGENDA FOR NEGOTIATION....NOT A PRE-CONDITION TO BE ACHIEVED BEFORE NEGOTIATION. Netanyahu knows neither Mahmoud Abbas, nor any Palestinian, could accept this. He also knows that he can spin this to seem as if he made a generous offer and the Palestinians missed another opportunity. In short, he knows this is not a concession. That's why he made it. Because of this, Abbas seems unsure about the American position, stating last week that Obama is "doing nothing for peace." If the United States welcomes Netanyahu's duplicitous offer and pressures Abbas to re-enter peace negotiations while East Jerusalem continues to be colonized and cleansed, Abbas will get the message. It's a message that many have feared to be true since that start of the peace process: The United States is incapable of being a fair mediator between the Palestinians and Israel. FALSE: THE USA HAS LABORED HARD AND LONG, OVER DECADES AND A DOZEN PRESIDENTIAL TERMS, TO PRESSURE ISRAEL INTO MORE AND MORE CONCESSIONS, AND TO SUPPORT LEGITIMATE ARAB ASPIRATIONS OF STATEHOOD IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP. HAMAS AND FATAH AND THE PLO AND ISLAMIC JIHAD AND THE PFLP AND THE DFLP AND THE PFLP-GC AND HEZBOLLAH AND ANSAR-AL-ISLAM AND SAYYIF-ALLAH AND JAYYISH-EL-JIHAD AND A DOZEN OTHER ARAB TERROR ORGANIZATIONS HAVE LABORED HARD AND LONG, OVER DECADES, TO DESTROY THE STATE OF ISRAEL AND GENOCIDE ITS JEWS. THE USA DOES NOT SUPPORT THESE ARAB ASPIRATIONS. AND LET'S NOT FORGET THAT ISRAEL RETURNED LAND IN EXCHANGE FOR PEACE WITH IT HAD A TRUE PEACE PARTNER IN ANWAR ES-SADAT (EGYPT PEACE AGREEMENT, 1979) AND IN KING HUSSEIN OF JORDAN (JORDAN PEACE AGREEMENT, 1994). ISRAEL'S OFFER HAS BEEN SIMPLE, HONEST, AND CONSISTANT OVER DECADES: STOP BLOWING US UP, STOP TRYING TO EXTERMINATE US, SIT DOWN AND TALK, AND WE CAN MAKE PEACE. THE SIMPLE, AND TRAGIC, FACT IS THAT IF THE TERRORISTS PUT DOWN THEIR WEAPONS, THERE WOULD BE NO MORE VIOLENCE. BUT IF ISRAEL PUT DOWN HER WEAPONS, THERE WOULD BE NO MORE ISRAEL. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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PALESTINIANS UNCOMPROMISING ON RIGHT OF RETURN
Posted by Israel Behind the News, December 4, 2009. |
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This was written by Rhonda Spivak, an attorney, writer and member of Canadian & Israel Bar Associations. She now edits Winnipeg Jewish Report at http://winnipegjewishreport.com/ |
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BETHLEHEM- Although many Palestinians in the West Bank say they are interested in "peace," the vast majority of those encountered on a recent visit to the area, insisted that Palestinian refugees and their descendants have a right to return to homes and villages they left during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Osama Alhrithi, a fourth-year law student at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, said that even if Israel withdrew to the Green Line[ Israel's pre-1967 borders] and all Jewish settlements over the Green Line were dismantled, any Palestinian refugee who wants to return to his home that he left in 1948 should be able to come back."There are a lot of Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, and if they want to come back, that is their holy right," he said. Rami Sleimyyeh, a Muslim who works as a liaison officer for the Palestinian Authority in Hebron, nodded in agreement with Althrithi. Alhrithi's view that Israel, rather than a future Palestinian state, ought to be obliged to take in waves of Palestinian refugees was typical even among those who said they supported Fatah, not Hamas. It was also the predominant view among those people whom The Winnipeg Jewish Report encountered at a conference devoted to promoting dialogue and peace, held in Beit Jalla, near Bethlehem, put on by the Israel-Palestine Centre for Research and Information this past summer. Ra'id Abdalla Otair, director of the Palestinian Authority's ministry of health in Tulkarem, said: "All refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere should be asked to come back to their land in Israel, in Haifa, and Jaffa and Akko." Otair, who is also the representative for the NGO, Future Vision, dismissed the possibility that Palestinian refugees would receive some form of financial compensation and return only to a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. "People in Tulkarem like [to have] all Palestine," he said. Badia Dweik, from Hebron who also attended the conference, said he became disenchanted with Fatah after former PA president Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo accords, because, among other things, it didn't deal with the refugee issue. "The two-state solution is a big lie. Most of my friends are pushing for a one-state solution [where Jews would be a minority in a Palestinian majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River]. When there is 'one state', the Palestinian refugees can live wherever they want. Maybe the refugee can come back to the same house he left if it is still there. Maybe a refugee from Lebanon can come back to Haifa, and even if his house has been demolished, he can still live in that area." Sumayah Soboh, a Muslim sociologist from Bethlehem, who also advocates a one-state solution, said: "Any Palestinian refugees who want can return to their land. Maybe the one state could be called 'Jew Palestina.' I am angry with Fatah for saying there could be two states. There shouldn't be a Jewish state, but just one state, one leader, one God, one people." Soboh's sister, Mary, an occupational therapist, and her mother, Jamileh, a speech therapist, both agreed with her. Firas Arafat, a pharmacist from Hebron, said that only if Israel returned to the pre-67 borders and dismantled all of settlements would he agree to forgo the right of return."I know [former U.S. president] Jimmy Carter just came to the Gush Etzion Jewish settlement [in June 2009] and told the Jews there that they would remain part of Israel in the future. I respect Jimmy Carter, but I don't agree. Israel must get out of every Jewish settlement in the West Bank," he said. Mari Sadi, a Christian Palestinian artist from Bethlehem, said "We hope that all of the refugees will be able to come back. I have many relatives in Jordan and the U.S. and a lot of different lands. They are from Nazareth and Haifa and Jaffa, and they should be able to come back. They will want to come back." Inam Mitwassi and Laila Nazzal, Christian Palestinian artisans in Bethlehem, agreed with Sadi that Israel should go back to the '67 line and Palestinian refugees should be able to return to the pre-67 Israel. Lorette Zoughbi, who runs a small patisserie in Bethlehem, said she accepted the two-state solution. "If we ask for everything, all we'll get is nothing." But then she added, "My grandfather had a house in Katamon and in Jaffa. I still have the keys. We' ll never give up our land." Only a small number of Palestinians encountered, appeared willing to make concessions regarding the issue of Palestinian refugees. Fatima, a Muslim Palestinian said she believed "there should be a "Palestine and Israel," and she added, "We must finish this conflict. To end it, refugees should return only to the Palestinian state." When contacted to discuss these findings, Guy Lupo, the chairperson of the dovish organization, One Voice, in Be-ersheba said that polls done by his organization have shown that "most Palestinians want recognition of their right of return, but most will not actually use the right of return." He added that the maximum figure for the number of refugees and their descendents spead out everywhere in the world is 11 million. If one percent returned, "then we'd be talking about 100,000 people. Israelis fear that it could be 10% [ of Palestinian refugees]that return, which would be 1 million people. This issue is not something that can be solved tommorrow. But we think that there is a way to market the issue to the Palestinian people in the context of an overall agreeement. Some Palestinians will be willing to give up recognition of the right of return. Others will be satisfied with recognition only, others will agree to compensation in lieu of returning, and about 100,000 people could be allowed to return on the basis of the principle of family unification." |
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YOU MAY NOT BE "PRO-ISRAEL" IF ...
Posted by Moshe Phillips, December 4, 2009. |
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The recent media attention garnered by the relatively new J Street lobby necessitates an examination of the very notion of the term "Pro-Israel." Until very recently the J Street was always self-branded as "Pro-Israel". Intensifying the matter is the case of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel spoke on November 10, 2009 at the General Assembly/GA of the Jewish Federations of North America, the largest and most important event on the U.S. Jewish establishment's calendar. Emanuel has been called "Pro-Israel" by the media. It should be clear that the label "Pro-Israel" must be defined if the term is to be understood to have any meaning at all... And so: You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you support the establishment of a "Palestinian State". You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think that there is any "Final Status" for Jerusalem other than as the Eternal and United Capitol of the State of Israel and the Jewish People. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if the words "Final Status" does not sound in your ears just too close to "Final Solution". You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you fail to advocate the immediate relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think that "East Jerusalem" is anything but a myth created to wrench Jerusalem away from Israel. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think a return to Israel's 1967 borders would place Israel in a better strategic and defensible position than where it stands now. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think that Israel should be forced to enter into negotiations with Syria where the Golan Heights would be surrendered to Syria. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you still think the piece of paper Israel received in exchange for the Sinai's oil reserves, tourism revenue and strategic depth given the likely emergence of an Iran allied Islamic Republic in a post-Mubarak Egypt were worth it. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think the U.N is fair to Israel. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think the mainstream media portrays news from Israel accurately. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you fail to question the decades old U.S. State Department's Arabist policies. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas ever sincerely wanted true peace. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think Israel should be held to a higher moral standard than other nations. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you agree with anything Jimmy Carter says about Israel and the Middle East. You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you believe that the so-called Israel/Palestine conflict can be "solved". You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you believe that negotiations are the answer. And lastly... You may not be "Pro-Israel" if you think President Obama is "Pro-Israel". When Rahm Emanuel states "No one should allow the issue of settlements to distract from the goal of a lasting peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab world," this is not a "Pro-Israel" statement. Mr. Emanuel needs to be reminded that service in the Israeli army by one's relatives, having gone on family vacations in Israel, planning to celebrate bar mitzvahs in Israel and speaking Hebrew do not necessarily make you "Pro-Israel". United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote in 1964 regarding obscenity that "I know it when I see it." "Anti-Israel" is a similar thing. Mr. Emanuel is not "Pro-Israel" and President Obama is not "Pro-Israel". You cannot be Pro-Israel and advocate schemes that are designed to bring a bloody end to the nation of Israel — even if it is all in the name of "Peace" — of course. A State of Israel without the settlements is a weaker Israel. Moshe Phillips is a member of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI. The chapter's website is at: www.phillyafsi.com and Moshe's blog can be found at http://phillyafsi.blogtownhall.com. |
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DURBAN II PRE-SCREENING; IRAN BLACKMAILS IRANIAN DISSIDENTS ABROAD; NGO MONITOR: MAKE EU SUBSIDY OF ISRAEL POLITICAL NGOS TRANSPARENT
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 4, 2009. |
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DURBAN II PRE-SCREENING The Battle of Durban II: Israel, Palestine & the United Nations. The whole story is here: Durban I, pro-Israel preparation for Durban II, and Durban II; official meetings and resolutions and NGO action. Did the preparation prevent Durban II from repeating Durban I abuses? Letting all sides be heard at length, these filmmakers achieved balance. The numerous scenes and cleverly explicated concepts made one feel like a witness to powerful drama. I could tell you what was in the film, but you still would find it vital viewing. One must see the masses of protesters shouting dissidents down and shaking fists in their faces, and the reactions of those whose noses were inches from a bash. Was the anger genuine, valid, or a hate-rally? Are angry mass-protests consistent with civil society? The theme is that the 50+ UN members in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), whose clout usually draws a UN majority, have largely bent the UN for their own strategic, semi-warfare purpose. They thwart inquiry into their massive human rights abuses and other major ones, leaving most victims' groups feeling left out of the UN. The OIC refocuses attention onto Israel's comparatively minor abuses that I have found to be unproved allegations. After millions are murdered in sub-Sahara Africa, in contrast to hundreds killed in Gaza in self-defense, the obsession with Israel raises the question of who are the real victims. The film offers audiences enough foundation to evaluate its theme for themselves. It took skilled presentation to revive the suspense in events whose outcome we know, such as would the U.S. and other delegations attend or boycott. Would Western attendance prevent or sanitize extreme resolutions? Would its boycott reflect racism? Did "engagement" work? There remains dispute over the contents of the final resolution, the NGO atmosphere, and Durban II empowers the gang-up climate against Israel. The film tackles the issue whether anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitic. Again, you judge. I wonder whether that question remains significant, considering that both sentiments are forms of prejudice. I say prejudice, after hearing indignant people discuss the issue via loaded terms and accusations without depth or sufficient explanation to show a basis. As my series on The Big Lie Technique Era in the Arab-Israel Conflict points out, accusations have become a war tactic divorced from reality. The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) compromised. It withheld certain accusations, and in exchange, the final resolution omitted gays from human rights protection. Islam disapproves of homosexuality. It is one thing to disapprove, another to discriminate, and a third to murder gays, as has been done in the Palestinian Authority. The OIC view of Islam is to consider certain murders excusable (I am not counting self-defense as murder). As a participant pointed out, that violates international human rights conventions. This is a clash between human rights and a religion's more aggressive leaders. Note, the OIC represents all Islamic governments, not just the ones usually considered radical. The filmmakers plan a follow-up documentary to Durban II, called
The Obama Doctrine.
(For an IDF view of its combat ethics, goto:
IRAN BLACKMAILS IRANIAN DISSIDENTS ABROAD
Iran blackmails foreign Iranian dissidents. It warns them that
their relatives back in Iran are like hostages. It arrests or warns
some of those relatives.
This is part of a global crackdown, now extending beyond domestic protesters and their Internet communication. The harsher Iran's minions become, the more that the Iranian people shift from demanding new elections to demanding an end to the clerical regime in which unelected clergy overrule the elected parliament.
The government detects who, abroad, has Facebook and might be using it to stir domestic protest. Foreign or ex-patriate visitors to Iran have to submit their Facebook passwords at the airport. Iranian agents photograph people present at rallies, though some in the crowd attend out of curiosity more than out of dissidence.
Germany has detected such agents. Iran has asked Germany to stop the protests (Farnaz Fassihi, Wall St. Journal, 12/3, A1).
The question is, why hasn't Germany expelled those Iranian agents and asked Iran to stop sending them? Will it reach the stage of Iranian agents liquidating Iranians abroad, as Syria and the USSR were believed to have done?
One of my readers insisted that Iran is a democracy. But you see, Iran uses totalitarian methods
IDF STILL HAVING TO ARREST ARAB TERRORISTS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA
On December 3, Israeli forces discovered two bombs near Ramallah, and also arrested 15 wanted Palestinian Arabs in Judea-Samaria (www.imra.org.il, 12/3).
Why didn't the now supposedly anti-terrorist Palestinian Arab police do things like this? Who would apprehend terrorists, if, as the U.S. suggests, Israeli forces pull back from more of Judea-Samaria? Has the U.S. thought through the consequences of its suggestion?
ISRAELI FREEZE IMPOSED WITHOUT COMPENSATION
The Israeli government imposed a building freeze on people who had
bought land and building materials in anticipation of starting
construction. The government prepare to compensate them for their
resulting loss (www.imra.org.il, 12/3).
NGO MONITOR DEFENDS MAKING EU SUBSIDY OF ISRAEL POLITICAL NGOS TRANSPARENT
Recent releases by NGO Monitor claimed that the EU secretly funds Israeli NGOs to foster external political goals in Israel. The releases suggested instituting public accountability for that activity. Some people wondered whether NGO Monitor thinks similar standards for other Israeli organizations, including NGO Monitor, should be applied. Here are the questions asked of NGO Monitor head Gerald Steinberg and his answers (verbatim).
1. Israel gets a lot of financial support from European countries for various projects — is it not reasonable to expect that some of this funds will go to support goals that seem important to those contributing countries?
European governments have many tools for promoting their political
objectives, including diplomacy, direct financial and economic mechanisms,
etc. There is no need or justification for the attempt to manipulate Israeli
civil society through massive funding for a narrow group of non-governmental
organizations. The US promotes its political goals regarding Israel without
resorting to such "under-the-table" and non-democratic methods to influence
public opinion.
2. Why not impose the same rules on governmental support for Israeli
organizations and foreign private support for such organizations — is it not
a way to silence left-wing activists without hurting right-wing groups who
get more from private citizens and less (really, zero) from governments?
The principle of transparency should apply equally to NGO contributions from
foreign governments and from private sources, while recognizing that there
are also differences. When a state takes money and gives it to a non-governmental organization, taxpayers have no say in the choice of causes
or the process (particularly when these are closely held secrets, as in the
case of Europe). In contrast, private donors from the Diaspora on all sides
of the political spectrum are using their own money — this requires a
separate discussion.
3. Where do you draw the line between "legitimate" support for promoting
"human-rights" and illegitimate support for promoting "political" goals?
Human rights are universal, by definition. When they are used to target
Israel, using double standards, and when organizations that claim to promote
these goals violate moral norms, this activity becomes a form of political
warfare. This is clearly the case for groups like Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty International, and many Israeli organizations, all of which work
closely with the UN Human Rights Council, dominated by the Organization of
the Islamic Conference. As Robert Bernstein, the founder of HRW, wrote, his
organization needs to "resurrect itself as a moral force".
4. Do you think that new rules aimed at having more transparency is all
Israel needs — or would you try to actively prevent organizations from
getting foreign funds (for example, by making organizations who get such
funds the equivalent of "foreign agents")?
The European government funders (including the EU, Switzerland and Norway)
that pour millions into these NGOs have refused to release any of the
documentation on decision making, criteria, evaluations, etc. Transparency
would lead to hearing in various parliaments, and critical articles in the
European media on wasting funds and the lack of accountability. It would
also place European funding for groups that promote boycotts, demonization,
"war crimes" suits against IDF officers, etc. high on Israel's diplomatic agenda. (The US-Foreign Agents Registration Act is also a form of transparency — it does not prevent the transfer of funds.)
5. What are the chances that the current push for change in regulations is
going to achieve something that is more than symbolic? What will be a
reasonable outcome?
A detailed public review of European funding practices for these NGOs would
be a game changer. This review needs to take place both in the European
institutions that provide the money (via Parliaments, governmental
frameworks, policy think tanks, etc.) and in Israeli society, which is the
object of this activity. I believe that as a result of this process, and the
formation of rules of behavior ("best practices"), most European governments
will decide to follow the US and Canada, and get out of the business of NGO
funding to achieve political goals in Israel.
6. How do you answer those claiming that "NGO Monitor itself does not
practice the same degree of transparency that it demands from others"?
NGO Monitor does not get funds from any government, and in terms of our
foundation support, it is all reported in the same manner as other Israel-based amutot. In contrast to groups like Breaking the Silence, the Geneva Initiative, etc., NGO Monitor does not attempt to hide this information by registering as a corporation.
And here are two questions that were asked by readers in the "talk back"
section:
a) Federal tax exemptions are considered in DC to be a government subsidy,
the fund a lot of settlement and right-wing activity in Israel, why are they
not considered government funding?
In contrast to European funding, US tax exemption policy for charitable
groups does not secretly select one group of organizations that operate in
other countries as beneficiaries. Under the 501c3 category, every
organization that qualifies under this broad definition gets treated
equally. There are many other differences as well, so while these tax
regulations might be called government subsidies "inside the beltway", they
are not in any way comparable to European support for favored Israeli
political groups.
(b) Israeli government funding goes non-transparently to NGOs such as the Od
Yosef Hai Yeshiva, publisher of "the handbook for killing gentiles." Why is this not on the "transparency" agenda?
As noted in the question, the recipient organization is an educational/religious institution and not a political NGO. More broadly, in Israel, like Europe, the boundaries between the state and the non-state institutions are blurred, and as a result, the state is used to funnel large sums of money to various sectors and institutions related to political parties — from kibbuzim to youth movements and yeshivot — with numerous stops in between. The resulting abuses across the board should be on the Israeli public agenda, but these are unrelated to externally funded NGOs.
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 and visit his website:
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MERRY CHRISMOOSE
Posted by Cpocerl, December 4, 2009. |
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It was going to be 100ft tall and 400ft wide with nine turrets at various heights and windows all over the place. It would have parking for 200 cars and I was going to paint it snot green. The council told me to f*** off. So I sent in the application again, but this time I called it a Mosque. Building work starts on Monday.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
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HADAR — NEW ORGANIZATION IN TOWN
Posted by M. Steven Kramer December 4, 2009. |
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Hadar (translated as "glory" in Hebrew) is a Zionist concept that expresses Jewish pride, dignity and fair play. Hadar is the name of the new English-speaking Israel Council for Civic Action. It supports Zionism and Jewish values, a strong and secure Israel, democracy and the rule of law, reforms in the economy, the environment, the electoral system and education, improved Diaspora relations and increased support for Western aliyah. Hadar's goal is to develop leadership and volunteer opportunities for English-speakers in Israel and provide related training, information, and assistance in order to increase Anglo participation in Israeli public affairs and maximize their contribution and influence in Israeli society. Recently I attended Hadar's first general meeting in Jerusalem: a "conversation" with several prominent Anglo political figures. The moderator was Ruthie Blum Liebowitz, a prominent Israeli-American journalist and author. Participating were Danny Ayalon, former Ambassador to the US and current Deputy Foreign Minister; Dore Gold, former UN Ambassador and the current president of the prestigious Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; and Alan Baker, former Ambassador to Canada, Legal Counsel, and official in the Foreign Ministry. I'll limit my comments to the first two speakers. Danny Ayalon, who stated that he's actually a sabra, but one with an Anglo wife and much experience in the English-speaking world, spoke primarily about the impossible situation Israel faces in the United Nations. The Non-Aligned bloc constitutes about two-thirds of the membership — the reverse of the situation in 1947 at the time of the UN vote for Partition. Within today's grouping is the 57-member Muslim organization of states (Organisation of the Islamic Conference), with its own sub-group of 22 Arab states plus Palestine. These non-aligned, Third World countries vote almost unanimously for any resolution brought to the General Assembly against Israel. As Ayalon explained, their votes guarantee the passage of whatever the Muslim or Arab countries propose. He said that if a resolution were brought that declared the earth flat, it would pass, if for no other reason than the pragmatic necessity of placating Muslim sensibilities. Nevertheless, Ayalon sees a gradual improvement with some of the Non-Aligned bloc. India, for example, votes against Israel in the General Assembly, but its relationship with Israel in the areas of commerce and defense is strong and getting stronger. Ayalon counted as a victory the fact that a number of Third World countries abstained from the recent Goldstone Report resolution against Israel at the UN. He also called for more rapid, almost instantaneous, media responses by Israel to the predictable onslaughts Israel suffers when defending itself against terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Ayalon also hopes to see a reform of the Geneva Conventions to include asymmetrical warfare by armies against terrorist forces and a revision of the anachronistic UN Human Rights laws, which make it almost impossible for democratic countries to defend themselves against terrorists without facing widespread condemnation. Dore Gold was easily the most riveting speaker of the evening. He described the history of the delegitimization of Israel, which dates back to 1999 when Yasir Arafat unilaterally (but ineffectually) declared a State of Palestine. Arafat and all others since then, have based their claims of statehood on UN Resolution 181 — the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine — which the Arabs rejected out of hand at the time. The result of Resolution 181 was that Israel declared its independence upon the exit of British troops in May 1948, and the Arabs sent their armies to try to destroy the reborn Jewish state. Gold was Israel's Ambassador to the UN at the time of Arafat's 1999 unilateral declaration. The Israeli response, dictated to Gold by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was to quote David Ben-Gurion, who had said in 1949 that any claims based on the Partition Plan were null and void, due to Israel's victory against the Arabs in its War of Independence. The next attempt to delegitimize Israel came at Camp David in 2000, when Arafat astounded President Clinton by declaring that the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem never existed, except maybe in Nablus (a Palestinian city on the site of the ancient Jewish city of Shechem) or in Yemen. Clinton's reply to Arafat was that, as a Christian believer, he fully accepted that the Temple was indeed in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, "Temple denial" is a growing factor in eroding the Jews' historical claim to Jerusalem and all of Israel. Gold identified two other tactics the Arabs use to undercut Israel: blood libels against Israel such as the trumped-up Jenin "massacre", which nearly hoodwinked the UN leadership, and the current legal campaign (lawfare) against the Israel Defense Forces for perpetrating "war crimes" against the Palestinians, which has reached a low point with the recent Goldstone Report condemning Israel for its recent military activity in Gaza. Gold pointed out that the controlling UN resolution for peace between Israel and the Arabs is Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to withdraw from territory beyond the Green Line (1949 cease fire line) only to the extent that its security is not eroded. Gold criticized President Obama for twice failing to mention Res. 242 lately in prominent speeches, which has encouraged the Arabs to press Israel to demand that all Israelis be expelled from beyond the Green Line. He also scored Obama for backing away from President George W. Bush's 2004 letter to then Prime Minister Sharon. That significant document took account of the impact (enlarging Israel's territory) that Israeli communities in the West Bank (facts on the ground) would have on permanent borders for Israel with a potential Palestinian state. In summary, Gold called on Israel to defend its historical rights in the Holy Land and to showcase them to visiting diplomats, who should be taken to see the ancient City of David as well as Yad Vashem and the Knesset. In Gold's words, Israelis need to assert themselves and to make a proactive offense against their enemies, including the use of "lawfare" to fight Arabs and Iranians in the courts. As Danny Ayalon said, Anglos have been Israel's most successful olim (immigrants) but their clout hasn't been proportionally felt in the political world. Hadar's inaugural event attracted a large, enthusiastic and young crowd. It remains to be seen whether Hadar will be successful in creating a much-needed role for English-speakers in the Israeli political world. Steve Kramer lives in Alfe Menashe. He has written a weekly opinion column for the Jewish Times of southern New Jersey (www.jewishtimes-sj.com) for the last ten years. He writes, "They're about history, politics, touring, or whatever excites me." |
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FORMER MUSLIMS UNITED APPLAUDS SWISS REFERENDUM VICTORY BANNING
MINARETS — "THE BAYONETS OF ISLAM"
Posted by Amil Imani, December 3, 2009. |
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Supporters of a ban claim that allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system — Sharia law — which are incompatible with Swiss democracy. The Swiss Referendum victory drew a red line against Islamization in Europe." PRESS RELEASE
Former Muslims United Applauds Swiss referendum Victory banning Minarets-"the bayonets of Islam" Nonie Darwish, executive director and co-founder of Former Muslims United (FMU) applauded the results of a Swiss Republic referendum banning the construction of minarets among the approximately 150 Mosques serving 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland. Minarets are Muslim towers to call the faithful to prayers through loud speakers five times daily. These towers are symbols to both Muslims and non-Muslims of the Islamization of Europe, America and other Western democracies. Ms. Darwish of FMU said: "the Swiss referendum victory is the equivalent of banning what Turkish PM Erdogan called: 'the bayonets of Islam.' Supporters of a ban claim that allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system — Sharia law — which are incompatible with Swiss democracy. The Swiss Referendum victory drew a red line against Islamization in Europe." She also noted that "this referendum victory is a credit to Swiss citizens, especially women voters who viewed construction of Minarets as leading to adoption of other graphic elements of Sharia law including wearing of burkas in public by Muslim women." Darwish also pointed out that polls taken after the victory in the Swiss Referendum in neighboring Germany indicated that a similar effort there might win a plurality of votes. Darwish added that "many Muslim groups are denouncing the ban as oppression to freedom of religion. However, such Muslim groups will be more credible if they first denounced the oppression of religious minorities in Muslim countries who make it illegal to practice any religion other than Islam. Muslim groups who claim that they are oppressed in Europe should be the first to stand up and yell "not in the name of my religion" when Churches are burned in Muslim countries. But instead all we hear from Muslim groups is "I am a victim" and "I am offended" while the blood of non-Muslims is being shed in the name of Sharia. Former Muslims United is a US-based civil rights organization with the goals of seeking the protecting the human and civil rights of Apostates from Islam in accordance with the laws of the United States and its Constitution. Co-founders of Former Muslims United are Nonie Darwish, Ibn Warraq, Amil Imani, Wafa Sultan, Mohammed Asghar, Mano Bakh and Walid Shoebat. For more information on Former Muslims United go to its website at:
Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy
activist residing in the United States of America. Contact him by
email at editor.amilimani@gmail.com. This article is archived at
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FROM ISRAEL: SHAKY GROUND
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 3, 2009. |
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The feeling one gets, on reading the reports of Prime Minister Netanyahu's meeting today with angry leaders of Judea and Samaria communities, is that he knows. He knows that the government has saddled them and all of the residents of Judea and Samaria with an unfair deal. Binyamin Netanyahu is capable of dealing tough. Anyone who has confronted him is likely to attest to this. But with the Judea and Samaria leaders he sounded atypically apologetic and conciliatory. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is reason for this. It is not just that an announcement was made stating that there would be no new tenders, no new starts, on building in Judea and Samaria — as bad as that would have been. That's the way the prime minister's announcement originally made it sound: The 3,000 units already underway would proceed, but there would be no new starts, etc. etc. Instead it's been done in a heavy-handed fashion, with — as I described yesterday — building that had already been given proper bureaucratic go-ahead and was just beginning suddenly and precipitously shut down. People caught off-guard, and in some cases trapped financially — their plans gone awry. Inspectors for the Civil Administration, in some cases put in place from other jobs in various agencies and ministries, marching onto properties and attempting to hand people "stop-work" orders. It's not going well. For the inspectors and the prime minister, that is. I'm mighty pleased with the feisty stance of the people, and proud of them. In Kedumim and Karnei Shomron today, crowds of people stopped inspectors from entering the communities. It happened in Beit Arye, and in Talmon, when residents tried to do the same, they ended up clashing with police. And so it is proceeding. Yesterday, in Efrat, the leaders of the Yesha [Judea, Samaria, Gaza] Council laid a cornerstone for a new synagogue. A sign stretched across the community's entrance read, "No entry to Bibi's inspectors," while residents on the scene sported T-shirts that said, "In Efrat we are defrosting the freeze." ~~~~~~~~~~ The first meeting that was scheduled with a government official was with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, last night. But most community leaders, expressing a particular antipathy for Barak, boycotted the meeting, indicating that they wanted to speak directly with Netanyahu. Only two were willing to participate, and Barak told them: "Settlement blocs will be an integral part of Israel in any future negotiations with the Palestinians. The Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea are regions that are dear to my heart." Very touching. He further explained that "the connection and coordination with the US are essential to Israel from political and security points of view. "I know that this step is a difficult one, but this is a step essential to the State of Israel today." At this point, unless something comes clear, these are no more than words. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Today the community leaders met with Netanyahu for two hours, in Tel Aviv. "We are not enemies, and if there things that need to be amended — we will fix them," he is reported to have said, while offering reassurance that the freeze would definitely be terminated in 10 months: "Read my lips..." Apparently he implied that there might be some measures taken to alleviate problems in the field. Later I read about some "adjustments" to be made so that a porch could be closed in, or a sewer line put in, or air conditioning [air conditioning here means cooling and heating]. But it bewilders me as to why doing these things should have constituted a problem at all — that a stop was put on such things is really heavy-handed. Additionally I am reading about a "benefits package" being put together for residents who have been inconvenienced or worse. ~~~~~~~~~~ The community leaders who met with the prime minister then told him that they hadn't come to negotiate these small matters (and that adjustment of them would not mollify them). They had come, they said, to protest the freeze: they felt that Barak was securing political gain from this, and that he, Netanyahu, was disconnected from the field. With this, they raise the very pertinent and serious question as to who is running the country. (In other contexts it sometimes seems as if Shimon Peres is, but I'll come back to that some other time.) Barak, as Defense Minister, has particular authority for communities beyond the Green Line, which, regrettably, are not governed under Israeli civil law. It's not difficult to understand that, by being heavy handed in administering the freeze, he would gain plaudits from restive members of his Labor party. But what needs to be asked is if Netanyahu signed off on what was happening or was more or less absent where the details were concerned — which is why he now seeks to make amends. ~~~~~~~~~~ Even before the meeting, Pinhas Wallerstein, Director-General of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, told Army Radio that possible financial benefits that were being suggested would not keep residents from "using their bodies. [The leaders] have no intention to stop this struggle...and we are willing to pay with great pain." After the meeting, Yesha Council head Danny Dayan said that it had been "difficult" and "emotionally charged." He, too, spoke about ways in which community residents would continue to protest, both via civil disobedience and legal efforts. There is a mass demonstration in Jerusalem planned for next week. In addition, local community councils from Judea and Samaria filed a petition with the High Court today, requesting that the freeze be cancelled. The petition — filed against the government, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrachi — maintains that the order to freeze construction is political and thus will seriously undermine military authority in the area. ~~~~~~~~~~ In response to the petition draw up by Danny Danon, the Central Committee of Likud indeed will be meeting later this month. Now the political battle is on to ensure that the issue of the freeze is not only discussed, but voted upon. ~~~~~~~~~~ Please read, "The Illegal-Settlements Myth":
~~~~~~~~~~ The French Ambassador to Israel, Christophe Bigot, has indicated to The Jerusalem Post that France has "several strong reservations" about the proposal being advanced by Sweden to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. "Let us be clear the text is not an EU text; it is a Swedish proposal looking for agreement by the 27 EU members of the Council of Foreign Affairs next Tuesday," he said. Well OK, let's hope for the best. ~~~~~~~~~~ As the rumors continue to fly with regard to a prisoner trade for Shalit, the issue of including Marwan Barghouti is frequently raised. We have no definitive information that Israel is considering his release, but it has been said that if he were to be released, Israel would demand that he be deported out of the area. What is definitive, according to a report by Khaled Abu Toameh today, is that Barghouti's wife and associates say that Barghouti would decline to leave the area. He would remain in prison rather than be deported. ~~~~~~~~~~ "The Good News Corner" Frivolous matters, because sometimes that's what we need: Merchants at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem this week put together the world's largest mixed grill, in an effort to set a Guinness world record. Some of Jerusalem's finest chefs came to help, and Angels bakeries provided a pita three feet in diameter for the grill. Roughly 175 pounds of meat were used. Passersby and merchants were allowed to partake, once it was done. Good heavens! Chanukah begins next week and the treat associated with the holiday here in Israel is the donut or sufganiya — a donut of the filled variety. But now alcohol importers have hit upon the idea of providing donuts infused with vodka. Put together by a baker who is also a bartender, the donuts, which also contain jelly, have an alcohol content equivalent to a bottle of beer. They will be sold — I assume in limited outlets — only to ID — bearing adults. Count me out here. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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THE DEMJANJUK DISGRACE
Posted by Michael Freund, December 3, 2009. |
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Earlier this week, Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk went on trial in Munich for his role in the murder of 27,900 Jewish men, women and children at the Sobibor death camp in 1943. Though more than 60 years have passed since the Holocaust, there is something reassuring about the fact that its perpetrators are still being made to answer for their actions. And yet, despite it all, I can't help but feel that there is something deeply unsettling about this trial. As I suggest in the column below from the Jerusalem Post, the trial of John Demjanjuk should have taken place in Jerusalem and not in Munich. Back in 1993, the State of Israel knowingly and willfully allowed Demjanjuk — a participant in the Nazi murder machine — to escape prosecution in Jerusalem for his crimes at Sobibor, leaving it to others to do the job. We had this murderer in our hands, and instead we let him go. And for that, there can be no forgiveness. Comments and feedback may be sent to: letters@jpost.com or to me directly.
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With the start of his trial earlier this week in Germany, the saga of Nazi guard John Demjanjuk is finally nearing an end. Sixteen years after Israel's Supreme Court overturned his conviction for war crimes and allowed him to walk free, this Ukrainian-born fiend, who is said to have voluntarily joined the SS, will at last be made to pay for his involvement in unspeakable acts of horror at the Sobibor death camp in 1943. "As a guard, he took part in all the various parts of the extermination process after the deportation trains arrived," said German prosecutor Hans-Joachim Lutz, as he read the 10-page indictment on Monday. "He willingly participated in the killing of the Jews because he wanted them dead for his own racist ideological reasons," Lutz told the court, noting that the defendant unloaded Jews from trains arriving at Sobibor, undressed them and herded them directly to their deaths in the gas chambers. As a result, Demjanjuk is accused of having aided in the murder of 27,900 Jewish souls — men, women and children — enough to fill a small stadium. If found guilty, he could face 15 years in prison which, given his age of 89, would amount to a death sentence. Though more than 60 years have passed since the Holocaust, there is
something reassuring about the fact that its perpetrators are still
being made to answer for their actions. Normally speaking, the way of
the world is to move on and forget. As Cervantes wrote in Don Quixote:
"There is no remembrance which time does not obliterate." But the
Demjanjuk trial proves once again that the atrocities inflicted on our
people in the killing fields of Europe have not become just a stale
detail of history.
THIS, AT least in part, is thanks to the unwavering efforts of Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Wiesenthal Center, whose determination has kept the quest for justice very much alive. Zuroff and his organization deserve our collective thanks for cajoling various European governments into remembering not to forget. Fortunately, Demjanjuk's trial will also serve as an important educational tool for a new generation of Germans. It will help to inform them about what their forefathers did to the Jewish people, and remind them of the everlasting debt they owe to our nation. At a time when Europe is turning increasingly hostile both to Jews and to Israel, this is a lesson which bears reinforcing again and again. And yet, despite it all, I can't help but feel that there is something deeply unsettling about this trial. Not because of Demjanjuk's age or alleged infirmity, which some observers have suggested be taken into account. Only a misplaced sense of morality could presuppose that such factors should have any bearing on the case against a man who took part in mass murder. Nor do questions of legal technicality, or the years of proceedings that Demjanjuk has undergone, bother me in the least. The pursuit of justice against those who murdered Jews must know no boundaries of time. More fundamentally, it is the location of this tribunal that disturbs me. With all due respect to the German prosecutor, the trial of John Demjanjuk should have taken place in Jerusalem and not in Munich. Jump back to July 1993. After Demjanjuk had been found guilty of being the infamous killer dubbed "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka, his lawyers appealed to Israel's Supreme Court. The justices ruled that the case had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, so they set aside the conviction. But in their decision, the justices also declared that even if Demjanjuk was not "Ivan the Terrible," he had clearly done some terrible things. They found there to be "overwhelming evidence" that Demjanjuk had "participated in murder" at Sobibor, which are the very charges he is now facing in Germany. And the justices also noted that he had been a member of the SS Wachmanner, "whose purpose was murder and whose objective was genocide and whose like is unknown in the history of humanity." Nonetheless, then-attorney-general Yosef Harish turned down pleas from Holocaust survivors and Knesset members alike, and refused to retry Demjanjuk for his crimes at Sobibor. Various petitioners immediately turned to the Supreme Court in an attempt to force Harish's hand before Demjanjuk left the country. Astonishingly, at the hearings, the state's representative, Nili Arad, told the justices that Israel would not pursue further legal proceedings against Demjanjuk, claiming "it is not in the public interest for this man to be put on trial." The justices refused to intervene, sadly demonstrating that a court of law is not always necessarily a court of justice. Shortly thereafter, Demjanjuk returned home to Cleveland a free man. In other words, the State of Israel knowingly and willfully allowed a participant in the Nazi murder machine to escape prosecution in Jerusalem, leaving it to others to do the job. This was nothing less than a disgrace. There was clearly enough evidence to justify putting the Sadist of Sobibor on trial in Israel at the time, but politics and public relations appear to have gotten in the way. And so it took another 16 years to get Demjanjuk back into a courtroom for his evil deeds. Who knows how many of those he tormented may have died in the interim, going to their graves without seeing justice done. Like others, I will follow the Demjanjuk trial through the press in the coming weeks and months, hoping and praying that he gets his due. But the sense of bitterness and disappointment is still there. Israel had this murderer in its hands, and instead we let him go. And for that, there can be no forgiveness. Michael Freund served as an adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu.
This article appeared today in the Jerusalem Post
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ARAB-JEWISH CLASH IN JERUSALEM; ISRAELI MILITARY CADETS PROTEST
PRISONER DEAL; ISRAELI EX-PM OLMERT HAD NEGOTIATED JERUSALEM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 3, 2009. |
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ARAB-JEWISH CLASH IN JERUSALEM The New York Times reporting of the story, "Jewish Nationalists Clash With Palestinians," is a story in itself. This is one of the few times that the New York Times describes any Israelis as Jewish "nationalists." Usually is uses epithets and does not define "nationalist." "Nationalist" is a fair term, though it emphasizes only one aspect of Jewish identity. It is less appropriate here. Israelis moved into a neighborhood in their capital. Is that really "nationalist" or natural in a city short of housing and therefore expensive? The article identifies the neighborhood with only the Arab name, Sheik Jarrah. "The Palestinians fear that the Jewish presence in Sheik Jarrah is part of a larger project to cement Israeli control of the eastern part of the city and to push Palestinian residents out." A court found that the Jews who moved in owned the grounds, on which, it found, Arabs had built a residential structure without a permit. When a Jew builds a residential structure without a final permit, the newspaper condemns it. When Arabs do, the newspaper does not condemn it. Why the double standard? Evidence of a plan pushing legitimate residents out? None. Nor is there such a plan. If Jews own property, they move into it, if they can. If they do not own property, they do not move into it. Then why did the newspaper make that bald statement, which seems like propaganda, even if the Arabs have whipped themselves up into a baseless fear? Many Times stories repeat false Arab propaganda as if there were some basis to it. A good story would cover the struggle for the area. That would include Arab intent to control areas and to cut off Jewish areas. The Times ignores it. About pushing legitimate residents out, historical context should include that when Jordan invaded eastern Jerusalem, it expelled thousands of Jews from there and others from Judea-Samaria. An Arab member of the family involved said, "'But it seems the settlers can live here without permit, because they are the sons of God,' he said bitterly..." A court found that the Jews were the owners, not that they are the "sons of God," which Judaism does not claim, anyway. For every Jew living in Israel and Judea-Samaria without a final permit — though most of their buildings and communities were given permits to start and continue construction, and not getting a politician's final approval is just a political formality — there must be a hundred Arabs without an initial permit. One does not get that perspective, from this newspaper. Arabs greeted the new, Jewish residents with clubs and stones. One Jew's blood stained the sidewalk. Jews require police and private guards to move in. The UN Secretary-General "...has expressed his dismay at the continuation of demolitions, evictions, and the installment of Israeli settlers in Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem." This creates tension, he said (Isabel Kershner, 12/2, A12). Arab agitation and assault create tension, as they try to retain stolen property. The Secretary-General used all the false, loaded terms, "settlers," "Palestinian neighborhoods," "occupied," "East Jerusalem." There is no "East Jerusalem," the term is a political one devised to imply it is not part of Israel's capital, Jerusalem, a unified city. It is not "occupied," not having been part of another sovereign country, being the traditional Jewish capital and having had a Jewish majority for the past 150 years, now legally annexed after a defensive war, and having been part of the Mandate for a Jewish national home. The Geneva conventions meant by "occupied" seizing someone else's country. Jews who move into an urban city in their own capital are not "settlers," a pejorative term used to disparage Jews but not Arabs. There is no separate "Palestinian" nationality, the term having been devised for political advantage. The notion that neighborhoods in a city should be segregated would be rejected, if it were in the U.S., by the same people who denounce Israel as apartheid. One could interpret the UN position as: (1) Favoring apartheid, that Jews may not live in parts of a city where their enemies prefer they don't; (2) Favoring Arab theft of land and squatting in houses owned by Jews; (3) Allowing Arabs but not Jews to build illegally. Does the UN really favor segregation, theft, squatting, and illegal construction, or is it toadying to bigotry? ISRAELI MILITARY CADETS PROTEST PRISONER DEAL Two hundred students at a pre-Army military academy wrote to PM Netanyahu, to protest his proposed prisoner exchange. The letter urged him not to give in to emotional blackmail. The news brief does not indicated whether they objected to the deal because it is lopsided and therefore constitutes a severe security risk ((www.imra.org.il, 12/2). JUDEA-SAMARIA BLOCKS FREEZE INSPECTORS Israelis sent to Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria to issue orders to desist from new construction, and to inspect for violations, were blocked from entering some of those towns. Some people were injured (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/2). If the residents want to make their case, they could take it to the residents in the State of Israel and try to disillusion voters for the government. What is the sense of fighting with the police over the delivery of no-construction orders? Indeed, their behavior makes them look bad. It's a matter of opinion, but sometimes the reaction to what one considers improper is itself improper. SOME ISRAELI RESERVISTS WOULD STRIKE, TO PROTEST FREEZE A letter is circulating among Israeli reservists suggesting that the freeze denies them their rights, so if recalled to active duty for short stints, they should go on strike (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/2). I think they are punishing military preparedness for the whole country. It would be different if they went on strike when called upon to enforce the freeze. The freeze is political, reserve training is military. Indeed, Professor Shalom Rosenberg, who teaches Jewish Thought at Hebrew University suggests that the freeze was engineered by Defense Min. Barak to bolster his position within the fractious Labor Party (same source). Those who sign the letter had better be careful. The government hires agents provocateurs to draw people out, get them into trouble, and have them arrested. DEFENSE OF OBAMA .jpg)
Are we seeing the worst crisis in US-Israel relations? Is this the worst ever administration from Israel's perspective? Also this week an Israeli minister termed President Obama's administration 'awful,' and an Israeli political activist was quoted in Israel's largest circulation paper as saying, 'The Obama regime is anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic.' To all, I respond with the strongest possible retorts: balderdash, tripe, silliness and stupidity! There are other serious ideological problems with this US administration which results in rock-bottom popularity for the US president in Israel but the labels of 'anti-Semitic' or 'the worst' are just bum raps. Just look at the history. IN 1957, the Eisenhower administration threatened to come down hard on the fledgling Israel, including removing UJA's tax-exempt status, as a way of pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula. In 1970, Richard Nixon threatened to cut the supply of 50 F-4 Phantoms to Israel because of insults hurled at French Premier Georges Pompidou by Jewish-American activists in New York. [I recall the threat was to blackmail Israel into withdrawals, the Rogers Plan.] Observers feared the worst in US-Israel relations in 1975 when the Ford Administration weighed a "reassessment" of American policy in the Middle East, including cutting aid to Israel. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan earned a place in history as one of Israel's strongest friends, but his administration included strong critics of Israel such as vice president George H.W. Bush and defense secretary Caspar Weinberger. The sale of AWACS, just the tip of a massive arms sale and a realignment of US policy to embrace Saudi Arabia, took place under Reagan's watch, and the political war cry of 'Reagan or Begin' was broadcast to suggest American Jews' dual loyalties. Arms to Israel were embargoed and delayed after the 1981 Osirak reactor bombing and the 1982 Lebanon War. And the Pollard affair pulled the US-Israel relationship to new lows. Could relations have been worse than when George Bush Sr. went on national TV to challenge 1000 Jewish lobbyists to block $10 billion in housing loan guarantees over the issue of settlements at a time when hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews were flowing into Israel? Actually, yes, they worsened when his secretary of state, James Baker, was quoted as saying, ''F*** the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway.' YOU GET the point: Anti-Semitism and crises in the US-Israel relationship have existed in the past, and there is simply nothing like it in the current US administration. Arms embargos and aid cut-offs then truly endangered Israel's security and gave Arab states tangible proof that American support for Israel was assailable. There is no such talk of cuts today. In fact, the strong support given to Israel by Congress and the unprecedented joint anti-missile exercise carried out by US and Israeli armed forces last month should put to rest the canard of an anti-Israel America. So why the pervasive malaise about the Obama administration — a distrust so deep that Obama's popularity in Israel is equal to the margin of error? Well, Obama's failure to visit Israel doesn't improve his popularity, nor does his repeated cold-shouldering of Israel's prime minister. Even the appointments of prominent Jews, Rahm Emanuel (chief of staff), David Axelrod (senior adviser), Mara Rudman (NSC/Mitchell's team), Hannah Rosenthal (envoy to monitor anti-Semitism), etc. don't make a difference. They arranged the first ever Seder in the White House, and sent the president to visit a concentration camp. How can anyone accuse these individuals of being 'self-hating Jews,' when they are members of synagogues, observe Jewish holidays, have relatives in Israel and send their children to Jewish Day Schools? The policies of J Street — the self-proclaimed "blocking back for Obama" — [which Obama advisers helped organize] hold open the option of negotiations with Hamas, oppose Iran sanctions, and embrace the Saudi Plan, now called the Arab Peace Initiative, which demands a return to the 1967 lines, dividing Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. The Obama administration certainly has committed its share of questionable activities, such as ignoring George W. Bush's assurances on Israeli population centers in the West Bank, being over-confident in the ability of Palestinian security forces, attempting to appointment Chas Freeman to a high intelligence post, and abysmally executing its campaign against Israeli settlements and building in Jerusalem. Perhaps the biggest mistake of all, however, was the advice given by Obama advisers that the rules of tikkun olam [a Jewish admonition to repair the world] have a place in the compassion-less Middle East. The diplomatic failures led the New York Times editorial board to conclude on November 28, 'We don't know exactly what happened but we are told that Mr. Obama relied more on the judgment of his political advisers — specifically his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel — than of his Mideast specialists.' Misguided, perhaps. But to declare the Obama administration to be
anti-Semitic is just wrong. Let's keep the debate in the area of policy.
Unfortunately, there'll be no shortage of topics to discuss.
You will notice that the Executive branch has not given Israel unstinting support, as is believed by many. I think that calling Obama antisemitic is unwarranted, unfair, and unproductive. It diverts from the issues. By the same token, Mr. Ben-David's supposition that White House hiring of religious Jews proves anything about U.S. policy toward Israel is a false assumption. Rahm Emanuel, for example, is radical about such issues. That translates into undermining Israeli chances for survival, for no discernible benefit. Congressional support for Israel does not affect Executive branch policy much, so that is no evidence that the Administration is not anti-Israel. Neither does holding a joint military exercise, whereas far more important is that the Administration refuses to let Israel modify the jet planes it proposes to buy and it arms and trains some of Israel's enemies. ISRAELI EX-PM OLMERT HAD NEGOTIATED JERUSALEM Interviewed in Australia, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a lengthy defense of his administration. He admitted having negotiated with Abbas the future of Jerusalem. At the time, he denied negotiating over Jerusalem, when his coalition member, the Shas Party, threatened to withdraw from the coalition if he did (www.imra.org.il, 12/1). He found a silver lining in every cloud of his tenure. N. KOREA TO BE TRIED IN U.S. FOR TERRORISM 
The government of North Korea will stand trial in a U.S. federal court for having supported terrorism. Families of victims of a 1972 terrorist attack in Lod airport, Israel, accuse the North Korean government of having trained and financed that attack, which claimed the lives of 26 victims. The terrorists belonged to the Japanese Terrorist Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Most of the victims were Catholic pilgrims from Puerto Rico, where the trial will take place. North Korea is on the U.S. list of terrorist-sponsoring states. North Korea helped Hizbullah build the bunkers that it used to good effect in its 2006 war with Israel (www.imra.org.il, 12/1 from www.israellawcenter.org). The evil axis apparently began more than a generation ago. U.S. BILL MIGHT HELP TERRORISM Senator Arlen Specter, formerly a trial lawyer, proposed a bill that could help terrorism. He intended to counteract a Supreme Court decision that sets a standard for lawsuits: having a reasonable case. If plaintiffs do not have a prima facie case, in which one can see grounds for suit, they cannot waste court time with frivolous cases. Sen. Specter thinks that would rule out valid cases. He wants counsel to be able to "fish" through records, to come up with a case. However, not only would we be back to frivolous suits seeking justification by "fishing," terrorists would seek to learn how U.S. counter-terrorism works and would tie up too many government officials, when they sue not just one person but half a dozen or a dozen (William McGurn, Wall St. Journal, 12/1). (For more on whether U.S. legal practice can help terrorism, go to:
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 and visit his website:
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NOT EVERYONE IN THE MIDEAST WANTS PEACE
Posted by Daily Alert, December 3, 2009. |
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This was written by Clifford D. May
It appeared in Scripps Howard News Service.
Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism. E-mail him at cliff@defenddemocracy.org |
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Because the Obama administration is keen to restart negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered a 10-month freeze on West Bank settlements. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has responded by demanding more — as a pre-condition, before he will talk. Just a guess: Netanyahu is not surprised. Nor should anyone else be. It doesn't require Donald Trump to know that the art of the deal starts with an understanding of what each side wants. Yet for more than half a century, Western politicians and diplomats have built upon a mirage: the belief that because we see peace as a benefit, everyone in the Middle East must see it that way, too. This assumption is most obviously false in regard to Hamas, which has ruled Gaza with an iron fist since Israel withdrew from that territory in 2005. Hamas' leaders have been candid: Their goal is the annihilation of Israel, an "infidel" nation occupying land Allah has endowed to the Muslims. A "two-state solution" or any other compromise is out of the question. Of course, serious people do not envision Israeli-Hamas negotiations. It is rather talks between Israel and Abbas, who maintains tentative control of the West Bank, which President Barack Obama would like to get under way again. But any agreement Abbas might strike with Israel, no matter how advantageous for average Palestinians, would be denounced by Hamas as an act of treachery and apostasy. Abbas' life would be in danger. If you were advising Abbas, what would you tell him? Probably, to do exactly what he is doing: Pocket any Israeli concessions the Americans can wring out of the Israelis while dismissing them as woefully insufficient; refuse to negotiate; but behind the scenes work with the Israelis on security — not least your own — and economic development. If nothing else, that may prevent Hamas from gaining additional ground. As for Israel's neighbors, they are undemocratic regimes so, for them, allies are nice, but enemies are essential. Where else can popular dissatisfaction be deflected? Take Saudi Arabia: Israel long ago proved itself to be the Saudis' best enemy. The Saudis know they face no actual threat from Israel, but hatred of Israel is something Wahhabi clerics — whose theological support the House of Saud requires — can sink their teeth into during Friday night sermons. Why would a Saudi prince trade that for an invitation to dine in Jerusalem? There's also this: Tension in the Middle East keeps the price of oil higher than it would be were a durable peace ever to break out. Any country that depends on oil sales — Russia, for example — benefits so long as the conflict stays at least on low simmer. Higher oil prices on the one hand, peace for Israelis and Palestinians on the other: You think it takes Vladimir Putin long to make up his mind? As for Iran's Shia Islamist rulers, the vehemence of their jihad against Israel buys them legitimacy within the Sunni world. Like Hamas and Hezbollah, two terrorists groups they finance (the first Sunni, the second Shia), Iran's rulers have not the slightest interest in such Western diplomatic constructs as a "final-status plan for a two-state solution." With so many key actors opposed to peace, there is no way for Israel, even with energetic American help, to reach a lasting settlement with its Muslim neighbors any time soon. But Abbas' Palestinian Authority does appear to be cooperating closely with the Israeli Defense Forces to crack down on both terrorists and criminals. And an improved security situation is among the factors contributing to a remarkable new economic vitality on the West Bank. Netanyahu calls this the pursuit of "economic peace." Could it pay off over time by persuading more Palestinians — and more powerful Palestinians — to embrace peace as their goal and effectively challenge peace's opponents? Yes to the first, doubtful but not impossible to the second. But why not achieve now what can be achieved now? Surely, cultivating a small oasis is preferable to pursuing a great mirage. 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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IRAN BUILDING TERROR NETWORK IN SOUTH AMERICA
Posted by Daily Alert, December 3, 2009. |
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This was written by Hilary Leila Krieger and it appeared today in
Jerusalem Post
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The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina's largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran's growing terror network in Latin America. "The Iranians are moving fast," assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. "We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994." He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the country took measures to counter Teheran following the AMIA bombing. He described sham operations involving taxi drivers, who conducted surveillance without arousing suspicion; fake medical school students, who could stay in the country for many years without raising eyebrows; and business fronts that helped funnel cash to operatives. Meanwhile, the Iranians cultivated ties at the local mosques to search for people who could be radicalized. Now, he said, Argentina is considered a "hostile environment" for Iran, but the Iranian terrorist groups are finding fertile ground in other countries. "The stronger element that happens today is the complicity of the government," said Nisman, pointing to the networks Iran develops through its embassies. "We know that Chavez allows Hizbullah to come in." Nisman, who spoke through a Spanish interpreter at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies event Wednesday, said he regularly shared the information he has gathered on Iranian and Hizbullah activities with other countries in an effort to get them to act. He described responses of "surprise" at how clear the evidence against Iran is in the AMIA case as well as "interest" in the case and the issue of the terror ties. But, he stressed, "Much more can be done and hopefully will be done before it's too late." Referring to countries who have not done all they could, particularly in bringing the Iranian perpetrators of the AMIA attack to justice, he continued, "There are too many countries in Europe that continue to turn a blind eye ... like [they did] with the Nazis." Nisman called on these countries to refuse to welcome Iranian leaders to international forums like the United Nations until they adhere to the Interpol-backed warrants and hand over the men wanted by Argentina. "Iran will not long be able to resist," he contended. "It can't fight against the entire world." Still, Nisman said he is contemplating additional avenues for bringing the suspects to trial, and the Argentinean courts have already taken some civil actions, with $1.5 million in assets turned over to victims and $633 million attached pending resolution of the case. He has already succeeded in indicting a former Argentinean president and judge involved in the AMIA case for hindering the investigation and being involved in corruption. He credited US and Israeli intelligence officers in helping him find the right trails to follow over the course of his three-year investigation, begun a decade after the attack and substantially concluded in 2007. Both are due to stand trial soon, according to Nisman. Nisman maintained that he has not given up hope that he will send these top Iranian figures to jail, pointing to the unexpected internal fissures resulting from June's flawed presidential elections as a sign of the potential for change. "The Iranian revolution has been going for 30 years. It's going to end someday," he said. 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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TOO OFTEN LIKUD HAS TURNED LEFT; AUSTRIA IS STILL UGLY ANTI-SEMITISM; IRAN: NUCLEAR BY NUMBERS
Posted by Steven Shamrak, December 3, 2009. |
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Too Often Likud Has Turned Left. MK Tzipi Hotovely said at an emergency meeting held on Wednesday evening opposing the Prime Minister's announcement of a freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, "We're the real voice of the Likud. And a freeze is not the Likud's way." "Too many times the Likud has turned left and I ask the ministers who swore allegiance to the public regarding further settlement in Yesha — what happened? The cabinet's decision to separate between Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria is a strategic mistake that brought international protests last week on construction in a Jerusalem neighbourhood at the heart of the Israeli consensus. The Israeli people not only understand that withdrawal does not promote peace; they know it endangers the citizens of Israel. The government should not make gestures to the Palestinians, the Palestinians are the ones who should show a willingness for peace gestures." Head of the Samaria Regional Council, Gershon Mesika, said in response to the freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria that "Netanyahu deceived Israeli voters and must resign& I'm ashamed that the Likud chairman has supported a policy that stands in direct contradiction of the platform under which he was elected. He is thereby choking the settlement enterprise in a way even the most extreme left-wing governments have not done." Following the cabinet decision to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria, Jewish Leadership Head, Moshe Feiglin, said: "Anyone who supports this move proves he has not learned anything from the crime of the expulsion from Gush Katif. I urge everyone to whom Israel and the future of the state are important to them, to join the Likud in order to replace Netanyahu with a leader that has a God". PS: Jordanian law prohibits Jews from living in Jordan. In 1954, Jordan passed a law conferring citizenship to all former residents of Palestine — except Jewish ones. Civil Law No. 6 that governed the West Bank under Jordanian occupation, stated: "Any man will be a Jordan subject if he is not Jewish." (It is time, for the sake of the survival of the Jewish state, to adopt a similar law: "Any person within Eretz-Israel will be an Israeli subject if he/she is not Arab or Muslim.") Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak Through the history of humanity the only people who have been systematically abused, persecuted and even exterminated by many host countries of different religious and ethnic background are Jews! In the past Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and now Iran and Syria do not allow Jews to leave hostile and hazardous environments. Even the Spanish Inquisition was not so cruel! It will be Never Enough! The Palestinian Authority recently immediately dismissed Israel's offer to stop Jewish construction in Judea/Samaria for 10 months. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas released a statement saying that the freeze in Judea and Samaria was inadequate because it did not include Jerusalem. (Have they ever stopped terror against Jews? Have they recognized the right of Israel to exist? Israel must end this 'peace process' charade! Arab terrorists want it all — Israel without Jews!) Sanctions Against Jews are Racist. A Legal Forum for Israel said in reaction to the planned Israeli government restrictions on Jewish construction in Yesha that the move reminds the group of darker periods in the history of the Jewish people. "The Israeli government's policy of racial discrimination is wrong, ugly and contrary to both simple morality and the law& this is a mortal blow to the fundamental rights of the residents of Judea and Samaria, This is blow to their property rights, to human dignity, their liberty and more." said Nachie Eyal. The group also reminded the Prime Minister that the retreat from Gaza led to the establishment of an Islamic regime there, as well as to the Second Lebanese War and the Cast Lead operation. That is What the War Crime Noise all About! Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad told reporters that the Goldstone report, which was endorsed recently by the United Nations General Assembly, will prevent Israel from launching any more military operations in Gaza. Hamad is also working out an agreement with other armed groups not to fire any more rockets at Israel. "We are not preventing the resistance by any means," Hamad said "However, we are making sure that every move is coordinated through agreement between the groups." (Through diplomatic manoeuvring, with the help of international Israel-bashers, Hamas and Fatah are hoping to paralyse Israel's will for self-defence.) Quote of the Week: The Arabic name for Jerusalem is "el-KuDS" (or Al-Quds), which is abbreviation for another Arabic name used for Jerusalem until the last century, "bet el-maKDeS". Under the Arab rule, in the 10th century Jerusalem was always called "bet el maKDeS". The name "BeT el-MaKDeS" is a translation of the Aramaic and Hebrew "BeiT ha-MiKDaSH", which means Temple. But Islam has no Temple, only the Jews did." — by Rabbi Joseph Katz. Peace — The Arab Way. The new Lebanese government formed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri will officially endorse the Hizbullah terrorist organization and grant legitimacy to its attacks on Israel. Austria is Still Ugly anti-Semitism. Young female athletes from Israel's fencing team swept top medals at a 28-nation European tournament held in Austria — but the organizers intentionally did not play the recording of the Israeli national anthem, and the Israeli winners had to sing the anthem on their own. (Germany has repented its sins of the past, but Austria, as many other countries, has never admitted the enormous part it had played in the Holocaust and still remains profoundly anti-Semitic!) Revival of Zionism in the IDF? Combat soldiers in the Nachshon battalion raised an anti-expulsion banner, "Nachshon also does not expel Jews", on the roof of their base shortly after security forces destroyed two nearby Jewish homes and expelled the families living there. Similar protest action at a swearing-in ceremony last month at the Western Wall resulted in two soldiers being sentenced to 20 days in a military jail and thrown out of combat service. Red Cross Helps Arab Land-Grab. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), attempting to help Arabs in Samaria to take over a plot of land bordering the Tapuach Junction checkpoint. Jewish Contribution to the World: A new portable electrochemical battery developed at Haifa's Technion offers users thousands of hours of power for their hearing aids, sensors and, eventually, cellphones, laptop computers and even electric cars. The battery, developed by Professor Yair Ein-Eli of the Technion's materials engineering department, is based on silicon as a fuel that reverts to its original sand. Another Islamic Export to Israel. A joint team of Border Patrol and IDF forces prevented 40 kilograms of cocaine from being smuggled into Israel two residents of Egypt. (Islamic rockets are fired into Israel from Gaza and heroin is smuggled from Lebanon.) Scavengers of Israeli Political Left. Meretz faction head MK Ilan Gilon predicts that within two years a new socialist party will arise in Israel to take advantage of the infighting currently plaguing the once dominant Labor party. Iran: Nuclear by Numbers President Barack Obama recently warned that time is "running out" for Iran to join international negotiations over its nuclear program. The Islamic Republic, the world's leading state-sponsor of terror, has been deceiving the international community about its nuclear activities for almost a decade. * 5,412: Centrifuges Iran is operating for uranium enrichment as of February 2009. Another 125 have been installed but are not currently being used. Steven Shamrak was involved in the Moscow Zionist movement. He worked as a construction engineer at the Moscow Olympic Games project and as a computer consultant in Australia. He has been publishing an Internet editorial letter about the Arab-Israel conflict since August 2001 and has a website www.shamrak.com. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com |
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EUROPEAN FUNDING FOR LEFTIST ISRAELI NGO'S
Posted by Gerald Steinberg, December 2, 2009. |
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Shmuel Rosner interviewed me. This is the column that he wrote and it
appeared on his website Rosner's Domain
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Yesterday I asked Will Israel allow continued European funding of "peace movements"? and many of my readers were unhappy. They were unhappy with the way I presented the issue at hand, and with the answers provided by the new report issued by NGO Monitor and The Institute for Zionist Strategy (some of the details about this report are here. In short: these organizations think that the support European governments give to Israeli NGO's who deal with sensitive political matters should not be tolerated). With this unhappiness in mind, I sent questions to Gerald Steinberg — President and founder of NGO Monitor, and Professor of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. Steinberg's recent academic publications include "Soft Powers Play Hardball: NGOs Wage War against Israel " and "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means" (Israel Law Review). He is the editor of the NGO Monitor monograph series, including Trojan Horse: The Impact of European Government Funding for Israeli NGOs. That's the report we are now discussing. Here's the questions &answers: 1. Israel gets a lot of financial support from European countries for various projects — is it not reasonable to expect that some of this funds will go to support goals that seem important to those contributing countries? European governments have many tools for promoting their political objectives, including diplomacy, direct financial and economic mechanisms, etc. There is no need or justification for the attempt to manipulate Israeli civil society through massive funding for a narrow group of non-governmental organizations. The US promotes its political goals regarding Israel without resorting to such "under-the-table" and non-democratic methods to influence public opinion. 2. Why not impose the same rules on governmental support for Israeli organizations and foreign private support for such organizations — is it not a way to silence left-wing activists without hurting right-wing groups who get more from private citizens and less (really, zero) from governments? The principle of transparency should apply equally to NGO contributions from foreign governments and from private sources, while recognizing that there are also differences. When a state takes money and gives it to a non-governmental organization, taxpayers have no say in the choice of causes or the process (particularly when these are closely held secrets, as in the case of Europe). In contrast, private donors from the Diaspora on all sides of the political spectrum are using their own money — this requires a separate discussion. 3. Where do you draw the line between "legitimate" support for promoting "human-rights" and illegitimate support for promoting "political" goals? Human rights are universal, by definition. When they are used to target Israel, using double standards, and when organizations that claim to promote these goals violate moral norms, this activity becomes a form of political warfare. This is clearly the case for groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many Israeli organizations, all of which work closely with the UN Human Rights Council, dominated by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. As Robert Bernstein, the founder of HRW, wrote, his organization needs to "resurrect itself as a moral force". 4. Do you think that new rules aimed at having more transparency is all Israel needs — or would you try to actively prevent organizations from getting foreign funds (for example, by making organizations who get such funds the equivalent of "foreign agents")? The European government funders (including the EU, Switzerland and Norway) that pour millions into these NGOs have refused to release any of the documentation on decision making, criteria, evaluations, etc. Transparency would lead to hearing in various parliaments, and critical articles in the European media on wasting funds and the lack of accountability. It would also place European funding for groups that promote boycotts, demonization, "war crimes" suits against IDF officers, etc. high on Israel's diplomatic agenda. (The US-Foreign Agents Registration Act is also a form of transparency — it does not prevent the transfer of funds.) 5. What are the chances that the current push for change in regulations is going to achieve something that is more than symbolic? What will be a reasonable outcome? A detailed public review of European funding practices for these NGOs would be a game changer. This review needs to take place both in the European institutions that provide the money (via Parliaments, governmental frameworks, policy think tanks, etc.) and in Israeli society, which is the object of this activity. I believe that as a result of this process, and the formation of rules of behavior ("best practices"), most European governments will decide to follow the US and Canada, and get out of the business of NGO funding to achieve political goals in Israel. 6. How do you answer those claiming that "NGO Monitor itself does not practice the same degree of transparency that it demands from others"? NGO Monitor does not get funds from any government, and in terms of our foundation support, it is all reported in the same manner as other Israel-based amutot. In contrast to groups like Breaking the Silence, the Geneva Initiative, etc., NGO Monitor does not attempt to hide this information by registering as a corporation. And here are two questions that were asked by readers in the "talk back" section: a) Federal tax exemptions are considered in DC to be a government subsidy, the fund a lot of settlement and right-wing activity in Israel, why are they not considered government funding? In contrast to European funding, US tax exemption policy for charitable groups does not secretly select one group of organizations that operate in other countries as beneficiaries. Under the 501c3 category, every organization that qualifies under this broad definition gets treated equally. There are many other differences as well, so while these tax regulations might be called government subsidies "inside the beltway", they are not in any way comparable to European support for favored Israeli political groups. (b) Israeli government funding goes intransparently to NGOs such as the Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva, publisher of "the handbook for killing gentiles", yet it is not this agenda, why is this not on the "transparency" agenda? As noted in the question, the recipient organization is a educational/religious institution and not a political NGO. More broadly, in Israel, like Europe, the boundaries between the state and the non-state institutions are blurred, and as a result, the state is used to funnel large sums of money to various sectors and institutions related to political parties — from kibbuzim to youth movements and yeshivot — with numerous stops in between. The resulting abuses across the board should be on the Israeli public agenda, but these are unrelated to externally funded NGOs.
Mr. Steinberg is executive director of NGO Monitor and chairman of the Political Studies Department at Bar Ilan University. |
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JEWS SHOULDN'T FREEZE JEWS!
Posted by Emanuel A.Winston, December 2, 2009. |
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As you read the following from Arutz Sheva at IsraelNationalNews.com you will likely conclude that Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have launched an internal 'coup d'etat'. The logical rejoinder is: Why would an elected government overthrow itself? It's like a dictator who slowly climbs to power with assurance, promises and then suddenly reveals his true agenda and put his nation under martial law. All diktats come from the Prime Minister and his appointed Defense Minister. They, in turn, use the Army, Secret Services, Police and other Enforcers, as well as the Courts to control and suppress all the civil rights of their own people. Is there any doubt that the time has arrived for the citizens of Israel to take back all power they loaned to the government and replace all those who are misusing their temporary powers as a license to dictate to and suppress their own people? The entire Nation/State of Israel should strike, including the people, the Army, the Judges, the bus drivers, the electrical workers.... in brief — everyone. Bibi and Barak have exposed themselves to be disloyal to their office and to their (our) nation. This is no time to be understanding of these immature dictators who issue orders to thugs called the Yassam (Yattam) to attack Jews with their inbred brutal force. The Likud Party must disown Bibi as unsuitable to be Prime Minister or lose the confidence of Likud loyalists and the rest of the country — as did Arik Sharon. The Jewish people must go on strike 'en masse' and take to the streets in civil disobedience and protest. The Government of Israel is now engaged in a Civil War against her own people in deference to foreign powers and an implacable enemy of the Muslim world. The Government, operating under a false premise that is severely deleterious to the safety and sovereignty of the Jewish Nation/State now requires the people themselves to shut down this government as long as it takes its current position as adversary to the people. When a Government runs amok, it can't even save itself. So it is up to the people to take away its powers lest they hurt themselves, the nation and the people. |
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1. "Mayor Injured and Arrested, Police Violence in Freeze Clashes"
More clashes and violence were the order of the day between construction freeze inspectors and residents in Jewish towns on Wednesday. The mayor of Beit Aryeh, Avi Naim, was both hurt and arrested, and police detained him even after an ambulance was called for him. Police finally allowed the ambulance to rush him to a hospital after the mayor asked his legal counsel to intervene. The clashes took place when the inspectors, accompanied by army forces and special Yassam police units for protection, attempted to enter the towns to distribute stop-work orders. Mayor Naim was arrested when he tried, together with dozens of his townsmen, to prevent the inspectors from entering. The town's security officer was also hurt, and said he never had seen such police violence. Residents said they were told that the inspectors had received instructions to use force and not to compromise. Beit Aryeh is in the western Shomron just 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Tel Aviv and is not defined as a religious community. It began in 1981 with 60 families, and together with nearby Ofarim, with which it shares a local municipality, now numbers 900 families and 4,000 people. Clashes at Elon Moreh and Brachah Similar clashes also broke out on Wednesday in Elon Moreh, deep in the heart of Samaria. Some 150 people came out in three groups to greet the inspectors, and reported "partial success." Some of the inspectors managed to give out stop-work orders, one resident told Arutz-7, but the others did not. Asked if there was violence, he said, "In one group, the forces used moderate violence..." At nearby Har Brachah, residents blocked the access road — though freeze officials were not reported to be on their way in. Border Guardsmen chased the blockers and made some arrests, using violence. Nearby roads at the Brachah junction and Hawara were also blocked intermittently, and arrests were made. War Hero's Home Frozen Aryeh Rotmensh, father of First Sgt. Alon Rotmensh who received the Medal of Valor for rescuing fellow fighters under fire during a Second Lebanon War battle, told Arutz-7 that building on his son's house is being stopped by the new freeze orders. "How can it be that they stop such a hero who risked his life for the People of Israel from building his home?" his father asked. Ministers Gilad Erdan (Environmental Affairs) and Eli Yishai (Interior) refused a request by the Defense Ministry to allocate inspectors to help the Civil Administration enforce the construction freeze in the Jewish settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. The freeze inspectors were unsuccessful on Tuesday in their bid to enter the hard-core eastern Shomron communities: Elon Moreh, Itamar and Yitzhar. Clashes between residents and inspectors broke out in several places, including Kiryat Arba, Karnei Shomron and Revavah. 2. Pre-Military Students: Shalit — Not at Any Price
Students at six of the country's largest pre-military academies — three religious and three not-religious — have asked the government not to release terrorists for Gilad Shalit. In an open letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the students wrote, "The confidence we have in the government is not contingent upon the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for terrorists." This was their response to the theme oft-stated by Barak and others, that soldiers need to know when they enlist in the army that the country would do everything possible in order to achieve their release from enemy hands. The students wrote that "the rising outburst of feelings" in favor of a deal for Shalit is "sometimes that is likely to be a bad advisor... Though this is a painful issue, we believe that a country that loves life must not give in to the worst terrorists and bow before them in response to the brutal emotional blackmail they are using against us." The students at Bnei David in Eli, the oldest of the pre-military yeshiva academies, took a vote, and only five out of 200 students were against writing the letter. 3. Reservists will 'Freeze' Service Until Freeze Ends
Reservist officers and non-commissioned soldiers have begun circulating a letter in which they declare that they will cease going on reserve duty stints for the duration of the freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria. The letter, which organizers say has been signed by several dozen soldiers, reads thus: "On Thursday, 9 Kislev, November 26 2009, the Cabinet decided to freeze construction in the settlements, to strip all of the local authorities in Judea and Samaria of the authority to grant construction permits to hundreds of thousands of tax-paying citizens, who serve in the reserves and see themselves as an integral part of the State of Israel. We see this as a racist decision that infringes on our human rights and our rights as citizens, contradicts the rights of the Jewish nation to its land, and goes against morality and justice." "There is reason to fear that the freeze decree also involves the destruction, demolition and expulsion of residents from 23 new communities known as 'outposts'. In view of the cold shoulder which the government and the institutions of state have turned to hundreds of thousands of their citizens; in view of the hardheartedness of the High Court in all matters pertaining to the rights of Jews to their land and country, we have no choice but to take a unilateral step: to freeze our active reserve duty for the duration of the 'freeze.' Once construction is thawed again, and we go back to being citizens with equal rights, we will return to seeing ourselves as citizens with equal duties as well. This is not an easy step; it is a painful one, and we take it out of wide national considerations, in order to preserve Jewish sovereignty on the territory of the Land of Israel. Signed, Officers and soldiers in active reserve duty, lovers of the Land of Israel" 4. MKs Freeze IDF Money Pending for Yeshivot &Bus Protection
MKs Uri Ariel (National Union), Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) and Uri Orbach (Jewish Home) filed an appeal to the Knesset Finance Committee's decision Tuesday to approve the transfer of three billion shekels ($750 million) to the Israel Defense Forces. The practical implication is that the budget will be frozen until the appeal's hearing or until the MKs remove their opposition. The Knesset members argued that since the security establishment did not agree to transfer the budget for the hesder army/yeshiva units or for the protection of public buses in Judea and Samaria — even though they ordered the protection of buses in the first place — it would be necessary to halt the budgetary transfers until a solution is found. Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) ordered the army and the Defense Department to respond to the requests and to reach an agreement with MKs. "The defense establishment is hindering the funding of the yeshivas just because the heads of the yeshivas did not toe up to the line drawn for them by the IDF, to publicly say they oppose the refusal [of soldiers to take part I the expulsion of Jews. There is more here than the bad appearance of collective punishment that can not be turned into an agenda," said MK Ariel. "In addition, a lack of consent to transfer funds to protect buses which transport children in Judea and Samaria is strange, to speak gently, especially after the defense establishment requires local councils to use protected vehicles," he said. "I hope that the defense establishment will understand that these demands are more than legitimate and will reach an agreement with us quickly," concluded MK Ariel. 5. Barak's Self-Hatred Behind Building Freeze, Says Hebrew U. Prof.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak engineered the building freeze in Judea and Samaria, and self-hatred and Labor party politics are behind the move that endangers the country, according to Professor Shalom Rosenberg, who teaches Jewish Thought at Hebrew University. He explained that the real danger to Israel is that "internal objectives change foreign policy." Prof. Rosenberg recalled that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said that Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy. "Barak is behind the building freeze because he wants to protect his position in the Labor party and in the coalition government, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lets him do what he wants," the professor told Arutz 7. "You don't have to be a genius to understand the connection between Barak's political crisis and the building freeze," Prof. Rosenberg asserted. "It is dangerous when internal politics are involved with external political policies, and it is liable to turn into a catastrophe. The building freeze decision might become a tragedy and seriously damage our standing." Several America political analysts have written that U.S. President Barack Obama was mistaken in pressuring Israel to halt building for Jews in Judea and Samaria, and Prof. Rosenberg says that the Netanyahu government is similarly mistaken. Israel's expulsion of Jews from Gaza and parts of northern Samaria four years ago proved that "we are not land robbers," he explained. He estimates that Labor party chairman Barak is driven by inexplicable self-hatred in his anti-settlement actions. He compared his move with the psychological reaction of kidnap victims who identify with their abductors. "This is a form or psychological robbery," he explained. "If the Europeans look at someone as if he is the devil, then he wants to look acceptable in their eyes. This is what has happened with Ehud Barak." Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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A GLIMMER OF SANITY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 2, 2009. |
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Just a glimmer. But I'm grateful for every good thing. Yesterday, there was a program held in the Knesset under the auspices of NGO-monitor (www.ngo-monitor.org) to examine the issue of European funding provided to Israeli NGOs. Involved are close to 20 NGOs, many of which represent themselves as human rights organizations: Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B'Tselem, Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, etc. The situation here is extraordinary, outrageous, and completely unacceptable. As Gerald Steinberg, director of NGO-Monitor has written: "The nature and scale of European influence is unique — in no other case do democratic countries use taxpayer money to support opposition groups in other democracies. Imagine the French response to U.S. government financing for radical NGO anti-abortion campaigns in Paris, or for promoting Corsican separatists under the guise of human rights. Would Spain tolerate foreign government funding of NGO campaigns involving the violent Basque conflict? But here, as in other areas, Israel is singled out and subject to different rules." Needless to say, the organizations being funded do not represent genuine Israeli interests. but, rather, the political interests of the funding European nations, which tilt towards the Palestinian Arabs. They have done us enormous damage, most particularly in the international arena, where we are fighting delegimization. "This often hidden support helps pay for expensive newspaper advertisements, such as those recently announcing B'Tselem's 20th anniversary; the salaries of lawyers involved in dozens of High Court cases about the security barrier, treatment of Palestinian terrorists, etc.; the Geneva Initiative's conferences and booklets; and a flood of statements submitted to the United Nations condemning Israeli policies. Recipient NGOs have a major influence on many issues in our lives, and on the decisions of our democratically elected government." Between 2006 and 2009, 16 Israeli NGOs received a total of 31.5 million shekels in European funding.
~~~~~~~~~~ Make your blood boil? It should. This is just one of many ways in which Israel is treated differently, and (to put it mildly) less respectfully, than other nations in the world community. It's as if we are not seen as a sovereign nation. The only proper response is a tough one that establishes our national integrity. As Steinberg wrote: "Taken together, the large sums provided to NGOS by European governments through secret processes constitute a major effort to manipulate the Israeli marketplace of ideas. This is inherently colonialistic, undermining the goals of Zionism and Jewish sovereign equality." ~~~~~~~~~~ Not only was this issue discussed in the Knesset for the first time yesterday, the point is that legislation is being proposed to address it. The law being proposed would require full transparency with regard to foreign funds that are accepted. If, we must fervently hope, this passes, the next step may be requirement that the NGOs register as foreign agents. Then there is one other issue to be addressed: Our legal system is liberal in the extreme. There is a principle known as b'gatz, which permits any individual or group here in Israel to go before the High Court and petition it with regard to anything. In most, if not all, democracies — certainly in the US — the petitioning party must have standing in the case or the court will not hear it. Not so here. So, we've had ludicrous and damaging situations in which, say, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) has gone to the court and said that such and such a group is building an "illegal" outpost on land that shouldn't be used for that purpose, and it demands that something be done about it. Shalom Achshav may be totally off base in its claims, and yet succeed in making trouble for the group doing the building. And when you consider that Shalom Achshav has no standing in the case — it doesn't, for example, own the land that building is being done on — and that it is receiving foreign funds to pay for its lawyers, you understand how intolerable and damaging this situation is. The ultimate — and most appropriate — final goal legally would be to prevent any group that receives foreign funds from being permitted b'gatz. We are only now at the beginning of a process, but I have some hope that this represents a step towards standing up for ourselves as a nation and taking back the authority that is rightfully ours. And I pray that this attitude may extend to other issues as well. ~~~~~~~~~~ It's painful — seeing the tensions within the nation with regard to that building freeze. We've got enough to fight on the outside without fighting each other. And yet this is the situation that has been created: Residents and aspiring residents of communities in Judea and Samaria are legitimately furious, and feelings are high when inspectors come to check on whether building has been halted. (Note: The rule of thumb is supposed to be that construction is being halted if a foundation isn't in place.) Some residents try to block entry of inspectors onto construction sites. Others declare that they will not obey orders when papers are handed to them. There is the feeling that what is happening is not legal. As each person having construction done went through a bureaucratic legal process to secure permission to build, it is said that these procedures now must be honored. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is one way in which this can also be seen as a positive. There would not be passive acceptance of any government decision to pull out of Judea and Samaria. Let the government and the world be put on notice. ~~~~~~~~~~ Mindful of the anger of residents of these communities, PM Netanyahu last night made a statement on the issue during the course of a talk he was giving at an economics conference near Ben Gurion Airport: "This is a one-time and temporary decision. Just as was written in the security cabinet decision, and just as I have made clear in both public and private meetings. We will go back to building at the end of the suspension." ~~~~~~~~~~ Well, you've got me, in terms of what this accomplishes. If the goal is to bring the PA to the table — and oh! Netanyahu continues to implore them fervently to come — then saying we'll start building again in 10 months just about guarantees that they will not come. (Isn't this blatantly obvious?) Or, conversely, in the extremely unlikely even that they did start serious negotiations, then he is kidding himself — and more importantly those to whom he is giving his word — if he thinks he would be able to easily start building again. This, presumably, is being done for Obama. But what the American president gains here, if it's being stated up front that the halt in building is only temporary, is not clear either. Power politics? Showing he can get the Israelis to cave? Maybe. One source maintains that Abbas had given Obama a commitment to come to the table, and is now reneging. With it all, Netanyahu is lending the impression to the world that "settlements" are a key to peace, and is angering some very good Israelis in the process. He took the time to praise them last night, as part of his strategy of mollifying them: "they are an integral part of our people — they contribute, they serve in the army, they volunteer, they are our brothers and sisters." ~~~~~~~~~~ That's nice. One "sister" in Tekoa, who had just received a permit to build — after she and her husband had waited two years — and was excited because the contractor had just brought a tractor onto the site, saw work summarily and abruptly stopped, and the tractor confiscated. She told the Post: "It's a shame that the nation which we feel an allegiance to has treated us in this way." Activist Eve Harrow, of the Judea community of Efrat, speaking on IBA news last night, said that residents of Judea and Samaria are additionally incensed because there is a double standard: Arabs are not being required to stop building. Harrow also raised an issue that had been raised earlier to me privately by a reader (thanks, Doris M.): It is also Arabs in Judea and Samaria who are suffering because they hire on for the building projects and need the money to provide for families. Many are hurting because their source of income has been halted. ~~~~~~~~~~ It was announced yesterday that the European Union, at a meeting of its ministers in Brussels next week, will entertain a proposal to take a stance on Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. This would be advanced by Sweden, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU. While Britain backs this, a number of nations — including Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland and Slovenia — do not, and so it is not clear what form a final resolution would take. The reaction from members of the Knesset across the political spectrum was strong, and Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin delivered a statement saying that Jerusalem will never be divided no matter what the EU plans. ~~~~~~~~~~ Members of our government are incensed by this proposal — which, for the first time, refers to "Palestine." One senior diplomatic official cited by the Post said: "This resolution shows that what Israel does is never enough, and the onus is only on us. It shows that the Palestinians want to get an agreement without having to go through negotiations." Noting that the draft proposal represented "a near-full acceptance of the Palestinian narrative," that does not take Israel's needs into consideration, he remarked that, "They don't mention our issues, and when we bring them up, they say only that these will be dealt with during the negotiations. However, the Palestinian issues they put in the conclusions — those issues don't have to be negotiated." What's happening here is that Abbas is reinforced in his impression that he can get it all without negotiations. Others seem to be doing it for him. This proposal, thus, actually makes it even less likely that the PA will come to the table. ~~~~~~~~~~ Finally, the offical lamented that while Netanyahu "went the extra mile" in declaring the freeze, the Europeans, instead of praising us, put all the pressure on us. That final statement should be embroidered in large letters and put up in a frame on the wall of the Foreign Ministry, or, better, the Prime Minister's Office. If this doesn't finally teach us a lesson, what will? ~~~~~~~~~~ Iran is continuing to be defiant, and now today the word is that — forget China — Russia is likely on board for sanctions. Don't know what tomorrow's word will be. It's all so qualified. A great deal will depend in coming weeks on the new, incoming head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, of Japan. ~~~~~~~~~~ Barry Rubin wrote the other day about the gradual takeover in Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "The Iranian government has generally been radical since the revolution, 30 years ago. But now the most extremist faction of all has taken over, pushing out its rivals... This was shared by a reader, Sandra K, whose roots are in Iran. When she sent me this Rubin piece, she wrote: "Barry Rubin, I'm afraid to say from first hand experience of my own, has very well understood the real danger in this group, and I am there to confirm that they were number one on my list of who was most likely to make the revolution last it its very outset..." Do you think Obama has been told the truth? ~~~~~~~~~~ "The Good News Corner" Researchers at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva have developed the Optical Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging (OSPI) instrument, which permits detection of skin cancer at an earlier stage than has been possible until now. Most of the time dermatologists and surgeons diagnose skin cancers with the naked eye. __________ An Israeli company, Agrotop, has developed a revolutionary "henhouse of the future," that addresses both the comfort of the hens and various ecological issues. Chickens will have adequate room to move around, access to sunlight and fresh air, artificial grass, and a comfortable "cushion" to rest on. Wind and solar power will be used to generate electricity, wastewater will be recycled and chicken waste will be processed. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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CONSTRUCTION FREEZE EQUALS APPEASEMENT
Posted by Truth Provider, December 2, 2009. |
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Dear friends, 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. He can be contacted at yoramtex@netvision.net.il His observations in his latest YNet article cannot be more precise. If you want true facts, rather than hype and propaganda, he sets them for you very clearly as only he can. Please pay attention to points 3 and 6 below which I marked in red. If you can answer the questions logically, it is you who deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Will Israel's freeze of Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria* moderate President Obama's policy toward Israel? Will it moderate Abu Mazen's attitude toward Israel? Is Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria an obstacle to peace? Please read the article below by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram
Ettinger, for his "Second Thought's" perspective on these issues.
It appeared November 30, 2009 in Ynet News Enjoy it. |
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Construction freeze in Judea and Samaria based on erroneous assumptions 1. A freeze will not soften — but will intensify — President Obama's criticism of "settlements" in particular and Israeli policy in general. For instance, Prime Minister Netanyahu's June 14, 2009 Two-State-Solution-speech triggered exacerbated pressure by Obama. Moreover, Netanyahu's willingness to exchange hundreds of Palestinian terrorists for Gilad Shalit was followed by US pressure to release more terrorists. 2. A freeze will not moderate — but will whet the appetite of — the PLO (Abbas) or Hamas (Haniyeh); it will radicalize their demands and fuel their terrorism. Former Prime Minister Barak's sweeping concessions, offered to Arafat and Abbas in October 2000, were greeted by the PLO-engineered Second Intifada. Furthermore, Prime Minister Olmert's unprecedented offer of concessions (including the return of some 1948 refugees) was rebuffed by Abbas. 3. A freeze re-entrenches the misperception of Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace. It diverts attention and resources from the crucial threat to peace: Abbas-engineered hate education — the manufacturing line of terrorists — and Arab rejection of the existence — and not just the size — of the Jewish state. 4. A freeze and the adherence to presidential dictate will not transform the White House position on Iran-related matters. Besides, a freeze and the adherence to presidential dictate do not constitute a prerequisite to maintaining constructive strategic relations with the US (e.g. supply of critical military systems and crucial strategic cooperation). In fact, a freeze and a serial submission to presidential pressure — just like any other form of retreat — erode Israel's strategic posture in Washington and in the Middle East. Such an attitude ignores the role and power of Congress — especially when it comes to the Jewish state — at the dire expense of Israel's national security. Is Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria an/the obstacle to peace? 1. In September 2005, Israel uprooted 25 Jewish communities from Gaza and Samaria. Gaza became Judenrein. It paved the road to the meteoric rise of Hamas, and induced more smuggling, manufacturing and launching of missiles at Jewish communities in Southern Israel. 2. President Obama defines Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria as a root cause of Arab hostility toward Israel. However, Jewish communities were established in Judea and Samaria after the wars of 1967, 1956 and 1948, after the 1949-1967 campaign of Arab terrorism, after the 1964 establishment of the PLO, after the 1929 slaughter of the Hebron Jewish community and the 1929 expulsion of the Gaza Jewish community, after the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s slaughter of the Jewish community of Gush Etzion, etc. 3. President Obama considers the 300,000 Jews (17%), who reside among Judea and Samaria's 1.5 million Arabs, an obstacle to peace. Why would he, then, view the 1.4 million Arabs (20%), who reside among pre-1967 Israel's 6 million Jews, as an example of peaceful coexistence?! 4. Obama urges the uprooting of Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria, in order to supposedly advance peace and human rights. Would he, therefore, urge the uprooting of Arab communities from pre-1967 Israel?! 5. Since Obama tolerates Arab opposition to Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria would he tolerate Jewish opposition to Arab presence in pre-1967 Israel?! While any attempt by Jews to reside in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas would trigger a lynching attempt, Arabs have peacefully resided within pre-1967 Israel. Doesn't such a reality highlight the nature of Arab intentions and the real obstacle to peace?! 6. Obama pressures Israel to freeze Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, in order to avoid unilateral creation of facts on the ground. Shouldn't Obama demand a similar freeze of Arab construction in Judea and Samaria, which is 30 times larger than Jewish construction?! Doesn't the absence of a balanced approach, by Obama, prejudge of the outcome of negotiation?! 7. The 1950-67 Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan. The most recent internationally-recognized sovereign over Judea and Samaria was the League of Nations-authorized 1922 British Mandate, which defined Judea and Samaria as part of the Jewish National Home, the cradle of Jewish history. Article 6 of the Mandate indicates the right of Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria. Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, former President of the International Court of Justice, determined that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria was rooted in self-defense and therefore did not constitute "occupation." Eugene Rostow, former Dean of Yale Law School and former Undersecretary of State and co-author of UN Security Council Resolution 242, asserted that 242 entitled Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria. The Oslo Accord and its derivatives do not prohibit "settlements." Moreover, Israel has constrained construction to state-owned — and not private — land, avoiding expulsion of Arabs landowners. Freeze of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria is not a peace-enhancer; it is an appeasement-enhancer According to a Dec. 3, 2009 poll of Israeli Jewish eligible voters, conducted by Prof. Yitzhak Katz' "Ma'agar Mochot" — Research and Interdisciplinary Consultancy Institute, commissioned by IMRA: 1. Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision to freeze Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria, for ten months, is a result of his inability to withstand US pressure — 72%. 2. Netanyahu's decision to freeze Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria will intensify pressure for further concessions — 56%. 3. Netanyahu's decision has been prompted by his desire to satisfy President Obama — 68%. 4. Netanyahu violates his commitment to the electorate: 51%:26% (26% — no opinion). 5. Netanyahu has abandoned the principle of reciprocity in the negotiation with the PA — 52%:27%. 6. Netanyahu's decision to freeze Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria must be submitted to a vote at the Knesset — 65%. 7. Netanyahu must reinforce the law regarding illegal Palestinian construction — 79%. 8. Netanyahu should accelerate construction in Jerusalem — 52%:11% (32% — sustained current pace). Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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ARAB TREATMENT OF HISTORY; FREEZE SUED; PART 5: BIG LIE; HISTORICAL REVISIONISM ON SOVIETS, HOLOCAUST, AND ZIONISM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 2, 2009. |
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ARAB TREATMENT OF HISTORY Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, of Birzeit University in Ramallah, contradicted the propaganda campaign denying that the Jewish people had a First and Second Temple and especially denying their presence in Jerusalem. Dr. Nusseibeh's book states merely that, "The legendary Temple of Jerusalem may be the place of the Presence of the Almighty and where the High Priests served Him." His statement enfuriated other Palestinian Arab leaders. Fearing for his life, he has had to go into hiding (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Arutz-7, 11/30). Nusseibeh has been called a moderate; this would be an example I have adduced evidence he is a jihadist. He cleverly tries to remove from the struggle the kind of extreme claims that arouse opposition. That clears the path to Muslim victory over Israel. Hence, he is more dangerous than obvious jihadists. In other news, Germany put John Demjanjuk on trial for murdering Jewish prisoners in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, which the Palestinian Authority and other Arab leaders also deny. What a great propaganda job the Arabs credit the Jewish people with creating during a world war that put half of them to flight! They unleashed immediately afterward, a successful myth that millions of their kind were murdered, for which myth surviving Jews mysteriously claimed they lost much of their families, who disappeared who knows where. To create the myth, these people mostly impoverished and living in camps: (1) Produced and distributed in archives throughout Europe millions pages of documents by Germany, mounds of shoes and jewelry and other items alleged robbed from them; (2) Within days, built ovens and death camps with corpses "living" and dead that General Eisenhower inspected; (3) Found thousands of witnesses; (4) Deceived the Nuremburg jury by getting Nazi leaders to acknowledge the Holocaust they didn't commit but try to excuse themselves as just following orders; and (5) Persuaded the Europeans to set up monuments for what just had not happened and with which their governments and social movements were not complicit! This is in addition to creating a myth of two Jewish temples in Jerusalem so persuasive, as to deceive historians, the entire Christian religion, and many Muslim leaders, such as the one who said to Zionist immigrants, "Welcome home," and others who confirmed that there were the temples and Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. Now that those aspects of history are inconvenient to jihadist attempts to seize Jerusalem and Israel, partly for showing Jewish historical claims and partly for sowing sympathy for the Jewish people, more contemporary Arab leaders deny them. Their method of argument is to deny inconvenient facts. To prove the existence of this mysterious Jewish propaganda machine, so secret that none of my Jewish friends or relatives were aware of it, and all were persuaded by it, we need a contemporary demonstration. Let us see it persuade the U.S. State Dept. that Israel need not freeze Jewish building in Judea-Samaria and part of Jerusalem and instead it should take out Iran's nuclear weapons facilities or at least support the democratic masses in Iran, getting increasingly oppressed and who resent President Obama's abandonment of them. Those would be small tasks for such a mighty machine. JEWISH NATIONAL FUND DONATES TREES TO PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is donating 3,000 trees to the Palestinian Arabs for a new city near Ramallah. The decision was by staff without authorization or discussion. JNF Board member, Maaleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel, said he would bring the matter before the Board. For decades, Jews have donated billions of dollars for trees, a Zionist enterprise. Fostering the rival Palestinian Authority flouts the purpose of those donations. Mayor Kashriel said that a system that donates to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) while forbidding Jews to build on their own land has "gone haywire." Incidentally, he observed that the freeze goes further against
Israel's interests than did prior Israeli regimes
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein noted a double injustice in the gift: (1) The beneficiary,"The PA is a terror-promoting entity controlled by Abbas' Fatah, which demonstrated" as recently as "August at its Bethlehem conference that it does not accept Israel as a Jewish state, does not support a peace agreement that closes the conflict, and engages in, indoctrinates for and glorifies terrorism against Jews. At this conference, Fatah honored terrorists, including Khaled Abu-Isbah and Dalal Mughrabi, responsible for the 1978 coastal road bus hijacking, in which 37 Israelis, including 12 children, were slaughtered." (2) "...a venerable Zionist organization with only one purpose — the up-building of a sovereign Jewish national existence, takes money from Jews and then uses these funds to make a gift of trees to Israel's unreconstructed enemies? Let the JNF show that it does not take money under false pretense (11/30 press release by ZOA, headquartered in New York, and of which I am a member). Israel's Land Administration has been trying to make land bought by JNF with the Jewish people's funds and held in their behalf, available to Arabs. Jews pooled their funds, because it was a national effort, individuals did not have enough, Arabs raised their prices to exploit the Jews' demand for land, the Mandatory Authority discriminated against them, and they did not expel Arabs. If the P.A. were friendly with Israel instead of seeking to destroy it and murder its people, there would be little objection to making a gift to it. FREEZE SUED 
The Land of Israel Forum called the freeze on Jewish building in Judea-Samaria illegal. The Security Cabinet, but not the full Cabinet, approved it, but did not show nor assert that it involved of security. Indeed, it is a matter of diplomacy. That diplomacy already has failed, the Forum believes, since the Palestinian Authority rejected it as insufficient to pay it to resume negotiations. Therefore, the Security Cabinet had no jurisdiction. The Forum has filed suit in the Supreme Court to void the freeze. It finds the freeze illegal, not construction for Jews. It deplores the government issuing the ruling with threats to arrest them if they violate the freeze. To be fair, in earlier news from this same source, news that by
itself might just have been talk but in this context is needed for
balance, leaders in Judea-Samaria said they would defy the ban
To provide sufficient posts for coalition parties, recent Prime Ministers have enlarged the Cabinet into what must be an unwieldy body. The Security Cabinet, dubbed the Mini-Cabinet, has grown from about five members to 15. In the Security Cabinet, except for Uzi Landau, the supposed fire-eating "right-wingers" voted for the freeze. They do not match their reputation. Their reputation is used against them by foreign critics of Israel and for them by their own political campaigns. Democracy seems to have become the art of false labeling, just as advertising has been called a means of arousing desire for what is unnecessary. PART 5. BIG LIE TECHNIQUE ERA & THE ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT. [NOTE: Parts 1 to 4 are on the November 2009 Blog-Ed page. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Parts 3 and 4 are here.] Part 5: Muslim narrative After I had composed the prior four parts of this series, Thomas Friedman gave us "America Vs. the Narrative." Here is a summary of it to augments the series, which it complements. "The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about American that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propaganda by jihadists web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that American has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand 'American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy' to keep Muslims down." They seem to suppose that 9/11 was done by the U.S. to itself, to distract people from realizing that the U.S. wants to oppress Muslims. They ignore two decades of U.S. rescue of Muslims from oppressors, jihadists and Muslim dictators who kill the most Muslims. They also ignore, by focusing on the few U.S. miscreants, the innumerable acts of kindness and assistance by the GIs and their diplomats. Actually, the Arab-Muslim narrative is promoted by jihadists to distract people form realizing that the jihadists want to oppress all, including Muslims. It also is encouraged by Arab regimes to avoid having to own up to their failures. They blame all their failures on the U.S. and Israel. President Obama should ask Muslims to challenge this narrative and to protest against jihadist mass-murder, not just Danish cartoons. Let them show that Radical Islam is not their credo! Otherwise, why believe the mass of Muslims who say that the Ft. Hood massacre, which is a manifestation of jihad, is not legitimate under normal Islam? Incidentally, it is blood-chilling how, although he grew up in America, the anti-American, Arab-Muslim narrative took hold of him (New York Times, 11/29, Op.-Ed.). The Arab-Muslim narrative, related by the big lie technique, was repeated until the mass of Muslims believe it. They don't check it or question it. They don't think about it in relation to our foreign policy that Friedman compared it with. The U.S. government and media keep advising the public not to condemn Muslims in general. They are trying to figure out how to exit from our wars, for which we really lack sufficient resources. It doesn't make sense to suppose a secret U.S. war on Islam, which suffers no restrictions in the U.S.. Here it is treated like any other religion. The conspiracy asserted by the narrative is in the imagination of the narrative's propagandists. HISTORICAL REVISIONISM ON SOVIETS, HOLOCAUST, AND ZIONISM Know Your Enemy, by David C. Engerman, describes a conscious effort by revisionist historians to repaint the Soviet system as like the U.S. one. Scholars overturned that effort (Arch Puddington, Wall St. Journal, 11/30, Op.-Ed.). A similar, conscious, revisionist effort was made to stuff Zionism into a bias against it. Even cruder is a similar effort by non-scholars to deny the Holocaust that many of us lived through. SWEDEN: RECOGNIZE EASTERN JERUSALEM AS ARAB CAPITAL Sweden proposes recognizing eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a "democratic" Palestinian Authority (P.A.), if it declared independence. Sweden did not suggest recognizing the rest of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Sweden would overturn existing agreements, and give the Arabs their immediate demands without having had to negotiate peace and still being in a state of war. Some Israelis interpret this as a result of allowing the legitimacy of Jewish residency in Judea-Samaria to be denigrated. They advise Europe that such a move would demonstrate not being an honest broker (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Arutz-7, 12/1). I think that the connection alleged, for the issue of Jewish residency in Judea-Samaria, is that Israel's appeasement in that area encouraged Sweden to press in more areas. Incidentally, a few years ago, population statistics confirmed that the majority in eastern Jerusalem are Jews. Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority for the past 150 years. Sweden would let the holiest Jewish sites fall into the hands of Muslims, who, when they control them, deny Jews access. Nor is the P.A. democratic, not only in Hamas, but in Judea-Samaria, where it is autocratic and more important, jihadist. Europe has demonstrated its one-sidedness for some time. Israelis preferred deceiving themselves about the civilized world rescuing it rather than letting it be persecuted, just as Jews did during the Holocaust. Sweden shows that the West's goal is not some immediate issue, but the dismantlement of Israel into an indefensible rump. If there weren't a Holocaust before, there would be after this. Then, undistracted by the Jewish state, the jihadists would pay more attention to Europe, already in an internal struggle by the growing Muslim population there. As the Muslim Arabs put it, "Today, Saturday's people (the Jews), tomorrow, Sunday's people (the Christians). Sweden's long-term policy is suicidal, not ethical.
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 and visit his website:
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FROM DREYFUS TO GOLDSTONE
Posted by Gerald Steinberg, December 2, 2009. |
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The 1895 prosecution and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, under fabricated charges of treason was a decisive event. It was the product of anti-Semitism — fuelled by the Catholic Church and compounded by political manipulation and media hysteria — and it took 11 years before the truth was finally revealed and Dreyfus was exonerated. More than a century later, a similar process is taking place in indicting not an individual Jew, but the entire Jewish nation on false charges of "war crimes," deliberate killing and disproportionate force. Now as then, the combination of anti-Semitism (thinly disguised as anti-Zionism) and religion — in this case, one that uses the language of human rights to promote its power and anti-democracy dogma — play a major role. The core document is a 452-page United Nations "fact-finding report" written under a mandate provided by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is dominated by members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Egypt, etc.) Like the military court that tried and sentenced Dreyfus, UNHRC officials appointed judge Richard Goldstone and others to this "inquiry mission" knowing that they were convinced of Israel's quilt from the beginning and would produce a guilty verdict. Goldstone picked 36 incidents (out of hundreds), and collected and presented evidence that justified their conclusions, under the facade of a fair and professional judicial process. Most of Goldstone's evidence repeats the claims and publications of more than 50 so-called civil society organizations that claim to promote human rights, but, as a careful look at their activities demonstrates, most of their work is ideologically determined. Goldstone is a high priest in this religion, with close ties to Human Rights Watch — whose officials have a documented history of sharp anti-Israel bias and false allegations. Following HRW and the other groups, the Goldstone report repeatedly and falsely charges Israel with war crimes. By any logical definition of proportionality, after 8,000 rocket attacks, on which Goldstone and his colleagues remained silent, Israel had the moral right to use force in Gaza. Goldstone's indictment, like the Dreyfus case, began with the premise of guilt, and featured a facade of technical evidence that would seem, for those who do not examine the details (particularly journalists), to seal the indictment. In late-19th-century France, police and military "researchers" produced handwriting samples that did not match those of Dreyfus, while absurdly claiming that this mismatch "proved" how clever he was in hiding his identity. In the case framing Israel, the technical evidence consists of repeating the white phosphorus accusations made by HRW's former "senior military analyst" (and Nazi memorabilia fetishist), as well as pieces of ammunition that Goldstone, with no military experience, claims to have identified in the walls of a mosque months after the fighting ended. In Dreyfus-type situations, prosecutors quickly bury any exculpatory evidence that would raise questions. For Goldstone, this meant erasing and ignoring numerous publically available videos showing extensive use of human shields. By relying exclusively on "Palestinian testimony," supervised closely by Hamas, the fact that more than one million Gazans were used as human shields remained a dirty (but not little) secret. Now, as in France during the Dreyfus hysteria, justice will only be possible when there's enough outrage to force a reversal of this false indictment against Israel for defending itself against terrorism. This will take time — the anti-Israel hysteria and double standards, like the anti-Semitism then, is too deeply rooted and institutionalized to be readily exposed. And while some serious people, including non-Jews and non-Israeli such as Richard Kemp (who was the commander of British forces in Afghanistan) have clearly refuted Goldstone's accusations, these arguments need to be repeated widely and consistently. It may take years until a modern Emile Zola emerges to articulate and denounce this immoral farce and its perpetrators. Mr. Steinberg is executive director of NGO Monitor and chairman of the
Political Studies Department at Bar Ilan University.
This article appeared November 19, 2009 in Canadian Jewish News
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AFSI ACCUSES JNF OF BETRAYING ITS JEWISH MANDATE
Posted by AFSI, December 1, 2009. |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
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Arieh King, founder and head of the Israel Land Fund, has been battling with the JNF for years. He has documented the egregious abuse of the organization's mandate to collect money from Jewish people in order to buy and preserve land in the Land of Israel. King has documented proof of JNF land purchase and give-away to Arabs that has been going on with the knowledge and approval of the Israel Land Authority. King asserts that during the years 2004-2009, more than 200 new apartments were built on JNF land in the area north of the Atarot airport, in Jerusalem. When one drives near that area today, a very visible sign reading AREA A — NO ISRAELIS (Jews) ALLOWED, can be seen, even though one is in Israel's capital city of Jerusalem. (Israel has been divided into areas A,B and C. A is solely Arab. B is under Israeli control, but open to Arab administration, and C is solely under Israeli control.) King also accuses the JNF of failure to protect Jewish land in Gush Etzion where three years ago, no effort was made to keep hundreds of acres inside the separation wall. Arabs are now using this land. In the Shoafat/JNF forest, near Pisgat Ze'ev, Jerusalem, Arabs have built 300 apartments between 1991-2009, with building continuing today. King has written to the heads of JNF, pleading with them to stop JNF assistance in planting 3000 trees in the area of a new Arab city, RUWABI, scheduled to be built north of Ramallah. Instead, we read that "Michael Weinberg of the JNF acknowledges that there is a great deal of "professional pride in the project. We are helping in any way we can." The reports on the project mention such names as Hirui Amara, who heads a JNF greenhouse at the Golani Junction, and Suhil Zaydan, one of the JNF's forestry managers. At the recent Zionist Congress an Israeli Arab was nominated to the KKL (Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael or JNF) General Assembly. Why is JNF, or KKL, hiring and working with Arabs when so many Jews are jobless? Wouldn't some of the expelled farmers from Gush Katif be people who would be expert in working with the land, and keeping it in Jewish hands? Maaleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel, a member of the JNF board, describes the situation as something that has gone "haywire." He continues, "The country has gone crazy when it plants trees for the PA in Judea and Samaria at the same time that it forbids Jews to build. The system does not know who it is representing — us, the PA, or the Americans." Diaspora Jews are urged to call JNF headquarters in NYC — 212-879-9300 to voice their indignation about the disgraceful betrayal of the JNF mandate. Ask for CEO Russell Robinson, or VP of Israel Relations Isaac Blachor. Tell them you will no longer contribute to JNF because of their scandalous behavior. Write letters to your local papers about the situation. Spread the information. Those who are interested in getting more information about the issue are invited to contact Arieh King at kingshir@bezeqint.net or office@israellandfund.com. Tel: 972-2-622-3195. He will be happy to answer your questions and present you with the proof of his investigations into JNF abuses. Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI is a pro-active pro-Israel advocacy group. AFSI may be contacted by mail at 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128 (Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717); by email at afsi@rcn.com; or by accessing its website: www.afsi.org. Helen Freedman is Executive Director. |
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KICKING JEWS
Posted by Bob Kunst, December 1, 2009. |
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Dear "Chosen" Activists: It seems lately that everyday is "Kick a Jew Day". Last Tuesday it was more official with a Naples, Fla. High School suspending 10 students, but the European Union, UNazis, Obama/Hillary, etc. ad nauseum and now even Bibi is doing it. When Shalom International/www.defendjerusalem.net, broke the 'silence' and organized resistance to Olmert/Livni (cowardly coming in a side door thanks to Bush and Rice demands) at the "Annapolis Summit",(Nov. 27, 2007), attempt to divide Israel and Jerusalem, we pleaded with all of you to stop playing games, join with us and realize that without a united Jerusalem there is no Israel. This "Kick a Jew Day" was led by the Arabs/Muslims, Bush/Rice, Olmert/Livni and all of their partners mentioned above, but the silence and lack of resistance by the Jews themselves had led us to this present crisis. Last week's "Kick a Jew Day" was at a Naples, Fla. High School where 10 students were kicked out, but their role-models come from the top if we continue to allow it. Now Bibi says he wants a 10 month moratorium to construction in Judea and Samaria, abandoning his fellow Jews, while bowing to Obama's demands, while Obama is in bed with the very Islamic Nazis who want Israel and all Jews and all Americans dead. Repeating the Gaza/Gush Katif experience is beyond comprehension. Removing over 600,000 Jews from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem isn't going to happen without a civil war and even then wouldn't happen. Not only has Bibi tripled the number of building inspectors to stop construction, but is also now holding back construction in East Jerusalem. Instead of standing firm with G-d and being a "Jew" he worries about what the world thinks, which is to finish off the Jews altogether, while not saying a world about Islam, though Switzerland voters just sent a huge message this weekend on voting against minerets, but the real issue was the attitude towards Muslims and their silence about terrorism they've supported and allowed. We have been Bibi's biggest backers not to negotiate anything regarding Jerusalem and not to divide Israel and allow the monster terrorists to get closer to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport etc. The question here is who is 'kicking the Jews", or does it also include other Jews doing the kicking. Today is our 167th Rally/event when we are at the Federal Bldg., Broward Blvd. and 3rd Ave., in Ft. Laud., Fla. 5-7P.M. Since Oct. 2007, we have been interviewed 1074 times and have reached many millions all over the world with our campaign. Last week's efforts to get Gov. Crist to reschedule the election not on Passover gave us hundreds of media all over Fla., America and the world, and we are only adding 7 media as part of the above coverage, since the AP stories were only two but did give us huge outreach. We have taken our campaign before the White House 14 times; at AIPAC in D.C.; The General Assembly in Nashville and D.C., "J" St., Rev. Wright, The U.S. State Dept., The Jewish Democratic Council Convention, The Woodrow Wilson Center-Middle East event..all in D.C.. We rallied at the National Religous Broadcasters Convention in Nashville. We went to the Demoratic National Convention in Denver and the Republican National Convention in St. Paul; We rallied Against Obama and Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, plus 3 other events against he Left for the PA.; We protested CAIR in Ft. Laud., and Arlington, Va.; We met in Philly, Detroit, Atlanta and N.Y.C.. We rallied against Iran at the UN on 3 occassions, plus held rallies at the Israeli Consulate twice in NYC, rallied in Times Sq. and the Israeli Consulate here in Miami. We had 200 at our Rally to Keep Jerusalem United in Jerusalem when the Pope was there in May of this year. We also rallied against "Durbin II" and "UNazis" in Geneva, Switzerland and took photos of our campaign to "Keep Jerusalem United" in front of the Vatican in Rome. We had 2000 rally with us at the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach on 1/4/09, plus also rallied at the Holocaust Memorial in Philly, while also attending a gathering to remember The Rebbe also in Philly. We also marched and rallied at the Holocaust Museum in Wash., D.C.. We've had 4 rallies in downtown Miami and weekly at the Federal Bldg. in Ft. Laud. for nearly a year after opposing 300 Arabs screaming "Jews Into The Ovens"... which you can see on You Tube. We are planning a huge one year anniversary rally on Wed., Dec. 30, 2009 to bring it all up again. We have put out 10,000 "Keep Jerusalem United and "Protect and Defend" Israel and America bumper stickers, plus thousands of buttons, tee-shirts, and flyers to all of these events. We have taken our campaign to 6 'tea parties', including the ones in D.C.. We have protested the pro-Hamas gangsters in Orlando, Melbourne, Fla. and in Tall. to those who wanted to change the Fla. Constitution for Sharia Law. WE have rallied at FAU in Boca Raton on 3 occasions and begin weekly rallies there starting on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day. We have done 4 meetings in Boca Raton and our 3rd event at Chabad Central in Boca, this Dec. 6.. We just got Gov. Crist to reverse himself on holding a special election for Dist. 19, scheduled for the last day of Passover and now a week later. (Ed Lynch, candidate for this seat in the Rep. party also met with the Gov. on this issue. Lynch will also be speaking at our 3 rd rally in Boca). We have rallied against Reps. Wexler, Klein and others. WE have put out hundreds of e-mails to very many thousands in our networks and we thank Buddy Macy, Ted Belman and so many others who have also helped. We protested Obama in Hollywood, Boca Raton, Miami and at the lst Presidential debate in Mississippi. This is the tip of our involvement, when so few were willing to stand up and still make excuses and hold back. On June 6, 2010, Shalom International/www.defendjerusalem.net has applied for a permit for our "Million Mensch March", to gather at the back of the Holocaust Memorial in Wash., D.C., to honor survivors, liberators and victims of the Holocaust, starting at 8 AM..... then march to the WWII Memorial to honor those veterans, since this is the anniversary of "D-Day", while also placing a wreath, doing taps and speeches as well as support for our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and serving around the world. Then we march to the White House (no speeches) and up Pa. Ave. to rally at the U.S. Capitol(speeches) This is also the anniversary of the '6th Day War', when Israel and Jerusalem were united. For everyone who understands '9/11' and Saudi Arabia's role in it, and its support for global terrorism (over 14,000 attacks since '9/11' they were behind) and oil blackmail of the world's economies, we are looking at a demonstration at the Saudi Arabian Embassy near Watergate and then to march and to join with us at the White House on the way to the Capitol. Rabbi Gary Moskowitz of NYC is helping to coordinate 'marshals' for the event. We need '100'. You can reach him at 917-916-4681, gavriael@aol.com We are working on speakers, hotels, and the basics and of course the whole point is to take all of our angst and frustrations into a peaceful but dynamic statement to the world on how much we love America and Israel and are not about to allow either to be victimized, terrorized and destroyed. Plan your vacations accordingly. We need to boycott everyone boycotting Israel and America. We need to speak out loudly not to divide Jerusalem or Israel and to stand firm with the victims of terrorism, from '9/11', 'Ft. Hood', etc. We need for Obama to understand that his reckless politics in favor of those who scream 'Death to America" and "Death to Israel" hasn't the backing of the majority of Americans who also love and support Israel. We must get Obama to understand that Iran is the threat and that to betray and abandon Israel only invites the terrorists to come after us all again and again. Obama is weak and weakens America and Israel. We must make this statement to put out to the world once and for all. Your donations to such a huge event is critical. Please go to our web site: www.defendjerusalem.net on paypal or by check to:
Any endorsements, speakers, resources, suggestions, volunteerism, efforts..... please pass along as soon as possible. Yes, we need everything. Bring flags, banners, signs, water, plus we will also have tables at the Rugby field behind the Holocaust Memorial. We rally to "Protect and Defend" America and Israel. If you don't like the idea of "Kick a Jew Day", then open your mouths, FINALLY and speak to the world, that all of the 'infidels', Jews, Christians, Hindus, Bhuddists, are coming together with a massive statement to stop protecting, defending and rewarding the very same cowards who were alligned with Hitler then and want to finish the job now. Please get this out to all of your networks. Below is a statement from Dr. Doug Miller. I want to emphasize that these same European countries backed the Holocaust of nearly 7 million Jewish men, women and children. They allowed the grand theft of everything "Jews". They have allowed the commercialism, trivialization, revisionism and Vaticanization of the 'death camps' which are our largest Jewish cemeteries. They are backing the very cowards who deny the Holocaust but were a part of it with Hitler. They count on Jews not resisting, which is why we are again facing another Holocaust with Iran, these countries will do little to nothing about stopping the nukes they will use against Israel, America and the West. Their anti-Israel politics is another form of anti-semitism. As long as we keep denying and ignoring this reality, the longer it will take us to survive and thrive through it all, both in America and in Israel. Also, below is how the EU is supporting the PA to again "Kick the Jews". Do you get it? Yours in Shalom,
12/1/09
That the EU would wade into the Middle Eastern conflict on the side of the forces attempting to destroy Israel is reprehensible, at best. You must understand that the Arabs in and surrounding Israel desire the annihilation of the Jewish state and the extermination of the Jewish people. They do not want a Jewish state. They will not make peace with even an emasculated, eviscerated, and amputated Jewish state. They desire genocide. At the very least you should remain neutral. The fact that you support the demands and that you echo the ideology of Israel's enemies makes you an accomplice in the Arab war against the Jews. Sincerely,
Subject: EU Joins PA's Diplomatic War on Jerusalem
(Israelnationalnews.com) The Foreign Ministry warned Tuesday morning that a Swedish-led attempt to have the European Union recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian Authority will backfire. The draft proposal, expected to be placed on the EU table next week, would damage efforts to reach peace with the PA and damage the EUs standing as a trusted entity, ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said. The Europeans must pressure the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table," he added. "Such moves like the one being led by Sweden lead to the opposite outcome." The Swedish proposal also omits any recognition of the rest of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Government officials estimate that several EU members will oppose the proposal by Sweden, which retains the rotating presidency of the European body until next month. Likud Knesset Member Tzipi Hotovely blamed her own government for the EU move, saying, This is more proof that the erosion of legitimacy for residents of Judea and Samaria is the direct cause for the erosion of the status of Jerusalem. The draft proposal of the EU will include its readiness to recognize the PA as a democratic and independent entity if PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas carries out his plan to unilaterally declare statehood. Abbas has asked the United Nations to recognize the PA as an independent state based on the 1949-1967 borders of Israel, a move which in effect destroys the Roadmap plan and American efforts for a negotiated agreement with Israel. Bob Kunst is President of Shalom International. Contact him at shalominternational@mindspring.com or visit www.defendjerusalem.blogspot.com |
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BIBI'S BAD WEEK
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 1, 2009. |
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Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu has again demonstrated he still has a spine of rubber (Goomi in Hebrew). Bibi has never been really trusted by the Israeli people ever since the Wye River Conference (October 23, 1998) when he surrendered 80% of Hebron. Some think Bibi has the morals and ethics of a used car salesman or a slippery lawyer. Is Netanyahu selling out the Jewish Nation/State because he doesn't really care? Or for him, is it just another political deal? Is he so different from Barak, Rabin, Olmert, Sharon, or Shimon Peres? I don't think so, I am sad to say. To these men Israel seems to be merely a commodity and like all commodities, you buy, sell or trade. Clearly, despite the hope that Bibi-of-Wye had changed, had stiffened his spine and become a strong and ethical leader, he seems to have remained the same old Bibi. He should not be confused with his patriotic brother Yoni (who was killed at the Entebbe rescue, July 4, 1976). Nor should he be mistaken for his distinguished scholarly father Ben Zion Netanyahu. In brief, before Netanyahu completes the sell-out of the Nation, he must be removed from office. Ehud Barak, his Leftist hatchet man, must also be sent into the political wilderness. The Government of Israel seems to have become so hopelessly corrupt that they have sold Israel's sovereignty of the nation to an equally corrupt American regime enslaved to the oil of Islam. On orders from Defense Minister Barak and confirmed by PM Netanyahu as a sop to Barack Hussein Obama, a building freeze was ordered. Barak employed so far a total of 40 building inspectors to insure that not a nail is driven. Accompanying them are 2 groups of "overseers" as in the time of Egyptian slavery — or, worse yet, the Yattam (Yassam) storm troopers. One group employed by the American Lebanese George Mitchell reports directly to the Arabist State Department and Obama. The second group is a well known group of un-Jewish thugs in uniform who were used in Amona to break skulls while driving settlers from their homes. Perhaps you saw the photos of these thugs, riding their war horses which were imported from Germany, swinging long truncheons. Knesset members were ridden over, trampled and severely hurt. These Storm Trooper units were first assembled by Yitzhak Rabin and deliberately selected for this psychological profile of inbred cruelty who were willing to use brutal force against Jews — especially settlers. Their job applications had to stipulate that they had no friends or family who lived in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan Heights or Jerusalem. Some were Ukrainians who were not even Jewish. This is what Barak and Bibi are sending against the settlers to complete Bibi's Faustian bargain with Barack Hussein Obama. Israel is on the verge of being destroyed by a half Muslim American President who seems to hate Israel and is willing to preserve Iran as a Nuclear armed power. Neither Netanyahu nor Obama have warranted trust by their nations, given their policies. As always, Caroline Glick has made the truth perfectly transparent. Weak men or women shouldn't pretend to be a Prime Minister or President as competent leaders. They put their nations in clear and present danger. Both Obama and Netanyahu have adopted a false 'holy grail' called "Peace at any Price" when their adversaries have demonstrated that talk and negotiations under the rubric of "Peace" have always been a ruse to build their war capabilities. This Muslim M.O. (Modus Operandi) has always been based upon Mohammed's "Hadith" (oral teachings and life). Mohammed, in his conquest of the Arabian peninsula, made what is called a "Hudabiya Treaty" of 10 years with the Quarish Tribe of Jews in Mecca in order to pray there. But, when he was militarily stronger, Mohammed returned, decapitated the men, selling the women and children into slavery. When Arafat signed the Oslo Accords, he told his Arabic audience that it was only a "Hudabiya Treaty" — that is, it could and would be broken as soon as Arafat's army of Terrorists were strong enough to defeat the Jewish IDF (Israel Defense Forces). Now, when the Muslims make a "Peace" with the "infidels" (un-believers in Islam) they call it a "Hudna" — not a "Peace" Treaty. A "Hudna" is only a temporary "Peace" — until the Muslims are stronger and can attack with no mercy. Both Netanyahu and Obama are guilty of accepting the Muslim "Hudna" as a real peace when the Muslims intend it to be only a short respite for them to re-arm before sending in their people as "sacrificial lambs". Shoshanna Walker This below was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared November 27,
2009 in the Jerusalem Post.
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu weakened Israel this week. And he did so for no good reason. Thursday's headlines told the tale. The day after Netanyahu bowed to US pressure and announced a total freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria for ten months, Yediot Aharonot reported that the Obama administration now wants Israel to release a thousand Fatah terrorists from prison. The Americans also want Israel to allow US-trained, terror-supporting Fatah paramilitary forces to deploy in areas that are currently under Israeli military control. Moreover, the Americans are demanding that Israel surrender land in the strategically crucial Jordan Valley to Fatah. And these are just American preconditions for starting negotiations with the Palestinians. According to Yediot, if those talks ever begin, the White House will demand that Israel accept a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza and agree to ethnically cleanse all the areas of Jews. So far from winning American support or at least causing the White House to ease its bullying, US President Barack Obama sees Netanyahu's decision to implement a militarily irrational, bigoted policy of prohibiting Jews from building in Israel's heartland as a drop in the bucket.
THE TRUTH is that Israel should not be in the business of negotiating the right of Israeli cities and villages to exist and prosper. The notion that it is acceptable to demand that Jews not be permitted to live in Judea and Samaria — or anywhere else in the world — is not a notion that Israel should countenance. That being said, putting the so-called "settlements" genie back in the bottle is a tall order. After all, Israel agreed to place it on the table in the 1993 Oslo agreements and made its willingness to dry out Jewish communities explicit with its acceptance of the so-called road map in 2004. To take Israeli communities off the agenda it would be necessary to repudiate these deals. Given what it will take to remove Jewish communities from the negotiations chopping block, it makes sense that Netanyahu has not moved in that direction since taking office. But willingness to discuss these communities is not the same as giving them away for nothing. In discussing the dispositions of these towns and villages, at a minimum Netanyahu should have taken advantage of the fact that the Americans, the Europeans and the Arabs all consider the so-called "settlements" to be the most important obstacle to peace. Netanyahu should have capitalized on US Congressman and Obama ally Robert Wexler's statement from last July that in exchange for freezing Jewish construction, Israel would gain normalized relations with all Arab League member states. Were Israel to see 20 Arab embassies opening in exchange for a temporary freeze in Jewish construction, one could say that Netanyahu's massive concession was justified. But Netanyahu decided to give away this high card — Israel's ace of spades as it were — for free. Actually, he paid for it. The Arabs rejected Wexler's offer in July. And five seconds after Netanyahu announced the freeze the Palestinians proclaimed his unprecedented prohibition on Jewish building worthless. But then unlike Netanyahu, the Palestinians are playing their cards wisely. Why should they accept his move as sufficient when they know the Americans will demand still more concessions from him? And sure enough, moments after Netanyahu's speech, former senator George Mitchell stood before the cameras in Washington and said that his move is too little to impress the likes of Mitchell and Obama.
MANY COMMENTATORS claim that Netanyahu's announcement Wednesday night was his way of balancing his desire to release 450 Hamas murderers from prison in exchange for hostage Gilad Schalit with an equal concession to Fatah. That is, the freeze was required, it is argued, because without a move of this magnitude, the terrorists-for-hostage deal would destroy Fatah completely. This view is the quintessence of the notion that two wrongs make a right. In an interview with Channel 2 Wednesday night, Defense Minister Ehud Barak admitted that in negotiating Schalit's release, Netanyahu has gone well beyond former prime minister Ehud Olmert's offers to Hamas. With Netanyahu and Likud in the opposition loudly proclaiming the truth that any deal with Hamas will imperil untold numbers of Israelis, Olmert didn't dare accept Hamas's demand that Israel release its most brutal mass murderers from its prisons. But now that Netanyahu and Likud are in the driver's seat, they are only too happy to accept what was previously unacceptable. By Thursday, it appeared that the Iranians and the Syrians had placed the proposed swap on the back burner. But even if the deal presently being discussed doesn't go through, Netanyahu's moves on the issue to date have already weakened the country considerably. Simply by agreeing to negotiate with Hamas, Netanyahu conferred legitimacy not only on the terror group, but on the act of taking hostages. After all, until Hamas had Schalit, no government in Israel was willing to cut a deal with it. But today, in the interest of making a deal, Israel has allowed Hamas commanders — including Schalit's captor Ahmad Jabari — safe passage to Egypt where they are feted by senior Egyptian officials and meet with other senior terrorists. In so doing Israel has effectively accepted them as legitimate leaders. Netanyahu's willingness to release murderers from prison also signs the death warrants of countless Israelis. The Schalit-obsessed local media insists that politicians who claim they oppose the deal must be willing to look Schalit's parents in the eyes and tell them that they will not "do what it takes" to bring Gilad home. But Schalit's parents and the 50-terrorists-for-one-hostage-swap champions in the media and in the Knesset need to be asked whether they will be willing to look the families of the next IDF hostages in the eye after they are abducted due to Israel's decision to spring murderers from prison in exchange for Schalit. So too, they should ask themselves what they will say to the families of the Israelis who will be murdered because of this deal. Unfortunately, our foolish media elites and their lackeys in the government are incapable of recognizing that the deal with Hamas doesn't pit the Schalit family against the families of the Israelis that these prisoners already murdered. It places Noam and Aviva Schalit against the families of the still unidentified Israelis who will be murdered by these imprisoned terrorists in the future if they are allowed to see the light of day. Even if the current negotiations end in failure, Netanyahu this week made clear that he is willing to conduct a massive release of terrorists in exchange for Israeli hostages. The message has been received by our enemies and they will make us pay for it with interest.
FINALLY, NETANYAHU'S willingness to spring terrorists from prison in exchange for Schalit weakens Israel's deterrent posture. This week The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF has commissioned a study to figure out how to tell who has won in an inconclusive war against terrorists. It seems a shame that there is apparently such a dearth of common sense in the General Staff that the IDF needs someone from the outside to explain the facts of life to its generals. Those facts, for instance, indicate that when you fight a war against a terrorist group that serves as a proxy for enemy regimes, and in the aftermath of the war the terror group takes over the government of its own country and its state sponsors build nuclear arsenals unhindered by your government and the international community as a whole, while your own generals and soldiers are threatened with indictments by UN war crimes tribunals, the terrorists have won and you have lost. By the same token, apparently it is unclear to IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi — who said this week that he cannot wait to greet Gilad at home — that by offering to release hundreds of terrorists for a hostage soldier, he is telling all the thousands of IDF troops who risk their lives every day to arrest terrorists and fight them that they are risking their lives for nothing. Why bother staging a middle-of-the-night raid in Nablus where your men are liable to be killed in order to arrest a terrorist if he's just going to be released from prison within a year or two in exchange for another soldier? In fact, why have an army at all? Perhaps we'd all be better off if we just paid our enemies protection money until they are ready to deliver the 'coup de grace'.
BUT THEN, perhaps that's what Israel is doing today. On Tuesday Barak noted that whereas on the eve of the 2006 war Hebz'Allah had an arsenal of 14,000 rockets, today it has an arsenal of 50,000 rockets. His remarks might have been perceived as a warning that Israel is gearing up to take preemptive action against Hebz'Allah. But that perception would be wrong, unless what one had in mind was preemptive capitulation. On Thursday it was reported that Israel is ready to transfer control over the northern half of Ghajar — the border town that is officially half in Israel and half in Lebanon — to UNIFIL forces. These would be the same UN forces that have done nothing to prevent Hebz'Allah from rearming and taking over the Lebanese government. These would be the same Italian-commanded UN forces that former Italian president Francesco Cossiga claims cut a deal with Hebz'Allah according to which UNIFIL turns a blind eye to Hebz'Allah's activities and in exchange, Hebz'Allah doesn't kill UNIFIL forces. Since the 2006 war, the UN and the US have been bullying Israel to give up the northern half of Ghajar. Their pressure has come despite their sure knowledge that the moment IDF forces withdraw from the northern half of the town, it will again become a smuggling capital for drugs, terrorists, Hebz'Allah spies and ordnance. Barak and Netanyahu apparently are of the opinion that despite — or worse, perhaps due to — the growing dangers emanating from Hebz'Allah-controlled Lebanon, it is better for Israel to seek to curry favor with the UN and the US than to take the steps necessary to defend the country from Hebz'Allah. This is the depressing message that Netanyahu and his merry band of ministers have communicated to the world this week. In the hopes of appeasing the unappeasable Obama administration, the government has adopted Obama's anti-Semitic policies against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. To win points with the imbecilic, unaccountable and irresponsible local media, Netanyahu has jeopardized the lives of untold numbers of Israelis by expressing his willingness to free hundreds of terrorist murderers from prison. And to placate the pro-Hebz'Allah UN, Israel has decided it is willing to further strengthen Hebz'Allah. The mind reels at the thought of what next week may bring. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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DOUBLE JEOPARDY: IDF UNITS TO FIGHT JEWS, PA TO ENCIRCLE THEM
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, December 1, 2009. |
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The real story of today is that the radical Leftist Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu have activated the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), Civil Administration, Israeli Police, Border Guard and, especially the Yassam (Yattam) storm troopers. Barak has mobilized all of them AGAINST the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria to enforce the misbegotten FREEZE on any building within the settlements' boundaries. What a "Perfect Storm"! Barack mobilizes all of Israel's Defenses AGAINST Jews, while the Muslim Arab Palestinians are proclaiming their Third Intifada (Uprising), that is their "right to return to armed struggle [AGAINST Jews] in order to restore [their] rights". They proclaim that they "will IGNITE this Third Intifada [which] will be worse than the previous ones." Remember the first two Intifadas? Do you recall the Muslim suicide bombers of the first Two Intifadas? Blowing up women and children on buses, in restaurants, the elderly at Pesach Seders,shooting, knifing,....? More than 1500 Israeli men, women and children were murdered with tens of thousands more injured, many maimed for life. Why does it appear as it Bibi and Barak are coordinating their vicious Freeze with Abbas and Hamas threatening a Third Intifada — as happened before under Rabin and Peres? Isn't this the time to recognize that Israel's PM Bibi Netanyahu and DM Ehud Barak have now fully joined the enemy and are betraying the nation? Isn't it time for loyal citizens and the civilian army of Israel to rise up and return the Jewish Nation/State back to the people who truly own the nation? We saw what happened to Germany, Italy and Japan when they were absorbed by the Fascists and what followed. Can the law-abiding Jewish people of Israel allow the ghost of Herod to rise up and again pledge his loyalty to Rome as he oppressed the Jews of Israel 2000 years ago? Nothing in Jewish or Israeli law requires the national suicide of her people, even when her leaders evolve new laws to protect themselves from their own betrayal. May G-d curse our Jewish enemies and all those who join them. This below was written by Hillel Fendel and it appeared today in Arutz-7. |
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Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the call-up of reserve units responsible for emergency control of PA-controlled cities — and wants to activate them AGAINST the Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria. The information was given to Arutz-7 by Danny Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria. "Netanyahu and Barak have crossed all red lines," Dayan said, "and have now declared outright war on the Jewish settlement enterprise of Judea and Samaria." Tuesday morning, clashes broke out in several towns between Jewish residents in Yesha and inspectors sent to deliver the construction-freeze orders. The Yesha Council called on residents not to use violence but to block the inspectors' entry into the communities to "enforce these immoral and anti-Zionist orders." PA Threatens to Encircle Jewish Towns At the same time, while the Netanyahu government is drying up the towns, PA Arabs are planning to encircle them. A Fatah Central Committee member is quoted in the Al-Arab newspaper (Nov. 20) as saying, "Fatah has made a decision to ignite the third intifada in the West Bank in response to Israeli intransigence... This intifada will be worse than the previous ones, though it will retain its popular character without live weapons." The new intifada is planned to center around "encircling the settlements with thousands of Palestinians," and that PA Chairman Abbas has given his okay. Correspondent Haggai Huberman reports that top Fatah and PA officials have increased their threats to fight Israel with violence. Nabil Shaath, for instance, who led the PA negotiating team under Yasser Arafat, told a Tunisian newspaper two weeks ago, "We have tried talks for 18 years, but Israel continues its aggression, destruction and settlements. It's our right to return to the way of armed struggle in order to restore our rights." Minister Barak arrived in the large army base outside Beit El on Tuesday to visit the units assigned to enforce the construction freeze. "The freeze in the settlements will be fully enforced," Barak said, "and in a way that will guarantee as much dialogue as possible with the settlers... The Israel Defense Forces, and especially the Civil Administration, Israel Police and Border Guard, are readying themselves to ensure that the decision is enforced." Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinstonglobal.org |
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FROM ISRAEL: THE BATTLES TO BE FOUGHT
Posted by Arlene Kushner, December 1, 2009. |
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Last week I attended the kick-off event of a new Anglo civic group in Israel called Hadar. Several persons of prominence were invited to address the question ask to whether the UN would accept Israel today. This question was posed with the anniversary of the UN vote to partition Palestine on November 29, 1947 in mind. With all that has been going on, I have not had a chance to discuss this until now... The consensus, of course, was that the UN would not have us today, so thoroughly has that body changed in the intervening years. But I rather like the comment of Alan Baker, lawyer and former Israeli ambassador to Canada, who said that the real question was whether we would want to belong to such an organization. (The fact that we do already belong being treated as a separate issue.) Baker pointed out that, as things stand, we are a second class nation at the UN, not included in any regional grouping. We can never be on the Security Council (there are rotating members) or serve on the International Court of Justice. The UN does not observe its own charter, but there is no international body to stop it from how it does conduct itself. ~~~~~~~~~~ Baker says that international law is anachronistic. The last protocols came from the time of the Vietnam war, and do not address today's international terror. Goldstone, he says, applied these outdated rules, such as no firing on churches, which don't account for such phenomena as terrorists who store weapons in mosques and use them as a base for firing. What seems to be the case, however, is that revising those protocols would not be a simple matter. According to Baker, a new convention on terrorism was brought forth immediately after 9/11, but was tabled within two weeks because it didn't have a clause that pertains to actions against occupying powers. Translation: The Palestinian Arabs we refer to as terrorists aren't really terrorists at all, they are simply acting in a legal and justified manner against the occupier, Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ Baker, as a lawyer concerned with legal process, spoke about those nations — e.g., Britain, Switzerland, Spain — that have universal criminal jurisdiction, which permits individuals to initiate actions against Israeli leaders with regard to acts allegedly committed elsewhere. He says that if we carry out bone fide inquiries ourselves, with regard to presumed charges, then legally it neutralizes action against us in criminal jurisdiction cases. ~~~~~~~~~~ Dore Gold — head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and former Israeli ambassador to the UN — sees matters with regard to Israeli inquiries differently. We already have investigative mechanisms in place via the Judge Advocate General's office that offer very strong civilian oversight. The danger with launching inquiries in addition to this is that they may hamper the readiness of the IDF to act: if there is always fear that a legal mechanism in the country will second guess how a soldier acts, he will be afraid to act. This is a situation that would put us at risk. Baker says we should launch an additional inquiry into the Goldstone Report charges. Gold advises fighting Goldstone in public opinion, not the courts. (My own inclination is to agree with Gold: a further inquiry will appear to be an admission of guilt.) He believes the problem with Goldstone is the mis-use of international law, not the lack of law. As some of you may be aware, Ambassador Gold debated Goldstone recently at Brandeis University. Here's a link to his remarks from that event, compiled and expanded:
~~~~~~~~~~ Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister, speaking to this issue of public opinion, said that the foreign ministry is intensifying cooperation with the Dovrei Tzahal — spokespersons for the IDF — so that information can be disseminated quickly. However, said Ayalon, the world tends to judge Israel only with regard to our military conflicts and not our merits. Thus the Ministries of Education, Science, etc. must cooperate in informing the world about who and what we are. (My "Good News Corner" is promoted by some of the same logic.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Gold addressed the ways in which the world is attempting to delegitimize us. They challenge our legal and historical rights, which we must assert with vigor. We must, as well, expose radical networks and make it clear that they represent a risk to the entire West and not just Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ Our work is cut out for us, and then some. While November 29 was a focus for the forum, consider what today's news brings us: Yesterday began "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" at the UN. Enough to turn your stomach in and of itself. There is no other solidarity day at the UN. Not with Kurds or Tibetans, or any other people. The Palestinian Arabs are very special indeed, it seems. So special that this "day" — which has been observed since 1977 and is noted as "a time of mourning" — actually lasts for two days. Scheduled for this year are speeches, an exhibit on the "refugees" and a film. To top this all off, yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared that a Palestinian state was a "vital" component necessary for regional peace. Sigh... No, much too mild and tolerant. I take that back. Grrr! ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile there is on-going debate about Israel at the UN General Assembly. (This, it should be noted, is what Anne Bayefsky is most frustrated at not being able to monitor because her credentials have been taken from her, pending a January or February hearing.) Six anti-Israel resolutions are expected. And once again there is talk that the Palestinian Arabs are going to ask the UN Security Council to declare a Palestinian state with the '67 line as its border and eastern Jerusalem as its capital. I carefully researched the legality of this several days ago, and have already reported on it. What is being proposed, according to international law, should not be possible. The Security Council does not "declare" the existence of states. However, I note Alan Baker's words, above, that the UN does not observe its own charter and that there is no international agency to stop it from how it does conduct itself. I still seriously doubt that matters will get that far out of hand, but I am clearly unable to say with genuine certainty that what the Palestinian Arabs are planning cannot happen because international law will not permit it. Not when the international community in many regards does as it damn pleases. Ultimately, it might — in a worse case scenario — fall to the US to veto a resolution. ~~~~~~~~~~ But let's take a closer look at statement by PA president Mahmoud Abbas that PLO representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, read at the General Assembly: In the 61 years since the nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic, meaning the creation the State of Israel), Palestinians "continue to suffer under colonial occupation." He said more, of course, but this is for me the key statement, and, regretfully, not enough will be made of this — even though it is the tip-off to the core of the issue. The Palestinian Arab claim, certainly the purported claim of the Palestinian Authority, is that there should be two states, essentially divided by the Green Line ('67 line). The purported claim is that we are occupiers in Judea and Samaria, which should be theirs for a state. But we haven't been in possession of Judea and Samaria for 61 years; it's been ours again only since 1967, for 42 years. What the Abbas statement makes clear is that, as we are considered "occupiers" for 61 years, there is no acceptance of us within the Green Line either. All of Israel, in its totality, is considered to be a "colonial occupation." There is no sincerity with regard to the "two state solution." We know that this is the genuine Arab position, but it becomes public in such a statement. And who will pay attention? ~~~~~~~~~~ It's unbearable. Intolerable. I know no other way of saying this. (And no, I'm not laughing now.) At a press conference today, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, Qin Gang, said that what's needed to resolve the impasse with Iran is more dialogue, not sanctions. "All parties should step up diplomatic efforts." So much for the cautiously hopeful observation that China may be growing weary of the Iranian stance. And next....? Reports from Washington and London indicate increasing Western anger with Iran, with "sanctions possible next month." We're waiting.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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THE ARABS HAVE STOPPED APPLAUDING OBAMA
Posted by Bryna Berch, December 1, 2009. |
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A foreign policy of penance has won America no friends
This was written by Fouad Ajami and it appeared in the
November 29, 2009 Wall Street Journal
Obama isn't a novelty any more. He isn't dazzling anyone — except maybe his groupies in the media. As Ajami says, "We are beyond stirring speeches." And he doesn't have much else, except to go back to traditional methods. Mr. Ajami, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is the author of "The Foreigner's Gift" (Free Press, 2007). |
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'He talks too much," a Saudi academic in Jeddah, who had once been smitten with Barack Obama, recently observed to me of America's 44th president. He has wearied of Mr. Obama and now does not bother with the Obama oratory. He is hardly alone, this academic. In the endless chatter of this region, and in the commentaries offered by the press, the theme is one of disappointment. In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth. He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest. There is little Mr. Obama can do about this disenchantment. He can't journey to Turkey to tell its Islamist leaders and political class that a decade of anti-American scapegoating is all forgiven and was the product of American policies — he has already done that. He can't journey to Cairo to tell the fabled "Arab street" that the Iraq war was a wasted war of choice, and that America earned the malice that came its way from Arab lands — he has already done that as well. He can't tell Muslims that America is not at war with Islam — he, like his predecessor, has said that time and again. It was the norm for American liberalism during the Bush years to brandish the Pew Global Attitudes survey that told of America's decline in the eyes of foreign nations. Foreigners were saying what the liberals wanted said. Now those surveys of 2009 bring findings from the world of Islam that confirm that the animus toward America has not been radically changed by the ascendancy of Mr. Obama. In the Palestinian territories, 15% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 82% have an unfavorable view. The Obama speech in Ankara didn't seem to help in Turkey, where the favorables are 14% and those unreconciled, 69%. In Egypt, a country that's reaped nearly 40 years of American aid, things stayed roughly the same: 27% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 70% do not. In Pakistan, a place of great consequence for American power, our standing has deteriorated: The unfavorables rose from 63% in 2008 to 68% this year. Mr. Obama's election has not drained the swamps of anti-Americanism. That anti-Americanism is endemic to this region, an alibi and a scapegoat for nations, and their rulers, unwilling to break out of the grip of political autocracy and economic failure. It predated the presidency of George W. Bush and rages on during the Obama presidency. We had once taken to the foreign world that quintessential American difference — the belief in liberty, a needed innocence to play off against the settled and complacent ways of older nations. The Obama approach is different. Steeped in an overarching idea of American guilt, Mr. Obama and his lieutenants offered nothing less than a doctrine, and a policy, of American penance. No one told Mr. Obama that the Islamic world, where American power is engaged and so dangerously exposed, it is considered bad form, nay a great moral lapse, to speak ill of one's own tribe when in the midst, and in the lands, of others. The crowd may have applauded the cavalier way the new steward of American power referred to his predecessor, but in the privacy of their own language they doubtless wondered about his character and his fidelity. "My brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the stranger," goes one of the Arab world's most honored maxims. The stranger who came into their midst and spoke badly of his own was destined to become an object of suspicion. Mr. Obama could not make up his mind: He was at one with "the people" and with the rulers who held them in subjugation. The people of Iran who took to the streets this past summer were betrayed by this hapless diplomacy — Mr. Obama was out to "engage" the terrible rulers that millions of Iranians were determined to be rid of. On Nov. 4, on the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, the embattled reformers, again in the streets, posed an embarrassing dilemma for American diplomacy: "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," they chanted. By not responding to these cries and continuing to "engage" Tehran's murderous regime, his choice was made clear. It wasn't one of American diplomacy's finest moments. Mr. Obama has himself to blame for the disarray of his foreign policy. American arms had won a decent outcome in Iraq, but Mr. Obama would not claim it — it was his predecessor's war. Vigilance had kept the American homeland safe from terrorist attacks for seven long years under his predecessors, but he could never grant Bush policies the honor and credit they deserved. He had declared Afghanistan a war of necessity, but he seems to have his eye on the road out even as he is set to announce a troop increase in an address to be delivered tomorrow. He was quick to assert, in the course of his exuberant campaign for president last year, that his diplomacy in South Asia would start with the standoff in Kashmir. In truth India had no interest in an international adjudication of Kashmir. What was settled during the partition in 1947 was there to stay. In recent days, Mr. Obama walked away from earlier ambitions. "Obviously, there are historic conflicts between India and Pakistan," he said. "It's not the place of the United States to try to, from the outside, resolve those conflicts." Nor was he swayed by the fate of so many "peace plans" that have been floated over so many decades to resolve the fight between Arab and Jew over the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean. Where George W. Bush offered the Palestinians the gift of clarity — statehood but only after the renunciation of terror and the break with maximalism — Mr. Obama signaled a return to the dead ways of the past: a peace process where America itself is broker and arbiter. The Obama diplomacy had made a settlement freeze its starting point, when this was precisely the wrong place to begin. Israel has given up settlements before at the altar of peace — recall the historical accommodation with Egypt a quarter century ago. The right course would have set the question of settlements aside as it took up the broader challenge of radicalism in the region — the menace and swagger of Iran, the arsenal of Hamas and Hezbollah, the refusal of the Arab order of power to embrace in broad daylight the cause of peace with Israel. The laws of gravity, the weight of history and of precedent, have caught up with the Obama presidency. We are beyond stirring speeches. The novelty of the Obama approach, and the Obama persona, has worn off. There is a whole American diplomatic tradition to draw upon — engagements made, wisdom acquired in the course of decades, and, yes, accounts to be settled with rogues and tyrannies. They might yet help this administration find its way out of a labyrinth of its own making.
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NEGOTIATING WITH BIBI
Posted by Zeev Shemer, December 1, 2009. |
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The defenders of Bibi Netanyahu point out that whether we like it or not, Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and Eastern Jerusalem were never officially annexed, and therefore are always open for negotiation. Like pawns in a complex chess game, they can be used to achieve that evasive truce with the Arab world. The same can be said about Israel's nuclear arsenal and Israel's powerful air force. These are pawns that allow Israel to engage in negotiations with both the Arab world and the world at large. There is a fundamental problem with all of this. Tools for negotiation are assets of course, but most importantly, is to actually have the ability to negotiate. Given Netanyahu's rhetoric one would assume he is a very good negotiator, however his track record reveals the complete opposite. When Netanyahu became Prime Minister in 1996 he signed a peace agreement with King Hussein, father of current King Abdullah of Jordan. In this agreement, Netanyahu secured a peace treaty with Jordan in exchange for territorial concessions in the Negev and a promise for a set amount of water supply from the Kineret regardless of rainfall or capacity. In short, we gave Jordan what they wanted and in turn we got a shaky and scrawny promise of peace. Today in Jordan, many are the Israelis that conduct business but the hatred of Israel is felt at every level of Jordanian society. This week it was revealed that Bibi is working with Ehud Barak to secure the release of Giald Shalit in exchange for 980 terrorists being held in Israeli prisons. Additionally, Netanyahu's promise to President Barak Hussein Obama to halt construction in Judea and Samaria was in exchange of... well, absolutely nothing, except maybe a warm 'atta-boy' from Obama and his advisors. So yes, Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, Eastern Jerusalem, our nuclear facilities and our military capabilities can all be perceived and treated as tools for negotiation. The problem as you can see, is that Netanyahu is a lousy negotiator. He is a great orator, and that makes him eerily similar to Obama. They talk the talk but neither knows anything about how to deal with the Islamic world. Remember that they are negotiating our patrimony. If we stand by without opposition, we'll end up with another piece of paper, an empty promise and a much more vulnerable stance. Obama might like to bow a lot, but I think we should device an entirely different strategy. We should begin by electing a better negotiator, one that can accurately represent a strong Jewish position.
Ze'ev Shemer is an instructor at Western Galilee College and Ort Braude Institute of Technology. He grew up in Colombia and moved to the US where he attended college and obtained his Master's Degree. Ze'ev made Aliyah in 2004 and lives in Ramat HaGolan. Besides being an academic teacher Ze'ev is a Martial Arts instructor for adults and pre-army cadets. Contact him at zeev.shemer@yahoo.com |
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IS THE WORM BEGINNING TO TURN?
Posted by David Ha'Ivri, December 1, 2009. |
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Today in many Jewish communities in the Shomron residents blocked civil administration inspectors from reaching building sites. Attached pictures from Revava. Thank you, |
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Today Dec. 1 2009. inspectors of Civil Administration toured many communities throughout the Shomron regional council to impose the Netanyahu government's new decree Freezing Jewish building in the region. In many communities the inspectors were met with opposition of local residents who blocked their way in to the towns and to building sites. At other sites the inspectors reached building sites that are in stages past the building of foundations and so accourding to the decree can countinue to be built. Shomron Regional council head Gershon Mesika who was on site at Kfar Tapuach new neghbourhood which is in progressave stages of building said that "the goverenmnet's decree is raicist by forbiding only Jewish growth while showing a blind eye to illegal building in the Arab throughout the area and around the country" he said, "We will oppose this in many means which include legal action and local resedents grass roots efforts". David Ha'ivri director of the Shomron Liaison Office said: "We are have been receiving calls from supporters from around the world who are interested in investing inbuilding homes in the Shomron to show their support and to make a clear statement to the world that the land of Israel is for the Jewish people and will stay in our hands forever." See the pictures below from Revava this morning. The photos by Eli Rosenfeild. For more information please call: David Ha'ivri
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/ This essay appeared as an opinion piece in Arutz-7 (www.IsraelNationNews.com) today. |
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THE ADVANCING STORM
Posted by Ari Bussel, December 1, 2009. |
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Israel's Prime Minister has a viral flu, prompting his doctor to order cessation of activities for a second day in a row. The prevalent attitude is expressed in the following remark: "What type of flu does PM Netanyahu have? The Shalit Flu (about to exchange close to a thousand terrorists to bring a soldier back home to his family and country), the Swine Flu (to which several high-risk patients with other illnesses succumbed in recent days) or the Iranian Flu?" Shalit, Swine Flu, Iran — and Israel's Prime Minister is busy, so it seems, in a move to freeze all settlement construction for the next ten months. This move, hailed as historic of unlike proportions by both the Foreign Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister (both from the same party, both appointees to their positions as a payment for joining the coalition government). The ten-month "postponement" decision is so important that it was ordered by a small cabinet of ministers rather than being decided in a vote following a discussion by the Government at large. A lawsuit is pending before the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the validity of any subsequent action based on this decree. Immediately following the decision, the Defense Minister ordered the addition of several dozens construction supervisors, essentially tripling their number, and the issuance of decrees to stop construction. I find it most encouraging that every top minister, from the PM to his group of closest ministerial advisors, saw fit to target only one type of construction: Jewish. In the meantime, the Palestinian Authority has embarked on a grand new project — surrounding the existing Jewish habitats in Judea and Samaria with new Arab construction, illegal settlements of their own, to the tune of more than 50,000 "state-sponsored" units. Unless PM Netanyahu's move is designed to deflect attention from other actions, one must conclude that today's European Union resolution introduced by Sweden to be considered next week in Brussels to recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent Palestinian state is both warranted and justified. Priorities are set, action is put in motion and consequences are therefore logical. Following the Goldstone Report, there is clearly a need to take corrective action. Since the only party responsible is incapable of doing anything, others take an active role. The EU will pave the way to the establishment of a state for the eternal refugees, currently without leadership, facilitating in its wake the demolition of the Jewish State. Israel has yet to internalize these ever-increasing attacks on her. Israel will have to make tough choices, top officials keep reminding the Israeli citizenry. At least two are the fate of approximately 25,000 Iranian Jews still in Iran and how to fight multiple fronts when priorities must be established. Why talk about a looming war and Armageddon when December 1st is a beautiful, sunny warm day in Israel, and what one hears are the voices of children in kindergartens and schools and witnesses the amazing strength of the Israeli economy? Things are good in Israel, very good indeed. There is a construction boom, with cranes seen atop the urban landscape everywhere. In recent years there have been massive infrastructure construction projects, primarily new and improved roads, overpasses and highways. Since the economic meltdown of a year ago, people moved huge amounts of cash, earning zero interest, parked at financial institutions of murky future, into real estate. Liquidity was turned into tangible assets, all aiming high, into the skies. Massive new buildings, 15, 20 and more stories high, are springing to life everywhere. These will necessitate additional infrastructure to accommodate all the families that are going to move in — from kindergartens to schools, roads leading to and from these new communities to new bus routes, and water and sewage, at time that water is becoming more and more precious. Most noticeable, probably, is that with added height, mass and density, Israel's cities are becoming more vulnerable. Hamas had a capability display, launching an Iranian medium- to long-range missile into the sea. This arms flexing was immediately followed by a statement — for those who might have intended to ignore the obvious — that Tel Aviv is now in range. Has Israel forgotten what it meant to be in the line of fire of Saddam Hussein's Skad Missiles in 1991 or Hizbollah's missiles in 2006 or Hamas rockets in 2009? It is better to bask at the warmth of the sun, at the beginning of December, and look at all that is flourishing here in Israel. The alternative? Get ready. The attacks will undoubtedly begin. The past would seem so distant, the future grim. Practice, train, evaluate and try to improve readiness now. This should be the recipe followed; it is not. The scenario: Hizbollah in the North; The scenario of all the above acting in unison, with some seasoning from Turkey, Russia or others getting involved, is what frightens some in Israel. One interpretation of "touch choices" was to indicate to the populace that Israel may be unable to fight in all fronts simultaneously. I contend that Israel will fight and succeed, once she is dealt such a blow that she returns to her most basic animalistic instinct — the need to survive and prevail. Israel in recent decades has not been fighting to win. She has become entangled too much in wonder and criticism, in thinking about everyone else before her own self-being. She has become so distracted and unfocused that the image of a victor became separate from the grim reality. She has become weak. Once Israel decides she fights to win, tough choices will be made, but win she will. The country will be covered with rockets, the 80,000 now in ready-bunkers in Lebanon with an additional continuous stream of weaponry arriving from Iran via Syria, by air, land and sea, and those that are in Gaza with replenishment via the Sinai Peninsula. Israel may be hit with both chemical and biological agents — Iran has used chemical weapons before and the introduction of biological weapons has been studied and perfected by many. Wave after wave of homicide bombers will be unleashed on Israel, though the consequences to the perpetrators and their cohorts be horrendous. Unlike the years of the bloody Intifada, Israel will not civilly tolerate these barbaric acts any more. Israel may even be subdivided into impassable parts, if an atomic or a dirty bomb is set to go off in the center of Tel Aviv, toppling down the Azrieli Center (Tel Aviv's "Triplets Towers") and the adjacent military Headquarters. Israel is a tiny country, but it will find ways to survive and rebuild. The nuclear and other threats are topics of discussion in Israel, although it seems that the discussion does not percolate deep enough for people to change their daily routines, stop the continuous bickering and get ready. At present, no one is willing to make any "tough choices." The anger is directed internally, toward the new celeb-cause nicknamed the "Settlements." For the next two weeks, I will be reporting from the ground in Israel, providing observations and impressions, highlights and perspectives of a country in one of the most dangerous turns of its existence. Join me on this tour, as I witness the growth of a country alive and well, as the clouds are gathering with The Storm of the Century. In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related — the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts — and so is this "point — counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Contact Ari Bussel at busselari@gmail.com |
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ISRAELIS BAFFLED BY NEWS OF DEFENSELESS US SOLDIERS
Posted by Boris Celser, December 1, 2009. |
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"This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session
as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer. It's just a question
of how much damage he can do with it before you take it away from
him."
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Many Israelis want to know: why didn't the soldiers attacked by a U..S. Army major-turned-terrorist return fire? When a Muslim goes, well, Muslim in Israel he is typically shot to death by someone — say, a reserve soldier — within seconds of screaming "Allah Akbar." In contrast with the Israeli experience, it took 10 minutes before a civilian police officer at Fort Hood was able to shoot and stop Muslim fanatic Nidal Malik Hasan. How could that happen? How could so many people trained in the strategies and tactics of modern warfare be so defenseless? The answer — and this may astonish many Americans — is that the victims were unarmed. U.S. soldiers are not allowed to carry guns for personal protection, even on a 340-acre base quartering more than 50,000 troops. So it goes in brain-dead-liberal America. Fort Hood is a "gun free" zone, thanks to regulations adopted in
one of the very first acts signed into law by anti-gun President Bill
Clinton in March, 1993. Click here for the file:
POSTSCRIPT: Israeli teachers, from kindergarten on up, are also armed; so, a Virginia Tech-type slaughter is highly unlikely at an Israeli university. Israelis, who have had to combat terrorism all their lives, are not afraid of guns. They are an armed people, ready, willing, and able to defend themselves and their country. 
Unlike indoctrinated Americans, paralyzed by fear and political correctness, Israelis understand that people, not guns, kill people. American Jews, for the most part, are nothing like their Israeli co-religionists. American Jews — as this American Jewish journalist well knows — are disproportionately liberal and anti-gun. This is especially true of elitist, intellectual/ professional Jews in Manhattan and the New York suburbs. They pride themselves in their masochistic, near-suicidal "tolerance" of Jew-haters and violent criminals. The lessons of the Holocaust are lost on these Jews. They relish victimhood. Proud, tough Jews and proud, patriotic Americans make liberal Jews — and liberals in general — nervous. Forwarded by Dan Sorkin However beautiful the strategy,
Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net
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MUSLIMS IN SWITZERLAND; HAMAS IMPOSES ISLAMIC LAW; IDF USED
TO SPOT "ILLEGAL" BUILDING IN JUDEA-SAMARIA; ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF FREEZE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, December 1, 2009. |
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STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN ISRAEL, OVER NETANYAHU CONCESSIONS Israeli Likud MK Danny Danon held a rally to protest PM Netanyahu's concessions to President Obama. PM Netanyahu asked other MKs not to attend that rally. Danon wants to convene the Party's Central Committee to debate PM Netanyahu's concessions, in what is shaping up as a democratic struggle there. Netanyahu's circle said that the Committee may consider only procedural matters. They say that even if Danon procures sufficient signatures on his petition, the Committee need not meet. Danon soon delivered the signatures. The furor is over Netanyahu's having been elected on a platform of allowing building in Judea-Samaria, and then unilaterally freezing Jewish building there (www.imra.org.il, (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Arutz-7, 11/29). Prime Ministers keep defying the will, the votes of the people, and the other elected officials. They use various parliamentary means to block opposition, SWITZERLAND & ITS MUSLIMS Switzerland passed a referendum as a first step in its reaction to Islam. The referendum amended the Swiss Constitution to ban erection of minarets on mosques, but not mosques, themselves. The Constitution otherwise guarantees freedom of religion. Switzerland already banned projection of high decibel levels. Minarets there do not broadcast into the streets. Therefore, the move for banning new minarets was not against noise. The party that initiated the referendum described the new ban as symbolic. That foretells of further efforts along those lines. The successful current effort bears no relation to the problems concerning Switzerland and many other countries: (1) A large Muslim immigration coupled with a low native birth rate; (2) Increasing Muslims efforts to change the national culture over to an Islamic one, starting small but having ambition, and less and less tendency to assimilate and live in tolerance; and (3) Terrorism from radicalization (New York Times and Wall St. Journal, 11/30). Not remedying any problem, the new ban is just intolerant. Hurts without healing. Immigration reform would be less of a remedy than imagined, now that Radical Muslims can use Internet to radicalize young Muslims in Western countries. HAMAS IMPOSING ISLAMIC LAW IN GAZA 
Hamas leader Haniyeh (AP/Hatem Moussa ) "The Shin Bet (Shabak, Israel's secret security force) describes how Hamas has instituted Islamic law and thought in all areas of Gaza life since its violent takeover of the area." Its main observations: " A dress code for women on the street, in schools and in courts is enforced. Principals can expel female students who do not wear a head covering and wide dresses. Judges have been instructed not to hold sessions if female lawyers do not appear in Islamic garb. On official Hamas TV, Al-Aqsa, women announcers wear a veil, and Islamic content is increasingly featured in the programs. Men may not swim in the ocean without a shirt, and female mannequins may not be exhibited in store windows. Mixed-gender public ceremonies may not be held, and men may not teach in girls' schools. Hamas is also trying to separate boys and girls in the UN-run schools. Fatah-identified teachers are being replaced by Hamas members. Hamas police arrest immodestly clad women and enforce gender separation. Unmarried couples may not appear in public; married couples must be ready to produce a marriage certificate on demand. Religious-studies classes have been added in schools, mosques and prisons. Prisoners who become more religious can have their sentences shortened. An across-the-board 1% public sector pay cut was imposed during the summer months in order to pay for summer camps for reviewing the Koran. The pace of building mosques, madrassas and Islamic sharia courts is being stepped up. Hamas is working on establishing the Islamic National Bank and an Islamic insurance company. The Bureau for Legal Counsel and Legislation is preparing a new criminal code based on Islamic law...The Shabak report emphasizes that the instilling of these and other Hamas ideas into public life is the result of a carefully orchestrated Hamas program. Hamas, as the ruling body in Gaza, "dictates daily Islamic routine," the report states (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Arutz-7, 11/29). In addition, the report notes, some organizations have cropped up to the right of Hamas, claiming that Hamas is too compromising and moderate. INSPECTION OF ILLEGAL BUILDINGS IN ISRAEL & JUDEA-SAMARIA Israel's Attorney-General Mazuz complained that there are too few inspectors to monitor illegal building. Israel Lands Fund activist Aryeh King said that 16 inspectors from a special unit of the civil administration, charged with apprehending building violations by Jews, has a caseload of 3,000 buildings in Judea and Samaria. By contrast, 8 inspectors are supposed to investigate 18,000 building violations by Arabs in the Galilee, Israel, and 6 inspectors for 26,000 buildings in eastern Jerusalem. Inspectors are afraid to enter certain Arab areas. Mr. King calls all this discrimination against Jews, Now the IDF is flying cameras not over enemy territory but over Jewish areas in Judea-Samaria, to get a baseline for detecting construction in violation of the freeze in later flyovers (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Arutz-7, 11/29). This is another case of the Army being used for internal political matters. I saw reports that more inspectors have been hired to monitor Jews. ISRAELI PROFESSOR OFFERS HOSPITALITY TO CONVICTED TERRORIST Prof. Neve Gordon, Chair of Political Science at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, offered his own home, "when convicted Fatah organizer Mohammed Abu Humus, a resident of the Issawiya neighborhood of East Jerusalem," was put under house arrest. "As a local Fatah organizer, Abu Humus had previous convictions for several security related offenses including arson and assault. Despite the latest conviction for directing demonstrators to throw rocks, Gordon described Abu Humus as a 'political prisoner...'" "A Jerusalem district judge earlier this year convicted Abu Humus and handed down a nine-month sentence, converted to house arrest. Gordon organized a group of far-left academics to testify on behalf of Abu Humus, and Gordon offered the court to host Abu Humus in Gordon's own home in Beersheva for the duration of the house arrest. It is evidently the only case on record of a Palestinian terrorist being released to house arrest in the home of a Jewish Israeli citizen." (Paul Shindman in Frontline, 11/30 from Prof. Steven Plaut, 11/30) ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF FREEZE IN JUDEA-SAMARIA Hundreds of families bought building plots and materials, laying out money for what now is tied up. The many professionals and laborers ready to work on housing there, will lose the opportunity (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ Arutz-7,11/29). MANY ANTI-ISRAEL NGOS ARE ARMS OF EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS? NGO Monitor has reached the novel conclusion that many anti-Israel NGOs are arms of governments. For years, NGO Monitor has been reporting government subsidy of such NGOs. "European governments have been major sources of funding for dozens of [ostensibly private] Israeli and Palestinian organizations claiming to promote human rights and similar moral causes." "...they are, in fact, selected and nurtured by foreign governments. And as seen in research to be discussed in a Knesset conference on December 1, their agendas are more political than moral." [Their agendas, in contrast with their statements of purpose.] Notice the sums involved, tens of millions! Many of those organizations must be dependent upon it, and would have little effect without it. The European donors are being subversive.
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 and visit his website:
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JOEL BEININ WHINES ABOUT ISRAELI AIRPORT'S "HARASSMENT"
Posted by Steven Plaut, December 1, 2009. |
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Being a leftist Anti-Zionist means not only never having to say you are sorry, such as when you get your facts all wrong. It also means that you have an obligation to represent yourself as a victim of harassment. Armchair martyrdom is as fundamental a part of leftist ideology as anti-Americanism and hatred of Israel. In his now-famous essay from July, 1976, "The Intelligent Co-ed's Guide to America," Thomas Wolfe wrote about how desperately American academics wish to feel persecuted. A pretense of being persecuted today seems to do wonders both for their ego and for their web traffic. The entire "Zionist Lobby" is largely an invention by these same people, anxious to show that they are being oppressed by an evil nefarious conspiracy. You just need to wave your stigmata and denounce the "Neo-Conservatives," the "Rightwing McCarthyists," and — of course the Jews. Whining about being persecuted seems to be the leading participation sport of today's far Leftists and the radical armchair postureurs. As documented recently on this web site [1], Joel Beinin, the Israel-hating pro-Hamas sometimes-Maoist professor of Middle East Studies at Stanford University is just such a persecution whiner. Here is what we wrote: '"McCarthyism" seems to be Beinin's third favorite "m" word, after Marxism and Mao, and he applies it liberally to anyone who dares to criticize him. Beinin wrote a 2004 article called "The New McCarthyism: Policing Thought about the Middle East [2]." In it, Beinin denounced the Ford Foundation [3]'s decision to withdraw funding from any university grantee that finances the promotion of "violence, terrorism, or bigotry or the destruction of any state." What worried Beinin was that such restrictions could potentially hurt a "Palestinian student group [that] called for the replacement of the state of Israel with a secular, democratic state," meaning one seeking the extermination of Israel.' Beinin went on to declare that Bay Area Zionists silenced him and prevented him from giving a talk to a school in San Jose. The San Francisco Chronicle checked and reported that no one at all from the local Jewish Community had even spoken with anyone at that school. Well, the good professor is back. Over the Thanksgiving weekend he widely circulated the following epistle, which we reprint for you here in full, spelling errors and all: 26 November 2009 I arrived in Israel at about 15:00 on Wednesday, 25 November afternoon to visit my mother, brother, and sister who are Israeli (and US) citizens resident in Israel since 1973. My mother has been ill, and this visit was prompted primarily for that reason. I have visited Israel dozens of times before — most recently December 2008 — and resided in the country for extended periods on several different occasions. Yesterday, for the first time since my first visit to Israel in 1965, I was detained without explanation at Ben-Gurion airport for nearly two hours and ultimately interrogated. The questioners asked questions that they surely already knew the answers to. The asked, for example, my profession and my email. My position as Donald J. McLaughlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University and my email are a matter of public record, easily obtainable from the website of Stanford's Department of History. The questioners also asked whether I had travelled (sic) to "other countries in the region" which, since they had my passport in their hands for the better part of two hours with all the relevant visa stamps, was also not obscure information. My luggage was not searched nor was I asked any question remotely related to the security of Israel except whether I had travelled (sic) to Iran (I was there once, for two weeks, in 1970 when Israel had warm relations with the Shah's regime). It therefore appears that this "investigation" had no purpose other than to harass and intimidate me. Upon leaving I was told that I would be contacted further by one "Amos" from the Ministry of Defense. For my convenience, I was given his phone number: 054-*******. Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History
The main reports about the horrific suffering by Beinin at the hands of the security personnel at Israel's airport have been on web sites run by Israel's own predominantly-Arab Stalinist communist party and on one of its front groups named "The Left Bank." Now the above Beinin hysterics about being "intimidated" need a dose of deconstruction. Beinin routinely travels to countries that happen to be at war with Israel, and has visited Iran, which happens to be officially on record as calling for the annihilation of Israel and its population. By his own admission, Beinin's passport is bristling with visas from such countries. One would expect even the sleepiest airport passport inspector at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport to sit up and take notice of someone coming into the country with such visas. Most passport inspectors at Tel Aviv airport, by the way, are teenage girls. So you can imagine the terror and intimation experienced there by the poor professor. Now Beinin's insistence that the airport security staff must have known who he is rings a bit curious. I did a search of the Hebrew web, and — sure enough — there are some internet mentions of him in Hebrew, but almost all of those are on the web sites of communist party and its fronts, which the airport inspectors may not visit on a regular basis. There are two mentions of Beinin's getting sued by Los Angeles journalist Rachel Neuwirth for his posting false smears about her. What about Beinin's claim that being questioned about his travels in belligerent countries constitutes "harassment" and "intimidation?" (We have only his word that the questioning took two hours, and no mention at all of his being offered cookies and tea; I have waited in that airport for longer just to get a guitar case out of the belly of a plane!) Well, an acquaintance of mine named Julia is an Israeli Jew born in Libya, a fact noted on her Israeli passport, and you would not believe the hassle she goes through every time she wants to come to the United States for a visit! My wife was questioned at length and searched at Tokyo airport after 9-11 because her passport says she was born in the Middle East. More to the point, Joel Beinin is an anti-Israel hate propagandist, someone who has made a career out of rationalizing anti-Jewish terrorism and endorsing Arab demands for Israel's annihilation. Other countries routinely bar hostile propagandists for far less provocation. Canada banned ultra-leftist [4] and Saddam's agent George Galloway from entering, and also banned some other radicals [5]. Canada also banned a controversial rap group from entering. The US banned Tariq Ramadan due to his terrorist connections. It has banned others for security reasons, including Cat Stevens, the British author Sebastian Horsley [6], a pro-LSD Canadian psychologist [7], and at least one Israeli [8]. The UK banned radio host Michael Savage [9] (along with 15 other people [10]) for being insensitive to Moslems, and tried to ban Dutch politician [11] Geert Wilders. Egypt has barred Hamas members from entering. The Ukraine banned the mayor of Moscow [12] from entering the country because of things he said. Now as it turns out, Israel almost never prevents anti-Israel propagandists and anti-Semitic hate-mongers from entering the country. For example, it rather stupidly allows lots of "anarchists" from the "International Solidarity Movement" and similar pro-terror groups to enter the country and then to attack its policemen and soldiers as their attempt to help Palestinian terrorists. The only two anti-Israel propagandists of note who have been barred from entering Israel in recent years were: 1. Norman Finkelstein, a Neo-Nazi who was fired by DePaul University and who was barred from entering Israel due to his intimate ties with the Hezb'Allah, and 2. Richard Falk, the anti-Semitic retired professor from Princeton who was barred from entering Israel as head of an anti-Israel UN propaganda "commission." (When Falk arrived earlier as a private person to give university lectures, he was admitted.) Anti-Israel fanatics, like Noam Chomsky and the Swedish journalist who recently invented a medieval blood libel about Jews stealing the body parts of Palestinians, have been admitted to Israel freely, although they never would be if I had anything to say about it. Even Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, whose nasty diatribe, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, has become the Koran for Israel-bashers and Jew-haters around the world, were welcomed in Israel for a speaking tour. It goes without saying that Beinin has never expressed any criticism of the fact that Israelis are prohibited altogether from entering Iran and most Arab countries. Some of those countries prohibit entry to Jews from anywhere. In Saudi Arabia you will get expelled and beaten to a pulp if you have a Hanukka Menorah or a Christmas tree. Of course the greatest irony in all of this is that Beinin was not banned from Israel at all, in spite of being a fanatical pro-terror anti-Israel propagandist. He was simply interviewed by an alert young passport inspector, suspicious of all those visas in Beinin's passport from countries seeking Israel's annihilation. For Beinin, however, the incident was a priceless opportunity to wave his stigmata and show the world what a persecuted martyr and victim he is. His questioning in the airport proves he is being intimidated and harassed by them damned Zionists! Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/01/joel-beinin -whines-about-israeli-airports-harassment-by-steven-plaut/ URLs in this post: [1] documented recently on this web site: http://frontpagemag.com../2009/10/16/collaborators-in-the- campus-war-against-israel-and-the-jews-joel-beinin-% D7%92%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9C-by-steven-plaut/feed/ [2] The New McCarthyism: Policing Thought about the Middle East:
[3] Ford Foundation:
[4] banned ultra-leftist: http://www.911blogger.com/node/19654 [5] banned some other radicals:
[6] British author Sebastian Horsley:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/idolchatter/2008/03/
[7] pro-LSD Canadian psychologist:
[8] at least one Israeli:
[9] banned radio host Michael Savage:
[10] 15 other people:
[11] tried to ban Dutch politician:
[12] banned the mayor of Moscow:
[13] Image: http://www.addtoany.com/share_save? linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffrontpagemag.com%2F2009% 2F12%2F01%2Fjoel-beinin-whines-about-israeli-airports- harassment-by-steven-plaut%2F&linkname=Joel%20 Beinin%20Whines%20about%20Israeli%20Airport%26% 238217%3Bs%20%26%238220%3BHarassment%26%23 8221%3B%20%26%238211%3B%20by%20Steven%20Plaut PS: Beinin publishes his "version" of the events here:
Note the part about how the awful harassing Israeli security officer offers Beinin the former's own personal cell phone number in case Beinin needs any help during his visit to Israel. 2. Haaretz gleefully reports that the EU is about to
demand that Jerusalem be recognized as the capital of "Palestine."
I am trying to come up with a sufficiently snarky snide response to the idea, and am having trouble doing so. Calling for turning European capitals over to the Mongols just does not cut it. Nor does turning Washington over to the confederacy. The best that I can come up with is this. We must all tell the Eurotrash that such an idea must be stopped at all costs for the sake of protecting the rights of homosexuals. You see, under Israeli rule, homosexuals can hold "Pride Parades" in Jerusalem. People may freely cheer them on or curse them or throw eggs at them. After all, Israel is (sort of) democratic. But if Jerusalem were to become the capital of "Palestine" or even a shared capital with the savages, clearly one of the first things they will do is to criminalize homosexuality in their "capital." The Palestinian Authority and its satellite terrorist groups routinely torture, murder and kneecap homosexuals. So once they have any control in Jerusalem, you can kiss those Gay Pride Marches goodbye. Given that homosexual rights are far more important to the Eurotrash than preventing Iran from conducting a nuclear war against civilization, this argument might get through to them. I can also imagine it finally persuading the Tikkun crowd to turn anti-Palestinian! 3. As you know, Jerusalem has been having more than its fair
share of hooliganism lately, most coming from the ultra-Orthodox
chareidim, who are not above taking to violence to impose their
medieval life style and world outlook on the rest of the country. But
the problem is not restricted to them. Some Jerusalem
ultra-secularists are joining in the thuggery and hooliganism. And in
the latest version, some of these philistines have taken to painting
the Tetragrammaton, the four letter name of God in Hebrew on streets
in order to upset the chareidim. You know, so cars can run over it.
See this report:
I propose instead that we chain those ultra-secularist philistines to the violent chareidim rabble and make them scrub all the graffiti off Jerusalem's walls together in chain gangs. 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@econ.haifa.ac.il His website address is
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THOMAS FRIEDMAN FIGURES IT OUT. FINALLY
Posted by Naomi Ragen, December 1, 2009. |
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Friends, For years I have said to anyone who would listen that Thomas Friedman is a consummate fake, at least when it comes to his "expertise" on the Middle East. All those years of supporting the conventional wisdom — the narrative as he now calls it — columns on Israeli intransigence, "the occupation" as being the cause of the Intifada. Misery and poverty being the root of "peaceful" Islamists blowing themselves up.etc. etc. He was the lauded guru, despite the fact that he understood nothing and his "brilliant analysis" never had an iota of truth. And now finally, when the gun is pointing towards Americans, and not Jews in Israel for a change, he's had a change of mind. The Muslim who gunned down Fort Hood soldiers, a man who had ties to terrorist organizations, who openly professed his hatred for the military war on terror, might, just might, not be a peaceful Muslim depressed by the awful way Americans treat jihadis. He might, gulp, actually be a Jihadi. Ya think? Such a brilliant deduction! Give that man another Pulitzer. Or, alternatively, fire him and put his books in the same place where the "world is definitely flat" books are kept. Naomi below an article by Tomas Friedman> Finally, the penny drops for the guru. This below is by
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What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood? Here's my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced — I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is. But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled "Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam," and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America — the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by "The Narrative." What is scary is that even though he was born, raised and educated in America, The Narrative still got to him. The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand "American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy" to keep Muslims down. Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving. Although most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist suicide bombers in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, you'd never know it from listening to their world. The dominant narrative there is that 9/11 was a kind of fraud: America's unprovoked onslaught on Islam is the real story, and the Muslims are the real victims — of U.S. perfidy. Have no doubt: we punched a fist into the Arab/Muslim world after 9/11, partly to send a message of deterrence, but primarily to destroy two tyrannical regimes — the Taliban and the Baathists — and to work with Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics. In the process, we did some stupid and bad things. But for every Abu Ghraib, our soldiers and diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own leaders. The Narrative was concocted by jihadists to obscure that. It's working. As a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said to me: "This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the world. These communities are bombarded with this narrative in huge doses and on a daily basis. [It says] the West, and right now mostly the U.S. and Israel, is single-handedly and completely responsible for all the grievances of the Arab and the Muslim worlds. Ironically, the vast majority of the media outlets targeting these communities are Arab-government owned — mostly from the Gulf." This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto America all of their people's grievances over why their countries are falling behind. And it suits Al Qaeda, which doesn't need much organization anymore — just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV, let it heat up humiliated, frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males, and one or two will open fire on their own. See: Major Hasan. "Liberal Arabs like me are as angry as a terrorist and as determined to change the status quo," said my Jordanian friend. The only difference "is that while we choose education, knowledge and success to bring about change, a terrorist, having bought into the narrative, has a sense of powerlessness and helplessness, which are inculcated in us from childhood, that lead him to believe that there is only one way, and that is violence." What to do? Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more than the West, and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking honestly at themselves. But none of their leaders dare or care to open that discussion. In his Cairo speech last June, President Obama effectively built a connection with the Muslim mainstream. Maybe he could spark the debate by asking that same audience this question: "Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, 'This is not Islam.' I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn't. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves. Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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READER-SELECTED VIDEOS
Posted by Various Readers, December, 2009. |
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From Holocaust Survivor Declares: Destroy Iranian Nuke Sites/No 2-State! From Buddy Macy This comes from http://www.NeverAgainIsNow.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBuFuqcgvv0 Zionist Sheikh" Palazzi Visits Jerusalem From Arieh (31dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__eMrhAHoN4 Israel Pavilion at World Expo 2010 — China — Great! From Boris Celser (30dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc6rmT_1BjM What America could use.....Wake up ...y'all, before it's too late. From Fred Reifenberg (30dec09) You've git some serious thinking, and work to do! For 10 minutes, please watch this video and pretend that you are neither Republican or Democrat, it could be the most important 10 minutes of your life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtjfMjjce2Y 'Victory or Death' From Yaacov Levi (29dec09) This may be too tough for some, but you decide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtjfMjjce2Y Wedding Video From LS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0 Rafiah, Rafiah From Paul Rotenberg (27dec09) For those who missed Jenin, Jenin, someone was nice enough to send us Rafiah, Rafiah. Rising Money? From Susana K-M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD068xXkCZc&feature=player_embedded A Muslim Commemorates Terrorist Martyrdom In A Texas Mall From Boris Celser (26dec09) Today I went to the Harwin Central Mall to pick up some crystals. The very first store that you come to when you walk from the lobby of the building into the shopping area had this sign posted on their door. The shop is run by Muslims. I couldn't stay in the building, it made me so sick. Feel free to share this with others. 
Herzl was the father of modern political Zionism From Gerald A. Honigman (26Dec09) While there were other important folks too, after this reporter (Herzl) covered the infamous Dreyfus Affair in "enlightened" France, he came to the conclusion that the Jewish State had to be resurrected. "Der Judenstat" was written soon afterwards. These are amazing pictures sent to me by a friend who used to write the abstracts for my articles for the Israel-based Israel Hasbara Committee, for which I am a Featured Writer. These are keepers for anyone with a sense of history. Detroit is the test grounds for this Country's Future From Boris Celser (24dec09) Detroit is a miniature of America's future! Is this what you want for our country?! Life was good and then came Hussein Obama and his administration and decided it was not "good" enough! Detroit in RUINS! (Crowder goes Ghetto) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw&feature=player_embedded# Soldier Saves Palestinian Girl Life From Sheridan Neimark (23dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt6-1ZxrB6c&feature=related Jewish communities on the West Bank From Ezra Ridgley (23dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpW8oyIUSj8 Canada Free Press Article on Global Warming From Truth Provider (22dec09) It is an interview with Dr. Tim Ball, a Canadian climatologist, who has been exposing and protesting the swindle for some years now and has experienced first hand the techniques employed by the climate lobby to stop and shut the debate. At the bottom of the article you will find two links to a live interview with Dr. Ball. I am sure you have seen media personalities and politicians, such as Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger, declare angrily that the Global Warming debate is over...Did you ask yourself why? WHY they wish to end the debate? The use of the word "debate" by itself gives away the swindle. This is not a question of a debate, but of a scientific research. Scientific research is never over until there is a conclusive proof. As long as man-made "global warming" is not proved conclusively, the "debate" cannot be over. Dr. Ball explains it better than I do, so please devote the time to read the article, listen to the interview and study the issue and what's behind it. It is your pockets and your way of life that's at stake. Idiots on Parade in Copenhagen From Truth Provider (19dec09) And some of you still insist that the goal of the whole thing is to combat Global Warming... For those, here is the real agenda. youtube.com/watch?v=HNQqUACJ_Kw&feature=player_embedded Much Ado about Nothing From Truth Provider (19dec09) Even more pathetic than the two weeks total waste of time, millions of dollars and huge "carbon foot prints" spent by 193 heads of state, was the attempt tonight by NPR to spin the laughable occasion into a success: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121658065 "Key components of the core five-nation deal call for keeping temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050; creating a $100 billion-per-year fund by 2020 to help poor nations deal with the effects of climate change; and establishing some means of verifying if nations are doing their part to hold down carbon emissions." Do not forget, in Gore's movie he talks about 20 degrees in a few years and he calls it Global Warming. Suddenly it is 2 degrees by 2050 and GW is now a mere Climate Change. Last time I checked the weather, it went up and down 2 degrees within minutes. NPR continues: "In the end, before a hurried trip home to beat a snowstorm (!) sweeping up the East Coast, Obama claimed success: "For the first time in history," the president said, "all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change." "Climate Change" again. What Obama says is a lie. No country except those that wish to get money from the USA has accepted any responsibility, none whatsoever. "The wheels of Air Force One were hardly off the ground before complaints were hurled at the five-nation agreement. European nations felt snubbed for not being primary parties to the deal, although they had been closely consulted in the closing frenzy of negotiations." Hey, did Obama not say that for the first time in history, all major economies accepted their responsibility? Who is lying, Obama or NPR? Meanwhile, while Much Ado about Nothing is on the Copenhagen stage, the Saudis are also mounting a Shakespearian play titled Oil Well that Ends Well. Those of you who are not duped by the liberal media can sleep quietly. We have huge amounts of oil reserves in Alaska and natural gas all over. Instead of wasting billions of dollars on grotesque dictators like Chaves, let us invest it in explorations for renewal sources of energy in our shores while we enjoy the cheap oil that belongs to us. Free market and good old entrepreneurship skills will produce the solution the American way. It is called INGENUITY!!! So, sleep peacefully tonight, and tomorrow start aiming at throwing all the bums out in 2010. Enjoy your cars, your vacations and your life style and do not worry, just like George Carlin advises us in the following clip (be advised, some strong language, if you care about it). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOOc5yiIWkg Former Terrorist speaks out -NEW- A MUST From Susana K-M (19dec09) This is Hamid Tawfik — speaking on Islam and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2wvqDfitLY New bunch graphics From Fred Reifenberg (19dec09) http://freifenberg-newblog.blogspot.com/ Try this on for size: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Ds8ryWd5aFw How To Slit Throats From Boris Celser (17dec09) Jihad maneuvers taught at New York compound: Islamberg. Christian Action Network, the same organization that produced the documentary film "Homegrown Jihad," has released a new video. According to WorldNetDaily, the video is a "training video" filmed at the Muslims of America headquarters in Hancock, NY, and provided by an "unnamed law enforcement source." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebg6AFylios Actual Answering Machine — Australian school From Boris Celser (17dec09) All I Want for Christmas Is... Jews From Boris Celser (17dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8LmMtScH3g Very important! information on demographics From Robert Goldstein (16dec09) http://vodpod.com/watch/1556782-muslim-demographics Hamas Leaders Hid in Tunnels, Launched Rockets From Among Children and Elderly From Sheridan Neimark Following are excerpts from statements by Bassam Zakarneh, head of the Palestinian Authority Workers' Union, which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on November 9, 2009. To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2288.htm. MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 2695: "Kuwaiti Columnist Fuad Al-Hashem Explains the Anti-Hamas Tone in His Articles." Following are excerpts from an interview with Kuwaiti journalist Fuad Al-Hashem, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on September 25, 2009. To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2275.htm Priest leads attack on Moldova Menorah From Yael from Road 90 (15dec09) First of all let us wish you all and your family a Happy Hanukkah! Priest leads attack on Moldova Menorah [click here] - Rabbis and Yasuf village elders meet at junction after burning of mosque [click here] - Nuts about Donuts [click here] - Hanukkah lighting at Ma'arat HaMachpela [click here] - Chanukah: The Jewish Achievement Test [click here] Jewish women in Ontario offered free genetic test to prevent cancer From Boris Celser (14dec09) theglobeandmail/jewish-women-in-ontario-free-genetic-test/1399826 2010 FORECAST: TRANSITION FROM GLOBALIZATION TO WORLD GOVERNMENT From Adrian Salbuchi (13dec09) Contact: arsalbuchi@gmail.com Salbuchi from Argentina proposes a Model that helps to understand the dynamics of what is currently taking place in the world, which he defines as the overlapping and increasingly violent process that marks the end of Globalization and the birth of World Government. Ten Tenors Tribute From Chaplain Robert G. Balnicky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL-0mdEg0U4&feature=related NEFESH B' NEFESG HANUKKAH FLASH MOB-BEN YEHUDA ST, JERUSALEM From Cpocerl youtube.com/watch?v=ULtglogZbR8&feature=player_embedded Shoula's speech about Obam and Israel From Shoula Romano Horing (11dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN_ElnJfQFc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAsm-6YhueY&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0CWrEEPkc8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKXGJ6G7fS4&feature=related Israeli Tennis team in Sweden From Sheridan Neimark (11dec09) Not only disturbing but frightening. This is now! When the Israeli tennis team came to play in Sweden, most of the public was barred from the stadium, because the Israeli's safety could not be guaranteed. http://vodpod.com/watch/1428923-sweden-in-grip-of-islam Video song: Hanukkah in Jerusalem. November 2009 From Boris Celser (10dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtglogZbR8 A Chanukah Song from Senator Hatch From Naomi Ragen (10dec09) A Chanukah Song from Senator from Utah, Orrin G. Hatch, a Mormon who wears a mezuzah and wishes sometimes he was Jewish. The video was posted Tuesday night on Tablet, an online magazine of Jewish lifestyle and culture, just in time for Hanukkah. Known around the Senate as a prolific writer of Christian hymns and patriotic melodies, Mr. Hatch, 75, said this was his first venture into Jewish music. It will not be his last. Adding to the project's only-in-America mishmash is that the song is performed by Rasheeda Azar, a Syrian-American vocalist from Indiana. But Mr. Hatch is the song's unquestioned prime mover, or macher. He is featured in the video, sitting stoic in the studio, head bobbing slightly, donning earphones and contributing backup vocals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnIcPoY3cCk Also available here. CRIMINALLY INSANE WHITE HOUSE USURPATIONS AND PREMEDITATED USA HIV INFES. From Mirisni Regional-Killer-Boyden-Gray-NYC-HIV-Testing-Vaccine-2009 Political Correctness More Important than Soldiers Lives From Boris Celser (9dec09) http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnPlayer.swf?aid=11991 American culture From Boris Celser (8dec09) http://sorisomail.com/email/446/americanos-nao-sao-estupidos.html hought-provoking and apposite from CIF Watch — Brainwashing of Britain From Boris Celser (8dec09) http://cifwatch.com/2009/12/07/brainwashing-of-britain/ EDL video From Boris Celser (8dec09) http://lionheartuk.blogspot.com/2009/09/emerging-new-english-generation.html? Happy Hanukkah From Yael from Road 90 (8dec09) "Happy Hanukkah" from President Peres [click here] Israel's Electric Car [click here] Rocket engines coming to cars [click here] - Antiquities of Ashkelon and Caesarea [click here] - Prayer from Israel [click here] Helicopter Flight over Jerusalem [click here] YouTube Co-Founder meets Israeli Viral-Video Stars [click here] - Palestinian Children Indoctrination [click here] Quite a few rational Arabs around saying more or less the same thing. From Aryeh Zelasko (8dec09) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2wvqDfitLY The man who snuck IN to Auschwitz From Robert Dzubow (7dec09) This man should be remembered in the Avenue of the Righteous. With the movement of so many to erase the facts of the holocaust, he stands a witness as courage and the power of one. This is an awesome story of a British POW from a nearby prison camp who traded places with a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz, and managed to get the Jew cigarettes, chocolate and a letter from his sister in England. The Jewish prisoner survived the war, but never saw his benefactor again. But you will see both of them if you read the story and watch the videotapes embedded on the page. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8382457.stm The Globalist Agenda From Boris Cellser (7dec09) Paris today From Israel Ben-Ami youtube.com/user/ciceropicas#p/u/0/KSne0bQ3mug waterboarding From Boris Celser (5dec09) Waterboarding: Playboy.com journalist Mike Guy underwent waterboarding by a trained member of the U.S. military in the site's new Lab Rat feature. content1.clipmarks.com/7E8ADC46-F3DD-4D6F-B184-3A07CF501B7C/ A Magnificent Site From Truth Provider (5dec09) Today, I wish to acquaint you with an extraordinary Internet site www.ted.com This site contains some of the best speakers and speeched on arts and the creative process. No, do not stop reading! To start you on your incredible quest, here is a link to one of those speeches by Lord Ken Morrison. Not only a fabulous sense of humor, but profound message about creativity. If you have very young children, this is a must for you. Do not miss it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&NR=1 ACHMED THE DEAD TERRORIST SINGS CHRISTMAS CAROLS. From CPocerl (4dec09) http://boortz.com/more/signings/an_achmed_christmas.html Fw: WATCH THE SECOND (not first) VIDEO BEFORE IT IS REMOVED AGAIN From Boris Celser www.IsraelNationalNews.com/TAMAR A GREAT STORY ABOUT THE P-51 — GRAY EAGLES FILM From Chaplain Robert G. Balnicky This is a great story about the P-51 plane and a pilot in WW II. http://www.asb.tv/videos/view.php?v=1bf99434&br=500 9-11 Memorial in Jerusalem From Truth Provider 3dec09 This time a most moving video that emphasizes the deep bond between Israel and the USA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRPYTiN5Oso&feature=player_embedded> Movie at San Francisco Jewish Move Festival From BE Shep 3dec09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nalP2eUADTQ A Former Terrorist Speaks Out — Islam and the Israeli — Palestinian conflict — MUST WATCH From Boris Celser (Dec 3 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2wvqDfitLY Pakistan's Gun Market From Benami (December 3, 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9xf62PKC5M Jew retaliates for attempted murder of his wife and is arrested! From Aryeh Zelasko (December 3, 2009) After dramatic footage of last week's events was aired by Israel's Channel 2 television, a police spokesman said on Wednesday the Palestinian was also being investigated over the wounding of two women with a knife. youtube.com/watch?v=yHdUffILAfc&feature=player_embedded Tory Muslim peer Baroness Warsi pelted with eggs From Boris Celser (December 3, 2009) Baroness Warsi was taking part in a walkabout in the Muslim Bury Park area of Luton when she was confronted by a group of protesters. The male protesters accused her of not being a proper Muslim and supporting the death of Muslims in Afghanistan. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/8387331.stm Sderot Dove: peace against hate From Yael from Road 90 - Sderot Dove: peace against hate [click here] - Jerusalem Temple Worship [Part1] - Jeff Seidel's Shabbat in Israel [click here] - Scuba Diving the Red Sea and enjoying fascinating deco time in Israel [click here] - Wine Industry in Israel [click here] - Arik Einstein — Love me tender in Hebrew [click here] |
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