| HOME | Featured Stories | January 2010 Blog-Eds List | Background Information | News On the Web |
Opinions And Editorials By Our Readers
NOTE: Links to Videos are at the bottom
of this page.
|
ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: COLORED ROCKS ALONG THE SHORELINE
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, January 31, 2010. |
|
This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: This week's photo falls into the category of "when life gives you lemons." Walking along the shore of the Red Sea in Eilat, I looked skyward and frowned at the thick clouds enveloping the region and scuttling chances for an eventful afternoon shoot. I paused to sit on a cement wall at water's edge and removed a persimmon from my camera bag, peeled away the skin with a pocket knife, and considered my options. Then I looked down at my feet. I think the most successful artists are those who learn to see what's closest to them, and who are not in constant search of life's grandeur. I often tell my students good photographs can be found anywhere, and frequently within an arm's length of where they are standing at that moment. I hadn't thought about these thousands of colored rocks and I had no idea they existed until I chanced to spot them. Glistening and clean in the tidal action, these rocks are a visual symphony, and it wasn't hard to find a grouping that included a pleasing range of colors, sizes, and shapes. And here's how I made the lemonade, with assistance from the clouds: Bright colors look richer on overcast days, when there is little direct sunlight to bleach their hues. Appropriately, I pulled my close-up (macro) lens from my bag, snapped it onto my D-300 and held it above this small sampling of beach, careful to keep the camera parallel to the ground to preserve edge to edge sharpness. Remaining open to something new led me to the gate of good fortune.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
|
|
IRAN WILL UNLEASH THEIR PROXIES, HEZB'ALLAH & HAMAS ON ISRAEL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 31, 2010. |
|
General (ret.) Jim Jones, President Barack Hussein Obama's National Security Advisor, announces through CNN that, because of Israeli and international pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, Iran will unleash Hezb'Allah and Hamas to attack Israel. I was struck by Jones suddenly becoming a vocal part of Obama's Public Relations/Propaganda organization. Why would Obama's team want to stir the pot in the Middle East at a time when his popularity poll numbers have fallen to a low of 48% disapproval rating while his own Democrats are backing away from his policies? Could it be the old and useful formula of inciting a war between Israel and proxies of Iran, namely Hezb'Allah and Hamas — on orders of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Ayatollahs? Why would these radical Islamists want to do Obama a favor just before America's mid-term elections, allowing Obama to "act Presidential and Commander-in-Chief" in a crisis? Rahm Emanuel as creative advisor to the President is well-known for his homily: "Never waste a crisis". One needn't wait for a crisis when you can start your own. But, why would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want to do Obama a favor by having Hebz'Allah and Hamas attack Israel — as stated by Jim Jones. Or, said another way, what did Obama do for Iran? Well....Obama does have a friendly outreach policy to Iran and Syria where he has chosen useless dialogue as opposed to actual pressure to force Iran to stand down Ahmadinejad's Nuclear Operation. Obama engages in talk — talk of putting severe sanctions on Iran that seems to never take effect. Many strategists see this extended time lag as a policy of allowing Iran to go Nuclear and then saying there's nothing he can do about it other than accept the facts. That's a big favor given that a Nuclear-capable Iran could rule the Middle East with Nuclear Weapons that all nations knew they would use. That would start a Nuclear Arms Race as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States who would start fielding their own Nuclear Weapons as a defense against Iran's domination. Regrettably, their efforts at defense will come too late due to Obama's assistance to Iran who complete its Nuclear Capability soon and have several operational nuclear bombs. Israel — like America, England, France would never use such a weapon — except in a dire emergency — whereas Iran has already threatened Israel repeatedly with total annihilation. IF Ahmadinejad agrees to start an open-ended war against Israel through his proxies, Hezb'Allah and Hamas — which would save Obama's Presidency — would that be considered treason? A nuclear-armed Iran would certainly be a significant threat to some 300,000 to 500,000 American troops stationed in the whole Middle East and South East Asia plus Europe and even Russia. Iran has demonstrated successful tests of large missiles that can reach as far as Europe and all of the Middle Eastern nations. Is keeping Obama's Presidency that important, given the danger a Nuclear-armed Iran would pose, given their religiously-driven beliefs that if Iran is destroyed in a retaliatory strike, all of her Muslims would be ushered into Allah's Paradise as Shaheeds (martyrs for Islam)? On reflection, it seems that the selection of General Jones to be the announcer of this coming event would make a lot of sense to Obama and his advisors, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, James Baker III, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft.... The statement by Jones that Israel's pressure on Iran to stop their Nuclear Development would mean it's all Israel's fault. Jones' hostility toward the Jewish Nation/State of Israel is no secret in Washington nor to Israel. Pre-arranging the blame is a clear, though a vicious betrayal of an ally. This level of betrayal would have to go well beyond closed doors in the White House but also includes the U.S. State Department and the CIA among the 16 other American Intel Agencies. I know that one is reminded of the Iranian prison release of the 52 Americans held hostage in a suspicious time frame after the election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. (1) Also, one must think of the arranged Gulf of Tonkin event which accelerated the Vietnam War up to a higher level. Politics and the history of Europe's Kings and Popes staging events and war for what they considered their "right-to-rule". Adolph Hitler used his claimed rights of the Sudetenland Germans to launch his planned offensive to conquer all of Europe (before he conquered the rest of the world) for his 1000 Year Third Reich. Getting Iran to start WW3 by using their proxies of Hezb'Allah in Lebanon/Syria and Hamas in Gaza, Judea and Samaria — as a favor to a President who has chosen to allow Islam to flourish with Nuclear Weapons may not b e as far-fetched as it sounds. I wonder how Charles Krauthammer, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, Ruell Marc Gerecht, Douglas Feith, Alan Dershowitz, the Robert and Frederick Kagan family, the Norman and John Podhoretz family and other fair and free thinkers would think about Gen. Jones announcement to the Media? (2) Would they conclude that there were possibly other motives — such as sending invading foreign troops as "Peace-Keepers" into Israel, Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem to force another Muslim Arab Palestinian state into existence? Then they could claim it as a "Presidential Victory" for Obama, therefore, making him worthy of a second-term in office. Another piece of the puzzle would be Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu election pledge — not unlike former PM Ariel (Arik) Sharon breaking his commitment to his constituents NOT to give up Gaza, Judea and Samaria, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley but, shortly into his term as PM, he did evacuate 10,000 Jewish men, women and children from Gush Katif/Gaza and Northern Samaria. Bibi knows full well that driving 300,000 to 500,000 Jews from Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights as Sharon and OLmert did in Gaza would lead to outright Civil War between Jews. But, if he were to complete the betrayal according to Obama, he would have to go along with such a plan for Iran to unleash Hezb'Allah and Hamas so the nations, led by Obama, could mount an outright invasion of Israel, calling it a peace plan. Moreover, that would entail thousands of missiles striking Israel's cities and additional losses of soldiers in battle — further pressing Israel to accept the losses demanded by Obama and the nations. I think we could all agree that politicians, kings, religious orders, etc. believe their hold on power is vital and will do anything to gain and keep power, no matter how terrible the cost to all others. For Ahmadinejad to do a "favor" for an American President who, in practice, abandoned both the pressure of sanctions and an actual military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities explains Obama's policies of treating Terrorist Nations and Terrorists caught having attacked America as a "minor" issue. The two most recent attacks by Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan who massacred 13 soldiers at Fort Hood and the undie-bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who almost massacred 278 Americans on Northwest flight #253 (plus countless others who might have been hit on the ground in Detroit.) (3 & 4) So, let us hear from the pundits as to why Obama, through Jim Jones, is soliciting a war against Israel, using Iran to unleash Hezb'Allah and Hamas to attack — thus raising the political profile of a failing President before Mid-Term elections in November 2010 — leading to Presidential elections in 2012. Will the Left-Leaning pro-Obama Media dare to raise the issue and pose questions to Obama, General Jones, Rahm Emanuel....? Will the Israeli Left-Leaning Media dare to question Netanyahu and Barak on the same issue? And — where is Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in all this swirl of existential threats to Israel's very existence? Why does he seem to have fallen off the radar of the Media? I do not trust such leaders, no matter how smoothly they talk, smile — and lie. Footnotes 1. "IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS" Wikipedia
2. "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: Why we can no longer remain on the sidelines in the struggle for regime change in Iran — The U.S. should act to strengthen the opposition and to deepen rifts among the rulers" by Richard N. Haas NEWSWEEK Feb. 1, 2010 3. "PHOTOS OF THE NORTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT 253 BOMB: Accused
Bomber Abdulmutallab's Underwear, Explosive Packet and Detonator" by
Richard Esposito & Brian Ross, ABC News
4. "PASSENGER LIGHTS EXPLOSIVES ON AIRPLANE: 2 hurt, 1 detained in
"Attempted Act of Terrorism" on Amsterdam-Detroit Flt; Man Claims Al
Qaeda Tie" CBS/AP
|
|
ARAB/ANARCHIST MOB ATTACKS AT FENCE; ISRAEL ASSASSINATED ASSASSIN?
NEW ISRAEL FUND FINANCES MOST ANTI-ZIONIST ORGANIZATIONS IN ISRAEL?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 31, 2010. |
|
ARAB/ANARCHIST MOB ATTACKS AT FENCE 
The NY Times updated the story of the weekly attacks at the Israeli security fence at Bilin (1/29, A4). Abbas considers those protests "a model of legitimate resistance." The mobs attempt to damage the fence and attack the usually mild mannered guards with rocks and fists. Therefore, Abbas is condoning a certain level of violence. The pro-Arab Israeli "civil rights" organizations complained that the usual guards' reaction is too harsh, because they use rubber-bullets that sometimes injure members of the mob. The article cites Arab witnesses [without stating whether their testimony was confirmed, which it usually is not, usually is propaganda coached by terrorist organizations]. Members of the mob complained that this time, the IDF reacted more forcefully to being attacked. They said that, after all, they were not armed. Some on the Left may not consider rocks and firebombs as being armed, but stoning is a traditional method of execution in the Mideast. The NY Times describes the confrontations as violent, but is cagey about who initiated them. It also referred to members of the International Solidarity Movement as a "pro-Palestinian group." It is a pro-terrorist group and has actively interfered with Israeli security measures. The Army reacted forcefully, apparently having realized that its previous tactic of mostly just pushing back failed to deter larger mobs from re-forming the next week. [How wise was failing to arrest the mobs, before?] Some Arabs were arrested. Foreigners who over-stayed their Israeli visas deported. [Why only those who over-stay?] A ringleader claimed to have funding from the Spanish government. The IDF reports that about a hundred troops were wounded in the clashes in the past two years. [Wounded to what extent and by what? Are scratches counted? If really wounded, then the mob exerted significant force.] HAMAS ACCUSES ISRAEL OF HAVING POISONED ITS OFFICIAL 
A founder of Hamas and a leading terrorist commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, was murdered in Dubai, Friday. Conflicting reports were issued about the manner of death. The only definite claim was by Dubai police, that professional hit men possessing European passports followed al-Mabhouh to Dubai, struck soon after his arrival, and escaped immediately. Nevertheless, Hamas accuses Israel of the assassination and vows revenge (Robert F. Worth & NY Times, 1/30, A8). 1/31 update: Hamas now accuses Israel of having poisoned the man ( www.imra.org.il). This case is typical. An Arab is assassinated. While the case still is a mystery, the Arabs blame Israel and vow revenge. Arab culture tends to blame foreigners and enemies for all its problems. It does not require evidence and may disregard it. Rivals accuse other factions, such as the terrorist-sponsoring Abbas regime, of being agents of Zionism. Why? That is the worst insult the rivals can imagine. Hamas is in a self-declared war on the Jewish state, using illegal means. Sometimes the Mossad does assassinate terrorist leaders. That is to be expected. Some of us Westerners find odd the notion that such a strike warrants retaliation, when the strike is retaliation, perhaps in retaliation for al-Mabhouh having organized the kidnapping of an Israeli for ransom. Some cultures, tribal ones especially, emphasize retaliation. Feuds can endure. I find unfair the wreaking of vengeance upon someone who committed no offense but belongs to an ethnic group that may have. Taking out resentment or upholding "honor" by punishing the innocent, resembles racism. Indeed, many Muslim Arabs interpret their scripture as exhorting them to kill Jews in all eras and in all places for a conflict with a few Jews in a small locale hundreds of years ago. Does that make sense? Well, the Muslim concept, augmented by Nazi racial theory, is that all Jews possess the same traits, and these are evil. The Arab conflict with Israel therefore is racist. Another factor is the Muslim doctrine that any area freed from Islam, as are Israel and Spain, must be restored to Islam. The Arab domination of the Holy Land lasted only a couple of hundred years. Turks took it over for another 400 years or so, until Britain dissolved the Turkish Empire and let the Arabs have most of the Mideast but restored a tiny portion of the Empire to the Jewish people. The modern Zionist liberation of part of the Jewish homeland was described by one reader as, "The Jews stole the Holy Land." Apparently, he does not know what is meant by the Holy Land. It encompasses the ancient Land of Israel, made holy by what was described in the Hebrew Testament before Islam existed. That area is five times the size of Israel. Almost four-fifths of it has become the Palestinian Arab state called the Kingdom of Israel. Some of the rest is officially disputed. Whatever privately owned land Zionists acquired, was by purchase or, by default, when the Arabs domestically and from abroad tried to wipe the Jews out, lost, and fled. And now they wax indignant? U.S. WILL NOT TRY 9/11 TERRORISTS IN NEW YORK CITY 
Mayor Bloomberg against trying terrorists in NYC (A.P./Hanny Ray Abrams) The U.S. has dropped its plan to try 9/11 terrorists in New York City, near the hole they made in it [and which still is there]. What caused them to reconsider? Mayor Bloomberg originally thought the plan was a fine idea. He came to realize that the City does not have the hundreds of millions of dollars for providing security each year for lengthy trial(s). Police Chief Kelly advised leading citizens that to ensure security, he would have to turn lower Manhattan into a fortress and intrude on civilian lives. People didn't want their lives disrupted, their city finances further burdened, and their ailing real estate industry restricted. Politicians, civic leaders, and business leaders all protested to the federal government (Scott Shane & Benjamin Weiser, NY Times, 1/30, A1). For a year, people gave President Obama the benefit of the doubt, assuming he was inexperienced. Now it appears more a matter of his pursuing ideological notions without pertinent thought. He was trying to treat war crimes as civilian offenses. He should have realized that this would turn New York City into a war zone. I guess he doesn't read the Wall Street Journal, which pointed out the problems. Did he merely back off from opposition, or will he analyze the broader problem of civilian trials for terrorists? (For more on this, click here) NEW U.S. EFFORT TO PREVENT IMPORTED TERRORISM The U.S. is hiring and training teams of specialists whose mission it is to pursue and combine isolated clues about imminent terrorist plots against parts of the U.S.. Previously, no one had responsibility for detecting particular plots against U.S. soil. "Any increase would be a sharp reversal of fortune for the counter-terrorism center, which just days before the Dec. 25 airliner bomb plot, was preparing to cut, its workforce of up to 20%, including analysts and terrorist watch list personnel." Now that the government realized it needs to combine its separate lists to prevent suspected terrorists from flying into the U.S., it lacks the staff to input the data (Eric Schmitt, NY Times, 1/30, A3). Having designed computer systems to combine files automatically, I suppose the government needs the staff to evaluate the filed data, surely not to key it all into another file. Since the news brief is not clear, I am not sure what is meant. If you read this article in combination with my prior article, you would see that the government is making a series of blunders that assist terrorism. More broadly, rising expenses are rendering Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security untenable, while the government takes on more and more expensive responsibility that put the country and the economy under a crushing debt. I do not think that terrorists could damage the country any more than does Congress and the President. A dysfunctional government put in charge of the economy can not, Obama's ideology to the contrary, solve society's problems. Americans wanted change, but they did not ask change to what. NEW ISRAEL FUND FINANCES MOST ANTI-ZIONIST ORGANIZATIONS IN ISRAEL? This weekend's Maariv exposes the New Israel fund for financing anti-Israel propaganda groups in Israel. The expose is based on a study by Im Tirtzu, a Zionist student group. The study found that the New Isreal Fund finances most of the Israeli anti-Zionist organizations. The group also discovered that the UN Goldstone report took 92% of its anti-Israel material from organizations funded by the New Israel Fund. The New Israel Fund chairlady is Naomi Hazan, former Member of Knesset for the semi-Marxist Meretz Party. Israel has no law against foreign anti-Israel and antisemitic organizations financing treasonous organizations (Prof. Steven Plaut, 1/29). Some Israeli officials are proposing such laws. In his State of the Union message, President Obama proposed a law barring foreign corporations from contributing to American political campaigns. (There may already be such a law; he may have misstated what the Supreme Court ruled.) The significance of Goldstone's taking most of its material from biased organizations is that it did not make an independent study. The Goldstone Report is in a poro position to spurn IDF investigations as not independent. The news brief is not clear whether the New Israel Fund sends some subsidy to most of the anti-Zionist organizations in Isarel or most of the subsidy. After all, European governments spend millions of dollars a year on those organizations.
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:
|
|
BARAK ORDERS IDF REDEPLOYMENT FROM NORTH TO PLACATE SYRIA
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 31, 2010. |
|
This ties into Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak's subversion of the Jewish Nation/State of Israel — to abandon the Golan Heights to Syria. Previously, Barak tried to drive civilians and IDF soldiers off their homes and strategic positions on the Golan Heights. Israel has had a solid peace with Syria since the Golan was liberated in 1967 and defended in 1973 — just because Israel sits on the Golan and Mt. Hermon, looking down into Damascus, Syria. From these Heights Israel can see directly IF Syria starts up one tank, Israel can see and prepare to defend herself. And the Golan Heights sits astride 1/3rd of Israel's fresh water resources which flow into Israel's only fresh water lake, the Kinneret. Now Barak orders IDF removal so Syria can freely invade the Golan. This is an evil man who should be tried for treason and face a capital sentence ordered by the Court. There seems little doubt what Ehud Barak couldn't achieve by scare tactics, he now rushes to accomplish by leaving the Golan unprotected so Syria can just march in and take it. Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu should relieve him of his appointed post immediately — unless he is also a co-conspirator willing to let Israeli civilians be shot or captured by the Syrians and Hezb'Allah, the Syrians proxies. Then clearly, both would be considered traitors — if judged by their actions in a fair Court of Israeli citizens. This below was written by Ezra HaLevi for Arutz-7 (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). |
|
Following his decision to halt the refurbishing of the country's gas masks, Defense Minister Ehud Barak is now redeploying the IDF away from the north, deeming war with Syria "unlikely." Barak ordered the redeployment from the Golan Heights following months of training exercises and a steady stream of rumors among Israelis that war with Syria would break out in the course of the summer months. Ma'ariv newspaper quoted Israeli defense officials claiming that, with the IDF's decision to redeploy, Syria has also lowered its readiness for war. The officials refused to outline what steps Syria had taken, saying they were classified. Defense Minister Barak halted the refurbishing of the country's gas masks last week for fear that Syria would see the step as a sign of war-preparation. IDF standing army troops and reservists who are scheduled to engage in exercises and war games in the north will now be redirected to Israel's south. Regularly stationed IDF forces will remain along the northern border at a full state of readiness. Though IDF intelligence acknowledges that Syria continues to develop and improve its military capabilities, particularly long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, leaks to Israel's state-run media are conveying the message that war with Syria is now "unlikely." Hezb'Allah Rearmed and Ready Barak warned on Monday that the Hezb'Allah terrorist group is rearming out of reach of UN peacekeepers, and now has more rockets than at the beginning of the Second Lebanon War. He also said that tensions between Israel and Syria were fading. Barak made the comments speaking before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday. As the architect of the unilateral Israeli retreat from the security zone in Lebanon seven years ago, Barak has been blamed by security experts for bringing about the Second Lebanon War. Harsh Criticism From Opposition Opposition members criticized Barak for lowering his guard on the Syrian border and said Israel must not be fooled by the superficial calm. "To note that the Hezb'Allah has rearmed and at the same time claim that Syria is no longer a threat is like the man who jumps from a 21 floor building and at the 16th floor says 'So far so good'," said MK Effie Eitam (National Union-NRP), a Golan Heights resident. 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 |
|
"ISLAM4UK" BANNED IN BRITAIN
Posted by Susana K-M, January 31, 2010. |
|
Thiis was written by Daniel Atzori. |
|
Islam4UK, the radical Islamist group that intended to march through Wootton Bassett, will be outlawed in the United Kingdom under counter-terrorism legislation; being a member of it, or of Al Muhajiroun of which Islam4UK is a splinter group, will be a criminal offence punishable by up to ten years in prison. Wootton Bassett, a small town in the South of England, is where British soldiers who sacrificed their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan are honored after being repatriated. The silent ceremony of the coffins parading through the streets of Wootton Basset has become familiar throughout the United Kingdom, as a symbol of patriotism. There, people pay their last tribute to relatives, friends and fellow citizens slaughtered while defending freedom and fighting global terrorism. Radical Islamists of Islam4UK are extremely conscious of the importance of symbols. Islam4UK, which advocates the enforcement of shari'a (Islamic law) in the United Kingdom, had planned a protest march in the town of Wootton Basset, and revealed its intention to carry empty coffins through the streets of the town, while affirming that "occupying and merciless" British soldiers are responsible of "horrifically" murdering innocent people, committing "genocide" and carrying out a "crusade". Anjem Choudary, the spokesman of Islam4UK, described British soldiers as "brutal murderers" and "cowards," and said he considers "vile" the parades which take place in Wootton Basset. Anjem Choudary, a British citizen of Pakistani origins who benefited from the British education system, became a solicitor and eventually the former chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers. As reported by "The Sun," the British welfare system has also been very generous with the extremist cleric. While the value of Choudary's house has been estimated in 320,000 £ ($510.000), he still receives £15,600 ($25,000) a year in housing benefits, £5,200 ($8,300) in income support, £ 3,120 ($5,000) in benefits for his children and £1,820 ($3,000) in council tax allowance. Asked about this, Choudary answered that his benefits belong to Allah. Such a bounty from the British taxpayers allows Choudary to be engaged full-time in his jihad against the UK and the West. Indeed Choudary, who famously described the 9/11 terrorists as "magnificent martyrs," was closely associated with Omar Bakri Muhammad, who is thought to be involved with Al Qaeda and to the (still legal) Islamist British party Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 2006, Choudary organized a demonstration outside London's Cathedral of Westminster, the mother church of the Catholic community in England and Wales. There he mocked the Holy Trinity, incited Muslims to execute Pope Benedict XVI and warned that Muslims will conquer Rome. He also organized a demonstration in London after the Danish cartoon controversy, in which people dressed as suicide bombers held banners that said: "Behead Those Who Insult Islam." In a 2005 interview with the BBC program, Hardtalk, ( after the 7/7 terrorist attack in London, in which 56 people died), Choudary condemned the killing of innocent people, but argued that non-Muslims cannot be considered innocent, as they are guilty of not embracing Islam; therefore, killing them all is legitimate. Islam4UK has been accused of being linked to suicide killers in Israel and the UK. It openly urges Muslims to rebel against the state and promote an Islamic revolution that would lead to the establishment of an Islamic caliphate which would rule the world. Its website declares that: "In light of the Islamic resurgence taking place around the world, particularly in the United Kingdom, one can definitively come to the conclusion that the dawn of a new era is close and that the prophecies of the Final Messenger Muhammad in relation to the domination of Islam worldwide are indeed true; consequently, we at Islam4UK felt it necessary to divulge to the British public what precise changes will occur when Britain transforms into this glorious dominion, not only as psychological preparation but also as a means of enticement to encourage and hasten its implementation." The program of Islam4UK is clear. Its platform was to transform the United Kingdom in an Islamist "glorious dominion": mocking and destroying the symbols of British identity would have been a crucial step towards this goal. Wootton Basset represented an ideal target — an authentic and genuine emblem of patriotic pride. Thus, the "psychological preparation" to the new era in which Islam would dominate the world included the eradication of the symbol of this small, but symbolically powerful, English town. At the very beginning of Western civilization, the tragedy Antigone by Sophocles maintained that the respect for the dead was a natural right, an essential feature of human culture. The insult of Islam4UK to the service personnel who gave their lives in Afghanistan would have been immoral and blasphemous, directly aimed at insulting the fallen soldiers and their families. Further, the march organized by the Islamic extremist group would have been an outrage against Her Majesty Armed Forces, the country and the crown — an act which derided the patriotic, moral and religious feelings of the United Kingdom. However, the initiative of Islam4UK provoked a healthy reaction from the British public. A society that has always been described as apathetic and indulgent towards the mounting tide of radical and violent Islam reacted with bitter resentment and moral clarity. Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the planned protest march as "abhorrent and offensive." Then UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson announced the decision of the government to ban the radical Islamist group. Given the rising anger of the British people against the plans of Islam4UK, the government was forced to take this decision. After the ban, Anjem Choudary, the leader of Islam4UK, declared the decision of the British government "a failure for the concepts of democracy and freedom." On the January 12, the day of the ban, Choudary was a guest on the BBC program Newsnight, renewing his message of hatred. Oddly, he complained about the lack of democracy and free speech in the country, while talking on state television in front of millions of people. He was playing the role of a poor victim of Western aggression, according to the old strategy of radical Islam, and striking a chord in the hearts of many on the Left. But in the UK, millions of people are starting to understand what is at stake. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
IS HE A CHARLATAN OR JUST A KNAVE?
Posted by Paul Lademain, January 31, 2010. |
|
News report states: "President Peres attempted to ease King Abdullah's concerns by assuring him that the current Israeli government is committed to dividing the Land of Israel and allowing for the creation of a PA state." |
|
Either Peres is a charlatan who knows international law but is determined to subsume it under his peculiar lies or else he is demented. Were he to speak truthfully, he would speak in the past tense inasmuch as the Land of Israel has already been divided — and wrongfully so — when the Land of Israel was severed in order to create the artificial state of Jordan. Abdullah is wary and bluffing angrily, because he knows he is but a tenant on Israel's land ... but Abdullah also knows how easy it is to bully and bluff weak and morally infirm old men. And the leader of Israel's weak old men is the fulsomely voluble Polish immigrant, Shimon Peres. We all know that Peres has no power to disestablish international law and overturn the rights and advantages conferred long ago upon Israel (then called "Palestine — the Homeland of the Jews".) Nor may he, or anyone else, alter the Jewish Homeland's boundaries. Boundaries that are far more extensive than some Jewish politicians and Israeli leaders understand. Regardless, these far-flung boundaries still exist as a matter of international law and encompass the lands coveted by the Arab invaders squatting on Israel's land. But alas, neither the truth nor the law are apt to deter the increasingly wrong-headed antics of the strange man serving as Israel's token president — antics that make him the dearly beloved of Israel's would-be conquerors. Perhaps he is sinking into the senility that undid Sharon? Or perhaps Peres speaks as he does out of an angry old man's determination to bring company with him when he sinks into his grave. But it is more likely that poor old Peres is the sort of masochist who would rather be spat upon and beaten than ever be ignored. But still, we must ask this question: How can decent Israelis allow this man to continue to stir mud into Israel's clean waters? Don't you value your faith? Your country? Your values and your worth as human beings? Don't you value your destiny? If you do, then you must immediately send this old man to bed before he leads poor Abdullah further astray. Well, let's get something straight: Even if israel were to be destroyed (heaven forbid) and all Israelis killed in a nuclear attack (heaven forbid) the world will nonetheless continue to suffer under the lash of fascism such as what Islam truly is. So please DO tell your resident seditionists that their aim of destroying Israel is a fruitless exercise because sacrificing Israel will not spare the world from the scourge of Islam. Islam is the antithesis of freedom; it has always been and ever shall be. Islam dresses itself up in an ever-changing cloak of brash double-speak and cynical goobledy-gook. Islam was and remains designed to deceive for the sake of its elite. Deal with it with all your might. If love-starved Peres hopes to purchase affection by bestowing his own worldly goods upon Israel's Hashemite detractors then so let it be. (Just so long as this gesture does not imperil others.) But please understand that he still has this regrettably ingrained preference for bartering away not his own shirt but rather the coat on his brother's back. We therefore submit that Peres does not serve anyone — not even his own selfish self — by inviting Abdullah to imagine that the Hashemites can take the lands of Israel. They cannot ... and certainly NOT for the sake of planting Abdullah's arabs on Israeli soil. Viva Israel from the SC4Z — Secular Christians for Zionism Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
|
YAHOO WIPES ARIEL ISRAEL OFF THE MAP; SUBSTITUTES JENIN
Posted by Boris Celser, January 30, 2010. |
|
This is from Mere Rhetoric
|
|
Yahoo Wipes "Ariel, Israel" Off The Map, Replaces It With "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories" 
Kudos to whatever seething, obsessive anti-Israel organization managed to sneak this in under the radar. Drip drip drip delegitimization of the Jewish State is after all the strategy du jour. But seriously? This is what we're doing now? Apparently someone has convinced Yahoo to go into their News Weather data, erase "Ariel, Israel" as a valid location, and replace it with "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories." The 20,000 residents from Ariel, where the relevant weather station is built, apparently don't deserve their own weather. Yahoo has decreed that it belongs to the residents of Jenin, which is 25 miles north and 850 feet lower. It's absurd that this kind of petty crap even has to be addressed, but inasmuch as it's part and parcel of a broad-based replacement geography campaign it's unfortunately not trivial. Someone should ask Yahoo if there's a list somewhere: which Israeli cities are Israelis allowed to keep, which do the Palestinians deign to let them share, which are entirely Palestinian, and which are simply unworthy of existing? Because given how they've gone out of their way to divide up Weather Channel data — more on that in a sec — apparently Israel's capital, the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, and the city of Ariel are all in play. As near as I can tell it was Reut Cohen who first reported that something was up. I've put the screencaps I reference at the end of this post for readability purposes: Last night he called me to tell me that Ariel, Israel, which is an Israeli town near Jordan's west border, had been renamed... Rather than seeing the weather for Ariel [on Yahoo's weather widget], he saw "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories" listed in its stead... It is unclear why the change was made, but it is clear that those who deny the right of Israel to exist consistently refer to all of Israel — not just Ariel, Israel — as occupied territories... It's this sort of blatant political revisionism of renaming Israeli cities that we are up against... When it comes to historic revisionism, the so-called myth of tolerance and acceptance of Middle Eastern Jewry is a perfect example of history re-written to suit the agenda of Arab Nationalists and/or Islamic Totalitarian organizations. Here's where things get weird. Yahoo's weather widget just takes data from Yahoo's Weather site, which in turn gets its information from The Weather Channel. If you use The Weather Channel's weather.com to check what's going on in "Ariel, Israel" you get data from the weather station that — not coincidentally — is in Ariel. The Weather Channel doesn't have any data for "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories," which makes sense since Jenin doesn't have a weather station. [1] The results are exactly the opposite on Yahoo Weather. There's nothing available for "Ariel, Israel." So if you're one of the 20,000 Israelis who live there, sorry. But there is a location named "Jenin, Occupied Palestinian Territories," which is what they're calling the data that is actually coming from Ariel.[2] Again: "Ariel, Israel" has been delisted as a real place and replaced by "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories." That would be bad enough. But it's particularly absurd when the "Jenin" data is coming from a station that's in a city Yahoo refuses to provide the weather for. They're just intercepting the data and retagging the "name" field, so the Palestinians can feel included or justified or something. Now Yahoo could have just doubled the weather.com data, leaving an "Ariel" entry and copying everything over to a second "Jenin" entry. That would still have been a deliberate political move. Presumably weather-seeking Jenin residents don't want to look up the name of the closest Israeli city because it's too Jewish and icky, but Yahoo doesn't have to indulge them. Still, it would have been closer to justifiable. The rest of the world seems eager to gratify Palestinian fantasies about things that don't actually exist — "Palestine," a Palestinian civic sphere, and so on — so why not Yahoo? But that's not what they did. What they did is erase the entry for the Israeli city where the weather station is and replace it with the name of a Palestinian city where the weather station isn't. That's why if you click on "Extended Forecast" on Yahoo's Jenin listing it takes you to the weather.com Ariel page. Yahoo went out of their way to do this, just like they went out of their way to list the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo as a West Bank city in the "Palestinian Occupied Territories." [3] So we've got an Israeli city that no longer exists and an Israeli city that's been ceded to the Palestinians. But there's a third category of deliberate geographical tinkering. Yahoo has made the political decision to pretend that Jerusalem is both an Israeli city and a Palestinian city. The data is drawn from the same place — The Weather Channel's page for Jerusalem, Israel — but Palestinian fantasies must be attended to. [4] It's cute that Yahoo has degrees of craven anti-Israel replacement geography. So seriously — is there a list? Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
|
KEEPING ZIONISM'S PROMISE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 30, 2010. |
|
As you read the following, you may conclude that the Nations have stood up to be counted — for G-d's destruction. They failed the 'litmus test' by again pursuing and persecuting the Jews. Payment and retribution are long past due. So, how will G-d exact payment? For years I have prayed for earthquakes, super-storms, disease, famine, crop killing freezes or drought, collapse of the economies for all those nations pursuing Israel and the Jewish people. If you think I am enraged, wait until the nations feel the whip of G-d. It has been happening for several years and ramping up. The "nations" are getting more ugly by the day. Recall how Pharaoh felt compelled to chase the Jews who he had finally let go. He and his Egyptian soldiers chased them to the Sea of Reeds. G-d opened the Sea for the Jews to cross. Then he closed it over the Egyptian soldiers chasing them, killing them all! Now recall how the German Nazis and European nations who collaborated with them to murder more than 6 million Jews. Only remnants of Jews escaped the Death Camps and the graveyards of Europe but, the hatred was so intensely vicious that they, like Pharaoh had to follow the Jews to their ancient homeland across the waters to finish what they, Hitler and Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Islam did not complete. Now I pray every day for the nations to pay their overdue debt to the Jews and the G-d Who sent us. Whether the Seas open or the earth levels their lands — whatever G-d selects, it's OK with me. The world will be better off without anti-Semitic killers and the land they stand on. This below was written by Caroline Glick and appeared in the Jerusalem Post. Contact her by email at caroline@carolineglick.com |
|
Netanyahu used his speech at the notorious death camp to nudge what he referred to as "the enlightened nations of the world" to recognize that "murderous evil" has to be stopped. "Never again!" So declared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as he spoke at Auschwitz-Birkenau on Wednesday, the 65th anniversary of its liberation. Netanyahu used his speech at the notorious death camp to nudge what he referred to as "the enlightened nations of the world" to recognize that "murderous evil" has to be stopped as early as possible to prevent it from achieving its aims. Unfortunately, the events of the past week show clearly that evil is on the march, and "the enlightened nations of the world" are on a coffee break from enlightenment. As Netanyahu addressed the world from the site of the most prolific genocide factory in human history, at the place where over a million Jews were gassed, starved, beaten, raped, frozen, shot and hanged and then burned in ovens, Iran's leaders were declaring loudly that they intend to finish what the Nazis started. They will destroy the Jewish people. Iran's dictator supremo Ali Khamenei used a photo-op with Mauritania's President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz — who cut his own country's diplomatic ties with Israel last January — to renew his pledge to commit yet another Holocaust. As he put it, "Surely, the day will come when the nations of the region will witness the destruction of the Zionist regime... When the destruction happens will depend on how the Islamic nations approach the issue." And as he spoke, the ability of "the enlightened nations of the world" to deny that the Iranian regime is building a nuclear arsenal was finally and utterly wiped away. On Monday, Germany's Der Speigel reported that evidence gleaned from document intercepts and from the testimony of two senior Iranian defectors who were involved in the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Iran's nuclear program is not a peaceful one. The Iranians are designing and building nuclear warheads for their Shihab-3 ballistic missiles. According to a summary of the findings now circulating through the halls of power, Teheran will have the wherewithal to build nuclear warheads by 2012. So the Der Spiegel report showed that Iran is developing the capacity to carry out a second Holocaust in under a hundred years. And yet, in the face of their sure knowledge that evil is on the march, as they did 70 years ago, the "enlightened nations" of Europe are siding with evil against its would-be victims. On a popular level, as Sunday's release of the Jewish Agency's annual report on global anti-Semitism documented, there were more anti-Semitic attacks in Europe in 2009 than there had been in any single year since the Holocaust. The report stated that the attacks were carried out by Jew-haters on both the Left and the Right. Europe's anti-Semites wasted no time in proving the report was accurate. On Monday, Polish Catholic Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek said that Jews have "expropriated" the Holocaust as "a propaganda weapon." Jews, he claimed, "enjoy good press because they have powerful financial means behind them, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the United States, and this favors a certain arrogance that I find unbearable." Then we have the political alliance of leftist anti-Semites with Muslim anti-Semites. Together they not only attack Jews, they provide political cover for expanding those attacks by rejecting Israel's right to exist and justifying violent attacks against Jews outside Israel as the logical outcome of their politically correct anger at Israel for refusing to destroy itself. Case in point is Ilmar Reepalu, the mayor of Malmo, Sweden. Malmo is one of the most dangerous places for Jews in Europe. The city's small Jewish population is fleeing. The situation in Malmo was graphically demonstrated last March when Israel's tennis stars Amir Haddad and Andy Ram faced off against Swedish rivals at a Davis Cup tie in Malmo and Swedish authorities closed their game to the public. Malmo's Muslim residents and their post-Christian partners on the Left threatened to attack them. Malmo's authorities didn't think it was their responsibility to protect their Israeli guests. So Haddad and Ram were forced to play in an empty stadium. Interviewed in a local paper this week about the rise of anti-Semitic attacks in his city, Reepalu blamed Israel. In his view, the violence against Jews in Malmo by the far Left and Muslims, "spilled over from Gaza." By his lights the Jewish national liberation movement is just as bad as the Jewish annihilation movement. As he put it, "We accept neither Zionism nor anti-Semitism. They are extremes that place themselves above other groups they think are less important." Reepalu then blamed Malmo's Jews for their victimization by his fellow leftists and his Muslim comrades. As far as he is concerned, the Jews brought the violence on themselves last March when they responded to Haddad and Ram's treatment by holding a demonstration supporting Israel. In his view, Malmo's Jews need to separate themselves away from Israel, not support it. Since the Holocaust, old-style, right-wing anti-Semites in Europe have had a hard time getting political traction for their desire to see Jews suffer. But by conflating Jews with Israel, their colleagues on the Left have made sticking it to the Jews, our state and our supporters the easiest way to score political points. So it was that in her first speech as the EU's new foreign policy chief, Britain's Catherine Ashton went out of her way to condemn Israel for building in Jerusalem, closing its border with Hamas-controlled Gaza and defending itself from Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria. As for Israel's friends, they are hounded, driven out of Europe and where possible placed on trial. Dutch MP Geert Wilders, the head of the Netherland's Freedom Party, is one of Israel's greatest supporters in Europe. Today Wilders is on trial for publicly criticizing what he views as the endemic anti-Semitism of the Koran. Against the backdrop of the persistence of right-wing Jew hatred, and the politically ascendant Red-Green alliance of anti-Semites, it makes sense that Europe will not raise a finger to prevent another Holocaust. And so, not surprisingly, in the wake of the Der Spiegel report, the EU's foreign ministers got together and decided not to support any new sanctions against Iran — unless they are passed by the UN Security Council. Since Europe's foreign ministers all know full well the Security Council will not pass sanctions against Iran because China has announced that it will veto any sanctions against Iran, this week the EU's foreign ministers got together and essentially said they're okay with another Holocaust. With Europe out, and with "enlightened" Asian, African and South American countries never really in the game, the only "enlightened" country that might be expected to stop murderous evil before it can carry out its aims is the United States. But unfortunately, like the Europeans, the Americans don't feel like being responsible. President Barack Obama, his administration and many of his fellow Democrats would rather take on Israel. This week 54 Democratic members of Congress wrote Obama a letter asking him to apply pressure on Israel to remove its restrictions on the import of goods — including dual use goods like construction materials — to Hamas-controlled Gaza. Never mind that under US law it is legally problematic to provide any aid, (including the $300 million Obama has pledged) to Gaza in light of the fact that it is controlled by a terrorist organization. For its part, the administration apparently believes that there is no reason to seek the overthrow of Hamas simply because the US is required by US law and binding UN Security Council resolutions to do so. The US Treasury Department has reportedly just removed all but one Hamas official from its list of known terrorists and so paved the way for Hamas to receive funding from Europe. As for Israel, during his trip here this week, Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell came up with a revolutionary new idea. In the face of Palestinian intransigence, Mitchell introduced the earthshaking concept of pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. This week Mitchell asked Israel to stop all of its counterterror operations in Judea and Samaria, and allow Palestinian forces to operate not only in the Palestinian areas, but in predominantly Israeli areas as well. Specifically, Mitchell asked Israel to allow Palestinian forces to deploy in what the arguably defunct Oslo agreements refer to as Area C, where the Palestinian Authority has no security authority whatsoever. When it comes to Iran, the Obama administration behaves as though the jury is still out on whether the mullahs are even seeking nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last Thursday that Iran might face some tough statements from the world if it continues to refuse to be appeased by the Obama White House, although she couldn't say whether any actual steps would be taken to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which she wouldn't acknowledge the mullahs are developing. And in his State of the Union address on Wednesday, Obama himself made clear that the US will do nothing to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. As far as Obama is concerned, the nuclear arsenal in most urgent need of evisceration is the US's nuclear arsenal. All of this just goes to show that at the end of the day, now when the chips are down, there is only one "enlightened" nation in the world that may actually do something to prevent the advance of murderous evil. And Israel unfortunately is of two minds on the issue. On the one hand, we have Netanyahu, who is clearly focused on preventing another Holocaust of Jewry. But on the other hand, we have Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who on Tuesday claimed that the absence of peace with the Palestinians — not Iran — is the greatest threat that Israel faces today. As he put it, "The lack of defined boundaries within Israel, and not an Iranian bomb, is the greatest threat to our future." Barak's outrageous pronouncement is a succinct encapsulation of the great aspiration of the Israeli Left. If he could only be right, then Israel would be able to singlehandedly solve all the problems of the region and be immediately adored by the likes of the EU and the Obama administration just by making itself smaller. So with the scourge of moral and strategic blindness rampant not only in Europe and America, but within his own government, Netanyahu rapidly approaches his moment of truth. In what will undoubtedly be the most fateful decision of his life, he will have to decide whether Iran will become a nuclear power, or whether Israel, standing alone, will prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. Was his declaration of "Never Again," at Auschwitz just the bloviating of yet another "enlightened" leader who lacks the courage of his convictions? Or was it a solemn vow that Zionism's promise will be kept?
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 |
|
WHY AREN'T THESE MUSLIM MAD DOGS ACTIONS BEING REPORTED?
Posted by CPocerl, January 30, 2010. |
|
This is from Bare Naked Islam
"MUSLIM SAVAGES go wilding in the streets of London, brutally attacking non-Muslims with hammers." The original article has additional pictures. |
|
Clearly these hammer carrying MUSLIM gangs of thugs were looking for and maliciously prepared to wage street jihad — with their usual cowardly MO of greatly outnumbering any chosen victims. 
What started out as a family celebration of New Year's Eve in the Angel and Crown pub on Roman Road, Bethnal Green ended with four family members being attacked by a gang of muslim thugs. Two brothers, Thomas and David Barry, had their bodies pummelled and their faces smashed when they were set upon by a gang of up to 30 "youths" armed with hammers. The brothers had gone outside the pub to go to the aid of Thomas's son and his 16 yr. old girlfriend who the muslim gang had already attacked. David and Thomas Barry were left smashed, bloody and laying unconscious in the road. Police from the muslim 'enriched' Tower Hamlets "... said the suspects are all aged 16-18 and are Muslim. I suppose we should at least be thankful that the police didn't trot out the usual statement of this attack being a "one off". Clearly evidence grows daily as to the contrary. But for the miracle of breakthrough maxillofacial surgery, David and his brother Thomas would have been disfigured for life. As it is David has suffered permanent nerve damage with no feelings in the right side of his face as well as impaired hand/eye coordination which is likely to have a deleterious affect on his resuming his career as a communications engineer.
Channel 4 is currently preparing a documentary on the Barry brothers' surgery. What do you think are the chances Channel 4 will highlight escalating muslim gang violence as being responsible for the Barry's horrific injuries? Both brothers were hit with hammers by a gang of up to 30 youths during the attack near the Angel and Crown pub in Roman Road, Bethnal Green, knocking them both unconscious and leaving them needing expert surgery to rebuild their faces. 
The injuries of younger brother David, 41, were so severe that half of his face was caved in with a broken cheekbone, broken jaw in six places, broken palate and broken teeth.Experts at the hospital in Whitechapel, led by consultant surgeon Simon Holmes, worked for four-and-a-half hours to rebuild the right side of his face, fixing titanium plates to his bone with 25 nuts and bolts.
A member of the mob David said: "The roof of my mouth was split in half so the right side of my face had dropped and my eyes weren't level. Half of my teeth were in the normal place and the other half were about an inch lower. "They went in through the inside of my mouth and popped my eye out of its socket so they could fit the plates in my cheek; it's amazing what they can do. But David, a communications engineer who lives in Ilford, said the repercussions of the attack will stay with him for life and doctors do not yet know the extent of the permanent damage done. "I've got no feeling in the right side of my face," he explained. "The nerves were so badly damaged that I'm never going to get it back and I'll have to live with it forever. "My eyes are still slightly out of alignment and because of that my hand-eye coordination has gone out the window. "I don't know how that'd going to affect my ability to do my job yet; I work with very fine wires so hand-eye coordination is very important." Brother Thomas, 45, a French polisher who lives in Arbery Road, Bow with his wife Bridget and son Christopher, was hit once in the face and three times over the head with a hammer during the attack.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
SOLDIER REFUSES TO UPROOT JEWS FROM THE LAND OF ISRAEL
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 30, 2010. |
|
This is a translation of an article appearing in Maariv about a soldier, Aryeh Arbus, who called for refusal of order to uproot Jews from the Land of Israel and does not regret it. It was written by Roi Sharon and was originally in
|
|
The Soldier who called for Refusal: I would do it again. "The banner was a provocation in order to send a message. We need to remove people who change the Army's mission" Private Arbus, who waved the banner at the Western Wall, does not regret his actions. After Private Aryeh Arbus, who waved a banner against evacuating settlements during an army swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall, was released from prison, he arrived for a conversation with the commander of the Kfir Brigade, Colonel Oran Avman. At the end of the two hour long conversation, Arbus pointed at the commander's head. "Do you know why that is there, and the ranks are placed on your shoulders?" he asked, "because it is important that the head should be above the rank. If your rank is above your head, you are a robot." Avman informed Arbus that he is dismissed from the brigade, and that he will recommend his dismissal from the IDF. The outward appearance of Arbus can be deceiving. He has the classic ultra-orthodox black yarmulke, the beard of a young kollel student, tzitzit hanging out of his clothing, and an extremely modest build. But the instant he opens his mouth, it because clear that he is not a robot in reserve duty. During basic training, he was a candidate to be selected as an outstanding soldier for his base. In his unit, he achieved the prestigious position of signal operator for the platoon commander, and in the professional opinion that his commander sent after the banner waving, it is written that he is a leading professional soldier. He is fluent, focused, and adopts clear statements. "There are senior officers in the army with a problem in their outlook, therefore a soldier like me confuses them", Arbus said to his family. "An outstanding soldier who challenges them with thinking out of the boundaries represents for them a problem. Soldiers with values are good soldiers, but they have values. The mixture between excellence and waving the banner drove the brigade commander crazy." "Waving the banner was a provocation", he admits in conversations with his friends. "Waving the banner was meant to send a message. It hurts me that I would need to make a provocation instead of sending a message in a direct way, but they have pushed us to a corner, and it is better that a person commits a minor transgression and not commit a severe transgression. From that perspective, I am not sorry. I am sorry that we would not to break the laws of military discipline in order to say something which is so logical, human, and Jewish." He left the Chassidic Yeshiva to help the Samarian Hills After he was dismissed from Kfir Brigade, Arbus was summoned to an incompatibility committee, made up of senior officers in the manpower system of the IDF. "They asked me there hypothetical questions", he said to his friends. "'What would you do tomorrow if they would say to you were assigned to distribute snacks to forces which are evacuating Jews?' I said to them that it would be hard for me to answer hypothetical questions and that I would need to think. They got mad at me. I said to them that a Jewish soldier is a thinking soldier. They said to me 'No, a Jewish soldier is a soldier that carries out orders', and they informed me that they would recommend releasing me from the army." It is the norm in the IDF that they judge a soldier after he committed a crime. But the very fact that they ask a soldier in the IDF if he would refuse an order, that is a precedent which says that the army has changed its role from defending Jews to something else. Perhaps now they will ask all IDF soldiers this question? We need to remove the people that change the role of the army, not those that preserve its role. "There are a range of orders that fit the army. They cannot take soldiers to disperse a student demonstration or Flotilla 13 to gather illegal workers, because that is not their role. I know from the fact that the government decides for the army, but the army has a role which has boundaries, and evacuation of Jews is outside of this boundary. Any act of the army against citizens is that of a third world country. Against Israeli Arabs, the Border Patrol acts, against Jewish citizens they don't know to do that?" Private Aryeh Arbus, #6105973, grew up in an ultra-orthodox household in Jerusalem, tenth generation of a Gur Chassidic family. His mother is a psychologist, and his father is a businessman. Eleven siblings, all still in the ultra-orthodox world. A bit before age 18, he left the Chassidic Yeshiva, and began to hand out in the Samarian hills. "The Army doesn't suit you" Today, he lives in Giv'at Skali in Elon Moreh, married to Ruhama, and father to the three month old Reishit. He has foregone the woolen yarmulke of the hilltop youth. "I have never been too excited about external symbols, this yarmulke or another," he said to his friends. "Exactly the opposite. When I was a boy with a suit and hat, I went around in sandals. People were confused. I love showing people conflicting things, that they will think you are "gross" or you are "evil", and after two minutes, they will think something else altogether." Like many of his hilltop friends, Arbus felt frustrated by the IDF's implementation of the Disengagement Plan. He said to the soldier at the Draft Office "I want to enlist, but I will not take a part in political assignments". A year ago, he thought about his military service again. "Because the values situation of the army, I was uncertain about enlisting", he said to his associates. "I decided to enlist for two reasons. The first and decisive one was due to the declaration of Chief of Staff Ashkenazi who announced upon assuming his office that the army would not take part in political assignments. The second reason was Operation 'Cast Lead'. At that time, I had a rising of spirit, a desire to protect the lives of soldiers. I arrived at the conclusion that the army doesn't belong to generals, but to the nation." His family recommended not enlisting. His friends joined them. "The Army doesn't suit you", they tried to convince him. Today, they say to him "see, we were right", but Arbus doesn't have regrets. "I still think that they are wrong. I don't go with the herd. They are mad that I enlisted, but I decided to be a simple Jew, what is good — we assist, and what is bad we distance ourselves. The problem is that there are people that are pulling the army to the wrong place, to a place of disagreement." Damage to Mutual Responsibility After the committee's recommendation, Arbus sent a letter to the commander of the Absorption and Classification Base, Colonel Gadi Agmon, in which he objected to the recommendation to release him from the army. "It pains me that we have been forced, my friends and I, to act in a few instances in this manner, which is in conflict with army principles and harms IDF discipline", he wrote. "This action came from a feeling of being pushed toa corner and from a lack of choice, and a fear from an order which would obligate me to expel my wife and daughter and friends and family from their homes. Is there not a place for everyone, my hurting friends and I, a place in the nation's army whose job is the security of the nation of Israel in its land?" Arbus wrote further: "Is it possible that the IDF will act as it did with me in the incompatibility commission and require soldiers to answer how they would act in a hypothetical situation, like an order that has yet to be given and stands on the thin line between conscious and his obligations as a soldier? If so, why doesn't the IDF go out with a questionnaire of all soldiers, or at least the soldiers which come from frameworks which don't outright reject refusal of orders which are against their religion and faith, and disqualify ahead of time from their obligation to defend Israel and its land?" For the conclusion of his objection letter, he wrote that "a process such as that of my release from the IDF, will harm the integration and the mutual responsibility between the different parts of the nation of Israel, who meet in the IDF and see it as the nation's army, which gives every Jew the opportunity to protect and defend and to help continue the existence of the nation of Israel in the Land of Israel. "Even Leftists have joined our protest" Arbus was sent to serve in the adjutancy department of the Bik'ah Brigade, and on Wednesday, the deputy brigade commander informed him that the final decision had been made to release him from army service. On Sunday he will go to the induction center, where he will return his equipment and be released. This week, Arbus reconstructed, in conversations with his friends, the decision to wave the banner at the Western Wall, the decision which sent him for 20 days incarceration in Prison Six, and his removal from army service. "Preceding it were developments and small protests within the company, which were silenced by the officers", he said to them. "The idea for the banner was born in a brainstorm discussion with friends in the company, and we came to the conclusion that this is the right thing to do. We tried, but there was no other choice. It pains me, but I do not regret it. If I could pass on the message in a way that would follow army laws, I would be happy, but there was no possibility." "We had a feeling that this disciplinary crime was dwarfed by the human crime being committed here. If it was possible to turn back the clock, I would do it again just the same. I am confident that in the long run, I brought a great benefit to the IDF, and everyone will understand that. Not in waving the banner, but in the message. I didn't know that in the IDF document it is written that the role of the army is to evict Jews. If this were the task of the army, then we would politely part ways." "I want to remain in the army in order to defend the nation of Israel and its land. If they would not bring me to the situation of a political assignment, then I don't have a problem. I, after all, did not refuse any order, but in the moment that the army takes my assigned battalion on an evacuation assignment, that is called bringing me to an impossible situation. It pains me." The protest act, he says to his associates, won the support from all sides of the political map. "Even Leftists joined our protest, because from their perspective this is an individual within the army, and also other people expressed their support with reservations. I don't have a problem that they condemned it from the Right. That is great. That is how the Arab Israelis work. One breaks to the right, and then afterwards the rest line up behind. I am ahead of everyone else. If they want that I will have the role of the extremist, I will be in the role of the extremist. We need to challenge the public." Making Honor Arbus paved the way for placard scenes in Kfir Brigade, but according to him, it is time to update the protest methods. The banners have been exhausted, he believes. "Another banner won't do anything. The Brigade Commander asked me during the interview after jail which other ideas I had in my head. I responded 'I compartmentalize you.'" Arbus remembers his army service from the moment of the protest at the Western Wall as a positive experience. "They honor me every place in the army", he tells his friends, "in jail they called me 'armed', they would let me go first in to the cafeteria. They made me a hero. Even on other bases where I was it was the same. You do not know how wide the consensus is in the army on this matter. Unlike Achiya Ovadya, from the same platoon, who was dismissed from the brigade and from the Hesder track, but remained in the army, Arbus understood already from the beginning of the week that he was on the way out. "They made me a non-commissioned adjutancy officer in the Bik'ah Brigade, and I have no problem with that. Even an adjutant contributes to the defense of the nation of Israel. I am not prepared to see them punish a soldier because he informs them that he will not act against his conscious. But to punish a soldier twice on the same crime, that is already illegal." "I have no idea why they kicked me out of the army, and other soldiers with much more serious disciplinary problems went back to their units after their incarceration. I feel hurt. My enlistment to the army, in spite of my background, helped bring unify the rifts between the different sectors in the nation of Israel and the IDF. And today when they throw me out, I can't look my family in the eyes after I said 'they want us to help, to defend, to protect we need to enlist together with everyone else'. And see today they kick me like a dog." Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
|
IS SHARIA BANKING SAFE FOR CANADA?
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, January 30, 2010. |
|
This was forwarded by Rachel Ehrenfelld. It was written by Dan Verbin. |
|
With the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation releasing a report this week that may pave the way for widespread availability of Islamic financial instruments in Canada — including Sharia-compliant mortgages — an expert on Islamic banking is cautioning that Canadians should examine the implications of implementing the report's recommendations. Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, a New York-based author who specializes in financial issues related to terrorism, told Shalom Life that Sharia-compliant mortgages often contain a myriad of hidden fees, inherent in the Islamic banking system. Since the Koran prohibits interest, Sharia-based banks create derivatives, which include fees that most borrowers are not told about upfront. Some of the fees go for zakat (the Third Pillar of Islam, between 2.5 per cent for individuals to 20 per cent "tax" for foreign business). Others have an imbedded "purification" process for "unislamic" cash flows. Both are sent to major depositories in the Middle East and Malaysia and then distributed to Islamic charities for the welfare of Muslims and the promotion of Islam. "Where is the money being sent and how is it the money used?" Ehrenfeld asked. For instance, Ehrenfeld explained that the Islamic version of the bond — called sukuk — has qualifications embedded in it to purify the portion of the fund that does not meet Islamic standards. In other words, the wealth created by the corporations that a Sharia-compliant fund may invest in inevitably contains some form of interest, which is against Islamic law. A corresponding per cent of the bond is therefore donated to charity. Clients are not told of the specific purifications — or the names of the charitable organizations on the receiving end the allotment — since the financial instruments are sent to central auditing houses to be purified. The 88-page report, compiled by law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, concluded that Sharia financing would be compatible with Canadian banking regulations and accounting standards if implemented. It noted that Islamic banking measures are offered worldwide, though they generally account for only a small percentage of financial traffic in Muslim countries. Ehrenfeld questioned whether the introduction of Sharia-compliant banking into Canada and Western countries — according to the Mail Online, assets held by Britain's $18 billion Islamic banking system tower over Muslim states such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt — is not a backdoor method to gradually legitimize the introduction of wider Sharia law into liberal democracies. "You agree to this, why don't you agree to the rest? Sharia controls all aspects of life," she said. "Why should anybody in the West have to abide by Islamic rules?" She stressed that the most troubling aspect of Sharia banking is how little is actually known about what goes on internally and questioned why a system with so many pertinent questions left unanswered should be allowed to operate in Western countries. "Sharia banking is a made up thing. It's not written in the Koran. It has been developed by the Muslim Brotherhood," she said. "People know very little about it and the so-called Sharia-experts are making up the rules along the way. This is not safe. This is not transparent and people should not allow it." Ehrenfeld sees a real possibility that Sharia banking is an attempt by Islamists to "penetrate the Western financial system" with the aim of "destabilizing the West." "The Ummah is what the Muslim Brotherhood wants," she said. "What better way to do it then penetrate and corrupt the economy?" One thing is clear — there are too many questions. Unfortunately, the implications of Sharia banking's introduction into Canadian society is not something that is on the media's radar these days. Ehrenfeld thinks she knows why. "Because (the media) is P.C., as are most Western governments." But, "There are many issues that are not 'kosher' in Islamic banking." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
|
SURVIVOR OF 1929 HEBRON MASSACRE DIES
Posted by Hebron Jewish Community, January 30, 2010. |
|
Yosef Lazarovsky died last Thursday on the thirteenth of Shvat (28.1.10). Yosef Lazarovsky was a survivor of the 1929 riots in Hebron. His father Bezalel father ran a board house for Yeshiva students. Yosef's father, Bezalel, his sister Devorah and his uncle Yisrael Lazarovsky, a yeshiva student were murdered before his eyes. His maternal grandfather, Aharon Leib Gottlevsky, a resident of Herzliya, who came to Hebron to stay with his family that Shabbat, was also murdered. They were all murdered at the Slonim home, where they fled to find refuge from the rioters. Yosef was about five years old. Following the murder of his father and uncle, his grandfather held him and read along with him "Shema Israel", before he too was murdered. Sitting beside him was a yeshiva student who was murdered, collapsed and fell on him. Yosef was covered with blood, beaten in the head and lost consciousness. The yeshiva boy's blood covered him; the rioters left him for dead. That is how he was saved. His sister Deborah died a few days later. She was buried in a plot dedicated to the victims of the 1929 Tarpat riots on the Mount of Olives in a grave together with five year old Aharon Slonim who also was injured in the riots. One of Yosef's younger sisters also survived. She died several years ago. The story of Yosef's mother's survival is amazing. She was beaten when rioters held knives to her, next to her younger sister. She was brought together with the wounded to Jerusalem, and believed to be dead. She was transferred to the Mission hospital on Nevi'im Street, and placed in a room with the dead. Her sister, a nurse at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, went to the morgue and realized that she still had a pulse; but the Arab doctor in charge refused to allowed her to approach. She went to Machaneh Yehuda market and hired four Arab porters; they secretly removed her and brought her to Hadassah hospital. She remained there for a year and a half until she recovered In his younger years, Yosef served in the Palyam (the Palmach's naval detachment), and then served for many years in the security services. In recent years, Yosef led a struggle to be recognized as an orphan victim of enemy hostilities, but was not successful. This past summer Yosef Lazarovsky visited Hebron. He told the story of the massacre in detail, with total clarity and control. He was invited to speak at the State memorial service marking the eightieth anniversary of the riots and massacre held in Hebron. His speech stirred the hundreds in attendance. [http://goo.gl/RWh7] May his memory be blessed. 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. |
|
COURT RULES LEFTIST PROTEST LEGAL; ISRAEL OFFERS TO FREE FATAH
PRISONERS; OBAMA: ARABS AND ISRAEL BLOCK PEACE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 30, 2010. |
|
ISRAELI COURT RULES LEFTIST PROTEST LEGAL: UPDATE Previously we reported that police dispersed a leftist demonstration in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood of Jerusalem as illegal, because it did not have a police permit. The Jerusalem Magistrate court ruled the demonstration legal. Explanation: if demonstrators do not hold speeches or lectures, they do not need a police permit. They may carry signs and loudspeakers. The leftist demonstration against Jews who moved into that neighborhood was by placards, not speeches. The court upheld the arrest of 18 of the demonstrators for standing in traffic on the wrong side of a police barricade. Land of Israel activists now plan to counter-demonstrate without a
police permit
ISRAEL OFFERS TO FREE HUNDREDS OF FATAH PRISONERS Speaking for Israel, PM Netanyahu offered to free hundreds of Fatah prisoners for goodwill, if negotiations start. Negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) would be mediated by the U.S. (www.imra.org.il, 1/29). Considering that Fatah is Abbas' militia and that Abbas encourages terrorism, isn't it the Arabs who need to demonstrate goodwill? They never have. Israel often has. Israel's many goodwill gestures fail to earn goodwill. How can they, when the Muslim Arabs consider terrorism as a just means of combat against Israel and war against the Jewish state a religious duty? The P.A. considers itself entitled to have convicted Fatah prisoners released, despite having signed peace agreements accepting their imprisonment or extradition for violence committed after the signing. Suggested goodwill gesture by Abbas: arrest wanted terrorists, and the IDF would not have to seek them out, itself. The U.S. has exerted one-sided pressure against Israel, including threats to impose sanctions against it. Would an independent, patriotic, and prudent Israeli government have the U.S. play the role of mediator? OBAMA ACCUSES ARABS AND ISRAEL OF BLOCKING PEACE President Obama told a Tampa audience that "extremists" in both the Israeli coalition and in the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) hold their leaders back from making peace. He identified the Arab extremists as belonging to Hamas, but not the Israeli "extremists." He said that Abbas wants peace (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/29). There is no indication that Abbas wants peace. He has demanded Israeli concessions that would render Israel indefensible, yet said that if not all his demands are met, he would launch a war on Israel. Nor has he repudiated Fatah ideology of wanting to conquer Israel. Indeed, his schools teach that Israel belongs to his people. So what peace is being blocked by Israel? Obama is confusing peace with peace agreement. Israel has signed peace agreements with the P.A., and got wars but not peace. (For more on Obama, try my category, "U.S..") 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:
|
|
COLLAPSE OF THE PA AUTHORITY?
Posted by Susana K-M, January 30, 2010. |
|
This was written by William Katz, and it is archived on his website:
|
|
COLLAPSE OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY? — Khaled Abu Toameh is a remarkable Palestinian journalist who calls 'em as he sees 'em. He is one of the stars of our Hudson New York website, as well as a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post. Here he gets behind what could turn out to be a major foreign story of 2010, the possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority — the so-called "peace partner" for Israel — and its replacement by Hamas. A special thanks to one of Urgent Agenda's best sources, international observer Susana Kohan, for alerting us to this: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and that's why Hamas will one day take control of the West Bank, Fahmi Shabaneh, who was appointed by Abbas four years ago to root out corruption in the Palestinian Authority, said on Thursday. And that would be a disaster for the Middle East and American efforts there. In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Shabaneh, who until recently was in charge of the Anti-Corruption Department in the PA's General Intelligence Service (GIS), warned that what happened in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, when Hamas managed to overthrow the Fatah-controlled regime, is likely to recur in the West Bank. I wonder if our own State Department is aware of this. From the way the department acts, I wouldn't think so. Shabaneh said that many Palestinians in the West Bank have lost hope that the PA would one day be reformed. "The Palestinian Authority is very corrupt and needs to be overhauled," he said. Incredible. That's our money, earned by American workers. Did we ever ask where it went? "In his pre-election platform, President Abbas promised to end financial corruption and implement major reforms, but he hasn't done much since then," he said. "Unfortunately, Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the thieves and officials who were involved in theft of public funds and who became icons of financial corruption." Again, some of it from America. Was he serious about Hamas taking over the ? "Yes, no question about that," he said. "It will happen one day if the state of corruption and anarchy continue in the West Bank. Finally... These corrupt officials know no limits. They even used to forge Arafat's signature to obtain money by fraud," he said. COMMENT: Please remember this the next time someone mouths the words "peace process." Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
STUDY: TALIBAN A BUNCH OF CLOSETED HOMOSEXUALS / PEDOPHILES
Posted by CPocerl, January 29, 2010. |
|
This comes from The Jawa Report
Study: Taliban a Bunch of Closeted Homosexuals Who Also Are Pedophiles Fox News: An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns — though they seem to be in complete denial about it. |
|
For the three of you who don't already know, Taliban fighters are overwhelmingly Pashtun. Also, the report is so disgusting-funny (is there a word for something that is repugnant but makes you laugh hysterically?) that I've been sitting here trying to come up with some snarky commentary — but, really, what more could I add? I mean, anally contracted gonorrhea? You can't make that sh*t up! The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually — yet they completely reject the label of "homosexual." The research was conducted as part of a longstanding effort to better understand Afghan culture and improve Western interaction with the local people. ... In one instance, a group of local male interpreters had contracted gonorrhea anally but refused to believe they could have contracted it sexually — "because they were not homosexuals." Apparently, according to the report, Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot "love" another man — but that doesn't mean they can't use men for "sexual gratification." ... The U.S. army medic also told members of the research unit that she and her colleagues had to explain to a local man how to get his wife pregnant. The report said: "When it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked, 'How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong.' The report also detailed a disturbing practice in which older "men of status" keep young boys on hand for sexual relationships. One of the country's favorite sayings, the report said, is "women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Nothing says "not gay" louder than anally contracted gonorrhea. Also, NAMBLA, like Code Pink, now supporting the Taliban as freedom fighters. Oh yeah, hey Taliban. Tom Cruise called. He wants his closet back. Andy Dick also wants to know why you never cuddle anymore after exchanging anal gonorrhea? Yup, no commentary from me. None whatsoever.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
HARVARD STUDY CONFIRMS AL QAEDA AGENTS INFILTRATED McMASTER UNIVERSITY
Posted by Cpocerl, January 29, 2010. |
|
This appeared in the Last Crusade
Al Qaeda Receiving Nuke Training In Canada |
|
A new study from Harvard University's Kennedy School confirms that leading al Qaeda agents flocked to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in their search for nuclear and strategic biological weapons. The study entitled "Al Qaeda's Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality" was penned by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA official and Director of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy." NUCLEAR ATTACK IN THE WORKS 
The document affirms that Adnan el-Shukrijumah, the anointed facilitator for future attacks on American soul, attended McMaster in 2001 along with other al-Qaeda operators, including Abderraouf Ben-Habib Jdey and Zacharias Moussaoui. Mr. Shukrijumah and Mr. Jdey remain at large with $5 million bounties on their heads. Mr. Moussaoui is serving a life sentence without parole at the Federal Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado for plotting "to murder thousands of innocent people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania." McMaster University officials have denied that the agents were in campus and disputed allegations that Mr. Shukrijumah and his associates managed to gain access to the university's nuclear reactor in order to pilfer material. Since 2006, Dr. Paul L. Williams, a noted American journalist, has been sounding the alarm about the situation at the Canadian university. In response, McMaster has filed a $2 million defamation lawsuit against Dr. Williams. The trial is set to take place in April. The Harvard report further affirms that the nuclear threat from al Qaeda is very real and that the terror organization has devoted its assets and attention to mounting an attack on American soil with an improvised nuclear devise (IND). If al Qaeda intended to mount such an operation with "dirty nukes" or radiological dispersal devices, the Harvard report says, such an attack would have occurred shortly after 9/11.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
CALIFORNIA PAID FOR 3 LIVER TRANSPLANTS FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS
Posted by CPocerl, January 29, 2010. |
|
Immigration debate hits home for liver transplant patients The state funded the procedures for two young illegal migrants. But when they hit 21, coverage passed to L.A. County, which doesn't have the resources to implant the new organs they both needed again. This was written by Anna Gorman
(Anna.gorman@latimes.com)
and it appeared in the Los Angeles Times
|
|
Ana Puente was an infant with a liver disorder when her aunt brought her illegally to the U.S. to seek medical care. She underwent two liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center as a child in 1989 and a third in 1998, each paid for by the state. But when Puente turned 21 last June, she aged out of her state-funded health insurance and was unable to continue treatment at UCLA. This year, her liver began failing again and she was hospitalized at County-USC Medical Center. In her Medi-Cal application, a USC doctor wrote, "Her current clinical course is irreversible, progressive and will lead to death without another liver transplant." The application was denied. The county gave her medication but does not have the resources to perform transplants. Late last month Puente learned of another, little-known option for patients with certain healthcare needs. If she notified U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that she was in the country illegally, state health officials might grant her full Medi-Cal coverage. Puente did so, her benefits were restored and she is now awaiting a fourth transplant at UCLA. Puente's case highlights two controversial issues: Should illegal immigrants receive liver transplants in the U.S. and should taxpayers pick up the cost? The average cost of a liver transplant and first-year follow-up is nearly $490,000, and anti-rejection medications can run more than $30,000 annually, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees transplantation nationwide. Donor livers are also in scarce supply. In California, nearly 3,700 people are on a waiting list for livers, according to the network. Last year, 767 liver transplants were performed in the state. More than 90% of the organs were given to U.S. citizens. Donor livers are generally allocated through a geographically based distribution system on the basis of how sick the patients are and how long they have been on the transplant waiting list. Immigration status does not play a role in allocating organs. But some say that it should and that illegal immigrants should return to their home countries for care rather than receive organs and costly transplants ahead of legal residents and U.S. citizens. "All transplants are about rationing," said Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, which favors stricter controls on immigration. "I just don't think the public ought to be funding any kind of benefits for people who are breaking the law." Larry Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen who has hepatitis C, has known for a decade that he needs a new liver but was just placed on the transplant waiting list last week. "Why do we have to get in line behind immigrants, foreigners, when we have enough people here to fill the hospitals?" asked Gonzalez, 54, who lives in Ventura. "It just seems obvious to me that we shouldn't be taking a back seat." But Dr. Michael Shapiro, vice chairman of the ethics committee for the organ network, said illegal immigrants have just as much right to organ transplants as U.S. citizens. He said it is likely that more illegal immigrants donate organs than receive them. "People are people, and when you make an incision in an organ donor, you don't find little American flags planted on their organs," Shapiro said. Holes in the safety net Illegal immigrant children with certain severe, chronic illnesses are eligible for funding under a state program called California Children's Services. But the coverage ends when they turn 21. After that, they can receive free or low-cost treatment through county services for the medically indigent and, in some cases, emergency Medi-Cal. But in Los Angeles County, doctors said neither program covers liver transplants. State health officials said California law is designed so there is no gap in coverage, so children move seamlessly from state-funded treatment to county care. But that doesn't always happen. When they become adults, patients like Puente often have to switch doctors and hospitals and may lose access to necessary care. "Certainly it's not the ideal," said Stan Rosenstein, chief deputy director of healthcare programs at the California Department of Health Care Services. "We are strong believers in continuity of care, so it is concerning when you have a break in coverage." That break can be life-threatening for people like Puente. "It doesn't matter if I'm undocumented," she said. "They should take care of me at UCLA for the rest of my life because I've been there since I was a baby." Puente, who lives in Van Nuys, was transferred from County-USC back to UCLA this month after getting approved for Medi-Cal. If illegal immigrants inform the state in writing that U.S. immigration services "is aware of their presence and does not plan to deport them," they could be eligible for full-scope Medi-Cal, said Norman Williams, spokesman for the state health department. Medical condition is one factor that would make immigrants eligible for coverage. The immigrants send a form to Citizenship and Immigration Services, but the agency said it does not respond to patients or make any promises about their immigration status. Looking to the future Dr. Sue V. McDiarmid, medical director of UCLA's pediatric liver transplant program, said that she regrets not being able to continue treatment for every patient but that it would not be "financially responsible" to waive all fees. She said the university does follow up with its patients once they are under county care. "It is just not our philosophy to dump patients," McDiarmid said. "When things go wrong, it truly is a heartbreaker." But she said liver transplantation is more than a surgical procedure; doctors have to consider whether the patient will have access to healthcare and medication in the long run. "If we felt at any time that we were transplanting a liver into a person that the hope of any long-term outcome was very poor, we shouldn't be doing the transplant," she said. McDiarmid said, however, that doctors do not ask about a patient's immigration status. The larger problem, she said, is that the state healthcare system cuts off illegal immigrants who were covered as children. "We took care of those undocumented children because we thought, and the state thought, that it was the right thing to do," she said. "Why would we as a society then turn our backs on them?" Puente is not the only young transplant patient who has shown up for county care recently. Dr. Andrew Stolz, who directs the liver consultation service at County-USC as well as the county's outpatient Roybal Liver Clinic, said the facility is treating about 10 liver transplant patients who aged out of California Children's Services and no longer have insurance. Though he does not know how many of these patients are immigrants, Stolz said those who are here legally could apply for full-scope Medi-Cal to cover a liver transplant. Repeat transplants, which are not uncommon, can be necessary if the patients' bodies reject the livers at the time of the transplant or while they are on medication, or if the transplant livers develop hepatitis C, Stolz said. Jose Lopez said he came to the U.S. with his mother illegally as a child. Soon after, he contracted hepatitis A and received his first liver transplant. Eight years later, he got cirrhosis and received another transplant. Both were performed at UCLA and paid for by the state. As his 21st birthday approached, his mother, Maria Elena Lopez, searched for clinics that might agree to treat her son. She applied for Medi-Cal for him but has not received a response. Her son turned 21 on Aug. 7. He said the UCLA doctors gave him extra medications to hold him over. About a month later, his mother found the Roybal clinic, which provided Lopez with medication and monitored his care. Though his drugs never lapsed, his liver is still in rejection. "I'm just mad," he said from the Los Angeles apartment he shares with his parents. "You can't just leave a person to die. That's pretty much what they're telling me: 'You're illegally here. We're just gonna let you die.' " He said he doesn't blame UCLA for not wanting to treat him free, but added, "I was hoping for some miracle." Lopez just learned about the relief Puente received and said he may follow the same route. He hopes to return to UCLA for treatment. A question of ethics Medical ethicists said doctors and hospitals have a duty to continue treatment for their transplant patients unless they can find them comparable care elsewhere. "The worst ethical violation a physician can commit is abandonment," Arthur Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, wrote in an e-mail. "Physicians and institutions do have a duty to these patients once they transplanted them. ... Insurance running out is no excuse for abandoning them." Caplan said UCLA doctors were under no obligation to perform liver transplants on the illegal immigrant children knowing that their insurance would run out at 21 and that their livers would probably need to be replaced. Wesley Ford, director of children's medical services for Los Angeles County, said his office works with patients before their 21st birthdays to make sure they are covered. But that is more difficult for illegal immigrants. "It's not that we want to deny care to these kids," he said. "It's required by state law that we discontinue care at age 21." Los Angeles County picks up where the state left off, providing costly medications, performing lab work and conducting biopsies — regardless of immigration status. But the key for patients who lose their insurance at 21, Stolz said, is to go immediately to the county before any lapse in medicine occurs and before their livers fail. "We would hate for patients to lose a liver because they can't get medication," Stolz said. "A lot of people just are not aware that there is this safety net." Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY: COMMITTED TO ACCOUNTABILITY AND OVERSIGHT
Posted by Israel Academia Monitor, January 29, 2010. |
|
This is from the National Post
|
|
In recent days, Rights & Democracy — a non-partisan organization created by Canada's Parliament in 1988 to encourage and support the universal values of human rights and the promotion of democratic institutions and practices around the world — has been the subject of several media reports. As members of the board of this organization, we would like to correct some of these reports and provide some insight into our recent challenges. As has been widely reported in the press, certain members of the board have received a letter, claiming to have been unanimously signed by all members of the Rights & Democracy staff, calling for these members' resignation. This claim of unanimity is suspect because we have also been contacted by concerned staff members who have never seen or signed such a letter. Unfortunately, this appears to be a case of some managers inappropriately pressuring staff under their authority. The central issue is the fiduciary role of the Rights & Democracy board to ensure accountability for spending taxpayers' money here in Canada or overseas. Sadly, controversy is not new to this organization. In 2007, long before most of the current board members were involved with the group, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Foreign Affairs concluded that Rights & Democracy needed greater transparency, stricter internal financial controls and greater accountability. Even as far back as 1998, the board acted to terminate Rights & Democracy's program in the Middle East because it was generating precisely the kinds of problems we are experiencing today. Accountability and oversight have been the focus of our recent board meetings. The board has been trying to fulfill its mandate of ensuring that project and grant monies are being sent overseas in a transparent manner which satisfies internal financial control standards. Spending decisions need to be fully accountable and satisfy the Canadian public's sense of fairness and reasonableness. The board took especially seriously a number of unauthorized staff decisions to spend taxpayers' money for purposes that most taxpayers and most political leaders would find appalling. Some of the sums were large, and some were small. The amounts involved are less important than the poor judgment and lack of accountability demonstrated in approving certain grants. For example, in February 2009, three questionable organizations were provided grants through discretionary funds which have had little to no board oversight. These organizations are Al Haq, headquartered in the West Bank, Al Mazan, headquartered in Gaza and BT'selem, headquartered in Israel. They were each granted $10,000. Al Haq's general director, Shawan Jabarin, has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan because of his ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP is a listed terrorist organization in Canada. In 2007, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected Mr. Jabarin's petition to have his travel ban lifted because "he is an activist in a terrorist organization." It should come as no surprise that the board reacted with shock when it found Mr. Jabarin's own signature on the paperwork accepting this grant from Rights & Democracy. Furthermore, two of the three named organizations are active in the lawfare movement, which is a strategy of abusing law to achieve military objectives — in this case, to punish Israel for anti-terror operations. Al Haq has even pursued a strategy of lawfare in Canada, where it has backed the use of the courts to harass Canadian companies based in Quebec which have business operations in Israel. As a result, the board voted to repudiate these grants and temporarily freeze the discretionary funds under the president's control which were used to provide them. What has not been reported is that the president, the late Rémy Beauregard, who was a voting member of the board, actually voted with the majority of the board, in agreement with this decision. The freeze decision is meant to allow the staff time to complete a redesign of decision-making processes to help the organization avoid such situations in the future. While it has been reported otherwise, we also want to make it clear that the board actually approved the project to assist victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with some adjustments to the staging of the project. Finally, it is sad and misleading for critics of the board's commitment to accountability to use the name of the late Mr. Beauregard for their benefit. There is much work to be done at Rights & Democracy on behalf of its many stakeholders, including, most importantly, the taxpayers of Canada. We will continue to work to govern Rights & Democracy according to the highest standards so that Canadians need not be embarrassed by, but rather can be consistently proud of the work of the organization. * IAM editor's note: Al Haq, an organization Dapha Golan particiapted their conference: Symposium on HSRC Report:
BT'selem is an organization associated with Co-chairs: David Kretzmer, Professor of Law, Faculty of Law and School of Public Policy, Hebrew University, and Gila Svirsky, Co-founder of Coalition of Women for a Just Peace Contact the Israel Academia Monitor by email at e-mail@israel-academia-monitor.com |
|
PARSHA BISHLACH, TU B'SHVAT
Posted by Rabbi Tzvi Tauby, January 29, 2010. |
|
Tu B'Shevat, the 15th of Shevat on the Jewish calendar — celebrated this year on Shabbat, January 30, 2010 — is the day that marks the beginning of a "New Year for Trees." This is the season in which the earliest-blooming trees in the Land of Israel emerge from their winter sleep and begin a new fruit-bearing cycle. Legally, the "New Year for Trees" relates to the various tithes that are separated from produce grown in the Holy Land. These tithes differ from year to year in the seven-year Shemittah cycle; the point at which a budding fruit is considered to belong to the next year of the cycle is the 15th of Shevat. We mark the day of Tu B'Shevat by eating fruit, particularly from the kinds that are singled out by the Torah in its praise of the bounty of the Holy Land: grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. In Honor of Tu B'Shvat I'm including a nice story about nature, with a powerful lesson. 
From the writings of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson. It was the summer of 1896, and father and myself then 16 years of age, were strolling in the fields of Balivka, a hamlet in White Russia. The grain was near to ripening, and the wheat and grass swayed gently in the breeze. |
|
THE DANGER WE FACE
Posted by Susana K-M, January 29, 2010. |
|
This is by William Katz and it is archived on his website:
|
|
THE DANGER WE FACE — Anne Bayefsky, one of the best reporters around today — the UN recently tried to lift her credentials because some delegates griped that she wasn't following the party line — expands on the foreign-policy disgrace in last night's presidential address. From NRO: President Obama's message in the State of the Union address confirmed that he is tone-deaf to the grievous threats that exist to American national security and incapable of changing course before those dangers become a terrible reality. Ouch. Big ouch. Anne is right. This president follows the standard leftist line that we are all to blame. That's why he went around the world apologizing for us early in his term. President Obama announced that in April he will hold another hand-shaking, hot-air-generating "nuclear security summit" — to control American and Russian arms. As for dealing with Iran, he could not manage to muster a single concrete move, just an empty "they too will face growing consequences." From whom? From the UN, where China has a veto? The president doesn't say. This is an administration that has turned its back on inconvenient victims from Tehran to Tibet to Israel. An administration that has climbed on board the U.N. Human Rights Council, despite its being a tool of Islamic states for defeating rights. And yet the president disingenuously lectured: "America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity." We have asked regularly at Urgent Agenda whether Obama wants to be Kennedy or Carter. I'm afraid we got our answer last night. Welcome to the peanut farm. Jumbos available at slight extra cost. --------------------------- BULLETIN — Osama bin Laden has joined the global warming movement. is this a bid for respectability? From the AP: CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming. COMMENT: We should always be mindful of the fact that bin Laden and his associates are not stupid. They are tuned in to the world. They are up on things. Before 9-11, bin Laden rarely mentioned the Arab-Israel conflict. His attention was elsewhere. But after 9-11, apparently realizing he could reap propaganda benefits among Western leftists, he started championing the Palestinians, leading to the absurd notion, spread in the West, that ending terrorism depends on solving the Israel-Palestine issue. You may be sure that bin Laden's newest message will find a sympathetic ear among Western leftists and their trendy friends. "Well, the man does bad things, but if only we stopped polluting..." You can finish the sentence. It won't be long before ending terrorism will depend, in weak minds, on cap and trade. Hey, maybe bin Laden will win the next Nobel Peace Prize. What a multicultural coup!
-------------------------------------- UNBELIEVABLE — Charles Krauthammer examines the growing evidence that, with Eric Holder's Justice Department in charge, the Christmas-day bomber was entirely mishandled. From The Washington Post: After 50 minutes of questioning him, the Obama administration chose, reflexively and mindlessly, to give the chatty terrorist the right to remain silent. Which he immediately did, undoubtedly denying us crucial information about al-Qaeda in Yemen, which had trained, armed and dispatched him. Look, maybe they just didn't have the phone numbers handy. They're new in town. It's only a year. The culprit should have been interrogated by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. But, uh, there was a bit of a problem: Perhaps you hadn't heard the term. Well, in the very first week of his presidency, Obama abolished by executive order the Bush-Cheney interrogation procedures and pledged to study a substitute mechanism. In August, the administration announced the establishment of the HIG, housed in the FBI but overseen by the National Security Council... These things are so difficult, especially with the health-care bill. The fact is that Eric Holder and his crowd want us to return to the pre 9-11 view of terror, that it's merely a law-enforcement problem, something for the cops. It's the view from the left. We are tempting fate with Eric Holder as AG. The president does not seem to understand. Or maybe he understands all too well...and doesn't really care. ------------- HOLD THAT HOLDER — As my friend, Silvio Canto Jr., puts it, "Dismiss Attorney General Holder and call it 'the war on terror' again!" Can you believe how badly this one attorney general of the United States has messed things up? This is the man who decided to drop a slam-dunk case against the new Black Panthers for voter intimidation at the polls in 2008, and never explained the outrage. This is the man who brought decidedly leftist lawyers into the Justice Department, many of whom came from the same firm that made a cult out of defending Gitmo detainees. This is the man who decided to try the mastermind of 9-11 in a civilian courtroom in New York City, giving this individual the greatest media platform in the world and putting New Yorkers at risk. This is the man whose foot soldiers read the Christmas-day airline bomber his Miranda rights — even though the bomber isn't an American citizen — after only 50 minutes of interrogation, prompting the terrorist to clam up. Eric Holder. What a guy. Prime candidate for early retirement and a gold watch. Now, one of Holder's worst decisions seems to be crumbling. We reported early word last night. Confirmation has since come, but The New York Times, flying the leftist flag to the last, is grudging about it: WASHINGTON — Facing mounting pressure from New York politicians concerned about costs and security, the Obama administration on Thursday began considering moving the trial of the chief organizer of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks out of Manhattan, administration officials said. Considering? My friend, that corpse is cold. The trial won't be held in New York. If Obama hesitates over the change, Congress will refuse to appropriate the funds. President Obama said through a spokesman that he still believed a civilian criminal trial for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has admitted planning the attacks, and four accomplices could be conducted "successfully and securely in the United States." He did not mention New York specifically. Yeah. "Calculated." But what, precisely, went into the calculation? The dispute over a trial location, touched off when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York complained of costs and disruption, threatened to reopen the divisive question of how those accused of plotting the murder of more than 3,000 Americans should be brought to justice. Huh? The dispute was touched off by Bloomberg? Do guys on The Times read their own paper? This dispute has been ongoing since the decision was first announced months ago? Bloomberg came to the party, this week, a bit late, after a public outcry. Well, at least the job is getting done, despite Eric Holder. We'll keep an eye on it. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
HUMAN RIGHTS COALITION AGAINST RADICAL ISLAM; OBAMA FIGHTS
TERRORISM?; SWEDEN NOW THE SITE OF HATE CRIMES
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 29, 2010. |
|
HUMAN RIGHTS COALITION AGAINST RADICAL ISLAM PART 1: ISLAM VS. FEMINISM The Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI) is a new, New York-based NGO whose rally I reported last year. It comprises activists and organizations from various ethnic groups oppressed by Radical Islam. These include Muslims, Copts, Chinese, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Africans, and feminists. Gays and Buddhists are welcome to be represented, too. Member organizations have speakers eager to speak at temples and other venues. The group was addressed by feminist leader, Phyllis Chesler. She related her experience exposing Radical Islam as the epitome of an apartheid movement, with Israel being the canary in a mine of gas. This was at a conference in Barnard. As they say, "All hell broke loose" against her. Ms. Chesler finds the established feminist movement in a sad state. She observes that the only feminist groups still genuinely so are Muslim Arab ones. The others have been inhibited by multi-cultural relativism and the Third World prejudices of the late Prof. Edward Said. They are more worried about being called racists, than opposing Radical Muslim oppression of women. Western feminists try to evade the problem of Islamic honor killings as mere domestic violence. In the context of Muslims seeing it as religious betrayal, however, and with its beheadings and other violence by brothers and other relatives, it is the kind of women's rights violation that should engage feminists. Chesler emphasizes that issue to help and recruit Arab women (Minutes of meeting, 1/28; infor@hrcari.org. Note that the Coalition does not take any position on any religion, only on persecution in the name of religion). You can see that the epithet, "racist," is a club abused by oppressors, including racists, to cow criticism of them. People need to develop the moral courage not to be inhibited nor ashamed, but counter-charge abusers of human rights with defaming their criticism and distorting it as a slur against the abusers. Problem is, the established feminist groups, like the Left in general, have gotten used to categorizing certain ethnic groups as sacred cows (the Muslim Arabs) and others as black sheep or scapegoats. They are too ossified or lazy to study current issues and learn who are the contemporary villains and victims. They no longer are issue-driven but label-driven. They have been misled by false-labeling. PART 2. RADICAL ISLAMIC APARTHEID IN SUDAN The Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam, at a meeting described in Part 1, also heard from African leader Simon Deng. He discussed the slaughter of several million southern Sudanese Christians, outside of Darfur. Mr. Deng found that in this struggle, too, attempts are made to mute the issue. The issue of Darfur, significant as it is, distracts attention from the other genocide. He sees this distraction as a way of easing Western consciences. Rarely are Muslim Arabs mentioned as the enemy of the rights and lives of Christians [and animists] there. Although Deng was one of the victims, his objection to the genocide is distorted so as to depict him as a radical. Africa, Deng says, is becoming a Muslim Arab continent. The next few decades will be critical in taking over that continent, Deng believes. The terrorism against southern Africans, like that against Israel, is the outcome of an apartheid prejudice. Deng points out that Islamists think of their victims — Sudanese, Hindus, Copts, Jews, and Sikhs, among others — as the body of a snake. They consider the head of the snake as the United States. What is the U.S. doing about this global assault on peoples and civilizations, which is to culminate with the overthrow of the U.S.? The President of the U.S. resorts to a polite label for it. That is a bad omen for any struggle to defeat it. The Pajamas Media blog by Phyllis Chesler details the oppression of Coptic Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs (Minutes of Coalition meeting, 1/28). PART 3. RADICAL ISLAM IN THE U.S. Representing Americans for Peace and Tolerance, Charles Jacobs has gotten Islamist penetration into U.S. society more into public awareness. He does so by exposing the Islamists "enablers." "Enablers" are American political, religious, academic, and media leaders who are blind to the menace of Radical Islam, rationalize excuses for it, and condemn as prejudiced whoever warns against it. Americans respond well to such exposes. Americans do not like to be duped, lied to, and misinformed. Radical Muslim leaders conceal their intent and pose as moderates, even as they abuse American hospitality and assail its liberties. Working through the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam, Mr. Jacobs intends to target the New York Times, which he considers a prime "enabler" (Coalition Minutes, 1/28). What a dereliction of duty that the very leaders pledged to be our watchdogs protect the burglars! Radical Muslims put it as criticism of their agenda, or defense against its demands for special privileges by way of imposing their values upon the public, is a denial of their liberty. But criticism and self-defense do not deny freedom. They exercise freedom. STATE OF THE UNION President Obama did not say much about national security. I recall his assertion that U.S. troops are coming home from Iraq, and that N. Korea and Iran are isolated (1/27). He implies that the U.S. accomplished something with N. Korea and Iran. Truth is, those rogue states continue keeping or developing nuclear weaponry. Iran is making more alliances and is gaining control over Lebanon and Fatah. Pres. Obama's "engagement" has been spurned. Perhaps the U.S. is getting isolated. This President has let us sink into a grave crisis. Is Iraq sufficiently secure for U.S. troops to return this summer? Since they mostly are not in combat any more, is a return so important? Will they return, or will they be transferred to some other trouble spot, such as Yemen? No explanation was given for U.S. arming of the Lebanese Army, under the sway of Hizbullah and therefore Iran. Neither was an explanation given for U.S. arming of the Palestinian Authority, a force for war if ever there were one. The failures of the policy to establish another Palestinian Arab state were omitted, although that policy once was declared a priority. Other serious foreign policy problems were ignored. The foreign policy elements should be viewed in the context of the State of the Union speech as a whole. It was more a political speech, with excuses and vilification, than an assessment. It threw statistics and assertions at the audience faster than humans can absorb them and, if necessary, debunk them. It dissembled mightily, while pretending concern for common Americans and for the economy. Concern indicated by a medical insurance bill that admittedly was constructed by logrolling for special interests and Senatorial blackmail? The bill would reduce the deficit, when the costs are certain, the deficit reduction depends on taxes that could be levied anyway and the savings depend on future Congresses reducing further doctors' allowances despite further reduction causing doctors to retire? He urges the use of common sense. What sense does it make to expand medical coverage and claim to be cutting costs? Some of Obama's criticism of the GOP was appropriate, but the GOP increasingly has made constructive suggestions. Despite Obama's pledge for non-partisanship, Republicans were kept out of much the insurance bill-drafting process, conducted in secret and voted upon without sufficient study. The speech ignored reality, attributing popular discontent with Obama's program to his not explaining it sufficiently. What is there to explain about the insurance bill, which changed daily, as Senators extorted or repressed its provisions? Obama made much of his rule against employing lobbyists, a rule that to which he has made exceptions. But his economic officials are part of the financial ruling class that acted as internal lobbies for their industry. As pundits analyze the speech, favorable ones will ignore such flaws, and unfavorable ones will discover more such flaws. The speech ended with a "God bless America!" More apt would have been, "Heaven help America!" OBAMA FIGHTS TERRORISM? 
The major media still fails to cover a critical story on U.S. policy toward terrorism. The story was discovered by a minor Israeli source and kept alive by Internet reporters. The story is that the U.S. Treasury Dept., headed by Timothy Geithner, has removed all but one of thousands of Hamas Terrorists from its list of terrorists. The list goes to banks in the U.S. and other countries, for screening out terrorists from those eligible to receive transfers of funds. As a result, the EU and others can continue sending money to Hamas men in Gaza, a portion of which would finance terrorism. Opponents of terrorism had been planning lawsuits to block such
transfers, but the Treasury Dept. whitewashing of terrorists removes
the basis for such suits (Winston Mideast Analysis & Commentary,
1/28, citing
SWEDEN NOW THE SITE OF HATE CRIMES 
Sweden (Mattias Lundin, Scanpix, File) Southern Sweden hosts about 3,000 Jews, increasingly in flight, as hate-driven attacks on them rise. Last year's reported attacks were 79, double the prior year's (according to Skånska Dagbladet). Jews also suffer threats and harassment, and their cemeteries and synagogues repeatedly are defaced; one was fire-bombed. A mosque was attacked, too, perpetrator unknown. Why? Here are some explanations, not mutually exclusive. (1) Neo-Nazis are responsible; (2) Politicians and local society share responsibility, because they ignore the problem; (3) The Far Left takes out its dislike of Israeli policy on Swedish Jews, who do not participate in Israeli policy; and (4) A growing Muslim Arab immigration in Malmo, in southern Sweden. A Jewish community representative doubted that the neo-Nazis
account for much of the problem, due to its nature
There is an ethical inconsistency in Western society that condemns people for committing crimes of hatred, except, mostly, when by Muslims against Jews. By refusing to face this problem, which can upset delusions of societal tolerance, the problem deepens, as criminal elements feel released from societal restraint. Violence against people because of their ethnicity is uncivilized. All sectors and levels of society should condemn it, whether the target be synagogue or mosque. If the leaders of any religion do not condemn it, what civilized values have they? Why do liberals stay silent, when the Far Left blames Jews everywhere for what it claims not to like about the government of Israel? Do liberals want to be associated with a bigoted Far Left that makes scapegoats of innocent people? Do liberals feel no responsibility for the political climate that condones domestic violence, generated by Far Left denunciations of Israel? What of the excuse that the Arabs in Sweden dislike Israeli policies? Antisemites always have excuses. The excuse is a pretext for bigotry. First comes the prejudice, then comes an excuse, as if prejudice were rational. Ask an emotionally disturbed person why he does such and such, and he will give an apparently logical reason. Do you believe it? The Arab-Israel conflict is itself religious, based on the pre-existing Muslim Arab prejudice against non-believers. The prejudice has been augmented over the centuries by Christian notions of blood libel, Nazi notions of racial inheritance of character traits, and inflammatory conspiracy theories by Radical Islam. Radical Islam is making great strides in its goal of replacing Western civilization. Much of the West, including Sweden, may not appreciate the value of Western civilization and especially its Christian heritage. Imagine how much worse it would fare under the heavy hand of Radical Islam! The handwriting is on the wall for Sweden and the whole West. Act now or die late? It must be difficult for Sweden and the West to confront the new menace. Arising from a homogeneous or increasingly integrated society, Western civilization developed liberal notions of tolerance. Its immigration policies are based on those notions (and a wish for cheap immigrant labor). The West supposes that other societies share these values. Some do not. The liberal ideology is not flexible enough to differentiate, after having made anti-discrimination a key component of its way of life. Thus in the name of tolerance, Sweden hosts the intolerant.
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:
|
|
FROM ISRAEL: "WHERE IS IT GOING?"
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 29, 2010. |
|
I don't know that anyone but Khaled Abu Toameh could have quite pulled off this interview, which was an exclusive front page story in the Jerusalem Post today: Fahmi Shabaneh was appointed four years ago as head of the Anti-Corruption Department of the PA's General Intelligence Service and served until very recently. Now he tells Abu Toameh that Hamas is very likely to take over the West Bank one day, as it did Gaza, because of the enormous corruption of the Palestinian Authority. "Had it not been for the presence of the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, Hamas would have done what they did in the Gaza Strip," Shabaneh said. "It's hard to find people in the West Bank who support the Palestinian Authority. People are fed up with the financial corruption and mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority." Shabaneh explained that Abbas has surrounded himself with the same corrupt officials who once worked for Yasser Arafat, Abbas's predecessor. Many in the West Bank have given up hope that reform of the PA will ever come. Shabeneh gave several examples of what he alleges to be the corruption of the PA and Fatah (which is the major party of the PA). Perhaps most startling was his charge that when the US gave a donation of $3.2 to Fatah ahead of the 2006 Palestinian Authority legislative election (which was ultimately won by Hamas) so that the party could improve its image, Fatah personnel stole much of it. See the entire story here:
~~~~~~~~~~ As is often the case in the winter before Shabbat, time is short. We will return to other matters shortly. But here I want to request that all US citizens contact their Congresspersons and Senators about this report. Give the URL and a very brief synopsis. Then explain that this exceedingly corrupt regime is the one that the Obama administration wants Israel to negotiate with. Point out that, first, the PA does not represent the Palestinians living in the West Bank — Mahmoud Abbas has no legitimate constituency. And then, that if the IDF pulls out, as the Obama administration wishes, the PA is exceedingly likely to collapse. This will not only be bad for Israel and for peace in the Middle East, it will have negative repercussions for the US, which will look very foolish for having promoted this. For your Congresspersons:
For your Senators:
~~~~~~~~~~ Additionally, please share this information very broadly, so that it can be understood what a dangerous and foolish idea Obama is promoting. People are more likely to sit up and take notice because it is a Palestinian who was involved with the PA who is sounding the warning. Use this information to write letters to editors, as well, and place it on blogs. ~~~~~~~~~~ Information I am receiving is that Obama would rather act like he knows what he's doing, in defiance of the evidence staring him in the face, and be a one-term president, than modify his perspective and regain electoral popularity. (We will leave questions of his motivation, about which several readers have written to me, aside.) See, for example, Anne Bayefsky, who has written in "Dangerous Weakness" in National Review Online: "President Obama's message in the State of the Union address confirmed that he is tone-deaf to the grievous threats that exist to American national security and incapable of changing course before those dangers become a terrible reality." http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q= MjhiNTA0MzQ3MjgzNzJmNTM4YTc0YjhjNzlkYzI5MWI= Thus, there is no reason to believe he can be convinced of the foolishness of his program for promoting "a two-state solution." The hope lies with Congress and grassroots reaction. ~~~~~~~~~~ 
Tomorrow is Tu B'Shvat. I had a rare occasion yesterday to ride through some back roads in the hills of Jerusalem. The almond trees, the earliest, are in bloom, and everything is delightfully green because of recent rains. A blessing.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il
and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
|
|
A DOZEN SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH YOUR LETTER TO PRES. OBAMA ABOUT GAZA
Posted by David Meir-Levi, January 28, 2010. | |
|
From: david_meirlevi@hotmail.com
Most Honorable Mr. Honda and Ms. Speier, I noticed your names on the letter below, sent from Congress to President Obama. I was surprized to see your names, because I know that you must know that: 1.) Hamas has declared war on Israel, and its deeds have matched its words, with more than 10,000 rocket attacks, sniper fire, RPG attacks, kidnappings, suicide bomber attacks, and an endless relentless diatribe of genocide and annihilation. 2.) Hamas has fired upon Palestinian and Israeli personnel at crossing points even as Israel attempts to transfer food and medicines and other humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Arabs of the Gaza Strip through those same crossing points. 3.) Hamas has confiscated international aid money and food and supplies, and has utilized them for the expansion of its military and terrorist capacities, even at the expense of its own people. 4.) Hamas has fired barrages of qassam rockets and longer range katyusha rockets and mortars on nearby Israeli towns, killing and wounding residents, even as Israel makes peace offers and continues to supply the population of Gaza with food and water and elecricity. 5.) Israel closed the borders with the Gaza Strip only AFTER Hamas began its attacks. Absent those attacks, the Gaza Strip could have open borders with Israel, open access to international waters, and a functioning airport. 6.) Israel's 2005-06 military operation against Gaza was prompted by Hamas' interminable attacks, more than 10,000 qassams, and its stockpiling of more powerful weapons for future attacks. How many rockets in to San Diego from Tijuana would our government permit? Israel permitted 10,000! 7.) Israel has not only supplied the Arabs of the Gaza Strip with medical supplies, but has admitted scores of injured and ill Arabs, including some who are known terrorists, to be treated at Isaeli hospitals, even as Hamas continues its terror war against Israeli civilians. 8.) Israel supplies 70% of Gaza's electricity needs, even though Hamas has targetted the electrical power plant in Ashqelon, the power plant that supplies the electricity to the Gaza Strip, with dozens of qassam rocket attacks. 9.) Egypt is building a huge solid steel wall across the entire length of its border with the Gaza Strip in order to hermetically seal that border, with no humanitarian aid of any sort offered from Egypt to the beleaguered Gazan Arabs. So Israel is treating the Gaza Arabs far better than Egypt is, and Hamas is not bombarding Egypt. 10.) The Arabs of the Gaza Strip are beleaguered only because Hamas beleaguers them, and beleaguers Israel as well. Absent Hamas' incessant genocidal rhetoric and terrorist attacks, life in the Gaza Strip would be very much as it was under Israel's sovereignty from 1967-1994....almost full employment, tourism, freedom of movement, and an expanding economy. 11.) Human Rights Watch (HRW: no friend of Israel) has verified that Hamas has violated numerous international laws by targetting Israeli civilians with its rocket attacks and suicide bomber attacks and sniper attacks and road-side bomb attacks, and by using its own people as human shields. Hamas oppresses its own, exploits is own, violates its own, and then blames the humanitarian mess on Israel. Moreover, Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad and numerous other Arab terrorist groups are in violation of the 1950 United Nations Conference on Genocide, in which incitement to genocide is deemed a violation of international law. All too many of us are strangely silent as Hamas violates international law, and at the same time launches endless accusations of such violations against Israel. 12.) Almost every one of the demands listed in the letter, if implemented, would facilitate Hamas' terrorist activities, expansion of its terrorist arsenal, infiltration of suicide bombers in to Israel, and oppression of its own people. See my comments beneath each of those demands. Hamas is a virulent genocidal terrorist force...a force of evil. It is allied with Hezbollah and Iran and el-Qaeda. It's end game is far more than the destruction if Israel. It has openly and unabashedly joined forces with the Muslim terrorist jihadist leaders who seek, as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khoumeini put it back in February of 1979, to "finish the job that Muhammed started....(and)...make Islam supreme in the world". Israel's enemies are our own country's enemies. Your signature on that letter is complicity with our enemies. I most sincerely urge you to publicly rescind your signature. David Meir-Levi PS. I've added a few comments, in bold italics, inside of the letter, to assist you in understanding my assertion in #12 above. | |
|
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 |
|
AMONA MOUNTED COP APOLOGIZES
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, January 28, 2010. |
|
This is from Yeshiva World
|
|
The sentencing hearing of the mounted cop found guilty of assault and running over protestors during the expulsion of Amona residents took place on Tuesday in the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court. Investigators from the Justice Ministry police investigations unit lamented the actions of the officer, stating the documented evidence against him brings us back "to the dark days". "The mounted officer did not just trample one citizen, but the rule of law as well" the ministry agent added. The attorney for the accused asked that a formal conviction be avoided as to prevent harming his future in the police force. The Justice Ministry investigator stated that a "mounted policeman who runs someone over while riding a 600kg horse has no place in the police department". While the policeman did apologize for his actions to the court, he did not bother to turn around and apologize to the civilian involved in the case, Yehuda Etzion, who was seated in the courtroom. Rachel Struck, a Chevron resident and head of the Yesha human rights organizations, expressed her hope that the sentencing will be serve enough to act as a deterrent against such actions in the future. 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. He writes, "In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means." |
|
THE MYTH OF JEWISH COLONIALISM
Posted by Lyn Julius, January 28, 2010. |
|
In much discourse about the Middle East, there is a widespread myth that Jews are interlopers from Europe and the US — white westerners who came to 'colonise' and 'steal land' from the 'native' Palestinian people to whom it rightfully belongs. This myth, drawing on Marxist terminology, gained increasing legitimacy after 1967 when Israel annexed East Jerusalem and 'conquered' the West Bank. The notion of 'occupation' and the use of the word 'settlers' reinforce the concept of Israeli 'colonisation' of 'Arab' land. Aside from assuming that the Palestinians must be the true natives because they look authentically 'brown', the colonialism myth supports another myth: Jews are not a people, deserving of the right to self-determination, but a religion. Thus anti-Zionists habitually talk about of US citizens of the Jewish faith, Germans of the Jewish faith and even Arabs of the Jewish faith. At the time of the French Revolution, Clermont-Tonnerre said of the emancipation of Jews: "We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals." The Jewish community would somehow disappear, leaving only French citizens of Jewish religion or ancestry. Lately, the notion that Jews are not one people but a motley collection of converts has been given a boost by Tel Aviv Professor Shlomo Sand, whose bestselling book, The Invention of the Jewish People, is now out in English. Sand's theories build on the work of Arthur Koestler, who popularised the idea that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Turkic tribe, the Khazars. Both men undermine the legitimacy of Israel by inferring that Jews have no link to Palestine. Genetic studies, however, discredit Koestler's theory: they find that Jews from East and West have more in common with each other, and are genetically closer to non-Jews of Middle eastern origin — the Kurds in particular — than they are to the non-Jewish populations they lived amongst. Last June President Obama articulated another myth: Israel was created as a penance for the Holocaust in Europe. This myth obscures the truth that every Arab state is equally a creation of western colonialism. It also ignores the fact that the institutions of a Jewish state-in-waiting were established decades before Ben Gurion read out Israel's declaration of independence. We often hear or read about Israel being populated by pork-munching non-Jewish Russians and settlers from Brooklyn. But these groups are marginal. We almost never hear that 40 percent of Israel's Jews trace their ancestry from Muslim and Arab lands. The vast majority of these Jews merely moved from one corner of the 'Arab' world to that Middle Eastern coastal sliver known as Israel. Until their expulsion 50 years ago, Jews had been settled in Iraq, for example, since the Babylonians exiled Jews from Jerusalem almost 3,000 years ago. In the early 20th century, Baghdad was the most Jewish city in the world, after Salonica and Jerusalem. The Jews can be said to have as legitimate a claim on Baghdad as Palestinians on Jerusalem. The Arabs are relative newcomers to the region; the 'Arab' world is a misnomer. By the time the Arabs had conquered land largely inhabited by Jews and Christians in the 7th century, the Jews had been settled there for 1,000 years. People in the West tend to apply a common misconception to all Jews, borrowing the Christian notion that Jews have been punished to wander from land to land with no country to call their own. But not only have Jews always lived in Palestine, there was continuity of Jewish settlement in the Middle East and North Africa for 2,000 years. If only native inhabitants are titled to political rights, the Jews are as indigenous as any people living in the Middle East can be. That Jewish presence came to an end in the last 50 years. The Arab League determined to wreak revenge on defenceless Jewish citizens in Arab lands if the partition of Palestine went ahead. On the day when five Arab armies invaded the new Jewish state, the Arab League secretary, Azzam Pasha announced :"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades". The Arab governments actually declared two wars in 1948. The military war against the fledgling Jewish state of Israel they lost, but they declared a second war, against a million Jewish citizens. This war they won easily, through a policy of intimidation, repression, persecution and sporadic outbreaks of violence. The result is that only 4,500 Jews are left in Arab countries. Jews 'stealing Arab land' is an offensive inversion of reality. Jews in 10 Arab countries were stripped of their rights and in most cases dispossessed of their property. The World Organisation of Jews from Arab Countries estimates that Jews in Arab countries lost many more billions of assets than the Palestinians, and four times as much land as the size of Israel itself. Seen in these terms, Arab antisemitism created Israel no less than the Holocaust. The Arabs owe the Jews big-time. It's time the world stopped viewing the conflict through a distorted, Eurocentric lens. Eliyahu m'Tsiyon commented: There is a lot wrong with the "Zionist colonialism" thesis. First of all, if the Jews were returning, as they believed, then it should not be called "colonialism." Next, what about the status of the Palestinian Arab Muslims [actually, not defining themselves as "Palestinian Arabs" before the League of Nations decision to recognize the Jewish National Home in 1922]? Under the Ottoman Empire, which was a Sunni Muslim state, the Palestinian Arab Muslims enjoyed a status superior to all dhimmis. Further, members of the leading Arab families in the country [not called "palestine" by them before 1920, to be sure] held high posts in the Empire, ruling over Jews in lands from Iraq to Romania. These included Ashkenazim, especially in Romania. For instance, Aaron Aaronsohn, one of the outstanding Jews of the so-called First Aliyah, was born in Romania as an Ottoman subject. Now, since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right to move from one part of one's country to another [Article 13b??], then why did not his family have that right?? Indeed, the Ottoman Empire brought Muslims from Bosnia and other lost territories in Europe to the Land of Israel ["Palestine"] at about the same time that Aaronsohn's family came. Why shouldn't the Aaronsohns have had the same right to move to and dwell in the Land of Israel as the Slavic Bosnian Muslims?? This argument is fashionable and it has won many adherents who are charmed to find a secular-progressive reason for hating Jews, instead of the old religious Christkiller claim. In this vein, do you know about Nick Hornby's movie, The Education [or some such title], which employs many old Judeophobic themes?? It seems that he has taken some old themes and dressed them up for the 21st century, while other Judeophobic themes are left intact ["they killed our Lord," etc]. Lyn Julius is a journalist and co-founder of Harif (www.harif.org), a UK association of Jews from the Middle East and N. Africa. |
|
ISRAEL'S INTERNAL THREAT
Posted by Steve Kramer, January 28, 2010. |
|
"A democracy is tested on its attitudes towards its minorities and we all know that if you are not wealthy, fair-skinned and educated, your chances of succeeding in life are reduced." This statement could have been made by almost any pundit in a Western democracy. In this case, the pundit is Ms. Orit Zuaretz, a member of the Kadima political party in Israel. Zuaretz made her comment in the wake of a telling report from the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), the group of the world's most economically developed nations. Israel expects to be inducted into the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the near future, but a few impediments stand in its way. From www.haaretz.com: "Israel will be the poorest of the 30 nations comprising the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, assuming it joins this year, says the OECD's report on Israel — and it has several suggestions, some revolutionary, for how to amend that situation. The report states that 19.9% of Israel's population is categorized as "poor," which is more than in Mexico (18.4%), Turkey (17.5%) or the U.S. (17.1%). The average poverty level for the OECD is just 10.9%, the paper states. Israel also has the highest rate of inequality, explains the OECD. Israel's average is also impacted negatively by the high proportion of poverty among the ultra-Orthodox haredim (60%) and Arabs (50%). Both sectors are characterized by a low proportion of working adults, relatively low salaries when they do work, and high birth rates, which lead to the statistic that a third of Israeli children are categorized as poor, compared with an average of 12% for the OECD. The report also states that 25% of Israel's workers receive low pay, which is about the same proportion as in the other OECD member nations. But among haredim and Arabs, a majority of adults receive low pay." There is no doubt that the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in Israel is huge, second only to the United States by many accounts. This is particularly disturbing when one considers the socialist background of Israel's 1948 leaders, when the country was supported by the Soviet Union as well as America. Significantly more than 50% of Israeli families earns less than the "average" family of the same size. Consequently, the middle class has been reduced dramatically, similar to the American experience. But there are other, demographic reasons which threaten Israel's economy and well-being in the next generation. While about 20% of Israelis live below the poverty line, the two main groups comprising about three-quarters of the impoverished are somewhat self-selected. (In Israel, the poverty line is defined by this formula: when family income is less than half of the income of an average Israeli family of the same size.) The haredi segment of the population is about 10% while the Arab segment is about 20%. A large proportion of haredi men are not part of the work force and depend on government stipends given to yeshiva students and "scholars" as well as family welfare payments. Similarly, a large proportion of Arab women are not in the work force due to societal norms, while not all the men can find legitimate jobs. The remainder of Israel's poor are new immigrants, the elderly, single mothers, and multi-generation welfare families. How will Israel deal with this problem? Part of the solution depends on the ability of the government to withstand pressure from the haredi and Arab segments, both of which agitate for higher welfare payments for children, especially in larger families. (Haredi families average eight children, Arab families average four children and Beduin families average seven children.) In the past, child allowances increased after the third child and again after the sixth child, but this policy was ended several years ago when the current prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, was finance minister. But since Israel's coalition governments almost always include religious parties, whose constituents have large families, there is constant pressure to increase child allowances. On the brighter side: for haredi men, serving in the Israel Defense Forces has become more popular in the last few years. Special combat units of ultra-Orthodox men, in which special kosher food is served and there are no female instructors or officers, are attracting more recruits, as are "intelligence" units. The stigma against serving in the IDF is diminishing. Recently, a reserve unit for haredi veterans was established, enabling these soldiers to serve for several weeks each year, as typical Israeli veterans do. The problem with non-working Arab women is even more difficult, due to the wide-spread lack of female employment among Muslim Arabs. Arab wives who work outside of the home challenge women's traditional role in the household and Arab society as a whole. (There is a very small Christian Arab population in Israel, with birthrate, level of education, and workforce participation similar to Jewish Israelis.) However, civilian National Service, in place of military service which is only available to Beduin Arabs, is becoming more acceptable among the young Arab population. In addition, more young Arab men and women are attending college. Both of these developments lead to more integration into Israeli society and fewer children. While there is a large "black economy" in haredi (and Arab) sectors, there is a growing recognition for the need to work in conventional, tax-paying vocations. In America, the ultra-Orthodox men combine learning with holding down jobs. Among the haredim in Israel, there is a growing realization that their population explosion cannot be supported by the government for much longer. When children mature and want to start their own families, the price of even an entry level apartment is out of reach, while family life is suffering due to the pressure of inadequate housing. There isn't enough room in the existing haredi neighborhoods for more people, so new communities need to be built, since the rigid haredi lifestyle conflicts with the habits of nearly all other Israelis. Despite that, the haredim have taken over sections of many Israeli cities. The National Planning Council has authorized construction of a new haredi city in the Negev Desert, not far from Arad and Beersheba, as well as one in the Galilee, next to Nazareth. These planned cities include room for service industries which can employ the local women. While both the projected communities have met with criticism from environmental organizations and local leaders in the nearby cities, these segregated enclaves will probably be built, as have many in the past. In my vicinity, the new community of El Ad was built in 1996 and is already halfway to its projected size of 65,000 residents. These communities are highly subsidized, but there seems to be no other solution for the burgeoning haredi population. Similar initiatives may have to be put forward for the Arab population. Simultaneous with the construction of new towns is the increased investment in mass transportation, whose lack of sufficient infrastructure is a drag on worker productivity. The need is to connect the periphery (north and south) to Israel's economic hub in the center of the country, which will increase the available work force and strengthen the Galilee and Israel's southern region. Increasing the Jewish population of both regions is one of Israel's top priorities, while integrating more Israeli Arabs into the workforce is also expected to improve Israel's economy and internal security. Joining the OECD is a big deal for Israel, which will benefit from a closer association with the world's leading economies. For a country that gained independence only 62 years ago, it will be a great accomplishment. But it won't signal the end of Israel's economic problems. That will only come if main-stream Israelis are educated to be less discriminatory, if the haredim capitalize on the exceptional mental capacity of their Torah-educated youth, if the Arab Israelis want to fully cooperate in the building of a strong, viable State of Israel, and finally, if Israel produces political leadership with the vision and ability to make sweeping changes in Israeli society. 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." |
|
IDF TRAINS FOREIGN TROOPS; U.S. SUGGESTS MORE ISRAELI CONCESSIONS; IRAN WILL HAVE BOMB THIS YEAR
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 28, 2010. |
|
IDF TRAINS FOREIGN TROOPS The IDF trains foreign troops in Israel and abroad. There is a certain amount of joint training, too. Foreign countries choose the program, because Israel has had frequent wars and more experience with terrorism. The results are: (1) Israeli troops must keep on their toes, they gain familiarity with different topography, and they learn from their students; (2) Israeli and foreign troops bond, in a kind of personal diplomacy. Foreign troops gain an understanding of the problems Israel faces; (3) Any profit the IDF gets is plowed back into armored vests or other means of saving the lives of its troops (www.imra.org.il, 1/26). U.S. SUGGESTS MORE ISRAELI CONCESSIONS 
In order to entice the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) to negotiate with Israel, the U.S. suggests more Israeli concessions: (1) Israel allow P.A. troops to operate in areas of Judea-Samaria presently under full Israeli control; (2) Pull back from some parts of the zone under P.A. civil but not military control; (3) Release more Arab prisoners; (4) Ease the partial blockade of Gaza; and (5) Israel would agree regularly to turn over to the P.A. excise taxes it collects for the P.A.. [Sometimes Israel withholds or delays the turnover, in response to terrorism or other problems from the P.A..] P.A. head Abbas said those concessions would be in addition to the ones he demanded before (www.imra.org.il, 1/26). IRAN WILL HAVE BOMB THIS YEAR 
Western intelligence agencies are examining a report, confirmed by Iranian defector, that Iran has a previously unknown branch of its nuclear program reporting to Iran's defense ministry. Iran already tested nuclear bomb detonators. Iran is expected to have a nuclear weapon by year's end. The first model may be too big to use, but newer models will be small enough. Because China is heavily invested in Iranian oil fields, China is expected to veto tough sanctions on Iran (www.imra.org.il, 1/26). Sanctions would have to be immediately crippling. Not likely if even possible. This new estimate of Iran's schedule further shortens the wait. Western estimates of Iran's capability often have been under-estimates. ISRAEL PARDONS GAZA EXPULSION RESISTERS The Knesset passed a law on 1/25) pardoning the 400 Israelis who had been convicted of resisting their expulsion from Gaza. Israel's Supreme Court, which had upheld the expulsion, nevertheless had found 'that the evacuation of settlements do harm human rights, including the right to property, freedom of occupation and proper respect for the evacuees.' The only dissenter among 11 judges, Judge Edmund Levy, lambasted the law and ruled that it should be canceled." The expulsion was of questionable legality (Hebron Jewish Community, 1/26). What I can assume was of questionable legality was the brutality that a special police force was ordered to exercise against resisters. ISRAEL-HAMAS PRISONER TRADE COLLAPSES On 1/25, Der Spiegel revealed that the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, that Germany was brokering, collapsed. The deal was supposed to have been agreed to, by the negotiators. PM Netanyahu had not followed the details of negotiations. He was shocked upon learning of the extent of concessions that his negotiator had offered. The Prime Minister ruled out some of them and gave new instructions to his team, to make a "final offer." Hamas accuses the German intermediaries of being pro-Israel and suggesting too many concessions to Israel (www.imra.org.il, 1/26). Shouldn't Netanyahu have required his negotiator to keep him posted? As for the Germans, they probably suggested compromises in the hope of getting a deal concluded. How can negotiations satisfy both sides, when the Arab side has an ideology that considers itself religious superior and therefore entitled to humble the other side?
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:
|
|
THIS IS A SITE WHICH SHOWS WHAT LUNATICS THERE ARE OUT THERE
Posted by Patrick Dempsey, January 28, 2010. |
|
See the Nuts I deal with
Below is my response. |
|
There is always a concern, when we use figures in statistical analysis that in order to establish a truth and integrity that must not be in danger of ignoring the very humanity we seek to remember. Events have a habit of becoming impersonal, due to the lack of a compassionate concern for the People, the subject of which we have established has been lost to us. This is so true within The Holocaust, where 6,000,000 Jewish souls are forgotten in the thrust to recall that too many lives have been lost to us for ever. The terms of the Holocaust only allows for the remembrance of barely 60% of the Jewish names of this catastrophe, while the remainder seem to fade further from memory. When there is an underlying neglect of the integrity of those terms of the Holocaust, which seeks to reflect the catastrophe for 6,000,000 Jewish People, the concern is problematic for the integrity of all history. I am forever responding to those who wish to address an agenda that disguises truth and honesty, behind a contentious line in critical and statistical analysis. I can safely contend that, and I use the tragedy of Babi Yar here to point to this aspect of indifference to human concern, only to state the case for the need for integrity in the detail of the analysis. Clearly, history has acknowledged that 33,771 Jews of Kiev were murdered in the ravine at the Yar. Integral to that awareness has been the acknowledgement of the very Einsatz who perpetrated the crime, as recorded in a series of their Operational Situation Reports. In the specific case of Babi Yar there are OSR reports:- (101) Sonderkommando 4a in collaboration with Einsatzgruppe HQ and two Kommandos of police regiment South, executed 33,771 Jews in Kiev on September 29 and 30, 1941. and (106) In cooperation with the HQ of EGC and two Kommandos of the police regiment South, Sonderkommando 4a executed 33,771 Jews on September 29 and 30. that confirm the exact detail of the atrocity. But there is more! There is witness evidence that has emerged alongside the evidence of some of the perpetrators. All of this adds to the very detail we now add to our positive research. There is an element of conjecture which also adds to the defining detail we seek to add to the posterity of a forthright examination of a particular tragedy. Paul Blobel, who returned to the scene of his crime with Sonderkommando 10005, in order to obliterate the fact of the crime, disgorged the remains of his 'aktionen' from a pit that was 60 yards long, by 8 feet deep and 20 feet wide. A mathematical formula can substantiate that some 33,771 Persons could be accomodated in such a pit. So we have details, testimony and scientific examination that all equates to the evidence of the crime. We then measure the detail of the overall atrocity by such a study that allows for as few errors as is humanly possible. Applying that for the rest of Europe, and we have demographical changes in population census to establish preexisting Jewish communites, we can further elaborate the evidence we seek out. When we subtract from what we know, what remains after the Nazi period allows us a figure that is recorded as the Jewish loss. Almost immediately after the end of the conflict with Germany, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee considered the decline in the World Jewish Population to have been in the region of one third of the figure established in a 1939 survey. From the 16,600,000 figure of the 1939 period to the 11,000,000 tally established after 1945, there was a drop of some 5,600,000 Jewish lives, and this can be seen as the causal effect of the slaughter during The Holocaust. That said, there is an estimation that suggests that barely 3,642,000 Jews remained of the Jewish census conducted before the War. Within this is an estimate that suggests there were some 9,740,000 Jews living in Europe, representing 6,098,000 murdered Jews. However, this figure does contend with those statistics produced by Eichmann for the Wannsee Conference, and Heydrich placed before the table of history an analysis which suggests that there were 11,000,000 Jews targetted for destruction. So widely speaking, we can never be more exact than the speculative assessment we have made and accept that 6,000,000 Jews were indeed murdered. That this statistic is but a metaphor for a more tragic calamity, the loss of too many human lives, compels all of humanity to seek a resolve with that lack of comprehension. But I press on toward my own understanding and answer the below questions, which it appears, do not seek a truthful resolve? 1) The German war machine, allegedly responsible for killing 6 million Jews on the low side, was functioning for 5 years.
2) 5 years = 1825 days
3) 1825 days = 43800 hours
4) 43800 hours = 2628000 minutes
5) 6,000,000 Jews divided by 2628000 minutes = 2.28310502 Jews a Minute.
6) See what the problem is?
7) That's 2 Jews a minute, one Jew every 30 seconds, from the start of Hitlers war machine until the mass surrenders when it broke down. This number is for 6 million.
8) That's the low side. Make it 12 million and suddenly Hitler somehow has to kill almost 5 Jews a minute.
9) We can't just assume that this mass of SS rounded up every single Jew and started shooting.
10) Not enough troops for too many Jews.
11) Add to that the fact that the Jews didn't go willingly.
12) So how many people were actually involved in the operation of destroying the Jews?
13) assumption that a 5 man detachment can keep pace and be everywhere at once.
14) These squads only lasted a year before being disbanded.
15) Hitler thought they were "ineffective and inefficient". Something new had to be done. Hitler decided to build death camps.
16) Not all Jews were sent to death camps.
17) There were eight death camps in total.
18) first and longest operating one (Auschwitz II)
19) didn't have gassing facilities until June of 1943.
20) The date of the official closure of the extermination machine isn't clear
21) Auschwitz was open two years.
22) the "plaque number" (the low estimate) of two million, that's a million people a year.
23) Number time again: 365 days = 8760 hours: 8760 hours = 525600 minutes: 1,000,000 dead / 525600 hours = 1.90258752 killed a minute.
24) 30 seconds to kill one person.
25) We know it took four hours from start to finish to operate a crematorium.
Testimony and Fading Memory in the Holocaust 1) There was a crematorium situated within Auschwitz I, with a Gas chamber using x3 ovens for the 'handling' of 320 bodies daily, and operated between January 1942 and April 1943. The total capacity for murder, and concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 150,000 People who could be 'handled'. All traces are therefore, clearly eradicated. 2) Within Bunker 1, at the installation Birkenau, there were x2 gas chambers with a daily capacity for 800 persons. This installation operated throughout 1942. The total capacity for murder, and concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 290,000 People who could be 'handled'. A Mass grave at this installation was also in operation. 3) Within Bunker 2, Birkenau, there were x4 gas chambers with a daily capacity for 1,200 persons. This installation operated throughout 1942 and parts of 1944. The burning pits were also situated within this complex. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 500,000 People who could be 'handled'. 4) Within Krema 2, Birkenau, there were x5 ovens with a daily capacity for 1,400 persons. This installation operated from the beginning of 1943 till the end of 1944. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 800,000 People who could be 'handled'. 5) Within Krema 3, Birkenau, there were x5 ovens with a daily capacity for 1,400 persons. This installation operated for some 16 months between June 1943 and November 1944. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 700,000 People who could be 'handled'. 6) Within Krema 4, Birkenau, there were x2 ovens with a daily capacity for 770 persons. This installation operated between Spring 1943 and 7th. October 1944. Having been destroyed by a Jewish revolt it remained decommissioned. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 423,000 People who could be 'handled'. 7) Within Krema 5, Birkenau, there were x2 ovens with a daily capacity for 770 persons. This operation installation operated between Spring 1943 and the end of 1944. The total capacity for murder, and the concealment of the evidence, was in the region of 490,000 People who could be 'resettled' and 'handled', a very ' Final Solution.'
26) Lets take that and work by percents: Auschwitz II — 131,400 dead Belzec — 42% of Auschwitz — 55,188 dead
THE HOLOCAUST ACCOUNT, that is always represented by Auschwitz/Birkenau, draws our attention away from the overall assault upon the Jewish People. That analysis must clearly come to terms with what happened to the 6,000,000 Jews of the Holocaust. Drawn together with historical accuracy, with that Nazi penchant for detail and pragmatism we have an understanding of missing communities which all leaves us with a criminal catastrophe always weighted in statistics. Like Simon Wiesenthal, I do not wish to reflect upon the terms of the atrocity in statistical terms alone. We are dealing with the destruction of a People, a Jewish People who are presented here: Auschwitz/Birkenau 1,200,000 Jews murdered (possibly as many as 2,500,000 on my own analysis?) Belzec 680,000 Jews murdered (possibly as many as 1,250,000 on my own analysis?)
Majdanek 360,000 Jews murdered (though I suggest possibly 200,000?) Sobibor 300,000 Jews murdered (agrees with my own analysis?) Treblinka 900,000 Jews murdered (possibly as many as 1,200,000 on my own analysis) "Always to Remember, Never to Forget."
Patrick Dempsey writes on the Holocaust. Contact him at pd1010@hotmail.com |
|
AGUDATH ISRAEL LEADER JOINS EFFORT TO FREE SHOLOM RUBASHKIN
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 28, 2010. | |
|
No doubt, Eric Holder, President Obama's Attorney General, is well embedded in the anti-Jewish crusade to intimidate all Jews. As previously conducted against AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) intended to silence the legal Jewish lobby in Congress. Persecuting Sholom Rubashkin further adds to pressuring American Jews to remain silent while Obama and his Czars force Israel to accept a Muslim Arab Palestinian Two-State Solution. Rubashkin is merely another arrow in Obama and Holder's quiver.
Sholom Rubashkin was convicted after a jury trial before Judge Linda Reade in federal court in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, of bank fraud relating to Agriprocessors' loan from First Bank Business Capital of St. Louis, and for failure to pay livestock providers in a timely manner. The bank never filed a complaint and the loan was being paid until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted a raid on Agriprocessors' premises in May 2008, driving Agriprocessors into bankruptcy. The company was sold and the Rubashkin family is in debt. Charges that Agriprocessors employed illegal aliens have been dropped. Note some prominent but not complete facts listed below: 1. In May 2008, the U.S. government raided the largest Kosher meat processing factory in America, Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa. Agriprocessors had brought excellent food to all Jews who kept Kosher. They also brought very profitable jobs to Postville. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and charged the workers with being illegal aliens. NOTE THAT CHARGES THAT AGRIPROCESSORS EMPLOYED ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE BEEN DROPPED. But, the ICE raid and destruction of Agriprocessors bankrupt the company and the Rubashkins. While they had been paying off their bank loan and their livestock providers in a timely fashion, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ruined a successful business and then charged Sholom Rubashkin with failing to pay the First Bank Business Capital of St. Louis WHICH NEVER FILED A COMPLAINT. In simple words, two main charges, "Illegal Aliens" and "Default of bank loan" have been invalidated. So why was Rubashkin convicted and of what?
Now the Federal Prosecutors (under Attorney General Eric Holder) demand that he be incarcerated before his sentencing — even though the District Judge eventually agreed that the pre-trial detention was "inappropriate". Now Mr. Rubashkin has been held in Linn County Correctional Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa since November 12, 2009, pending his sentencing. AND: Moreover, his friends and his religious community have offered to pay for a 24-hour private armed security guard that will, in effect, imprison him in his home until his sentencing. A total of approximately 8 million dollars in the equity of 43 homes has been offered as security for his appearance. And to demonstrate the intensity of their conviction that he will not flee, rabbis have offered Torah scrolls — that may not be assigned except for the most extreme and exigent needs — as security for his presence. This below is from The Yeshiva World
| |
|
Washington, D.C. — Agudath Israel of America executive vice president Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel joined a group of prominent rabbis gathered for a news conference at the National Press Club here today to express dismay and concern over the premature imprisonment of Sholom Rubashkin, and to urge the U.S. Department of Justice to closely scrutinize the demands by federal prosecutors in Iowa that Rubashkin be imprisoned before he is sentenced. The group — which involved rabbis from some of the nation's largest and most well known Jewish organizations — also walked to the Department of Justice to deliver the following letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder requesting a meeting with him"
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 |
|
DOCUMENT REVEALS SCOPE OF EU TRADE WITH IRAN
Posted by Sandra Levy, January 28, 2010. |
|
This speaks for itself. All of the talk of sanctions against Iran is just that — "talk".
This is from Ynet News, Israel:
|
|
While European countries talk of imposing harsher economic sanctions on Iran, Foreign Ministry document obtained by Ynet shows trade ties very much intact, with Germany, Italy and France in the lead Europe boasts of its efforts to foil the Iranian nuclear program, but in reality has been trading with the Islamic Republic in the amount of some €65 billion (roughly $91 billion) in the past three years. The leading countries in trade with Iran include Spain, France, Italy, Holland and Belgium, a document obtained by Ynet that has been circulating in the Foreign Ministry and based on European Union numbers showed. Calls for harsher sanctions against Iran in hopes of stopping its nuclear armament continue to increase. Among other things, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the matter with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during his visit to Germany last week. France has also adamantly demanded that Iran put an end to its nuclear program, and has threatened harsher sanctions if it fails to do so. However, the document circulating in the Foreign Ministry shows that these very same countries continue to maintain extensive trade ties with Tehran estimated at billions of euros per year. This means that even if European governments do seek sanctions against Iran, they are likely to be faced with opposition from the hundreds of thousands of employees of companies that trade with Iran whose livelihood may suffer. According to the data presented in the document, between January and July of 2009, trade between the 27 European Union countries and Iran amounted to some €10 billion (about $14 billion). While this is a decline compared to the same period in 2008, when trade amounted to €14.5 billion (around $20 billion), it is still a significant amount, which could make it difficult for these countries to impose economic sanctions on Tehran. The drop in trade in 2009 compared to 2008 was mainly a result of the global economic crisis, but was also affected by European Union countries' policies aimed at cutting back on trade with Iran amid the diplomatic dispute. In 2007, trade between the European countries and Iran amounted to some €24 billion (around $33.7 billion) and in 2008 reached nearly €26 billion ($36.5 billion), almost a 7% increase. European export to Iran amounted to some €11 billion ($15.4 billion) in 2007, and around €11.5 billion ($16.7 billion) in 2008. Import stood at some €14 billion ($19.6 billion) in 2007 and some €14.5 billion ($20.3 billion) in 2008. In the first half of 2009, European import from Iran stood at some €4 billion ($5.6 billion), and export amounted to around €6 billion ($8.4 billion). Germany, Italy leading in trade with Iran The scope of trade with Iran by country, from the largest to the smallest, shows that in the first half of 2009 Germany was at the top of the chart with over €2 billion ($2.8 billion) in trade with Iran. Italy came in second with similar numbers, and France following with €1.46 billion ($2 billion) in trade with Iran. Next came Holland, with €1.3 billion ($1.8 billion), followed by Spain, with €1.2 billion ($1.7 billion). However, the decline in trade between the EU and Iran in 2009 should be noted. The overall numbers of import and export last year showed a 31% drop in the first half of the year. The country with the steepest decline in trade with Iran was Greece, with a 67% drop. Next was Portugal, with a 65% decline in trade with the Islamic Republic, and Finland with a 60% drop. With regards to import from Iran, a 48.5% general drop was recorded in the first half of 2009. The leading country to cut back on import from Iran was Portugal, with a 70% decline in import, and was followed by Romania with a 58% drop, and France with a 57% drop. The decline of exports from the European Union during the first half of 2009 was less dramatic. No country, in the wake of the economic crisis, was able to allow itself to cut back on exports. The data in the hands of the Israeli Foreign Ministry shows a decline of around 8.2% in exports to Iran in the time period of January to July, 2009. A number of countries even increased trade with Iran, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Poland. The data shows that many European nations, despite extolling additional sanctions on Iran, do business worth billions of euro a year with the country. This will no doubt hinder their ability to impose sanctions without doing harm to their own markets. Many of these states are still in the grips of an economic crisis, which will render the move all the more difficult, and it appears the EU as a whole will have trouble supporting additional economic sanctions on Iran. Contacft Sandra Levy by email at shula2933@gmail.com |
|
TIM GEITHNER FUNDS HAMAS: US TREASURY OPENS AVENUE FOR FUNDING HAMAS
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 27, 2010. |
|
If there was any suspicion that Obama has directed his regime to take an Islamist track, this should have removed all doubt. Financing Terrorists is what we expect of Iran, Syria, the Russians, England and those others who wish to appease Muslim Arab oil Terrorist nations. Deliberately funding Terror is clearly a criminal act, no matter how slick the transfer. Those who do this should be arrested, tried and jailed — regardless of status or rank. Who would have thought an American President and his accomplices would have become allies of Terrorists like Hamas — among others. Below is "Tim Geithner Funds Hamas: US Treasury Opens Avenue for
Funding Hamas" from Maggie's Notebook
|
|
If you have any doubt of this administration's Muslim sympathies, you can lose that right now. The U.S. Treasury has allowed the terrorist organization, Hamas, to begin receiving funds from around the world, by removing all names of Hamas terrorists from the International terror list, except one, Musa Abu Marzouk. This was an unnecessary action, as an international lawsuit to stop this was a considered possibility. The original report came from Arutz Sheva, an Israeli online news site. So far, blogs are hot on the story, but a search of Google News reveals no main stream media, anywhere, reporting. Thanks to Infidels are Cool for the heads up. You might remember that Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, printed Marzouk's Palestinian manifesto in his Sunday church bulletin on July 10, 2007. Marzouk was arrested at JFK airport in July 1995, and eventually evicted from the country. He is an American-educated Ph.D. with many aliases, among them: Moussa Abu Marzouk, Musa Abu Marzuq, and Musa Abu Marzook. He is believed to be operating out of Damascus, but was born in Gaza. Marzouk's terrorist connections are so obvious even Tim Geithner could not remove his name. How many American taxpayer dollars are streaming to Hamas bank accounts? Here's the Israeli media's report. I hope you will read it all: (IsraelNN.com) The United States Treasury has taken all but one member of Hamas off the international list of terrorists, thus enabling funds from the European Union to enter Hamas-controlled Gaza. 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 |
|
YOU MAY NOT BE PRO-ISRAEL IF; ISRAEL'S HAITI HOSPITAL PRAISED; WHY ISRAEL HUMILIATED TURKEY
Posted by Steven Shamrak, January 27, 2010. |
|
You May not be pro-Israel IF...
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 Te 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 still think the piece of paper Israel received in exchange for the Sinai's oil reserves, tourism revenue and strategic depth... 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 Departments 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 believe that negotiations are the answer. Action Alert: Support Passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution by US House of Representatives — The world kept silent during and after the genocide of almost 1.5 million Armenians by Turks, who are still denying it, during 1915-1917. This atrocity was facilitated by international indifference and silence and paved the way for the Holocaust! Kingdom of Israel Existed in the 10th century BCE. A recently found and deciphered inscription dating from the 10th century BCE showed that it was a Hebrew inscription, making it the earliest known Hebrew writing. Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak If a country has no self-respect why would others respect it? President Carter allowed the humiliation of the United States by Iran, during the hostage crisis, to go unpunished. Eight years after 9/11, Al Quaeda is thriving and Osama bin Laden is still alive. The major sponsor of international Islamic terrorism, Saudi Arabia, is an official 'best friend' of the United States! Similar statements can be made about Israel and its 60 years of so-called independence. It is time to regain our self-respect! Abbas: There is no Difference between Hamas and Fatah. Palestinian Authority PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech a week ago that being in power is the only difference between his Fatah Party and the rival Hamas terrorist faction. "The Palestinian Authority is the legitimate authority and that is the difference." In a particularly hard-line speech, he boasted that the Arab leaders in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Fatah) "have not offered any concessions from May 1988 until today." Israel's Haiti Hospital Praised: Israeli Field Hospital a Model for Crisis Care (NBC News), Israel's Makeshift ICU Saving Lives in Haiti (FOX News), Israel's Disproportionate Response (American Thinker), "No One Except the Israeli Hospital Has Taken Any of Our Patients" (CNN), Israeli IDF Hospital: The "Rolls Royce" of Medicine in Haiti (CBS News), Israelis Save Trapped Earthquake Victim (BBC News), Miracle birth of baby Israel in Haiti (The Australian). (What have the oil rich Arab countries done to help Haiti and during other international disasters? Sponsoring international terrorism is the only thing they are good at!) Who is Real Self-hating Extremist? The State Attorney's Office has instructed police to launch an investigation against journalist Natan Zahavi after he had announced a cash prize to anyone who would smash the face of settler or Haredi person who he said calls soldiers "Nazis" during his radio program. (The desire of the Jewish left to destroy their and Israel's Jewishness is treason of the highest degree — Self-Hate must end!) Congressman Challenges Obama Eligibility. A new media initiative by a group of citizen-journalists reports Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., has written to President Obama asking him to prove his eligibility to hold the office of president. This is probably the first time in 233 years of American history that a sitting member of the House of Representatives has officially challenged the legitimacy of a sitting president. (Is it really so difficult for the president of the United States to find and produce his original birth certificate and stop blocking access to information about his birth?) Arab Illegal Settlements Must Go First. Israeli soldiers have demolished 30 buildings in the small Palestinian village of Khirbit Tana, east of the Judea (northern West Bank) city of Nablus. In February of 2009, the Israeli High Court did not recognize the farmer's ownership of the lands and ruled that all structures in Khirbit Tana should be demolished. Quote of the Week: "...too many uninformed individuals who like to view themselves as open minded — 'progressives'. They seem to somehow claim superiority on compassion, on peace, on open-mindedness and on appreciation of other cultures... They restrict themselves to self-criticism and make politically-correct excuses for Islamism. Regrettably, they show their indisputable acceptance of 'others' at the expense of the public's responsibility to learn the truth about Islam's detrimental tenets." — Dr. Wafa Sultan is a Syrian-born certified psychiatrist — It sounds like she wrote about self-hating Jews, doesn't it? Muslims Oppose Accepting Israel as a Jewish State. According to a creditable private poll of Saudi citizens taken in November 2009, only 9% of urban Saudis said they would accept Israel "as a Jewish state," even "under the right conditions." Meanwhile only 26% of Egyptians said they could accept Israel as a Jewish state, this in spite of the fact that the poll was taken thirty years after the implementation of a formal Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement. (Muslims love creating monotheistic Islamic states but are intolerant toward the Jewish one and demand freedom of religion in the Christian countries.) Keep European anti-Semitic Trash out of Israel. Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Storr met last week with the head of PA chief Mahmoud Abbas' staff, Rafik al-Husseini, and PA Jerusalem Affairs minister Ahmed al-Rawidi, at the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. It was the first time a foreign dignitary had met a PA government official in Jerusalem since the closure of the Orient House in 2001. What is Next — Another Round of Useless Sanctions? Iran has rejected a Western proposal that other countries prepare its enriched uranium for use in nuclear power plants. Western countries had said that they would impose further sanctions on Iran if it rejected the plan. But members of the United Nations security council — the US, Britain, France, China and Russia — as well as Germany could not agree on levying a fourth round of sanctions No Apologies Expected. The Kuwaiti foreign minister Mohammad El Sabah has been quoted as saying, ''the government of Israel is not normal, and the person at its head is an imbecile and a nut case.'' What is Vatican Hiding? Following Pope Benedict the 16th visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome, Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom called on the Vatican to open its archives from the Holocaust era in order to reduce the tension between Judaism and Christianity. (If the Vatican is so proud of the actions of Pope Pius XII during Holocaust, why 60 years later are the archives still closed and so the world is unable to 'appreciate' his 'saintly deeds'?) No Apologies are Offered. The Foreign Minister of Kuwait, Muhammad a-Sabah, on Sunday called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a "stupid and crazy ruler". (Israel must stop apologising to arrogant enemies, including Turkey. They never do!) Why Israel Humiliated Turkey. A diplomatic spat is threatening to worsen Israel's strained relations with Turkey, traditionally one of its most important allies in the region. The rift exposes growing Israeli frustration with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in a bid to increase Turkey' s regional standing has increasingly spoken out against Israel. This latest crisis included a showdown at Israel' s Foreign Ministry: Breaking with diplomatic protocol, Israeli officials failed to include the customary Turkish flag on the table between them and the Turkish ambassador, whom they seated on a low couch. "The message was, 'We've had enough,'" says Ephraim Inbar, an expert on Turkey-Israel relations at Israel' s Bar-Ilan University. "Erdogan has taken things too far. It might have not been the best treatment for an ambassador, but it came from the gut. The signal is that we're not going to take it anymore." 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 |
|
ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: ALMOND BLOSSOMS AFTER THE STORM
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, January 27, 2010. |
|
This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: The heavens finally opened up over Israel during the past week, bringing an end to a long spell of weather so mild that fruit trees began showing blossoms on the first of January. Because I live in the mountains, some 900 meters above sea level, winter storms don't pass over us, they pass through us. The tail end of one storm left the region shrouded in thick fog, and I had a vision of creating a sort of minimalist photograph with snow white blossoms set against a sea of white smoke. By the time I found an opportunity to shoot, the fog had lifted, but left behind remnants of the fallen moisture clinging to the blossoms. As the calendar turns to the month of Shevat, so must the almond trees bloom in Israel. Choosing one randomly not far from my home, I set up my tripod and camera mounted with a macro lens for close-range shooting. Finding an appropriate subject takes a few moments of scanning the tree until my eye catches a candidate, which must also survive further scrutiny for blemishes, torn petals, or, most importantly, distracting backgrounds. It's a delicate process maneuvering the camera close to the subject and several times I gently knocked an adjacent branch, emitting shock waves that scattered the beads of rain and ruined my subject. In the end, I did succeed with several images, including this one, which I chose because I like the way the background mimics the mottled look of the flowers holding drops of rain. With a macro lens, the subject is often mere inches from the front of the lens and the result is very shallow depth of field, perfect for throwing everything out of focus, except for the main subject. As the full moon rises in the sky this weekend, we mark Tu B'shevat (Jan. 30-31), the new year for trees in Israel. May we continue to merit the blessing of rain and seasonal renewal.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
|
|
EGYPT'S INTERNET CRACKDOWN
Posted by Cyber Dissidents Organization, January 27, 2010. |
|
This is by David Keyes of the Daily Beast
David Keyes is director of Cyberdissidents.org, which promotes the free expression of online political dissidents. He can be reached at david@cyberdissidents.org |
|
The crackdown on bloggers in Egypt is as ferocious as anything in Iran, and yet the United States has ignored it. David Keyes on the West's shameful silence. On January 15, over two dozen Egyptian bloggers and activists were arrested en route to a show of solidarity following the deaths of six Coptic Christians in the southern province of Qena. Among those detained were some of Egypt's most famous Internet activists such as Wael Abbas and Ahmad Badawy. The bloggers' cell phones and IDs were taken by Egyptian police. Though they were released a day later, this crackdown sent shockwaves through the dissident community in Egypt. Wael Abbas was even rearrested and sentenced to six months in prison on the spurious charge of damaging an internet cable. The Egyptian government's ruthless repression of Internet activists shows no signs of easing. On the contrary, one of Egypt's leading young bloggers attested on condition of anonymity that the regime's crackdowns h ave only gotten more sophisticated with every passing month. Though technology has dramatically increased dissidents' capacity to organize and protest, Princeton historian Bernard Lewis told me that it also gives modern Middle Eastern dictators the ability to "surveil, control and repress undreamt of by Haroun al Rashid, Suliman the Magnificent, al-Hajjaj" and other autocrats of yore. In the case of Egypt, Edmund Burke's dictum that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing is far from sufficient. Evil triumphs in Cairo because supposedly good men in the West openly and unapologetically fund and arm it. America has supplied Egypt with approximately 50 billion dollars of aid (primarily military) since Husni Mubarak came to power three decades ago. Stability was supposedly bought at the price of liberty-a fool's bargain. Instead, Egypt remains impoverished, illiterate, autocratic, corrupt and repressive, not exactly the conditions for lasting stability or peace. In the summer of 2006, I sat with an Egyptian friend in a Cairo cafe and began to talk politics. He silenced me immediately. "Il hitan liha withan" he said in Arabic. "The walls have ears." I vividly recall the vast numbers of security forces on the streets of Cairo brandishing guns outfitted with bayonets. How revealing, I thought. The Egyptian regime is afraid, first and foremost, of their own people. This is why they do not trust them to write, think or blog freely. It is also why they need antiquated knives on their ends of their guns. Bayonets will not intimidate any foreign army, but they just might work against bloggers and students. Last December, 24 year old blogger Kareem Amer's final appeal was rejected and he now enters his fourth year in prison for the unthinkable crimes of criticizing Egypt's dictator and "insulting" the predominant religion. A steady parade of Western diplomats have come through Cairo in the past four years and it is fair to ask how many times Kareem's name has come up. If ever there was a man whose struggle symbolized the values of America-it is him. He is a staunch advocate of Jeffersonian separation of religion and state and is a living exemplar of Patrick Henry's dictum: give me liberty or give me death. In his last blog post before his arrest, Amer, who hopes one day to open a human rights law firm, wrote "I shall not recant, not even by an inch, from any word I have written." I asked one of Egypt's leading female bloggers who requested that I not publish her name if the recent crackdowns increased fear in the blogging community. "No!" she responded defiantly. "The opposite always happens. When someone deprives you of something, you want it more. Kareem Amer is serving four years in jail because of blogging but this actually increased the number of bloggers not decreased it! The more activists jailed, the more new activists appear." The primary explanation for the West's appeasement of Egyptian autocracy is faulty priorities. Liberty is playing second fiddle to stability and thus neither has been achieved. Rather, the seeds of misery, terror, extremism and poverty are being sown in Egypt with open acquiescence from the West. The release of heroic dissidents like Kareem Amer will be the one true sign that progress is in motion. American aid should be directly conditioned on Egypt's respect for freedom of expression. Anything less constitutes appeasement of tyranny and will come back to haunt us. Contact Cyberdissidents by email at newsletter@cyberdissidents.org |
|
NEW "TURBANED" MAN ARRESTED
Posted by Susana K-M, January 27, 2010. |
|
This was written by Bill Katz and it is archived on his website:
|
|
JUST DEVELOPING — News is first coming in about this, but we may have just dodged another terrorist bullet. From CNN: A man was arrested Monday after police found an arsenal of high-powered weapons and a map of a U.S. military base in his New Jersey hotel, authorities said. You know, the kind of stuff everyone has. Lloyd R. Woodson, 43, was arrested and faces multiple weapons charges after an investigation into his suspicious behavior at a store in Branchburg, New Jersey, said local prosecutor Wayne J. Forrest. The clerk is a hero, and may have prevented another Fort Hood. When officers arrived, Woodson ran into the woods. He was subdued after wrestling with officers, the statement said. During the struggle, officers noticed that Woodson was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying an assault rifle in his coat. And here is the intrigue: Officers searched Woodson's hotel room and found another assault rifle, a grenade launcher, a police scanner, another bulletproof vest, a map of a U.S. military base, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a Middle Eastern-style headdress, the statement said. A Middle Eastern-style headdress? Why, of course, isn't that what we all wear? Now, why would a man with that arsenal also have a Middle Eastern-style headdress? I want to know all about this man. And yes, I want to know his religious background. I hope the press stays on this story. The usual suspects will probably dismiss the Mideast fashion as a coincidence. After all, who are we to question? I want a lot of answers. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
FROM ISRAEL: THE HATE THAT DOESN'T DIE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 27, 2010. |
|
Jew-hatred, that is. Otherwise known as anti-Semitism. Today it also wears the garb of anti-Zionism. But make no mistake, it is the same hatred. Don't believe those who say, "I have nothing against Jews, individually, my quarrel is with the State of Israel." To deny Jews the right to self-determination as a people, and to put that State forever on the defensive, is a form of Jew-hatred. We will not examine here the theories as to why anti-Semitism may wax and wane, but never goes away. There are many, and I have my own ideas. The issue is important now, first, because today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day (or the day for commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz), so designated, some five years ago, by the UN. In Israel, the Holocaust (the Shoah) is commemorated in April. And then, because it is important to note that anti-Semitism — often, but not always, in its garb of anti-Zionism — is increasing. For a while after the Holocaust it was politically incorrect to say you hated Jews. For some time now, it has become acceptable again in various venues. ~~~~~~~~~~ What has not been adequately addressed, even amongst many concerned with anti-Semitism more broadly, is that the Muslim/Arab states are probably the greatest purveyors of anti-Semitism today. (There was a time when I would have been more definitive about this, but with the way Europe is going — see below — I am less certain.) When I speak about what is and what is not politically correct, I note that in many circles it is not PC to address the virulent anti-Semitism that is endemic in the Palestinian Authority. This Jew-hatred should come as no surprise. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, was a Nazi collaborator who hoped that German extermination of the Jews would rid Palestine of its Jewish population. Even earlier, in 1929, he had instigated a pogrom against the Jews of Hevron by spreading false rumors about destruction planned by Jews of Al Aksa Mosque (an inciteful charge that is still leveled at us from time to time). When the Arabs went on their murderous rampage, they shouted "Izbah Al-Yahud!" — slaughter the Jews! And then proceeded to do so. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yasser Arafat was of the al-Husseini family. It is said that the Mufti was his uncle; what is certain is that he was Arafat's mentor. Yasser Arafat was schooled in Jew-hatred and passed it along to his people, not the least of whom was Mahmoud Abbas, a co-founder with Arafat of Fatah. Abbas did his doctorate, in Russia, on Holocaust denial. Here I share with my readers something that has stayed with me for years. Suha was not Arafat's first wife (Islam permitting more than one wife). The one he married first was left behind in Algeria when he came here with Oslo. She was bitter at her abandonment and happy to give an interview to someone from the Washington Post. She explained how she was his support in the difficult years and worked to cheer him. When he was very down, she would send a boy to say to Yasser, "Give me a gun, please, so I can go kill Jews." And then, she reported, Yasser would cheer up, and pat the boy on the head, and say,"Ah, this is our future." Kill Jews, you understand: Not, fight for our state. Kill Jews. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to a report just released by the Jewish Agency's Coordinating Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism, there has been a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic incidents around the world. This was especially true in West European countries, which had the highest number of violent anti-Semitic incidents recorded since World War II. The greatest increase was in France, with Britain second. More anti-Semitic acts were recorded in the first three months of 2009 than were recorded during all of 2008. This is felt to be because of Cast Lead, our operation in Gaza. Here is where anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment merge. We are denied the right of self-defense accorded all other nations. And here is where the manipulations and pronouncements of Palestinian Arabs serve to discredit and libel us. ~~~~~~~~~~ Not only were there more incidents in 2009, their severity increased, so we also saw such things as the horror of Mumbai, and the killing of a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Additionally, we are seeing the return of blood libels of the sort that were common in the Middle Ages. Back then, it was the charge that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood for making matzo before Pesach. Now the charge — and this came first from the leading Swedish paper Aftonbladet at the end of last summer — that the IDF kills Palestinian Arabs youth to harvest their organs. More recently, the Turkish have run a TV series that libels the IDF, with dramatically acted scenes of our soldiers killing old people and kidnapping babies. (Hopefully, I will return to the issue of our relationship with Turkey.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Anti-Semitism even touched our humanitarian actions in Haiti. As we all know, the public response to this life-saving operation was incredibly positive, with even media outlets that are routinely biased against Israel, such as CNN, singing our praises. But there were, inevitably, hate-filled blogs, lunatics who cannot be dealt with. Some charged that we did this for self-serving reasons only, to mitigate world opinion with regard to our crimes in Gaza. As one commentator observed, ours is the only nation in the world that must seek to justify a good deed. And, yes, there were those who said we were harvesting Haitian organs. ~~~~~~~~~~ Our right to self-defense in Gaza: We are about to release a response to the Goldstone Report, and I will be returning to this. ~~~~~~~~~~ On a brighter note, we have this: Even as there is increased anti-Semitism in Western Europe, in Central Europe, in the very areas where there was complicity with the Holocaust 70 years ago, there is a new support for Israel today. And so, our leaders have gone to Central European states at this time, to "return its embrace." Said one senior Israeli diplomat, "We are trying to hug those who hug us." While all of the visits are timed to coincide with Holocaust memorial events, they are not simply ceremonial but` are also incorporating meetings with major governmental leaders. There are five Central European nations that have offered Israel considerable diplomatic support in the EU. Now, three of them are being provided with much appreciated, high-profile visits by our leaders: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is in Hungary; Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is in Slovakia; and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in Poland. The other two nations that have been supportive are the Czech Republic and Romania. ~~~~~~~~~~ Today, in Poland, Netanyahu visited Auschwitz, and delivered a talk. He began in English, and then switched to Hebrew, except for the opening words of the Kaddish prayer (the praise of G-d recited by mourners), which are Aramaic. From that talk: "We will always remember what the Nazi Amalek [Amalek: the tribe in the Torah that hit our people from the rear, seen as a prototype of those who arise in every generation to destroy us] did to us, and we won't forget to be prepared for the new Amalek, who is making an appearance on the stage of history and once again threatening to destroy the Jews. And so we ask — as the international community fails to address the threat of Iran with seriousness and strength — what is he telling us about our self-defense? What does he intend, to keep us safe? All other questions recede in the face of this one. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
LEADING AMERICAN TERRORIST ARRESTED IN YEMEN
Posted by CPocerl, January 27, 2010. |
|
This is from the Last Crusade
|
|
An American Muslim accused of helping recruit men known as the "Lackawanna Six" to train at an al-Qaeda terrorist camp and of planning a massive attack on U.S. soil has been taken into custody again in his native Yemen. Jaber Elbaneh has asked for a lawyer to defend him against charges he's faced in Western New York since 2002. Federal authorities accuse Elbaneh of recruiting the Lackawanna Six, and bringing them to an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2001. They also maintain that he was engaged with Adnan el-Shukrijumah in planning a nuclear attack on American soil. According to The Washington Times and other news sources, Mr. Elbaneh was on the campus of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and may have gained access to the University's nuclear reactor, which is one of the largest reactors for educational purposes in the western hemisphere. Scott Wheeler and other reputable reporters have claimed that Mr. Elbaneh and four other Muslim men on the McMaster campus allegedly stole 180 pounds of nuclear material from McMaster. The 43-year-old Yemeni-American is on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorism suspects. He had been held several times by Yemeni officials since being charged in the U.S. The two countries do not share an extradition treaty. "We would like to get him back here in the United States for prosecution," said James Robertson, the Special Agent-in-Charge of Buffalo's F.B.I. Office. "He's on our top 28 Most Wanted Terrorists Lists. I think there's a five million dollar reward out for him. It's a matter of high interest to the United States Government." Elbaneh was previously in custody in Yemen before escaping from a prison with nearly two dozen suspected terrorists in February of 2006. The U.S. has ramped up anti-terrorism efforts in Yemen since before a
Nigerian man, with ties to al-Qaeda, allegedly trained there to bomb a
jetliner near Detroit on Christmas day.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS KILLS, SAYS ISLAM EXPERT
Posted by Ken Timmerman, January 27, 2010. |
|
The U.S. military missed multiple direct warnings that Major Nidal Malik Hasan was contemplating mass mayhem once he learned he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan but ignored them because of political correctness, an Australian scholar of Islam told Newsmax in Washington, D.C. recently. "At a certain point, someone explained to Major Hasan that he had a duty to fight Americans and that if he didn't, he would go to Hell," says Dr. Mark Durie, who has written several books on Islamic ideology. His latest is, "The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom." Hasan made a presentation to Army colleagues 18 months before the Fort Hood massacre, warning them that Muslim soldiers were compelled by Quranic teaching to turn against the U.S. military if they were ordered into combat against fellow Muslims. "A public debate needs to take place about whether ... an Islamic worldview can be in conflict with loyalty" to the United States or any other non-Muslim country, Durie said. "This debate needs to be pursued without being censored by political correctness." And yet, the 86-page Pentagon report on the Ford Hood massacre, released last week, failed to mention the words "Islam," "Muslim," or "jihad," and called Hasan's actions the product of "self-radicalization." Challenged at a press conference where he presented his findings last week, the report's main author, former U.S. Army chief Togo West, dismissed Hasan's Muslim faith as a cause of his murderous rampage. "Suppose it were fundamentalist-Christian-inspired," West said. "Our concern is not with the religion. It is with the potential effect on our soldiers' ability to do their job." For Durie such views are profoundly misguided, since they fail to take into account the guidance Muslim authorities are providing to their co-religionists around the world on how they should live and interact with the West. Durie cited recent rulings by some of the world's most respected Islamic jurists on the subject of "divided loyalties" that eventually drove Hasan to murder. "Their rulings presuppose that naturalization in a non-Muslim nation, without proper justification, is unacceptable," he said. A condition for making naturalization acceptable was that the Muslim should not seek to advance the cause of his adopted nation above that of Islam, for example, by fighting against fellow Muslims." Rulings calling on Muslims to reject assimilation into non-Muslim societies are not being issued by clerics the West would call radical, but by mainstream Muslim authorities who are currently advising the U.S. government on issues such as Shariah finance, Durie said. "Major Hasan explained, citing chapter and verse, the beliefs that could lead to a member of the U.S. armed forces attacking his fellow soldiers. He cited examples where they had happened before." Durie said that Muslim scholars and interest groups in the West have engaged in a massive campaign to disguise the true nature and goals of Islam. They lie about the true content of Muslim scripture, claim that key quotes calling for violence have been mistranslated, and advance spurious allegations of victimization that have no basis in fact. He pointed to the violence that erupted in the Muslim world when Pope Benedict XVI made a public reference during a speech in Regensburg to Islam's historical practice of spreading the faith through violent jihad. The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abd'al-Aziz al-Sheikh, issued a press release to refute the Pope's claim, objecting that the sword was only "the last resort" offered to non-Muslims who refused to convert or surrender to the armies of Islam. While Muslims expect to be allowed to live without hindrance in non-Muslim societies, "Islamic teaching doesn't accept reciprocity" when it comes to non-Muslims living under Islam. "From the Islamic perspective, non-Muslims are expected to display two psychological characteristics as part of their surrender. One is a sense of gratitude to the Islamic community for having spared their lives. The other is a sense of their own inferiority." Durie says he sees both on display in the actions and speeches of President Obama, in particular his frequent references to the "debt" the U.S. owes the Muslim world. "The important thing about what President Obama is saying is not whether it is factual or not, but the need to express gratitude as a means of engaging the Muslim world." This is the response demanded of the "dhimmi," or the subjected peoples who live under Muslim rule, Durie argues. Many in the West wonder whether Islam can undergo a Protestant-style "reformation" and become more West-oriented and less violent. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars since the Sept. 11 attacks trying to foster "moderate" Muslim thinkers and institutions. Durie thinks these are wasted efforts. "Reformation in Islam is already happening, and al-Qaida is the product," he says. The Quran itself calls for "virtually unlimited war against unbelievers," Durie writes in "The Third Choice," citing chapter and verse of the Islamic text. "It is a sad fact that incitement against non-Muslims, and specifically against followers of biblical faiths, is an integral part of Islam, being hardwired into the Quran and the Sunna," the authoritative Muslim texts.
This appeared in Newsmax
|
|
TOP TEN ABSURD STATEMENTS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
Posted by Alex Grobman, January 27, 2010. |
|
This is a Press Release from the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies WASHINGTON — Authors claiming that President Franklin Roosevelt was helpless to rescue any Jews from the Holocaust topped the 2009 annual list of ten most absurd statements about the Allies' reaction to the Nazi genocide. The annual list for 2009 was released this week by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, in conjunction with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is commemorated on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. "Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, some FDR apologists still claim there was nothing he could have done to rescue Jews from the Holocaust," said Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff. "Like the last Japanese soldier holding out on a remote island years after World War II ended, these diehards simply refuse to face the facts." Medoff said the purpose of the annual list is to "expose the most severe misrepresentations of the Allies' response to the Holocaust, so that the public will have an accurate and balanced account of those crucial historical events." The nominees were judged by a panel of scholars who have researched the Allies' response to the Holocaust: Prof. David S. Wyman, author of The Abandonment of the Jews; Prof. Laurel Leff, author of Buried by The Times; Dr. Racelle Weiman, founding director (emer.) of Hebrew Union College's Center for Holocaust and Humanity education; Prof. Bat-Ami Zucker, author of In Search of Refuge; Prof. Judith Baumel-Schwartz, author of Unfulfilled Promise; Dr. Alex Grobman, author of Denying History; and Wyman Institute director Medoff, author of Blowing the Whistle on Genocide. |
|
The Ten Most Absurd Statements in 2009 About the Allies' Response to the Holocaust 1. "The only meaningful way to save the intended victims of HItler's murder machine was to win the war as quickly as possible." — (William J. Vanden Heuvel, longtime president of the Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, on NewYorkTimes.com, 5 October 2009.) [COMMENT: There were, in fact, a variety of ways that Jews could have been saved before the war ended, such as using empty troop supply ships returning from Europe to bring refugees for temporary shelter to the United States; bombing the Nazi death camps or the railway lines leading to them; and pressing the British to open Palestine to Jewish refugees.] 2. "[W]e have to keep in mind that the German army controlled everything after 1940. Nobody was escaping. The uh — the uh, nobody could get out....The Jews of Europe had been Hitler's prisoners since 1940. They couldn't get out. It didn't matter whether we let 'em in, they couldn't get out." — (Robert N. Rosen, author of 'Saving the Jews,' speaking on May
7, 2009 at the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, Grand
Valley State University, Allendale, MI,
[COMMENT: In fact, Hitler Europe was far from hermetically sealed. For example, more than 26,000 European Jewish refugees escaped to Palestine between 1941 and 1944; about 8,000 Jews escaped from German-occupied Denmark to Sweden in 1943; thousands of Jews fled from German-occupied territory to Soviet territory during 1940-1945; several thousand refugees, mostly Jews, were smuggled out of Vichy Francy in 1940-1941 by Varian Fry's rescue network; and thousands of Jewish refugees escaped from elsewhere in Europe to Italy, 1,000 of whom were brought to the United States in 1944.] 3. "[A]ll presidents are required to take an oath of office to enforce the laws of the United States, and the then-in-effect law, that of 1924, prohibited more than 100,000 people coming into this country a year, and that 100,000 were allocated by a complicated formula. So the fact that a president [such as Roosevelt] doesn't like a particular law doesn't somehow mean that there is automatically a change in the law." — (Prof. Gerhard Weinberg, speaking on the radio program "MTSU
on the Record" [Tennessee] onq October 18, 2009.
[COMMENT: The maximum number that could have been admitted in any one year was 154,000, not 100,000. The fact that President Roosevelt could not unilaterally alter the immigration law does not change the fact that the Roosevelt administration could have saved many Germany Jews without changing the law, simply by permitting the existing quotas to be filled each year. A total of 184,525 immigrants could have been admitted to the U.S. from Germany (and, later, German-annexed Austria) from 1933 to 1939, but the actual number of German Jews admitted during those years was only about 70,000.] 4. "We have found some fundamentally new information about the president's views and policies before and during the Holocaust..." (p.4) "[W]e have uncovered some key episodes in changing American refugee polices previously overlooked ... President Roosevelt promised McDonald and George Warren, under the right circumstances, to ask Congress to appropriate $150 million to help resettle refugees in various parts of the world." (p.335) — (Richard Breitman, Barbara Stewart McDonald, and Severin Hochberg, eds. Refugees and Rescue: The Diary and Papers of James G. McDonald 1935-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.) [COMMENT: The episodes Breitman et al claim to have "uncovered" were not "previously overlooked"; they were described in, among other works, David S. Wyman's Paper Walls (1968) and Henry Feingold's The Politics of Rescue (1970). McDonald did not succeed in "changing American refugee policies"; indeed, the Roosevelt administration's intransigence was the whole problem. Roosevelt's statement to McDonald and Warren may or may not have constituted a "promise," but in any event he did not fulfill it; he never asked Congress to appropriate funds to resettle refugees. Finally, the term "under the right circumstances" is an elastic loophole that in effect cancels out the rest of that "promise"; for when it came to FDR and the Jews, "the right circumstances" never arrived.] 5. Concerning the Wagner-Rogers bill, which would have admitted 20,000 refugee children from Germany outside the quota system, and which FDR refused to endorse: "[President Roosevelt] saw that bill as a gesture — not a solution. He was a man of grand vision who wanted to resettle a much larger number of refugees from Germany." (p.335) — (Richard Breitman, Barbara Stewart McDonald, and Severin Hochberg, eds. Refuge es and Rescue: The Diary and Papers of James G. McDonald 1935-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.) [COMMENT: There are no known documents in which FDR states that he disliked Wagner-Rogers because it would have saved too few Jewish refugees.] 6. "Bombing the railway lines to Auschwitz and other camps would only have achieved a temporary respite for the Jews, and distracted attention and resources from the larger purpose of overthrowing the regime that was killing them." — Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), p. 560 [COMMENT: Even a temporary respite might have saved many lives by disrupting the mass murder process. The claim that bombing the railway lines would have "distracted resources" was made by the Roosevelt administration in 1944, and was baseless, as demonstrated by the fact that U.S. bombers were already in the area, flying over Auschwitz repeatedly in the summer and autumn of 1944 as they struck German oil factories in the vicinity, some of them less than five miles from the gas chambers.] 7. "McCloy, he was Assistant Secretary of War, and he's a very convenient target, because he's kind of a WASP, mildly anti-Semtitic guy, who belongs to some clubs in New York that Jews don't belong to, and so he's kind of a good guy to make into a villain." — Robert N. Rosen, author of 'Saving the Jews,' speaking on May
7, 2009 at the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, Grand
Valley State University, Allendale, MI,
[COMMENT: In fact, scholars have criticized McCloy not because of his ethnic background or club memberships, but because of his opposition to the use of even minimal U.S. military resources to aid refugees or interrupt the mass murder process; his instruction to an aide to "kill" a request to bomb the railways to Auschwitz; his knowingly false claims, in rejecting bombing requests, that bombing would require the diversion of planes from elsewhere in Europe; and his decision to pardon or commute the sentences of large numbers of Nazi war criminals when he was High Commission of Germany from 1949 to 1952. 8. "[American c]ollege and university presidents defended cultural exchanges [with Nazi Germany] as a good way to enhance mutual understanding between the people of Germany and the United States. ... In the 1930s, of course, leaders in higher education didn't have the luxury of hindsight." — Glenn C. Altschuler, in the Boston Globe, July 26, 2009, in
his review of The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower, by Stephen Norwood.
9. "The United States accepted about twice as many refugees as the rest of the world combined, 200,000 of 300,000." — Robert N. Rosen, author of 'Saving the Jews,' speaking on May
7, 2009 at the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, Grand
Valley State University, Allendale, MI,
[COMMENT: In fact, while the United States did admit about 200,000 Jews between 1933 and 1945, the "rest of the world combined" admitted about 365,000. Thus the U.S. admitted about one-third, not two-thirds, of the world total. (The most widely-accepted figures for Jewish immigration to destinations other than the U.S. from 1933 to 1945 are: Palestine, 138,000; Latin America, 85,000; Great Britain, 70,000; Canada, 5,000; Australia, 15,000; Switzerland, 22,000; Shanghai, 18,000, and Sweden, 12,000.)] 10. "[W]hen Allied long-range bombers were able to make flights from our airbase in Foggia, Italy, with long-range fighter support, they were unaware of what was going on down below in the 'death camps.' Could they then have bombed the marshalling yards at Birkenau? Yes, they could have, but by that time all activity had really ceased and the Germans by November 29, 1944 were dismantling the crematoria at Auschwitz, and making efforts to re-locate, or kill the balance of the Jews that remained." — Richard J. Garfunkel, radio talk show host, June 16, 2009,
"The Bombing of Auschwitz and Jewish Reaction to the Holocaust: Fact,
Feelings and Reactions.
[COMMENT: The Allies had sufficient information about Auschwitz-Birkenau and control of the skies in the region to bomb it by the early summer of 1944. The mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz was still underway at that time; it is not true that "by that time all [mass murder] activity had really ceased." ABOUT THE WYMAN INSTITUTE: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, located in Washington, D.C., is a research and education institute focusing on America's response to the Holocaust. It is named in honor of the eminent historian and author of the 1984 best-seller The Abandonment of the Jews, the most important and influential book concerning the U.S. response to the Nazi genocide. The Institute's Advisory Committee includes Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, Members of Congress, and other luminaries.
|
|
DETIPHING HEBRON
Posted by David Wilder, January 27, 2010. |
|
Lieberman-Ayalon doctrine should spell end to the TIPH mandate in Hebron. 
The past two weeks witnessed massive attacks aimed at Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as a result of his "infamous" meeting with Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Cellikol. The meeting was purported to be an Israeli diplomatic scolding following airing of a Turkish television show which allegedly portrayed IDF soldiers kidnapping and shooting Arab children. The Turks denied the allegations, retorting that the soldiers in the show were not Israeli. When the meeting commenced, Ayalon refused to shake the ambassador's hand, Cellikol was seated undiplomatically on a low sofa and the Turkish flag, customarily present as such an event, was missing. If the point wasn't readily understood, Ayalon verbally described the scene to Israeli cameramen present in the office. What followed, which might have been expected, was a small, virtual war between Turkey and Israel, which led to an Israeli apology. However, clearly, behind this less than diplomatic rendezvous was more than meets the eye. Only a few weeks ago, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman instructed Israeli diplomats stationed around the world to "stop turning the other cheek." At a heads of missions conference in Jerusalem he declared: "The problem with Israeli diplomacy over the years is that it does not do enough to preserve the honor of the State of Israel. Terms like 'national honor' have value in the Middle East. There is no need to provoke or exaggerate, but there must not be an attitude of obsequiousness and self-deprecation, and the need to always justify the other side. This is a wrong approach." This is exactly the policy Ayalon represented when meeting with Cellikol. And it had little to do with a television show. For the past year, since Operation Lead Cast, Israel-Turkish relations have hit an all time low. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of "inhuman acts" in Gaza and demanded placement of international observers there to prevent Gaza's "self-destruction."
ERDOGAN'S SUGGESTION of "international observers" strikes a raw nerve, especially in Hebron. Turkey is one of six countries participating in the Temporary International Observer Force (TIPH) in Hebron. This organization has been actively operating in Hebron for the past 12 years, since the implementation of the "Hebron Accords" between Yasser Arafat and Israel, which divided Hebron into two, unequal parts. According to the official TIPH mandate, its major functions include:
The allegations implicit in this mandate are clear. In spite of the fact that the Palestinian Authority now controls 80 percent of Hebron, its Arabs are "insecure" and their lives are abnormal due to the Israeli presence in the city. TIPH has no obligation to observe Arab instigation or violence against Hebron's Jewish citizens. Unfortunately, TIPH is far from objective. The organization also partakes in activities outside of the framework of its mandate. Such activities include interference in internal Israeli affairs. For example, following the purchase of Beit Hashalom in Hebron, TIPH head of mission Karl-Henrik Sjursen, in a media release, said: "TIPH urges the IDF to evacuate the settlers from the building to avoid that new facts of the ground are being established... This action of the settlers can be seen by the Palestinians as an unnecessary provocation in an already tense environment. It might have serious consequences for the security situation in the city." He later added, "The occupation of the house has not only led to increased violence but also further destabilized the situation in Hebron as a whole. In this respect TIPH again urges the Israeli authorities on all levels to take necessary measures to evict the occupants. In the light of the ongoing violence and the continuing violation of both Israeli and international law, we also encourage the Israeli authorities to evict the settlers occupying the house on Patriarchs' Hill with no further delay." This type of intervention by a foreign body is blatantly negative toward Israel and certainly produces negative impressions in countries around the world, most definitely in the other countries participating in TIPH and the "host countries" — the US and Russia.
IN FEBRUARY 2004, outgoing head of mission Jan Kristensen, in a media interview, accused both Israeli civilians and the IDF of ethnic cleansing in Hebron: "The activity of the settlers and the army in the H-2 area of Hebron is creating an irreversible situation. In a sense, cleansing is being carried out." One further example of TIPH's bias: On November 12, 2000, Mary Robinson, then chairwoman of the UN Council for Human Rights, visited Hebron. While driving in a TIPH vehicle up the hill to the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, her car was shot at. TIPH later examined evidence concerning the attack and concluded: "TIPH received the results of a ballistic expertise carried out by the Danish police. The expertise showed that the shot was fired from a Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle. Moreover, a reconstruction conducted by TIPH personnel in cooperation with the Danish experts clearly designated the origin of the shot: a house in the H1 area, north of Bab al-Zawiya." This information was included in the 15th periodic report published by TIPH, but it was not publicized to the public-at-large, leaving many people believing that the attack had been perpetrated by Jewish civilians or IDF personnel serving in Hebron. The TIPH presence is detrimental, damaging and disadvantageous to the State of Israel. In conducting tours for civilians and diplomats without any Israeli representation, TIPH presents a very one-sided, biased account of Israeli and IDF policies, which only add to the negative propaganda being disseminated internationally. When Ayalon visited Hebron, in response to a question, he emphasized that the "T" in TIPH stands for temporary, and clarified that the organization's mandate would not be automatically renewed. His spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that it would not be "rubber stamped," as had been practiced in the past. Clearly, the logical continuation of the Lieberman-Ayalon doctrine, preserving Israel's pride against foreign animosity, leads to the conclusion that Israel must end the TIPH mandate in Hebron when the it expires at the end of this month.
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.
This article is archived at
|
|
ISRAELI SEES WAR WITH LEBANON AND HIZBULLAH; IRAN AND TURKEY BOOST
RELATIONS; BRITAIN UNFREEZES TERRORIST ASSETS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 27, 2010. |
|
ISRAELI SEES WAR WITH LEBANON AS WELL AS WITH HIZBULLAH Lebanon is arming, and an Israeli expert foresees war with it along with Hizbullah. Lebanon has been acquiring and refurbishing military helicopters that it claims are not for military use but which France is concerned might get into the hands of Hizbullah. Noting the Lebanese Army's close cooperation with Hizbullah, which has a prominent official place in the government, PM Netanyahu said that one may as well consider the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah as a coordinated force. Former Israeli national security adviser Gen. Giora Eiland said that in another war with Hizbullah, Israel would have to consider the Lebanese Army as hostile. (Former Israeli actions in Lebanon tried to ignore the Lebanese Army.) UNIFIL may think it is impeding Hizbullah aggression, but under its watch, Hizbullah built up militarily. The Washington Post considers UNIFIL's mission obsolete, since Hizbullah has installed longer range rockets north of the UNIFIL patrol line. Hizbullah can attack Israeli cities from beyond UNIFIL's jurisdiction (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/27). One flaw in the UN ceasefire that was supposed to keep Hizbullah from resuming its aggressive menace, was to limit UNIFIL to the border area, although Iran had rockets it might give Hizbullah, and did give, that can be, and are, placed outside the border area. This was foreseeable then, obvious now. Notice that the menace escalates, from Hizbullah having 10,000 rockets to beyond 40,000, and from Hizbullah alone to including the Lebanese Army that the U.S. and EU arm, and from UNIFIL restraining Hizbullah probably to impeding Israeli forces striving to eradicate rockets before they all are fired. The menace escalates, because Israel failed to eradicate it during the prior war. The government of Israel is like a surgeon who deliberately removes half of a cancer, and in the process detaches a few malignant cells that then lodge in additional places. Israeli Foreign Minister Livni, who helped the UN halt the IDF operation praised her efforts in removing half the cancer, since then and predictably metastasized. Since Hizbullah helps run the government, and the head of the government kowtows to Syria, and Hizbullah gets cooperation from the Lebanese Army, what sense does it make for the U.S. and EU to arm the Lebanese Army? It would make a kind of sense if the U.S. and EU seek to get Israel destroyed. That deadly purpose is not rational in the long run, for it assists the forces of jihad against the West, not just against Israel. Why is there no outcry against U.S. policy on this? IRAN AND TURKEY BOOST RELATIONS FURTHER 
IRAN AND TURKEY BOOST RELATIONS FURTHER The Foreign Ministers of Iran and Turkey declared the desirability of forming closer ties, trading more, and linking Turkey with Pakistan by rail through Iran. The Turkish official called Iran constructive (www.imra.org.il, 1/27). Many countries make such statements. They may express sentiment about historical ties between two peoples who know nothing about each other. Iran and Turkey, however, have been implementing their friendship. Since Iran fosters terrorism in the region, The Turkish Foreign Minister's praise for Iran as a regional force is ominous. Turkey has suffered much from terrorism, often fostered by foreign countries. Apparently its opposition to terrorism is limited to its own safety and is not a matter of principle. Isn't that the way of governments, who do unprincipled things in the name of principles! Most Turks are Sunnis and most Iranians are Shiites. Those twain were supposed never to meet. The supposition proved misguided. The two sects can ally themselves against what they consider a common enemy, even though Pakistani and Iraqi Sunnis bomb their countries' Shiites. Decades ago, we were assured we need not worry about Soviet efforts to penetrate the Mideast. Islam, we were told, is not compatible with Communism. Nevertheless, Syria and Egypt were on their way to becoming satellites of the USSR. (Afghanistan briefly had a Communist regime, but for its own reasons, the USSR overthrew it.) Another policy misconception. Fortunately, Israel helped retard the imperial ambition of the Soviets' Arab allies. In 1973, when Israel's U.S. weaponry destroyed his Soviet weaponry, Sadat saw an opportunity to switch from Soviet aid to U.S. aid. At what point do our policy-makers realize they operated under a misconception? As circumstances change, do they re-examine policy assumptions? TURKEY-ISRAEL RELATIONS UPDATE 
The story reported was that at a meeting between Turkey's Ambassador and Israel's Foreign Minister, the Foreign Minister deliberately insulted the Ambassador. He had the Ambassador seated on a low couch and without the customary presence of the Ambassador's flag, and then pointed this humiliation out to the media present. Afterward, he apologized. Today came out the story behind the story. Note the irony in its phrasing. "Only a few weeks ago, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman instructed Israeli diplomats stationed around the world to 'stop turning the other cheek.' At a heads of missions conference in Jerusalem he declared: 'The problem with Israeli diplomacy over the years is that it does not do enough to preserve the honor of the State of Israel. Terms like 'national honor' have value in the Middle East. There is no need to provoke or exaggerate, but there must not be an attitude of obsequiousness and self-deprecation, and the need to always justify the other side. This is a wrong approach." (David Wilder, Hebron Jewish Community spokesman, 1/27). The new policy supports Israeli diplomacy, whose obsequiousness aroused contempt. Let us see whether the Foreign Minister stops self-deprecation without further "need to provoke." BRITAIN UNFREEZES TERRORIST ASSETS Today, Britain's Supreme Court ordered the government to unfreeze assets of some convicted terrorists. The Court ruled that the act exceeded the government's authority. Parliament would have to approve. The government is anticipating swift Parliamentary approval and delegation of authority for further such freezes. The assets were frozen in 2006, after a UN resolution urged countries to freeze assets of terrorist organizations (Israel Law Center, 1/27 in www.imra.org.il). Why stop at freezing those assets and not confiscate them? OBAMA JUDGED ON HIS ECONOMICS BY HIS ANTI-ZIONISM 
The Zionist Organization of American added its criticism of ADL head Abe Foxman to that of conservative commentators Norman Podhoretz, Michael Ledeen, and Mark Steyn. Mr. Foxman had rebuked radio show host Rush Limbaugh for stating that President Obama's criticism of bankers verged on antisemitism. Pres. Obama had not referred to Jews. Mr. Limbaugh, however, said that since Jews are associated with banking, criticism of bankers hints at criticism of Jews. Foxman turned the tables on Limbaugh, by condemning Limbaugh's remarks as verging on antisemitism, because he raised the stereotype of Jews and money. Foxman's critics wondered how Foxman could think that of Limbaugh, who is quite pro-Israel. They also raised older criticisms of Foxman, whose ADL has made excuses for real antisemitic enemies of Israel, such as psychotic Islamists, the Far Left, Yasir Arafat the terrorist, and Desmond Tutu, who compared Israel with Apartheid; called Zionism racism and used the anti-Semitic canard of the Jewish lobby supposedly stifling debate, while condemning Evangelical Christians who are pro-Israel (from 1/26 press release by ZOA, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member). Yes, Foxman sometimes confuses who is antisemitic with who is not. But I also think that the financial crisis justified Obama's complaint about bankers. Indeed, his complaint was too narrow and self-serving. The problem is not just bankers, but Congress, Presidents, Federal Reserve, speculators, realtors, etc.. I doubt that Obama was hinting at antisemitism, and think that Limbaugh was mistaken. A leader should not refrain from legitimate expression because antisemites may imagine he is confirming their prejudice. Perhaps Obama should have been more specific in his complaint, and thereby avoided misunderstanding. He should not be judged on economic policy by his policy on Israel. People are more complex than to warrant that single yardstick. Incidentally, I never associated bankers with Jews. I was the second Jew hired by a certain major bank, which formerly hired only Catholics.
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:
|
|
LAWYER VISITS RABBI SHAPIRA IN PRISON, REPORTS ABUSE
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, January 27, 2010. |
|
There is no abomination the unJews will not pursue in order to actualize their hatred for Torah. To anyone familiar with the physical conditions of the area and village where this alleged arson occurred, it is clearly impossible that it was done by Jews. The only Jews that could have entered and left that Arab village undetected without the active cooperation of its Arab residents would have been a commando unit and not a bunch of teenaged, Yeshivah boys. Nevertheless the Government of Netanyahu and Barak will stop at nothing to "prove" that it was Jews who did it. Those who are members of this Government of Goon Squads, Synagogue destroyers and Rabbi torturers are all equally guilty of its crimes against the Jewish people. Jewish patriots will never forget nor forgive your crimes. This is a news item from Arutz-7
|
|
(Israelnationalnews.com) Attorney Moti Grossman met with Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira at Shabak headquarters late Tuesday night and reported that the rabbi is being humiliated by his interrogators who are using methods that border on torture. Rabbi Shapira, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva near the Jewish village of Yitzhar, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion that he participated in a recent arson attack against a nearby mosque. Several students of his yeshiva had been questioned in recent weeks but no charges have been filed thus far. Many villagers from Yitzhar have claimed that police are using the incident at the mosque as an excuse to harass and libel local Jews. The meeting between the rabbi and his attorney took place blindfolded. UPDATE: January 27, 2010 "Judge Releases Rabbi Shapira of Yitzhar"
Judge Anat Singer of the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court released Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira of Yitzhar and sharply critcized the law enforcement authorities over the way he was treated. "There is not even the beginning of a justification for remanding [the rabbi] into custody," she said at the court proceeding. 
Rabbi Shapira, Dean of the Od Yosef Chai (Joseph Still Lives) Yeshiva in the Shomron (Samaria), was arrested on Tuesday night, with police insinuating that he may have been involved in the torching of a mosque in Kafr Yassuf, near Tapuach, last month. Rabbi Shapira emphatically denies all involvement in the incident. Rabbi Shapira's lawyer, Moti Grossman of the Honenu Civil Rights Organization, said that he met with his client after midnight in the Petach Tikvah police station, and said he was shocked to see the rabbi "with his eyes blindfolded as if he were a terrorist. It was very difficult to see this, especially as he is a respected rabbi." 
"The Shabak (General Security Service) is exerting all sorts of heavy pressure on him," Grossman said. "They didn't even allow him to keep his tefillin and prayerbook after he finished praying. This is a clear to attempt to pressure someone under interrogation." The police announced that Rabbi Shapira would be held overnight, if not longer, and students from his yeshiva arrived at the Petach Tikvah police station in solidarity with their rabbi. They sang and danced to show their support. Rabbi Shapira lives in the Shomron community of Yitzhar, where several students were arrested in recent overnight raids on similar suspicions. MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari (National Union), who took part in the impromptu rally outside the police station, said he was shocked at the rabbi's arrest. "I condemn the police for its methods," he said, "which have been taken from the darkest, most oppressive regimes. The agenda of the police against residents of Yitzhar smacks of attempts to conduct a 'lynch' against them."
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.
He writes, "In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever
voluntarily relinquished power
or been replaced by peaceful means."
|
|
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN TURKEY
Posted by Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, January 27, 2010. |
|
In Turkey the existence of a branch of the Saudi-funded Wahhabi ("Islamist") Muslim Brotherhood [1] dates back to the period after World War Two. In the 1980s, however, something happened in Turkey which was inconceivable to happen in an Arab branch of the Brotherhood: The new generation of modern Turkish pro-Saudi Wahhabis ("Islamists") (today's Turkish prime minister Erdogan and president Gul) reconciled with Syria. They compelled the old Turkish Wahhabi ("Islamist") leader (former Turkish prime minister Erbakan) to retire, and limited him to leadership of an insignificant minority party constituting three percent of Turkish voters. For some years, Adnan Oktar ("Harun Yahya" = Arabic for Aaron/Jesus) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Oktar http://www.harunyahya.com/ was on good terms with both Erbakan (former Turkish prime minister) and Erdogan (current Turkish prime minister). With the agreement of both Erbakan and Erdogan, Oktar published many anti-American, anti-semitic and Holocaust denial pamphlets and booklets (under the nickname of "Harun Yahya"). When (current Turkish prime minister) Erdogan called for all supporters of the Wahhabi Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey to sever relations with (former Turkish prime minister) Erbakan and his followers, Oktar hesitated to do so for some years. Erdogan did not like it and the police investigation came. However, Erdogan did not immediately order Oktar's arrest, as Oktar still has powerful Saudi and Syrian protectors. For the moment being, I see no signs of change in this situation. Should Oktar begin to move freely from Istanbul, then this means something has changed. A reader wrote, saying, "I was told that Oktar does not ever leave Turkey. He will not come to Israel". That is clear, as Oktar was sentenced to three years in prison by a Turkish court in May, 2008, and is now appealing his conviction. Some of those who left Oktar's group and accused him of violence, harassment, threats, cocaine use, and sexual abuse of girls are now Turkish governmental consultants for religious affairs. Oktar is making a desperate final attempt to show his Saudi bankrollers that he still has a role to play in helping Syria get Israel off the Golan Heights. Hence Oktar's many invitations to Jews and Israelis to fly to visit him in Istanbul on all expenses paid trips for "dialogues". This helps create a false impression of "moderation" on the part of Turkish prime minister Erdogan and president Gul's ruling Justice and Development party (AK Parti). Oktar's efforts are designed as part of an attempt to lull Israelis and Jews into a false sense of security that will make them more amenable to giving the Golan Heights "back" to Syria. Erdogan, the current Turkish prime minister, is inclined to
consider Oktar as a fringe figure and to cut his funding in favor of
Mustafa Akyol's ("Akyol" = Turkish for "The White Path") organization
Professor Sheikh Adbul Hadi Palazzi is an
Italian Muslim leader. He is Muslim Co-Founder and Co-Chair, R&B
Islam-Israel Fellowship |
|
HALT THE VERBAL AND PHYSICAL VIOLENCE DIRECTED AGAINST ISRAEL
Posted by Yehudit Tayar, January 27, 2010. |
|
Under different circumstances I would agree that we Jews, especially we Israelis, suffer from a persecution complex. However, considering the continuous attacks directed against Israel proves that the hatred against Israel is a reality. Just evaluate the Goldstone Report, the accusations of the United Nations against Israel, the pressures by Obama, Hilary Clinton and George Mitchel for Israel to capitulate to the violent attacks directed against us despite the fact that it is known and recognized that this will further encourage terror. The United States was a partner in the infamous Oslo Agreements and it is therefore responsible for the PA implementing the agreement to stop the violence both verbal and physical directed against Israel. In reality the United States continues to ignore the fact that this part of the agreements was never implemented including the fact that the PA never intends to do so. The deliberate lack of coverage of Israel's humanitarian efforts each time a world catastrophe occurs is not coincidental. While on the one hand the world continues to condemn Israel for what they determine is "continued oppression by Israel ", the truth is purposely ignored or distorted. For example our teams have established a field hospital and are tirelessly working to save lives in Haiti yet the world ignores this. Israel does carry some of the responsibility for this, since governments of Israel are over-sensitive to placating unrealistic and dangerous demands by the United States and other countries. One of the outrageous examples is the "freeze of building" forced upon citizens of Israel who live in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley. Another blatant example is the fact that Israel does not shout out, "Why should we have responsibility for the lives of Arabs living in Gaza more than their Arab brothers in Egypt and dozens of Moslem countries? Why should Israel supply fuel to enable the terrorists to attack them? Why should Israel more than Egypt and other Arab countries take responsibility for helping ease the misery of Arabs living under Hamas rule in Gaza?" The Israeli courts also bear a major part of the responsibility for the outrageous behavior directed against Israel no matter what dangers Israel exposes our soldiers to. One personal example which is especially unacceptable to each of us who have served in combat units, who now have sons serving in combat units, is the fear that if an Israeli soldier responds to danger if he is attacked he is the one who will be arrested and punished. For example, the groups of anarchists along with Arabs who continuously demonstrate violently against the "separation wall" are allowed to travel freely, even though it is recognized that they go out there and attack our soldiers. Is the so-called freedom of expression more important than the fact that soldiers are continuously getting injured? The same can be applied to collaborating Jews like Arik Ascherman, who for years has been leading these violent groups, and yet is allowed to continue to incite and orchestrate violent demonstrations. It is unthinkable and unacceptable that there is this incredible imbalance by the courts and governments of Israel especially considering that no matter how much Israel capitulates more is demanded and expected of Israel to capitulate to. Actually if Israel would finally stand firm on our basic rights, and speak out loudly against the verbal and physical anti-Israeli attacks directed against us by the PA, by Turkey, Egypt, Jordan — against the hypocrisy and double standard used against Israel than perhaps, finally, we would witness a change in this. Israel must stop being so over sensitive and finally stand up for the basic rights of our citizens and soldiers to be able to hold our heads high against the propaganda and hate directed against us. Yehudit Tayar is a veteran spokesperson for the Jewish pioneers living in Yesha and lives with her family in Bet Horon, in the Benjamin Region of the Shomron |
|
OBAMA ASKS: WAR? WHAT WAR?
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 26, 2010. |
|
Whatever doubt there was that President Barack Hussein Obama is a pacifist and sides with Islam, that doubt can be removed. Obama does not wish to defend America or her allies. He only makes speeches about bravery — where he has none. Obama's entire regime must be removed from power by a vote of the people — very soon — before he can do more harm to America's finances and healthcare. The damage he has done to our military may be reversible and salvageable. This was written by Charles Krauthammer and it appeared
January 1, 2010
in National review Online
|
|
Janet Napolitano — former Arizona governor, now over-matched Secretary of Homeland Security will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: "The system worked." The attacker's concerned father had warned US authorities about his son's jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked no luggage on a transoceanic flight. He was nonetheless allowed to fly, and would have killed 288 people in the air alone, save for a faulty detonator and quick actions by a few passengers. Heck of a job, Brownie. The reason the country is uneasy about the Obama administration's response to this attack is a distinct sense of not just incompetence but incomprehension. From the very beginning, President Obama has relentlessly tried to downplay and deny the nature of the terrorist threat we continue to face. Napolitano renames terrorism "man-caused disasters." Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York — a trifecta of political correctness and image management. And just to make sure even the dimmest understand, Obama banishes the term "war on terror." It's over — that is, if it ever existed. Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately, al-Qaeda has not. Which gives new meaning to the term "asymmetric warfare." And produces linguistic — and logical — oddities that littered Obama's public pronouncements following the Christmas Day attack. In his first statement, Obama referred to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as "an isolated extremist." This is the same president who, after the Ford Hood shooting, warned us "against jumping to conclusions" — code for daring to associate Nidal Hasan's mass murder with his Islamist ideology. Yet, with Abdulmutallab, Obama jumped immediately to the conclusion, against all existing evidence, that the bomber acted alone. More jarring still were Obama's references to the terrorist as a "suspect" who "allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device." You can hear the echo of FDR: "Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor." Obama reassured the nation that this "suspect" had been charged. Reassurance? The president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant — an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians — and now to prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about al-Qaeda in Yemen. Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered up. At which point — surprise! — he stops talking. This absurdity renders hollow Obama's declaration that "we will not rest until we find all who were involved." Once we've given Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, we have gratuitously forfeited our right to find out from him precisely who else was involved, namely those who trained, instructed, armed, and sent him. This is all quite mad even in Obama's terms. He sends 30,000 troops to fight terror overseas, yet if any terrorists come to attack us here, they are magically transformed from enemy into defendant. The logic is perverse. If we find Abdulmutallab in an al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen, where he is merely preparing for a terror attack, we snuff him out with a Predator — no judge, no jury, no qualms. But if we catch him in the United States in the very act of mass murder, he instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from interrogation. The president said that this incident highlights "the nature of those who threaten our homeland." But the president is constantly denying the nature of those who threaten our homeland. On Tuesday, he referred five times to Abdulmutallab (and his terrorist ilk) as "extremist(s)." A man who shoots abortion doctors is an extremist. An eco-fanatic who torches logging sites is an extremist. Abdulmutallab is not one of these. He is a jihadist. And unlike the guys who shoot abortion doctors, jihadists have cells all over the world; they blow up trains in London, nightclubs in Bali, and airplanes over Detroit (if they can); and they are openly pledged to wage war on America. Any government can through laxity let someone slip through the cracks. But a government that refuses to admit that we are at war, indeed, refuses even to name the enemy — jihadist is a word banished from the Obama lexicon — turns laxity into a governing philosophy. 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 |
|
CONSTRUCTION FREEZE: STATE DESTROYS SYNAGOGUE
Posted by Hillel Fendel, January 26, 2010. |
|
Special Yassam units have destroyed a synagogue in the Shomron-Binyamin community that was built after the construction freeze was announced. The Torah scrolls were first removed from the building, and the bulldozers began the destruction shortly afterwards. Earlier this morning (Tuesday), it was reported that large police forces and special Yassam units had arrived in the Talmonim bloc and prevented entry to the communities of Dolev, Neriah, Talmon, Nachliel and Haresha. They thus wished to prevent residents from arriving en masse to thwart their destruction of a synagogue in Nachliel, said to have been built in violation of the two-month-old construction freeze. The construction freeze was abruptly imposed on all new Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria by the government to entice the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other government ministers have vowed that the freeze will be removed after ten months. The destruction of a synagogue, especially in Israel, is considered very serious, in terms of both religious sensitivity and the efforts, in the words of the Knesset Law Committee, to "prevent harm to synagogues around the world." After the Disengagement/expulsion from Gush Katif in 2005, the government originally planned to destroy the synagogues that remained in Gaza, in order to avoid their desecration by local Arabs. However, even this fear was not considered sufficient reason to destroy those holy sites, and following opposition by rabbis around the country and much debate, the decision was rescinded. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor, Arutz-7 |
|
SECRET REPORT: IRAN WILL HAVE NUCLEAR BOMB THIS YEAR
Posted by Malkah Fleisher, January 26, 2010. |
|
A secret intelligence dossier currently being reviewed by US, Israeli, German, and Austrian governments reveals secret Iranian tests and hierarchies of power dedicated to the successful development of a nuclear bomb, and predicts that Iran will have a primitive nuclear bomb by year's end. According to the classified document featured in an exposé by Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Iran is well on its way toward obtaining its first nuclear bomb. The country's nuclear research program, it turns out, has a military wing answering to the Defense Ministry which the West was not aware of until now. Der Spiegel explained the structure of Iranian nuclear establishment at length. Iran's new Minister of Science, Research, and Technology, Kamran Daneshjoo, 52, is in charge of the country's nuclear energy agency. A close ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Daneshjoo was educated in Manchester, England. He worked for some time at Tehran's "Center for Aviation Technology", which later developed into FEDAT, the "Department for Expanded High-Technology Applications". FEDAT ultimately became what the German paper calls "the secret heart of Iran's nuclear weapons program", answering directly to the Defense Ministry.
FEDAT is currently run by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 48, a professor at Tehran's Imam Hussein University and officer in the Revolutionary Guard. Western intelligence agencies say FEDAT and the Ministry of Science are working together to create the bomb. They also believe that a primitive nuclear weapon the size of a truck will be completed this year. Two to four years after that, the bomb will be compressed to a size capable of fitting into a nuclear warhead and being launched at Israel. Iran is believed to have conducted successful tests of a nuclear detonating device 6 years ago. 'Not just Israeli propaganda' Despite the severity of the situation, the international community is still undecided on sanctions of Iran. China is considered likely to try to block sanctions, as it currently holds billions of dollars in energy deals with the country. A military option may prove difficult, according to military experts, because many of the Iranian nuclear installations are deep underground. The report will likely cause the US government to raise its alarm level from yellow to red, according to Der Spiegel. "Skeptics who in the past, sometimes justifiably so, treated alarmist reports as Israeli propaganda, are also extremely worried," including IAEA officials, said the magazine. The report also says, somewhat cryptically, that a laptop computer passed on to the IAEA by way of German and American intelligence agencies contained highly volatile material. No compromise Fears of a nuclear Iran have been compounded by information provided by Iran's former deputy defense minister, Ali Reza Asgari, and nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, both of whom defected to the United States and were given new identities. Iran has consistently stated that its nuclear program is for the peaceful provision of nuclear energy to the country's citizenry. In October, the IAEA presented a plan to Iran which had been developed by the US government. Under the plan, Iran would send 70% of its low-enriched uranium abroad. A year later, the uranium would be exchanged for fuel rods, a potent form of nuclear fuel which is very difficult to enrich for military purposes. The plan would have provided sufficient fuel for a nuclear energy program and to fuel the reactor for scientific experiments. At the same time, the world would have been assured that Iran truly had no intention of developing nuclear weapons. On January 19, Tehran offered a "counter-proposal", effectively rejecting the IAEA plan and casting off illusions of a compromise with the West. Malkah Fleisher writes for Arutz-7, where the story appeared today. |
|
GOLDSTONE SHMOLDSTONE
Posted by Rabbi Jonathan Gross, January 26, 2010. |
|
Lebanon, or Hamas, nor is it the demographic threat of an Arab Israeli majority. Today, the biggest threat to Israel is the pressure placed on Israel to abolish the state's Jewish character. On October 26th 2009 the US State Department openly came out against Israel's right to be a Jewish State. In a recent report on international religious freedoms, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor has declared that Israel discriminates against Christians, Muslims, and Messianic Jews as well as secular Jews. According to the state department Israel is guilty of the following:
The report acknowledges how the Israeli government gives 65 million shekels a year for the building and maintenance of non-Jewish houses of worship (churches and mosques), as well as other funding for non-Jewish religious education — yet Israel is admonished because more money is given to Jewish religious institutions and education. This report is a direct affront to Israel's right to be a Jewish State. Will we see the Israeli government come out as strongly against this as they did against the Goldstone report? The State department report is fundamentally more important. If Israel does not stand up for its right to have a Jewish State that can give preference to Jews and Judaism then why is Israel fighting? Were Israel to abolish its Jewish character, Israel could peacefully annex the West Bank and Gaza and form a secular democracy for Arabs and Jews. To deny Israel's right to be Jewish is denying Israel's right to exist. Agudath Israel released a Jewish patriotic statement condemning the State Department report. "One country was created as a Jewish state. Israel's choice of timeless Jewish tradition in the public realm and with regard to issues of personal status requires no apology. Criticism of Israel for being true to its foundational ideal is ill-conceived." Unfortunately these days Jewish Patriots are hard to come by. Ironically, of all the enemies that Israel has defeated since it's inception, it is liberalism that may be responsible for Israel's demise.
Rabbi Jonathan Gross is with Beth Israel Synagogue in Omaha, Nebraska.
This article was posted on his website:
|
|
WAS OBAMA ELECTED TO LEAD THE MUSLIM WORLD?
Posted by CPocerl, January 26, 2010. |
|
This is from China Confidential
|
|
Looking ahead to the State of the Union speech, this reporter wonders: Was Barack Hussein Obama, who was born a Muslim according to Islamic law, which he is inclined to respect, elected President of the United States or President of the so-called Muslim world? The answer, of course, is that Obama was elected President of the United States; but based on his performance during his first year in office, one would think he was elected to lead the world's Muslims, supposedly united by "the Holy Koran," as Obama insists on referring to Islam's central religious text, to a degree that allegedly transcends all political boundaries and non-Islamic legal systems as well as all differences in nationality, ethnicity, race, and class. Obama has given enormous credence to the menacing, Muslim world concept — the bedrock of Islamist ideology — while achieving nothing of importance for the American people. He has produced no new jobs, created no new industries, initiated no new programs or policies that resonate with and inspire ordinary Americans. He has, however, helped the Muslim world, also known as the Ummah, or Muslim nation, enormously by elevating its status to the level of a globe-spanning superpower, allowing its most powerful "Islamic republic" — a monstrous tyranny that muses openly about a world without America and Israel — to come closer to acquiring atomic arms, and downgrading the war against Islamist terrorism to the level of a mere law enforcement challenge. The latter initiative involves banning the W word — war — altogether and treating enemy combatant terrorists, such as the Al Qaeda war criminals responsible for carrying out the 9/11 mega-attacks, and the Nigerian, Christmas Day airplane attacker, as common criminals entitled to civilian court trials, public defenders, and, incredible as this may seem, plea bargains. Conservative-leaning U.S. voters are outraged by Obama's obvious attempts at expanding the power of the federal government, raising taxes, and crippling U.S. industry through crushing overregulation and the choking-off of energy (the Democrats' despised "fossil fuels" on which our civilization runs and will run for the foreseeable future). The outrage is more than justified. But all voters should be alarmed by Obama's foreign and counterterrorism policies, which are effectively increasing the nation's vulnerability to threats that were more or less unthinkable before 9/11, but now seem more and more likely to actually occur. Understand, as Obama likes to say, that while the U.S. is a big, powerful country, the threats it faces border on the existential. Could the U.S. economy withstand waves of suicide bombings and Mumbai-style swarming assaults? Maybe. Could the U.S. economy recover from a nuclear blast in a high-population area, or a major biological attack on the homeland? Probably not. Could the U.S. as a nation survive an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack — the increasingly plausible detonation of a nuclear warhead at high altitude above U.S. soil in order to wipe out the country's communications and electronics systems? The truly terrifying answer, according to many defense and national security experts, is no. An EMP attack would overnight plunge the world's mightiest military power back into the 19th century. Millions of Americans would die from lack of food, water, electricity, medicines, and heat. Those who somehow survive the chaos would long for the days when it was still possible to argue passionately about health care reform (or media coverage of the Tiger Woods scandal). If an EMP attack seems far-fetched, bear in mind that a cargo ship with a concealed, containerized launch system could fire the necessary nuclear-tipped missile — or missiles — that thousands of cargo ships, flying flags of convenience, approach U.S. coastal waters every day, that there is no known way to defend U.S. (or any other) cities against sea-based, ballistic missile attacks, and that Iran and North Korea are believed to have successfully test-fired missiles from cargo vessels. For what purpose have they done this? Does Obama know — or care? Observing the President, this reporter often thinks that he inhabits a different planet, or, at the very least, a different country from the one he is supposed to be leading and protecting. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
IT'S NOT JUST ISRAEL: HOW OBAMA UNDERMINES US ALLIES
Posted by Donnella Whitacre, January 26, 2010. |
|
This was written by Abraham Katsman, an American attorney
and political commentator currently living in Jerusalem.
This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post
|
|
Obama has made his own personality and identity cornerstones of US diplomacy. For those worried that US President Barack Obama is particularly antagonistic toward Israel, there's good news and bad news: The good news is that Israel is hardly Obama's obsession; the bad news is that his administration's conduct toward it is consistent with its pattern of backing away from embattled American allies — a predictable byproduct of Obama's approach to foreign policy through dictator outreach. US President Barack Obama. US President Barack Obama. Photo: AP [file ] Obama, more than any recent president, has made his own personality and identity cornerstones of American diplomacy. He assumes his potent charm can bend America's adversaries his way, that American history began anew on January 20, 2009 and that hostilities can be resolved through dialogue with him. His tactic of choice has been to visit a troubled region, apologize to the local authoritarians for America's sinful pre-Obama history, disavow acts of previous administrations and suggest that he brings with him a diplomatic "reset-button." But there are dangerous repercussions to conducting such personality-focused foreign policy: By promoting his unique diplomatic touch as the key to rapprochement, any failure by Obama to harmonize hostile relationships indicates the insufficiency of his skills. Accordingly, in practice, hostile governments have learned that Obama sets lofty diplomatic goals in public, but is willing to cut almost any deal to keep up appearances. He has made countless concessions and conciliatory gestures to Iran, the Arab world, China, Russia and Venezuela, vainly urging some demonstration of good faith in return. Yet time and again, seeing no downside, America's adversaries simply pocket the concessions without reciprocating. Refusing to concede any error, Obama has instead doubled his diplomatic bets, paying in the currency preferred by the hostile regimes: by jettisoning the interests of US allies who are thorns in their sides. Obama has vocally criticized Israeli security policy, coerced a settlement freeze and put the status of established Jerusalem neighborhoods in question. Yet the Arab governments and Palestinian leadership keep moving the diplomatic goalposts, making no concessions, knowing he will only increase pressure onIsrael to restart the "peace process." Obama's one-sided pressure against Israel has earned him, according to an August Jerusalem Post poll, the assessment of only 4 percent of Jewish Israelis that his administration is pro-Israel. But it's not just Israel. In April he praised "the Czech Republic and Poland, [who] have been courageous in agreeing to host" a missile-defense system, promising deployment "as long as the threat from Iran persists." By July, though the threat from Iran certainly persisted, Obama caved in to Russian objections, abandoning the missile-shield along with those courageous Czechs and Poles. In Honduras, his administration backed the reinstatement of a power-usurping, Chavez-allied anti-American president in spite of the legal democratic process which had removed him. In Iran, Obama still talks of engaging the mullahs and slowing down sanctions even as the theo-fascists thumb their noses, ramping up their nuclear capability and mowing down democratic protesters holding signs saying "Obama, are you with us or against us?" From China, Obama had high hopes for progress on human rights and cooperation regarding Iran and North Korea. He got nothing, save for an ironic lecture on fiscal responsibility from the communist government. Is there a threatened ally he has ever stood up for? If I were Taiwan, I'd be worried.
OBAMA TRULY believes in his special persuasive powers. "I have a gift," he is famously reported to have said to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. During the campaign, the crux of hisforeign policy was his eagerness to immediately meet the world's most brutal dictators and enemies of America, without preconditions; he would personally make them less antagonistic. He wants to hold a Muslim summit, since "I have lived in a Muslim country" [as a schoolboy], "I know it is possible to reconcile Islam with modernity and respect for human rights and a rejection of violence." Well, that's a relief. Obama's belief in his own powers was reinforced by a love-struck press. After his vaguely messianic campaign and inauguration, Newsweek's Evan Thomas typified the mood, hyperventilating that Obama was "standing above the country... above the world. He's sort of God." But once president, reality intruded: The leaders of Russia, China and North Korea don't believe in God. And the Islamist God is somewhat less warm and fuzzy than Barack Obama. With nothing to show for his efforts, Obama's continued belief in his ability to pacify adversaries by personal appeal is as delusional as it is dangerous. Nations don't have personal friends; they have interests. And American interests are not advanced by presidential groveling, but by creating the right mix of carrots and sticks to induce desired behavior. Obama's willingness to sacrifice embattled allies to appease hostile regimes ultimately weakens America. As Bernard Lewis has said: "A nation can make few mistakes worse than this: to be harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend." Especially when that nation gets nothing in return.
Contact Donnella Whitacre by email at screenqwen1@yahoo.com
|
|
ANTISEMITE AT UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM (USHMM)
Posted by Patrick Dempsey, January 26, 2010. |
|
For my part, I largely endorse all that USHMM stands for and when asked about what it should stand for, it surely stands as a marker for 6,000,000 Jews no longer with us. I am always asked cotentious questions, as if I am an authority on all that the Holocaust details. But I do my best to respond, especially when People have taken the time to respond to one of my Books on the Holocust as I am only wishing to add further to what I feel the destroyed Jews of Europe would seek to have said on their behalf? When asked recently about the position of Mr. Chodakiewicz as a board member of USHMM, a person who, if not an anti-Semite then is a disliker of Jews, I felt compelled to add a dissenting voice. Perhaps Chodakiewicz asserts that the 4 year old Tokele, murdered in Sokoly after the Nazi's left, was in some way collateral damage? Surely Tokele couldn't have been a communist, and if she were, would it have shifted any political balance let alone bias? Also, would Chodakiewicz contend that the Jewish property, Jewish valuables and all Jewish wordly goods, now enjoyed by the Poles, are the product of them simply falling into Polish laps, or are they the spoils of War? Did the fact that the disappearance of some 3,000,000 Polish Jews not enrich the Polish People somehow? Is that not against all Christian ethics and surely his own moral code would not allow for the enrishment of one People upon the destruction of another People, even if they were Jews? If Poles are not to be the least bit outraged by Auschwitz, then let them balk at the stain Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibior and Treblinka casts over their blood stained Country. Let us not forget, that what Poland did not do to the Jews of Poland and Europe, it is apparent that Poland did not prevent or resist what was happening to the Jews of Poland or all of Europe. Patrick Dempsey writes on the Holocaust. Contact him at pd1010@hotmail.com |
|
LANCET STUDY BLAMES PALESTINIAN WIFE-BEATING ON ISRAEL
Posted by Israel Academia Monitor, January 26, 2010. | |
|
This below was written by Phyllis Chesler and it appeared in
Pajamas Media
| |
|
It's official. Britain's premier medical journal Lancet[1] has been completely Palestinianized. It no longer bears any relationship to the first-rate scientific journal it once was. Perhaps Lancet is no longer a standard-bearer but has become a follower in the global movement in which standards have plunged, biases have soared, and Big Lies now pass for top-of-the-line academic, scientific work. The post-colonial academy is itself thoroughly colonized by the false and dangerous ideas of Edward Said (please read my dear friend Ibn Warraq's most excellent book Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism [2]). However, I once believed that Said's paranoid perspective had primarily infected and indoctrinated only the social sciences, humanities, and Middle East Studies. We now see his malign influence at work in a new article, just out today, by professors who work at the Department of Medicine at Harvard University; the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at Minnesota University's School of Public Health; The Boston University School of Medicine; the School of Nursing at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and at the School of Social Work and Social Welfare at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. Their study [3] is titled: "Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study." And yes, they have found that Palestinian husbands are more violent towards Palestinian wives as a function of the Israeli "occupation" — and that the violence increases significantly when the husbands are "directly" as opposed to "indirectly" exposed to political violence. I believe that Arab and Muslim men, including Palestinian men, are indeed violent towards Arab and Muslim women. I also believe that war-related stress, including poverty, usually increases "intimate partner violence," aka male domestic violence. But beyond that, how does one evaluate this study? First, let's follow the money. This study was funded by the Palestinian National Authority as well as by the Core Funding Group at the University of Minnesota. The Palestinian Authority is not a disinterested party. But even worse: The data was collected by the Palestinian Central Bureau. These are the people who told the world that Israeli soldiers shot young Mohammed al-Dura, committed a massacre in Jenin, and purposely attacked Palestinian civilians (who just happened to be jihadists dressed in civilian clothing or hostage-civilians behind whom the jihadists hid). Second, let's note that the study has a political goal which trumps any objective academic or feminist goal. (These researchers claim to have a "feminist" perspective). In my view, this study wishes to present Palestinian men as victims, even when those men are battering their wives. And, it wishes to present Palestinian cultural barbarism, which includes severe child abuse, as also related to the alleged Israeli occupation. Third, therefore, the study has purposely omitted the violence, including femicide, which is routinely perpetrated against daughters and sisters in "occupied Palestine" and has, instead, chosen to focus only on husband-wife violence and only on couples who are currently married. The honor murders of daughters and sisters by their parents and brothers is a well known phenomenon in Gaza and on the West Bank. I have written about some high profile cases before. "Souad" barely survived being set on fire [4] by her fWest Bank family because she became pregnant out of wedlock by the man who promised to marry her; Israelis nursed her back to health and she fled the area for Europe, where she wrote a book about her near-death experience. Asma'a al-Ghoul [5], whom I interviewed in 2008, was fired for writing a series of articles about honor killings on the West Bank and in Gaza. These barbaric, misogynist, and femicidal customs are not due to any alleged political, military, or economic "occupation" by Israelis. Fourth, if one is completely serious about violence against women, the researchers would have factored in the role of Hamas, which has "occupied" Gaza both militarily and religiously. Since they have done so, more and more (previously modern) women have been forced to veil; more child marriages as well as arranged marriages are now taking place. Indeed, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups have lured young Palestinian women into becoming suicide killers [6]. In 2002, they manipulated Wafa Idris, a clinically depressed woman into blowing herself up, and in 2004, they lured Reem al-Riyashi, a wife and mother of two, into an affair and then threatened to shame her (which would have led to her being honor-murdered). Instead, they gave her a path to glory. This study chose not to include such terrible violence against women because it could not, strictly speaking, be attributed to the alleged Israeli occupation — or to the still unresolved matter of the disputed territories. Fifth, had the Lancet study wished to study — truly study — the effects of war on women in domestic settings, they would also have studied or at least referred to studies about the fate of Israeli women in terms of "intimate partner violence"; after all, they are also women and they are on the other side of the exact same conflict. A comparison might have been both just and arguably more feminist. Sixth, Lancet is a British journal and it has hereby descended to the same level of anti-Zionist/anti-Jewish propaganda that is quite common among Britain's own non-academic journalists. Countless British journalists have done precisely what this study has attempted to do: Blame it all on Israel. Lancet has done this before, and I have written about this rather nasty tendency more than once. I have also written about this tendency among feminists in my book The Death of Feminism [7]. Make no mistake: This Lancet study is introduced by Rita Giacoman, a real feminist, who teaches at the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University which is located in, as Lancet describes it, "Occupied Palestinian territory." In 2002, in an updated version of her book The Price of Honor, British-American (and anti-Zionist) journalist Jan Goodwin claims that the Israeli military policies of self-defense have emasculated Palestinian men. Curfews keep grandiose, woman-hating, and honor- and shame-reared men at home for long hours. Based on anecdotal evidence, Goodwin believes that such men take their considerable frustrations out on women and children. Here, Goodwin quotes Suha Sabbagh, who says that the "Palestinian male, a father, the authority figure in the house, has lost all his authority." Goodwin dwells on the systematic "humiliation" of the Palestinian man by the Israelis. She writes: "Much of this belittling has taken place in front of their children and womenfolk," which in turn has "cut down" the image of the Palestinian man as the family's "hero" figure. "For Arab men, this is the same as losing their masculinity." And here Goodwin, like so many other feminists, contradicts herself. Arab and Muslim overly vigilant paternal authority is precisely what has brutalized Arab and Muslim women. In 1992, Jean Sasson published Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia [8]. The unnamed al-Saud princess (whose story Sasson tells), describes the typically cruel way in which fathers, brothers, and husbands treat their "womenfolk." Let me quote her: "The authority of a Saudi male is unlimited; his wife and children survive only if he desires. In our homes, he is the state...From an early age, the male child is taught that women are of little value...the child witnesses the disdain shown his mother and sisters by his father; this leads to his scorn of all females...[the] women in my land are ignored by their fathers, scorned by their brothers, and abused by their husbands." Iranian-Swiss Carmen bin Laden, in her book Inside the Kingdom [9], portrays life for women under Saudi male rule similarly. Women cannot go out without a male escort and they cannot leave the house or the county without male permission and accompaniment. A daughter can be married against her will, a father can seize custody of his children and not allow their mother to ever see them again. Bin Laden writes: "I rarely met a Saudi woman who was not afraid of her husband...A wife cannot do anything without her husband's permission. She cannot go out, cannot study, often cannot even eat at his table. Women in Saudi Arabia must live in obedience, in isolation, and in the fear that they may be cast out and summarily divorced." Saudi Arabia has not been "settled," "colonized," or "humiliated," by Israelis. Jordan has not been "settled," "colonized," "occupied," or "humiliated" by Israel. And yet, Jordan has a high rate of honor killing. According to Elaine Sheeley, in her 2007 book Reclaiming Honor in Jordan [10], nineteen to one hundred honor killings take place in Jordan each year. Based on another author's use of United Nations statistics, Sheeley also cites a much larger number of honor killings in Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank. (I am not sure how they came to this figure or if it is at all accurate but the number given is 2,550 per year). Due to the Bedouin leadership, honor killing is rampant in Jordan; the police jail the intended victims (for their safety) rather than the potential perpetrators; and even the King dare not sign into law serious sentencing consequences for an honor killing. Judges are allowed to use their discretion in sentencing and sentences are very light. Egypt is not colonized by Israel, and yet serious violence against women is common there. This includes female genital mutilation, wife-beating, daughter-beating, forced marriages — and, with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the forced veiling of previously modern women. The Lancet researchers operated in exceedingly bad faith both academically and politically. For example, they write: "Occupation policies, including a separation barrier that is being erected in various parts of the West Bank, affect family connectedness, depriving women of regular contact with their families who might otherwise intervene to prevent intimate-partner violence." Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim families do not intervene when a husband is beating a wife. On the contrary. Both the husband's family and the wife's own family view this as a husband's right or as a wife's fault. These researchers have got to know that. Thus, they are playing to western naiveté or ignorance about this by claiming the Israeli road blockades are stopping such imaginary, pro-woman family interventions. I am not denying that war is Hell or that women do not often bear the brunt of war-related male frustration at home. I am challenging how Israel alone is being blamed in this study for a war that in truth, was declared long ago against the Jewish state by the Arab League, the Palestinian Authority, and more recently, by Hamas and Hezbollah. I am challenging the "politics" of both this study and of Lancet, whose aim is to scapegoat Israel for the barbarism and misogyny which is indigenous to Arab and Muslim culture, even more so, when jihad and terrorism dominate the world. Footnotes [1] Lancet:
[2] Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism:
[3] study:
[4] barely survived being set on fire:
[5] Asma'a al-Ghoul:
[6] lured young Palestinian women into becoming
suicide killers:
[7] The Death of Feminism:
[8] Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in
Saudi Arabia:
[9] Inside the Kingdom:
[10] Reclaiming Honor in Jordan:
Contact the Israel Academia Monitor by email at e-mail@israel-academia-monitor.com |
|
THIS IS NOT PORT-AU-PRINCE
Posted by Patrick Dempsey, January 26, 2010. |
|
"..a vale of sorrow. No human beings are they who walk its streets
..all are phantoms ..shadows ..haunting a world that is no longer in
existence. ..They have even ceased to weep. ..congestion ..stench
..poverty ..disease ..chaos ..cannot be paralleled anywhere on earth.
..bodies strewn on ..roadside like old cinders. Shrouds ..no longer
..for ..dead. ..water ..foul ..cannot be drunk. ..They wander
..sad-eyed ..distraught ..mourners at funerals. ..devil ..could not
have devised such hell."
This is the description Moldawer witnessed while the Jews of the Reich were being displaced and deposited in the Lublin reserve, circa 1939. While the past can be so mirrored in atrocity and played out in natural disaster, efforts are made to ameliorate the catastrophe of Haiti, but what effort has there been truly made to atone for the crimes that humanity waged and raged against the Jews of Europe, not so long ago? Patrick Dempsey writers on the Holocaust. Contact him at pd1010@hotmail.com |
|
HELP, NOT HATE
Posted by Michael Devolin, January 25, 2010. |
|
Since last fall, the federal Conservative government has been withdrawing taxpayer funding from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that use their grants to take sides against Israel in the Middle East conflict. Now comes word that last week, Ottawa told the United Nations it would no longer fund the world body's Palestinian refugee agency. From now on, Canadian aid to Palestinians will be directed to specific projects. We will no longer give lump-sum aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), since most of that money simply goes straight into the Palestinian Authority's (PA) general treasury, where it might be used for humanitarian projects or might be used to arm and train terrorists. This is a bold move for Ottawa, which is the first Western government to cut off funding for UNWRA. Although UNWRA has long been a biased player in the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is seldom criticized for its incitement of anti-Israeli hatred and violence by Palestinians. It has funded textbooks that deny the right of Israel to exist and paid teachers who call on Palestinian children to push the Jewish state into the sea. It harbours radical Islamists and anti-Semites on its payroll and was even caught in 2004 using its own ambulances to ferry terrorists away from Israeli sites they had just attacked. But most politicians and journalists consider UNWRA to be sacrosanct. Too many swallow whole the agency's assurances that it is not involved in promoting terrorism and anti-Israeli sentiments in the West Bank and Gaza. Criticism of it always elicits howls that UNWRA's mission is only to care for four million refugees in 59 camps and promote peace and understanding in the region. So rather than get dragged into a public relations war with the UN and its acolytes, last week, before Prime Minister Stephen Harper shuffled his Cabinet, then-Treasury Board President Vic Toews informed UNWRA and the PA that from now on, Canadian aid would be earmarked to specific projects, chosen by Ottawa, such as food aid. Ottawa also announced it would defund Alternatives, a Montreal NGO that two summers ago organized an education camp in Quebec, welcoming "500 motivated militants" from Lebanon, Iraq, "Palestine" and Venezuela. International Development Minister Bev Oda withdrew $7-million in tax dollars, too, from KAIROS, an "ecumenical partnership" that had adopted a vehemently anti-Israel policy and been at the forefront of boycotts against the importation of Israeli goods and visits by Israeli professors. For too long, Ottawa has subsidized NGOs that claim to be after peace, but that in truth seek to demonize Israel. It's good the Conservatives are seeking to halt these attacks. Michael Devolin is a B'nai Elim; he lives in Canada. This article appeared in the National Post. |
|
PAKISTANI JIHADISTS:
'THE JEWS, WHO DREAM OF RULING THE WORLD, HAVE INVENTED... VACCINES, DRUGS, AND INJECTIONS... TO WEAKEN MUSLIMS'
Posted by Levi, Yaacov, January 25, 2010. |
|
Article in Urdu-Language Women's Magazine of Pakistan-Based Jihadist Group, Titled 'Polio: Disease or Dangerous Jewish Conspiracy?' States: 'The Jews, Who Dream of Ruling the World, Have Invented... Vaccines, Drugs, and Injections... to Weaken Muslims' An article published by an Urdu-language magazine for women in Pakistan has called the international polio eradication campaign a Jewish conspiracy being furthered by various international organizations. The article, by Mohammad Kamran Talib, is titled "Polio: Disease or Dangerous Jewish Conspiracy?" It was published in the Urdu-language monthly magazine Mahnama Banat-e-'Aisha ("Daughters of 'Aisha" — 'Aisha was one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad). Mahnama Banat-e-'Aisha is a sister publication of Haftroza Al-Qalam, an Urdu-language weekly loyal to Jaish-e-Muhammad, an Al-Qaeda-linked militant organization based in the Pakistani province of Punjab. The article first appeared in June 2006 an Urdu-language magazine called Mahnama Rahnuma-e-Sihat, and was reproduced in the October 2009 issue of Mahnama Banat-e-'Aisha. The article alleges that several international organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO, Rotary International, the World Bank, and UNICEF, which are providing massive funding for international polio eradication campaigns, are serving Zionist interests. Claiming that the eradication campaigns are a Jewish conspiracy, the article quotes reports from Urdu-, Hindi-, and English-language newspapers on various incidents in India of children contracting polio despite being vaccinated. It also refers to several such cases in Yemen and Indonesia, adding that Islamic scholars in Nigeria have issued a fatwa against polio vaccination. The article also notes that Dr. Ibrahim Datti, a physician and president of Nigeria's Religious Law Supreme Council, has accused the U.S. of including anti-fertility components in the polio vaccines. This article was translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East (www.memri.org). The following are excerpts from the article:[1] |
|
The Polio Eradication Campaign "The U.N., the U.S. Health Department's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Red Cross, and 16 wealthy European countries are collaborating with the WHO's polio eradication program to carry out their nefarious designs by giving aid to the poor countries. And that is why three states of Nigeria have banned this program. "The governor of the state of Kanu, Ibrahim Shikarao, has said, 'We have opted for the lesser of two evils. We don't want to affect the reproductive system of millions of children, especially girls, by allowing the vaccination campaign; instead we have preferred the disease in which a few — two, three, five, 10 children — are afflicted with [polio]...'" "Ninety-Eight Million People Have Been Infected with the SV-40 Virus Because of the Polio Vaccine; Consequently, the Number of Cancer Patients in the U.S. Has Increased Alarmingly" "When the polio eradication campaign was launched in the U.S. in 1950, only 13 people out of New York's population of 15 million [sic], and the question was raised as to what was the need for it. None seemed to be convinced that such a massive program should be launched for such a meager number of patients, one person in 100,000. "According to 1996 figures, in comparison to deaths from polio, 276, 203, 60, 40, 23 and 11 people died in the U.S. of heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, and AIDS, respectively. "The polio virus is a genetically engineered virus made of the components of a monkey's kidney. Monkeys' kidneys have Simian Virus (SV-40). It may create the danger of incurable diseases if it's injected into [the] human body. It may cause osteosarcomas, brain tumors, and malignant mesosmthlisomas [sic], which are difficult to cure. "Besides, the BK virus and JU virus are in the polio virus, and they can cause cancer. In 1962, unsuccessful experiments were carried out in advanced and standard laboratories to do away with the effects of these fatal viruses. These viruses spread rapidly into the human body and became difficult to control. "Every year, about 20,000 people die in the U.S. due to this. According to U.S. scientist Dr. Mercola, around 50,000 people become afflicted with dangerous diseases every year due to these viruses. In his words, 'We believed the experts that they would free us from polio, but it happened that they injected the fatal viruses of cancer into the human body, and because of it 20,000 people die every year in the U.S.' "Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher, authors of 'The Virus and the Vaccine [The True Story of a Cancer-Causing Monkey Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine, and the Millions of Americans Exposed'] say: How would you feel when you come to know that the vaccine you have given to your child to save them from a disease has injected into their bodies the SV-40 virus that is responsible for the cancer that ninety-eight million U.S. citizens have suffered from? This vaccine is a great medical fraud. "Barbara Loe Fisher, the president of the National Vaccine Information Center, has claimed that the sole reason behind weak immune systems in most children and youth, as well as learning disabilities, asthma, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, seizure disorders, skin diseases like lupus and hyperactivity, are the protective vaccinations. Ninety-eight million people have been infected by the SV-40 virus because of the polio vaccine. Consequently, the number of cancer patients in the U.S. has increased alarmingly. "According to a report in The Washington Times of September 21, 2003, the vaccination drugs given to Americans between 1962 and 2000 had a monkey virus in them. Besides, the report has mentioned evidence and reports tabled before the House Committee. Citing these reports, Stanley P. Copse, an attorney handling lawsuits by people afflicted with polio, has said that it has not been proven to date that oral polio vaccines are completely free of the SV-40 virus. He has written an article in this regard on 'Oral Polio Vaccination and Cancer,' on the basis of legal documents, stating that SV-40 virus is found in the vaccine. This was published in the 'Anti-Cancer' magazine in 2003. He writes: 'In the oral polio vaccine case the Lederle company is unable to say that all its vaccines are free of SV-40 virus. Lederle's director has said that examination of all the vaccines is impossible. So, experts should not be confident in the absence of any solid proof that these vaccines are totally safe.' "Dr. Philippe Che Chunin, a prominent oncologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and a mesothelimoa [sic] specialist, says, We are seriously considering the fact that the SV-40 virus is becoming a greater cause of cancer in human beings. Russian scientist Dr. John Martin says that SV-40 virus is so dangerous that it can be transmitted by birth to the next generation without any vaccination. Currently, Dr. Tain Garnie is researching how the SV-40 virus destroys cells. Dr. Venus Jophon Tana says that there is a close relationship between the SV-40 and mesothelimoas [sic] cancer." The U.S. Has Banned the Oral Polio Vaccine "The Useless and Fatal Polio Drugs (OPV) Kept in U.S. Warehouses Are Being Flown to Asian Countries via the World Health Organization (WHO)" "Few know that the U.S. Health Department and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have banned oral polio vaccines as of January 1, 2000. Over 600 million polio vaccines were sold between 1969 and 1999. Lederle has been ordered to close its operations. The CDC has stated that these vaccines contain live viruses, which may affect healthy people or those who have not taken the polio drops. This is why injections, instead of oral vaccines, are being given to the people in the U.S. "It is being claimed that the danger of the spread of polio has been substantially reduced by the use of inactivated and killed polio vaccines (IPV). The cost of one injection for a child can come to 500 [Pakistani] rupees. It is obvious that such costly injections are beyond the reach of Third World children. Therefore, the useless and fatal polio drugs (OPV) kept in U.S. warehouses are being flown to Asian countries via the World Health Organization (WHO)." "[This Oral Vaccine] Might Be Why Healthy Children in Indonesia, Yemen, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger And Nigeria Contract Polio Even After Taking [It]" "Dr. Allen Cantwell MD — the author of two books on the man-created disease AIDS, titled 'AIDS and the Doctors of Death' and 'Queer Blood' — has even said that the two drops of oral polio vaccine has increased the risk of polio in the next generation, and has also increased the risk of paretic polio, a dangerous strain of polio. This might be why healthy children in Indonesia, Yemen, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger, and Nigeria contract polio even after taking this oral vaccine." "Samples of the OPV Given In India [Were] Found... To Be Dangerously Adulterated" "Dr. Haroon Fatiya, a prominent pharmaceutical scientist and the dean of Ahmadu Bello University, which is based in Zaria, Nigeria, said in March 2008 that his examination of samples of the oral polio vaccine given in India found them to be dangerously adulterated. "According to a report on lifesite.net, dated March 11, 2004, when asked why the companies adulterated their drugs, he gave three reasons: a) There are some secret agendas of those who make and distribute vaccines and dangerous materials, and detailed information regarding this distribution can only be obtained after research; b) they know that the Third World countries do not have the skill, education, and facilities to discover the truth easily through research; c) and last but not least, they have their supporters among us... It is extremely sad that people from our medical field are associated with those whom we trust to protect our interests. "That is why Dr. Fatiya has demanded the prosecution of these people who have brought counterfeit drugs into their countries, in the name of [eradicating] polio, and that they receive the harshest punishment [possible] as criminals. A group of medical experts has solid ground to believe that genetically engineered viruses can be used to spread diseases." "In 1971, the [U.S.] Army's Bio-Warfare Department... Entered Into a Secret Pact... With the National Cancer Institute; That Is Why... Experts Claim That the AIDS Epidemic Was Spread In An Organized Way" "The U.S. Army began working on biological warfare during the term of President Richard Nixon. In 1971, the army's bio-warfare department, based in Maryland, entered into a secret pact regarding this with the National Cancer Institute. That is why a sector of experts claims that the AIDS epidemic was spread in an organized way, in which the patient falls victim to cancer at the end. "A London Times report, of May 11, 1987, said that the AIDS epidemic in African countries was the result of the anti-smallpox vaccination of 1972. Experts like Dr. William Campbell Douglas, MD, do not recognize this as more than rumor. According to the WHO declaration, green monkeys are responsible for AIDS in Africa. They say that the study of the structure of genes in monkeys proves that it is impossible for the AIDS virus to naturally enter the human body. Doctors also say a human cannot get AIDS unless he is given [an] injection with a needle [previously used by an infected individual], or that [the disease] is transferred from one person to another via blood transfusion and multiple sexual relations. "However, rejecting the facts and figures, Dr. Theodora Strecker says that even if it is agreed that monkeys are responsible for it, only 8,000 people should have contracted AIDS between 1972 and 1987 through this one cause — not 75 million." "How Did the AIDS Virus Spread in the U.S.?... [The Epidemic] Was Caused by the Hepatitis-B Vaccines Given to Homosexuals in U.S. Cities in 1992" "And how did the AIDS virus spread in the U.S.? Did the green monkey come flying there? [The epidemic] was caused by the Hepatitis-B vaccines given to homosexuals in U.S. cities in 1992 are responsible for it. "Dr. R. J. Bugger specifically stated, in an article published in Lancet, that AIDS viruses were prepared in laboratories. Quoting from a WHO Bulletin (Vol. 47, p. 289, 1972), Dr. Campbell said that the WHO is destroying our immune system in the name of fighting diseases through vaccines; he asked whether it wants to eradicate human beings from the earth itself." Why is Polio Eradication Sponsored? "The Jews, Who Dream of Ruling the World, Have Invented Different Types of Vaccines, Drugs, and Injections... to Weaken Muslims... The Oral Polio Vaccine Campaign Is Being Run Under a Worldwide Conspiracy — Except in the Zionist Countries" "The Jews, who dream of ruling the world, have invented different types of vaccines, drugs, and injections in an organized way to weaken Muslims in their beliefs on spiritual, practical, and moral levels, and make their bodies contaminated. The oral polio vaccine campaign is being run under a worldwide conspiracy — except in the Zionist countries. Its total focus is now on South Asian countries — India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The U.S. has already marked this area as an extremely strategic region." Why Are "These Greedy Jews and Christians... Spending Millions on This Campaign?" "Have we ever thought why these greedy Jews and Christians are spending millions of dollars on this campaign?
The Polio Vaccine is Prepared from Impure Animals "An Analysis of How the Polio Vaccination is Prepared is Sufficient in Order to Understand How the Viruses of Haram and Unpious Animals... Are Being Injected Into Our [Muslim] Bodies" "An analysis of how the polio vaccination is prepared is sufficient in order to understand how the viruses of haram [forbidden in Islam] and unpious animals like monkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, mice, and pigs are being injected into our [Muslim] bodies. "Experiments were carried out in different stages on 4,000 monkeys imported from India and the Philippines in 1955, at a deserted place near a river in the area of Bluffton, in southern California. After that, polio vaccines were prepared from their kidneys. "None other than Jonas Edward Salk (1914-1995) was responsible for this achievement. Besides being a prominent bacteriologist, he was a great Jewish spiritual leader who is revered even now by Jewish religious scholars and rabbis. He established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the Lazola area of California in 1963. The annual budget of this [institute], one of the biggest biological laboratories of the world, is $120 million, and 400 scientists work there around the clock. For a long time, the U.S. government used the vaccine prepared in this laboratory for their sweeping polio drives." According To a Recent WHO Report, "500 Million People Around the World Were Given the Hepatitis-B Vaccine — A Vaccine Which is Only Not Given In Israel" "Even today, Lederle prepares the polio vaccine from the kidney of Rhesus monkeys. According to U.S. journalist Michael Dorman, only Christian children in the U.S. were given the vaccine prepared by Dr. Salk during 1962-2000, while the Jews, who constitute less than 1.5 of that country's population, refused the vaccination on religious grounds. "On the other hand, a recent WHO report says that 500 million people around the world were given the Hepatitis-B vaccine — a vaccine which is only not given in Israel. "It is strange that the world media did not make it an issue, while it forced the Saudi government to vaccinate its eight million children by creating a concern that three pilgrims from Nigeria could spread polio." [1] Mahnama Banat-e-'Aisha, Pakistan, Vol. 9, Issue No. 10, October 2009. Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
|
WHEN DOES SELF-REFLECTION BECOME SELF-DESTRUCTION?
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, January 25, 2010. |
|
This was written by David Harris, AJC Executive Director, and appeared January 24, 2010. |
|
I read the article in the New York Times on January 22nd with dismay. No, this was not about the paper itself. It had nothing to do with a poorly-chosen photo, a misleading headline, or a lack of balance or context. Rather, it dealt with an all-too-familiar story being reported — the instinct for Jewish self-destructiveness. Entitled "For Israelis, Mixed Feelings on Aid Effort," referring to the response to the earthquake in Haiti, the article was best summarized by the following excerpt: "But Israelis have been watching with a range of emotions, as if the Haitian relief effort were a Rorschach test through which the nation examines itself. The left has always complained that there is no reason to travel thousands of miles to help those in need — Gaza is an hour away. The right has argued that those who accuse Israel of inhumanity should take note of its selfless efforts and achievements in Haiti." Forgive me, but this is nuts. Israel responded magnificently to the immense tragedy unfolding in Haiti. Both the governmental and non-governmental sectors were on the scene almost immediately. The Israeli field hospital, by all accounts, quickly became the finest medical unit in the country. Grateful Haitians even took to naming children born in the facility "Israel." Israeli rescue-and-relief teams found survivors in the rubble and restored them to life. Other Israeli units are providing a range of basic services to a population whose needs are almost impossible to grasp. The Israeli effort far exceeds the nation's small size and dwarfs the response of many larger countries. Of course, some countries, most notably in the Arab world, shamefully sat on their hands, doing nothing in the face of a human calamity. Cynics would suggest that Israel had some narrow, self-serving interest for helping, but there is none, other than a life-affirming desire to alleviate suffering. Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere, its voting record on Israel-related issues at the UN is nothing to write home about, and the Jewish community on the island is infinitesimal in size. Israel's role in Haiti should be a source of national pride, not a trigger for a "Rorschach test." In fact, Israel's quick action in Haiti is nothing new. There is a long and proud record of Israel's response to international humanitarian crises, reflecting the state's core values. I visited an entire prefabricated town that Israel built in Turkey after a devastating earthquake, in 1999, destroyed thousands of homes. I saw the Israeli field hospital in Macedonia set up to assist Muslim refugees from neighboring Kosovo, who were driven out of their land by Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic-cleansing campaign. I recall Israel's offer to assist Iran — yes, Iran — after a powerful earthquake hit Bam in 2003, when more than 25,000 people were killed. Tehran rejected the offer, presumably preferring some of its citizens to die rather than be rescued by Israelis. And the list of Israel's lifesaving efforts goes on, at times in countries with which it had no formal diplomatic ties and where its initiatives, while welcomed by the beleaguered nation, nonetheless had to be kept below the radar. Indeed, few countries react so quickly and consistently as does Israel when it comes to mobilizing emergency responders at a moment's notice. The volunteers arrive on the scene with no fanfare, go immediately to work, and set a standard for professionalism and courage. Yet, according to the Times' story, all of this, at least for a few Israelis, is, in the end, rather meaningless as a source of national pride. Instead, the litmus test for Israel must be Gaza. This is when self-reflection turns to the instinct for self-destruction. Gaza has declared itself an enemy state. It is run by Hamas, whose goal is the annihilation of Israel. Anti-Semitism runs rampant throughout the Hamas Charter and the blood-curdling statements of its spokesmen. The smuggling of ever more lethal weapons into Gaza is a top priority. Iran is Gaza's foremost state patron. Of course, it didn't have to turn out this way. In 2005, at great political risk, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon withdrew all Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza. The unilateral disengagement offered local residents their first chance in history for self-rule. Moreover, Jewish donors, as a gesture of peace and reconciliation, purchased the Israeli-built greenhouses in Gaza and presented them to the Palestinian Authority. These were meant to form part of a new foundation of economic and social development. It was in Israel's vital national interest to see Gaza thrive as a society committed to construction and coexistence. Alas, it was not to be. Hamas ousted the PA and seized power in a bloody civil war. Israel's brief re-entry into Gaza in December 2009 was an inevitable outcome of daily provocations that no sovereign nation could have long abided. And yet today, bizarrely, there is, it seems, a convenient convergence between a consummate "blame culture" and at least a few notable representatives of a consummate "guilt culture." While leaders of Gaza strikingly abdicate all responsibility and blame everyone but themselves for the misfortunes of their land, according to the Times, some in neighboring Israel anguish over Israel's purported responsibility for Gaza's travails. One could argue that this is eloquent testimony to their ethical reflex, their desire to heal the world of Gaza. That might well be laudable but for the simple fact that Gaza is at war with Israel, a seemingly obvious proposition to all but those Israelis blinded by their own self-generated "guilt," which prevents them from confronting reality and those ultimately accountable for the facts on the ground. Were circumstances different, would Israelis offer help in Gaza as they have in Haiti, Turkey, the Balkans, and elsewhere? I have no doubt. In fact, Israel would doubtless do far more, given the proximity and the stakes. Meanwhile, no national self-examination is required. Rather, Israel should be immensely proud of its role in Haiti — and what it reveals about the national character. As a friend of Israel, I certainly am. Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
|
FROM ISRAEL: WEEP FOR AMERICA
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 25, 2010. |
|
And then stand strong and bring her home again. In reading Barry Rubin's most recent column, "F for failure," I recognized concerns that have gripped me of late. And so, while I hadn't intended to post today, I knew I wanted to share this. Many of you on this list will understand what he's saying, but across the board I believe his points are more obvious from here in Israel. A great many Americans are still not seeing the forest for the trees. And too many cling to that last bit of residual hope in Obama, and won't yet grapple with the enormity of the failures of his government. ~~~~~~~~~~ Writes Rubin: "We must now face an extremely unpleasant truth: Even giving the Obama administration every possible break regarding its Iran policy, it is now clear that the US government isn't going to take strong action on the nuclear weapons issue. Note that I didn't even say "effective" action, I'm saying that it isn't even going to make a god show of trying seriously to do anything. ~~~~~~~~~~ While I'm at it, I want to also share a January 16th NY Post piece by Ralph Peters — "Hood massacre report gutless and shameful" — that echoes similar themes. (And thanks to Dave A. for calling this to my attention.) Wrote Peters: "There are two basic problems with the grotesque non-report on the Islamist- terror massacre at Fort Hood (released by the Defense Department [January 15]):" [] It's not about what happened at Fort Hood. ~~~~~~~~~~ America is too great — in its courage and its principles — to go down this way. Her come-back (for which I sincerely pray) will depend on the legion of good Americans who do understand what is going on and will, finally, refuse to let it happen. I hope this makes you spittin' mad, and that you share what is written here broadly. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
FT. HOOD MASSACRE REPORT GUTLESS AND SHAMEFUL
Posted by Dave Alpern, January 25, 2010. |
|
This was written by Ralph Peters;
his latest book is The War After Armageddon.
It was archived at
|
|
There are two basic problems with the grotesque non-report on the Islamist- terror massacre at Fort Hood (released by the Defense Department yesterday): * It's not about what happened at Fort Hood. Rarely in the course of human events has a report issued by any government agency been so cowardly and delusional. It's so inept, it doesn't even rise to a cover-up level. "Protecting the Force: Lessons From Fort Hood" never mentions Islamist terror. Its 86 mind-numbing pages treat "the alleged perpetrator," Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as just another workplace shooter (guess they're still looking for the pickup truck with the gun rack). The report is so politically correct that its authors don't even realize the extent of their political correctness — they're body-and-soul creatures of the PC culture that murdered 12 soldiers and one Army civilian. Reading the report, you get the feeling that, jeepers, things actually went pretty darned well down at Fort Hood. Commanders, first responders and everybody but the latest "American Idol" contestants come in for high praise. The teensy bit of specific criticism is reserved for the "military medical officer supervisors" in Maj. Hasan's chain of command at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As if the problem started and ended there. Unquestionably, the officers who let Hasan slide, despite his well-known wackiness and hatred of America, bear plenty of blame. But this disgraceful pretense of a report never asks why they didn't stop Hasan's career in its tracks. The answer is straightforward: Hasan's superiors feared — correctly — that any attempt to call attention to his radicalism or to prevent his promotion would backfire on them, destroying their careers, not his. Hasan was a protected-species minority. Under the PC tyranny of today's armed services, no non-minority officer was going to take him on. This is a military that imposes rules of engagement that protect our enemies and kill our own troops and that court-martials heroic SEALs to appease a terrorist. Ain't many colonels willing to hammer the Army's sole Palestinian-American psychiatrist. Of course, there's no mention of political correctness by the panel. Instead, the report settles for blinding flashes of the obvious, such as "We believe a gap exists in providing information to the right people." Gee, really? Well, that explains everything. Money well spent! Or "Department of Defense force protection policies are not optimized for countering internal threats." Of course not: You can't stop an internal threat you refuse to recognize. The panel's recommendations? Wow. "Develop a risk-assessment tool for commanders." Now that's going to stop Islamist terrorists in their tracks. The Fort Hood massacre didn't reflect an intelligence failure. The intelligence was there, in gigabytes. This was a leadership failure and an ethical failure, at every level. Nobody wanted to know what Hasan was up to. But you won't learn that from this play-pretend report. The sole interesting finding flashes by quickly: Behind some timid wording on pages 13 and 14, a daring soul managed to insert the observation that we aren't currently able to keep violence-oriented religious extremists from becoming chaplains. (Of course, they're probably referring to those darned Baptists ...) To be fair, there's a separate, classified report on Maj. Hasan himself. But it's too sensitive for the American people to see. Does it even hint he was a self-appointed Islamist terrorist committing jihad? I'll bet it focuses on his "personal problems." In the end, the report contents itself with pretending that the accountability problem was isolated within the military medical community at Walter Reed. It wasn't, and it isn't. Murderous political correctness is pervasive in our military. The medical staff at Walter Reed is just where the results began to manifest themselves in Hasan's case. Once again, the higher-ups blame the worker bees who were victims of the policy that the higher-ups inflicted on them. This report's spinelessness is itself an indictment of our military's failed moral and ethical leadership. We agonize over civilian casualties in a war zone but rush to whitewash the slaughter of our own troops on our own soil. Conduct unbecoming. Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
|
WHY ARE AMERICAN SOLDIERS DYING SO IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN CAN REMAIN SHARIA LAW NATIONS?
Posted by Family Security Matters, January 25, 2010. |
|
This was written by D.L. Adams and is archived at
D.L. Adams is an analyst and historian, and a co-founder of SIOA (Stop Islamization of America). He can be reached at daniel@sioanetwork.com. How can this dirty little secret be countenanced — that American soldiers are told to fight and die for "freedom" in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact they fight to prop up two Sharia law states? |
|
With great fanfare but little grit or talk of victory, President Obama announced at West Point last month that 30,000 additional American soldiers are going to Afghanistan. If the mission in Afghanistan is two-fold, the defeat of the abysmal Taliban and the creation of a stable, democratic state, it would appear that we are not doing well. The same could be said of "nation building" in Iraq, where violence of late appears to be diminishing in comparison to the bloody mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. While the reduction of violence in Iraq is comforting, the diminishment of violence is not the definitive measure of the success of nation building. The true measure of our efforts in both beneficiary countries should be based upon an examination of the foundations of these countries that we have created with the blood of our best and treasure. When such an examination is made the result can only be horror. The constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan — for those who love democracy, freedom, and liberty — are failures. If the constitution of a new nation is a failure, then what kind of nation can be built upon it? After the U.S. military (with our allies) drove the Taliban out of Kabul, we endeavored to create a new Afghanistan based upon Constitutional law. Neither the Constitution of Iraq nor of Afghanistan is structured on the secular American model of the state subordinate to the will of the people. This concept is the foundation of American democracy given to us by Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Franklin, and Hamilton; this is tragically not the foundation of our failed nation building strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan are both Islamic states (specifically stated as such in their constitutions). The people of both beneficiary states are therefore in service to Islam (the state is Islam and Islam is the state); this is not any form of "democracy" that most Americans can countenance nor reasonably support. After WWII, Douglas MacArthur remained in Tokyo to oversee the creation and passage of a new American-style constitution on the defeated Japanese; one which entirely rejected the previous system of government/society. The new Japanese constitution removed the power of the Emperor and created an American-style democracy in which the people have power over the government through the constitution. This approach completely overturned the old order of Japanese totalitarian empirical rule. In announcing the new constitution in Tokyo, MacArthur said that "the Japanese people thus turn their backs firmly upon the mysticism and unreality of the past and face instead a future of realism with a new faith and a new hope." Regarding the Emperor, MacArthur said in a public statement that the new constitution "leaves the throne without governmental authority or state property, subject to the people's will, a symbol of the people's unity." The new constitution represented a complete and total shift in approach to government in Japan and most importantly, the relationship of citizen to the state. "Declared by its terms to be the supreme law for Japan, it places sovereignty squarely in the hands of the people. It establishes governmental authority with the predominant power vested in an elected legislature, as representative of the people, but with adequate check upon that power, as well as upon the power of the Executive and the Judiciary, to insure that no branch of government may become autocratic or arbitrary in the administration of affairs of state." — MacArthur's Announcement of Japan's New Constitution, March 6, 1946 Japan's post-war constitution specifically identifies the
constitution itself as the supreme law of the land. This is the same
structure of constitutional democracy that exists in the United States
as delineated in Article 6, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
Constitutionalism is ensconced in Japan by Chapter X, Article 98
"This Constitution shall be the supreme law of the nation and no law, ordinance, imperial rescript or other act of government, or part thereof, contrary to the provisions hereof, shall have legal force or validity." The new constitution reiterated the overturning of the old empirical order; the Emperor was now legally powerless and subordinate to the constitution. "The Emperor or the Regent as well as Ministers of State, members of the Diet, judges, and all other public officials have the obligation to respect and uphold this Constitution." Article 99, Constitution of Japan We have taken a tragically different course in Afghanistan and Iraq. Article One of the constitution of Afghanistan states that "Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state." Article 2 of the constitution of Iraq states that "Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation." Both states identify Islam as the bedrock of the state and also the law of the land. "No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established." — (Article 2, A; constitution of Iraq.) Both Afghanistan and Iraq are Islamic states as codified in their new American-supported constitutions. Sharia Law is the law of Islam. Islamic law supersedes any laws in the constitution that are not Sharia law-compliant. Any review of the implementation of Sharia law anywhere in the world (or of Sharia itself) shows it to be brutal, cruel, misogynist, anti-homosexual, anti-free speech, supremacist, anti-democratic, and anti-freedom of religion among its many unpleasant qualities. Even in Afghanistan as late as 2006 a Muslim Afghan convert to Christianity was sentenced to death for leaving Islam. Only American outrage prevented the implementation of the Sharia death penalty. Under Sharia Law, leaving Islam is not permitted. It is considered a crime worse than murder and is punishable by death. A Sharia judge on the case commented at the time, "We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law. It is an attack on Islam." The inherent contradiction between democracy and Islamic law did not go unnoticed by everyone, however. "But, while democracy is taking root in Afghanistan, the country's constitution is not a truly secular document." — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Sharia law is derived from Koran, Sira, and Hadith, the three foundational documents of Islam. Sharia law therefore has the authority of both Allah and Mohammed as it is the codification of their commands, and the words, deeds, and example of the prophet. American support of this barbaric "legal system" anywhere on this planet is folly. Sharia law is antithetical to American concepts of freedom and democracy. What can be the reason that we have created two Islamic states founded upon American blood and treasure? Why did we take such a radically different approach to Iraq and Afghanistan than we did with Japan after WWII? There is no overlap whatever between American concepts of decency and justice and Sharia law. Among the horrors of Sharia are death for criticism of Islam, death for leaving Islam, dhimmitude for those who are non-Muslims living under Sharia, the near impossibility of rape victims to prove rape, wife beating, child marriage, unequal rights for women, no legal rights for non-Muslims, and the subjugation of women. The list of Sharia's horrors is lengthy and disturbing. An illustration of Sharia from the definitive book of Sharia law, Reliance of the Traveller, is illustrative. The following are not subject to retaliation: Under Sharia law there is no "retaliation" by the Islamic state against a Muslim who kills a non-Muslim for whatever reason. Can there be a more barbarous "legal" system that is more overtly opposed to our own concepts of right/wrong, good/evil, decency/barbarism, and justice/injustice? This is the system of "law" for which we fight in Iraq and Afghanistan? This is folly. No American who loves our Constitution and the freedoms guaranteed under it should accept Sharia Law anywhere in this country or actively support it elsewhere. How can it be countenanced that American soldiers are told that they fight and die for "freedom" in Iraq and Afghanistan when in fact our soldiers fight to prop up two Sharia law states? Why did we free the Japanese people from the backwardness, totalitarianism and aggressive warfare of the empire of Japan but chose to co-operate in imposing the anti-human injustice and brutality of Islamic Sharia law on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan? The blame for this disaster must be spread across two administrations. We have failed in that we did not create a society based upon justice, secular law and constitutional democracy in the American model as we did for Japan. Sharia law is horrific and anti-human and should be opposed by decent people everywhere. Our "allies" across the Islamic world implement Sharia law to varying degrees but every Islamic state must acknowledge their Islamic obligation to implement it. The goal of Islamic expansion everywhere is the implementation of Sharia law in countries and cultures where it is not now enforced. This expansion is fueled by jihad. Jihad is required of all adherents of Islam. What can be the purpose of the United States (the "great Satan") in creating new Islamic states? The answers are not forthcoming because the question is rarely (if ever) asked. We now fight a war around the world and at home against Islamic brutality against us (our so-called "war on terror") motivated entirely by the doctrine of Islam, yet we fight two wars to create and prop up two new Islamic countries bound to the same doctrine — folly. What can be our war aims when the result will be the creation of two countries that are ideologically opposed to our existence? It would appear that we have been fooled, or worse. Our mistakes carry a staggeringly high cost; to bring any value or meaning to our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq we must admit that our course has been tragically in error and quickly make the necessary corrections. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
HOW LAWFARE IS GETTING OUR TROOPS KILLED NEEDLESSLY
Posted by CPocerl, January 25, 2010. |
|
This is from Strategy Page and is archived at
|
|
January 25, 2010: The Taliban and drug gangs have hit a snag with their media campaign against the American and NATO use of smart bombs. For the last few years, the Taliban have been using human shields to protect themselves from the smart bombs. The civilian deaths that followed caused the foreign troops to change their ROE (Rules of Engagement), to limit the use of the bombs when human shields were in play. Civilian casualties, from smart bombs declined, and Afghans began to notice that even more civilians were being killed by Taliban bombs and attacks. So the Taliban came up with a new idea; getting a ban on foreign troops raiding Afghan homes at night. The Taliban and drug gangs had no trouble persuading local journalists to run with this (bribes or death threats were applied), and now the Afghan media is full of heart wrenching tales of women and children terrified when American or NATO troops charge in after midnight. There were no stories published about how those night visits often catch bad guys asleep, and enables troops to make arrests without any gun battles. NATO has responded by issuing new rules restricting the use of night raids. Not surprisingly, one of the biggest gripes combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have is the Escalation of Force (EOF) and Rules of Engagement (ROE) procedures they must follow when faced with enemy action, or the threat of enemy action. These rules have gotten more complex year by year, although there have been some attempts to simplify the complications (if that makes any sense.) Put simply, the ROE/EOF stuff is there to limit civilian casualties, while fighting a foe that wants dead civilians (for their propaganda impact). Al Qaeda even has an official name for this; "involuntary martyrs." The U.S. buzzword is "collateral damage." Naturally, there's a big difference between the ROE/EOF stuff that is regularly delivered to the troops (who are supposed to demonstrate that they have memorized them), and what actually happens in combat. For all the ROE/EOF exhortations directed at the troops, there is also an escape clause. That is, you are always allowed to use any force necessary to protect yourselves. This does not negate ROE/EOF, and if you kill a bunch of civilians, there will be an investigation. If you cannot make some kind of case that you fired in (what appeared to you at the time to be) self-defense, you will get punished. The troops know this, the brass know this. No one is sure if the lawyers, who are sometimes brought in to help out with the periodic ROE/EOF training sessions, know this. Lawyers are generally considered the enemy, since they tend to spend most of their time telling you what you cannot do in combat (whether you're fighting for your life or not.) Troops who have spent more than a year in Iraq or Afghanistan have come to believe that the biggest problem with ROE/EOF is that the people who create this stuff have done a very bad job of explaining the cause and effect of it all. While the troops can understand that, "killing civilians" is usually counterproductive, the brass rarely go to any great lengths to explain the thinking behind the long list of ROE/EOF things you can, or cannot, do. There is a belief that the ROE/EOF is not well thought out, and the lawyers are sent in to lecture the troops in an attempt to hide that fact. Definitely a credibility gap here. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
NY MUSLIM BEHEADS WIFE;MOUNTS BATTERED SPOUSE DEFENCE-2ND DEGREE
Posted by Cpocerl, January 25, 2010. |
|
This is from AP. This is from 560WND and is archived at
"MY WIFE ABUSED ME" "SO I HAD TO CHOP OFF HER HEAD." |
|
The founder of an Islam-oriented television station who is accused of beheading his wife was abused by her for years, according to his lawyer, who said Friday he will pursue a defense combining that justification as well as psychiatric claims. Defense attorneys' claims that Muzzammil Hassan was victimized by his wife drew a blunt response from District Attorney Frank Sedita after a hearing Friday. "He chopped her head off," Sedita said. "He chopped her head off. That's all I have to say about Mr. Hassan's apparent defense that he was a battered spouse." Hassan, 45, is charged with one count of second-degree murder in the Feb. 12 death of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan at the offices of Bridges TV, the station the Pakistan-born couple established in 2004 to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims. During Friday's hearing, Hassan fired the attorney who has been representing him for nearly a year and replaced him with a lawyer who promised "a revolutionary defense" at the March trial. "The spouse was the dominant figure in this relationship," attorney Frank Bogulski said outside the courtroom. "He was the victim. She was verbally abusive. She had humiliated him." Nancy Sanders, a former news director at Bridges TV, was skeptical of the abuse claim, noting the stocky Hassan stood over 6 feet tall and "filled a doorway," while Aasiya was slender and several inches shorter. "I never ever heard her disparage him in the workplace at all," Sanders said. "It just did not seem to be in her nature. She was very gentle." Bogulski's strategy differs slightly from that of Hassan's previous attorney, James Harrington, who had outlined a psychiatric defense claiming Hassan had experienced extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing. But any psychiatric defense was placed in jeopardy Friday when the judge granted Assistant District Attorney Colleen Curtin Gable's request to bar such claims because the defense had taken too long to reveal its strategy. Erie County Judge Thomas Franczyk left the door open for Bogulski to file motions seeking to have a psychiatric defense reinstated. Hassan was served with divorce papers a week before his wife's decapitated body was found at the offices of their television station in Orchard Park, the Buffalo suburb where the couple also lived with their two small children and Muzzammil's two teenagers from a previous marriage. Hassan was arrested after walking into the Orchard Park police station Feb. 12 and telling officers his wife was dead. The way she died led the state president of the National Organization for Women, Marcia Pappas, and others to label Aasiya Hassan's death an "honor killng," which Pappas said appeared to be rooted in Muslim notions about women's subordination to men. Harrington dismissed the theory early on and domestic violence advocates cautioned against shifting attention from the universal issue of violence against women. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
OFFICERS WHO DESTROYED OUTPOST WILL PAY
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, January 25, 2010. |
|
This is truly a victory for Jewish patriots. Let us hope that it is not negated by the Supreme Cult. The unJews of Israel are always screaming that the rule of law must be defended; that no one is above the law. Well let's see what they scream now. Will there be an internal investigation in the IDF as to what to do with these criminals? Will they be court-martialed, imprisoned and thrown out of the Army? The top brass of the IDF knew the details of this from the beginning and have done nothing. Unless forced to do so by the courts, they will continue to do nothing. As long as the head of the military establishment is an unJewish hater of Jews like Barak, there will be no rule of law for Jews in Israel. This was written by Hillel Fendel and it appeared today Arutz-7
|
|
(Israelnationalnews.com) IDF officers have been ordered to pay court costs from their own pockets after being sued for violating a Supreme Court order and destroying a civilian outpost. The defendants have not filed a defense, and the plaintiffs now expect that the Court will rule in their favor and award them the full amount of damages: more than 430,000 shekels ($115,000). The story began in 1991, when a resident of the southern Shomron-Binyamin community of Dolev, Ya'ir Mendelson, was murdered by Palestinian terrorists. His neighbors wished to establish a community on the site of the murder, in keeping with the long-standing tradition of "a suitable Zionist response to terrorism." It was ultimately decided to establish a military base there, named Yad Ya'ir, and in the coming years, a park, synagogue, and play center were also built on the site — under the watchful eyes of the army and at the initiative and dedication of residents of nearby Dolev and Talmon. "For years," said Meir Goldmintz, one of the prime forces in the cause, "the Yad Ya'ir group worked on building up a vibrant Jewish presence there: prayers, Torah classes, activities. A monument to Ya'ir was erected, as were a playground for children, a plaza, and a synagogue. Cakes and other foodstuffs were given out to soldiers on Purim and other occasions, and we lit Chanukah candles there. The high point was our yearly springtime event, in which hundreds of people would take part." The army abandoned the site circa 2004, Goldmintz said, "after which began a period of constant Arab vandalism, which the army did not 'manage' to prevent. Over the course of time, the electric grid was destroyed, the synagogue was looted, the monument was defaced, and the synagogue was set ablaze no fewer than three times. "Finally, after a group of radical leftists and Arabs set fire to the synagogue and even replaced the Israeli flags with PLO flags, we realized that we would have to do something — and we decided to start our own town there." Meir, his wife Chana and their four children moved to the site, together with a group of students from Yeshivat Nachliel. "It required great self-sacrifice, as well as financial resources. The yeshiva helped out and held classes there, and nearby communities helped with fuel for the generator, guards and food for the yeshiva students. But we still had to deal with problems such as minimal housing conditions and getting back and forth to work and school" After the army left, Meir emphasized, "we purchased the land from the Arab owners. It is our private property." Arab vandalism continued, however, and ultimately, in September 2008, IDF Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Noam Tivon ordered the site's destruction. It took the IDF two days to do so, because the first time the army arrived, it called off the plans when it saw the size of the crowd standing ready to protect the town — some 300 Jews from nearby Jewish towns. Two days later, the army arrived in larger numbers and did the deed — even though word of a Supreme Court ruling to delay the action until 4 p.m. that day had already been received. The army later claimed that the fax machine didn't work and that the order was not received until it was too late. "Let's assume this is true," Goldmintz said. "So what? They knew that no demolition orders had ever been issued for my 'house,' and therefore it was illegal to destroy it; I had been there for well over the required 30-day period. In addition, there were some structures for which demolition orders had been issued — but we were promised a pre-destruction hearing, and the officers knew that no hearing had been held, so they knew that they were acting illegally." Furthermore, there exist recordings of phone conversations showing that the officers knew of the Supreme Court order not to destroy the site, but yet made every effort not to "receive" it — and continued their destruction even after it was officially received. The plaintiffs also aver that much of their property could have been saved after the destruction: "The officers did not allow the Jews to enter the site and recover it, but did allow Arab marauders to loot and steal." No Defense, Pay Court Costs Goldmintz and others sued the army officers for the damage they caused, but Tivon and the others did not submit a defense. Finally, after four delays caused by the officers' failure to respond to the suit, the court has now ordered each of them to pay 1,500 shekels in court costs. Goldmintz now hopes and expects that they will be awarded the full sum of 430,000 shekels in damages for which they have sued. "The officers know why they didn't submit a defense," Goldmintz said, "because their actions are indefensible. They were in clear violation of the law." Soldiers Must Pay on Their Own The IDF Spokesman announced, "It goes without saying that no officer will be forced to pay out of his own pocket because of the ruling." It was not clear if this refers to the current ruling regarding the court costs, or to future rulings on the damages. If the latter, Mendelson says, "the army would be in violation of the law by paying for the damages. In general, IDF soldiers need not pay for their army actions if they were within the law — but this was not the case here, when they were clearly acting illegally, and therefore they must pay out of their own pockets." No announcement has been made as to the scheduling of the next court date for the trial. 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. He writes, "In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means." |
|
NETANYAHU: ISRAEL MUST KEEP MILITARY PRESENCE IN JORDAN VALLEY
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 24, 2010. |
|
If you carefully read Netanyahu's past and present words, he has already abandoned Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and all those parts of Jerusalem illegally occupied and desecrated by Jordan for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. With a weak gesture he says that his regime will retain the Jordan Valley to be protected by Israeli soldiers. Netanyahu is a calculating liar tied to President Barack Hussein Obama's coat-tails. He knows the false meaning of his statement as do his Intelligence resources. Anyone familiar with the topography of the Jordan Valley and the Judean/Samarian mountains knows that on Jordan's East side of the Jordan River is a line of high hills. On the Western side where Israel sits, there is also a line of high hills. Armed Arab Muslims sitting on both these long range of mountains or hills (East and West) would have Israeli soldiers in a trap or — as is said: "Like shooting fish in a barrel." The main reason (in addition to her sovereignty) that Israel needs to keep the Jordan Valley is that it is a 16 mile wide tank trap against Arab armies (including Jordan, Syria, Iraq and/or Iran) coming from Jordan's "East Bank" through 5 passes which are the only way hostile armies can traverse Israel's narrow waist. WHEN Israeli artillery controls the Western slopes and the top ridges of the Judean/Samarian mountains, she could make the Jordan Valley impassable to any Arab Muslim invasion force. Similarly, surrendering Judea and Samaria makes all of Israel an irresistibly vulnerable target from the Jordan River to the Sea and a totally dry country as 2/3rds of Israel's fresh water resources are in aquifers under the Judean/Samarian mountains and the Golan Heights. As is said in graveyard humor: "If you believe the Arab Islamists will ever give Israel peace, I have a bridge in London to sell you." Prime Minister Netanyahu must be made to tell the whole truth rather then issuing clever press releases that speak a partial, misleading political half-truth, designed to keep his government from falling. Now that President Obama has put a choke collar on Bibi, he cannot protect the Jewish Nation/State lest Obama yank on his leash. Israel needs a Prime Minister like Yitzhak Shamir who refused to be chained like a dog to the U.S. "diktats". As for Netanyahu, he is simply too weak, too pliable to be leading the Jewish Nation/State against irredeemable enemies and "friends" who just happen to be friends of our enemies. This below is the DEBKAfile Special Report, January 21, 2010. |
|
Israeli premier draws a line Even after the establishment of a Palestinian state, Israel should keep a military presence in the eastern West Bank along the border with Jordan, said Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to foreign reporters Wednesday, Jan. 20. He spoke as US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell was due in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ram'Allah Thursday and Friday for another bid to restart the stalled peace process after holding talks in Damascus with Syrian president Bashar Assad and a visit to Beirut. Netanyahu stressed that Israel could not afford to replicate the Hamas missile launching base of Gaza Strip on the West Bank. To stop rockets from entering the territory bordering on Israel's heartland, "an Israeli presence was necessary on the eastern side of a prospective Palestinian state," he said. Palestinian Authority spokesman Saeb Erekat replied: "The Jordan Valley is Palestinian." DEBKAfile adds: The Likud prime minister has partly redrawn the lines of the "Alon Plan" which followed the Security Council Resolution 242 clause promising Israel "secure and recognized boundaries" after the Six-Day War. Netanyahu said the Palestinians were the cause of the one-year impasse in the peace process. "We want to move forward, but the Palestinians have placed preconditions which did not exist in the 16 years since Oslo. They have climbed up a high tree. They like it up there. They are piling demand upon demand." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a freeze of all Israeli construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem before sitting down at the negotiating table with the Netanyahu administration. In late November, Israel announced a 10-month construction moratorium in West Bank settlements, but refused to halt building in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. "Israel draws a clear between Jerusalem and settlements," he reiterated Wednesday. 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 |
|
THE JIHAD DECADE COMETH
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 24, 2010. |
|
I cannot help but wonder if the American people and the Congress is educable on the matter of Islam's declared war of their Civilization against ours. The Left is always in a mode of surrender when it is not gnawing away at the supports of our nations. Generally, History provides a window into the past wherein the Leftists having colluded in the collapse of their own Civilizations but, always ready to be first to run — unless they offer their services to the invader as happened with the Vichy French who collaborated with Adolph Hitler. The Left in America, a certain species of Traitors who work inside to subvert their own nation. The following article by Pamela Geller explores this problem but, the actual awakening will only occur when the Islamists already in America starts their attacks across the country. Then the Leftists will run for cover — while denying their role in
supporting radical Islamist Terror.
This below is by Pamela Geller and it appeared January 3, 2010
in the American Thinker
Pamela Geller is the editor & publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ & is former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author (with Robert Spencer) of the forthcoming book: "The Post-American Presidency: The Obama ADministration's dWar on America (Simon & Schuster) |
|
As we look back on the past ten years, it is clear that we are now entering a post-American decade. How did it all go so wrong so quickly? The year 2000 kicked off with the Democrat ruse of a "stolen election" — this from the racketeering party of ACORN — but thankfully, it was not stolen after all. George W. Bush took the reins, but soon thereafter came the culmination of all the Islamic attacks on the U.S. during the Clinton years. Islam's fatwa on the West during the Clinton administration came home to New York and Washington on September 11th. And while the Bush Doctrine (you are either with us or against us) was the right approach, the well dressed jihadists that Islamists like Grover Norquist ushered into the White House after 9/11 managed to sabotage the best strategy to fight Islamic jihad. The cowboy swagger set against the whole fantasy about the hijacking of Islam and the "religion of peace" nonsense was irreconcilable. It confused people. And it led to the marginalization and even dismissals of brave men and women who evaluated and exposed the jihadist ideology in our government agencies. Who can forget the case of counter-jihad expert Steve Coughlin, the Pentagon's most knowledgeable specialist on Islamic Law and jihad terrorism? The Pentagon ended the career of its most effective analyst at the behest of a Muslim aide, Hesham Islam, within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. Islam scholar Andrew Bostom observed that Couglin's firing was symptomatic "of the intellectual and moral rot plaguing our efforts to combat global jihadism." In February 2009, former Bush administration official Douglas Feith told me that that kind of rot is systemic. He recalled that an Office of Strategic Influence was created within his Pentagon office to fight the ideological war — but then "somebody leaked" — well, leaked, no. No, somebody lied to the New York Times and gave a report saying that this Office of Strategic Influence was intending to lie to foreign journalists. And the New York Times ran a front-page story saying that. It caused a big imbroglio that resulted in the shutting down of this office. I don't think the U.S. government has recovered to this day from that fiasco, because every time anyone suggested creating an office to really deal with jihadist ideology in a systematic or strategic way at the Pentagon, people would say, oh, no, we are not going to have another Office of Strategic Influence problem." And so the drip, drip, drip of jihad continued through the last decade. We became more paralyzed, impotent, and deceived. Meanwhile, the Leftist/Islamic alliance, a deadly marriage between the Democratic Party and their propaganda handmaidens in the mainstream media, engaged in daily beatings of Bush and his administration. Removing Saddam Hussein was good. There is no way around that powerful truth. But why stop there? Removing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well would have been even better. But Bush lost his mojo in 2006. The relentless pounding by the Left, Israel's halfhearted performance in the war with Hezb'allah in the summer of 2006, and the loss of the House and the Senate in November 2006 all contributed to the rout. But what really led to the downfall of Bush's leadership was the falsity of his premise. He wanted to believe, like Condi and Powell and the soft diplomacy crowd, that Islam would negotiate with the West. Islam cannot negotiate. Yet still the West continues its pursuit of the impossible, despite great risk. This is a function of the Western mind. These people think it inconceivable that talk can't solve anything and everything, that war is an indelible part of the human condition. But it is. War is as much in the makeup of man as sex, food, art, love, all of it. And wars must be fought. They will not disappear, but we will. Of course, we know this. But the Left, our in-house enemy, demonizes any war that America chooses to fight. The egregious, horrible crimes of Mao, Stalin, bin Laden, Che, Lenin, Pol Pot, Ahmadinejad, et al, which are so heinous and so enormous, are in their terrible minds a historical footnote. They become cultural icons for the "radical chic." Cold-blooded monsters have co-opted our country. And so successful was the Left at infiltrating our government, schools, and institutions that eight years after the most heinous attack on American soil, we elected an icon of our mortal enemy. A Kenyan, Indonesian, third-worldish boulevardier with as much understanding of the American experience as any foreign national. Don't call me a racist for calling him what he is — I am not interested in the color of his skin, but in the content of his character. His lack of experience in all relevant areas to the office of the president is breathtaking. And his bowing to Islam and our enemies worldwide is disastrous. Bush's premise was false, but Bush was a patriot. Bush loved America, and he protected America, even if he refused to see the enemy for who and what it was. It was no accident that America was safe for eight years post-9/11. Eight years of safety is cracking apart now under a weak and pro-Islamic president. The jihadi attacks on America in 2009 were staggering. And it has only just begun. Dismantling the Bush protections against jihad and launching attacks on Americans, bloggers, tea partiers, town hallers, patriots, and vets is incomprehensible — and if I hadn't lived through it, I wouldn't believe it possible. I pray that America examines the Left decade and takes stock. It was the appeasement of the Left that destroyed the foundations of this country. We must rebuild them. The advancement of Islam would never have been possible — could never have happened — without our surrender to the Left. The real war is against the Leftist/Islamic alliance. This is a fighting year. 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 |
|
NETANYAHU: ISRAEL NOT LEGALLY OBLIGATED TO HONOR OSLO
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 24, 2010. |
|
This was written by Aaron Lerner, November 28, 1996. Dr. Lerner heads IMRA — Independent Media Review and Analysis. Its website is www.imra.org.il |
|
On November 28, IMRA asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, after a press conference in Tel Aviv, the following question: "Are you saying that Israel is legally obligated to honor the Oslo Accords despite the Palestinian violations?" Netanyahu replied: "No. Israel is only obligated if the Palestinians honor the agreement." Netanyahu's position is consistent with the position taken by former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Yoel Singer, during a briefing of the Knesset law committee on December 14, 1993. Singer said then that even after signing, the agreement is reversible. If the Palestinians declare a state, for example, the agreement will be nullified. "If one side violates the agreement in a substantial way, it is clear that the other side does not have to fulfill its part," he explained (The Jerusalem Post, December 15, 1993). During the same briefing, Savir, who was the member of the Israeli team negotiating with the PLO in Cairo responsible for drafting the agreement to implement the Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles, explained that the IDF will be able to go anywhere in the Palestinian autonomous area to defend Jewish lives. "There are no restrictions on the IDF," Singer told the committee. "The army's responsibility to protect Israelis is not restricted in time or space."
Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
|
OBAMA AND THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS
Posted by Marc Prowisor, January 24, 2010. |
|
Examining President Obama's recent Time magazine interview, many media outlets translated the President's feelings to say that he felt "over confident" regarding the Middle East Peace Process. I would not use the term "over confident." I would change it to "wrong". A quote from the article — "I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high". To my line of thinking, this translates to "We failed because we didn't study the conflict and history of the region. Furthermore we have no idea or understanding regarding the Arab world." I do not blame President Obama for these mistakes. After all, he hires "experts" to delve into this arena. Unfortunately, this team of "experts" he is working with has one of the worst records regarding Israel since the rebirth of the Jewish State. Perhaps the fact that they are not objective, or, better, are straight out supporters of the Arab nations has something to do with it. Or maybe they have negative attitude towards Israel? Wait. I could be wrong. He did hire these guys, so I guess I do blame him. But he can still make things right and hire people who do understand. Or maybe they just have it all wrong. Maybe the champion of North Ireland, George Mitchell, does not realize there is a different dynamic here in Israel. Hey George, WAKE UP! The Arabs have been against the Jews being here for a LONG time...even before the State of Israel. Way before. Maybe the problem is that they constantly want to destroy us? No this is not paranoia, it is an opinion based on historical facts and COMMON KNOWLEDGE! Why don't you tell your President that? The biggest joke is that people still think that a "Palestinian State" will bring about peace. The Arab nations of this region have been at each other's throats forever and they will continue this "tradition" of not getting along. In 1948, they attempted to carve up this region. They promised the locals here of Arab victory if they would join in and fight the Jews. They called it "Fez'a," or reign of terror, giving the "innocent" Arab villages in and around the fledgling State the opening to attack Jews where ever they could. The Arabs call the result of 1948 "Naq'ba", or catastrophe. I call it defeat. They have been at war with us here since we have been in this land and when the Jewish State and Army were reborn they all attacked, they lost, and they have been crying "foul" ever since. One of the key words to success of this process was "Gestures." Of course, Israel is to blame for not making enough gestures or enough "Bold" gestures. Who has been doing the shooting and bombings here? Who are the Professors of Terror, whose media and scholastic programs preach murder and death? What is wrong with you? You want bold gestures, you want peace? Stop the teaching of terror in the schools! You will not get a move like this, to get closer to peace, from most of the Arabs in the Middle East, because the concept of living with a Jewish State in their midst is not acceptable. Equality, mutual respect, women's rights, religious tolerance and a whole slew of other nice values that exist in Western Culture do not reign here in this part of the world. Why do you think so many Arabs leave the Middle East? So go back to the drawing board, study history, do more research, and we'll talk soon. You want Peace in the region? Guess what. So do we. More than anyone, but we must survive and must protect our people — not just for another few years, but also for future generations. If you also want peace, you need to understand that it takes two to tango. We don't have a partner for peace, because the other side wants power we can't afford to give them. If we give what they truly want, we will no longer be here. So, if you want peace also, get real, because we are here to stay. Contact Marc Prowisor by email at marc@friendsofyesha.com. And visit http://yeshaviews.blogspot.com and www.friendsofyesha.com |
|
BIN LADEN THREATENS MORE ATTACKS ON US. BUT THE REAL NEWS IS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD!
Posted by Arnie Barnie, January 24, 2010. |
|
CAIRO (Jan. 24) — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt in Detroit, in a audio message released Sunday, and vowed further attacks on the U.S. The message suggests that bin Laden wants to show he remains in direct command of al-Qaida's many branches around the world. Facts: A news report carried by Al-Jazeera Arabic "Propaganda" channel claims Osama bin Laden has issued a new threat to the West. In the short recording, a voice attributed to bin Laden addressed President Barack Obama saying the Christmas day Underwear bomber's failed attack was a message similar to that of Sept. 11, 2001 and more attacks against the U.S. would be forthcoming. The voice on the tape purportedly was that of Osama attempting to rally support of Al Qaeda operatives and to recruit more young, naïve, impressionable Islamic vegetable heads to join Al Qaeda in its attempt to terrorize and intimidate the world into supporting the Palestinian cause and blaming Israel for Al Qaeda's terror tactics. But don't let them fool you! Osama bin Laden has been Dead for years. That is why you have not and will not see him in an up to date video tape. It is hard to dress up and stand up a corpse for a news conference. The Al Qaeda gang of murderers and fools can only pretend he is alive. They periodically use someone else mimicking his voice on an audio tape to deceive you that he is still in charge of operations. Otherwise, Al Qaeda recruitment efforts would rapidly decline they know. Ask yourself why there are no current videos of Bin Laden on the battlefield or addressing his brain-washed "troops" but only faked feeble audios released from time to time to convince young unhappy idiots like the Underwear bomber and misfits like the deranged Fort Hood mass murderer to commit suicide in the name of Allah their peace-loving god. While there is no doubt the remnants of Al Qaeda will continue to send soldiers of Allah to attack Americans, British and other nations who defend Israel's right to be free, note that it is only the Islamic terrorists worldwide who target civilians and soft targets in order to terrorize democracies into caving into their demands. Their ultimate goal is war on the West and in the Mid East to establish Islamic states in Israel and in the "West" of the world. They use the Palestinian cause as a convenient battle cry while corrupt Palestinian leaders like Yasser Arafat and Islamic nations have done little or nothing to help the so-called Palestinian people become free or self sufficient. Nothing will change until the terrorists are defeated. They will continue to send out threatening messages of violence and bombers who will try to kill or poison innocent civilian targets with their anti-personnel and anti-God bombs and chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction. Their real enablers are the Evil satanic nations of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya and Russia their supporters and suppliers who are about to be judged by the real God of the Universe who has had enough of their wickedness. While evil will exist in the world as long as there are evil men, the good news is that while we can expect more terror attacks on our homeland the ultimate battle will be won by God In whom We Trust and His People not the Jihad warriors who deceive themselves and others into following false gods. So don't believe a lie. The terrorists are not fighting for the freedom of the Palestinian people they are fighting to stop Freedom from spreading to Freedom-loving people everywhere. They will not stop until they are stopped dead in their tracks like Osama bin Laden. The real message to Barack Hussein Obama is not to cave in to cavemen and be foolish enough to give them Constitutional rights, Miranda Rights and a platform from which to preach their false religion in our Federal Courts but to bury them where we find them before they bury U.S. The War on Terror must be fought and won on the battlefield not in our courts or with forgiveness and Political Correctness. A soldier of the Army of One
Contact ArnyBarnie by email at ArnyBarnie@aol.com |
|
PROGRESS IN APPLYING ISRAELI LAW TO JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Posted by Israeli Initiative, January 24, 2010. |
|
Progress In Applying Israeli Law To Judea And Samaria At a conference held at the Knesset next week, an attempt was made to coordinate international and domestic recognition of Israel's sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, based on international law. Many important public figures participated in the conference, which was hosted by MK Tzipi Hotoveli (Likud) and MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas). Recently, we learned that Minister of Defense Barak approved turning Ariel College to a University. The college has been the center of a controversy due to its "sin" — that it is in the so-called West Bank. This news, although it is encouraging, shows how absurd the reality is in Judea and Samaria — the Defense Minister needs to approve Academic processes that have nothing to do with defense... This shows, once again, the importance of a law that will resolve the status of Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria, granting their residents rights that are equal to those of the rest of Israel's citizens. Last week, in order to raise public awareness for this law, The Israeli Initiative published a position paper — the first in a series titled "Think Again" — on "Applying the Law to Israeli Municipalities in Judea and Samaria — Background and Significance." In the paper, we discuss the status of Judea and Samaria under International Law, and review the current, complicated legal situation. We end the booklet with a survey of the significant gains Israel will make as a result of applying Israeli law to the municipalities in Judea and Samaria. The booklet was sent to Knesset members, journalists and public figures in order to raise awareness about Israel's historical and legal right to this land, and to promote the law that may be brought to a vote in the Knesset. To read the booklet (in Hebrew):
Conference on UNRWA and the Refugee Problem "The Jewish Statesmanship Center for Strategic Planning" (http://jsc1.org/eng) held a conference for Hebrew University students in the Jerusalem Begin Center on the topic of "Refugees and the Jewish State". The event featured two lectures: Miki Bavli, the representative of UNHCR (the United Nations Refugee Agency) in Israel, who reviewed the organization's activities and Israel's policies in connection to the refugees. As readers of this update know, this organization takes care of all the refugees in the world — except for the Palestinians. As Bavli explained in his lecture, the organization does not deal with the Palestinian refugee problem because "our organization deals with solving refugee problems," and not perpetuating them. Bavli said that UNHCR's goal is to change the refugees' status, and assume that that is what the refugees want, as well. After his lecture, I represented The Israeli Initiative, and spoke
about UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugee problem. I emphasized the
strategic significance of perpetuating the refugee problem and its
ramifications as far as the continuing international de-legitimization
of Israel. Everything I said was based on known facts that are
available to all, but once again I saw that very few people are aware
of the situation, even majors in Political Science or Middle Eastern
Studies. The world is beginning to see UNRWA for the absurdity that it
is. The Canadian government, the seventh-largest state donor to UNRWA,
decided to reallocate some of its support for UNRWA to Palestinian
Authority projects, due to their lack of faith in the UN agency. For
more information:
For our blog post on the subject:
At The Israeli Initiative, we hope that this will be the first in a series of steps that will lead to states no longer funding UNRWA. The world is slowly recognizing that not only are they indirectly funding terror, the greatest crime is UNRWA's existence. Leaving millions of people as refugees without aiming to rehabilitate them is an anti-humanitarian act, and a true step towards ending the conflict and continuing the cycle of violence in the Middle East. Volunteers The Israeli Initiative is looking for volunteers who would like to help spread the word and share the Initiative's ideas. If you're interested, send an e-mail to: israelinitiative1@gmail.com Please write your full name, phone number, e-mail address and languages you speak/read, and we will get back to you with the ways you can spread the news about the Initiative. Contact Israeli Initiative by email at hayozmanNL@gmail.com |
|
HOLOCAUST CABINET MEETING: "WORLD IS OBLIGATED TO JEWISH STATE"
Posted by Hillel Fendel, January 24, 2010. |
|
Cabinet Meeting in Shoah Shadow The government has dedicated today's meeting to the memory of the six million Jews starved, tortured and massacred in the Holocaust. This Wednesday, the United Nations and at least 20 countries will mark International Holocaust Day. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, speaking at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, said, "I hope the United Nations will remember what happened when the Jews did not have a state — and the privilege and obligation of the international community to defend the Jewish State's existence." The date of January 27 was chosen for this purpose in 2005 because it was the day, in 1945, that the Russian Army liberated the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp. Germany, Britain and some other countries commemorated Holocaust Day on this date even before the UN adopted it. Former Israel Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, who survived the Holocaust as a child, participated in the special Cabinet session. Rabbi Lau also serves as Chairman of Yad VaShem. Netanyahu displayed a photograph of a survivor holding her great-granddaughter's hand. The survivor's tattooed number is clearly visible on her arm, and the photo will be displayed at the UN as well. "This is the essence of the history of Zionism," Netanyahu said. On Wednesday, a special ceremony will be held at Auschwitz, where about one million Jews were murdered and massacred. Among the participants will be President Shimon Peres, Rabbi Lau, the president and prime minister of Poland, and the Chief Rabbis of Poland and Lodz. Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German concentration camps, was named for the two towns the camp in and around which the camp was built; the Germans essentially destroyed the small Polish village of Birkenau to make way for it. Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler designated Auschwitz as the site of the "final solution of the Jewish question in Europe," and it received transport trains of Jews from all over Nazi-occupied Europe for 30 months, until late 1944. Some 1.1 million people, 90% of them Jews, were killed in the camp's gas chambers or died of starvation, forced labor, disease, medical experiment, shooting, beatings, and the like. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-7. |
|
FROM ISRAEL: SPINES STIFFENED
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 24, 2010. |
|
Mitchell's efforts at re-starting negotiations are going nowhere. His talk with PA President Mahmoud Abbas was not productive, as he still refuses to come to the table unless we freeze all building in Jerusalem. The political climate he must deal with internally makes it close to imperative that he hold out for this — for this is what he set as his stipulation back several weeks ago. To agree to less now would mean he was either caving to US pressure or making concessions to "the Zionist entity," and neither would play well with his people. ~~~~~~~~~~ Not only is a complete freeze being demanded, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat has declared, not for the first time, that it is "an Israeli obligation..to have negotiations resume where we left them in December 2008 [when Olmert was negotiating]." And I hasten to declare, also not for the first time, that this simply and unequivocally is not so. Olmert signed nothing. We have no commitment to what he offered to Abbas. That offer is reported to have included just over 93% of Judea and Samaria, with a land swap [from inside the Green Line] of close to 6% plus a safe passage between Gaza and Judea and Samaria, to "make up the difference." What is more, he apparently agreed that the "holy basin" in Jerusalem (the old city and some area outside it) would be administered by a consortium that included Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Palestinian Arabs and Americans. (I cannot write this without a shudder.) Abbas may now regret that he turned this down, while we must thank Heaven. Please G-d, an offer even vaguely resembling this will not come the way of the PA again. ~~~~~~~~~~ With it all, I am pleased to report, we're not making any additional concessions to Abbas. And so there is stalemate. Mitchell was supposed to leave this area after meeting with Abbas yesterday, but requested an opportunity to come back and speak again with Barak and Netanyahu today. I cannot say exactly what he was trying to do, or what he proposed. But in the end it appears his efforts yielded nothing. ~~~~~~~~~~ Next Shabbat is Tu B'Shvat — technically a new year for the trees, which determines the age of trees, relevant with regard to when fruit can be harvested. More popularly it is treated as an arbor day, a time for celebrating and planting trees. In that spirit, Prime Minister Netanyahu, after his meeting with Mitchell today, went out past the Green Line to plant a couple of trees. First in Kfar Etzion, which is part of Gush Etzion (the Etzion bloc south-east of Jerusalem in Judea) and then in Maaleh Adumim, which is a major community just outside of and due east of Jerusalem. Later this week he said he would plant in Ariel, a major community and surrounding bloc in Samaria. By planting these trees, said Netanyahu, he wanted to "send a clear message that we will stay here. We are planning and we are building." These areas, he declared, are an "indisputable part of Israel forever. This is an idea that is accepted by the majority of Israelis." This is a defiantly political act following a meeting with Obama's envoy, and I salute it as such. It's worth noting that he selected areas in the south, center and north of the Judea-Samaria region — clearly no accident. And so I won't quibble and say that there are a lot of other communities within this region that are also "an indisputable part of Israel forever." Not now. ~~~~~~~~~~ It's fascinating: the dynamics surrounding the Fatah-Hamas relationship, as well as the face Hamas is seeking to present to the West now. There are so many aspects, so much that is unspoken, so many different — and sometimes conflicting — motivations. I carried a story the other day, by Khaled Abu Toameh, regarding statements made by Hamas representative in the West Bank, Abdel Aziz Dwaik, who said that Hamas accepted Israel's existence and was prepared to consider changing its charter, which calls for Israel's elimination. This did not play well with Hamas leadership, and Dwaik was apparently required to take a few hesitant steps back. There is, first, the distinction, and it's a real one, between recognizing Israel's RIGHT to exist, and Hamas's pragmatic de facto acknowledgement that Israel does exist. It was the latter, and not the former, that Dwaik was said to be speaking about. ~~~~~~~~~~ As to amending the charter, Dwaik has pointed out that the PLO changed its charter to eliminate calls for Israel's destruction and gained nothing for having done this. And here I must stop to correct this statement. In the heyday of Oslo, indeed, Arafat agreed to change the PLO charter. He even mentioned which clauses had to be amended and appointed a committee that was charged with seeing to this. But the committee never met, and the charter was never changed. There is a broad impression that it was — that Arafat's action in appointing the committee sufficed as evidence that this would happen. But it's important to know that it didn't. Even though (then) President Bill Clinton celebrated the fact that changes were made. This is just one more signal lesson — not to be forgotten — in how the Palestinian Arabs conduct themselves. ~~~~~~~~~~ There is also a signal lesson here — which we Israelis should not forget — with regard to how we acted in that situation: The Israeli government conducted itself as if the charter had been amended, and, in point of fact, the PLO got plenty in terms of political autonomy and international support. The process should have been called to a halt back then. ~~~~~~~~~~ Now, Mahmoud Ramahi, whom Abu Toameh calls "another top Hamas operative in the West Bank," clarified further, saying that while Dwaik said Hamas would accept a Palestinian state within the '67 lines, it was envisioned "only on a temporary basis and without recognizing Israel's right to exist." This, of course, is worse than nothing. For such a "temporary state" would be simply a means for weakening Israel — and that "temporary state" would be used as a base for attacking us. (I hasten to point out here that this not different from what the PLO aspires to, as part of its "Strategy of Stages.") ~~~~~~~~~~ From Saladh Bardaweel, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, we had further clarification, clearly designed for Western consumption: Hamas, he explained on a Hamas website, does not seek to destroy Israel. (Perish the thought!) "There is a huge difference between our demand to restore the Palestinian people's rights and the annihilation of Israel. We haven't said that [we want] to destroy Israel, but we are striving to restore our people's rights and refugees' rights to return to their dwellings and land from which they were deported." A few points here, briefly: Hamas is a jihadist movement, not a nationalist movement. Its goal is not a Palestinian state, its goal is the elimination of Israel from land that it sees as Muslim and which would form part of a larger Islamic caliphate. Here Hamas uses claims of the "refugees' right" to return to Israel precisely as the PLO has used it for many years — as a means of destroying Israel from within. What is being pushed is the introduction into Israel of over 4 million so-called refugees, many of whom are Hamas-connected and overtly hostile to Israel. In light of this, it's hardly necessary to say the movement seeks Israel's destruction — that is obvious on the face of it. The Hamas goal hasn't changed, only the tone is different as it seeks international acceptance. (I will not deal now with the issue of "refugees" having been "deported" from Israel, or who counts as a genuine refugee, or how UNRWA operations fit into this picture — that is a whole other subject that must be re-visited in a post one day.) ~~~~~~~~~~ So we have Hamas playing to the West. And what do we see? The PA has warned the EU not to legitimize Hamas via dialogue. For anyone who's been following PA actions over time, this is nothing short of delicious amusement. Consider this explanation by a Fatah spokesman: "In one voice directed toward our people and Arabs and Muslims, Hamas is saying that it's a resistance movement. In another voice directed toward the international community, Hamas is talking about its readiness to recognize Israel and accept a long term hudna [temporary truce]." All this, he said, is "an attempt to deceive public opinion by playing with words." How about that! This is precisely what the PLO/PA has been doing for some 17 years now. What was Arafat's promise to change the PLO charter that was never really amended? And what is Abbas doing when he speaks in English about negotiating a "two state solution," while in Arabic he officially declares the three terrorists who killed Rabbi Chai in the drive-by shooting to be "holy martyrs for the Palestinian resistance"? Those of us who watch the Palestinian Arabs know clearly: Watch what they say in Arabic to their own people; this is where their truth resides. And now we have someone from Fatah pointing a finger at Hamas and admitting this very thing. ~~~~~~~~~~ We need to look carefully at the motivations of Fatah leadership as they attack Hamas. Fatah has agreed to a reconciliation with Hamas, brokered by Egypt. Hamas, while saying it goes along in principle, actually has not signed on. It is in Fatah's interest, then, to discourage the international community from legitimizing Hamas as a stand-alone movement. The stronger Hamas is, the less it requires unity with Fatah in order to be legitimized. Thus we have Fatah saying that meetings between Hamas and Westerners undermine efforts at reconciliation. ~~~~~~~~~~ But to my mind there is another piece to the puzzle. The PA is bouncing between two poles: the West (and particularly the US and EU) and Hamas. Yes, they play one end against the other, and yes, they there are games with one thing said in private and another publicly. But ultimately, there are choices they must make. If they were to renounce the charade of seeking "peace" with Israel, and declare for "resistance," Hamas would embrace them. But as it is, for the sake of the Western largesse and political support, they have continued to play the peace game. How they speak about and respond to Hamas, it would seem, provides some clues, within a very complex and schizoid situation, as to the nature of PA positions more broadly. So far, they have not renounced a relationship with the West, and so we see a readiness to criticize Hamas. But we may be close to a change. For Abbas is expressing grievous disappointment with the US for not sufficiently pressuring Israel, and he now says he doesn't believe there will be a settlement. However, I am not hearing at this juncture any further statement by Abbas regarding a unilateral founding of a state. It may be because Obama, after his political blow in MA last week, is less ready to stick his neck out in supporting a position as radical as this. (Could Abbas's disappointment, unspoken, also be with regard to this?) We have here a major "watch and see" situation. Let me add to this stew of events the fact that PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is seeking to undermine and best Abbas, and it is likely that he will continue to play to the West. Fayyad, who is the darling of the West and perceived as exceedingly clean and moderate, in point of fact is neither. He simply plays a very good game. ~~~~~~~~~~ I know I use the word "ironic" a good deal lately, but that is simply because the situation abounds in irony. And the greatest irony of this entire situation is that the US president who came into office determined to court Muslims has made a mess of his relationship with the PA because he elevated expectations unreasonably. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
REFLECTIONS ON ISLAMIC CULTURE
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 24, 2010. |
|
This was written by Paul Eidelberg, pewaiswnr od The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, POB 23702, Jerusalem 91236, E-Mail: Eidelberg@foundation1.org; Tel. 02-586-9208; Cell phone 0544-407581. Visit his Web site: http://www.foundation1.org |
|
Bat Ye'or, an outstanding scholar of Islam, calls Islam a "culture of hate." If this is racism it is also the truth. Another scholar, Dore Gold, describes Saudi Arabia as "Hatred's Kingdom." If this is racism, it is also the truth. Saudi Arabia has established thousands of mosques — engines of hatred, hatred of the West, of America, of Jews, of Israel. As a culture of hate, Islam may be more accurately described as culture of murderous hatred. Who does not know that Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are the world's leading patrons of Jihad? Since the Quran exalts the Muslim who "slays and is slain" for Allah (Sura 9:111), we may also say that Islam is a culture that fosters a love of death, a culture in which the love of death surpasses the love of life. Perhaps because martyrdom, for Muslims, is the gateway to eternal life or paradise. It follows that the purpose of bringing Muslim children into the world is to teach them that their highest goal in life is to slay and be slain for Allah, hence to become suicidal murderers of infidels! This Muslim imperative cannot be overcome by logical reasoning, which means that devout Muslims are incorrigible. Thus, if an infidel refuses to convert to Islam, the Muslim imperative to slaughter him is inexorable — impervious to moral suasion. You can no more talk a Muslim out of his murderous faith than you can talk a paranoid schizophrenic out of his fear of others. Some say Islam is a form of psychosis. One may then conclude that just as an individual can become a psychotic, so a nation can become psychotic if its people are educated, from infancy on, to believe in the Manichean world of Islam. To enable Muslims to cope with their evil enemies, it is necessary to educate them in taqiyya — dissimulation and deceit — an art in which Muslims have no equals. Taqiyya is a military tactic Muslims employ to deceive and eventually conquer their enemies. The late Professor Y. Harkabi, once head of Israel Military Intelligence, quotes Arab sociologist Sonia Hamady: "Lying is a widespread habit among the Arabs, and they have a low idea of truth" Indeed, whereas truthfulness (in principle) is a Western virtue, mendacity is an Islamic virtue. This is why treaties Muslims have with infidels as well as with other Muslims are worthless. But this means that Israeli prime ministers who engage in negotiations with Muslims are fools. Because truthfulness is not an Islamic virtue, Muslims have a tendency to believe in their own lies. Hence Muslims can lie with sincerity, which makes them the most effective liars. Unsurprisingly, Muslims have been called pathological liars in contradistinction to Western leaders, many of whom may be deemed "conventional" liars. Is there a psychological nexus between the mendacity of Muslims and their love of death? Yes. A lie negates the connection between speech and reality. Since the essence of speech is a sharing of one's thoughts and feelings with others, false speech, like death, severs any bond with others. It is a denial of the "other," of the other's humanity. This is spiritual murder, which conduces to physical murder. In other words, lying is a denial of the "other" as a human being, and this makes his murder of no moral consequence. People in the West are incapable of dealing with Muslims on a moral level. Western elites live under the illusion that all peoples are equal, meaning, equally amenable to Socratic dialogue and equally receptive to notions of right and wrong. This is not true. For example, to reward good deeds with evil is abhorrent to people in the West. We have learned this is not the case of Muslims who sought to destroy Israeli hospitals that have healed them. (For an example of Muslim ingratitude, see Brigitte Gabriel, Because They Hate.) It is futile to counter by citing exceptions. We are speaking of a culture, not of individuals, who have not lost, or who have recovered, their humanity. If these reflections on Islamic culture appear like racism, so be it. Islam's love of death strikes me as a mental disorder, which places in question the sanity of any democracy that prohibits ethnic profiling? Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
|
THE ANTI-LEFTIST GROGGER
Posted by Steven Plaut, January 24, 2010. |
|
1. The anti-Leftist "Grogger"
For months now, every Friday in Zion has seen noisy screaming violent leftist rioters attacking Israeli soldiers, engaging in hooliganism, and breaking the law. The thugs are a mixture of foreign pro-terror "anarchists" that Israel foolishly lets into the country, joined by some members of Israel's own "Leftists for the Extermination of Israel." For months they have demonstrated in the West Bank towns of Bil'in and Nil'in to show their support for terrorists mass murdering Israeli Jews. They oppose Israel having a security fence because it makes it harder for the suicide bombers to reach Israeli children. These past few weeks they have shifted their noisy activities to the Simon the Righteous neighborhood in Jerusalem. The demonstrators demand that no Jews be allowed to move into the homes they legally own in that neighborhood because the neighborhood "belongs" to Arabs. They closely resemble the Ku Klux Klan marchers who try to prevent black folks from moving into neighborhoods where they "do not belong." Now while I personally would prefer loading the noisy violent protesters onto a one-way bus for Gaza, or perhaps a one-way plane for Somalia, Israel insists on dealing with these thugs as "protesters." But now Israeli science and the ingenuity of the "Yiddishe Kopf" have come up with a new weapon that can be used to disburse these noisy cheerleaders for terror. Israel plans to fight their noise ... with noise. That is correct. Israel is about to take a lesson from Jewish history and adapt that weapon of mass destruction that we all use every year against Haman! Just in time for upcoming Purim, Israel is going to employ an anti-leftist Purim grogger. And it really works! Popular Science magazine on January 19, 2010 reported that Israel has developed a new "weapon" against terrorist cheerleaders and against pro-terror "Solidarity" rioters. It is a "sonic cannon." It makes loud noises that sound like the sonic booms of jets. It was developed by PDT Agro, a small company in Israel that had been previously building "sound cannons" that scare away pests from Israeli farms. The new invention will be used to scare away leftist pests trying to assist Palestinian mass murdering genocidal terrorists. The report in Popular Science is a delicious take-off on the science fiction classic "Dune," in which the desert fighters (called "fedayeen," of all things) battle the barbarians using sound weapons: "A desert people have developed a new weapon that uses sound instead of bullets. But this time, it will be used to control crowds instead of fighting giant worms or devious members of House Harkonnen. The Israeli Defense Ministry has contracted for the production of sonic-boom stun-guns called 'Thunder Generator cannons,' which they hope to use in crowd-control situations." The new contraption fights noise with noise as a sort of way to fight fire with fire. Here is the Popular Science explanation: "The weapon runs on LPG, a common cooking gas, which mixes with oxygen to generate powerful bursts of sound. Each sound burst lasts around 300 milliseconds, and generates a shockwave that travels from the cannon at almost six times the speed of sound." You realize what all this means? If Israel has invented ONE cure for leftist hooliganism, just imagine what could lie ahead? Perhaps an anti-leftism pill, which — when swallowed — raises the IQ by 50 points? How about a special rubber bullet that electronically hones in on marijuana? How about a special TASER that can only be discharged against the unbathed? Be that as it may, this new real invention represents a giant scientific step forward for Israel. As you may recall, Israel had been using Pepe Le Pew to help control the violent hooligans and anarcho-fascist thugs who pogrom weekly in the West Bank against Israel's security fence. A while back it was reported that Israel has decided to keep them in line by using "skunk bombs." These "bombs," actually just a canister spray, apparently are so smelly that even an anarchist who has not bathed in 18 months is capable of being offended and repulsed by the odor. The Jerusalem Post reported: 'The skunk bomb is a foul-smelling liquid which is sprayed on the rioters. "The smell is so strong that people flee immediately." Some news reports are claiming that the spray smells remarkably like a mixture of, well, Number One and Number Two. At least one web site referred to it as Zionist Death Dung. I am wondering whether the new sound cannon can be combined with other forms of anti-leftist music. We all recall the Apocalypse Now movie, where the choppers come in firing while playing Wagner music. So why not wheel in the new Israeli anti-leftist sound cannons while loudspeakers play loud Shlomo Carlebach songs in the background, or perhaps even Avraham Fried singing Chassidic songs? And then we can all just sit back and watch the leftist varmints scurry!! (Full news story here:
2. Lying Leftist Loons:
(Israelnationalnews.com) The latest accusation hurled against Israeli 'occupation' soldiers is that they defaced gravestones at the Arab cemetery of Awarta near Shechem, in Samaria, on Tuesday. This story, however, appears to be falling apart just a day after it was circulated in the Israeli and international press. Chief Military Prosecutor Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblit instructed the Military Police Thursday to launch an investigation into the accusations that IDF soldiers defaced gravestones while they escorted devout Jews to prayers at the tombs of Elazar HaCohen and the Seventy Sages. The investigation thus far has cast doubt on the accusations. It turns out that there were no Hebrew defacements on gravestones in the Muslim cemetery. However, it is possible that someone scribbled something on slabs of marble at a distance from the cemetery. At least one photo shows the Hebrew word 'Palchod', which is the name of a military unit. An IDF source told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service that members of the Israeli pro-Arab NGO B'Tselem admitted to IDF officers that the photos which were featured in the press, and which purported to show writing in Hebrew and Russian on Arab gravestones, were "misleading". 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
|
|
JOYS OF MUSLIM WOMEN!' — UNBELIEVABLE
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, January 24, 2010. | |
|
This might be about what is happening in the USA — However it applies in any western country as well. This below ws written by Nonie Darwish. Read and consider! | |
|
In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old and have sexual intimacy with this child. Consummating the marriage by age 9. The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy. Even though a woman is abused she can not obtain a divorce. To prove rape, the woman must have (4) male witnesses. Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family. Husbands can beat their wives 'at will' and he does not have to say why he has beaten her. The husband is permitted to have (4 wives) and a temporary wife for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion. The Shariah Muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman. In the West World (America) Muslim men are starting to demand Shariah Law so the wife can not obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control of her. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law. By passing this on, enlightened American women may avoid becoming a slave under Shariah Law. Learn More.... Read: Cruel and Usual Punishment just released in most bookstores.
Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il |
|
FOOD FOR THOUGHT REGARDING OBAMA AND ISRAEL
Posted by Sandra Levy, January 23, 2010. |
|
The truth is no one seems to know who the real Obama is. I believe he won't get re-elected after what happened in Massachusetts but he still has 3 years to try to mess up Israel. They keep harping on a 2 state solution when in fact there are 3 entities here. The Hamas have over a million supporters in Gaza: The Hamas believe only in a one state solution — a Moslem state tied to Iran and Syria in all of what is now Israel, the west bank and Gaza and of course all of Jerusalem.. Abbu Mazen of the PA has very little support. The PA is mainly in the Ramallah area and more or less has some control of the West Bank. The PA is considered by most Palestinians, especially those living in Jerusalem, to be a kind of mafia. They hate them and of course they blame Israel for bringing Yasser Arafat and the PA out of Tunisia. They are right. King Hussein had kicked them out of Jordan in Black September and we went behind King Hussein's back and brought Yasser Arafat here on a red carpet. Our reward was the intifada. Marwan Barghoutti a PA man headed the intifada which murdered over a thousand Israelis and he is in prison for life (supposedly). There are some idiots here in the government that want to free Marwan Barghoutti to be the next Palestinian leader. We don't learn from our mistakes. By the way the educated Palestinians also blame the Israeli Likud government for the creation of the Hamas. This was the same mistake the CIA made in Afghanistan. They helped create the mudjahadeen against the communists. Communism is now gone — with no thanks to the mudjahadeen, but Afghanistan is now a real nightmare of terrorism and the results are dead American soldiers. Most Palestinians would be happy to be Jordanians again. This is also true for the Palestinians living in the Hebron area. They still consider Abdallah of Jordan to be their king. The Palestinians say that Abu Mazen's son is robbing their public coffers and lining his own pockets. They hate the PA and perhaps for this reason many of them voted for the Hamas. The truth is they were only given the choice of these two terrorist beasts to vote for. Gaza was never part of the kingdom of Jordan like those in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This is a completely different problem. Gaza is everyone's nightmare. The late Yitzchak Rabin once said that the best solution for Gaza would be if it went into the ocean. May his words reach unto G-D and maybe we will see Gaza inundated by a major tsunami. The US and Europe turn a blind eye to the fact that most Palestinians except for the Gazans would prefer to be citizens of Jordan again. Those Palestinians living in Jerusalem opt for Israel. The US does not have face-to-face contact with Palestinians here the way we do. I speak to them all the time. After all we are living in the same city. If a plebiscite was held for the Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the majority would vote to be part of Israel- after that Jordan. I don't think the Hamas or PA would get very many votes. If Jerusalem is divided most of them will lose their jobs and of course they will lose their National Security child allowance payments — they have big families and women don't work so they rely heavily on child allowance payments from Israel. There there are the hospitals. Whenever I go to either Hadassah Ein Kerem or Hadassah Mt. Scopus I see that about half of the patients are Palestinians from East Jerusalem. They know they are getting the best treatment at Hadassah. There are also two Hebrew universities that they attend — one in Givat Ram and the other in Mt. Scopus. It is simply not possible to divide Jerusalem and all those nations that are trying to divide Jerusalem should have their own capitals divided or punished by G-D. All the best
Contacft Sandra Levy by email at shula2933@gmail.com |
|
ISRAEL FEARS TURKEY'S "SHIFT TOWARD IRAN"
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 23, 2010. |
|
The idea of Israel offering the hostile Palestinians territory as they did in Gaza so they could launch missiles from a position of closer to Israel's cities and airport is the same folly as the Gaza blunder. Moreover, to try to resuscitate relations with Turkey by making such a gesture of submission to the Palestinians to please a Turkish Muslim State has aspects of a suicide mission. Worse yet, Israel has tried over the recent years, selling weapons technology to Turkey even as it grows closer to Iran. Retro-fitting Turkey's tanks with greater fire-power and improved accuracy is begging to be killed as that Israeli technology is shared by Turkey with Iran, Syria, Hezb'Allah and Hamas. Israel is presently ready to deliver her highly developed UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). Such unmanned vehicles can assist Turkey to scout and attack Kurds — both in Turkey and across the border into Iraq. When, not if, Turkey shares this innovative, superb technology with Iran, Israel will soon be facing an Islamic version of Israel's UAVs. Some will recall how the U.S. transferred Israeli technology to Saudi Arabia on her F16s for conformal fuel tanks which extended the range of Saudi's U.S. aircraft. Israel cannot appease or purchase the loyalty or affection of a Turkish State well along on its return to its Muslim roots. Granted, there are the benefits of profits of arms sales and the pretense of having friendly relations with a Muslim State but, arming them with High Tech weapons which will eventually be used against Israel is an act of appeasement which is surely suicidal. This below was written by David Harris and it appeared in www.chinaview.cn
|
|
JERUSALEM, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — Israel is concerned that for more than a year Turkey has been moving closer to Iran, an unnamed official in Israeli Prime Minister's Office told Xinhua on Wednesday. However, some analysts argue that the deterioration of the bilateral relations is much of a result of Israel's military campaign in and around Gaza exactly one year ago and the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, instead of the Iran element. These comments came in the wake of the latest diplomatic row between Israel and Ankara over a TV program broadcast on a private Turkish channel that Israel deems to be anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli. Israel's Foreign Ministry very publicly summoned and humiliated the Turkish Ambassador to Israel Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, leaving Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fuming. Since the Gaza conflict, Erdogan has led the Turkish protests against Israel's actions. Israel later offered Turkey an official apology over the treatment of its envoy. CAUSE OF RIFT The official in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who required remaining anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue, stressed that the move by Ankara towards Tehran began prior to the Gaza war. Yet the idea that relations were in decline before the outbreak of fighting in Gaza is dismissed by Alon Liel, Israel's former ambassador to Turkey and a previous director general of the Foreign Ministry. In his opinion, the years of 2007 and 2008 were amongst the best years in terms of relations between the two countries. Blaming the Turkish relationship with Iran for the ongoing spat with Israel is nonsense, he said. "This idea that Turkey is heading in the Islamic or Iranian direction and away from Europe is simply avoiding the real picture, which is the damage to the bilateral relationship between Israel and Turkey," said Liel. Yusuf Kanli, one of Turkey's most respected columnists and editors, adopts a similar view with Liel. He describes the Gaza war as "unfortunate" from the point of view of bilateral ties. While admitting there was a degree of strain prior to the war, he said the bond was largely very strong. As far as Erdogan and most Turks are concerned, Israel behaved very badly in its military campaign in the Palestinian coastal enclave and that has pushed the diplomatic ties back many years. TURKEY'S MOVE Nominally, Turkey is a secular state, a position defended by its army. However, Erdogan's AKP or Justice and Development Party, with its Islamic roots, has been in control in Ankara since 2002. While Turkey has been a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference since 1980, it only really became an active player, adopting and implementing its policies in 2002, Kanli said. That eastwards move has created tension with Europe, with numerous countries, most notably France, unhappy with Turkey's bid for membership of the European Union. "The Turkish move east is somewhat exaggerated but it is definitely not going west as it used to," said Kanli, who believes Turkey has a "multidimensional" foreign policy. While in Liel's opinion, "Turkey is currently improving its relations with most countries in the world, apart from Israel." Israel simply does not want to admit that Turkey is pressuring Israel to make progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he said. ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN TRACK Turkey, like Europe, the United States and the moderate Arab countries, wants to see the rebooting of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. In the past it has offered to broker talks between the parties. Liel is a firm believer that relations with Ankara could be restored if Israel moves towards cutting a deal with the Palestinians. He has a simple piece of advice for Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak who is slated to visit Turkey on Monday: "if you haven't got anything new to say about the peace process, don't go." Kanli offers another perspective. He agrees with Erdogan that Israel was in the wrong in the way it carried out its military strike against Hamas, the Palestinian organization that controls Gaza. However, he thinks Ankara should not be engaging Hamas. "The difference between the secularist Turk and the Islamist Turk is that I do think that Hamas is a terrorist organization and I would expect my government to have relations with Hamas only after it renounces terrorism," said Kanli. It is not only the Palestinian track that interests Ankara. A peace deal between Israel and Syria would also benefit Turkey. While Ehud Olmert was Israeli prime minister immediately before Netanyahu, Syria's neighbor Turkey was facilitating indirect talks between Israel and Damascus. Those talks broke down just before the Gaza war. Since then, Ankara has offered to resume its negotiating role, but Netanyahu has rejected that idea, arguing the hostility towards Israel from Turkey means it cannot be an honest broker. The iciness between the countries has already had economic effects with many Israelis now choosing to stay away from Turkey, which was in recent years their tourist destination of choice. While the business community reports relations largely intact thus far, there is a fear this could change. For all of their arguments, Turkey and Israel have much in common. They are both countries with strong ties with the West and the United States in particular. The two are very active within NATO, participating in joint military exercises. They have both been hit by terrorism and both see themselves as a bridge between East and West. Yet the events of the past year, culminating in this week's war of words, have left a bitter taste both in Israel and in Ankara. Barak will try to mend some of the fence, as did another Israeli minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, when he visited Turkey in November. However, Liel warns that without a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, such visits will achieve next to nothing. "There's definitely cause for concern about the future of relations with Turkey," said Liel. 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 |
|
FEMALE BRITISH TOURIST WAS RAPED IN DUBAI
Posted by Susana K-M, January 23, 2010. |
|
This was written by Daniel Greenfield as Sultan Knish and is
archived on his website:
|
|
The opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai has gotten the usual stars and spangles coverage, while no one in the media has bothered to examine Dubai's virtual slavery in the construction industry. Or just how much of the money being spent was based on investor gullibility. There is naturally no coverage of the fact that the UAE is an Islamic tyranny. That it sponsors terrorism. That in Dubai a female British tourist was arrested after being raped. The 23-year-old Londoner says she was attacked by a waiter in a hotel toilet after celebrating her engagement to her boyfriend with drinks, The Sun reports. That of course is how Muslim countries have effectively legalized rape. And tourists foolish enough to try and deal with the Emirati police, which despite the glittering architecture, is just a bunch of thugs employed by the desert rat sheikhs running Dubai, get a one way trip to a jail cell. The British embassy officials, whose main function there is visiting trafficked Ukranian prostitutes and promoting business deals with British companies will of course "help out". After enough helping out, which will consist of them crawling on their knees before the sons of desert bandits and suggesting delicately that English ignorance of Islam's fair and honest laws may create a negative image for Dubai, the couple will be expelled to England, the rapist will not be charged with anything (nor is this the first time he likely did something like this) and foreign tourists will once again get a lesson they will soon forget about not visiting Islamic countries. Despite all this, there is of course no talk of boycotting Dubai. Andrew Sullivan who demands that US troops invade Israel to create a Hamas state, isn't concerned about a dictatorship where a few percent control a labor work force that comprises much of the country. Naturally not. Dubai is an illusion and a lie created to attract Western tourists and investors. It is a modernist facade built on a primitive and backward fundamentalist society that trades oil and luxuries to the very infidels it despises, repaying them with Jihad and oppression. Beneath the skyscrapers, Dubai is no more modern than Cairo or Karachi. United Arab Emirates — Dubai just opened the ultimate trophy building — the world's tallest skyscraper, which soars a neck-craning 2,717 feet into the air — but just try getting there from the airport. All of Dubai is one great big Potemkin village. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
USELESS FORT HOOD PROTECTION LEAVES AMERICANS UNPROTECTED
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 23, 2010. |
|
When History is written evaluating President Barack Hussein Obama's role in the ramping up Islam's assault on the West, his role (I am certain) will receive high marks for driving Western Civilization into Submission. ("Islam" means "Submission".) From his first days as President one year ago, Obama launched an assault against Israel while making it clear to America's 16 Intel Agencies that interfering with Islam or Muslims was intolerable to him personally. Thus, PC (Political Correctness) plays a guiding role where Nidal Malik Hassan (the Fort Hood assassin) was not touched by his superiors - despite his rants about Islam. The concept of PC saturated the Army, the State Department and the Left Liberal Media. Obama, his huge staff and all mentioned above are guilty of making America and the Free West weak and vulnerable to attacks by "Jihadists" (warriors for Islam). This below was written by Diana West and it appeared
January 21, 2010 on www.Townhall.com Diana West is author of the new book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. |
|
"Do you believe in 'radical Islam'?" the famous Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders once asked me. The occasion was a banquet last summer at the Reagan Library outside of Los Angeles where later that evening Wilders would receive a Hero of Conscience award from the American Freedom Alliance. I would have the honor of introducing him. "What did you say?" I could barely hear him over the speaker at the podium elaborating on the perils of, yes, "radical Islam." "'Radical Islam,'" he repeated. "Do you think there is 'radical Islam,' or only 'Islam'"? Me, I'm an "only Islam" kind of gal, as I told him. Who am I to argue with Muslims ranging from terror-cleric Abu Qatada to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan? Erdogan is particularly interesting as a democratically elected Islamic leader who eschews all word-modifiers of Islam including "moderate," the adjective the media often applies to his AKP political party. "These descriptions are very ugly," Erdogan said in 2007. "It is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam, and that's it." Erdogan has also bluntly rejected descriptions of Turkey itself as an example of "moderate Islam," saying last April: "It is unacceptable for us to agree with such a definition. Turkey has never been a country to represent such a concept. Moreover, Islam cannot be classified as moderate or not." I mention this now because after the fireworks over Scott Brown's U.S. Senate victory in Massachusetts have died down, we will have to return to the same, old, equal parts humdrum and deadly wrangle over how to think, talk about and grapple with Islam in what remains a post-9/11 world. Two related events took place just as the Massachusetts miracle sucked the oxygen from non-election news excepting Haiti coverage. First, the Pentagon report on the Fort Hood massacre came out. It is 86 pages long and doesn't mention the words "Muslim," "Islam," "jihad," "Sharia" (Islamic law), "Koran" — despite the fact that we know, among other things, that the killer, who initiated his massacre with a cry of "Allahu Akbar," was a Muslim inspired by Islam to perform an act of jihad as sanctioned by Sharia derived from the Koran. These facts, however, rate official silence. So what else is new? From the Bush years to the present, see-no-Islam denial has turned U.S. government attempts to assess and discuss national security issues into Kabuki gibberish, a perpetual exercise in make-believe that the core doctrines and traditional institutions of Islam — not "radical Islam," not "Islamism," not other aliases — pose no threat to the core doctrines and traditional institutions of the non-Islamic Free World. Naturally, mum's the Pentagon word over jihad at Fort Hood. Or, rather, "self-radicalization" is the word. It is mentioned more than a dozen times in the report. I can't imagine a greater dereliction of duty than this failure of U.S. government leaders to recognize, articulate and defend against what in military parlance is known as the "enemy threat doctrine." But this dereliction, this failure will trigger no investigations or court proceedings on how and why our leaders consistently mask, soft-soap and otherwise fail to assess and repel the existential threat posed by the imposition or accommodation of these same Islamic doctrines. Talk about irony: Within days of the report's release, one of the few politicians in the world who understands, articulates and fights the imposition and accommodation of these same Islamic doctrines went on trial in the Netherlands for doing exactly that. I refer again to Geert Wilders, now enmeshed in a Kafkaesque court trial in which the Dutch government is subverting its own democratic institutions — namely, freedom of speech and the will of the people — in an effort to shut down Wilders and his political opposition to the Islamization of the Netherlands. The government's case rests on Wilders' increasingly successful efforts to win support for his anti-Islamization program from the Dutch people through speeches, writings and the short film "Fitna" (easily viewable online) — a body of work that only a tyrannical, Islamically correct government could designate as "evidence" of a crime. How Dutch government officials must envy America's Sharia-compliant public servants who willingly generate see-no-Islam blather such as the Fort Hood report. They can have it. 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 |
|
ROP MUSLIM ATTORNEY RAPES & KILLS 12 YR OLD CHRISTIAN GIRL
Posted by Cpocerl, January 23, 2010. |
|
This comes from Atlas Shrugs
|
|
Lahore: January 23, 2010. (Khalid Shahzad for PCP) Christian teenage Shazia daughter of Bashir Masih aged 12 years, resident of Islamia Park, Punch Road Aria Nagar, Samanabad, Lahore was found dead after rape by Muslim attorney Mohammad Naeem (more here) The translation is awkward but I didn't correct it, as it is authentic. Pakistan: 12 years old Christian maid girl raped and killed by Muslim Attorney Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
CHILD SLAVES IN HAITI — RESTAVEKS
Posted by Sandra Levy, January 23, 2010. |
|
This is really quite shocking. This was written by Eric Beauchemin and published by Radio Netherlands in 2006. Let us hope and pray that the world that has come to rescue Haitians injured and made homeless by the earthquake will not leave Haiti until the child abuse problem is solved. In fact people should adopt Haiti's earthquake orphaned children, so that they do not end up as slaves. . Child slaves in Haiti: Radio Netherlands reports that 1 in 10
children in Haiti are slaves:
|
|
Hundreds of thousands of children are being forced into slavery throughout the world. Children are being sold or trafficked for labour or sexual exploitation in Asia, Africa and Latin America. One country though regularly gets mentioned: Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. It's estimated that there are a quarter of a million child slaves in Haiti, that's nearly one in ten of the country's children. Modern slavery But the economic and political turmoil Haiti has experienced in recent decades have had a dramatic impact on today's restavèks, says John Currelly, the country representative of PADF, the Pan-American Development Foundation, an organisation which is trying to raise awareness about the phenomenon. "It is degenerated over the years to a form of internal slavery because the family situation has broken down. You have a situation now where very poor people in the cities need these slaves to look after their children, while they're out making say two dollars a day. We think there are as many as 250,000 of these children in really awful circumstances here. There's no such thing as a good restavèk anymore. It's pure and simply slavery." Abuse The children often remain with their masters for years. Many come from rural areas and therefore have no idea that another life is possible, says Moïse Ariot of PADF. "Sometimes they are afraid of the outside world. They think they might have even more problems if they leave. But some of the children who are seriously abused decide to run away and they wind up on the streets, where they're likely to face even more abuse." The Haitian government has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in 2003, it modified labour laws to prevent child domestic work, but these laws are rarely enforced. Between 1996 and 2000, the authorities conducted just over 120 child labour inspections a year. 100 restavèks were rescued from abusive households and placed in shelters, but none of the employers were fined or convicted. Haiti has also set up a special hotline called SOS Timoun, but it's only open during working hours, and it's not regarded as effective. Awareness The Pan American Development Foundation is trying to raise awareness about the problem of the restavèks. It has put up billboards in the capital Port-au-Prince denouncing esclavage moderne or modern-day slavery. PADF is also working with local organisations that are combating the problem. "Haitians are very conscious of the restavèks", says John Currelly. "They're very ashamed of this as a society, and there are surprising numbers of organisations — even in small rural areas — that have sprung up to combat it. We work with these organisations, providing them with funding for small projects, for example like putting up a booth in a fair or having a programme on the local radio, and so on." No one has any illusions that the problem will be resolved soon. The real solution is to create more jobs, but given the ongoing turmoil in Haiti, that is unlikely to happen soon. According to Moïse Ariot, "parents should also be encouraged to have fewer children and to send the ones they have to school." "But parents often think that by sending their child to work in a family, they're helping their kid, but it's only later that they learn what the child went through. Of course there are some exceptions: some families do provide a better future for the restavèks, but I would say that happens in only five out of every 100 cases." Contact Sandra Levy by email at shula2933@gmail.com |
|
AFTER THE FLOODS, GLOWING SKIES, MUD, PUDDLES AND PONDS IN THE NEGEV DESERT, REVIVIM
Posted by Yehuda Tzoref, January 23, 2010. |
|
Dr. Judah (Yehuda) Tzoref is a scientist, trained at the Technion in Haifa and Oxford University in England. His expertise is in physics and energy engineering. He is a grass-roots activist on behalf of Israel. He lives in Rehovot. |
|
IRAN SPURS: SYRIA & HIZBALLAH MOBILIZE AGAINST ISRAEL
Posted by CPocerl, January 23, 2010. |
|
This is from DEBKAfile
|
|
DEBKAfile Special Report January 22, 2010, 6:30 PM (GMT+02:00) Friday, Jan. 22, Damascus ordered a Level 4 mobilization of Syria's army reserves for deployment to the Golan Heights on the Israeli border, to meet what it calls "IDF plans of attack." DEBKAfile's military sources interpret Level 4 as referring to Syrian armored and commando brigades. In Lebanon, too, Hizballah has placed "all its forces" on a state of military preparedness. Our intelligence sources report that this order applies to the Iranian proxy's strongholds across southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley, but not to its command posts in Beirut and other Lebanese cities. Damascus and Hizballah both claim that Israel has embarked on a large-scale military exercise along its northern borders to create a jumping-off point for striking Hizballah followed by raids into Syria. However, Western and Arab sources confirm that Israel made a point of reassuring Damascus and Beirut via American and UN intermediaries at the beginning of this week that the military units massed in the north were engaged solely in maneuvers with no aggressive intent. Far from being prompted by IDF war games, Syria and Hizballah are reported by our Iranian and military sources as acting out the secret military cooperation pacts they have just concluded with Tehran. The pacts were negotiated and signed during visits to Damascus by Iran's National Security Adviser Saeed Jalili on Nov. 3 and its defense minister Ahmed Vahidi on Dec. 17. These treaties commit Syria to come to Hizballah's aid if it comes under Israeli attack, and all three signatories to respond to any Israeli military movement. Our military sources believe Hizballah and Syria are taking advantage of the Israeli war game to test their own preparedness for attack on orders from Tehran. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
TARIQ RAMADAN MAY RETURN TO U.S.A.
Posted by CPocerl, January 23, 2010. |
|
This was written by Winfield Myers and it appeared January 20,
2010
in Campus Watch
http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2010/01/tariq-ramadan-may- return-to-usa-notre-dame-says |
|
Tariq Ramadan has been invited by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to re-apply for a visa to the United States. Ramadan had been awarded the Henry R. Luce Chair at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 when, only days before his scheduled arrival in South Bend, the Department of Homeland Security revoked his visa. Dennis Brown, University Spokesman at Notre Dame, said the University had no intention of re-hiring Ramadan, either as a visiting professor or as holder of the Joan B. Kroc Chair: We are pleased that today's order vindicates Professor Ramadan, and we look forward to the possibility of having him visit our campus soon for a lecture of symposium. However, the full-time position for which he was initially hired, the Luce Professorship, has been filled, and we do not foresee making another hire in this specific area of Islamic studies in the near term. The question now becomes, which American university will offer Ramadan a position in Middle East studies? Given the cravenness of that discipline's practitioners, most recently witnessed in their eagerness to deny any connection between Nidal Hasan's jihadist slaughter of fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood in November and his Islamist beliefs, the wily Ramadan should fit right in. Moreover, the lifting of the order banning Ramadan from entering the U.S. in no way "vindicates" him (or Notre Dame). Rather, it reveals the Obama administration's eagerness to appease the European left and the American academic establishment. The latter has wasted no time in reacting to today's news: the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has already issued a statement praising the decision. Needless to say, Ramadan himself is elated. The rest of us should be appalled. The Swiss-born Ramadan is the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, and has a long history of issuing apologias for radical Islamists around the world. From his current perch at Oxford University, where he is the His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, he continues to assure Europeans they have nothing to fear from the Islamists amongst them. MEF director Daniel Pipes laid out the case against admitting Ramadan to America in 2004 and has a long-running commentary on Ramadan, including this new entry on today's decision. This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
"OUTSMARTING" THE TERRORISTS BY BEING INCREDIBLY STUPID?
Posted by Susana K-M, January 22, 2010. |
|
Here's my usual disclaimer: I would love to be able to stop criticizing the Obama Administration but it keeps saying and doing things that shock and surprise me or — if you want to put it this way — live up to my worst expectations. I'm sitting on a U.S. army base briefing officers along with a high-ranking State Department official who works on the Middle East. At one point, he gets a quaver in his voice and starts talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict making quite clear which side he's on. Sounding scared he says: "While a lot of problems in the world can bring trouble only the Arab-Israeli conflict can get you and your families killed." The officers look disgusted. He is fitting precisely their stereotype of a cowardly diplomat. Abandon Israel and save your life and that of your children, is his message. Oh, and this is after September 11 which makes the statement even more ridiculous. This kind of blatant cowardice is usually better concealed. It more often occurs in regard to intellectuals facing challenges like the "Danish cartoons." But it is glimpsed at times in a sort of strategic fearfulness, a refusal to do what's in one's interest lest someone might get mad about it. John Brennan is the president's advisor on counter-terrorism and may be the dumbest of all Obama's foreign policy appointments. Brennan is apparently ex-CIA and he has yet to persuade me that he has any understanding whatsoever about terrorism. He's the guy who said that Hizballah wasn't a terrorist group because it ran candidates for parliament and had lawyers among its members. Now in a television interview, he stated that the Guantanamo prison should be closed because al-Qaida has used its existence in order to make propaganda. A few hours later, President Barack Obama repeated this talking point in the course of discussing reinforced controls on airplane passengers: "We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaida," Obama said. "In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula." What? Is his understanding really so minimal that he thinks the formation of a revolutionary movement to seize power in Iraq and overthrow the Saudi government took place because the United States maintained a prison in Cuba? Is this man who proclaims himself the great understander of other cultures so ethnocentric that he thinks, so to speak, that "everything is about us?" Does Obama have any sense at all of what al-Qaida uses as recruiting tools, of their ideology and goals? And would closing Guantanamo deprive al-Qaida of a recruiting tool, would it hurt that group? Isn't it obvious that, if anything, al-Qaida would proclaim this as a victory: Out of fear of us, the camp was closed! We have prevented the oppression of Muslims! We can make the great Satan tremble and give in! Now, that's a recruiting tool! I actually find Michael Scheuer, another former CIA guy, more congenial than Brennan though he also has some terrible ideas. Scheuer views anti-American terrorism as solely caused by U.S. support for Middle Eastern regimes. The reality is that there are three causes: U.S. policies; hatred of the American culture and society not because they care what goes on inside the United States but because they believe it will ultimately transform their own societies through both power and seductive example; and a desire to prove their strength and increase their support base by humiliating the world's leading power. Scheuer's main credential is that he headed the Usama bin Ladin task force at the CIA which, one would think, would mark him as a failure whose ideas didn't work at all. On the positive side, he doesn't just focus on hating Israel but also blames U.S. support for all the Arab regimes as well. Of course, if the United States stopped this support, these regimes would more likely be overthrown by radical Islamists (not necessarily al-Qaida) and then we could see if the Islamists stopped hating and attacking America. (I'd bet they'd step up attacks.) But Scheuer can't help revealing his special hatred of Israel, even
when this contradicts his own thesis. In a C-Span interview And then he makes an even more amazing statement when asked how America can stop terrorist attacks on itself: "Ultimately we have to find a way to dissuade them from focusing their anger on us and persuade them to focus their anger at what they themselves believe to be the real enemy the governments that govern them and oppress them and Israel." Of course, U.S. support for Great Britain made Nazi Germany look at America as an enemy, and the same goes for U.S. support for China and imperial Japan, and U.S. support for dozens of countries and the USSR. But the United States backed these other states because it wanted to block victory for a hostile force which would use these other places, if taken over, as a base to destroy U.S. interests and to hit America more effectively. How would someone have been treated if they advocated betraying these allies so as to plead more effectively from aggressive tyrannical movements: Please leave us alone. We promise not to inconvenience you in your march to world conquest! But Scheuer gives us just this imaginative proposal. Urge al-Qaida and other terrorists to attack U.S. allies — which they can hit a lot harder and damage a lot more — rather than America. (Ironically, this is the reverse of what the Saudis and other Arab regimes try to do.) Of course these groups will do both! Moreover, what happens after al-Qaida or other Islamists seize power from these abandoned regimes? No doubt they will fondly remember that the United States stopped opposing them and be good buddies of America, right? (Warning: previous sentence is sarcastic.) Actually, though, this is what was going on during the pre-bin Ladin era. Radical Islamist groups did focus on attacking regimes in the region — especially Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia — but were soundly defeated by the governments, except in Lebanon. Facing this stalemate, bin Ladin proposed attacking America directly. This is what led to September 11. The basic problem is that Scheuer, and Brennan and Obama, too, basically think that the Islamist assault is something that can be made to go away by some clever stratagem: flatter Muslims; move away from Israel, abandon Israel, show more sensitivity; try captured terrorists in a U.S. court; or something else. Yet the beginning of wisdom is to understand that this is a challenge parallel to that from Communism and fascism. The idea that al-Qaida and other terrorists can be bought off by selling out all the more moderate Arab states and Israel or they can be confounded by closing Guantanamo illustrates ignorance on a stupendous scale. The point of U.S. strategy should not be to "deny" al-Qaida talking points — it will never lack for them no matter how U.S. policy changes — but defeating it, making it impossible for the group to operate, blocking its attacks by effectively targeted defensive measures. Have all the most basic lessons from centuries of statecraft been so thoroughly forgotten by those who govern in the West? Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
ANOTHER INTELLIGENCE BLUNDER. 'DUH.'
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 22, 2010. |
|
Since President Barack Hussein Obama proclaimed "the Buck stops here" with him on these matters, he owes America at least 99 cents "Change". He can pay us back by firing Dennis Blair, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, and David Axelrod. Then he could take early retirement as the best friend the radical Islamists could ever have. 'Duh' Another intelligence blunder' appeared today as a Wall St. Journal editorial, page A18. |
|
Earlier this month, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan wrote a damning memo on the government's failure to "connect the dots" in the days before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded a Christmas day flight to Detroit. On Wednesday, Dennis Blair delivered an equally damning verdict on the government's handling of the terrorist after he was apprehended. The Director of National Intelligence told the Senate that by immediately handing Abdulmutallab to the civilian justice system, the government all but slammed the door on its ability to interrogate him thoroughly. Specifically, the feds failed to avail themselves of a unit called the High-Value Interrogation Group, or HIG, which Mr. Blair says was created "to make a decision on whether a certain person who's detained should be treated as a case for federal prosecution or for some of the other means." "We did not invoke the HIG in this case; we should have," Mr. Blair said. "Frankly, we were thinking more of overseas people and, duh, you know, we didn't put it [in action] here."That's our emphasis, and we put it there to underscore the scale of the intelligence blunder that was committed when Abdulmutallab was remanded to FBI custody, where he reportedly talked to investigators until advised by counsel not to. Now the government's only hope for Abdulmutallab to say a bit more is via a plea bargain, by which time his intelligence leads will likely have run cold. What makes this debacle all the more extraordinary is that it would have been perfectly lawful to hold Abdulmutallab in military custody, which would have given the government time to interrogate him and consider whether it wanted to try him in civilian or military court. Instead, such was the apparent haste by the FBI that Director Robert Mueller testified that "there was no time to get a follow-up [HIG] group in there." Do our real-life Jack Bauers now travel by Amtrak? Mr. Blair's testimony was almost instantly disputed by an anonymous Administration official, and he later issued a statement saying his comments had been "misconstrued." We think we heard Mr. Blair right the first time, and his departure from script reveals the dangerous folly of the Administration's policy of treating terrorists like common criminals. 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 |
|
CRITICIZING ISLAMISTS CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH
Posted by Susana K-M, January 22, 2010. |
|
This was written by David J. Rusin
and it appeared today on the Islamist Watch website
|
|
The first goal of Islamists is to silence all who counter their ideology. But while most radical Muslims in the West are content to intimidate anti-Islamists through smears or lawsuits, some do resort to violence, as in the 2004 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Death threats and attacks against public opponents of Islamism have escalated in recent months. Exhibit A: the New Year's assault by an ax-wielding Somali on the home of Kurt Westergaard, known for drawing the most recognizable of the Danish Muhammad cartoons. Shot by police, the young jihadist faces charges of attempted murder and terrorism — because, in the words of the prosecutor, "trying to kill Kurt Westergaard had a bigger purpose than just killing him." Other noteworthy examples:
Why such violence? As Ryan Mauro explains, it boils down to the underlying frailty of the Islamist creed: "The fact that this ideology relies upon force ... shows it lacks merit and will not survive the intellectual combat that comes with a free media, freedom of speech, freedom of religion," etc. So rather than succumbing to intimidation, let us follow the lead of Rayhana, who not only managed to stumble back to the theater, but performed her sold-out play that very night. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
RELIGION OF PEACE TO LASH RAPE VICTIM 100 TIMES FOR BEING RAPED
Posted by Cpocerl, January 22, 2010. |
|
This is a news item from TrueSlant.com at New Media Journal
|
|
A Filipino woman in Saudi Arabia is scheduled to be lashed 100 times by the government as punishment for being raped. To add to the tragedy, the Filipino has been held in prison since September 2009. In December 2009, the woman — known only as "Camille" — miscarried. Now, she is facing a medieval crime — all because she was raped. The story is astounding. Camille (not here real name), 35-years-old, travelled to Saudi Arabia in spring of 2009 to work as a janitor in order to support three children aged 15, 14 and 5. She was raped by a Bangladeshi coworker in August. In Saudi Arabia, all sex outside of marriage — including rape and sexual assault — can result in prison and lashings under their extreme interpretation of Sharia. The woman, fully aware of this, opted not to press charges and instead managed to arrange repatriation to the Philippines. All foreign workers returning home from Saudi Arabia are required to undergo a medical exam. That's where the trouble started: "In September, as part of the reparation process, the woman had to undergo a physical examination during which it was discovered that she's pregnant. Since September 11 the woman has been jailed at the Hafer Al Baten Central Jail for having an "illicit affair".Due to the bad conditions in the prison, in December she suffered a miscarriage. After spending time in the hospital she was transferred back to prison. The Saudi interpretation of Sharia law does not allow pregnant women to be lashed. However, now that Camille is no longer pregnant, she may be lashed at any time by the government. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs reports that the sentence will be carried out this month. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
RELIGION OF PEACE FATHER SELLS 12 YR OLD DAUGHTER FOR 4 COWS
Posted by Cpocerl, January 22, 2010. |
|
This comes from Jihad Watch
|
|
Islam upholds women's rights, say the Islamic spokesmen in the West, and it all sounds great. Yet stories like this reinforce the often-reinforced impression that in Islam women are treated essentially as commodities. "Turkey: 12-Year-Old Girl Sold By Father for 4 Cows," from ANSAmed, n.d. (thanks to Insubria): (ANSAmed) — ANKARA — A 12-year-old girl from Corum, a village in central Anatolia not far from Ankara, has been sold twice by her father: the first time in exchange for four cows, and the second time for 10,000 Turkish lire (around 4,800 euros). Just yesterday the police discovered the crime and arrested the girl's father and the second buyer, while the first is still being sought. The story was reported by daily paper Vatan, which writes that Sukru A. (this is the name of the father) sold his daughter K.A last summer when she was just 12 years old to 29-year-old bricklayer Kamber Bostan in exchange for four cows, who married the girl in a religious ceremony in front of the imam. After several months however, the girl — who became pregnant in the meantime — went back home because she didn't get on with her husband. Last December, in her sixth month of pregnancy, she lost the child. Ten days later the father sold her again, this time to a 20-year-old unemployed man, Gokhan Turk, who paid 3,000 out of the 10,000 lire agreed upfront, and took the girl home. Yesterday, when Turk refused to pay the balance — claiming that the girl he bought was not a virgin — Sukru A. turned to the police and reported him for insolvency but without mentioning the reason. After a short investigation the truth came out and both the father and Turk were arrested, while Bostan is still being sought.(ANSAmed). Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
RADICAL ISLAMIST FUND RAISER BECOMES POLICE CHAPLAIN IN OBA MAO LAND
Posted by Cpocerl, January 22, 2010. |
|
This comes from New Media Journal |
|
Previously on the IPT blog we stressed the need for the Defense Department's Islamic Chaplaincy program to adopt a stricter vetting process, citing historically radical imams who have served in the program. Now the same can be said for the chaplaincy program for the Illinois State Police. The Mosque Foundation website reports that Sheikh Kifah Mustapha recently completed a four day training session in Springfield, Illinois to become the first certified Muslim chaplain for the Illinois State Police. Mustapha's name appears on a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas financing trail, which ended with sweeping convictions in November of 2008. On this list he is identified as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. According to the indictment in the HLF trial, the "Muslim Brotherhood is an international Islamic fundamentalist organization" that is "committed to the globalization of Islam through social engineering and violent jihad." It created the Palestine Committee with a "designed purpose to support HAMAS" politically and financially. A 1991 internal memo to Palestine Committee members reveals that members of the committee intended to further the Muslim Brotherhood's goals "on the American front." Mustapha appeared on the list due to his positions with HLF and Hamas' U.S. propaganda arm, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). The IAP also wasa component in the Palestine Committee's Hamas-support network. In a deposition for the civil litigation Boim v. Quranic Literacy Institute Kifah Mustapha explained that he was a "registered agent for HLF in Illinois" from the mid 1990s until 2001 when HLF's assets were frozen. During this time Mustapha raised money for HLF. During the deposition Mustapha also described himself as a former member of a volunteer committee for the IAP beginning in the early 1990s. As a volunteer, he "distributed flyers" and helped prepare for "festivals or conventions." Those meetings often featured incendiary rhetoric and skits portraying Hamas violence against Israelis. Additionally Mustapha said that he donated money to HLF and "maybe" IAP. In addition to his work with the HLF and IAP, Mustapha has helped raise money for other U.S. Muslim Brotherhood front groups. Mustapha has raised money for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) which is under fire for its origins in the IAP and is also listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial. As recently as March of 2009, at a Dearborn, Michigan CAIR event, Mustapha helped raise $130,000 for CAIR. He also helped raise over $150,000 at a 2007 CAIR Chicago fundraiser. He has also raised money for the Muslim American Society (MAS) during a 2005 Chicago event. It's not clear whether the Illinois State Police knew about these connections and didn't care, or whether it failed to adequately research Mustapha's background. Either raises serious concerns about who will counsel the state's Muslim troopers. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
SAUDI PRINCESS: THE SHI'ITES INJECTED PAGAN CUSTOMS INTO ISLAM
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 22, 2010. |
|
This is Special Dispatch No. 2764 of the Memri series on Democratization in the Arab and Muslim World. Arab TV Debate: Do the Arab Peoples Share the Blame with Arab Rulers for the Decline of the Nation? Contact MEMRI at memri@memri.org. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request. |
|
Against the backdrop of the ongoing tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between Sunnis and Shi'ites throughout the Middle East, Saudi Princess Basma bint Sa'ud bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz wrote an article in the Saudi daily Al-Madina, in which she condemned the rites performed by the Shi'ites on the Day of 'Ashura, calling them "pagan." Following are excerpts from Al-Madina (Saudi Arabia), January 4, 2010. The Shi'ite 'Ashura Rituals Are "Among the Ugliest and Most Primitive Pagan Rites Banned by the Prophet" "'Allah, bless our master Muhammad, his family and all his companions.' That is what we [Muslims utter] after every prayer, every [quote from the] Sunna, and every [performance of a religious] commandment. However, every year for the last few centuries, [some] Muslims have been [doing things] that are at odds with this. "The Sunnis mark the Day of 'Ashura by fasting, in accordance with the teachings of their Prophet. They [mark] this holy month [of Muharram] by fasting, and by benefiting from the merit and internalizing the lesson of [this month]. In contrast, we see our brothers in some of the other Islamic sects [i.e. the Shi'ites, marking the Day of 'Ashura by] running around hysterically while screaming and shouting, as though they do not know that Allah commanded [us] to keep our voices down, even while praying... "We Muslims regard the martyrdom of Hussein [son of 'Ali], may he rest in peace, as a tale that holds a lesson for us and for all generations — past, present and future. But his story and his teachings, and those of his grandfather the Prophet [Muhammad] and his entire family, are far removed from the deeds of some [Muslims] whom we see on television, in the press and in nauseating images on the Internet, and from [the behavior of these Muslims] on the Day [of 'Ashura], which is supposed to be a day of humility, calm, reflection, fasting, [performance of] duties, and taking of lessons from the injustice and aggression that were suffered by [Hussein and his family] at the end of their lives... "These [Shi'ite] disciples take to the streets by the thousands and scour [their own flesh] with chains and sticks. They spill their own blood in the name of [Hussein] — the Martyr of Islam, the grandson of the Prophet and the Master of the Youth of Paradise — whose teachings made no mention of these despicable customs of [self-] flagellation. [In fact, these customs] are among the ugliest and most primitive pagan rites banned by the Prophet. "Thanks to the sound nature with which God has endowed us, and from our reading of the Sunna and of the history of the Prophet's family, we know that these rites are all pagan customs that were injected into Islam, [and which are] like a sword that divides our ranks, our teachings, our identity and our beliefs... so that we cease to be one nation, as our Prophet commanded us, and do not live in peace, which is at the heart of Islam..." "At a Time When Our Prophet is Cursed and Attacked [by Westerners]... [The Shi'ites Are] Preoccupied with Bemoaning the Fate of His Grandson" "Doesn't our natural inclination induce us to adhere to the teachings of the Prophet, to the Koran and to the Sunna, [instead of following] those who betrayed the faith, deified 'Ali and his sons, and cursed the companions of the Prophet?... "At a time when our Prophet is cursed and attacked [by Westerners], and films insulting him are distributed, [we see] our brothers in some of the [other Islamic] schools [i.e. the Shi'ites] preoccupied with bemoaning the fate of his grandson. They have forgotten that the Prophet is the core! "Hussein's [last] will was for [all of us] to adhere to the teachings of his grandfather. The enemies of Islam [i.e., the Shi'ites] were sowed among us centuries ago, and they divided our ranks and permitted what is forbidden — and all this in the name of the Prophet's family. "[The Prophet] Muhammad bin 'Abdallah and his family are innocent of all the blood that has been spilled in their name, and of all the forbidden innovations that were ascribed to their teachings. Isn't it time to wake up and repent? "Let us unite and defend our Prophet in the face of the [non-Muslim] enemy. [Let us] support him in word, deed, thought and by following his Sunna. Let us avoid playing into the hands of those who wish to divide and weaken us so that our voice is not heard and we do not unite into a force that will awe the world. [Let us not play into the hands of those who prefer it if] nobody respects our opinion, our religion, and our Prophet." Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
|
PRESIDENT OBAMA'S OLD/NEW PLAN: RESOLUTION TO KILL THE RESOLUTION
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, January 22, 2010. |
|
The headline of Avi Yellin's article in January 22, 2010's Israel National News/Arutz Sheva read: "Mitchell Pitches a New 5-Point Plan for Middle East Negotiations." The story reported that, according to Arab sources linked to alleged "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas's latter-day Arafatians of Fatah and quoted by the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, President Obama's Special Middle East Envoy, George Mitchell is unveiling a five-point plan to force parties back to the negotiating table and press Israel to retreat back to the '49 armistice line — not border — which existed between Israel and Jordan until Israel was attacked by the latter in 1967. Recall that President Obama had previously endorsed the earlier Saudi "Peace" (of the grave) Plan prior to his election and afterwards as well. He repeatedly stated that Israel would be crazy to reject such "peace." In a nutshell, that plan calls for Israel to retreat to its '49 armistice lines on all fronts (think the Golan Heights, from which Syria bombarded Israeli civilians for decades, as well as Judea and Samaria — aka, only as of the 20th century, the "West Bank), making it 9-15 miles wide in its strategic waist, where most of its population and industry are located, again. Additionally, it must next accept millions of allegedly "returning" jihadi Arab refugees raised on murderous Jew-hatred for decades. Recall that more Jews fled from "Arab" lands than vice-versa after a half dozen Arab states attacked a resurrected, microscopic Israel in 1948. In return, Israel supposedly will get a vague "normalization" — after giving up all the concrete tangibles minimally required just to be able to exist if the Arabs renege for whatever reason they will surely find. While I didn't see mention of the returning refugees in the short, new article mentioned above, recall that this stipulation was at first played down years ago as well. Nonetheless, it remains an integral part of that plan to this very day — one which Abbas insists he will never retreat from. The reality, of course, is that this allegedly "new" Obama initiative is nothing more than the same old Saudi version of the Arabs' well-known, openly admitted destruction-in-stages "Trojan Horse" schemes as described in direct quotes from earlier Arab "moderates" themselves. Let's take a stroll down memory lane to see how we got to where we are today... At a State Department briefing on January 9, 1992, spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler was asked about accepting the word "Palestinian" when referring to the territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem. She replied that the U.S. had accepted this usage since 1979, but that it was for "descriptive" purposes only...Typical Foggy Folk gobbledygook. When later asked, "if it's a long-standing policy, why wasn't the word 'Palestinian' used in Security Council Resolution 338...or in 242 which underpins the current peace process?," Tutwiler replied," I do not know... I'll be happy to ask somebody for you." Some five years later, in a May 21, 1997 briefing, spokesman Nicholas Burns focused on the "settlements" issue...a harbinger of things to come. Is it not "interesting" that in numerous State Department briefings over the decades — and in all the discussions and elaborations which have ensued to this very day with the Obama/Clinton foreign policy team running the American show — the ties never seem to be made between those settlements and the spirit and intent of UNSC Resolution 242, the basis for peace making between Arab and Jew in the region? Perhaps a coincidence...most probably, not. It seems to have taken Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to remind his State Department counterparts in an August 6, 2002 speech, "If you have a country that is a sliver and you can see three sides of it from a high hotel building, you've got to be careful what you give away and to whom you give it to." Much has been written about 242. Some claim it's ambiguous...It's not. Adopted in the wake of the June 1967 War, started when Arabs blockaded Israel at the Straits of Tiran — a casus belli — and other well-documented hostile acts, 242 is as famous for what it did not say as for what it did. As anyone who has studied this subject knows, among other things (and besides the references above), there was no mention of a total withdrawal by Israel to the 1949, U.N.-imposed armistice lines...lines which were never meant to be final political borders. This was reinforced by a call for the creation of "secure and recognized", defensible borders to replace those lines...lines which turned Israel into a 9-15 mile wide sub- rump state — forever at its neighbors' mercy, an easy target for terror, invasion, and prone to be sliced in half. A reading of Lord Caradon, Eugene Rostow, Arthur Goldberg, and other architects of the final, accepted draft of 242 (not the French and Russian version) clearly shows that Israel was not expected to return to the deadly, absurd status quo ante. As Ambassador Dore Gold and others have pointed out, President Lyndon Johnson summarized the situation this way on June 19, 1967: " A return to the situation on June 4 (the day before outbreak of war) was not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities." Johnson then called for "new recognized boundaries that would provide security against terror, destruction, and war. He was then backed up by General Earle Wheeler of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and many others as well. Recall that on the West Bank, Israel took these lands in a defensive war from an illegal occupant — Transjordan — which subsequently renamed itself Jordan as a result of its 1949 illegal acquisition of non-apportioned lands of the original 1920 Mandate west of the Jordan River that Jews, as well as Arabs and others, were legally entitled to live on. Indeed, Jews have thousands of years of history connecting them to these lands and owned property and lived there up until their massacres by Arabs in the 1920s and 1930s. Additionally, many, if not most, of the Arabs themselves were also relative newcomers, pouring in — as the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, Colonial Secretary and later Prime Minister Winston Churchill's writings, and other documentation show — from Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere in the region. General Wheeler's document also envisioned Israel acquiring an adequate buffer zone atop the West Bank mountain ridge, in command of the high ground, giving it at least some semblance of in depth defense. During President Richard Nixon's term in office, official U.S. policy seemed to erode somewhat vis-a-vis Johnson's position. Whether this was due to Nixon himself or the State Department's Arabists (who fought President Truman and opposed Israel's rebirth in the first place) reasserting themselves, on December 9, 1969 Secretary of State William Rogers allowed for only "insubstantial alterations" regarding the 1949 armistice lines. This is echoed by the Obama White House and the Foggy Folks today. After having to answer to the late Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson and others as well, soon afterwards — until recently — the U.S. refrained from such deviation from both the wording and intent of 242. Moving ahead, and once again utilizing Ambassador Gold's useful summary, here's what President Ronald Reagan had to say about all of this on September 1, 1982: "In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely 10-miles wide...the bulk of Israel's population within artillery range of hostile armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again." In 1988, Secretary of State George Shultz declared, "Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders." A rare exception to the State Department's typical attitude, Shultz fought his own crew to give Israel a fair shake. In the 1990s, during the Clinton years (despite the later pressure brought to bear on Prime Minister Ehud Barak to sweetin' the pot by offering Arafat far more than 242 called for at Camp David and Taba in 2000), official policy, as expressed by Secretary of State Warren Christopher in 1997, was that, "Israel is entitled to secure and defensible borders," a la 242. Yet Clinton undermined Israel from this point forward. While Arafat rejected the offers, the latter became the expected starting point for any future "negotiations"... i.e., Jew arm-twisting. So, what happened between the days of Reagan and his latter day successors and son of his vice-president? From Reagan's 1982 statement that Israel would never be expected to return to its former vulnerable existence, we later came to President George W. Bush's May 26, 2005 White House statement that the 1949 armistice lines must be the basis of peace between Israel and the 22nd Arab state — second Arab one in "Palestine" — which Bush and his new successor plan to create. Yet, just a year before, he echoed Reagan himself, stating virtually the opposite of his May 26th statement in a much publicized letter he gave to Prime Minister Sharon. As Rogers and Hammerstein's King of Siam said, "Tis a puzzlement!" Indeed. Yet, there was one constant ingredient that seemed to have constantly been at work for the erosion of support for both the vision and the spirit of 242: James A. Baker, III. During Bush II's dad's days in office, best pal Secretary of State Baker promised the butcher of Damascus, Hafez al-Assad, a total Israeli withdrawal from the strategically important (and once part of the original Palestine Mandate) Golan Heights...his personal idea about what to do with 242. Baker has been in the background for decades, especially since his close friends, the Bushes, gained ascendancy in American politics. His law firm represents Saudi and other Arab interests in this country and typifies how people move through the revolving doors of businesses tied to Arab interests back and forth into government positions — especially those in Foggy Bottom. Baker's law partner, Robert Jordan, was appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia by President Bush in 2001. Casper Weinberger and many others have been through these lucrative doors as well. Most often, their influence has spelled trouble for an Israel trying to get a fair hearing and has been involved in eroding such positive developments as Resolution 242 and so forth. In a Time magazine article back on February 13, 1989, Baker spoke of Israel as being a turkey to be hunted and carefully stalked. He has referred to Jews working for him and doing his bidding (including the recent American Ambassador to Israel) as his "Jew boys." But Baker is best known for his following piece of wisdom: " F _ _ _ the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway!" And if you believe that Baker is alone among the power brokers with these attitudes, I have two bridges to sell you. The team running President Obama's current foreign policy is a Democratic clone of the above when it comes to such issues. Obama's admiration, friendship, key appointments, and so forth of the likes of Farrakhan, Rezko, Prof. Khalidi, Rev. Wright, Jessie Hymietown Jackson, Zbig Brezinski, Apartheid Israel Carter, Robert Malley, George Soros, General McPeak, Khalid al-Mansour, etc. and so forth have to be beyond the coincidental. That, indeed, says it all regarding what Israel can expect from such circles. If you wonder why the vision of justice in 242 has been replaced by a constant bickering over settlements instead — never tying the two together — look no further. President Bush's winning a second term in office and his appointment of Baker as his Special Middle East Envoy combined with the recharged influence of the State Department's old and new generation Arabists and the Bush family's massive oil connections to negate any alleged influence of Evangelical Christians seeking justice for Israel. And since Bush II couldn't run again, he had nothing to lose. Things took a turn for the worse with the election of President Obama. Under his watch, and with Hillary Clinton as his appointed Secretary of State, the assurances regarding key issues such as the return of refugees and no withdrawal to the '49 armistice lines that George W. Bush gave to Prime Minister Sharon several years back (in that famous letter which accompanied the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza) have now either been denied as even existing or considered as a joke. Only time will tell how this will all play out. But, at this point, Israel will have to depend on the integrity, courage, and fortitude of its own leaders, expecting them to act as the leaders of any other nation faced with the same circumstances would act. Only they can insist that Israel gets the justice Resolution 242 promised it. And, while it would be nice to have support from elsewhere, that's the way it should be anyway. Let's hope Prime Minister Netanyahu is up to the task. 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. His recent book is entitled "The Quest for Justice: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Greater Perspective" (See http://q4j-middle-east.com). Contact him at honigman6@msn.com or go to his website: http://geraldahonigman.com/blog.php |
|
LINKING PEDOPHILES AND "TEA-BAGGING" IS NOT CUTE OR FUNNY
Posted by Kyle-Anne Shiver, January 22, 2010. |
|
Dear Readers, First, thank you to all of you who have sent me notes during my brief sabbatical. I appreciate them more than you will ever know. Second, I am sending you this alert with a warning. I have finally posted my own slant on the "Tea-Bagger" controversy. I have done this with grave considerations, much thought and many prayers. This is a piece I had hoped I would never even think about having to write. I chose writing about politics in part because I believed it would be safe from sexually abusive entanglements. Sadly, that safety zone is no longer there, due to the grave insensitivity and brazen behavior of leftist pundits and politicians. Please read this article with great care. It will shock you. It will probably anger you. It may even cause you to regard me, personally, in far less regard than you have in the past. Rest assured that I have given much thought to these possibilities. I posted this piece because the "tea-bagging" epithet will simply not go away. In fact, it has become even more widespread and nearly ubiquitous. Well, if liberals want to do this, then they need to know the full ramifications of their actions. For your information, if you are readers of American Thinker, I attempted to have this piece published there in response to a blog yesterday (on American Thinker), which encouraged conservatives to pick up the "tea-bagging" phrase and use it against liberals. The editor refused publication and felt that my piece was off the mark and personally motivated. I have resigned from American Thinker because I believe — strongly — otherwise. If my piece saves even ONE CHILD from enduring what I did, then it is worth it to me to go public with it. I may not have much in life, but I count my principles as the most important things among every worldly blessing. I welcome your comments now. My soul is laid bare for you all to judge. Here is the article, which caused my resignation from American Thinker on the same principle that ruined my nationally syndicated column with Creators: |
|
Reader Beware! This article is for adults only. It's not for the timid, squeamish or otherwise easily offended reader either. It contains explicit, graphic sexual descriptions. Any reader who objects to such subjects in the public forum should send a special note of complaint to mainstream media outlets and liberal politicians, as they are responsible for making this discussion absolutely necessary for the protection of our children. Public commentators with huge, primetime audiences now use the phrase, "tea-bagging," with utter impunity. Formerly respectable newspapers print columns by liberals using the phrase with perverse humor. NPR has even used donor dollars to produce a video making fun of the language of "tea bag." The president of the United States has had the unrivaled depravity to joke about "tea-bagging" protesters. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has called political adversaries by the epithet. Some conservatives have suggested adopting the phrase and turning it on political opponents. I wonder whether any of these adults have considered a far uglier ramification. Using sexual innuendo and double entendres is very tricky, quite risky business. And all grown-ups ought to know that anything sexual, which has been done between adults, has also been done to children. Pedophilia has become nearly downright epidemic in this culture. We are living in a society saturated by unbridled sex. A new generation of pedophiles is now ginning up and getting all possible encouragement by a media and body politic drunk with power. If so-called decent people and organizations wish to continue using the phrase, "tea-bagging," in formerly respectable public forums, then they ought to know exactly what they are doing and how much grievous damage it is causing to those of us who have actually been "tea-bagged" by our pedophilic tormenters. And how much damage they may be doing — at this very minute — to children being "tea-bagged" by sexual predators in the present. You see, "tea-bagging" is the pedophile's very best friend and ally. I know this because it was used against me. I've studied the issue of childhood sexual abuse and know that this vile deed against children is not as uncommon as some believe. In fact, according to the most recent findings, about one in every four American women was sexually abused in some fashion as a child. About one in five American men were as well. Few of us talk about it openly; I'm sure you can understand why. Now, let's examine "tea-bagging," which has become the liberal punditry's favorite insult against conservatives. Are they, in reality, encouraging pedophiles? For those, who still remain blissfully unaware, "tea-bagging" is the homosexual slang for a man placing his scrotum in the mouth of another man. It's meant to demonstrate domination and has sadomasochistic overtones. Perhaps the term itself did originate among adult homosexual males, but the act is, in reality, the pedophile's diabolical delight. Writing as one who was, as a child, repeatedly "tea-bagged" by a bisexual pedophile, I can honestly say that every time I read or hear the expression, I still — to this very day — tremble with fear and self-loathing. "Tea-Bagging" is scathingly brilliant in its tri-fold purpose. First, the act defiles natural human sexuality and removes the beauty with which God imbued it. Second, the act renders the victim immediately silent. The victim's best defense against a sexual predator is speaking the truth to alert other adults. The simpleminded act of "tea-bagging" quite reliably squelches a child's screaming and calls for help. The victim's only ally is her mouth; "tea-bagging" is the pedophile's perfect solution to this thorny problem. Third, the act of "tea-bagging" has the rather remarkable effect of rendering the child victim immediately submissive. First, there is the physical size differential. The large, adult male scrotum in the delicate, small child's mouth (and usually, covering the nose as well) gives the immediate impression to the child that she is being smothered. The torment and defilement of the act, perpetrated upon an innocent child, veritably ensures that the child will remain acquiescent to the predator's future actions. And there you have it. This is hardly the stuff of jokes. The pedophile uses "tea-bagging" to bring another innocent to the dark side, her only defense — her voice — silenced in shame. Shame. It stalks its victims for their whole lives. No matter where we go or what we do or how much we accomplish, the memory of defilement by the tormentor's "tea-bag" never leaves. These memories are recorded, along with the trauma, in the senses and remain entrenched. The shame seems nearly imbedded in the cells, as though it has become part and parcel of one's soul, not to be completely extinguished until one's passing from this life. Shame on our Country for allowing this kind of perversity to enter the public forum. Shame on every enabler of this evil, whether on the public airwaves or in print media. Every decent American ought to be fiercely outraged by this blatant encouragement to pedophile perpetrators. You see, the pedophile plays adroit mind games with his victim, always attempting to persuade him or her that these acts are not only acceptable, but fun. Victims, both former and present, are now being doubly abused by this public spectacle. Nightmares. Flashbacks. Difficulty eating. Difficulty speaking. Self-imposed solitude, the result of our everlasting fear of people. These are just some of the milder, most personal trappings of adult life for the survivors of childhood sexual abuse. For the little child victims, who now — at this very minute — are being subjected to the torture of "tea-bagging" by sexual predators, I can only pray and weep. And speak out on their behalf. As so-called adults continue to joke about these children's agonizing torment on television, these young victims are being doubly abused — now. Just imagine the anguished confusion of an eight year old victim of a sexual predator, who accesses Urban Dictionary, identifies with the secret deed, then hears commentators joking about it on TV. The child understands it is no joke, but looks to adults for clarification and understanding. When adults joke about this kind of torment, the resulting confusion in the child sows seeds for later mental breakdowns, drug abuse, life-threatening promiscuity, suicidal thinking and acts, sexual criminal activity. And on and on the list goes. Children are being victimized every day under our very noses. Right here. Right now. Perhaps even behind the closed doors of the lovely home next door. Pedophiles are found in every race, creed and socio-economic group. They cross all boundaries and are often those whom one would least suspect of the heinous crime. A teacher. A priest or minister. A father. A scout leader. A neighbor. An uncle. A brother. A coach. A TV personality or movie star. Pedophiles thrive in darkness and prey on the most vulnerable among us, our precious children. Sadly, some children who are thusly defiled, grow up to identify with their abusers. Some of the very people making the most fun with this sexual slang were quite likely child victims, who now attempt to hide their shame in either joking about it or actually perpetrating the crime on a new generation. There is no way to know for sure. Only about 3% of those who commit sexual offenses are reported and eventually convicted. It is a crime that thrives in secrecy. And pedophiles always know that these odds are on their side, not their victim's side. At the very, very least, these liberal enablers must be apprised of the true extent of grievous injury they have brought — and continue to bring — to scores of victims through their adolescent insensitivity. And no conservative ought to even consider adopting the phrase, for in truth, its use defiles not the intended butt of the joke, but the perpetrator. Anyone who thinks "tea-bagging" is a cute joke, needs to think twice. Anyone who thinks calling his political foes "tea-baggers" is funny, might want to reconsider. For, in reality, pedophilia is no laughing matter. For more information on childhood sexual abuse, here is a good website:
This appeared on Shiver's website and is archived at
|
|
PUNISH US ALL
Posted by Dov Gilor, January 22, 2010. |
|
Every time a Moslem terrorist does something to threaten the civilized world, the insane reaction of our liberal societies is to punish everyone else. As a result of the attempt several years ago of an airplane passenger trying to detonate an explosive hidden in his shoe, every airline passenger is required to remove his shoes and pass them through an x-ray device. It is common in airports to see long lines of passengers walking barefoot or in their stocking feet, queued up and waiting to have their shoes checked. Instead of forcing all Moslems to fly barefoot, every single passenger is inconvenienced to avoid racial profiling. Now that a Moslem terrorist has hidden explosives under his trouser legs, we will most probably witness a demand in the near future that men remove their pants before being allowed to embark on an airline flight. The Moslem terrorist also went to the bathroom an hour (was it exactly 60 minutes?) before the flight landed so, instead of restricting the new rule to Moslems, no passenger will be allowed to go to the bathroom one hour (exactly?) before a flight lands. We are lucky that the Moslem terrorist did not go to the bathroom three hours before the end of the flight! The terrorist also took a pillow and carried it in front of him as he left the bathroom. All pillows and blankets will now be removed an hour prior to the end of a flight. At a recent family gathering two months before Purim, my three sons, my wife and I met for our monthly family cream cheese and lox fest and began to explore alternative solutions to this need to punish all airline passengers for the crimes of the Moslem terrorists. Hopefully the airlines will not take our suggestions too seriously, but if they do, please remember that you saw them first here in the Jewish Press. The first rule, of course, will be that men (maybe also women) will no longer be allowed to wear long pants on flights. Kilts will become very fashionable and shorts in every style and color, especially on flights from Florida and California, will become required attire for the international jet set. I wonder if trousers will be forbidden also on Airforce 1 and private flights. See-through transparent slacks for men and women may become the next big seller and may be a good investment for someone with money to burn. The limits of the transparency will be will have to be determined by airline officials in consultation with TV comedians. A steward or stewardess will be stationed in each public restroom and closed-circuit television will be set up in each restroom to be monitored by the pilots and airplane crew. To avoid the possibility of the terrorist blowing up the plane over densely populated areas, all flights between New York and California will be routed south over the ocean to Panama, over the Panama Canal, and north to California. No flights will be allowed between American cities and large population areas. Buses and trains will be allowed, until a Moslem terrorist threatens to blow up a bus or train in the USA. Special hand-holds will be erected above every seat in the aircraft and passengers will have to sit during the hour before landing with his hands above his or her head. Men and women will not be permitted to fly on the same flight and all passengers will be required to fly nude or in their under garments. Special flights will be arranged for residents of nudist colonies. Moslems will be required to fly in separate flights using disposable light-weight aircraft. The most effective solution mentioned and the most peaceful was to fill a plane, after takeoff, with sleeping gas, instead of oxygen, and to require all passengers to be in a deep sleep until the flight is over. I am sure that many of you can come up with your own innovative solution to punish the entire traveling public instead of, G-d forbid, profiling, as the Israelis do. Everyone knows that a little old lady in a wheelchair can be dangerous, especially if she is the tenth check-in passenger. Send comments to dov@gilor.com |
|
POLICE COMMISH RAY KELLY TALKS NYC SECURITY AND ASSOCIATED ISSUES
Posted by Marion D.S. Dreyfus, January 22, 2010. |
|
Wanted to share that on Thursday evening, 21 January, 2009, I had the privilege of listening to and questioning Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. With 25 commands in the police arena over the past 40 years, there is probably no more competent expert in the security and viability of New York City. His tour around the security and safety concerns and considerations of the city was encouraging: We are now the No. 1 visitor place in the US, beating Orlando (and that ain't Mickey Mouse). Last year, we entertained 46 mm guests here. We have security arrangements for bridges and tunnels; camera surveillance on the southern district, and river to river surveillance from 30th to 60th streets. We have trained men and women with a phalanx of exotic languages in various areas of the city, gathering intel and keeping tabs on local areas. More important to us: We have NYC trained police reps and agents in most of the important cities of the world, all of whom are ready to interact at a moment's notice should terrorism or other emergency present. We have dozens of special force police currently helping in the Haiti temblor rescue effort. He spoke at length about the differences between the huge financial center, Mumbai, attacked in Nov., 2008, and the great financial nexus of NYC. Distinct from our city, highly prepared and ready for attack, Mumbai has antiquated equipment, old or no weaponry, and the British Bobby-style gentlemanly police work that rendered them immobilized during the three-day 10-man terror attack. We have people in hotels, the exits and floor-plans of our major hotels are on disc, and police use these discs as training demos should there be any kind of hotel attack. Kelly outlined briefly the 15 or so attacks of a major nature that have been attempted, and thwarted, since 2001. Many I already knew, because i keep tuned in to such events or near-disasters, and some we had not heard of before. All could have disabled the city for days, weeks or months, and killed hundreds, thousands or more. We have armed and constant surveillance on the harbors, and radiation and chemo/biological detection sophistication to detect suitcase nukes and other ordnance that might present trouble. Kelly neutrally reported that with the advent of the upcoming civilian trial of KSM and 4 of his terrorist murderers from our friends in islamic places, the police are ready with choppers, aerial reconnaissance, overtime cops and a variety of strategies to cope with potential daily or weekly or annual threats to garner hype for their cause. He stressed that the cost, per annum, is between $215-250 mm per year; they will be operational should there be a need, but only if the AG and president make the above funds available to the police force, and the cost is not borne by city coffers. He hypothesized the trial, if there is one in NYC, could take between two and four years. This accords with what I have learnt from legal expert and former Assistant US terrorist prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who has five years of significant experience prosecuting the first WTC attack, 1993, terror-trail detainees Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman and 11 other accused for the Southern District. He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed US embassies in both Kenya and Tanzania, resigning from the Justice Department in 2003. He authored `Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.' I asked about the festering disturbance presented by the 'civilianization' of what almost universal opinion adjudges ought to be a military trial for the 9/11 apprehendee, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his collegial terror comrades in weaponry and explosives. There is no knowledge on his part as of yet — they have asked for 45-day advance notice when the five terrorists will be released from Guantanamo for incarceration next to the court in lower Manhattan. "No word yet," he says. Kelly could not suggest how the disgruntled public could reverse the decision made without recourse or consultation with Kelly or any police official in the city. No one consulted the city in any way, he says quietly. One of the reasons provided for prosecuting the case of the terrorists of 9/11 in Lower Manhattan is that the holding facility is directly next door to the court venue, requiring no vehicular transport to and from the holding facility. This is apparently different from the other four loci considered by the AG and the White House, and cuts down on the potential for mayhem, local attack, terrorist attempt to free the prisoners, or traffic accident. The occupancy for Kelly's presentation was SRO, about almost 300 people in business attire; the meeting was held at a comfortable space on Fifth and 51st, at 7:30 pm Thursday, 21 January. Kelly speaks rarely. His talk lasted about an hour, read from prepared notes. The NY Police Department force is the largest in the world for a single city. It is now the safest, and the crime-rate has descended steadily for decades. Since 2001, the NYPD has shrunk from attrition and other forces some 6,000 police officers, while still covering the five boroughs and the huge upsurge in bruited — and undisclosed — terror plots. They manage with a shrunken force by assigning officers to working overtime. As an example of how much safer the city is now from its recent past, since 2001, with 7.3 mm city residents, there were 2241 murders, he recounted; this year, with all of 8.4 mm residents in the city, the number of murders was only 641. Spontaneous applause greeted this. There is the possibility, in answer to my question, that this civvy trial will not occur at all; instead, current changed circumstances represented by the unheralded, smashing win by new Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) might signal a shift to more conventional treatment of killer terrorists by Attorney General Eric Holder and the current resident of the White House. This was asserted Thursday morning on FNC by the former mayor, Rudy Giuliani ~ whose current work, it should be recalled, is as a security analyst for numerous countries in the western hemisphere. My next question concerned the possible trajectory of stopping the downtown mosque now being stealthily planned for two blocks from the footprint of the destroyed WTC. Though we who are engaged in stopping the progress of this mosque at all costs are all too aware of the threat it presents to the residents of NYC, surprisingly, Ray Kelly confessed he was completely unaware of this developing problem. He asked, in fact, if it were in the newspapers. When we replied that it had not yet appeared in the papers, he said he would check it out. At least 25 people came over afterward to say they agreed with my question that New Yorkers indeed do not want this KSM trial in NYC. Many also expressed concern and upset at the possibility of a huge triumphalist mosque cheek by jowl with the muslim-caused destruction of the WTC acreage and buildings. Kelly left quietly, as he had come in; only one bodyguard accompanied Ray Kelly as he left, modestly acknowledging our standing ovation. Marion Dreyfus is a writer and travelor; she has taught English in China on the university level. She can be contacted at mdsdm@rcn.com |
|
IS ISRAEL SURRENDERING HER SOVEREIGNTY?
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 21, 2010. |
|
Let's start with one of the beginnings which was to remove Israel's Sovereignty. Some will remember the Oslo Accords fiasco which Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin created when they met secretly with Yassir Arafat and the Norwegians in Oslo. Their meetings were kept secret because — as Yossi Beilin revealed at an International Conference for the Winston Institute for the Study of Prejudice — that they "didn't want to make it public because the Israeli people would have stopped 'us'." Us was Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin. Their plan was to advance the "plan" far enough so that when it was finally made public, the Israeli Knesset would have to ratify it because the U.S. and the E.U. were behind it and they had no choice. As planned, it reluctantly passed as the infamous Oslo plan which turned out to be a disaster for the Israeli people — We were cornered as planned by Peres and Beilin with the State Department playing its usual role as 'spoiler'. Moving on to Stage Two: Recall the plan offered or rather imposed by President George W. Bush that was called the "Road Map". This proclamation was issued as if President Bush was an imperial King to a vassal state that was somehow owned and subservient to whatever Royal Commands issued from Washington. Israel was treated as merely something like Puerto Rico or Hawaii or a 'de facto' protectorate of the U.S., with a Presidential team dedicated to appeasing Arab oil nations. Some will recall President George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker III with his team of Court Jews, Dennis Ross, Aaron David Miller and Daniel Kurtzer. They were the point men in evolving plans on how to force Israel into compliance first under President George Herbert Walker Bush. Ross, Miller and Kurtzer who were called Baker's "Jew Boys". That same 'advisory group' continued under Sr. Bush's son, George W. There were always others who ran the "Shadow Government" who were closely tied to Saudi Arabia and the Oil Gulf States. Keep in mind that most of these same people seem to have a permanent home on the Presidential Advisory Group — no matter who the President happens to be. To continue: You might be asking yourself what nation would accept dangerous marching orders from another nation — unless they were either conquered or that obedient nation at it highest levels of leadership were deeply in collusion and accepted the marching orders called "The Road Map". Well, that was more or less past history except for the repeated track record that was developing, called "re-partitioning". First, there was the under-the-table Oslo affair. Then there was the 'arrangement' for "The Road Map". We all recall Washington's recruitment of the once great defender of Israel wherein the warrior Sharon followed instructions to abandon Gush Katif/Gaza with Ehud Olmert completing the betrayal. We frequently hear from President Barack Hussein Obama and his crew, complaining about everything that's going wrong is all the Bush family's fault. Recall that Obama has pretty much the same anti-Israel advisors that Father Bush had, that his son had and that Obama has now: Ross, Miller, Kurtzer, later Martin Indyk, Baker III, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and a host of dedicated Arabists who needed Israel to capitulate from the inside in order to appease the Arabs and expand their oil interests. All of the above deny any hostility toward the Jewish State of Israel and they assure us that what they are doing is an effort for "Peace" and that it's good for the Jewish State. There were, of course, personal biases — involved in a range from ethnic hostility, well-known in Washington, from the U.S. State Department and the Israeli Leftists who were anxious to divest large tracts of the Jews ancient Biblical heartland to the Arabs. That side of the equation would include but not be limited to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Ehud Barak, Arik Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni among others. Let's pick up the trail: Now, Barack Hussein Obama replicates these prior plans that of diktats out of the Oval Office which mandate that Israel must obey his commands...for the good of all — other than Israel. We are already familiar with Obama's 'diktats' to Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu to cease/freeze all construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. He included Jerusalem but, temporarily backed off when there were signs of strong resistance from Netanyahu's Likud Party. But, now we understand that Obama and his team will issue something like the Bush "Road Map". Clearly, Obama has become, or always was, an adversary of the Jewish Nation/State — in deference (or submission) to Islam and Obama is pressing for America to separate from Israel. Doubtlessly, radical Islamists already in America, courtesy of the U.S. State Department, can receive their orders to start synchronize Terror attacks across our nation while Obama insists Israel cease her valiant fight against Terror. Obama's expected "White Paper" does not have a name yet but, be assured, Obama's Court Jews will think of something catchy and false. Here I refer to Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, and of course, Baker's original "Jew-Boys" — especially Dennis Ross who is accompanying George Mitchell on his Mid East Peace marathon. It may be assumed that Netanyahu and Ehud Barak complete the circle of players — just as their predecessors accepted their role as under-the-table collaborators. We must also assume that Obama's proclamation (like "The Road Map") will include forced evacuation of 300,000 Jewish men, women and children from Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights as well as all those parts of Jerusalem (north, east and south) that Jordan illegally occupied and desecrated for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. Obama's 'Diktat' to Israel will mandate a retreat to the 1948 Armistice Lines, giving up water rights under the Judean/Samarian Hills and the Golan which comprises more than 2/3rds of Israel's fresh water. Building Terrorist nation is the same appeasement tried by the World's nations when they surrendered the Sudetenland to Adolph Hitler, hoping to appease him and halt his expansion across Europe. The next follow-on move of betrayal would be to introduce an occupying foreign force, called "Peace-Keepers" to assist the establishment of an Islamic Terrorist State. The idee fixee is to have such orders come from Washington and command obedience from the Knesset in any subsequent vote asked for by Netanyahu. In Chicago that's called a set-up or a "fix". I guess it's called something else in Washington and in Obama's office. The same scam has been repeated many times as I outlined before. Of course, other players are in on the scam of re-partitioning Israel into easily conquerable pieces. The U.N., E.U., the Russians, with the U.S. under Obama as coordinator as well as England and France as co-conspirators. An alive and thriving Israel upsets the Arab Muslims because they couldn't conquer her. They now insist that Israel must be conquered by American diktats and so-called diplomacy. The diplomacy part is recruiting Israeli Leftist leaders through threats, bribes and blackmail. The nations of the world (and especially American Arabists) insist on Treason by their mostly willing Israeli Leftist recruits. We await Obama's White Paper instructing Israel to break up her Land and intimidate Israel's people — while abandoning her sovereignty. Obama is playing the role "Pharaoh" — and you know what happened to him and Egypt! One more thought. Why is Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu attaching Israel's future, even her existence and sovereignty to the dimming star of a one-term failing President? 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 |
|
FROM ISRAEL: UNBELIEVABLE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 21, 2010. |
|
Because of the growing anarchy — the chaos and violence in the streets — occurring in Haiti, the UN has asked Israel to send a contingent of police. And so, 100 armed Israeli police officers will be joining a peace-keeping mission there. You can believe this. It is real news. Only unbelievable in the ironic sense of the word. ~~~~~~~~~~ Hamas West Bank representative, Aziz Dwaik, met yesterday in Hevron with influential UK millionaire David Martin Abrahams. In the course of the meeting, which was covered by Khaled Abu Toameh, Dwaik said that Hamas has accepted Israel's right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter calling for Israel's destruction. Now this is unbelievable in a literal sense. Anyone who is familiar with Hamas ideology, and who realizes that even the PLO and Fatah have not removed calls for Israel's destruction from their respective charters, would have trouble swallowing this. Dwaik sits in a different climate, in the "West Bank." It's different from Gaza, where Ismail Haniyeh — senior Hamas political leader recognized in Gaza as prime minister — sits, and from Damascus, where Khaled Mashaal — Hamas politburo head in exile — maintains his office. How much this affects the apparent moderation of what he said is difficult to determine. He is in touch with both Haniyeh and Mashaal, but did not explicitly say he was speaking on their behalf. What he did say is that both men have made statements agreeing to a Palestinian state within '67 lines. ~~~~~~~~~~ This is a dangerous ploy, for while I consider what Dwaik said to be unbelievable, and so will many of you, there are those willing to accept his word, and that of Haniyeh, and Mashaal. Dwaik's statement can be seen, as Abu Toameh pointed out, within the context of Hamas attempts to gain international recognition. And there are those, particularly within the EU, who may swallow this whole — eager to see the problems in this part of the world miraculously resolved. Dwaik, I will assume, understood whom he was addressing, for Abrahams is one of those eager to believe. This is what he said: "The fact that there is a possibility for recognition of Israel is a symbolic gesture. We can all look for good in people, and can all look for bad in people. I always look for the good. Oi vey. The thinking represented here (also unbelievable) is what has gotten the world into so much trouble. The refusal to grapple with unpalatable truths — to understand that there is evil that must be named evil. The eagerness to try, with blinders on, to transform what should be into reality that is. ~~~~~~~~~~ Before someone from the UK comes knocking on our door, telling us that Abrahams has said that Hamas leaders have moderated, and we should start talking to them, allow me to point out that recognition of Israel is never "symbolic." It is a very very real issue, and the recognition must extend to us as a Jewish state. I am quite safe in assuming neither Haniyeh nor Mashaal has ever offered this. Is Abraham's desire to help the people in Gaza dependent upon his perception of them as "good and well educated"? Would he be less eager to help if they were illiterate? You have, undoubtedly, noted the connect: because he wants to rescue them from their plight, he "trusts" Haniyeh. Unfortunately, he shies away from the fact that Haniyeh has major responsibility for the situation that the Gazans find themselves in. (That would require him to think bad of someone.) ~~~~~~~~~~ The issues raised here extend far beyond what Abrahams, as one individual, neglects to recognize with regard to Hamas. Regrettably, his thinking is typical of a far broader mindset. I recommend a briefing for the Global Law Forum of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, by Justus Reid Weiner and Dimitri Teresh. What they address is Amnesty International's predilection for "Forgetting the Real Culprits in Gaza." Amnesty International, of course, points its finger at us, without due attention to our rights under international law (for example, our right to close our own border) or Hamas's embrace of violence. This merits a read, as well, in order to gain a more accurate picture of life in Gaza, which is not the horror it is routinely represented as being.
~~~~~~~~~~ Jibril Rajoub, deputy-head of the Central Committee of Fatah, and former head of the PA security apparatus in the West Bank, has given an interview to a Tunisian newspaper. In this interview, he charges that when Fatah was negotiating reconciliation with Hamas, several American officials threatened that the US would boycott Fatah and the PA, should that unity with Hamas be achieved. As there is no outside corroboration, I cannot attest to the accuracy of this charge, but found it significant enough to share here. Do the Americans understand what is at the heart of Hamas well enough to recognize that its joining with Fatah would further undermine and not enhance chances (already close to non-existent) for peace? Perhaps. It's an interesting concept to ponder. My own take, however, is different. If this is true, I would suggest that it has to do with the Dayton-trained forces. The US is investing millions, as well as putting its prestige on the line, in training PA security forces under the direction of US Lt.-General Keith Dayton. These PA/Fatah security forces are supposed to combat Hamas. What happens if Fatah joins with the very group it is supposed to fight? It makes the brains in Washington who dreamed up this idea look like total idiots, and it represents a loss in terms of money and effort. I can see that the specter of this happening might move some US officials to make threats. There is no clue as to which "officials" were allegedly involved, and it is not clear as to whether Rajoub is suggesting their threats were official or off-the-record. ~~~~~~~~~~ Egypt has been central to negotiating efforts to bring reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, but in recent weeks Hamas-Egyptian tensions have flared considerably. There has been a built-in tension for some time, that was long kept on a back burner, because Egyptian interests are complex: There is enormous enmity between Egypt, which is Sunni, and Shia Iran (whose influence Egypt fears). And Iran backs Hamas. For a long time Egypt was more content than not because Hamas was making difficulty for Israel. For Egypt also has great enmity for Israel. Now the tensions with Hamas have erupted. What receives little press when there is talk about an Israeli blockade of Gaza is the fact that there is a crossing between Egypt and Gaza, as well, at Rafah — with Egypt disinclined to permit free movement there. In fact, Egypt has been so concerned about a Hamas presence undermining Egyptian stability that a decision was made to install an impermeable steel fence at the border with Gaza, a fence that would go underground (but in fact not as deeply into the ground as the more serious of the tunnels). Earlier this month, violence erupted at the border, with one Egyptian soldier killed — when Egypt refused to allow into Gaza "peace activists." ~~~~~~~~~~ George Mitchell met with Barak for two hours this morning with regard to security issues and restarting "peace" negotiations. The release from the Defense Ministry said nothing of consequence. Mitchell is scheduled to meet with Netanyahu and then Abbas, this evening and tomorrow morning. Reportedly, Mitchell is carrying to Netanyahu the request from Abbas for a total short term freeze. I hope and trust that I will be able to report that this request was summarily rejected, and that no other concessions were offered. To make any concession would be absolutely the most unwise of steps for Netanyahu to take, and I'm betting he knows it. ~~~~~~~~~~ More significant, it seems to me, is that Obama may be starting to back down. He has given an interview to Time Magazine, in which he said that his administration had overestimated the possibility of getting Israel and the PA to re-start negotiations. "Both sides — the Israelis and the Palestinians — have found that the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that." Obama, admitting that expectations were too high, instead of insisting that we must proceed starting yesterday. How about this! What is more, according to French sources, in an interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in London, Mitchell will not be providing Abbas with guarantees regarding pressure on Israel to freeze all building. According to this report, there seems more concern about what Israel will accept than we've seen before. According to once source cited: "Washington cannot provide guarantees if it is unsure Israel will accept them, especially on the issue of Jerusalem." ~~~~~~~~~~ Ending on a light note: A 17 year old boy praying with tfillin — phylacteries — on a US Airways flight that had left from LaGuardia (NY) and was bound for Kentucky, caused the plane to be aborted in Philadelphia. The tfillin consist of two leather boxes containing parchments with biblical passages that are strapped to the head and the arm during weekday prayers. The boy tried to explain to the crew members, who were alarmed about the possibility that the boy was sporting bombs on his body during prayer. The pilot thought better of continuing the flight. Seems some airline crew education is in order.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
THEY WILL RENEGE — ALWAYS HAVE — THEIR RELIGION ENCOURAGES LIES
Posted by CPocerl, January 21, 2010. |
|
This is from the Jerusalem Post and is archived at
|
|
Hamas has accepted Israel's right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, Aziz Dwaik, Hamas's most senior representative in the West Bank, said on Wednesday. Dwaik's remarks are seen in the context of Hamas's attempts to win recognition from the international community. Dwaik is the elected speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. He was released a few months ago after spending nearly three years in an Israeli prison. Dwaik was among dozens of Hamas officials and members who were rounded up by Israel following the abduction of IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit near the Gaza Strip in June 2006. His latest remarks were made during a meeting he held in Hebron with British millionaire David Martin Abrahams, who maintains close ties with senior Israeli and British government officials. Abrahams is scheduled to brief British Foreign Secretary David Milliband this weekend on the outcome of his meeting with Dwaik and other top Hamas officials in the West Bank. Abrahams, a major donor to Britain's Labor Party, told The Jerusalem Post he would urge Milliband to "consider the implications of Hamas's positive overtures." During the meeting in Hebron, Dwaik stressed that other Hamas leaders, including Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, have voiced support for the idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 boundaries. "The [Hamas] charter was drafted more than 20 years ago," Dwaik noted, adding that his movement would even be prepared to "nullify" the document. "No one wants to throw anyone into the sea," he said. Dwaik also expressed Hamas's desire to engage in dialogue with the international community, first and foremost the European Union. He confirmed that Hamas was receiving financial aid from Iran, but said that this was the direct result of the boycott and sanctions against the movement. Poster's Note: "No one wants to throw anyone into the sea," huh? That's not what Hezbollah's Hasan Nasrallah and Iran's Mahomoud Ahmadinejad contend, and Hamas is friendly with both. Until they condemn these statements and sever relations, it will be hard to take Hamas at its word.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
TODAY'S MONSTROUS DEFAMATION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
Posted by Isi Leibler, January 21, 2010. |
|
Until recently, Holocaust memorials were almost exclusively sponsored by Jews mourning murdered kinsmen. Today, many democratic governments have transformed Holocaust commemoration into an educational vehicle to demonstrate the monstrous consequences of unbridled racism and antisemitism. The UK is one of a number of western countries that have an annual Holocaust Commemoration Day. However, today's Israel bashers have stooped to the depths of distorting the genocidal murder of the Jews as a vehicle to demonise the descendents of the victims. Iranian President Ahmadinejad may have taken Holocaust denial to new depths and in Muslim countries generally it may have become a primary component of antisemitic delegitimisation of Israel, but in western nations it no longer occupies a major role. Prosecution of Holocaust deniers in democratic countries transforms them into martyrs and is thus counterproductive. In fact, deniers are now usually considered cranks or charlatans; more sophisticated antisemites steer clear of outright denial. Even more bizarrely, Islamic countries that actively promote Holocaust denial have begun citing the criminalisation of Holocaust denial to justify criminal proceedings against any critique of Islam, Islamic practice or Sharia Law. Resolutions to this effect have already been passed by the United Nations General Assembly. Today, a more potent challenge to the Jewish people has emerged in the trivialisation, distortion and inversion of the Holocaust. The first systematic study of this phenomenon is contained in Manfred Gerstenfeld's recent book, The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses (click here to purchase the book on Amazon.com). Dr Gerstenfeld describes the efforts of some European nations to present themselves as victims of Nazi persecution in order to deflect attention from the role of their own citizens who collaborated with the Nazis or participated directly in the mass murder of Jews. For example, until the "Waldheim Affair", Austria was notorious for its insistence that it was a victim rather than an accessory, suppressing the fact that the majority of Austrians had been enthusiastic Nazi collaborators. Baltic countries are now applying moral equivalency between Nazi genocidal policies and Soviet crimes in order to cover up the fact that their own Nazi collaborators and murderers of Jews were never brought to justice. The most obscene — and growing — of these current trends is that which equates Israelis — descendants of the victims — with Nazis. This had its genesis in the Soviet-sponsored UN resolution of 35 years ago equating Zionism with racism. It has now been finessed and widened under the direction of Arab and other anti-Israeli agitators. The evil mantra reiterated is that "the victims have become the perpetrators". In some countries, Holocaust Remembrance Day has even broadened to commemorate the "genocide of the Palestinian people". That these attempts to demonise Israelis as Nazis and accuse them of having committed war crimes against the Palestinians have succeeded is evidenced by the threat to issue arrest warrants against visiting Israeli political and military leaders in Britain and elsewhere. The Nazis' arch-propagandist Joseph Goebbels mastered the technique of repeating a lie ad nauseam until it was accepted as truth by the masses. Today, the same technique is being employed in this, the greatest of all contemporary defamations of the Jewish people.
Contact Isi Leibler at ileibler@netvision.net.il.
This column was originally published in the Jewish Chronicle (UK)
|
|
SUDANESE JOURNALIST SENTENCED TO LASHING FOR WEARING PANTS: 'TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN LIKE ME'
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 21, 2010. |
|
On July 3, 2009, Sudanese journalist and activist Lubna Al-Hussein was arrested, along with 12 other women, for wearing trousers, under a law that metes out a punishment of 40 lashes for wearing "indecent clothing." Refusing to plead guilty, Al-Hussein resigned from her position in the UN and waived her diplomatic immunity, demanding to be placed on trial, in what rapidly became a cause célèbre for women's rights in Sudan. Following are excerpts from an interview with Al-Hussein, which aired on Egypt's Al-Mihwar TV on December 17, 2009. * To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2346.htm. * For more on this issue of women's rights in the Middle East, visit http://www.memri.org/subject/en/141.htm. 
"In Khartoum Alone, 43,000 Women Were Arrested in One Year because of Their Clothing" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "I was not the only woman to be arrested. Tens of thousands of women were arrested... In one year..." First interviewer: "On the cover of your book there is a picture that says a lot. Your pants are wide and are covered by a long blouse. If we could just focus on the photograph..." Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "These are the clothes I was wearing when I was arrested. I should point out that this veil is heavy and large, and I usually don't wear it. I wear a lighter veil. But that day I had washed my hair, so I wore this." First interviewer: "So a woman could get a lashing for wearing clothes like that?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "Of course. As I told you, I am not the only one. There are tens of thousands like me. In a single year, 43,000 women were arrested because of their clothing — not in all of Sudan, but in Khartoum alone, as declared by the police general commissioner." Second interviewer: "Lubna, you are a journalist, and journalists are a model of enlightened activity in society. What have you in Sudan done to change this law?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "This law, I'm sad to say... This clause contains both moral and physical violence. Physical violence is manifest in the punishment of lashing, which abases human dignity. Moral violence is manifest in the fact that this is called 'indecent acts,' and this is the reason that the tens of thousands of women before me did not have the courage to complain. The courts that try such cases are not regular courts. They are special courts established during the presidency of [Omar] Al-Bashir. They are called 'public order courts,' but their names keep changing. In these courts, the defendant has no right to defend himself." Second interviewer: "Not at all?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "No." First interviewer: "There is no lawyer?" Second interviewer: "Then why is there even a trial?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "Excuse me?" Second interviewer: "So what's the point of holding a trial?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "In my case, because of the publicity and the public support I received, I took a lawyer who defended me, but the judge refused to give the defense witnesses a chance to be heard. This is what happened. It was all decided in advance, and..." First interviewer: "Lubna, didn't you ask [the court] what the definition of 'indecent clothing' is? What you are wearing is not... What is defined as 'indecent clothing'?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "It depends on the policeman's mood." "They Say This Is Islamic Law, But in Fact, This Is the Law of Al-Bashir" First interviewer: "But if somebody wears a long blouse, long pants, and her hair is covered, what is indecent about it?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "I don't know. The law is in the hands of the authorities." First interviewer: "The authorities interpret [the law]." Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "Yes. [The law says]: clothing that offends public sentiment. Let me tell you, I was at a place with 400 people, and I didn't offend anybody. The same law that requires giving a woman forty lashes for wearing pants, requires giving a man who rapes a boy, a girl, or a woman one month in prison. Nevertheless, they say that this is Islamic law, but in fact, this is the law of Al-Bashir." Second interviewer: "Was the verdict implemented on you, Mrs. Lubna?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "No, it wasn't, but I was the exception. I don't know why. All the women are punished with floggings and with a fine. The entire group... We were 13 women, and 12 were sentenced to a flogging and a fine. I was fined, but when I wanted to pay, they refused to accept the money." Second interviewer: "So they take women who wear such clothing, and without a trial, they implement the verdict?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "Immediately. On the spot. We were arrested on a Friday, so it was delayed to the following Sunday. The latest to be arrested is a 16-year-old Christian girl — not even a Muslim — from southern Sudan. She wasn't wearing pants like me, but a skirt which they said was tight." First interviewer: "Is a skirt considered indecent, or not?" Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein: "They said it was indecent. It depends on the policeman's mood."
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.
Contact MEMRI at P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837; Phone:
(202) 955-9070; Fax: (202) 955-9077; Website: www.memri.org
Contact the Poster, Yaacov Levi, by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com
|
|
BRIT AIRWAYS: DUMP CHRISTIAN CROSSES; BUT KEEP MUSLIM HIJABS
Posted by CPocerl, January 21, 2010. |
|
British Airways case claims religious discrimination This was in World Net Daily daily
|
|
Nadia Eweida (Courtesy London Daily Mail) A case has been launched in the Court of Appeal for Great Britain over a rule imposed by British Airways on employees allowing Muslims to wear a hijab, Jews to wear skullcaps, Sikhs to wear religious bracelets but banning a Christian woman from wearing a tiny silver cross necklace. Nadia Eweida is attempting to overturn an employment tribunal's decision that the airline's actions were not religious discrimination. WND previously reported on the case that began in 2006 when Eweida was sent home from work after refusing to remove the cross because BA officials claimed it violated their dress code. According to a report today from the Christian Institute, a charity committed to upholding the truths of the Bible, Eweida is represented in court by Karon Manghan, Queen's Counsel. Manghan said Eweida "wished at the material times to wear a small, plain, silver cross visibly as a manifestation of her beliefs and personal expression of her faith." British Airways, she added, "permitted adherents of other religious faiths to express their beliefs through certain visible symbols, such as the Sikh bracelet, the Jewish skull cap and the Muslim hijab." The airline argued that wearing the cross was Eweida's choice, but it was not required of her Christian faith. Ingrid Simler, the legal counselor for the airline, said, "Ms. Eweida reflects her religious belief in a way similar to the way people wear symbols for ... gay rights — that it reflects their core beliefs but it has nothing to do with religion." Eweida, a Heathrow check-in worker who is a Coptic Christian, later was returned to her position when the airline loosened its regulations. But the appeal followed when the Reading Employment Tribunal concluded the airline was allowed to ban a cross pendant that is visible. The tribunal's opinion said other symbols such as turbans and bangles cannot be concealed and so are allowed. Former Home Secretary John Reid condemned the tribunal's conclusion. "It sends a signal that Christians don't enjoy the same protections under the law as those from other religions whose dress requirements are accommodated in the workplace," he said. Eweida is claiming 120,000 British pounds, about $195,000, in damages and lost wages.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
MURDER OF IRANIAN 'NUCLEAR SCIENTIST' UPDATE; ISRAELIS NAB TERRORIST
CELL IN NABLUS; WHO ATTACKED ISRAELIS IN JORDAN
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 21, 2010. |
|
ISRAEL VIOLATES HOUSING FREEZE The building freeze imposed against Jews only, in Judea-Samaria, cited school building as a major exception. Israeli education law requires education. Defense Minister Barak, however, has barred three-fourths of the school construction needed to meet the educational requirements (IMRA, 1/19). Barak makes improper commitments to the U.S., which makes intrusive demands. Then Barak represses Israelis in order to meet those commitments, though neither the U.S. nor the Arabs meet their commitments to Israel. Barak claims he has to follow the law, but violates it, himself. It is apparent that Barak and PM Netanyahu are colluding with the U.S. and the Arabs against the people of Israel. They risk Israeli survival, in the process. Can't believe Israeli government claims to its people that it is doing what it can for them. MURDER OF IRANIAN "NUCLEAR SCIENTIST' UPDATE The government of Iran had said that the assassinated Iranian physics professor was a nuclear physicist, and blamed the U.S. and Israel for his murder. Iran threatened revenge against the U.S. and Israel. Iranian Revolutionary Guards attended the funeral, as if in mourning a loss, although it was known that the professor supported the opposition movement. His assassination was done, Hizbullah style [although style is not strong evidence, because it could be imitated]. Now it turns out that the professor was not involved in Iran's nuclear program, but was involved in a Jordanian program that worked with Israeli scientists. That removes the motive of the U.S. and Israel. It emphasizes the motive of the government of Iran. By assassinating the professor, it attacks and intimidates its opposition and blames its foreign enemies (Arutz-7, 1/19). Notice how false is the call for revenge against Israel and the U.S.! Can't take seriously what Radical Muslims claim.. ISRAELIS NAB TERRORIST CELL IN NABLUS Israeli security forces arrested a terrorist cell in Nablus, Palestinian Authority (P.A.). The cell was about to launch an attack on Israel from Nablus, a city cited as an example of law and order maintained by newly trained P.A. police (IMRA, 1/19). If P.A. anti-terrorism were sincere and effective, Israel could let the P.A. deal with terrorism. If P.A. anti-terrorism were sincere and ineffective, Israel could inform the P.A. whom to arrest, and leave the action to the P.A.. Israel tried that, to no avail. Indeed, the Arab population protested that Israel wanted them to provide its security. Hence, Israel has to conduct several raids a day, to apprehend terrorists. In other words, the Arabs refuse to keep their agreements to repress terrorism. They prefer terrorism to repress Israelis. They refuse to extradite wanted terrorists. They release terrorists they had promised Israel to keep in prison, if Israel let them have custody. Their diplomacy strives to get murderous terrorists released. They recruit terrorists into the P.A. army. They praise terrorists. OBAMA HAS LOST HIS MONOPOLY ON POWER OVER THE EXECUTIVE AND CONGRESSIONAL BRANCHES President Obama lost, exactly a year after his inauguration, his monopoly on power over the Executive and Congressional branches. A Republican took over the U.S. Senate seat held by Edward Kennedy and an appointed, Democratic, successor. At present, Congressional Republicans are more sympathetic to Israel than their liberal, Democratic counterparts (Arutz-7, 1/20). The State Dept. traditionally and consistently is anti-Zionist, and usually carries the President along with it. Sec. of State Haig was an exception. President Obama is more radical than other Presidents. The Republican candidate expressed opposition to the fiscal extravagance of Congress and the President. If American squanders its resources, it falls. The fact that it took only a year for Obama to lose his popularity reflects the depth of his radicalism and inexperience, among other factors. Now America has hope. But we also have to hope that the GOP buckles down to become a serious and constructive opposition Party, capable of contributing to solutions and taking over our governance. EUROPEANS MAKE ADDITIONAL DEMANDS OF ISRAEL The Norwegian Foreign Minister met his counterpart in Israel. He also met with Palestinian Authority (P.A.) officials in Jerusalem, though Oslo requires the P.A. to keep official functions out of Jerusalem, over which it has no jurisdiction. Norway, the EU as a whole, and Russia urge Israel to re-open Orient House, the building that the P.A. tried to use for its prohibited diplomacy, before. The Europeans urge Israel to allow other P.A. institutions to open in Jerusalem, as further concessions to bring the P.A. to negotiate (Arutz-7, 1/20). Israel needs a patriotic government that does not accept such calculated affronts as Norway's. Accepting affronts invites them. Likewise, making concessions invites demands for more. We have been saying that for years. The new European demands of Israel demonstrate the validity of our analysis. The demands cycle is contemptible, because it is so predictable, and yet Israel keeps playing the fool, and the US. keeps playing the idealist. They all pretend that there is some rationality to the process. The Arabs must be laughing at the West, whose demands strengthen the Arabs against...the West not only Israel. Abbas refuses to negotiate, so the West demands that Israel offer him more and more. When will it stop? I know. It will stop when he has gotten everything he can. Then there will be nothing to negotiate. Commentators who oppose appeasement point out that when Israel pursues its national interest in defiance of U.S. demands, it earns foreign respect. I would put it that it gets to be taken seriously and the U.S. realizes it cannot make excessive demands of Israel. I think Europe is demanding concessions in bad faith. I think that it wants Israel to give up its rights, not just make concessions in order to get the P.A. to negotiate. I think that the P.A. has shown so much bad faith and disinterest in peace, that Israel should stop helping it and start annexing areas that would give it secure boundaries and its historic homeland. WHO ATTACKED ISRAELIS IN JORDAN An Israeli convoy in Jordan was attacked, unsuccessfully. "Sources" suggest that the attack was ordered by Iran in retaliation for the assassination of an Iranian physics professor (IMRA, 1/20). But the professor was not in nuclear development and opposed the Iranian regime. The assassination now is supposed to have been by Hizbullah hit men that Tehran keeps around for such purposes. Then the attack in Jordan was not retaliation. Since when do Islamists attack only in retaliation? I think the "sources" are speculating prematurely. They should wait for facts. Click here for the story on the assassination. 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:
|
|
THE FORT HOOD REPORT: WHY NO MENTION OF ISLAM?
Posted by CPocerl, January 21, 2010. |
|
This was written by Mark Thompson and it appeared yesterday in
TIME magazine.
|
|
Accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Malik Hasan (Reuters) The U.S. military's just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect's view of his Muslim faith. And as Congress opens two days of hearings on Wednesday into the Pentagon probe of the Nov. 5 attack that left 13 dead, lawmakers want explanations for that omission. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Troubled Journey of Major Hasan.)" John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 commission and Navy Secretary during the Reagan Administration, says a reluctance to cause offense by citing Hasan's view of his Muslim faith and the U.S. military's activities in Muslim countries as a possible trigger for his alleged rampage reflects a problem that has gotten worse in the 40 years that Lehman has spent in and around the U.S. military. The Pentagon report's silence on Islamic extremism "shows you how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become," he told TIME on Tuesday. "It's definitely getting worse, and is now so ingrained that people no longer smirk when it happens." (See pictures of Major Nidal Malik Hasan's apartment.) The apparent lack of curiosity into what allegedly drove Hasan to kill isn't in keeping with the military's ethos; it's a remarkable omission for the U.S. armed forces, whose young officers are often ordered to read Sun Tzu's The Art of War with its command to know your enemy. In midcareer, they study the contrast between capabilities and intentions, which is why they aren't afraid of a British nuclear weapon but do fear the prospect of Iran getting one. Yet the leaders of the two-month Pentagon review, former Army Secretary Togo West and the Navy's onetime top admiral, Vernon Clark, told reporters last week that they didn't drill down into Hasan's motives. "Our concern is with actions and effects, not necessarily with motivations," West said. Added Clark: "We certainly do not cite a particular group." Part of their reticence, they said, was to avoid running afoul of the criminal probe of Hasan that is now under way. Both are declining interview requests before their congressional testimony, a Pentagon spokesman said. (Read TIME's cover story on the Fort Hood massacre.) But without a motive, there would have been no murder. Hasan wore his radical Islamic faith and its jihadist tendencies in the same way he wore his Army uniform. He allegedly proselytized within the ranks, spoke out against the wars his Army was waging in Muslim countries and shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is great) as he gunned down his fellow soldiers. Those who served alongside Hasan find the Pentagon review wanting. "The report demonstrates that we are unwilling to identify and confront the real enemy of political Islam," says a former military colleague of Hasan, speaking privately because he was ordered not to talk about the case. "Political correctness has brainwashed us to the point that we no longer understand our heritage and cannot admit who, or what, the enemy stands for." The Department of Defense Independent Review Related to Fort Hood, ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is limited in scope. Despite the title of its report — Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood — there is only a single page dedicated to the chapter called "Oversight of the Alleged Perpetrator." Much more space is given to military personnel policies (11 pages), force protection (six pages) and the emergency response to the shootings (12 pages). Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said he was "disappointed" because the inquiry "does not adequately recognize the specific threat posed by violent Islamist extremism to our military," and added that the homeland-security panel he chairs will investigate. The Congressman whose district includes Fort Hood agrees. "The report ignores the elephant in the room — radical Islamic terrorism is the enemy," says Republican Representative John Carter. "We should be able to speak honestly about good and bad without feeling like you've done something offensive to society." The report lumps in radical Islam with other fundamentalist religious beliefs, saying that "religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor" and that "religious-based violence is not confined to members of fundamentalist groups." But to some, that sounds as if the lessons of 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, where jihadist extremism has driven deadly violence against Americans, are being not merely overlooked but studiously ignored.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
RE: HALALCO BOOKS — THANK YOU FOR YOUR POST!
Posted by Flower Lady, January 20, 2010. |
|
I just wanted to thank you for your article on Halalco Books. I was debating on whether or not to purchase henna from them online, due to their extremely low price, but noticed some muslim-y stuff on the site, and googled around to see what the deal was. So glad I did. I'm not sure how I would have lived with myself knowing my money had gone to support potential/actual terrorists. Thank you again, |
|
THE REAL REASON FOR CHRISTIAN FLIGHT FROM ARAB-CONTROLLED HOLY LAND
Posted by David Meir-Levi, January 20, 2010. | |
|
The Vatican has issued a document that blames the Israeli-'Palestinian' conflict and the 'occupation of lands' for driving Christians out of the Middle East. The document is a guide for discussions for an Oct. 10-24 meeting of Mideast bishops convened by Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the plight of the Christian minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim region. The exodus of Christians from the region and religious discrimination faced by those who remain are main issues on the table.....
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 |
|
EGYPTIAN CLERIC YAAQUB: THE JEWS ARE OUR ENEMIES AND ALLAH WILL ANNIHILATE THEM AT OUR HANDS
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 20, 2010. |
|
The following are excerpts from a sermon given by Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub, which aired on Al-Nas TV (Egypt) on December 29, 2009. To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit
|
|
"The Nation of Islam was Created to Remain to the End of Time, Strong and Dominant" 
Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub: "The nation of Islam is here to stay. We should make this notion grow within our hearts. Our nation was not created to fulfill a role and then disappear, like the nations before us, which were created to exist for a while, only to be annihilated. No, no. The nation of Islam was created to remain to the end of time, strong and dominant. [...] "Our nation will never die. It will not be annihilated. We have seen our nation undergoing worse events then those we witness today. We ache [for] the disintegration, the loss, and the eradication of Iraq, but Iraq has undergone crises that made the Euphrates River flow red with blood, and another time, flow black with ink, because of the books of the Baghdad Library which were thrown into it. [...] "We have witnessed the racial cleansing in Bosnia and in Kosovo. Despite this, the Muslim race has been cleansed of the filthy blood of polytheism and the polytheists. [...] "The Jews are our enemies. Allah will annihilate them at our hands. This is something we know for certain. We know this for certain — not because I say so, but because Allah said so: 'You shall find that the people strongest in enmity to the believers are the Jews and the polytheists.' [...] "For the Islamic nation, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is like a banner on the battlefield. I have read the works of many preachers and scholars, who said that if you wanted to discern the state of the nation at any given time, you should look at Al-Aqsa. The state of Al-Aqsa reflects the state of the nation. Whenever the nation was strong and its banner was flying high, Al-Aqsa was in the hands of the Muslims. But whenever the nation went through a period of weakness and collapse, Al-Aqsa was in the hands of non-Muslims. [...] "Today, the nation — its young, its elderly, its men, its women, and its children — are prepared to be martyred at the gates of Al-Aqsa... The nation in its entirety."
Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com
|
|
MISTRESS OF THE OXYMORON: NEW YORK U. PROFESSOR ELLA SHABIBA SHOHAT INVENTS THE "ARAB-JEW"
Posted by Lee Kaplan, January 20, 2010. |
|
Meet Ella Shabiba Shohat, Professor of Cultural Studies and Women's Studies at New York University. Shohat was born in Israel to a Jewish father from Bagdhad, but currently lives and teaches in New York. Shohat has a pet obsession, creating something she calls the "Arab-Jew." "I am an Arab- Jew. Or, more specifically, an Iraqi Israeli woman living, writing and teaching in the U.S.... To be a European or American Jew has hardly been perceived as a contradiction, but to be an Arab Jew has been seen as a kind of logical paradox, even an ontological subversion [leading to] a profound and visceral schizophrenia, since for the first time in our history Arabness and Jewishness have been imposed as antonyms..." Now it goes without saying that very few Jews from Iraq call themselves "Arab-Jews," while quite a few might punch you in the nose for calling them that. Ms. Shohat could use a history lesson: Israel's "Mizrahi" or Sephardic Jews, know how Jews were treated under Islamic regimes. It was not pretty. In the1940s Jews in Iraq were subject to pogroms organized by the regime. Shohat not only prettifies and romanticizes Jewish life under Islamic regimes, she recruits her status of "Arab-Jew" and promotes anti-Zionism and the end of a Jewish state. She writes articles frequently for the pseudo-scholastic Journal of Palestine Studies, a propaganda screed now put out by UC Berkeley with PLO and Saudi funding, edited by a former PLO official named Rashid Khalidi who now teaches at Columbia University. Khalidi is chair of a department there also funded by the PLO. Shohat has a very different take on history, complete with PC nonsense terms and post-modernist gibberish: "War, however, is the friend of binarisms (sic), leaving little place for complex identities. The Gulf War, for example, intensified a pressure already familiar to the Arab-Jewish Diaspora in the wake of the Israeli-Arab conflict: a pressure to choose between being a Jew and being an Arab. For our families, who have lived in Mesopotamia since at least the Babylonian exile, who have been Arabized for millennia, and who were abruptly dislodged to Israel 45 years ago, to be suddenly forced to assume a homogenous European Jewish identity based on experiences in Russia, Poland and Germany, was an exercise in self- devastation. To be a European or American Jew has hardly been perceived as a contradiction, but to be an Arab-Jew has been seen as a kind of logical paradox, even an ontological subversion. This binarism has led many Oriental Jews (our name in Israel referring to our common Asian and African countries of origin is Mizrahi or Mizrachi) to a profound and visceral schizophrenia, since for the first time in our history Arabness and Jewishness have been imposed as antonyms." Actually, the Iraqi Jews living in Israel were too busy ducking the SCUDS fired at them by Saddam Hussein to worry about their "Arabness." Aside from such gobbledygook, Shohat once helped organize the so-called "Black Panthers" in Israel (not to be confused with the US Black Panthers other than as another Marxist oriented anti-American and anti-Israel militant group). These "Black Panthers" were Oriental Jews who claimed to be discriminated against by the Western Jews or Ashkenazim. Most eventually joined the communist party. Later Shohat became active in a far-leftist semi-communist group of Oriental Jewish academics (mainly Iraqi Jews), the so-called "Oriental Rainbow (or Keshet Mizrach), now largely defunct. Since then, Shohat has been building her academic career by reciting the mantra that she and other Oriental Jews in Israel are "Arab-Jews." That terminology now appears commonly on anti-Zionist and Arab websites, and here and there in "academic" publications. It was used by that great admirer of Jews, the Saudi Foreign Minister Feisal al-Turki. He and Ms. Shohat insist that converting Israel into yet another Arab state will solve all the Middle East problems. The "Arab-Jews" will be allowed to breathe there, alongside other Arabs. If that ever happens, Shohat will still be off safe and sound in New York, unconcerned with the persecution and mass murder her "ideas" produced. According to Shohat, "Although I in no way want to idealize that experience — there were occasional tensions, discriminations, even violence — on the whole, we lived quite comfortably within Muslim societies." Perhaps she also think dem darkies had a nice quiet life on the Georgia plantations? In pre-Israel Iraq, Jews could not ride horses or camels so as to be taller than some Muslims and had to ride donkeys that they had to dismount when a Muslim passed by. No Jew could own a house taller than a Muslim's. Jews paid the jizya tax in a humiliating ceremony in which the local official struck them on the head. They lived in ghettos. Shohat continues, "Stripped of our history, we have been forced by our no-exit situation to repress our collective nostalgia, at least within the public sphere. The pervasive notion of 'one people' reunited in their ancient homeland actively disauthorizes (sic) any affectionate memory of life before Israel. We have never been allowed to mourn a trauma that the images of Iraq's destruction only intensified and crystallized for some of us. Our cultural creativity in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic is hardly studied in Israeli schools, and it is becoming difficult to convince our children that we actually did exist there, and that some of us are still there in Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and Iran." (click here for more "affectionate memories" of Jews in Iraq.) Ah, but let us not forget that Shohat teaches "Women's Studies." Her feminism is forgotten though when it comes to celebrating and supporting Arab nationalism, which invariably is linked to misogynist repression. Here she is again: We "...not only call for a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians, but also for the cultural, political, and economic integration of Israel/Palestine into the Middle East. And thus an end to the binarisms (sic) of war, an end to a simplistic charting of Middle Eastern identities." If Shohat would have her way, no pesky "binarisms" would be around any longer to disturb the peace of the Middle East, because Israel would be annihilated and its population exterminated. Lee Kaplan is an investigative journalist. He is also a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the Israel National News and a senior intelligence analyst and communications director for the Northeast Intelligence Network. He can be reached at: leekaplan@worldnet.att.net |
|
ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: FIRST LIGHT ON EILAT MOUNTAINS
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, January 20, 2010. |
|
This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: If photography were a normal occupation, I would be out shooting 8-10 hours every day. Sadly though, in the digital age, many photographers now spend more time anchored to their computer than stalking the wilderness. Every now and then, I do go out into the world with the singular purpose of creating new images, as I did last week when I had four entire days to prowl Israel's southernmost desert region, in and around Eilat. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my wonderfully supportive wife, Sara, who provides this ample space for creativity, accomplishment and success in both my work and my life. This photograph was taken in the area of Nahal Shehoret, about 10 kilometers north of Eilat. Typically, I dragged myself out of bed at 5 a.m., stole past the dozing desk clerk and motored in the darkness toward a predetermined area, though I had no specific stopping point in mind. After driving six kilometers along a bumpy, dirt road, I stepped out of my car to inhale the morning air and inspect the landscape in the first light of dawn. This range — one of the most beautiful in the world — is comprised of multi-colored sandstone peaks, the result of different oxides found in the various rock masses. The most interesting photos of these mountains are those which allow the different colors to stand alone while also helping to forge the composition as a whole. Though the various shades of sand, pink, chocolate and even black are visible in many places, pulling three or more into one compelling photo is very difficult. I parked my car, grabbed my tripod and bag, and walked a few meters up a slight incline — always looking for high ground to improve visibility — and I discovered this small field of boulders. From experience, I knew that light hitting these rocks from a side angle would give them dramatic form and provide strength to the foreground of the picture. I aligned my tripod facing northward and waited for the sun to crest the mountains in Jordan. Not a single living, green, growing thing in this shot; only the mind-boggling beauty of the meeting of landscape, light and lens.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
|
|
FROM ISRAEL: STILL MORE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 20, 2010. |
|
Every time I write about our mobile medical hospital in Haiti, I think I've provided enough information... and then there's more. The clip below is from NBC, and describes, again, what only the Israelis have done. The reporter, who is herself a doctor, calls our hospital "A model for crisis care." The equipment includes neo-natal units and monitoring equipment that can transmit information to hospitals elsewhere for assessment by other doctors. Each incoming patient has an electronic record, and an ethics team helps with tough decisions. This is top-flight medicine in any terms, but in this case, set up within 48 hours of an emergency, in a field, inside canvas tents, with equipment and personnel brought half-way around the world, it is nothing short of breathtaking. This is being done, plain and simple, because it's the right thing to do: because we are commanded. One doctor says, in this clip, "We believe that when we save a life, we've saved the world. We've saved the world several times in the last few days." But think, how many millions are seeing us in this light for the first time. How people might, just might, begin to appreciate who we are. Who we are: first our compassion and the speed with which we run to help others. But also our skills and capacity to make a difference. The interviewer asks a doctor, "You have electronic records of the patients?" and the doctor answers, "Of course." "Of course," she then mumbles to herself, meaning, to him it's a given, but I'm astounded. Click here for NBC Report: Israeli Field Hospital a Model for Crisis Care ~~~~~~~~~~ With it all, we must remember that our capacity to respond in an emergency has been honed by our long and painful experience responding to terrorist attacks. But what is important is that we share these skills for the sake of the world — not just in Haiti now (which is suffering the worst of catastrophes) but wherever there is a crisis. ~~~~~~~~~~ Today is the first anniversary of Barack Obama's inauguration as president, and today, for the first time in a long time, I begin to feel hope for America. That is because of the stunning upset in the senatorial race in Massachusetts — the bluest, the most liberal state in the Union — in which Republican Scott Brown emerged as victor. That this was an anti-Obama (and anti-ObamaCare) vote is clear. The president now must circle his wagons and decide how to proceed next. There is talk of going slowly with regard to pushing through the health care bill, both because some Democrats are pulling back and because the addition of one more Republican to the Senate makes it no longer filibuster-proof. And it is being said by some Democrats that the emphasis now has to be on jobs and economic matters (presumably with a decrease in unemployment, if achieved, giving the party a boost). I think the best thing I've read on the subject today is Jeff Jacoby's assessment,"A blessing in disguise." "It really is the people's seat, and on Tuesday the people of Massachusetts took it back. ~~~~~~~~~~ What I wait to see is if the Obama "readjustment" will affect his push for the "peace process": if he will be too busy attending to domestic matters to give it his attention now, or otherwise think better of it. This is particularly relevant right now as Mitchell will be here tomorrow. Aluf Benn of Haaretz believes, with some good justification, that the political dynamics following yesterday's election will work in our favor:
~~~~~~~~~~ Word today was that Abbas was asking for a "short term" (three to six month) total freeze on all building, including in Jerusalem. This was supposed to be a face-saver for him and allow him to come to the table. I find this interesting because it suggests that the reports I received last week — from sterling sources with a great deal of inside information — regarding the fact that Abbas has decided to simply declare a state unilaterally, and thus is not even thinking of returning to the table, may turn out not to be correct. Speculation: Could it be that in his present political bind Obama will be far more reluctant to back a unilateral move by Abbas then he once indicated he would be? Is this slow-down time? ~~~~~~~~~~ Netanyahu held a press conference this evening and forthrightly rejected any notion of freezing construction in Jerusalem, even informally. Abbas had suggested that if this face-saving "gesture" from Israel is not forthcoming (and it isn't), then there might be shuttle diplomacy, with Americans moving between Jerusalem and Ramallah. The PA would provide the US with specifics of what it was demanding: '67 lines with a 3% exchange of land possible. There has been no comment on this either from the US or our government that I am aware of. ~~~~~~~~~~ But Netanyahu said something else at the press conference, as well: "We are surrounded by an ever-growing arsenal of rockets placed in the Iranian-supported enclaves to the north [Hezbollah in Lebanon] and to the south {Gaza]...We cannot afford to have that across from the center of our country. He is alluding to the Jordan Valley, and an Israeli presence on the eastern border of a Palestinian state to block bringing in of rockets and other weaponry that could endanger us. This is the first time that he has made such a demand specifically. He is absolutely correct, of course, that such an Israeli presence would be necessary. But making this a requirement for negotiating a state more or less guarantees that there will be no negotiations. And in point of fact, there should be none. With all of the myriad other reasons why not, this fact alone makes formation of a Palestinian Arab state not a good idea. ~~~~~~~~~~ I was fascinated to see a piece by Yossi Alpher in today's Post, called, "The peace process will resume, but why?" Alpher's orientation is to the left, and he has been a staunch supporter of the formation of a Palestinian Arab state. But in this article, he writes, "Regardless of whether the end result is a unilateral, bilateral or multilateral process, without a functioning Palestinian state apparatus there can be no two-state solution." What is more, he observes, "There is little...prospect that Abbas will succeed in bringing Gaza and Hamas back into the fold of a single Palestinian partner for Israel. Hence he can negotiate only on behalf of the West Bank. But Gaza won't go away." Alpher does not address the fact that a "single Palestinian partner" that included Hamas would actually be no partner at all, but he does come part way in recognizing the futility of imagining that a "two-state solution" can be negotiated now. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so, maybe Abbas will come to the table, and maybe he will not. But even should he sit at the table, there will be no meaningful negotiations. This much is clear. Now we wait for Mitchell's visit. And, as time allows in upcoming postings I would like to look at Fayyad-Abbas tensions, and Egyptian-Hamas tensions — all of which play into the broader dynamic. ~~~~~~~~~~ A notice here for Israelis: The Moskowitz Prize for Zionism was established by Irving and Cherna Moskowitz as an expression of support for people who put Zionism into action in today's Israeli society. The need for this special prize arose from the feeling that the true Zionist heroes in today's Israel do not always receive the institutional recognition and public praise they deserve. These are Israeli men and women acting from a feeling of personal responsibility, vision and national mission, each in his field, and often while sacrificing their personal welfare and even endangering their personal security. This Lion of Zion prize is awarded to Israeli citizens, residents of Israel, who best personify modern Zionism in Israel in their actions, addressing the challenges that face Zionism today, in spheres such as education, research, settlement, culture, defense and security. Winners receive cash prizes. You have the opportunity to nominate someone who inspires you. Deadline is January 29.
Go to
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
THE PRIZE DOESN'T ALWAYS GO TO THE MOST DESERVING...
Posted by CPocerl, January 20, 2010. |
|
There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive' ... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids..) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted. Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize ... She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming. Powerful message, especially the "cartoon." Let us never forget!
In MEMORIAM — 63 YEARS LATER
Please read the little cartoon carefully, it's powerful. Then read
the comments at the end. I'm doing my small part by
forwarding this message. I hope you'll consider doing the
same. In Memoriam It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians,10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian Peoples looking the other way!
Now, more than ever, with Iraq, Iran, and others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth', it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!
Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.
Please send this e-mail to people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.
Please don' t just delete it.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
BBC: DENYING JEWISH JERUSALEM
Posted by Honest Reporting, January 20, 2010. |
|
The BBC's flagship documentary distorts Jewish history and
rights to Jerusalem while promoting a one-sided and biased agenda.
This article is archived at
|
|
The BBC's flagship documentary distorts Jewish history and rights to Jerusalem while promoting a one-sided and biased agenda. On 18 January, the BBC's flagship documentary program, Panorama, focused on tensions in the area of eastern Jerusalem adjacent to the Old City. Any pretence at balance is thrown out of the window as reporter Jane Corbin makes it clear that, under the BBC's own interpretation of international law, anything that Israel does in that part of the city is illegal, setting the tone for the entire 30 minute program. Thus, Israelis are presented as usurpers of Palestinian rights and property in eastern Jerusalem in a one-sided piece of agitprop. As analyst Robin Shepherd writes: Rarely will you get a clearer insight into the flagrant institutional bias inside the world's most powerful media outlet than this. The slipperiness of the tactics employed, the unabashed censorship of vital historical context, and the blatant pursuit of a political agenda constituted a lesson in the techniques of modern day propaganda. It was something to behold. Here we examine some of the assumptions, claims and biases that underpin this edition of Panorama. Denying Jewish Rights to Jerusalem The BBC's institutional anti-Israel bias often manifests itself not in what is broadcast but what is left out. Panorama is no different. The BBC reports events as though Jewish history in Jerusalem begins in 1948, thus omitting thousands of years of Jewish attachment to the city, including those areas of eastern Jerusalem that are the subject of Panorama's investigation. The only time that the eastern part of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab was between 1949 and 1967, and that was because Jordan occupied the area and forcibly expelled all the Jews. As Mitchell Bard makes clear, before 1865, the entire population of Jerusalem lived behind the Old City walls (what today would be considered part of the eastern part of the city). Later, the city began to expand beyond the walls because of population growth, and both Jews and Arabs began to build in new areas of the city. By the time of partition, a thriving Jewish community was living in the eastern part of Jerusalem, an area that included the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. This area of the city also contains many sites of importance to the Jewish religion, including the City of David, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. In addition, major institutions like Hebrew University and the original Hadassah Hospital are on Mount Scopus — in eastern Jerusalem. Palestinian House Demolitions Corbin's tone gives the impression that she just so happens to be strolling through eastern Jerusalem before coming across Israeli authorities carrying out a house demolition almost as if this is a daily occurrence. She disingenuously pulls a supposed list of dozens more demolitions scheduled to take place, claiming: < Demolitions have been increasing in recent days, and in fact, we've got hold of a list that shows there's another 40 to go before the end of the year. That's because the municipal government has a budget that it has to use up for demolitions. In response, the Jerusalem Municipality issued the following statement: The amount of demolitions carried out by the Jerusalem Municipality every year is determined solely by the number of illegally constructed buildings erected by those residents who flouted the law. Furthermore, viewers are treated to emotive scenes and Palestinian claims that such demolitions are driven by "racism" and "ethnic cleansing" while Jewish residents of Jerusalem are not subjected to similar demolition orders. As human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner found in his research, illegal building by Palestinians has reached epidemic proportions while in the Jewish neighborhoods, illegal construction typically takes the form of additions to existing legal structures — such as closing a balcony or hollowing out under a building to create an extra room. In the Arab sector, however, illegal construction often takes the form of entire multi-floor buildings with 4 to 25 living units, built with the financial assistance of the Palestinian Authority on land that is not owned by the builder. In addition:
The Hanoun Family Eviction The eviction of the Hanouns has become something of a cause celebre with the family camped in the street outside of their previous home making for a compelling media story and propaganda tool. Once again, the BBC does its best to portray the Palestinians as victims of Israeli malice. However, the Hanoun case is not quite so simple having been subject to legal activity dating back decades. After 1948 the neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Shimon HaTzadik came under Jordanian control and the Jewish-owned land was handed over to the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property. In the mid-1950s the Jordanian government settled Arabs there. They took over the homes of the Jews and paid rent to the Jordanian Custodian. Although a Jewish institutional presence has been established in the area in the form of Israeli governmental offices and services, Jewish groups have sought to establish a residential presence as well. This is being done through property and land acquisitions, and by judicial means. To date, this activity has achieved a residential presence of no more than ten families who are living in a small part of the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood from which Jews had been evicted in 1948. There are dozens of pending court cases and legal proceedings seeking to remove Arab tenants on the grounds that they have not been paying rent to the rightful owners — the Committee of the Sephardic Community and the Ashkenazi Assembly of Israel, who purchased the land in the second part of the nineteenth century. In some of these cases, eviction notices have been issued, although the Israel Police has delayed the actual evictions due to international pressure. After 1967, control over Jewish-owned property in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood that had been seized by Arabs was transferred from the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property. In 1972 the Israeli Custodian released the land back to its owners (the Committee of the Sephardic Community and the Ashkenazi Assembly of Israel). In 1988 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the 28 Arab families living on the premises enjoy the status of "Protected Residents," but that the ownership of the land belongs to the two Jewish organizations. Ten years later, in 1998, Jews entered deserted houses in the neighborhood. At the same time, a slow process of evicting Arab families who apparently refused to pay rent to the two Jewish organizations was begun. Indeed, as both the New York Times and Guardian wrote, the Hanouns had refused to pay rent for years and thus eviction orders were served. For more on this issue see this Jerusalem Post Analysis: Arabs, Jews don't have equal rights to recover pre-1948 properties. A Shooting in Silwan Jane Corbin makes a big deal out of the fact that some of the Jews living in eastern Jerusalem are armed. As if to illustrate the apparent threat that this poses to the Arab residents of the area, she interviews the victim of a shooting incident that took place in September 2009 involving a Jewish gunman. Operating under standard BBC procedures, viewers are treated to scenes of crying children and a story of suffering. There is no interview with any Israeli spokespeople regarding the incident. While it is not in dispute that the Palestinian was shot, the BBC relies solely on his testimony without any Israeli response. Had Corbin been concerned with balance or accuracy, she could have contacted the Israel Police, something that HonestReporting did. Police Foreign Press Spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld explained: Upon arriving at the scene, a police investigation was opened and a suspect was immediately detained for questioning for being involved in the incident. As Rosenfeld points out, this was one isolated incident that could have taken place in any of the neighborhoods in Jerusalem both Jewish or Arab. Contrary to the impression given by the BBC, it is, in fact, Jewish residents of Jerusalem who have far more to fear from their Arab neighbors. While the incident described above is remarkably rare, not so rare were the suicide bombings, stabbings and even bulldozer attacks that have been carried out by Palestinian terrorists residing in eastern Jerusalem. The armed guards and security in the area is necessary to protect not only Jews but also Jewish holy sites from potential Arab extremists. Foreign Jews Changing Jerusalem's Demographics Nadav Shragai writes that Jews from abroad are not the only ones buying property in Jerusalem. Munib al-Masri, a Palestinian millionaire from Nablus who holds American citizenship, is planning to purchase property 900 meters from the Teddy Kollek Stadium, not far from Jerusalem's Malha shopping mall. His investment company is planning to build 150 housing units next to Beit Safafa, according to company chairman Samir Halayla. Until 1967, Beit Safafa was an Arab village south of Jerusalem divided between Israel and Jordan. After the war it became an area where Jews and Arabs lived together, generally as good neighbors. The Gulf States, the PLO, and Palestinian millionaires such as al-Masri and the late Abd al-Majid Shuman have all invested funds to purchase property and support construction for Palestinian Arabs. The Jerusalem Treasury Fund affiliated with the Jerusalem Committee headed by King Hassan of Morocco is also active. The Jerusalem Foundation for Development and Investment was founded in Jordan, and there are several similar funds and foundations in Saudi Arabia.23 Foreign donations from Qatar were also involved in the construction of 58 housing units recently completed in Beit Hanina under the auspices of the Arab teachers' association. On July 19, 2009, Yuval Diskin, head of the Israel Security Agency, reported to the Israeli government on the extensive efforts of the Palestinian Authority and its security apparatuses to prevent Palestinian land from being sold to Jews, especially in eastern Jerusalem. Regardless of these ongoing struggles, the State of Israel does not limit or forbid the purchase or sale of property or land within Jerusalem, which is under Israeli law, whether the individuals involved are Jews or Arabs. Archaeology in the Hands of "Right-Wing" Groups The BBC claims that right-wing Jewish groups have been left responsible for politically sensitive archaeological sites in eastern Jerusalem. In fact, all archaeological work in Jerusalem is carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority, an independent government body with a sterling international reputation. BBC: Failing to Reflect Reality Robin Shepherd, who picks up many other flaws in BBC's Panorama, concludes: Well, you get the picture. Obviously the issue of Jerusalem excites passions inside Israel and outside it. Reasonable people can disagree on it. There are many shades of opinion to be assessed. And there is no reason why a BBC documentary should not reflect that. The problem is that the documentary does not reflect that reality at all. Every Jewish step in East Jerusalem is presented as wrong and dangerous. All the important context has been removed. A clear ideological agenda has been pushed at the expense of basic standards of fair reporting. Welcome to the world of the BBC. And welcome to yet another illustration of the slippery path to the delegitimisation of the world's only Jewish state. Honest Reporting monitors the media for inaccuracy and unfairness in how they report the news about Israel. Ther website address is http://www.honestreporting.com. Contact them by email at action@honestreporting.com |
|
SAUDI GIRL, 13, SENTENCED TO 90 LASHES. SHE TOOK A CELL PHONE TO SCHOOL
Posted by CPocerl, January 20, 2010. |
|
A 13-year-old girl has been sentenced to 90 lashes and two months' prison in Saudi Arabia after she took a mobile phone to school. A court ordered the girl to be flogged in front of her classmates following an assault on the school principal, according to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan. After the assault she was discovered to have concealed a mobile phone, breaking strict Saudi regulations banning the use of camera-equipped phones in girls' schools. 
Al-Watan said a court in the northeastern Gulf port of Jubail had sentenced the girl to 90 lashes inside her school, followed by two months' detention. The punishment is harsher than tha dished out to some robbers and looters. Saudi Arabia, a leading US ally in the Middle East, is an absolute monarchy controlled by the Al-Saud ruling tribe, and lacks any legal code. King Abdullah has promoted some social reforms since taking the throne in 2005 but diplomats say he is held back by religious clerics and princes. Cinemas and music concerts are banned, while many restaurants and even some shopping centres cater to families only, especially on holidays. Religious police roam streets to make sure no unrelated men and women mix. The Saudi court system is exclusively controlled Wahahbi/Salafi clerics, and bans the employment of non-Salafi citizens, especially as judges. Saudi Arabia is the world's leading country in the use of torture-by-flogging, public beheadings and publically crucifying condemned prisoners. The country crucified two people in 2009, including one in the capital Riyadh during President Barak Obama's visit last April. In September, twenty Saudi teenagers who ransacked shops and restaurants were publicly flogged. Newspapers reported that the teenagers received at least 30 lashes each in a public square. Most of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks in 2001 came from Saudi Arabia. 
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
ISRAEL IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE "SIEGE" ON GAZA
Posted by Daily Alert, January 20, 2010. |
|
This was written by Avi Tarengo, an Israeli researcher and
journalist, and an expert on terror financing. It appeared on the
Shalom Life webite
|
|
Amnesty International has called on Israel to end "the siege on the Gaza Strip". The problem with this is that one word, "Egypt", is missing. According to Amnesty, the Gaza Strip has no opening to the world other than the border with Israel. The timing of the campaign is not coincidental: "The Mubarak Line" which is being established on the Egypt-Gaza Strip border is an excellent opportunity to place responsibilities towards the civilian population of Gaza on Israel's shoulders. Does Israel have any policy regarding the Gaza Strip? Meaningful policy is supposed to take into account Israel's long-term interests, including its perception by the world. Five years ago, Israel vacated its citizens and army and left Gazans a well-developed economical and agricultural infrastructure. Since the disengagement, Israeli "policy" towards the Gaza Strip has been outlined by a series of symbolic and random decisions, most of them contradicting one another. The indecision regarding Israel's position in the Gaza Strip can be expressed by the lack of an answer to this simple question: Is Israel still the "occupying force" in the Gaza Strip? The lack of a clear policy is what allowed Judge Goldstone to place the responsibility on Israel as the "occupying force" which is supposed to take care of all the needs of the Strip's residents. Unlike Israel, Egypt administrates a clear policy, which slowly but consistently advances Egypt towards achieving its goals. "The Mubarak Line" is not meant to serve Israel's interests nor is it meant to stop the smuggling of rockets to the Gaza Strip, as Egyptian ambassador Al Hadidi explained so well to the Turks (who complained of the difficulties in transferring aid to the Gaza Strip through Egypt): "Our goal is to prevent the detachment of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank. The Gaza Strip must remain under the status of Territory considered occupied by Israel, and the humanitarian aid must come from there — not from Egypt. Recognizing Gaza as an independent entity will damage Palestinian unity and will harm the Palestinians' cause — remove it from the world's agenda." The Egyptian ambassador is very much aware of what he is saying: When two weeks ago a "supply convoy" by activists making its way to the Gaza Strip was blocked in Egypt, it did not lead to angry articles in the world press. This is in contrast to a nonstop worldwide protest about how Israel is supposedly imposing a "siege". The world press considers any difference in opinion between Egyptian authorities and Hamas authorities as an internal Arab issue, one of many local conflicts which are not worthy of coverage by the international press — and this is precisely what Egypt is worried about: That the split between Hamas' regime in the Gaza Strip and the Fatah's regime in the West Bank will allow Israel to reduce it's assistance to the Gaza Strip which would naturally impose this burden on Gaza southern neighbor — Egypt. It is surprising that the Egyptians attribute to Israel the ability to administrate a policy. Had they checked, they would have found that the issue of completing the civic disengagement from Gaza has been routinely removed from Israeli government agenda due to constrains placed by economic interests. Rice Yes, Pasta No Although Israel is proud of the fact that the scope of aid to the Gaza Strip has increased by a whopping 28% during 2009, the worldwide press and even the American senate are complaining about the decision to allow rice into the Strip but to disallow the transfer of pasta. This way, the worldwide press can write about the "Israeli siege" (which naturally leads to the reversal of this specific decision). In response to the criticism, Israel is now opening the passageways in order to import strawberries from the Gaza Strip (imports which will add foreign currencies to Hamas' regime), allows export of flowers from Gaza to Europe and increases the transfer of funds in cash from the EU into Gaza bank accounts. At the same time, individuals with economical interests in Israel continue to profit by transferring apples and fuel to the Gaza market as well as profiteering from monetary transactions with Gaza banks. Mubarak and Aboul Gheit can stop worrying — Israel's policy consists of an attempt to imagine that we are the Gaza Strip's "Big Brother", to "show Hamas" and the entire world that "we are still in control", although this statement has absolutely no bearing in facts or create any meaningful political gain for Israel. For this purpose, Israel continues to maintain the "customs envelope" which is common to Israel and Gaza, and the Bank of Israel takes care in preventing the collapse of the banks in Hamastan by regular infusion of cash — cash which actually finances the booming tunnel trade. Hamas — A Member Group of the Muslim Brotherhood The construction of the Mubarak Line was intended to serve an additional Egyptian interest: In Egypt, Mubarak knows well how to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood and keep it under a tight leash (Why doesn't Amnesty focus on the question of how Egypt deals with in-house opposition?). But to deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Egypt must apply external control: The Mubarak Line gives Egypt the opportunity to use a carrot and stick approach by modulating the amount of materials smuggled. Whenever Hamas' policy is not to Egypt's liking, Egyptian police tightens the screws, conducts operations to seize goods and the Gaza economy is pressured. The pressure is only removed when Hamas understands the message and straightens itself according to Egyptian policy. The smuggling tap is slowly opened. Egypt would never fully close or fully open the smuggling tap: The modulation is a key to effective external control over Hamas and directing it to operate according to Egypt desire. The Egyptians use similar tactics regarding the opening of the Rafah border: Using an excuse that The PA (so called "President Abu Mazen's") forces are the only force allowed to operate border passport control, Egypt has refused to open the border for the past three years (causing some to point the blame at Israel). Of course this creates an impossible situation, so to alleviate the "humanitarian situation" Egypt opens the border for Gazans who are "stranded" at the border. Such openings are done almost every week but are described by Egypt as "one-time only" — to justify the fact that the opening takes place without the presence of the PA forces. The result is that thousands of Gazans pass through the crossing every month, but only when Egypt coordinates this "abnormally" with Hamas' Interior Ministry. The crossing opens and closes at Egypt's will. How does Amnesty call this phenomenon, which repeats itself every week for the past 36 months? "The Israeli Siege on Gaza". 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 |
|
ISRAELI SURGEON IN HAITI ALLOWS A CRACK OF EMOTION
Posted by Daily Alert, January 20, 2010. |
|
This was written by Catherine Bremer and was posted by
Reuters and is archived at
|
|
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) — The key to working in a disaster zone hospital, where casualties pile up faster than patients can be discharged, is to avoid getting emotionally involved, says Dr. Ofer Merin, an Israeli army trauma surgeon working in the earthquake-shattered Haitian capital. Merin, heading a fully equipped hospital brought in by the Israeli military, said the hardest job was triage — deciding which casualties were most likely to live with quick treatment or most benefit from intensive care without blocking up beds. It also is vital not to fret about what will happen to orphaned children with limbs in casts who have to be discharged to free up needed beds, Merin said. "These are ethical decisions we're not used to taking," he told Reuters on a break from his around-the-clock schedule. "You try to have almost no emotional connection with the patients, which is so different to what we do back home. You just cannot get emotional in a disaster this big." He breaks into a grin, though, over four babies born at the camp hospital. One of them is a tiny girl named Sourire — French for "Smile" — whose two-months-premature birth may have been triggered by the trauma of Tuesday's massive earthquake. As Merin shows off the facilities, a skinny 6-year-old girl called Jessica is carried in, plastered with grime, dust and flies, and is scrubbed from head to foot with disinfectant. Six days after the quake, she has just been dug out of the rubble of her collapsed family home. She is too weak to stand so her aunt, who cannot stop repeating "Thank you, God," holds the trembling girl upright for a nurse. "When they lifted her out we could not believe she was alive," the aunt told Reuters. "She opened her eyes wide and said, 'My name is Jessica Chatain and I am hungry and thirsty.' She didn't cry but her parents wept a human sea." The magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed up to 200,000 people and has left countless victims with horrific injuries. Foreign governments and aid agencies have flown in medics from around the world but they were only able to get to work in the past couple of days. Some are working in dilapidated hospitals crammed with wailing patients in insanitary conditions. HARD NOT TO CRY Set up in green army tents on a soccer field near the airport but equipped to treat even complex injuries, the Israeli military hospital is strangely quiet and scrupulously clean. Patients are identified with bar codes and their progress is tracked on a computer network. Within hours of the surgeons, paramedics, nurses and soldiers landing late on Friday, people on makeshift stretchers with crushed, gangrenous limbs were lined up outside for beds in the intensive care, pediatric, orthopedic and other wards. More than 300 patients have been treated and discharged. In intensive care is a woman whose arm was cut off at the rescue scene to free her. In the operating theater another woman is having her leg amputated above the knee to save her from a potentially lethal infection. Experts say that with earthquakes, trauma to the head often means instant death and chest trauma can mean dying a day later. With damage to limbs victims can survive a few days before the infection of an open wound or broken bone sets in. "That's why at this stage most of what we're seeing are orthopedic cases," Merin said. He tries to stick to his ban on sentiment but wavers at the sound of nurses cheering on another woman in labor in the maternity ward tent. Jessica was buried alive because she tried to hide under stairs when the rest of her family jumped out of the window of their home. Now she lies contentedly in the pediatric ward with a drip in her arm and Merin cracks a little bit. "Six days underground and look at her now," he mutters. "She's going to be fine. These are the times it's hard not to cry." 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 |
|
PLANT FRUIT TREES IN YESHA!
Posted by Manhigut Yehudit, January 20, 2010. |
|
The current government has issued a horrific decree against our brothers and sisters in YESHA (Judea and Samaria). At the present time, they are not allowed to build houses, businesses, schools, shuls or even fences around their yards! Manhigut Yehudit is fighting this "freeze" as best as we can and with G-d's help we will succeed to overturn it quickly. In the meantime, while building is forbidden, planting is not! Therefore, as we approach the wonderful holiday of Tu B'Shvat, it is our goal to help the pioneers of YESHA plant 20,000 new fruit trees. This year Tu B'Shvat is celebrated on January 31, 2010. In the words of King Solomon in the book of Proverbs, "A tree is life". These fruit trees will indeed bring new life to the Jews of YESHA. Help us achieve this goal! Trees can be planted "In honor of" or "In memory of" loved ones or special events. Full color, personalized certificates will be mailed to EVERY ONE taking part in this program! Attention synagogues, families and communities: Plant 100 trees and receive your own private vineyard or olive grove! A beautiful wooden sign will be placed at the entrance to the vineyard or olive grove with your name and special dedication. This was done recently by Eluzer Kowalsky of Brooklyn, NY who planted a 100 tree vineyard in memory of his father, Rabbi Shalom Kowalsky zt"l, long time Rabbi of the Young Israel of Hillcrest. Please pass this email to as many people as possible. Our goal is to help our brothers and sisters plant 5,000 new fruit trees before Tu B'Shvat. Manhigut Yehudit is getting calls every day from many communities across Israel who need assistance and we would love to help them all! For more information, please call Shmuel Sackett at (516) 295-3222 or email: shmuel@manhigut.org Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character. Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org. To learn more about Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) and to read their plan for Israel's future, visit www.jewishisrael.org. Or contact Shmuel Sackett, International Director (516) 330-4922 (cell) |
|
THE [TRUE] GREEN AGENDA
Posted by Boris Celser, January 19, 2010. |
|
There is enough crap on this page to overwhelm the largest latrine system in the world. These below are from http://green-agenda.com This is from Jack Golbert You really need to look at this carefully. |
|
"Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty,
reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for
capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed
land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled
rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled
land."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it's full complement of species, returning throughout the world."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on the earth."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic
micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history, but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in the number of game animals and the need to adjust the cull to the size of the surplus population."
Prince Philip is a co-founder of the World Wildlife Fund, together
with Prince Bernhard of Holland, a Nazi in the 1930's and who assisted
the transport of Nazis to Latin America near the end of the war. (See,
e.g.,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
[JG: But he loves nature and animals. See above about the WWW.] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on Earth — social and environmental."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." — David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian Religious tradition."
[JG note:] He is opposed to killing anything with a developed nervous system, even lobsters, but is in favor of abortion and even infanticide for the first month of life, maybe longer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://green-agenda.com/images/banner.gif We should all want to be wise and careful stewards of the beautiful planet we call home. But most of us realise that humans in general are not being good stewards. We are wasteful with our natural resources and have reduced biodiversity. Therefore, when we read about groups and organisations calling for a 'green revolution' and a new relationship between humanity and nature it is easy to agree with their ideas. However, certain aspects of the modern green movement that is permeating every segment of our society are not about protecting the environment. You don't have to dig very deep to discover the true beliefs of the influential leaders who are using genuine concerns about the environment to promote an agenda of fear and control. Please carefully consider the implications of the opinions that they so openly and freely express:
"The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself." — Club of Rome, premier environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." — Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." — Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." — Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The data doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models." — Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful." — Dr David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I believe it is appropriate to have an 'over-representation' of the facts on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience." — Al Gore, Climate Change activist ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." — Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." — Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe." — emeritus professor Daniel Botkin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level." — Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis..." — David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive member ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet's climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced — a catastrophe of our own making." — Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We are getting close to catastrophic tipping points, despite the fact that most people barely notice the warming yet." — Dr James Hansen, NASA researcher ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "By the end of this century climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic." — Sir James Lovelock, Revenge of Gaia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Climate Change will result in a catastrophic global sea level rise of seven meters. That's bye-bye most of Bangladesh, Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis." — Greenpeace International ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "This planet is on course for a catastrophe. The existence of Life itself is at stake." — Dr Tim Flannery, Principal Research Scientist ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick. It's global warming. It's ruining our country. It's ruining our world." — Harry Reid, U.S. Senate majority leader ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Climate Change is the greatest threat that human civilization has ever faced." — Angela Merkel, German Chancellor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster." — Barack Obama, US President ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late." — Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Climate change should be seen as the greatest challenge to ever face mankind." — Prince Charles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Climate change makes us all global citizens, we are truly all in this together." — Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change. Failure to act to now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible. We urgently require a global environmental revolution." — Tony Blair, former British PM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth." — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "In Nature organic growth proceeds according to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a 'master plan' is missing from the process of growth and development of the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years form today it will probably be too late." — Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We need a new paradigm of development in which the environment will be a priority. World civilization as we know it will soon end. We have very little time and we must act. If we can address the environmental problem, it will have to be done within a new system, a new paradigm. We have to change our mindset, the way humankind views the world." — Mikhail Gorbachev, founder of Green Cross International ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation." — UN Commission on Global Governance report ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today's problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time." — Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government." — Mikhail Gorbachev, State of the World Forum ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I envisage the prinicles of the Earth Charter to be a new form of the ten commandments. They lay the foundation for a sustainable global earth community." — Mikhail Gorbachev, co-author of The Earth Charter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways." — Dr Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises." — Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Regionalism must precede globalism. We foresee a seamless system of governance from local communities, individual states, regional unions and up through to the United Nations itself." — UN Commission on Global Governance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income. Perhaps only a new and enlightened humanism can permit mankind to negotiate this transition." — Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The alternative to the existing world order can only emerge as a result of a new human dimension of progress. We envision a revolution of the mind, a new way of thinking." — Mikhail Gorbachev, State of the World Forum ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We require a central organizing principle — one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change — these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public's desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary." — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Adopting a central organizing principle... means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution... to halt the destruction of the environment." — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level." — UN Agenda 21 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The current course of development is thus clearly unsustainable. Current problems cannot be solved by piecemeal measures. More of the same is not enough. Radical change from the current trajectory is not an option, but an absolute necessity. Fundamental economic, social and cultural changes that address the root causes of poverty and environmental degradation are required and they are required now." — from the Earth Charter website ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope." — David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "If we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism. I don't think it is possible under capitalism" — Judi Bari, principal organiser of Earth First! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?" — Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation." - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are." — Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control." — Professor Maurice King ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land." — David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." — Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet." — Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." — Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature." — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil." — Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it's full complement of species, returning throughout the world." -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class — involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing — are not sustainable." — Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on the earth." — Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." — John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor." — Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man." — Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.'' — Prof Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history, but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in the number of game animals and the need to adjust the cull to the size of the surplus population." — Prince Philip, preface of Down to Earth ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible." — United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." — Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion." — Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population,we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it." — Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." — Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." — John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing." — Christopher Manes, Earth First! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on Earth — social and environmental." — Ingrid Newkirk, former President of PETA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." — David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The fate of mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new faith in the future. Armed with such a faith, we might find it possible to resanctify the earth." — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The greatest hope for the Earth lies in religionists and scientists uniting to awaken the world to its near fatal predicament and then leading mankind out of the bewildering maze of international crises into the future Utopia of humanist hope." — Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "What an incredible planet in the universe this will be when we will be one human family living in justice, peace, love and harmony with our divine Earth, with each other and with the heavens." — Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human species has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution.... Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature." — Rene Dubos, board member, Planetary Citizens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Each element, plant, insect, fish and animal represents a certain aspect of Gaia's — and our — being. In a way, we are Gaia's intelligence and awareness — currently lost in self-destructive madness. We must acknowledge, respect and love her for being the Mother she is to us or we deny our very selves. Nurture the Mother as she nurtures us." — Prof. Michael J. Cohen, Ecopsychologist ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature." — Maurice Strong, first Secretary General of UNEP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The spirit of our planet is stirring! The Consciousness of Goddess Earth is now rising against all odds, in spite of millennia of suppression, repression and oppression inflicted on Her by a hubristic and misguided humanity. The Earth is a living entity, a biological organism with psychic and spiritual dimensions. With the expansion of the patriarchal religions that focused on a male God majestically stationed in Heaven ruling over the Earth and the Universe, the memory of our planet's innate Divinity was repressed and banished into the collective unconscious of humanity." — Envision Earth ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Still more important is the implication that the evolution of homo sapiens, with his technological inventiveness and his increasingly subtle communications network, has vastly increased Gaia's range of perception. She is now through us awake and aware of herself. She has seen the reflection of her fair face through the eyes of astronauts and the television cameras of orbiting spacecraft. Our sensations of wonder and pleasure, our capacity for conscious thought and speculation, our restless curiosity and drive are hers to share. This new interrelationship of Gaia with man is by no means fully established; we are not yet a truly collective species, corralled and tamed as an integral part of the biosphere, as we are as individual creatures. It may be that the destiny of mankind is to become tamed, so that the fierce, destructive, and greedy forces of tribalism and nationalism are fused into a compulsive urge to belong to the commonwealth of all creatures which constitutes Gaia." — Sir James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look At Life ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Little by little a planetary prayer book is thus being composed by an increasingly united humanity seeking its oneness. Once again, but this time on a universal scale, humankind is seeking no less than its reunion with 'divine,' its transcendence into higher forms of life. Hindus call our earth Brahma, or God, for they rightly see no difference between our earth and the divine. This ancient simple truth is slowly dawning again upon humanity, as we are about to enter our cosmic age and become what we were always meant to be: the planet of god." — Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "What if Mary is another name for Gaia? Then her capacity for virgin birth is no miracle ... it is a role of Gaia since life began ... She is of this Universe and, conceivably, a part of God. On Earth, she is the source of life everlasting and is alive now; she gave birth to humankind and we are part of her." — Sir James Lovelock, Ages of Gaia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals." — Mikhail Gorbachev, Green Cross International ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The spiritual sense of our place in nature... can be traced to the origins of human civilization.... The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity." — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian Religious tradition." — Peter Singer, founder of Animal Rights ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I pledge allegiance to the Earth and all its sacred parts. Its water, land and living things and all its human hearts." — Global Education Associates, The Earth Pledge ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "By fostering a deep sense of connection to others and to the earth in all its dimensions, holistic education encourages a sense of responsibility to self to others and to the planet." — Global Alliance for Transforming Education ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The earth is not dead matter. She is alive. Now begin to speak to the earth as you walk. You can speak out loud, or just talk to her in your mind. Send your love into her with your exhalation. Feel your heart touching upon the heart of the planet. Say to her whatever words come to you: Mother Earth, I love you. Mother Earth, I bless you. May you be healed. May all your creatures be happy. Peace to you, Mother Earth. On behalf of the human race, I ask forgiveness for having injured you. Forgive us, Mother Earth" — US Student Textbook, "Prayer to the Earth" Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
|
ATTACK ON CRETE SYNAGOGUE CARRIES SPECIAL MEANING
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, January 19, 2010. |
|
This was written by Ruth Ellen Gruber January 13, 2010 in
Ruth Ellen Gruber's books include "National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe," "Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere)," and "Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe." She blogs on Jewish heritage issues at jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com. |
|
ROME (JTA) — The vandals who torched the historic Etz Hayyim synagogue in Hania, an ancient port on the Greek island of Crete, left no doubt about their motives. After breaking into the building on the night of Jan. 5 and setting its interior alight, they threw a bar of soap against its outer wall. A bar of soap? That's because, explains the synagogue's director, Nikos Stavroulakis, "I'll make you into a bar of soap" is a common anti-Semitic taunt in Greece. Since the Holocaust, there has been a persistent belief that the Nazis made soap from Jewish corpses. Even though scholars have disproved the idea, bars of soap have been buried reverently in some European Jewish cemeteries under solemn memorials. "In this place lie the remains of Jewish martyrs exterminated by German fascists and turned into soap," reads the inscription on an obelisk in Piatra Neamt, Romania. The power of this belief was examined in "The Soap Myth," a play by Jeff Cohen that ran last summer in New York. Based on a true story, the play focused on the efforts of an elderly Holocaust survivor "on a one-man mission to get the 'soap myth' reclassified as fact," Marissa Brostoff wrote in Tablet magazine. But at the heart of the story was something much more. What was at stake, Brostoff wrote, was "the way we choose to see the past, a struggle between a dispassionate approach relying on facts and figures and another, much more subjective one that holds survivors' testimonies to be unarguably true and ultimately sacred." Anti-Semitic violence is anything but dispassionate. The bar of soap hurled against the desecrated synagogue in Hania was a diabolically mixed metaphor: Soap usually symbolizes purity and godliness, but in this twisted context it spelled hatred and death. The attack on the Hania synagogue was not just an assault on a building. It was an assault on the ideals that had transformed the structure from a wrecked relic of Holocaust destruction to a new symbol of community and compassion. (A week-and-a-half after the Jan. 5 attack, Etz Hayyim may have been victimized by another arson. A fire early Saturday morning destroyed the wooden roof of the building as well as scores of books, four computers, and 300 CDs and cassette tapes of Jewish music. The damage was estimated at $43,000. The fire brigade investigating the cause has not ruled out arson.) This transformation was accomplished largely through the efforts of Stavroulakis, a remarkable man who has devoted much of the past two decades to restoring a Jewish presence to a city made "Judenrein" by the Nazis. I met Stavroulakis when I visited Hania in 1996. An artist, author and scholar who had co-founded and directed the Jewish Museum in Athens, Stavroulakis had returned to live in his family's rambling house in Hania after many years away. The synagogue, which dates back to the 15th century, was in ruin. But over the next three years Stavroulakis made it his mission to raise funds and, with the help of the World Monuments Fund and other donors, oversee the building's rebirth. His aim was to make it a living spiritual presence, not simply a restored reminder of the past. The synagogue now functions as a museum, and it hosts exhibitions and cultural events. It's also an active house of worship. A small Havurah community whose members include Christians and some Muslims — as well as Jews of all persuasions — regularly assembles there to celebrate Shabbat and Jewish holidays. Stavroulakis himself leads daily prayers each morning, whether a minyan is present or not. Prayers were held as usual at 9 a.m. Jan. 6, the morning after the arson attack. The fire had gutted a stairway, wreaked havoc on the synagogue library, and covered walls and precious furnishings with a thick layer of soot. "Fortunately," Stavroulakis said, "the fabric of the synagogue was and is intact." He was referring to the physical structure of the building, but I think he also meant that the symbolic identity of the synagogue also had survived — and would be maintained. "We must be angry over what has happened to our synagogue," he told the small group of worshipers gathered for prayers amid the soot. "If we were not, it would be an indication that we were either indifferent or morally numb." But, Stavroulakis asked, just where should the anger be directed? Local indifference and the ignorance that promotes racism had to be addressed. "We have tried at Etz Hayyim to be a small presence in the midst of what is at times almost aggressive ignorance," he wrote on the synagogue blog. "We have done this to such a degree that our doors are open from early in the morning until late in the day so that the synagogue assumes its role as a place of prayer, recollection and reconciliation." There is, Stavroulakis wrote, little if any sign of overt security. "This character of the synagogue must not change and the doors must remain open," he wrote. If not, that means "we have given in to the ignorance that has perpetrated this desecration." A week after the attack, the Etz Hayyim blog posted pictures showing that thanks in large part to volunteers, the walls of the sanctuary already had been painted and other clean-up work was well under way. "The impact of this [attack] will be wider than simply an act of terrorism against Jews," Stavroulakis told me. "Already it is being seen in a much wider social context that has to do with civic responsibility and care." Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
|
TRIPLETS JOIN ISRAEL AIR FORCE
Posted by CPocerl, January 19, 2010. |
|
This comes from the Betbender Website:
|
|
Note: Sam Orbaum and I were colleagues and friends at The Jerusalem Post newspaper. Before my own triplet children were born 16-years ago, my then wife and I visited with Sam and his wife, Wendy (Elliman) to see what raising triplets was like. We learned a lot from their experience and commonsense child rearing. You did good, Sam, and I, and so many others, miss you. May your soul rest in peace, and derive nachat from this: 
Excerpt from The Jerusalem Post: "'The concept of 'one for all and all for one' can get pretty absurd,'wrote the late columnist Sam Orbaum about his identical triplet daughters 14 years ago. Orbaum, who passed away in 2002 at the age of 46, wrote about life as a father of identical triplets. Not only did he sometimes mix them up, Orbaum wrote in his well-known wry, comic style, but he was also constantly impressed by their tight bond — when for example they stood up for one another in fights in the school sandbox. The three blond 19-year-old sisters are still sticking up for one another, although this time not on the playground but in the IDF Air Corps, in which they all enlisted a few months ago, making history. Odelia, the oldest (born a minute before her two sisters), serves as a control officer ; Nomi is an air traffic controller; and Donna is currently in training for a different position. All three plan on attending the IDF's pestigious Office Candidate Course and extending their service for at least an additional year. Nomi Orbaum says, "[Serving In the IDF ] is what characterizes the state." "He supported us in everything we did until he passed away when we
were 12," Donna said on how their father would feel about their
serving in the IDF. "This is the seventh year since he passed away
and I think about him all the time and see his smile and know that he
would have been proud of us."
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
FROM ISRAEL: UP AND DOWN
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 19, 2010. |
|
I wrote yesterday about Peace Now as one of several organizations that take money from international sources — with the Knesset considering a bill that would require such organizations to register as foreign agents. I apologize that I did not adequately specify what I was referring to: It's not money from international sources that is the problem, but, rather, from foreign governments. Peace Now and others receive funding from European governments that have an agenda not compatible with Israel's. Organizations, for example, such as Magen David Adam, which takes money from American Friends of MDA, are not foreign agents. (Thanks to Nan for asking the right question.) ~~~~~~~~~~ I had also written yesterday that I had it from a reliable source, but could not absolutely confirm, that Israel was the only nation that had a field hospital in Haiti. Almost correct, but not quite. There apparently are some other hospitals set up, but they are meager facilities. (Improvement is expected, but up to this point, the US showing is pathetic; it's appropriate to ask why.) Israel's hospital was the first, and is the largest; most significantly, it is the only one equipped with proper surgical facilities and life-saving equipment. It's a serious place. Dying patients from other places are being transferred to the Israeli hospital. Additional medical staff and supplies are on their way to Haiti from Israel today. See the video clip below from CNN. Can you believe? CNN praising Israel! We have to be damn good to receive such accolades. I would recommend simply sharing this clip with others. It says it all. (Thanks to Wallace and Cheryl for sending it to me.)
In a similar video from CBS News, the Israeli hospital is called the "Rolls Royce of emergency medical care." ~~~~~~~~~~ I would like to recommend a piece by Barry Rubin: "New Failure on Iran Sanctions: Will the Farce Never End?" "It is literally incredible how ineptly the Obama Administration is handling the sanctions on Iran... "This situation provides a vivid case study on the Obama Administration's view of the world, diplomatic skills, and unwillingness to take even a moderately tough stance on handling critical issues." Rubin makes clear that in spite of Obama's declared intention to start sanctions by this date, or that, nothing is actually happening. It's time for everyone to be very worried.
~~~~~~~~~~ I had a similar response when I read a news report today about what German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, in a press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, after an historic joint Israeli-German cabinet session. Said she: "If Iran's reactions don't change, we will help work on comprehensive sanctions." If Iran's reactions don't change? What utter nonsense this is. How long is the world supposed to wait? Netanyahu's response: "If we don't apply sanctions, crippling sanctions, against this Iranian tyranny, when shall we apply them? If not now, when?" The world is highly uneasy about the prospect of an Israeli military attack on Iran, but this same world, which shies away from sanctions, as well, is increasing the likelihood that Israel will attack. ~~~~~~~~~~ I like it that it has been announced that the theme for this year's independence day (Yom Ha'Atzmaut) celebrations will be: "If you will it, it is no dream — Achievements of the State of Israel on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Herzl." Of course, this can be turned around to focus on achievements such as stunning hi-tech. But there is a very definite political message here, and we need to emphasize it: We cannot be intimidated by the world. We must hold on to our vision, in order to make it happen. Judea and Samaria are ours. We must will it, to make it so. ~~~~~~~~~~ After weeks of unseasonably warm weather, winter has finally arrived, with chill and wind and heavy rain and sleet. We need much more — we're in trouble because of water shortages, but this is most welcome. A blessing. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
PALESTINIAN ARABS HATE JEWS — LOVE JOBS AND MONEY JEWS PROVIDE
Posted by Steven Shamrak, January 19, 2010. | |
|
Ismail Harb resents the Israeli settlements that crown the hilltops of the occupied (by so-called Palestinian) West Bank (Judea and Samaria), but every day he lines up before dawn to help build them: "It's not just the money we make in the Israeli construction projects, but also that the work in the settlements never stops." "I completely agree with the Palestinian Authority's demand to halt the settlements, but where is the alternative that will provide us with a decent living," he asks. Nearly a half million Israelis live in more than 100 settlements scattered across Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem. Western-backed PA president Mahmud Abbas has called the settlements the biggest obstacle to peace and refused to restart negotiations with Israel without a complete construction freeze. But thousands of Palestinian labourers rely on work in the settlements, which pays more than twice the wages of similar jobs elsewhere in Judea and Samaria. Today, only around 45,000 Palestinians have work permits (they must say a big "thank you" for that). Palestinian employment minister Ahmad Majdalani says the Authority is aware of the problem but blames Israeli closures for the lack of job opportunities. (Israel does its bit to help 'poor Palestinians' — supporters of terrorism. In return, the PA loves to terrorise Jews and blame Israel for everything! A hundred years ago Arabs called Haifa Um el-Amal "the city of work" and many of them moved to Palestine to get jobs created by Jews.) A bomb exploded near two cars carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan last Thursday on the approach to the Allenby Bridge crossing over the Jordan river to Israel. The Israel Defense Forces' aid mission to Haiti landed in Port-au-Prince earlier Friday with equipment for setting up an emergency field hospital. Around 220 soldiers and officers make up the delegation, including 120 medical and members of ZAKA, the Israeli ultra-Orthodox volunteer rescue organization. Food for Thought by Steven Shamrak How many rockets are needed to kill Osama bin Laden? Only one! But there is a need for a political will to end the global Islamic threat and fight the true perpetrators and initiators of Islamic terror in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Instead, almost a trillion dollars have been wasted on the fake war on terror. Jews will be "third rate citizens" in Palestine. The President of Al Quds University and esteemed moderate Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh said ''the possibility of creating a Palestinian state has disappeared. Though I don't exclude the possibility of a miracle, I personally don't see how it is possible.'' He said that soon, Israel will have no choice but to integrate the Palestinians ''as third rate citizens with elementary rights of movement, work, health and education, but with no political rights.'' (Hamas and Fatah still want to "Throw them (Jews) into the sea." Now 'moderate' Arabs are suggesting genocide of Jews through demographic war!) Abbas Proudly Snubs US. After the US had asked Abbas not to sign an agreement with Hamas, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to sign a reconciliation agreement with Fatah: "There is no disagreement between us: About belief ? None! About policy [destruction of Israel ]? None! About resistance ? None!" (If Israel did this the international media would have a 'fiesta'.) Time to End Temporary Stupidity. Israel is considering whether to extend the mandate of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), which will expire at the end of January. Foreign Ministry officials accused TIPH personnel of relaying false reports against IDF soldiers and Jewish settlers, while completely ignoring the violent acts by Palestinians against the Jewish residents: "They just vilify Israel." (Will they be removed or is it another empty bluff?) The Best Way to Deal with Criminal Bastardry. A radical Islamic imam from Pantin, suburb of Paris, has been expelled from France to Egypt, his country of origin. French interior minister Brice Hortefeux said, ''I have ordered the arrest and expulsion of Imam Ali ibrahim El Soudany for inciting violence as a dangerous individual.'' Quote of the Week: "Iran's new proposal to the West did not provide any opening for serious negotiations on the nuclear issue, but rather vague formulations for the agenda of any future talks& Observers understood that there was a hard September deadline that Iran had to meet to begin serious nuclear negotiations. Unfortunately, at this stage, there is little evidence that the Obama administration is about to adopt effective action in a timely manner in light of Iran's policy of rejectionism" — Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Israel's ambassador to the UN in 1997-1999. Look Who is Complaining. Israel publicly snubbed Turkey's ambassador over his country's persistent criticism of the Jewish state and the screening of a Turkish television drama depicting Israeli security forces as kidnapping children and shooting old men. The Turkish government protested about the treatment of Turkish ambassador to Israel Ahmet Oguz Celikkol by Deputy Foreign Ambassador Danny Ayalon. "Israel must obey the standards of international diplomatic manners". (Since the election of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey has repeatedly criticized and snubbed Israel. An occasional snub from Israel is a healthy treatment for enemies of the Jews.) Duplicity of Blame and Pressure. The Palestinian Authority rejected the call by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton for a relaunching of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians with no pre-conditions. At the same time U.S. envoy George Mitchell suggested the U.S. might impose sanctions on Israel and withhold loan guarantees to press it to make concessions in negotiations with the Palestinians. (Arabs do not want peace, but Israel is blamed, pressured and blackmailed!) Hezbollah in Traditional Arab Drug Business. German customs officials arrested four Lebanese nationals — all members of the same family — at Frankfurt Airport who were found to be carrying nine million euros in their carry-on bags in May 2008. The money was seized, and an analysis showed traces of cocaine on the bills. The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that one way Hezbollah has been earning money for its terror activities is by selling drugs in Europe.
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 |
|
MUST REVISE NUCLEAR IRAN ESTIMATES
Posted by Susana K-M, January 19, 2010. |
|
This was written by William Katz.
and is archived on his website:
|
|
REVISION ON IRAN — AT 8:58 A.M. ET: While focusing on Massachusetts, we continue to watch other developing stories. It appears that our intelligence "community" is about to right a horrible wrong. From ace reporter Eli Lake of The Washington Times: U.S. intelligence agencies now suspect that Iran never halted work on its nuclear arms program in 2003, as stated in a national intelligence estimate made public three years ago, U.S. officials said. That estimate was a scandal. It did enormous damage to our efforts to stop the Iranian program, undercutting the Bush administration's major arguments. There was informed speculation that it was more a political document than a work of intelligence. There has not been an adequate inquiry into that. Differences among analysts now focus on whether the country's supreme leader has given or will soon give orders for full-scale production of nuclear weapons. For our own protection, we must assume the worst. The new consensus emerging among analysts in the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community on Iran's nuclear arms program is expected to be the highlight of a classified national intelligence estimate nearing completion that will replace the estimate issued in 2007. The unclassified summary of the 2007 document said the U.S. intelligence community had "moderate confidence" that Iran's nuclear weapons work had halted in 2003. In a footnote, it stated that weapons development was defined as warhead design and not the enrichment of uranium, which has continued unabated contrary to the Iranian government's agreement not to develop uranium enrichment techniques outside International Atomic Energy Agency controls. A senior U.S. military officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity last week revealed that the new argument among analysts is over Iran's decision to move forward with weaponization... ...The officer, who is knowledgeable about operational matters and intelligence on Iran, said Iran's nuclear program is well-advanced and moving toward the point at which a weapon could be built. In the meantime, our policy toward Iran is in a state of collapse. Six major powers met on Monday to decide what to do in the face of Iranian defiance about its nuclear program. The Chinese again insulted the United States by sending a lower-level delegation than was sent by other nations. China has made it perfectly clear that it opposes further sanctions on Iran, and China has veto power in the UN Security Council, which would have to vote on those sanctions. We have no Plan B. There wasn't much of a Plan A either. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
WHY HOLY WARRIORS CAN'T FIND LOVE
Posted by CPocerl, January 19, 2010. |
|
This item is archived at
|
|
Islamic terrorists are having a sometimes violent debate among themselves. It's all about the use of violence. Islamic terrorists, as their title implies, are all about violence. But many of the terrorists have noted that over 90 percent (often over 98 percent) of the violence victims are Moslems. This has caused public image problems. In areas where Islamic terrorists kill people, the friends and family of the victims tend to become hostile to the Islamic warriors. This can cause serious problems if the Islamic terrorists are being energetically pursued, as the local people will have an incentive to pass on information about where the Holy Warriors are, and what they are doing. In many cases, this leads to locals arming and organizing themselves to keep the Islamic terrorists out of their area. This sort of hostile behavior from fellow Moslems has troubled an increasing number of Islamic radicals. Organizations like al Qaeda are, as a result, finding it more difficult to recruit, and carry out operations without being detected. But on a larger scale, the problem has led many Islamic radicals to question the tactics of attacks that kill many Moslems. The hard core Islamic radicals respond that those victims are, at worst, "involuntary martyrs" to the cause, and often those "Moslems" aren't really Moslems at all (because they don't agree with Islamic terrorism). The more thoughtful Islamic radicals are calling for more precise attacks, that greatly reduce the number of dead Moslems. That's all very well in theory, but more pragmatic Islamic terrorists point out that the security forces, and especially foreign troops (often Americans), are very good at defending themselves, often making it impossible for even suicide bombers to get close. And that's usually when there are civilians (usually local Moslems) around. If attacks are to be made at all, local civilians are going to be at risk. If no attacks are made, the Islamic radicals have no publicity, and no support at all from fellow Moslems. The basic problem is that the Islamic radical groups promise too much. And the only way to achieve their grandiose goals is through bold and provocative action. Blowing things up, in a place where the international media will notice, helps get things started. But an increasing number of Islamic radicals have figured out that this "bold action" approach not only fails, but makes the Islamic radicals hated by fellow Moslems. Fortunately for the hard liners, the bulk of the new recruits are either ignorant, or mentally deranged. These fellows can more easily motivated. But those terrorists who can reason and sort things out, are seeking a new strategy. Even al Qaeda opposed (quietly) the bloody tactics of the Iraqi branch after 2004. That branch has since been greatly reduced, but their spirit lives on in Afghanistan, where most of the civilians being killed are victims of Islamic terrorists. No one has come up with better tactics, and the existing ones at least keep the cause in the news, and that results in some recruits and cash still showing up. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
THE ANTI-ZIONIST NY TIMES; MUSLIMS SET CHURCH AFIRE; ABBAS: NO
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAMAS AND HIM; OBAMA'S HAND AGAINST ISRAEL
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 19, 2010. |
|
HAS NY TIMES BEEN ANTI-ZIONIST? "On January 22, 1942, The New York Times ran an editorial that rejected the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. The immediate context was the idea of forming a Jewish brigade within the British Army. The Times based its objection, among other things, on the assumption that Jews did not need a state of their own, because once the Allies achieved a victory, they would be citizens with equal rights in their countries of residence, in accordance with the Atlantic Charter signed by the United States and Britain in August 1941. Hopes for a Jewish homeland would be fulfilled, the Times wrote, by 'the winning of a new world in which Jews along with other religious and national minorities may live peacefully and happily in every nation, enjoying the full rights of other citizens.'" (Prof. Steven Plaut, 1/11.) The newspaper's supposition was so naïve, that it is difficult to imagine it was sincere. It certainly was proved false. Nor was its premise, that if Jews were well-treated elsewhere, they should not be allowed to pursue their national destiny in their own homeland, logical or fair. Those who know the record of the NY Times do not expect it to overcome its anti-Zionist prejudice. MEDICAL CARE FOR HAITIANS AND THE ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT Although what happens in Haiti is not part of the Arab-Israel conflict, it does reflect the cultures of the protagonists. Israel keeps a corps of medical personnel and supplies ready for foreign emergencies. To Haiti, it sent a field hospital, with several dozen medical personnel. It was the only country to do so, although the U.S. responded first and with massive aid. The Israelis were prepared to treat the full range of medical needs. They found that a nearby Haitian hospital was not. The Israelis worked out with the Haitians to let the Haitian hospital specialize, and then the Israelis would perform the rest of the medical services. That took care of more patients. What did Saudi Arabia send? A note of condolence. Some other Arab countries sent financial pledges. Ex-presidential candidate Huckabee compared the U.S. contribution with the non-existent contribution of such dictatorships as Iran and Venezuela, which posture about their greatness and condemn the U.S.. Comment: Pledged funds often do not get sent. That has been the case for the Palestinian Authority, to which Arab states pledge much but deliver only some. In the U.S., Christian churches often volunteer the use of their buildings to Jewish congregations whose synagogues have to shut down, temporarily. That is a commendable example. I find that Saudi Arabia rarely donates funds except for the advancement of Islam. That is not so charitable Israel's enemies accuse Israel of denying medical treatment to Palestinian Arabs. Actually, Israel takes in thousands of Palestinian Arab patients a year, often at no charge. I have reported Israelis' observations that many of those patients make nasty and provocative remarks about Israel or cheer upon hearing news of some act of terrorism against Israel. I think that Israel goes overboard in being humanitarian to the Arabs, just as the Arabs and other enemies of Israel go overboard in accusing Israel of not being humane and in ignoring how inhumane the Arabs generally are to Israelis and to their own people. I believe that Jews like to do the right thing, and that Israel hopes the world would see it in that light. Alas, the world is too prejudiced. What this means is that the world is so ideological and polarized, that it no longer can tell good from evil or acknowledge good deeds by its scapegoats. MUSLIMS SET CHURCH AFIRE It does not matter that I forgot in which country today's Wall St. Journal reported that Muslims set fire to a church. The point is what they did and that they did it when Christian worshipers had assembled inside. Quite a few were murdered that way (1/19). This is part of a terrorist prejudice, in which some countries' Muslim masses, if they have a quarrel with some Christians, they take it out on any Christians they can find. It is similar to the Nazi practice, during the Holocaust, of locking Jews into their synagogue and setting it ablaze. Many liberals propose that the UN resolve international problems and problems of prejudice. It passes resolutions against hate crimes. It seems to ignore this type of crime. ABBAS: NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAMAS AND HIM Palestinian Authority head Abbas said there is no difference between his Party, Fatah, and Hamas, except that Fatah officially is in power. Abbas pointed out that neither Fatah nor Hamas made any concessions to Israel. The Roadmap originally provided a three-step plan towards establishing the PA as a country, with temporary borders as a second step. Condoleezza Rice, as U.S. Secretary of State two years ago, convinced Israel to skip over the first phase, which called for an end of incitement and violence by the PA.. Abbas boasted that he did not propose temporary borders, Israel did. In other words, he is not following the Roadmap. He also refuses to negotiate until Israel agrees to give him much of what he otherwise would have to negotiate. Abbas vowed that he would continue to hunt and punish Arabs who sell land to Jews. The P.A. has executed several of them. Abbas defended his honoring of an Arab terrorist who murdered many Jews (Arutz-7, 1/18). Now that Abbas admits having no different policy toward Israel, why does the U.S. continue to support him as a means of attaining peace? CYBERWAR IN MIDEAST CONFLICT In Israel last two, smaller wars, both sides attempted to disrupt the other sides' computer-based industry. Sometimes mercenary hackers are hired. Cyberwarfare is an increasing part of the rivalry (Arutz-7, 1/18). OBAMA'S HAND AGAINST ISRAEL REVEALED President Obama promised transparency, but both his Administration and PM Netanyahu's collude secretly and against the interests of the people of Israel. Netanyahu's several recent predecessors did likewise, negotiating secretly for excessive concessions to the Arabs. Now that Obama's Mideast envoy, Sen. Mitchell, threatened to withhold U.S loan guarantees unless Israel gives in to all the U.S. demands, it makes no legitimate sense for Americans to pretend that Obama will not insist that Israel cave into it 100%. The new threat came after a single visit to the White House sufficed for Netanyahu to reverse himself on Palestinian Arab statehood. The lesson here is that an Israeli concession buys no surcease from pressure, just pressure for further concessions. The humbling of Israel is peculiar, considering that Obama is losing power. Obama is unpopular among the people of the U.S. and within his own Party, is mocked by America's enemies, and is not respected by its other allies. [The new concessions is not likely to have come from Obama's eloquence, which no longer moves anybody else.] Why does Israel kowtow to the President? Is it that Israel does not understand that Congress, more sympathetic to it, shares U.S. power in foreign affairs? Sen. Mitchell once thought so (Winston Mideast Report & Analysis, 1/18, including commentary from Yoram Ettinger). Or is it that Israeli leaders are picked in advance by the U.S.? WHOSE BUILDING IS ILLEGAL IN JERUSALEM? The Kings Garden area in Jerusalem is near the Temple Mount. It long has been zoned for a municipal park and to be available for excavation of anticipated archaeological treasures. Nevertheless, since 1970, about 90 illegal buildings have been erected in that area by Arabs, except one. That one is owned by the EU. About 40 of those houses have been served notices to demolish, but only two were demolished, so far. An Israeli official suggested that since the EU insists that Israel not demolish illegal Arab housing, it should not mind it it Israel does not demolish Jews' housing that the EU complains about. (Arutz-7, 1/19). The Israeli is making a point that the law should be consistent. I think the point is too complicated and does not apply here. The EU argues law but is motivated by anti-Zionist prejudice. Its legal arguments are baseless. Israel has the right to build houses in eastern Jerusalem, part of the Jewish homeland reserved for its people. On the other hand, building must follow the building code and zoning laws and be on property owned by those who order the construction. The Arabs and the EU violate those laws, so their houses should be demolished or confiscated. (For more on legal status of Jews' houses in Jerusalem, click here.) 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:
|
|
SAUDI PUBLIC BACKS IRAN SANCTIONS BUT SPLIT ON MILITARY ACTION
Posted by Wash. Inst. for Near East Poiicy, January 19, 2010. |
|
This article was written by David Pollock, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on the political dynamics of Middle Eastern countries. He is the author of the Institute's 2008 Policy Focus Slippery Polls: Uses and Abuses of Opinion Surveys from Arab States." It was published January 12, 2009 as PolicyWatch #1618 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. |
|
A highly unusual and credible private poll of Saudi citizens taken in late November 2009 by a reputable regional firm shows solid popular support for tough measures against Iran, even though domestic economic issues loom larger in the public's perception. Conducted in partnership with Pechter Middle East Polls, a new, Princeton-based research organization, the survey involved face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of 1,000 Saudi citizens in the major metropolitan areas of Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam/al-Khobar. A comparable poll was conducted in Egypt during the same period, with a representative national sample of 1,000. Majority of Saudis Support New Sanctions A solid majority (57 percent) of urban Saudis approved of "stronger sanctions against Iran" if it "does not accept new limits on its nuclear program," with 22 percent "strongly" in favor (compared to only 11 percent strongly opposed). Moreover, the level of popular support for sanctions was high across all key demographic categories: age, education, social class, gender, and region. For example, Jeddah showed 57 percent approval, Riyadh 59 percent, and Dammam/al-Khobar 54 percent. One-Third of Saudis Would Support a U.S. Strike More surprisingly, a third of urban Saudis said that they would approve "an American military strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities" if Tehran refuses to restrict its activities in this field. But a majority disagreed: one-third were "somewhat" opposed to such action, and the remaining third were "strongly" opposed. These responses showed modest variation by demographic categories. In Riyadh, for instance, 38 percent would support a U.S. strike, while in Jeddah, far to the west, the number dropped to 27 percent. Moreover, among Saudis with only an elementary-school education, 37 percent would support a military strike, but among those with a high school diploma or higher, the figure was 30 percent. Less Support for Israeli Strike Asked about an Israeli military strike against Iran, one-quarter of urban Saudis said that they would support it at least "to some extent." Interestingly, that figure is three times larger than the number of respondents who said that they would accept Israel "as a Jewish state," even "under the right conditions" — a mere 9 percent of urban Saudis took that position. But regional differences are relatively significant here: in Jeddah, hypothetical acceptance of a Jewish state was 17 percent, compared to barely 4 percent in Riyadh or Dammam/al-Khobar. Iran a Lesser Threat than Terrorism or Religious Extremism In response to an open-ended question about the greatest external threats to their country, many of the Saudis cited issues of terrorism or religious extremism. In fact, these issues led the list by a large margin, with each garnering around 20 percent of total first mentions. Issues related to Iran and Israel lagged far behind, barely registering in double digits even when first and second mentions were combined. On a related question, more than half (54 percent) of urban Saudis said that "religious extremism is a serious problem" in their country, including 28 percent who strongly believe this. These perceptions should also be placed in the broader perspective of overall popular concerns. As noted in PolicyWatch #1614, "Polling Saudis and Egyptians: Iran, Jihad, and the Economy," most urban Saudis now see economic rather than security or social issues as their country's top priority. In response to another open-ended question, two-thirds named inflation, unemployment, poverty, or corruption as first-priority issues, while a mere 7 percent cited terrorism. And foreign policy issues on any front — whether Iran, Israel, or elsewhere — were not cited at all. Local Differences Findings from other questions in the survey support the view that, in some respects, Saudi attitudes tend in an increasingly hardline Islamic direction as one moves eastward, from Jeddah on the Red Sea, to Riyadh in central Nejd, to Dammam/al-Khobar in the Eastern Province. Asked about al-Qaeda, for example, 16 percent of respondents in Jeddah voiced favorable opinions, compared to 21 percent in Riyadh and 31 percent in Dammam/al-Khobar. Similarly, when asked whether "financially supporting armed mujahedin fighting in various places around the world is an Islamic duty," 32 percent in Jeddah said yes, compared to 36 percent in Riyadh and 42 percent in Dammam/al-Khobar. Comparisons with Egypt The poll data show that Egyptians are significantly less likely than urban Saudis to favor tough action against Iran. For example, the proportion of Egyptians who support new sanctions barely tops 40 percent and has declined moderately since June 2009, in contrast to the majority support in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, just one-quarter of Egyptians, compared to a third of Saudis, would support U.S. military action, and even fewer would approve an Israeli strike (17 percent). At the same time, the Egyptian respondents were somewhat more likely to say that they could accept Israel as a Jewish state, although this remained a distinctly minority opinion (26 percent) even after thirty years of formal Egyptian-Israeli peace. As mentioned previously, the Egyptian survey was of a national sample that included both rural and urban respondents, but the differences on this question by type of residence were very small. Moreover, those who would accept Israel as a Jewish state were no more likely than others to approve an Israeli strike against Iran. Policy Implications Neither Saudi Arabia nor Egypt is a democracy in which public opinion has a direct impact on foreign policy. Moreover, the Saudi public seems more concerned about terrorism and religious extremism than any direct threat from Iran — and more concerned still about their own economic situation. Nevertheless, these findings clearly suggest that the United States can point to significant Saudi popular support for stiffer sanctions against Iran, and perhaps even for the threat of military action, albeit to a lesser degree. In addition, Saudi popular sympathy for al-Qaeda is quite low, indicating a largely favorable climate for government counterterrorism efforts aimed at the organization. On other issues, however, public opinion could pose considerable obstacles to proposed Saudi or U.S.-backed initiatives. For example, a large minority of urban Saudis — nearly 40 percent overall — believe that it is an Islamic duty to aid armed mujahedin around the world. And only a very small minority seem receptive to any proposals for "normalization" with Israel, given the overwhelming majority opposition to accepting the country as a Jewish state under any circumstances.
|
|
JERUSALEM VICE MAYOR: ONE LAW FOR ALL — RAZE EU
Posted by Hillel Fendel, January 19, 2010. |
|
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor David Hadari says that if the authorities are so bent on razing the Jewish-populated Beit Yehonatan in the eastern Jerusalem "Yemenite Village" neighborhood, they must also demolish another illegal building: The European Union's Beit Europa. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat appeared at a Knesset Law Committee session last week, and presented his housing plans for eastern Jerusalem. In the knowledge that there are dozens, and possibly hundreds, of illegally-built Arab buildings there, and that destroying all of them is not feasible, Barkat wishes to retroactively permit buildings there to reach four stories high, instead of the currently mandated two. Most of the buildings in question are Arab-populated, but one of them is none other than Beit Europa, used by the European Union for various activities. This raises a red flag for people like Hadari, who is concerned about the ongoing legal proceedings against the Jewish-owned Beit Yehonatan. The building stands six stories high, and because the authorities are unable to find the owner, they are seeking to evict the families. Named for Jonathan Pollard, Beit Yehonatan stands in the area of the Yemenite Village, below and just to the southeast of the Temple Mount. The area was owned by and home to many Jewish families, mostly from Yemen, from the 1880's until 1938. On Aug. 11, 1938, following a long period of Arab riots, pogroms and looting, the British evacuated the last 30 families from the neighborhood. "The British gave assurances that the 'Jewish refugees' would shortly return," according to Daniel Lurie, Executive Director of the Ateret Cohanim Jerusalem Settlement Foundation, "but of course, this never happened"- until April 2004, when several Jewish families moved back in. They enjoyed about two years of peaceful residence, until legal proceedings against them began — on "charges" of living in a house with building irregularities. Hadari says that thousands of other Arabs are living in a similar status, and if the buildings are to be "kosherized," then Beit Yehonatan must be as well. "Illegal buildings must be destroyed, period," Hadari says, "and we can't overlook the illegality of Beit Europa just because we're afraid of what the nations will say. The law must be fulfilled — though I am willing to make one exception: If Beit Yehonatan is legalized, then I am willing to accept the legalization of other buildings as well. One law for all. If all the buildings are deemed OK, then fine, but if not, then just as the others will have to be razed, then with great sorrow I would have to accept that Beit Yehonatan must be among them." The King's Garden Another pressing matter for Mayor Barkat is the "clean-up" of the King's Garden area, south of the Old City-Temple Mount area and just east of the City of David. Empty of homes up until 1970, it now houses some 90 buildings, all illegally built and most of them constructed over the past 20 years. Nearly 40 of them have been served with demolition orders, though only one or two have actually been razed. Barkat, Hadari and others feel that the area is critical for Israel — both in terms of its past, with archaeological treasures of King David's period waiting to be uncovered, and in terms of its zoning plans as a municipal park — and there is thus no need to allow law-breaking construction to impede its plans. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-7. |
|
ISRAEL'S DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE IN HAITI
Posted by AFSI, January 18, 2010. | |
|
Israel's relief efforts to Haiti: they include the following: A field hospital, the only hospital in operation, with 40 doctors, 25 nurses, paramedics, a pharmacy, a children's ward, a radiology department, an intensive care unit, an emergency room, two operating rooms, a surgical department, an internal department and a maternity ward. The hospital can treat approximately 500 patients each day, and in addition will perform preliminary surgeries. A search-and-rescue team, which has rescued about five people from under the rubble. 220 personnel in total Dozens of truckloads of medical and logistical equipment Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, one of the richest countries in the world, has sent a message of condolence to Haitian President René Préval. Some Arab countries have "pledged" help, such as $1 million pledged from both Kuwait and Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates says it will "shortly" send a plane with humanitarian assistance. Qatar, with the third largest gas reserves and the second highest GDP per capita in the world, has dispatched 50 metric tons of aid to the hundreds of thousands of homeless and injured Haitians. Latest reports are that the IDF Medical Corps have treated some 200 injured people in Haiti, performed ten life-saving surgeries and saved the lives of 140 others. On Sunday night, a resident of Port-au-Prince gave birth to a boy at the Israeli field hospital. In appreciation and gratitude, his mother decided to name her new son "Israel" in honor of the country that helped her. This below is an excerpt from Arutz-Sheva (IsraelNN.com) | |
|
The director of the Haiti field hospital, Col. Dr. Itzik Reis, explained that the IDF delegation is also giving assistance "to people from emergency crews from all over the world, who simply are not capable of dealing with everyone who needs help and giving them treatment. For example, when we understood that the Dominican team is not set up to provide full treatment, we created an order by which they stabilize the patients and we give them the remainder of the treatment." Other Israeli relief operations in Haiti include: A six-man ZAKA rescue unit, which worked for 38 consecutive hours and succeeded in pulling eight students alive from the rubble of the collapsed university. IsraAID, which sent a planeload of food and medical equipment. "Latet" (To Give) — a 15-member mission to Haiti, including three physicians, three nurses, and three paramedics. See video of new Haitian baby "Israel" and of IDF Rescue of Man in Haiti. See also three videos at Israpundit. Editor's Note: See also CNN video. This is called 'Shabbat From Hell' and was written by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich. It appeared January 16, 2009 in the Jerusalem Post
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 and organizer of the AFSI Chizuk missions. |
|
13 YR OLD GIRL RAPED BY 3 MEN & STONED TO DEATH FOR ADULTERY
Posted by CPocerl, January 18, 2010. |
|
This appeared in Atlas Shrugs
|
|
Shariah (Islamic) Law: Muslim Little Girl Stoned to Death for Being Raped
The cannibals at the UN were unavailable for comment. Too busy were they working on a resolution to kill free speech, criminalize defamation of Islam, and annihilate the Jews.
Feminazis were insisting that Islamic misogyny empowers women. Clitorectomies await them. Naomi Wolf first!
Innocent Little Girl, Stoned to Death for Being a Victim of Rape, Cries for Mercy Before they Kill Her. FFI
An innocent little girl, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, aged only 13 yrs was stoned to death in Somalia. She pleaded for her life, a witness explained. "Don't kill me, don't kill me," she cried, according to the man who wanted to remain anonymous. Numerous eye-witnesses say she was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck then pelted with stones by over than 50 men until she died in front of 1,000 jeering spectators. She had been accused of adultery in breach of Islamic law, but sources told Amnesty International that she had in fact been raped by three men, and had attempted to report this rape.
Aisha was killed on Monday 27 October in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu. None of men she accused of rape were arrested.
She was detained by militia of the Kismayo authorities, a
coalition of Al-shabab and clan militias. During this time, she
was reported to be extremely distressed, with some individuals
stating she had become mentally unstable. Initial reports said
she confessed to adultery before a Sharia court. Amnesty said it
had learned she was only 13 and that her father had said she was
gang raped by three men. Yes, that was her crime, she was raped
by three savage Muslim men! When the family tried to report the
rape, the girl was accused of adultery and detained.
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com
|
|
US DICTATED FREEZE; CIVIL LIBERTIES FLARE-UP IN ISRAEL; ISRAELI LEFT
SMEARS RIGHT, AGAIN?; HAMAS/FATAH PREPARING ANOTHER WAR
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 18, 2010. |
|
U.S. DICTATED FREEZE TO ISRAEL? PART 1. NETANYAHU DECEIVES HIS PEOPLE OVER IT Sources from inside the government of Israel revealed to the media that they find Israeli PM Netanyahu to be a lackey of the U.S.. Since entering office last March, Netanyahu did not approve any housing starts for eastern Jerusalem, as if it were in the freeze that he assured the country excluded Jerusalem. His coalition partner, Shas Party, which held the Housing Ministry, threatened to expose Netanyahu's duplicity, unless he approved housing in eastern Jerusalem. The Housing Minister put it as his members were getting restive. Netanyahu reportedly advised the U.S. that he would have to make a gesture to his Shas and nationalist partners, or lose power to them. Netanyahu then told Shas that he would, but only in coordination with the U.S.. In practical terms, that means that the U.S. put a quota on such construction for Jews. 700 tenders for housing were approved, hundreds of others were not (Arutz-7, 1/16). In support of the leaked assertion, remember that it came out that while Netanyahu was making nationalistic speeches about not caving in to demands for a freeze, actually he had denied building permits in Judea and Samaria. Netanyahu also made and offered other concessions. Nevertheless, Netanyahu kept his reputation for being a nationalist, a hard right-winger. Why? It suits some people to divide people into moderates and extremists, and if they were honest about Netanyahu, whom would they slot as extremist? It suits others to pretend that he is a nationalist, while he subverts the country by appeasement. This should be an eye-opener for people: 1. The U.S. and Israeli governments are duplicitous toward the governed. U.S. DICTATED FREEZE TO ISRAEL: PART 2 A straightforward threat usually is delivered by a diplomatic service. This includes the usual: cut-off of aid, jet fuel, spare parts for aircraft and other equipment sold to the victim nation, cancellation of contracts already in progress and the abrogation of other agreements where the Super-Power has agreed to mutual war protection pacts -like exchange of vital Intelligence." "There is always the very credible threat of 'assassination' which groups like the CIA or KGB can deliver with a high degree of confidence." "Possibly, the threat to expose the secret that the individual was really a 'double agent' who had worked for the Super-Power for many years." "Of course, the proverbial 'Honey Trap' could be sprung, where a beautiful woman is somehow introduced to a leading figure like a President, Prime Minister, Congressman, etc. The beauty then seduces the mark who is filmed in the room by a fiber-optic camera previously drilled through the wall. Probably, nothing improper happens but, Photoshop and Photos can create their own facts. The film is kept on file to be used, if needed, at a later time to blackmail the political leader into obedience." "Finally, the targeted leader may have a hidden Leftist ideology but acted as a politically Right Wing figure to push through Left Wing policy from a high position." (Winston Mideast Report & Analysis, 1/17). Mr. Winston wonders whether a certain former Muslim is a "Manchurian candidate" for President of the U.S.. CIVIL LIBERTIES FLARE-UP IN ISRAEL The New Israel Fund (NIF) complained that Israel now restricts the right to demonstrate. NIF subsidizes an organization, Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). Every week, ACRI holds a demonstration in eastern Jerusalem, against the civil rights of Jews to buy houses there and live a religiously observant life in their ancient capital. ACRI got police permits for the demonstration. If fewer than 50 people demonstrate, no permit is needed. This time, the police permit went to some other event. ACRI demonstrators arrived, anyway. They refused to disperse. Police arrested them. NIF protests that since the demonstrators were not violent, they should not have been arrested (Arutz-7, 1/16). NIF did not differentiate between denial of demonstrations without permits and dispersal of demonstrators with permits and arbitrary denial of permits. In a country at war that has a large fifth column that agitates for violence and whose demonstrations often turn into riots, permits make sense. Is NIF acting according to principle? I think not. The Left, to which the NIF belongs, has a double standard. Leftist media and university groups demand freedom of speech and assembly for themselves, and censorship and restriction for the Right. For many years, police allowed leftist and Arab demonstrations to be violent, but treated peaceable rightist demonstrations with violence. The police tendency was to club right-wing Jews before, during, and after arresting them. Police also dispersed, and often with brutality, rightist demonstrations of under 50 people, demonstrations permitted under law. Another double standard is for police often to watch Arab attacks on Jews in Judea-Samaria, and then to arrest only Jews who defend themselves. Lately, the Arab and leftist demonstrators have been so violent as to require tear gas and arrests. HAMAS AND FATAH ARE PREPARING ANOTHER WAR ON ISRAEL Both Hamas and Fatah are preparing another war on Israel. One does not hear of Israeli efforts to meet it, partly by arming heavily the Jews of Judea-Samaria, many of whom had military training. Prior Israeli governments have had residents of Judea-Samaria turn in their weapons for inspection. The government forgot to return them. When current Defense Min. Barak was prime Minister, he wanted to cede the Golan Heights to Syria. He told the Jewish residents of the Golan to flee, because Syrian forces might dash in and kill them. People felt that the exhortation was a ruse to get them out of the way, to facilitate abandoning the Golan. Based on prior governmental betrayals of Israel, such as the expulsion of Gaza Jewry done with vicious violence and deception, and leading to the expected establishment of a terrorist base, Emanuel Winston suspects that the government is going to let the next Intifada proceed far enough to kill a high proportion of the Jews in Judea-Samaria. Then the government would have an excuse to expel the rest, for their own safety, of course. Far-fetched? In his prior term, PM Netanyahu seemed to let Arab violence escalate before he made concessions of appeasement to the Arabs as if compelled to do so to end the violence. As for the U.S., could it really be encouraging the Arabs? Yes. It is training Arab troops, despite the pro-terrorism ideology of Palestinian Arab society and the looming Intifada. President Obama has many anti-Zionist advisers, such as Gen. James Jones, Brzezinski, James Baker, and Sen. Mitchell who demands total Israeli retreat and now apparently full entry of refugee descendants and no demands of the Arabs. Mitchell's demands would destroy Israel. That is so obvious, that his making those demands can have no other purpose (Winston Mideast Report & Analysis, 1/16). As the U.S. slides downhill, pushed by the Obama administration, isn't it odd that the Administration diverts its own attention to the national plight to push another country over a cliff? ISRAEL FACILITATES LAWSUITS AGAINST TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS Israelis' lawsuits against terrorist organizations had a hurdle of having to serve subpoenas in areas controlled by the terrorists, such as in Lebanon, Gaza, or the Palestinian Authority. The process servers could not be expected to walk about, again. An Israeli appeals court facilitated the process by permitting the process server to submit the papers to recognized representatives of Hizbullah, Hamas, or Fatah outside of the terrorists' domain (IMRA, 1/17). U.S. TO STORE MORE ORDNANCE IN ISRAEL The U.S. stores military ordnance in certain allied countries, including Israel. The present quantity in Israel, worth $400 million, will be doubled. Israel will have the right to draw upon those supplies in an emergency (Arutz-7, 1/11). ISRAELI LEFT SMEARING RIGHT, AGAIN? Periodically, the Israeli left successfully smears the Israeli Right, to deprive it of popular support. Ben-Gurion's Labor Party successfully depicted rival leaders, Vladimir Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin of the Irgun as fascistic. Ben-Gurion's successors smeared the Right and the more religiously observant Jews as condoning violence against the Left. Shimon Peres had an agent provocateur pose as a right-wing extremist, so voters should believe that the Right encouraged the assassination of PM Rabin. None of those involved in that last smear campaign were held to account. [Some were promoted by Peres, though they apparently were guilty or negligent.] Now a similar scenario may be playing out, as Defense Min. Barak claims to have received death threats from unknown parties (Prof. Steven Plaut, 1/11). The use of agent-provocateurs is what is fascistic. Leaders of the
Left are fascistic.
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:
|
|
LET ME SEE IF I GOT THIS RIGHT
Posted by Milton Franks-Lhermann, January 18, 2010. |
|
IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR. IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY. IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT. IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE JAILED. IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN. IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED. IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT. IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL GET
I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE I HAD A FIRM GRASP ON THE SITUATION. AMERICANS ARE MUCHO NICE PEOPLE. --------------------------------------------------------------- AND SALAAM ALEIKUM Contact Milton Franks-Lhermann at midenise@zahav. net.il |
|
WHY AREN'T 3.5MILLIONS NOT BEING FED OR GIVEN WATER IN 5 DAYS?
Posted by Bob Kunst, January 18, 2010. |
|
It is 'Day 5' since the earthquake in Haiti, with 3.5 millions in desperate need of food, water, fuel, shelter. When I brought this up two days ago, I got alot of support and also alot of grief from very petty people devoid of compassion. Today's Palm Beach Post frontpage headline: "Aid pours in but reaches few", in a story from the NYTimes. "Relief Officials Criticize U.S., U.N." For you who fast on Yom Kippur from food and water, imagine a 5 day fast, with 180 tons of food and water just sitting at the airport, but U.N. and U.S. officials, with their misplaced priorities, more focused on getting their people and troops installed and lifting their citizens out, but NOT feeding you or your loved ones in desperate need? Haiti is Obama's "Katrina". He is already mishandling this crisis with his political schtick. He 'commits' and then goes to Mass. to help elect a senate candidate, a Democrat, in order to pass Obamacare, but Haiti is a classic example of Obamacare....with 3.5millions in such desperation and the death toll rising and Obama's priorities screwed up and no hands on direction, while leaving the mission to incompetents his administration is filled with on every other issue. So the big trucks can't pass, but every little truck and van can and we see them running in every news cast and so why aren't they filled with food, water, etc. and given out? It's been 5 days already! There are 200 flights going in and out of Haiti daily, but most are military flights. U.S. Agency for International Development claims it has given out 600,000 packaged meals and installed 3 water-purification systems capable of purifying 100,000 liters a day, or is this just propaganda? What about the other 3millions starving and dehydrating? Today's Miami Herald only reported that 30 U.S. helicopters dropped 84,000 rations or is this also made up as part of the media that has grabbed at the heartstrings of the American people who have donated as of today, $150millions. But when asked by ABC News today, the American Red Cross said they were spending monies on buying fuel for trucks and in a t.v. ad for ARC, for the National Football League game today, the ad said monies would be going for Haiti and 'other' projects. I stated previously that in Hurricane Andrew,(1992), that they claimed 300 food kitchens in Miami and there were none. They also took monies for '9/11' for other projects. There is a history of this financial abuse. Then NBC News tonight, reported that the U.S. gave out 135,000 food rations and 70,000 bottles of water. Just where is all of this data coming from? But if we took the highest figure, that's still only 20% of need. Just how long could anyone last after 5 days with no food, water, shelter, medicines? What if this horror was facing your families? What if this was you being ignored? The World Food Program finally landed flights of food, medicine and water on Sat., after failing on Thurs. and Fri. because of U.S. troop planes having priority. What is going on here? The U.S. has previously supported the brutal dictatorships of Papa Doc Duvalier and Baby Doc Duvalier, and then an insane policy with Aristide and the paramilitaries who twice ousted him and he wants back in now, don't you know? Many areas of Haiti haven't even been looked at yet. Over 300,000 have migrated to Northern Haiti and there is a port open at Cape Haitian. In Carrefour, Haiti, they had only 3 casualties, but in one day, many bodies were dumped into their community, so a roadblock was set up to prevent any more of this. This was reported in the Ft. Laud., Sun-Sentinel today and in a list of agencies to help Haiti, only Jewish Federation of S. Palm Beach was listed amongst Jewish groups partnering with another Jewish group and the American Muslims for Emergency Relief, was listed as well. 'Food For The Poor' was also listed and Shalom International is partnering with them, as they can ship to Haiti and have been there for 20 years and have 400 on the ground to help distribute food, water, medicines etc., which we are actively pursuing. So my proposal to each of you is the following: Collect checks and commit to www.defendjerusalem.net or by mail to: "Defend Jerusalem", P.O.Box 402263, Miami Beach, Fla. 33140, c/o of "Haitian Relief" and we will use these monies ONLY for purchasing the needed foods, materials, etc. and do it in bulk, so as to maximize impact. We will provide you with a receipt of purchase and transportation and distribution in your name, or your organization's name in partnership with Shalom International. Do this vital mitzvah. Israel's 220 team in Haiti and its 40 doctors are already making news on ABCNews tonight and in other media, but it is vital to show Jewish and Christian grassroots participation on a major scale, both for our charitable mindset for those in need and also to promote this relationship in getting folks to also see this caring relationship and need to support Israel. Below is a story on lack of Arab/Muslim participation in Haiti. So when the Obama Messiah does everything possible to kiss up to and excuse the Muslim world and then to dump on Israel every chance he gets, apparently this doesn't go far in convincing the Muslims to be the charitable to others suffering. The Muslim world that doesn't even support those in Gaza and West Bank, besides weapons for the constant war on Israel, their only concern being in how to wipe out the Jews and Christians, Hindus, Bhuddists, all 'Infidels' and thousands of their fellow Muslims. The big charities like Salvation Army say it will take one month to feed those in need. But what about today's 'emergency'? When the Rwanda Genocide took place in the 1990s, Shalom International then raised $100,000 in food and medicines and sent it to Rwanda via South African Airways and to the NGOs there to distribute it. We have always been committed and why we do what we do. How could we stand by and allow the Holocaust to be trivialized or allow masses to die in other genocides, or ignore disasters like this earthquake in Haiti? The point is that all monies will go to need and we are volunteering our time and services to make it happen with your support. Yours in Shalom,
|
|
JEWS AND ISRAEL — AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE TRUTH
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 18, 2010. | |||||||
|
This was written by Michael Devolin, a B'nai Elim who lives in Canada. | |||||||
|
Blaise Pascal wrote in his Thoughts that "Not all that is incomprehensible ceases to exist." It seems this world has refused, en masse, to acknowledge the real history of Israel and the Jewish people. It is as if this Israel had never existed. Of course, I cannot expect even a minority of the Muslim world to acknowledge the real history of Israel, simply because it is apparent, even to a dispassionate observer that one of Islam's present goals is to obfuscate the reality of Israel and the Jewish people, both past and present. The present State of Israel the Muslim world (and their advocates) seeks to condemn into obscurity through the much propagated sufferings of an invented people, namely the Muslim "Palestinians". In the past — that is, the past before the advent of Yasser Arafat — the appellation "Palestinian" categorized both Jews and Arab Muslims inclusively. In his book Ancient Jewish Proverbs, published in 1911, the famous Jewish scholar Rabbi Avraham Cohen refers to the Jewish people as Palestinians. Such a context is a contradiction to the present Arab Muslim machination which has obtruded upon the Western world the imposture that all Palestinians are of Arab descent. And this world promptly accepts the Arab Muslim version of Middle Eastern history simply because this world has long ago become indurate to all measure of fantasy traducing Jews and their ancient Zionism. There are, basically, in my opinion, two different types of Zionism. One is the secular Zionism of Jabotinsky and Herzl. The other Zionism — the original Zionism — is outlined in the Torah and is a prescription for all Jews to return to the land of Israel. Both types have melded into a Jewish resistance shaped and hardened by a gauntlet of millennia of years. This conflated Zionism is not a resistance made timid, neither by the insular and hostile nationalism of a Michael Sheuer nor by the unctuous and sycophantic ravings of a Jimmy Carter. The exclusively Jewish voice of this Zionism cannot be silenced nor diminished, no matter the violence, no matter the lies, no matter the religious preponderance of Islam or Christianity, no matter the autocratic secularism of Western academia and American foreign policy. In his book The Dust of Empire Karl E. Meyer mentions a certain Loy Henderson of the American Senate who was given the honorific title of "Mr. Foreign Service." Mr. Meyer refers to Loy Henderson as an ardent Arabist and "smitten with Islam,"who"viewed Israel as at best a distracting nuisance, at worst, a state that compromised U.S. interests in the Middle East. Like most senior Foreign Service officers, Henderson and his Arabists had vainly opposed President Truman's decision in 1948 to recognize the state of Israel." Today much of the Arab Muslim world "vainly opposes" a public recognition of the State of Israel; moreover, their attempts to extirpate Judaism from the homes and hearts of those whom the United Nations and the Obama Administration refer to as "Jewish settlers" would indicate much of the Muslim world cannot comprehend the calefactive efficacy of Jewish Zionism. For the same reasons anti-Jewish bigots like David Irving and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deny the Holocaust ever happen: such fools cannot comprehend that the Jewish people could survive such a tragedy, never mind build again from the ashes another sovereign Jewish state upon the same land where their famous Kings David and Solomon ruled over the first one. Noetic dolts like Irving and Ahmadinejad are convinced that if they cannot imagine such a tenacious people as the Jews they will cease to exist. For them, Jews living in modern Israel is an incomprehensible truth.
Contact Yaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
|
SENATOR MITCHELL'S WAKE-UP CALL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 18, 2010. |
|
As always Yoram Ettinger's articles are crisp, relevant and to the real point. I would respectfully like to add a few comments which relate to the subject of Israel's leaders caving under pressure. Many astute analysts believe President Barack Hussein Obama is extremely hostile to the Jewish Nation/State of Israel while backing state-sponsors of Islamic Terrorism. Obama pledged transparency of his regime when, in fact, everything is done behind his closed doors and 'diktats' from his office. We are seeing a mirror image of these policies in the Netanyahu-Barak government. While denials flow from the Netanyahu regime, it appears that — like the nefarious plans in secret by Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin who gave us the deadly failure of the Oslo Accords, it was all done under the table in what amounts to a 'coup d'etat'. Similarly, Sharon, Olmert and Peres secretly planned the evacuation of 10,000 Jewish men, women and children from Gush Katif/Gaza and North Samaria — with the collusion of the U.S. State Department. We observed Bibi Netanyahu on orders from State tried to get Kadima's Tzipi Livni to join him, despite the mandate the Israeli voters gave Netanyahu NOT to drift Left. She refused so he had to accept the most perfidious and dedicated Leftist, Ehud Barak. The U.S. State Department imposed this policy on Netanyahu to continue the secret negotiations by Olmert to abandon Judea and Samaria, half of Jerusalem to Arafat's 40 year companion and partner, Mahmoud Abbas. It appears that Netanyahu is following the same secret tracks laid down by Sharon, Olmert and, no doubt, Peres in subverting Israel's sovereignty and security by placing a savage, primitive Muslim Arab Palestinian people in the Israel's Biblical heartland, next to Israel main population centers. The only solution is to dissolve this current Israeli government and start voting procedures immediately. This was written by Yoram Ettinger. It appeared January 13, 2010 in Ynet News http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3833185,00.html. |
|
The threat issued by Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to withhold US loan guarantees, in order to extract excessive concessions from Israel, constitutes a wake-up call for wishful-thinkers. Senator Mitchell's January 7, 2010 interview with PBS' Charlie Rose refutes the notion that the Obama Administration will accept anything but full Israeli compliance with Washington's terms. Obama's confidant, George Mitchell, known for his deliberate style, made clear that submission to pressure is not rewarded but punishable by further pressure. That is certainly the case with a White House run by Rahm Emanuel, who is "the meanest shark in town." Emanuel and President Obama, his Chicago-politics pal, were elated when Prime Minister Netanyahu rushed on June 14, 2009 to Bar Ilan University, as soon as he returned from a "cold shower" at Obama's White House, to enunciate a major transformation of his world view: The acceptance of the Two States Solution. They realized that their pressure was effective following Netanyahu's September 24, 2009 speech at the UN — which reaffirmed his newly found world view — and the full freeze of construction in East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Leveraging their initial success, they now employ the threat of withholding loan guarantees and intensify the pressure on Israel to accelerate the timetable of concessions, to exclude the Jordan Valley from Israel's map of defensible borders, to release more Palestinian terrorists, to make more concessions to Abu Mazen, to refrain from construction even in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, etc. Israel's retreat in the face of Obama's pressure is a rarity in a world, which has not been kind to the newly-installed president. His precipitous drop in the polls is the sharpest in recent decades, other than President Ford's. A growing number of Democratic legislators distance themselves from him, lest they be defeated in November, 2010. Furthermore, President Obama is increasingly identified with a 10% unemployment rate, a 17% under-employment rate, a budget deficit which is the highest since 1945, a bigger government, a failed war in Afghanistan and rapidly destabilizing Iraq. Obama's Liberal power-base is unhappy with legislative compromises concluded with Blue Dog Democrats. Republicans are energized by Obama's difficulties and the 30% bloc of Independents, which accorded Obama the 2008 victory, is turning its back on Obama in 2010. Since assuming power in January, 2009, Obama has received slaps in the face from Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has also been targeted by French and West European cynicism. However, Jerusalem is acting as if it is facing an Imperial President. In 1992, at the height of the Shamir-Bush battle over loan guarantees, I was told by then Majority Leader, Senator George Mitchell: "Doesn't Israel know that the US is not a monarchy, that the President is not omnipotent and that the Legislature is equal in power to the Executive?!" In 2010, Israel still does not get it. Instead of leveraging critical public and Congressional platforms of support — which will determine the success or oblivion of Obama's policy — Israel approaches Congress as the best supporting-actor in Washington, DC. Jerusalem is intimidated by Emanuel's warning to "avoid bypassing the Administration via Congress." Jerusalem fails to realize that kowtowing to Emanuel's warning amounts to a slap in the face for the US democracy, the US public and its representatives on Capitol Hill, while severely undermining Israel's own cardinal interests. Senator Mitchell's PBS interview reflects Obama's determination to dictate to the Jewish State a full withdrawal to the 1949/67 cease-fire lines, the uprooting of Jewish communities in the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria, the re-partitioning of Jerusalem, the negotiation of the "claim of return" by 1948 Arab refugees and the exchange of land. Such an approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict is a derivative of Obama's worldview, which highlights the UN as a quarterback of international relations, considers Europe as a role model and Foggy Bottom bureaucracy as luminaries on international relations, burdens the West with partial-blame for international terrorism, regards the Jewish State as part of the exploiting West and the Arabs part of the exploited Third World. In facing Obama's pressure, Israel should follow in the footsteps of all Prime Ministers from Ben Gurion to Yitzhak Shamir (1948-1992): Advancing Israel's national security while fending off US Presidential pressure. For instance, Ben Gurion declared independence in 1948 and constructed Israel's nuclear reactor in defiance of brutal pressure by Secretary of State George Marshall and President Kennedy respectively. Levy Eshkol and Golda Meir built the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ramot, Neve' Ya'akov and Gilo in response to presidential pressure. And, Menachem Begin destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor irrespective of painful US, European, Global and domestic pressure. He initialed the Israel-Egypt peace process by overcoming opposition by President Carter, who preferred an international conference over direct negotiations. Such steadfastness yielded short-term US-Israel tension. However, it was rapidly transformed into long-term enhanced strategic respect, by American and Middle Eastern leaders, toward the Jewish State. In 2010, Israeli leaders are endowed with a "critical mass" — which was not enjoyed by the 1948-1992 leaders — demographically (6 million Jews!), economically, technologically and militarily, bolstered by a formidable infrastructure of support in the US. Are the current leaders also endowed with the vision, faith, wisdom and backbone, which are the prerequisite to leverage this critical mass and advance key Israeli interests, while deflecting the Obama Administration pressure? 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 |
|
FROM ISRAEL: COMING FROM STRENGTH
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 18, 2010. |
|
Before I turn to other matters, I want to mention yet other facts about our medical assistance in Haiti. Apparently the Haitian system (which was close to non-existent to start with) has broken down entirely. According to Col. Carmi Bar-Tal, deputy head of the IDF medical unit, cited in the Post today, "There is no hospital around, so the ambulances started bringing patients here." In Port-au-Prince, IsraAID sent a medical support team to its hospital. As an Israeli nurse described it, "The scenes...were horrendous...The size of the catastrophe is unbelievable. All the injured were being treated, until we came, by one doctor..." So, we not only do sterling work, we rush to do it, and are critical to medical assistance operations. It's my understanding that the Israeli mobile hospital in Haiti — which is extensive and solidly equipped — was not only the first on the scene, but remains the largest. In fact, I've received credible (but difficult to absolutely verify) reports that while some international agencies, such as Doctors Without Borders, have brought in portable field hospitals, there is no other government that has done so except Israel. Shocking, really, if it's so. Little Israel, a tiny nation, maligned as no other, reaching out in extraordinary ways. ~~~~~~~~~~ During the course of a press conference yesterday with the Norwegian foreign minister, our foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said: "Since the establishment of the government we have made a large number of gestures [to the PA, to get them to come to the table]. "From our position we are finished with the arsenal of gestures. There will not be any other gestures. Up until now, said Lieberman, we haven't seen gestures from the PA. Instead, there has been, "Palestinian incitement against Israel in every possible international forum, calls for a boycott of Israeli products, suits filed against us in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and the creation of a fund to convince people to boycott Israeli goods." Because this is Lieberman talking, and he talks straight and takes no nonsense (thus being seen as 'undiplomatic'), I accept this as a straightforward statement. The question is whether he is speaking for himself or truly for Netanyahu's government. This is a particularly significant question as Mitchell is on his way, undoubtedly intending to seek more gestures. ~~~~~~~~~~ I would suggest that if Lieberman is speaking for the government (did run this by the prime minister), it reflects a new attitude that has been precipitated by the information — which I shared on Friday — regarding the possibility that PA president Mahmoud Abbas never intends to come to the table, but rather plans a unilateral declaration of statehood to the '67 lines. In line with this, we see Netanyahu's recent willingness to challenge the PA on the issue of incitement — an issue that until very recently was "conveniently" ignored, so as to not stop "the process." If Netanyahu has, finally and very belatedly, decided to take on the PA instead of courting it, it will be a welcome change. We should know soon enough if there is a real policy shift. Only the truth with regard to the Palestinian Arabs — which is so often obscured and buried — can serve our genuine interests. It's time — past time!! — to stop pretending they're something they are not, and to challenge the pretense when we encounter it in others. More's the pity that this change, if it is real, will have been precipitated by Abbas — that is, will be reactive, coming only at a time when playing the game no longer seemed to Netanyahu a good idea. It should have come long ago, from a position of strength. But it would be far better now than not at all. ~~~~~~~~~~ Looks like Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) isn't doing too well lately, and that is great news. About 18 months ago, Peace Now petitioned the High Court with regard to the presence of Jewish civilians living on an IDF base in Hevron. Its position was that the civilian residents should be expelled. ~~~~~~~~~~ Some background is in order here: Hevron, in Judea, is a very ancient and sacred Jewish city — site of the Machpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs. There was thriving Jewish community there over the centuries, with institutes of Torah learning and more. In 1929, there was a massacre of Jews by Arabs in Hevron, and the British, who controlled the area as part of the Mandate for Palestine, moved survivors out — "for their own safety," rather than attempting to protect them. (I add here that the Arab massacre was incited by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who was a relative and mentor of Yasser Arafat — and don't minimize the connection here!) An attempt to re-establish the Jewish community in Hevron subsequently failed for similar reasons. At that point, for the first time in 3,000 years, there was not even so much as a small remnant of a Jewish community in Hevron. When Jordan assumed control of Judea and Samaria in 1949, it maintained a policy of keeping Hevron Judenrein, and destroying buildings in the ancient Jewish quarter there. Thus here, as in eastern Jerusalem, the policy of the Jordanians fostered the myth that this is an "Arab" area. The situation shifted after Israel gained control in 1967. In the years subsequent, Jews devoted to the heritage of Hevron worked to re-establish a Jewish community there. It has been tough going, because many believe it would be easier, and more convenient, and play better with the international community if Arabs were simply permitted to have the whole city. And leftists, who have swallowed the notion that Hevron is Arab, oppose them. But in point of fact there IS a small Jewish community there today, and I admire them greatly for their courage. With the Oslo Accords, unfortunately much of the city was turned over to the PA, but the Jewish enclave, protected by the IDF, remains. ~~~~~~~~~~ With this general background, let me return to the specifics of the case at hand. In 1879, just outside what was then the Jewish Quarter of Hevron, a substantial building called Beit Romano was constructed, which served as a private home, a place of hospitality for travelers, and a synagogue. About 100 years ago, Chabad (Lubavitch) purchased Beit Romano, as well as land around it, and established a yeshiva there. Today, Beit Romano is the name of a neighborhood in Jewish Hevron, in the old city, that encompasses at least part of this area: Beit Romano Settlement in central Hebron. Photo: Mats Lignell While there was no Jewish presence for many years following 1929, the land legally still belonged to Chabad. When the IDF took control in 1967, there was an Arab bus station on the Chabad-owned land just above the Beit Romano neighborhood. About 25 years ago, the IDF built a base there (with permission, as I understand it). Then, about 20 years ago, a small Jewish neighborhood — consisting of caravans — was established on the base. This was permitted because Chabad owned this land and had given permission for Israeli civilians to live there. ~~~~~~~~~~ It is this that Peace Now was objecting to. But the court told this group that the civilian neighborhood has existed on the IDF base for 20 years, and it's a bit late to start complaining about it now. Petition rejected. The bottom line is that this is simply one facet of Peace Now's objective of moving Jews out of Hevron, and, in time, all of Judea and Samaria. Peace Now lawyer Michael Sfard maintains that Peace Now has the right to petition the Court "as a part of the Israeli body politic, all of whom are involved in the political debate regarding the settlement in Hevron." To me, this is laugh-out-loud funny. Peace Now receives funds from international sources and there is currently a debate in the Knesset about this, with movement towards drafting a law that would require groups receiving such funding to register as foreign agents. Once such money is received, it is ridiculous to speak about being "part of the Israeli body politic." They are compromised: promoting the pro-Palestinian Arab perspective of European donors. And there's more: Peace Now does not exist. Not here. They are not registered in Israel at all, not as a non-profit or anything else. Only in the US is American Friends of Peace Now registered. ~~~~~~~~~~ Then there was another petition that Peace Now brought to the High Court in 2005, involving a total of 18 homes in the Samaria "outposts" of Hersha and Hayovel. They were labeled "illegal" because allegedly they were built without government sanction — although there is evidence that this may not be so. At any rate, at one time the government acknowledged them as "illegal" and there were demolition orders against these 18 homes. But when Peace Now petitioned the Court, saying the demolitions had to take place, the State replied that it would determine when was the proper time to do so. Now there has been a reversal, with the State, the Defense Minister, the IDF Commander, and the head of Civil Administration (the respondents in Peace Now's suit), saying that the situation would be re-examined with alternatives to demolition being considered. Depending on lands the homes were built on, etc. etc., it may be determined that they were legal after all. How about that! This is of significance because it shows how politicized is the entire concept of "illegal" building. And now, when the PA is yelling about borders to the '67 line, I don't take it as insignificant that the State may be re-evaluating a situation so as to permit houses that were scheduled for demolition to stand. ~~~~~~~~~~ One of the homes that had been slated for demolition, it should be noted, belongs to the widow and two young children of Maj. Roi Klein, the hero of the Second Lebanon war, who — crying "Shema Yisrael" — threw himself on a grenade in Bint Jbail to save his men. It is worthwhile to note that here in Israel Peace Now was permitted to pursue the issue of speedy demolition of the houses even though it had no standing in the case — no vested interest. In the US this would not be possible. And then, we must ask, what sort of people eagerly pursue the demolition of the home of the family of a war hero (and son of Holocaust survivors)? The people of Peace Now. That's who. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
RESCUERS BATTLE TO REACH HAITIANS STILL ALIVE IN RUBBLE
Posted by Daily Alert, January 18, 2010. |
|
This was written by Beatriz Lecumberri and it appeared in
The Age (Australia)
|
|
Hearing Jules's strained voice pushes on adrenaline-fueled Israeli rescue workers racing against time to pry him from the ruins, as four days after the Haiti quake hopes fade of finding more survivors. The quake may have come and gone days ago but the urgency here remains palpable: this team has pulled out all the stops to save someone whose life is hanging in the balance. And the clock is ticking. With hearts set racing by the slim chance they could help pull off a miracle this long after Tuesday's devastating temblor, the team of 22 men toils on to save just one person, sweating through the back-breaking work, hour after hour, inch by inch, amid the stench of rotting corpses. "Today is the last day that I think we will be able to find survivors, mainly because of dehydration," said Rami Peltz, one of the rescue workers on the Israeli team. Facing the real possibility that what remains of this collapsed tax office could come crashing down on them, the rescuers grimace as they chip, dig, saw and drill their way, slowly, painstakingly, inching closer to the person trapped beyond their sight. It is grueling, exhausting work. "We work centimeter by centimeter," said one team member soaked with sweat after 10 minutes in an cavity where the team is hacking and drilling toward their target. The survivor has made it this far, four days after the 7.0-magnitude quake felled thousands of buildings across the capital of the poorest country in the Americas. But he is trapped with a steel reinforcement cable around his neck and a huge piece of ceramic flooring pinning his legs, said one team member Moshe Sadir. All around them, there are dead bodies and more dead bodies. Some of the people survived the building collapse but then expired in the days that followed. No rescue team made it their way in time.Related article:Nameless corpses pile up in mass graves That is what happened to Nadine, the wife of Adras Belly, a Haitian man who brought the Israelis to this spot to search. But it was bad news for him; rescuers called and called. She did not answer, and dogs found no trace of her. Foreign rescue teams are spread out across the sprawling Caribbean capital of two million even as the clock ticked down on chances for a miracle. They take their cues from various sources: UN staff sent some to locations where survivors were believed to remain, and desperate relatives dispatched others to spots where loved ones were still missing, and voices and moaning could be heard inside. Very few of the stories have a happy ending. Most end in sorrow and the discovery of a tangle of dead bodies. "The first 72 hours are so important. After that the chances just drop off dramatically. That is why it is so important to hurry" early on, said Jose Ignacio Bugella Yudice, here from the civil protection service in the Spanish city of Getafe. The Spanish team worked with colleagues from Iceland in a half-collapsed building where rescue dogs can detect any lucky if unlikely survivors. "Only the dogs can tell us if there is life in there. Then we pinpoint the spot and we secure it. The rescue operation can take 10 minutes, or several hours," said Magnus Hakonarson, with the Icelandic rescue team ICESAR. At the Port-au-Prince telecoms building, a rescue team from Costa Rica had no luck as it called and called but got no answer from inside the flattened building. "When the dogs do not confirm somebody is alive in there, we have to move on to another spot swiftly. So now we are going to a school. But I would say there is a less than three percent chance of finding survivors in this city," said William Hernandez, leader of the Costa Rican rescuers. "The best hope really is for a small person, who needs little oxygen, which is why a child may be found alive" even at this point, he said. "That has happened before," Hernandez said. "But it all depends on the space they have and what shape they are in after the collapse." But surviving a building collapse and then 30-degree Celsius daytime temperatures without a drop of water for days on end is unlikely — and less likely by the minute. "Some people end up dying of their injuries, or from dehydration or brain trauma," said Andres Madrigal with the Costa Rican team. But for Jules, his will to live help him beat the longest odds. "He just kept saying when we finally saw him at the bottom of the hole — 'I want to live, don't leave me,'" a member of the Israeli team 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 |
|
THE AGONY OF MUSLIM WOMEN
Posted by Jock Falkson, January 18, 2010. |
|
The is a review by Bill Muehlenberg of Nonie Darwish's book Cruel and
Usual Punishment.
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2009/06/24/a-review-of-cruel-and- unusual-punishment-by-nonie-darwish/ |
|
Nonie Darwish
Nonie Darwish knows a fair amount about Islam. She was an Egyptian Muslim for the first 30 years of her life. Then she fled to America and she is now a Christian. She has told her story earlier, in her 2007 volume, Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. In this book she continues her important story, but she does so by highlighting two crucial themes: what sharia law means, and how women are treated in Islam. In 270 pages she spells out in chilling detail what the implications are of Islamic law, and how the West must be very careful indeed about the spread of sharia. The first half of this important book looks at how women are treated in the world of sharia. The treatment of women in Islam alone should serve as a warning for anyone who thinks sharia is compatible with Western democracy and freedom. Consider marriage. Muslim women are prohibited under sharia from marrying non-Muslim men. But Muslim men can marry Christian or Jewish women. And the sharia marriage contract "is essentially a document granting sexual intercourse rights to the male and giving him total control over his four wives". There are even temporary marriages purely for the purposes of sexual pleasure for the male, called mutaa, or pleasure marriage. This "marriage" can last as little as an hour. Then there is misyar, or traveller's marriage, which is "designed to accommodate the male sexual appetite while travelling". Divorce is of course also all one way traffic in Islam. Men can divorce their wives instantly, simply by saying "I divorce you" three times. A Muslim woman cannot initiate a divorce. In custody cases, children after the age of seven (or sometimes nine) belong to the father. And a male can beat his wife and sexually abandon her. Under sharia a husband deserves total submission and gratitude. As one revered Muslim scholar, Imam Ghazali has said, "Marriage is a form of slavery. The woman is man's slave, and her duty therefore is absolute obedience". Polygamy is also the right of Muslim men. But even more abhorrent is the practice of sexual gratification with children. There is no legal age for marriage under sharia. Thus the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, for example, said in an official statement, "A man can quench his sexual lusts with a child as young as a baby." Of course Muhammad himself had a six-year-old wife, whom he consummated relations with when she was just nine. And Islamic leaders argue that his life serves as an example and pattern for all Muslims. This is all codified in surah 65:4 in the Koran. There are plenty of other misogynist elements to sharia law. Women adulterers are to be stoned to death; girls who fornicate are to be flogged; a woman's testimony in a court of law is only worth half that of a man's; women cannot be in the company of men who are not her relatives; female genital mutilation is rife; a Muslim wife needs her husband's permission to travel; and so on. Then there is the issue of honour killing. While there is no sharia law that expressly gives men the right to kill their women to protect their family honour, there are existing laws which protect men who do commit such killings. Indeed, sharia states that a killer of an apostate, a robber or an adulterer cannot be punished for murder. In the rest of the book Darwish looks at life "behind the Muslim curtain" — what life is like for non-Muslims under sharia law. Non-Muslims are treated almost as poorly as women in Muslim-majority countries. Jews and Christians are under dhimmitude, or second-class citizenship. Darwish chronicles the many ways in which non-Muslims are oppressed, discriminated against, and denied basic human rights. And ordinary Muslims who dare to think independently of sharia are also subject to tremendous opposition and oppression. Criticism of Islam is of course punishable by death. Muhammad himself ordered the killing of those who dared to criticise him. All the various schools of Islam agree that blasphemy or criticism of Islam is a capital offence. And Muslim imams do not expect to be questioned or challenged in any way. In such a world there is "no intellectual honesty, no dialogue, and no respect". Muslim preachers regard Westerners and Jews as the embodiment of evil, the personification of Satan. Therefore they can be cursed, deceived and killed. Indeed, according to sharia, lying and deception are obligatory at times when dealing with the enemies of Islam. This is part of the overall jihad being waged against infidels. After reading so much detail about what sharia teaches and commands, one is left overwhelmed. As Darwish says, "The West should be clear on the nature of Sharia. It is nothing more than legal tyranny, a terminal disease that destroys the healthy functioning of society where everything is sacrificed for the sake of total control". Indeed, say Darwish, Islam is not really a religion as much as it is a system of complete control and social order. It is an intolerant worldview which allows no opposition or questioning. Thus the West should resolutely oppose what she calls "Islamo-Fascism". We should not tolerate intolerance. She concludes her book with practical suggestions for the West, including keeping sharia illegal, restricting immigration, and monitoring Muslim clerics on what they are preaching and teaching. And the West must rediscover and celebrate its Judeo-Christian heritage and values, and resist the inroads of secularism. If it does not, the vacuum caused by secularism will be quickly filled by a totalising Islam which seeks absolute control and the global extension of sharia. The aims of the Islamists are the very opposite of those who champion freedom and democracy. We must choose which system we wish to live under. Darwish has nicely laid out the implications of life under sharia. It is up to us how we respond.
To be put on Jock Falkson's email list, contact him at
falkson@013.net
|
|
9 ARRESTED, INCLUDING 6 MINORS, IN YITZHAR YESHIVA
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, January 18, 2010. |
|
You can be certain that in the end no one will be charged with anything except maybe resisting arrest or attacking a policemen. There will also be all sorts of innuendos of Jewish terrorists or underground. That is the usual nonsense these goon squads spew out to justify their barbarism. This is raw, undiluted Fascist persecution of Jews by those who hate them. As the unJews of Israel see their end quickly and irreversible approaching, they have become frantic to do as much damage as possible. There is no reason, ideology or profit that motivates them, only pure hate for anything Jewish. This below is by Hillel Fendel and it appeared today in Arutz-7
(www.IsraelNationalNews.com)
|
|
(Israelnationalnews.com) A large security force broke into a yeshiva in the Samaria community of Yitzhar, and violently arrested nine youths, including six minors, shortly before 4 a.m. Monday. No reason was immediately given for the arrests, but it was later reported that they were arrested on charges of damaging Arab property. Other students reported that anyone who tried to resist arrest was subjected to violence, and anyone who tried to film the incident had their cameras taken away. Eyewitnesses reported that the forces arrived with "weapons drawn" and their faces covered, and were accompanied by GSS (Shabak) personnel. One student reportedly lost consciousness during the raid, and heavy property damage was caused. The three 20-year-olds arrested were Tzvi Sukkot and Eliran Algali of Yitzhar, and Shlomo Gilbert of Elon Moreh. According to some reports,four of the minors were released by late morning. "Whatever happened to civil rights?" asked one of those present. "The police did something here what it would not do against any other population sector in Israel. Is this Iran?" MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) was sharply critical of Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch, who oversees Israeli Police: "Murders, pedophilia, other crimes — nothing bothers him; he sends hordes of policemen to vandalize Yitzhar while blatantly violating civil rights and hiding evidence of the police crimes." David HaIvri, spokesman for the Shomron Regional Council, issued this statement: "All too often, the police over-dramatize accusations and arrests in communities like Yitzhar. Recently a youth who studies in the same yeshvia was arrested and questioned for hours, only to be later quietly released after his name was smeared through the international media as a criminal. They never bother to apologize for the damage to these individuals and communities. This type of behavior would not be accepted torwards high school students in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and cannot be accepted in Shomron either." It was assumed that the arrests are connected with the Price Tag project, which exacts a "price" from neighboring Arabs for any anti-Jewish police activity that takes place in the region. The destruction of a Jewish outpost, for instance, could be met with the blocking of an Arab road. The arrests might also be connected with the torching last month of a mosque in Samaria, the perpetrators of which have never been caught or identified. 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. He writes, "In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means." |
|
NETANYAHU POLICY SPEECH DELIBERATELY MISLEADS?; HAMAS BOOBYTRAPS
GAZA; SYRIA GIVES HIZBULLAH ADVANCED WEAPONS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 17, 2010. |
|
NETANYAHU'S TOUTED POLICY SPEECH MISLEADS. DELIBERATELY? Back in June, PM Netanyahu made a key policy speech about potential negotiations. IMRA reviewed it now, for its implications. The speech referred to Judea-Samaria at some length as the land of the Jewish people's forefathers. But he stated his negotiation goals as peace and security, taking into account international pressure on Israel. He did not say whether or how Israel would deal with that pressure. He did not include in his policy goals anything about the "land of our forefathers," including the high significance of Hebron to the Jewish people, in that context. Suppose the U.S. proposes some weapon that it deems capable of providing Israel security. Does that mean Israel would cede territory? The whole speech needs clarification (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 1/14). Clarification? The purpose of Netanyahu's speech is obfuscation. He states Jewish nationalist considerations, so nationalists and patriots feel he represents them, but omits those concerns from policy. That is his way of dissembling. He gives one impression, the can cite his actual words to give another. Then he claims to have been frank and to have warned voters what he intended. He has done that before. Israel has been amenable, before, to concessions in exchange for military hardware. Hardware can be made obsolete, but strategic depth cannot be. That is an implication of Dr. Lerner's observation. HAMAS BOOBYTRAPS POPULATED AREAS OF GAZA Hamas is planting IEDs (bombs) in densely populated areas of Gaza, far from the Israeli border. Residents have been protesting to Hamas about this, because these explosives can go off and injure them. Previous reports have established that Hamas stores explosives in mosques, schools, houses, and media buildings. [Other reports were of Hamas booby-trapping the area where IDF patrols roam.] Will the media investigate? (Honest Reporting, 1/14 sent by reader Susan.) Usually the media, the UN, and the usual pro-Arab groups ignore Arab violations of international law. They wait until Israel finally retaliates. Then they pretend that the retaliation's collateral damage, calculated in advance by Hamas, is a war crime by Israel. Their indignation is not sincere if informed, not informed if sincere. EDITOR'S NOTE: From Arutz-7 (IsraelNN.com) Hamas is preparing for war with Israel by placing large bomb-traps in densely-populated areas — angering local residents. So reports a Fatah website named Al-Ahad. Among the areas in which Hamas has been building its military potential are: reinforcing the arms smuggling tunnels network, bringing in large quantities of explosive materials, improving rocket manufacturing capabilities, and the like. SYRIA GIVES HIZBULLAH ADVANCED WEAPONS Syria has given Hizbullah advanced missiles capable of striking any target in Israel. Hizbullah is deploying them. The IDF now assumes that Hizbullah has any weaponry that Syria does. The IDF would consider the acquisition of a modern air defense system in Lebanon as a shift in the balance of power (IMRA, 1/14). Lebanon and the UN object to Israeli planes flying over Lebanon to observe the illegal rearmament of Hizbullah. Why would Lebanese acquisition of modern anti-aircraft weapons shift the balance of power? If the IDF knew that Hizbullah were going to launch those missiles or even had fired some, and if the IDF sent planes to eradicate them, the planes could not get through. Thus the air defense is not just defensives but a shield for aggression. Do not accept the common misconception that so-called "defensive" weapons are necessarily just for defense against aggression. As Syria and Iran arm Hizbullah with more powerful weapons, one can draw these additional conclusions: (1) Hizbullah is an army, not a militia, and is building up with aggressive intent often stated as defensive but with the pretext that Israel is occupying Lebanese territory and unprovoked; (2) Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Hizbullah are violating the UN ceasefire resolution against arming Hizbullah, but nobody objects until it comes to war, then it blames Israel; (3) Since the ceasefire has proved so faulty, the Israeli officials who promoted it have proved faulty and the UN, useless; (4) This is further boost to the fear that when Iran gets nuclear weapons, it may give some to Hizbullah to set off, while disclaiming responsibility because the weapons would not have been fired from Iran. DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER DANNY AYALON:"JEWISH RIGHT OF SETTLEMENT UNASSAILABLE. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon wrote an Op.-Ed. in the Wall St. Journal. The final two paragraphs read: "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, (Eugene) Rostow [former Under-Secretary of State and international lawyer] 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...this is morally and factually incorrect... " The significance of Min. Ayalon's statement is that highly placed Israeli officials had muted those considerations, in recent years. They let the Arab case be heard unchallenged [http://goo.gl/eBHc]. (From David Wilder, spokesman for Jewish community of Hebron, 1/8.) ANARCHISTS AT A FORMER ISRAELI ARMY BASE Shdema is a former Israeli Army base in Judea-Samaria, not officially reallocated to anyone. That leaves it up for contention. Israel's appeasement-minded Army and government would be content to let the Arabs seize it, on their way to take over the area [and drive the Jews out from Israel, too.] Jewish patriots saw the loss of that area looming, so they established a daily presence on the base. Arabs, with foreign backing, started building extensively and illegally on the hill above. There was some confrontation. For a few weeks, the confrontation seemed to have died down, although the dispute is unresolved. One morning, Jews arrived and found that Israeli left-wing activists and foreign Christian anarchists, had sprayed graffiti all over the buildings. Obviously they had spent hours doing so, and without IDF interference. The graffiti quoted from the Bible and stated messages of love. But it was far from loving. Obviously, it was a challenge. If the challenge were unmet, the Arabs would become emboldened in their attempts to take over, regardless of the law. Jewish youth there accepted the challenge. First, they repainted the base. Then they went into the Arab area and sprayed all over it. An IDF officer said he would see to it that the Jews were punished. He did not say the same about the Arabs' supporters. Obviously, the government and Army side with the Arabs (Women in Green, 1/15). Americans suppose that the way to support Israel is to support its government. That is simpleminded, the wrong way. The way to support the Jewish people there is to oppose against their government's anti-Jewish policy. Those who know Zionist history can see that the Arabs are acting the same now as before Jewish statehood, and that the government now takes a similar anti-Zionist position to that of the British Mandatory authorities then. Both governments violated their mandates, but Israel betrays its country's survival. CANADIAN PAPER SPREADS BLOOD LIBEL AGAINST ISRAEL AND JEWS A Canadian Muslim newspaper, Al Ameen Post, accused Israeli Jews of harvesting children's organs. It accepted a claim by Iran's Press TV network that Israelis kidnapped kidnapping "some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the occupied entity over the past two years in order to harvest their organs." Later it apologized for "causing hurt," but did not admit that the charges are false. Thus Canadian Muslims have "...adopted the spreading practice of renewing" an ancient practice of falsely accusing the Jewish people of murder. The editor's excuse is that it wasn't racist, since it appeared in the media, and since it appeared in the media, he assumed it was true (Arutz-7, 1/15). Really, 25,000 Ukrainians? Must be a major operation. Should have driven down the price of organs to being unprofitable. And how come Ukraine did not notice that thousands of its youth are missing? Many accusations against Israel are not merely false, they are absurd. Really, if in the media, it must be true? Iran's media is like the media of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, resorting to vicious lies for propaganda. The editor acts as if unaware of the phenomenon of blood libel. But, then, the Mideast Muslims adhere to a conspiracy theory in which they act honestly and their enemies are sub-humanly evil. How much better is the Western media? It ignores these far-fetched claims, although they would a dynamic story. If the Western media exposed and ridiculed these stories, it would discourage their spread. However, it Western audiences then learned how much duplicity anti-Zionist propaganda comprises, they would become skeptical about Arab claims against Israel in general. Is that why the Western media ignore the stories? Or is the Western media afraid? ISRAEL BUILDING FENCE AT EGYPTIAN BORDER Israel is building a fence at its Egyptian border. Where the fence does not extend, it would have electronic surveillance devices. In this way, Israel hopes to keep out terrorists, drug smugglers, and thousands of illegal immigrants. The immigrants come from Africa. They crowd out Israeli employees from their jobs and they threaten to boost the Bedouin population beyond the Jewish population in southern Israel (Arutz-7, 1/11). Unstated is Israeli experience that when Muslim populations reach a critical mass, they feel they should take control and they become more combative. Having that experience, should Israel limit itself to trying to restrict new illegal immigration or also try to rectify past illegal immigration? 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:
|
|
FROM ISRAEL: WITH GREAT PRIDE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 17, 2010. |
|
I call it positive. Incredibly so. Not happy — in fact, unspeakably painful. But a Kiddush HaShem: a blessing on G-d's name. In the midst of the overwhelming death and destruction that is Haiti right now, there are Israelis who have come to save lives and offer succor. On Friday, El Al and IDF planes came into Haiti, carrying 250 medical personnel — doctors, nurses, lab and x-ray technicians and even a psychiatrist — and supplies for a mobile hospital, including a pharmacy, a surgical unit, and a maternity ward. A young Haitian mother who was the first to deliver in this ward, early this morning, named her baby Israel. You can see footage of an IDF rescue team at work in Haiti here:
~~~~~~~~~~ Members of ZAKA, the Israeli ultra-Orthodox volunteer rescue organization, were on the scene as well. Yesterday, on Shabbat, they labored, digging in the rubble of a collapsed multi-story university building, where cries were heard. After hours of effort, they succeeded in pulling eight students from that rubble, alive. These ZAKA members then took time, in the midst of the chaos, to wrap themselves in their tallitot (prayer shawls) and recite their Shabbat prayers. Undoubtedly most if not all of the Haitians on the scene had never seen such a sight. When the men had finished praying, a crowd of people gathered around them and kissed their tallitot. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to one report, head of the ZAKA mission, Mati Goldstein said: "With all the hell going on outside, even when things get bad Judaism says we must take a deep breath and go on to save more people. "We did everything to save lives, despite Shabbat. People asked, 'Why are you here? There are no Jews here', but we are here because the Torah orders us to save lives..." At one point, when things were very grim, Goldstein reported that one mission member started to sing, Heveinu Shalom Aleichem (We bring peace to you.) "I had tears in my eyes," he said. The ZAKA mission will be staying in Haiti a couple more days, even though beyond a certain point it is highly unlikely that anyone else will be found alive under the rubble. What is exceedingly important to the mission is making their Israeli identity very clear. And so, in this regard, you can help Israel by sharing this broadly and letting the world know what we are all about. I leave off writing here (and save other news for another day), so this can be circulated, sharing simply this important news. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
MUSLIM WOMAN DEMANDS NO JEWS ON HER JURY IN JIHAD TRIAL
Posted by Boris Celser, January 17, 2010. |
|
She is an idiot. In NYC she has a great chance of getting a Leftist Jew on the jury, and he/she would make sure she is not convicted, because it has to be unanimous (I think). This below is from Atlas Shrugs
|
|
There is no American in Islam. This country is only dar-al harb, remember that — until they complete their strategic objective of turning it into dar al-islam. I reported on this fiercely religious Muslim woman here, when the neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui was captured in Afghanistan. Aafia Siddiqui is a MIT-trained neuroscientist who married a top Al Qaeda operative who intended to blow up gas stations or poison water reservoirs in the United States. She is a possible associate of Majid Khan and she is believed to have links to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She allegedly arranged travel documents for another suspected terrorist. While in custody, she managed to grab a rifle and start spouting jihad jizz while getting off two shots. She didn't hit anyone. But she should have faced a firing squad. Instead, she is in NYC (thank you Obama) demanding a juderein jury. The hadith teaches to murder all the Jews. This is a basic premise in jihad. She is devout. Obama says, RESPECT IT! NYC: Muslim Wants no Jews on Jury (Logans Warning website) Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
|
HAMAS'S NEW WAY TO ATTACK ISRAEL? ARABS STILL USING HIGHWAY 443 FOR
TERRORISM; EXPLOSIONS IN GAZA CITY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 16, 2010. |
|
NEW HAMAS METHOD FOR ATTACKING ISRAEL? 
After observing more radical organizations setting up shop in Gaza, and having found Fatah men in Judea-Samaria to be committing terrorism, the IDF discerns a new Hamas tactic for attacking Israel. Hamas may be grooming more radical elements in Fatah to attack Israel or Israelis (www.imra.org.il, 1/8). A more radical Fatah group might overthrow the current Fatah regime and align the whole Palestinian Authority (P.A.) with Hamas. Suppose it does? Would the world then end its efforts to get statehood for the western Palestinian Arabs? Would the world stop pretending that the new P.A. regime were moderate? I think not. I see no ethical sense to support for the already pro-terrorist Abbas. Some European countries are opening relations with Hamas, perhaps pretending that there is a significant difference between its military and political wing as if they were not two barrels of the same shotgun. COUNTER-TERRORISM NOT ENOUGH IN YEMEN? Counter-terrorism by itself cannot prevail in failing states, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. Some nation-building is required, too. A weak government under attack cannot prevail if it steals the people's money and does not provide basic services. The idea is that U.S. drones might kill more and more terrorists, until the whole country collapses and the terrorists take over. Yemen faces collapse. Its attention is focused on counter-acting two rebellions and terrorism with inadequate armed forces. Equally serious problems loom, such as steadily declining oil output and income and diminishing water supplies. Much of the water is devoted to irrigate the national narcotic, qat. The country lacks industry. The U.S. concentrates its assistance on counter-terrorism. But like it or not, the government there must try to defeat the rebellions. It cannot sufficiently crush terrorism unless it has the forces, but its forces are diverted by rebellions, which Yemen finds the greater threat to it, now. Therefore, if the U.S. wants Yemen government help against terrorism, it must help that government against rebellion. What kind of help? Shiploads of troops? Truckloads of cash? Don't have much of them. We must find other ways to help Yemen solve its economic problems. We cannot properly do that (or properly conduct counter-terrorism) while State Dept. observers are penned into urban enclaves without sufficient protection to venture out and find out what is happening. They cannot ascertain how U.S. aid is working and what government problems it can advise on. It cannot help improve Yemen security forces, who must win out. No longer can we expect U.S. troops to be used in continuing war; we have to assist local governments to shape up their own. The U.S. should be developing greater knowledge about these countries and greater expertise among its diplomatic staff. The U.S. should develop programs with and for these struggling countries, for both the military struggle and afterward. Otherwise, a military victory would be followed by terrorist resurgence. The State Dept. has failed to do so for years, although this deficiency was known (Frederick W. Kagan & Christopher Harnish, Wall St. Journal, 1/14, A19). The State Dept. rarely is held to account. It rarely thinks ahead. What conceit the U.S. government has in sending forces into countries it knows little about! That is why the British lost in Afghanistan. That is why Rome lost legions in Germany and Arabia, and why the Crusaders did as poorly as they did. One hopes that the Arab forces trained by the U.S. do not want to turn on other countries, and that the U.S. does not boost their size sufficient for them to threaten other countries, as does Egypt. Egypt faces internal unrest and little foreign invasion, though Iran and al-Qaida are trying to commit terrorism against it. Why then does the U.S. give Egypt planes, tanks, and ships by means of funds needed in Yemen? ARABS STILL USE HIGHWAY 443 FOR TERRORISM The Israeli Supreme Court permission for Palestinian Authority (P.A.) Arabs to drive on highway 443, despite their extensive use of for terrorism, had not yet reached the deadline for implementation when another case of terrorism on it occurred. Some P.A. Arabs had permits to use the road. Some Arabs drove alongside an Israeli car, and tried to shove it off the road. The Israeli driver was a tough border guard. He evaded the attempted vehicular homicide and ordered them to halt. They got out and threw rocks at them. He had to fire warning shots. They fled, but were apprehended a short distance away. Not mentioned in earlier reports is the fact that the State built a road that parallels 443 for most of its path over the Green Line (Arutz-7, 1/14). SHEIKH SENTENCED FOR ATTACKING ISRAELI POLICEMAN Ex-con Sheikh Raad Salah was sentenced to nine months for pushing, spitting on, and insulting an Israeli policeman trying to defend a construction site outside the Temple Mount from rioters led by Salah. Salah heads the Northern Branch of the Islamist Movement. The judge took into account the statements and smiles of contempt by the defendant. His prior crimes were more serious. He was under orders not to enter Jerusalem. His violation of that restriction was not mentioned as part of his penalty. His penalty included a fine to be given to the policeman (Arutz-7, 1/14). I can understand Salah's contempt for Israeli law. He leads a subversive organization and mobs whom he incites to violence. Several times he has been convicted for those offensives. His ideology is to overthrow Israeli society. His efforts are serious, but his nine-month sentence is not. Such sentences would not deter many. JEWISH ISRAELI WOMAN RESCUED FROM ARAB CONTROL A few hundred Jewish Israeli young women met and married Arab men, then took up residence in Arab areas in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, or foreign Arab countries. They find themselves oppressed. They are not allowed to pass on any of their Jewish heritage to their own children. Oshrit Ohana was one such woman. Her husband was a smuggler in Gaza. When he was sent to an Egyptian prison, his family was less able to keep her under tight control. Her brother-in-law threatened to kill her if she attempted to flee. Nevertheless, she had her family in Israel make arrangements with a Jewish rescue organization, took her children out as if shopping, bribed someone to take her to a Gaza-Israel crossing, and now is changing her identity and her children's Arab names. She has some nervous moments during her flight (Arutz-7, 1/14). Israel needs to get word to youngsters what life with Muslim husbands would be like. ISRAELI PM PRODS U.S. PRESIDENT ON PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRO-TERRORISM Citing examples of Palestinian Authority (P.A.) support for terrorism and failure to oppose it, Israel's PM Netanyahu urged President Obama to prod the P.A. to cease its incitement. Top P.A. officials of the P.A., including Abbas and his Prime Minister, are offending parties. Netanyahu pointed out that peace requires steps of reconciliation and education for peace. Instead, the P.A. names streets to honor those who commit terrorism. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) praised Netanyahu for raising this issue that many people choose to ignore, as they pretend that the political negotiations can bring peace when the P.A. imbues its people with bellicosity (1/15 press release by ZOA, headquartered in New York and to which I belong). Why does President Obama have to be prodded on this obvious anti-terrorism effort? Is he for or against terrorism, or more against Israel than against terrorism? Will Netanyahu drive this point home, or is it just a one-time note? Why do the American and Israeli media and Establishment and do the opposite of what is recommended, by praising Abbas and his Prime Minister as anti-terrorist? Are they unaware of the facts of do they subordinate facts to their failed ideology? Why do they stick with failed policy? Since that blind stubbornness drives them, how can we expect them to solve other serious problems? HOW HAMAS CONTROLS PEOPLE IN GAZA George Galloway, notorious anti-Zionist member of the British Parliament, led protesters against the partial blockade of Gaza. When the delegation left its hotel to visit people, Hamas security men escorted them and intruded. The police kept most ordinary people from meeting with their foreign sympathizers or at least from speaking frankly. The Galloway group saw totalitarianism in action. Question is whether the group and others will realize that such police state controls apply to what foreign journalists find as news and to what the Goldstone Commission was told by "witnesses." (From Honest Reporting, sent by Sue, 1/14, for which I thank her). FOUR EXPLOSIONS IN GAZA CITY The Palestinian Center for Human Rights deplored four explosions in Gaza City. Some damage but no casualties resulted. The culprits and their reasons are unknown. The Center believes that Hamas allows chaos and misuse of ammunition (IMRA, 1/1). If the bombs had gone off in crowded areas, casualties would have been high, and "Zionist agents" probably would have been blamed.
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:
|
|
DISHONORABLE: ANOTHER HONOR KILLING
Posted by BenAmi, January 16, 2010. |
|
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"? |
|
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 Ben Ami at farme@012.net.il
|
|
ON THE RUN
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, January 16, 2010. |
|
Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il
visit |
|
UNRWA : BIASED AS USUAL
Posted by Susana K-M, January 15, 2010. |
|
UNRWA — A Political Organization A new English-language play is touring Israel, titled "Building Understanding: Epitaph for a Dead Warehouse." The show combines video clips with a one-man performance by Chris Gunness, who plays the part of a UN warehouse in Gaza described as "the victim of an excruciatingly painful fire that burned me down," due to the IDF using illegal white phosphorous to bomb the building. The videos show the bombing, as well as interviews with the warehouse staff, complaining of being doused by a bomb that "looks like phosphorus, it smells like phosphorus and it burns like phosphorus." An IDF probe found minimal quantities of phosphorus material, which came from smoke rather than weapons, within the limits of international law. In an interview with Israel National News, Gunness said he had no way to confirm that the shells had, in fact, been fired by IDF soldiers, although his one-man show places the blame squarely on the IDF's shoulders. Who is Chris Gunness? Who would take out the time, effort and resources to perform such a series of falsehoods, besmirching the reputation of Israel's military (as seems to be de rigeur these days)? Of course, Chris Gunness is a UN worker. Gunness, however, is not just any UN worker — he is the head spokesperson for UNRWA. Yes, the same UNRWA that describes itself as having been established "to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees" and "the main provider of basic services — education, health, relief and social services — to...registered Palestine refugees in the Middle East." The provider of social services to Palestinian refugees proudly displayed an article from McClatchy Newspapers praising Gunness's performance, on its website. This is an interesting strategy, considering that nowhere in its mandate or mission statements is UNRWA given the role of taking political positions and disseminating them; the agency seems to have taken it upon itself to slander Israel. It's hard to imagine how the Palestinian refugee problem can be solved, while it's in the care of UNRWA. Time and again, this agency shows that it is incapable of handling its mandate and serves values opposite of those of the countries that fund UNRWA. Not only are the vast majority of the agency's workers also recipients of UNRWA's services, which in all other UN agencies is consider a conflict of interest, the agency has also employed members of Hamas and other terrorist groups. The textbooks in UNRWA schools feature inflammatory and incorrect information about the United States and Israel, deny the holocaust, and glorify terror. In this way, UNRWA has served as a conduit for terror since Arafat made refugees the symbol of the Palestinian Nationalist struggle in the 1960s, perpetuating the Israel-Arab conflict rather than helping to assuage it. Recently, Congressmen like Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Steve Rothman (D-NJ) have proposed the UNRWA Accountability Bill, demanding transparency and responsibility from UNRWA. United States donations to UNRWA in 2009 reached $154.5 million by early October, and may increase before the year's end. The bill seeks to ensure that money sent to UNRWA from the United States does not fund terror, and emphasizes the need to evaluate the curricula in UNRWA schools. While Kirk and Rothman's actions are praiseworthy, they are not enough. As Middle East analyst Asaf Romirowsky has pointed out, UNRWA works in a way that is opposite of other humanitarian operations and refugee relief agencies, such as the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR). UNHCR encourages resettlement, avoiding political stances and putting refugees in danger, whereas UNRWA favors the "right of return," thus blocking resettlement, takes clear political positions, and is connected to terrorist groups. In 2005, UNHCR served 19.2 refugees and asylum seekers in 116 countries with a budget of $992 million and a staff of 6,450. In the same year, UNRWA had a staff of 24,300 and a $339 million budget for only 4.1 million refugees in only five areas. Refugees may benefit from UNRWA's services to some extent, but the
organization itself seems to benefit much more from the refugees.
Without refugees, UNRWA would no longer exist; therefore, UNRWA has no
motivation to solve the refugee problem. Clearly, the way to solve the
refugee problem is to dismantle UNRWA, and replace it with an
organization that can look forward and find solutions, rather than
focus on politics and encourage terror.
Benny Alon does have a way to help the Arab refugees. First separate them from UNRWA, which keeps them in refugee status. Read his plan at http://www.israelinitiative.com
Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
AYRES' WIFE HEADS TO MIDDLE EAST WITH GROUP TO COLLABORATE WITH HAMAS
Posted by Susana K-M, January 15, 2010. |
|
This was written by Caroline B. Glick. |
|
Oh the shame of it all. 
Bernardine Dohrn (Mrs. Bill Ayres) and husband Last month 1,300 pro-Palestinian activists from the US and Europe came to the region in the name of peace and social justice to demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. Led by the self-declared feminist, antiwar group Code Pink, the demonstrators' plan was to enter Gaza from the Egyptian border at Rafah and deliver "humanitarian aid" to the Hamas terrorist organization. But it was not to be. Led by Code Pink founder and California Democratic fundraiser Jodie Evans, the demonstrators were not welcome by Egyptian authorities. Many were surrounded by riot police and barbed wire as they demonstrated outside the US and French embassies and the UN Development Program's headquarters. Others were barred from leaving their hotels. Those who managed to escape their hotels and the bullpens outside the foreign embassies were barred from staging night protests in solidarity with Hamas on the Nile. In the end, as the militant Israeli pro-Palestinian activist Amira Hass chronicled in Ha'aretz last week, all but one hundred of them were barred from travelling to Gaza. The lucky few allowed into Gaza included neither Evans nor her friends, former Weather Underground terror leaders Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayres. But they bore no grudge against Egypt. The Egyptians were mere puppets of the real culprit: Israel. As Evans said, "It's obvious that the only reason for [Egypt's treatment of the demonstrators] is to make Israel happy. Israel is behind the refusal [to allow the demonstrators into Gaza] — what other excuse could there be?" Dohrn, the woman has called for a "revolutionary war" to destroy the US, felt that the Egyptian authorities' behavior was nothing but an unfortunate diversion from their mission. As she wrote in a blog post from Cairo, "We find ourselves unwillingly in Cairo, drawn into clashes with authorities and one another on side issues, when what we most want is to keep our eyes on the Palestinian people." Unfortunately for the lucky 100 who were permitted to enter Hamastan, the diversions didn't end at the Egyptians border. Hamas immediately placed them under siege. The Palestinian champions had planned to enjoy home hospitality from friends in Gaza. But once there they were prohibited from leaving the Hamas-owned Commodore Hotel and from having any contact with local Gazans without a Hamas escort. Rather than being permitted to judge the situation in Gaza for themselves, they were carted onto Hamas buses and taken on "devastation tours" of what their Hamas tour guides claimed was damage caused by the IDF during Operation Cast Lead. And then these international protesters were forced to participate in a Hamas-organized march to Erez Crossing. As Hass tells it, in "a slap to many feminist organizers and participants," no Palestinian women were allowed to participate in the march which, "turned into nothing more than a ritual, an opportunity for Hamas cabinet ministers to get decent media coverage in the company of Western demonstrators." But they didn't really mind. Reacting to her effective imprisonment in the Hamas-owned hotel, one of the demonstrators, and American woman named Poya Pakzad cooed on her blog that the Commodore Hotel was "the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at, in my life." Pakzad did complain however about what she acknowledged was the "farce" devastation tour she was taken on. She claimed that her Hamas guides were ignorant. In her studied view, they understated the number of Palestinians rendered homeless by the IDF counter-terror offensive last year by some 60 percent. Pakzad is something of a Hass groupie. She wrote that on the bus to Gaza, still smarting from the rough treatment the group received from the Egyptian authorities, Hass "made me realize why I came in the first place: to break the siege!" Hass's participation in the pro-Hamas propaganda trip is a bit surprising. In November 2008 Hass was forced to flee from Gaza to Israel after Hamas threatened to kill her. At the time, Hass appealed to the Israeli military — which she has spent the better part of her career bashing — and asked to be allowed to enter Israel from Gaza after sailing illegally to Gaza from Cyprus on a ferry boat chartered by the pro-Hamas Free Gaza outfit. Hass's behavior is actually more revealing than surprising. The truth is that Hass, like her fellow demonstrators were willing to be used as media props by Hamas precisely because it isn't the Palestinians' welfare that concerns them. If they cared about the Palestinians they would be demonstrating against Hamas, which prohibited local women from participating in their march to the Israeli border, and which barred non-Hamas members from speaking with them. It would offend their sensitivities that Hamas goons beat women for not covering themselves from head to toe in Islamic potato sacks. It would bother them that Hamas executes its political opponents by among other things throwing them off the roofs of apartment buildings. The demonstrators did not come to Gaza to demonstrate their support for the Palestinians but their hatred for Israel and for their own Western governments which refuse to join Hamas in its war against Israel. As one of the organizers told Hass as she sat corralled by Egyptian riot police outside the UNDP offices in Cairo, "In our presence here, we are saying that we are not casting the blame on Egypt. The responsibility for the shameless and obscene Israeli siege on Gaza rests squarely with our own countries." By happily collaborating with Hamas in its propaganda extravaganza, these demonstrators demonstrated that the rights of Palestinians are not their concern. Their concern is waging war against their own societies and against Israel. They are more than happy to have their pictures taken with the likes of Hamas terror master Ismail Haniyeh. And while they will never acknowledge that his organization's terror war against Israel is illegal and immoral, or care that Hamas's founding charter explicitly calls for the genocide of Jewry, they will demonstrate from today 'til doomsday against their governments' recognition of Israel. In this, the Free Gaza movement members are but a chip off the old psychopathic block of nearly a century of far-left Western activists whose hatred for their own countries motivated them to hide the crimes of mass murderers from Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong to Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh to Daniel Ortega and Saddam Hussein. As Jamie Glazov chronicles in his recently published book, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror, their attraction to mass murderers — from Stalin to Osama bin Laden, and their concomitant hatred of their own societies "is a secular religion." These fanatics are usually dismissed as fringe elements. But the truth is that during the late-20th century, the distance between these true believers and the centers of state power has not been very great. Glazov notes, "The tragedy�is that the Left has shaped much of the cultural and political consciousness of our time. The Left's agenda mattered immensely during the Vietnam War: even former North Vietnamese officials have admitted that the antiwar movement in American can take credit for communism's victory in South Vietnam and, therefore, for the tragic bloodbath that followed." Likewise, today these radical movements' extremism today has not marginalized them politically. Since it was formed in 2002, Code Pink has openly sided with US enemies against the US and its allies. Evans and its other leaders have met with Hamas leaders in Gaza and Syria. They have visited with Hizbullah in Lebanon. They have met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York and Teheran. They have supplied Iranian-backed insurgents in Iraq, and before the US-led invasion in 2003, they organized a solidarity-with-Saddam Hussein mission to Baghdad. And this month, fresh from Egypt and Gaza, Code Pink launched an advertising campaign on the Muslim Brotherhood's English website. At home in the US, as documented by websites like Big Government and Atlas Shrugs, Code Pink's members have launched psychological warfare operations against US soldiers outside of military bases with the aim of persuading them to desert. They have taunted and frightened children of US servicemen. They have harassed Bush administration officials, their family members and Republican Party leaders. In Israel, counterparts to Code Pink like Uri Avineri's Gush Shalom acted as human shields to protect Yassir Arafat and his fellow terrorists from IDF forces during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Anarchists Against the Fence stage violent riots against IDF forces every week. Four Mothers successfully compelled the Barak government to surrender south Lebanon to Hizbullah. Traditionally, the far left's ability to shape national policy in Israel and the US alike has owed largely to the sympathetic coverage they have garnered from fellow-travelling media outlets. In the US the anti-war movement probably would have failed in its mission of transferring South Vietnam to Communist control if the New York Times and CBS News hadn't supported their efforts. So too, the Barak government would likely not have withdrawn the IDF from south Lebanon if Four Mothers hadn't been ardently supported by state-owned Israel Radio. While both the Israeli and American media continue to promote the agendas of far left groups, by among other things, not reporting their open ties to terrorist organizations, today some of these groups have direct access to the halls of power. Code Pink for instance is welcome at the Obama White House. Its leader Evans was an official fundraiser for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Evans visited the White House after travelling to Gaza last June. While there she met with Hamas leaders who gave her a letter for Obama. Evans met Obama himself at a donor dinner in San Francisco last October where while standing in front of cameras, she gave Obama documents she received in Afghanistan where she met with Taliban officials. Then too, among the board members of the Free Gaza movement is former US senator James Abourezk. Abourezk is reputedly close to Obama and according to knowledgeable sources has been a key figure in shaping Obama's policy towards Israel. Then too, like Evans, Dohrn and her husband Ayres are also friendly with the President of the United States. Dohrn and Ayres have been Obama's political patrons since he launched his first campaign for the Illinois state Senate in 1996. In White House visitors' logs, Ayres is listed as having twice visited the building since Obama's inauguration. Israeli authorities tend to treat groups like Code Pink and its Israeli allies as nothing more than nuisances. Since unlike Egypt and these self proclaimed human rights champions themselves, Israel actually does care about human rights, it would never occur to anyone to treat these demonstrators as Egypt did. At the same time, the Egyptian authorities' actions were clearly informed their understanding that with their ties to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran, Code Pink and its friends are active collaborators with the jihad war machine. With their open ties to our jihadist enemies on the one hand, and their direct line to the White House on the other, Israel ignores them at our peril.
Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com
|
|
SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS IN THE TANK FOR ISLAMISTS
Posted by Cpocerl, January 15, 2010. |
|
This appeared at the Atlas Shrugs website
From Atlas Shrugs: "In case you ever wondered why you never got the straight story on Islam directly after 911, and why the media seemed to be in the tank for jihad, here's a clue. The Society of Professional Journalists issued this directive a couple of weeks after 911. And they have followed it in goose step ever since." Below Atlas Shrugs comments are in red text in square brackets ([]) |
|
Diversity Guidelines On Oct. 6, 2001 at its National Convention in Seattle, the Society of Professional Journalists passed a resolution urging members and fellow journalists to take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to:
Guidelines Visual images
Stories
Web resources on this topic
Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
FATAH PRIDES ITSELF ON DEADLY TERROR ATTACKS
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, January 15, 2010. |
|
Recent reports by Palestinian Media Watch documenting Palestinian Authority terror glorification prompted the Israeli government to issue two formal protests to the United States about Palestinian Authority incitement to violence. Since then, PA glorification of terror continues. 
The official PA daily featured a special full-page section last week to mark the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement, including praise for both lethal terror attacks and for terrorists. Among others, the newspaper praised the attack led by Dalal Mughrabi, in which 37 Israelis were killed. The newspaper also praised Fatah for firing missiles from Lebanon at Israeli cities and towns during the 1980s. More than a third of the page was devoted to the life stories of 10 senior terrorists, who were referred to as "heroic Shahids (Martyrs)". The top of the page displayed the organization's name — Fatah — that incorporates a rifle. The following is a translation of the text as it appeared in the official PA daily: Headline: "On the 45th anniversary of its founding: Fatah is still the leader of the national struggle and the foundation stone of the Palestinian State" "Quality military operations: 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. He is Director of PMW. |
|
YOU CAN DO TO PROTEST AGAINST U.S. PRESSURE ON ISRAEL
Posted by AFSI, January 15, 2010. |
|
In the message below from David Wilder, spokesman for the Hebron community, he pleads with Americans to contact our representatives to say NO to George Mitchell, scheduled to return on another mission to Israel with more "demands" and "deadlines". Israel must not be forced to bend to American pressure to relinquish its land and safety to Arab terrorists and to those, like Abbas, who glorify terrorism. The Netanyahu government in Israel must stand tall and strong, defending the Jewish right to the land of Israel. |
|
While the US is sending more troops to Afghanistan to fight international Taliban terror, it is actively forcing Israel to acquiesce to declared terror-supporters, namely the PA and their leader, Abu Mazen, thereby infringing upon Israeli sovereignty, endangering Israeli lives and jeopardizing the existence of the State of Israel. The time has come for the entire American Jewish community, and all lovers of Israel, of freedom and of human rights, of all those who oppose terror and terrorist supporters, to make their voices heard. Stop Mitchell's latest mission to Israel. Write now, fax and or email Senators and Congressmen (numbers and addresses found here http://goo.gl/oo6F), demanding that George Mitchell, together with his threats and unconcealed contempt for Israel, must not be allowed to return to Israel. Fax and email US consulate in Jerusalem at: +972.2.625.9270
Remind them that Israel is NOT the 51st State!
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 and organizer of the AFSI Chizuk missions. |
|
EU TO BRITIAN: YOU MUST PAY DEATH BENEFITS TO AL QAEDA&TALIBAN WIDOWS
Posted by Cpocerl, January 15, 2010. |
|
Europe's law chief wants Britain to reinstate the payment of tens of thousands of pounds in State handouts to the wives of suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fanatics. Ministers have halted benefit payouts made to the families of suspected terrorists to prevent the money falling into the hands of banned groups. The Treasury says the power is a vital weapon in the war against terrorism. It stems from a crackdown on terrorist financing launched in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. However, the senior advocate of the European Court of Justice, Paolo Mengozzi, yesterday declared the decision to stop the payments was unfair on the grounds of human rights. His opinion is likely to prove crucial when Europe's highest court considers three test cases brought by the wives of British-based terror suspects later this year. In eight out of every ten cases, the court has agreed with the Advocate General — making it highly likely the UK taxpayer will soon begin forking out hundreds of pounds a week to the families. Whitehall officials have refused to name the families involved in the test cases — but all three of the husbands are foreign nationals on the United Nations list of international terror suspects. They have been linked by security officials to Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. The payouts to their wives include income support, child benefit and housing assistance worth 'several hundred' pounds a week. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com. This appeared today in the
Daily Mail
|
|
THE GREENING OF ISLAM
Posted by Daily Alert, January 15, 2010. |
|
This was written by Abbas Milani
and it appeared in the New Republic
Abbas Milani is a contributing editor of The New Republic and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford, where he is the co-director of the Iran Democracy Project. His latest book is Eminent Persians: The Men and Women who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979. |
|
How the Iranian uprising has transformed Shiism The Green Movement is a revolt against theocracy. Most of its adherents are young Iranians with little or no religious motivation. Yet, an iconic figure of the revolt was the nation's highest-ranking cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri; and, last month, Ashura, a holy day celebrating martyrdom, occasioned some of the movement's most massive protests. Perhaps the fact that the movement has acquired a Shia veneer shouldn't be terribly surprising. During the past century, no social movement in Iran has succeeded without draping itself in religion or without a strong Shia contingent in its leadership. But to limit the discussion of the Green Movement's religiosity to rhetoric and political maneuverings is to diminish the significance of the happening. The Green Movement (and the Ayatollah Khamenei's clumsy response to it) has exacerbated a split with Shiism. It has accelerated the development of profound and potentially far-reaching doctrinal innovations. The course of the coming months will determine the extent to which these innovations will transform Shiism and Iran.
YOU WILL KNOW SOME OF THE NAMES of the most prominent clerics who have been identified with the Green Movement: Montazeri, Rafsanjani, Karroubi. But there are other ayatollahs and theologians supporting the Greens — Yousef Sanei, Abdolkarim Soroush, Yousefi Eshkevari — who have developed a significant body of theology. Much of this work began before the recent political upheaval, but there's no doubt that the upheaval has given this group wider sway and further radicalized its thinking. To varying degrees, thinkers and theologians identified with the democratic movement have been offering a new reading of Shiism that makes the faith more amenable to democracy and secularism. The most significant innovation — found in essays, sermons, books, and even fatwas — is the acceptance of the separation of mosque and state, the idea that religion must be limited to the private domain. Some of these thinkers refuse to afford any privileged position to the clergy's reading and rendition of Shiism — a radical democratization of the faith. And others, like Akbar Ganji and Mostafa Malekian, have gone so far as to deny the divine origins of Koran, arguing that it is nothing but a historically specific and socially marked interpretation of a divine message by the prophet. The most daring are even opting for a historicized Muhammad, searching for the first time in Shia history for a real, not hagiographic, narrative of his life. The clear target of these new teachings is the Ayatollah Khamenei. It is important to remember that he owes his position as supreme leader to a deathbed appointment. At the time of his ascension, he was merely a junior cleric. His only purchase on the leadership position was his claim that, before dying, the Ayatollah Khomeini had named him as his chosen successor. While this may have been an unorthodox appointment, the method by which he was selected is very much within the tradition of the strain of Shiism dominant in Iran. But this tradition of appointment is under assault. Ayatollah Montazeri and others have demanded that the supreme leader be elected by the people, and that his rule must be limited in time. They even contend that the people should have the authority to impeach the supreme leader at the ballot box. Khamenei has angrily resisted this revolt within the clergy. Several seminaries and residences of these reformist ayatollahs have been attacked by hired mobs working for the regime. Then there's the case of the Ayatollah Sanei. As I have mentioned, he is one of the most important thinkers in this new movement. But he has, in recent days, been declared unfit to be an ayatollah by the influential Qom-based cleric Ayatollah Yazdi, notorious for his corruption and conservatism. Yazdi's statement is ominous. Sanei, who has been accepted as an ayatollah for more than twenty years, is now accused of issuing dangerous fatwas. And it's true, Sanei has declared the value of a woman's life — or diye, in Shia parlance, the sum a murderer must pay to the family of the murdered as punishment — equal to that of a man. And he has argued that girls should not be married off at the age of nine. But there are very, very few precedents for this sort of defrocking. Already, there's loud opposition to the persecution of Ayatollah Sanei. It is widely seen as the regime's preemptive attack on a cleric who could fill the place of Montazeri and become the new spearhead of clerical opposition to the regime. It will be fascinating to see whether Ayatollah Sistani — the senior Iraqi-based cleric and a leading exponent of quietism — will weigh in on this historic breach of clerical independence. Sanei's case could become a touchstone in this battle over the future of Shiism — the battle between one strand of increasingly rational Shiism and another strand that grows ever more messianic and superstitious. 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 |
|
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 15, 2010. |
|
ISRAELI HUMILIATION OF TURKISH AMBASSADOR: MORE Israel formally apologized for its Deputy Foreign Minister seating the Turkish Ambassador lower to the floor and telling reporters he did so deliberately. Turkey accepted the apology. Some Israeli leaders had voiced support for the Deputy. The Israeli media focused exclusively on the seating faux pas and ignored the serious Israeli grievance with Turkey's President (Arutz-7, 1/13), who falsely accused Israel of kidnapping Arab children and in order to convert them to Judaism. Much of the Israeli media has become so biased as to be considered anti-Israel. It is difficult to understand how some Israelis could support the Deputy's undiplomatic conduct. He harmed Israel by drawing attention away from Turkey's blood libel of Judaism. ISRAELI RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE www.ngo-monitor.org/article/international_law_series_ the_right_to_self_defense0 a.. The right to self-defense, including the right to combat terror, is a cornerstone of international law, enshrined in the UN Charter (Article 51) and numerous Security Council Resolutions. b.. In order to delegitimize Israel's self-defensive measures, many NGOs have issued statements distorting international law or even inventing legal bases under which Israel's rights are denied. c.. Al Haq and PCHR falsely claim that Israel cannot invoke self-defense in response to attacks from non-state actors in occupied territory. In making this legally incoherent argument, these NGOs misinterpret key passages in international law. d.. A second approach, taken by Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem, alleges without any evidentiary basis that Israel's exercise of self-defense is merely a pretext for punishing the Palestinians. There is no legal doctrine that establishes that an otherwise legal military action in self-defense becomes illegal simply because one of its alleged motives is to "punish" the aggressor. e.. Other groups, including Oxfam and FIDH, pay lip service to Israeli self-defense, but reject every Israeli action as a "violation of international law." f.. The NGOs make no realistic suggestions of what would be considered lawful and effective measures, effectively nullifying the right to self-defense. g.. Palestinian NGO, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from European governments (EU, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, Netherlands), labels direct attacks on Israeli civilians as acts of "resistance." (via IMRA, 1/13.) TURKEY ALLEGES ISRAELI 'HUMILIATION' OF PALESTINIAN ARABS The Foreign Minister of Turkey assured Israel that he wants good relations with it but blames Israel for engendering extremism by "occupation" and by "humiliating" the Palestinian Arabs. He did not specify what was "humiliating." (IMRA, 1/13.) In his context, I think that he means that IDF restrictions on Palestinian Authority freedom of movement is "humiliating." Taking up similar Palestinian Arab claims of being humiliated, sympathizers accuse Israel of humiliating those Arabs, also without specifying how. One should not make or believe political or bigoted accusations without knowing their basis. What did Israel do wrong? It was attacked. In defending itself, it came to administer some territories from which the attacks emanated. Whose fault is that? The people in those areas continue to attempt attacks. What is Israel supposed to do now? Withdraw from Judea and Samaria, the way it did in Gaza? Gaza then became a terrorist base that launched more attacks! And why should Israel, which has, under the Mandate, claims to the area, withdraw in favor of Arabs who had no country there? If not ruling themselves is humiliating, let those Arabs end their bigotry and terrorism! Why don't those who say they sympathize with them suggest that? I suspect that what is put as sympathy for Arabs who, after all, favor terrorism, really is antipathy for Jews, who do not. ISRAELI UNIVERSITY SCREENS ANTI-ISRAEL FILM The movie, Jenin, Jenin falsely accuses IDF troops of committing massacre during an incursion into Jenin. The canard long has been disproved. IDF veterans are suing the film's director. Now Tel Aviv University is hosting a Communist Party convention, which plans to show the movie. Prof. Steven Plaut of Haifa U. condemns the further showing of the slanderous film. He wonders why a University hosts a convention by the Communist Party, which stands for repression of academic freedom. Slander in the service of jihad is not a proper exercise of academic freedom (Plaut, 1/13). CANADA SWITCHES AID FROM UNRWA TO PROJECTS Finding that foreign aid for UNRWA is not accounted for, Canada now gives it for specific, institution-building projects in the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). Hamas had infiltrated UNRWA, and diverted UN funds for its own purposes. B'nai-B'rith Canada praised Canada for its change as helping the P.A. stabilize and get into a position for making peace (IMRA, 1/13). Is the P.A. accountable for funds given to it? It spends a lot on troops and vicious propaganda. I have not seen a report on corruption and monopolies in some time, but the Prime Minister seems to be trying to build up his area. The notion that better conditions may lead to peace is problematic. The cause of war there is religious fanaticism, not a poor economy. An economic build-up may make the war harsher. 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:
|
|
AIRPORT SECURITY
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, January 15, 2010. |
|
Technological advances in brainwave analysis leading to an accurate profile of a generic terrorist's thoughts displayed as oscillating patterns on a monitor; incorporating that model into airport security operations; could offer more relevant data than today's physical scans or searches. It is likely the brain of one focused on say blowing up a plane would exhibit certain electrical characteristics; perhaps generate more activity in specific anatomical regions than a typical vacationer or business person. This of course does not suggest analysts would be able to distinguish specific thoughts, but would nevertheless be aware that an individual exhibits brainwave patterns that substantially coincide with a mathematically calculated terrorist profile. Surely, research could determine those salient features common to most if not all terrorist brain activity. Using this technology, albeit predictive rather than definitive, would be analogous to using fingerprints or matching DNA samples to solve crimes; in this case to prevent horrific crimes against innocent human beings as well as incalculable collateral psychological and economic damage to globally connected civil populations. Privacy concerns, already trumped by current airport procedures, should not prevent such highly advanced technology from being implemented. Anyone exhibiting a specific brainwave pattern could justifiably be isolated, searched, and questioned. Such century twenty-one methods, when properly developed, could enable us to thwart those obsessed with primitive and indeed perverted notions of destroying advanced societies. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at larose@snip.net |
|
FROM ISRAEL: DEEP CONCERN
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 15, 2010. |
|
I wrote the other day about Hillary's statement that the Palestinian Arabs "deserve" a state — which led to my piece about why such a state is not a good idea. Now I share with you a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs paper by Dan Diker regarding Abbas's intentions to declare a state to the '67 lines unilaterally:
~~~~~~~~~~ I've already been in touch with several Arabic-speaking analysts who concur that this is the way things are headed. What is more, there is feeling in several quarters that Obama is actually on board for this. The statement by Hillary leads us in this direction, and, as one analyst pointed out, Abbas would not pursue this had he not gotten the word that he would have US backing ultimately. Of considerable concern, as well, is the concerted effort to delegitimize Israel within the international community — a part of Abbas's overall plan. ~~~~~~~~~~ This comes now simply to provide this basic information, which I address with utmost seriousness. There will be times when my postings are brief, or when days go by without postings, because I'll be doing other writing or research. But I will keep my readers informed. Ultimately what matters is hard work to convince various decision-makers that — not only is formation of a Palestinian Arab state not a good idea — backing for such a state would lead to a disaster that makes supporters look very foolish: they would have contributed to a worsening situation in the Middle East. (And, indeed, that would be the case.) In the US, the focus must be on Congress; communicating with Obama and his advisors or with Hillary is likely pointless, as they have their agenda. They are oblivious to problems that are inherent in what they envision, and it is exceedingly unlikely that grassroots communication will affect their perception or their goals. In Europe, of course, the address is the EU, or European Commission, actually. In due course, there will be much more to say about this. ~~~~~~~~~~ I will add here in passing that it is possible (just possible) that this figures into Netanyahu's current stance, with his maddening eagerness to come to the table. I'm getting mixed opinions on this at present. He may be working overtime to show the world that unilateralism is not the way to go, as other options are possible. Whether this is the most productive approach is debated, and depends in part on what goes on behind the scenes. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
THE VALUE OF THE APOLOGY OF A TERRORIST
Posted by Boris Celser, January 14, 2010. |
|
This article is entitled "'Toronto 18' ringleader apologizes to
Canadians" and it was written by Colin Freeze. It appeared
today in The Globe and Mail |
|
The 24-year-old Canadian mastermind of an al-Qaeda-inspired plot to explode truck bombs in downtown Toronto has issued an abject apology to Canadians. "I deserve nothing less than your complete contempt," Mr. Amara told Mr. Justice Bruce Durno as he read an "open letter to Canadians" during his sentencing hearing. He pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last October and is to be sentenced on Monday. These were the first public remarks by Mr. Amara, a ringleader of the so-called "Toronto 18" plot, who spent the spring of 2006 trying to procure huge quantities of explosive chemicals in order to build truck bombs. Despite his show of contrition, Mr. Amara should not be cut any slack, prosecutors said. "He planned mass murder. It's that simple," said Crown lawyer Iona Jaffe, arguing for a life sentence. She said that only a multimillion-dollar police investigation — $20-million is a conservative estimate, sources have told the Globe — prevented Mr. Amara's bombs from going off. Ms. Jaffe asked the judge to envision the immediate devastion and long-term psychological scars that would have resulted from one-tonne fertilizer bombs exploding in Toronto's downtown core. The mere mention of Toronto, she suggested, would forever conjure up images of terrorism, in much the way that mention of "Oklahoma City" or "Air India" or "the World Trade Center towers" can do today. "A relatively safe and kind city would have been forever destroyed or altered," she said. "... Not one of us would have ever gone to downtown Toronto again without ever thinking of the devastation of 2006." The plot was to pack three U-Haul trucks with a least a tonne of fertilizer, before exploding the truck bombs outside the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Offices, and a military base outside Highway 401. Mr. Amara and a small splinter cell of bomb plotters hoped the attack would force Parliament to pull Canada's soldiers from Afghanistan. In the spring of 2006 he built prototype detonators as he tasked others with getting his bomb ingredients, but one of his accomplices turned out to be an undercover police agent. Mr. Amara wore a blue sweater vest, a buttoned down white shirt, and neatly trimmed beard as he addressed the court. He apologized for being nervous and speaking in a jumbled manner, as he tried to explain what led him down "the path of extremism." Starting off by quoting the Quran, in hindsight, he said his interpretation of Islam was "naïve and gullible," and that his belief system made worse by the fact he had "isolated himself from the real world." Today he told the court he has been rehabilitated by his time awaiting trial in jail — mostly through his interactions with fellow prisoners who challenged his hate-filled ideology. He promised he would change from a "man of destruction" to a "man of construction. One friendly inmate who turned him around, Mr. Amara said, was a banker who had worked on Bay Street — "ironic," he told Mr. Justice Bruce Durno, since he had plotted blowing up the Toronto Stock Exchange. Mr. Amara apologized to Canadians generally and Muslims in particular because of the "unwelcome attention" and scrutiny his actions prompted. "The gravity of damage I caused to you make any apologies inappropriate," he said. Even though Mr. Amara lived and worked in Mississauga — a diverse Toronto suburb with a population of more than a million — he made sound like he ghettoized himself into social circles comprising only fellow extremists. It wasn't until he got to prison, he said, that he began to learn tolerance. "When I was arrested, and luckily and gladly that happened," Mr. Amara said, "for the next three years I was incarcerated all by myself alone." Solitary detention was counterproductive, he said, but in recent months he moved into general population. That changed his outlook. Mr. Amara, a Sunni Muslim, talked of how he had also befriended a Jewish inmate, and a Shia Muslim, men from two religions he would have viewed with only contempt prior to his incarceration. He said that these inmates "had trouble with trying to reconcile my gentle and kind character" with his terrorists acts. Their words, he said, "caused me to reconsider." "When someone shows me I'm wrong," Mr. Amara said, "I'm willing to accept it." Though Mr. Amara remained composed through much of the hearing, he sobbed audibly when court was presented with a letter from his wife, Nada Farooq. He was so distraught he kept his head in his hands and didn't see the box of Kleenex court staff presented to him. "I believe my husband regrets with all his heart what he's put me and my daughter through," said Ms. Farooq's letter, explaining she is now a single mother living in her parents' basement and struggling to study science at university. Ms. Farooq, who has worn a black niqab to past hearings for her husband, was not present. She suggested her husband's naiveté led him into extremism. "I can't make excuses for what he has done," her letter said. The couple married when the were just 18 and 17 respectively. That was when the slightly older Mr. Amara dropped out of his first semester at Ryerson University to work as a gas jockey, so that he could support the daughter he conceived within a month of wedlock. The defence submitted a psychiatric report suggesting Mr. Amara turned to terrorism as a form of escapism, to leave behind the drudgery of daily life and the pain of the then-recent divorce of his Jordanian father and Cypriot mother. Mr. Amara's family travels meant he grew up in Canada, Jordan, Cyprus and Saudi Arabia, where his father worked for an oil company. His lawyer presented him as less a hardened terrorist than a latchkey kid whose adolescent angst had gotten severely out of hand. During Mr. Amara's teenaged years in Mississauga "his father left home, gave Zakaria the keys to a car, and left to Dubai. He has not come back since," defence lawyer Michael Lacy told the court. "... None of this is an excuse, it is simply to illustrate there is a context." He added that his client "is a convicted terrorist. That will be with him for ever... But he is a young man for whom there is still hope." Mr. Amara faces life in prison, a punishment which the Crown is requesting. The defence suggests an 18 to 20 year sentence would be more appropriate. Because he has spent three and a half years in custody, and Canadian judges generally give a two for one credit for "dead time," he'll likely be understood to have already served the equivalent of seven years of his sentence when he is sent to a penitentiary. The prosecutor, Ms. Jaffe, pointed out the Crown and defence were not really haggling over much in terms of jail time. Because of Canada's correctional laws, whether Mr. Amara gets life or 18 years, he stands to be eligible for parole in about six years — around the time of his 30th birthday. One key distinction is that a life sentence would mean authorities could watch Mr. Amara indefinitely, and long after his penitentiary doors spring open. "Would that be unduly crushing for Mr Amara given what we know?" Ms. Jaffe asked. Either way, he will get one of the stiffest — if not the stiffest — terrorism sentence imposed since Parliament passed the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Only a handful of offenders have ever been convicted under that law. Many of them were Mr. Amara's co-conspirators. Two young men who were teenagers at the time of the plot, Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya, have pleaded guilty to being Mr. Amara's henchmen. They have expressed regret for their role in the plot. A fourth alleged bomb plotter, Shareef Abdelhaleem, 34, is currently on trial. The rest of the young suspects arrested three years ago face no accusations of being involved in the bomb plot.
Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net
|
|
TRIVIAL DEMONSTRATIONS VERSUS POLITICAL REVOLUTION
Posted by Yaacov Levi, January 14, 2010. |
|
Below is the edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, given by Professor Paul Eidelberg on Israel National Radio, December 14, 2009. |
|
The December 9 protest demonstration against the Government's 10-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria lacks a positive revolutionary goal. Admittedly, to speak of a political revolution in Israel is like tilting at windmills. The mentality of most Israelis, including opponents of the government, is thoroughly bourgeois and democratic. Because bourgeois democrats are primarily motivated by the desire for comfort and security, they are politically moderate on the one hand, and constitutionally opposed to the hazards of revolution on the other. Moreover, a large percentage of these democrats are Jewish humanists, the most anti-revolutionary species imaginable. They practice what Christians preach: "love your enemies," "turn the other cheek," "do not resist evil." Of course they are terribly fearful of "world opinion." Some ten thousand Jews have been murdered or maimed by Arab terrorists since Oslo 1993 — thanks to the government's policy of "self-restraint." Nevertheless, Jews look upon the government's complicity in murder with bewilderment and resignation. To expect revolution from such Jews is to expect lambs to metamorphose into lions. Besides, the government controls all the levers of power: military, economic, the media, etc. When to all this you add the "legitimacy" accorded the government by its undeserved reputation as a "democracy," talk of revolution in this country appears futile. Not that most Israelis support the government's policy of territory for peace or its 10-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. But few know what to do about these cowardly policies. Since Oslo, amateurs have squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars on demonstrations, full-page ads, law suits, and other efforts against the government's treachery. The leaders of these demonstrations have learned nothing from these negative and politically uninspiring demonstrations. On the other hand, notice how they foreswear "violence" and thereby inform the repressive forces of government they will not cross the lines of what is deemed "legitimate" in a "democracy." Why say anything? Why not let the government worry about the scope of your intentions? Besides, isn't there a vast disproportion between the placid character of Israeli demonstrations and the suicidal consequences of the government's territorial policies? These demonstrations trivialize the government's semi-fascist character. Contrast the revolutionary protests against the Iranian government when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the presidential election of June 12 of this year. Why wasn't there an equivalent revolutionary protest against the Likud government when Ariel Sharon adopted Labor's policy of unilateral disengagement, a policy rejected by no less than 70 percent of the public in the January 2003 election? True, Iran is not a reputed democracy. But this suggests that Israel's democratic reputation underlies the futility or political vacuity of demonstrations against the government's defeatist policies. There was not even a milk-and-toast demonstration against Netanyahu's June 14 speech at Bar-Ilan University, when, without public or Knesset debate, he endorsed the establishment of an Arab-Islamic state in Judea and Samaria. Six months later, it required his 10-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria to produce another futile demonstration, which makes Israelis look anemic compared to the Iranians risking their lives still protesting against Ahmadinejad's purloined election. It seems that countless Jews in this country have been emasculated by the myth of Israeli democracy. They do not see that Israel has a "prime ministerial" form of government virtually equivalent to a democratically elected dictatorship. Israeli prime ministers can betray the nation with impunity, without fear of impeachment or removal by the Knesset. In fact, no Israeli prime minister, or no Likud-led, or Labor-led, or Kadima-led government has ever been toppled by a Knesset vote of no confidence! The Knesset is a cipher. Thus, if the SYSTEM is so designed as to render the Knesset as well as the cabinet immune to public opinion, protest demonstrations in this country are laughable: they even foster the myth of Israeli democracy! Still, people wonder why there has been no revolution in Israel. They see that one government after another has betrayed the country, has yielded or offered Jewish land to Israel's implacable enemies who openly proclaim their commitment to wiping Israel off the map. This genocidal objective is conspicuous not only in the maledictions of Ahmadinejad. It is not only conspicuous in the Charter of the PLO-Palestinian Authority, which calls for "the complete liberation of Palestine." It is not only conspicuous in the Hamas Charter, which states: "Israel will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it." No, this Islamic commitment, rooted in the Quran, is also conspicuous in the tourist maps of Egypt which, despite that country's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, continue to depict the Land of Israel as "Palestine." So people wonder why Israelis tolerate governments which, since Oslo, have illegally released and armed more than 7,000 Arab terrorists, many of whom have gone on to murder and maim more Jewish men, women, and children! They wonder why the people of Israel did not even demonstrate against Netanyahu's endorsement of an Arab-Islamic state in Israel's heartland, a state that would require the expulsion of 300,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria! Of course, public apathy precludes revolution. But something more subtle is at work here. What precludes revolution in this country is not only the myth of democracy. Also operative is the deliberate obfuscation of the enormity of evil confronting Israel — the evil inherent Islam's 1,400-year "Culture of Hate" — as Bat Ye'or has put it. Islam's clash with Western civilization has been obscured or trivialized not only by Israeli prime ministers. Countless academics and journalists are ignorant of the pathological aspects of Islamic culture courageously exposed by Syrian-born psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan. Binyamin Netanyahu is a prime example of obscurantism. When he addressed a joint session of the American Congress in 1996, he gratuitously denied a clash of civilizations in the Middle East. But how can any candid and sensible person write about Arab terrorism, as Netanyahu has, and fail to discern its primary cause, namely Islamic education. One does not have to be as learned as Bat Ye'or to know that Islam's Culture of Hate dominates the Middle East. (Ignore Barack Obama — Muslim or not — because his anti-American agenda precludes his being candid about Islam.) It's reasonable to assume that Netanyahu agrees with the assessment of former head of Israel Intelligence Professor Y. Harkabi, who not only described Islam as an expansionist creed animated by jihad, but also documented the mendacity and murderous Jew-hatred engrained in Arab culture. Since this must be known to Netanyahu, what induced him to support the establishment of an Arab-Islamic state in Israel's heartland? That he laid down the condition that such a state must be demilitarized indicates he is at least aware of the militant and expansionist nature of Islam. But he disregards or minimizes what Wafa Sultan sees in Islam: how its education dehumanizes women and brutalizes men; how it exults in death, and how the Quran's commandment to hate Jews has ever been the daily diet of Muslim children. Hence, Netanyahu's wish to negotiate with the Palestinians is senseless or an effort to mollify Barack Obama as well as an exercise in mendacity. These derogatory remarks may also be applied to other Israeli prime ministers and cabinet ministers. Is it any wonder that the people of Israel are confused having so many liars and lemmings making the policies of their government? Is it not obvious that mere demonstrations will not remedy Israel's malaise? Is it not obvious that nothing less than regime change or a constitutional revolution will be necessary to save Israel? The first stage in this revolution is to demonstrate that the people of Israel have been disempowered by their system of governance. You must expose the impotence of the Knesset vis-a-vis the government. You must reveal the pernicious consequences of a Knesset whose members are not individually accountable to the voters in constituency elections. You must state that this lack of accountability enabled 29 MKs to hop over to rival parties in the 1999 election. You must show how this lack of accountability produced Oslo and the disengagement from Gaza — yes, and how it will facilitate the expulsion of 300,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria. You must also show that multiparty cabinet government is the seedbed of corruption in Israel. Therefore, you must form a team of talented and courageous individuals who have not been part of the Establishment, a team that will drive this message home to the people. Arouse the people to stand up and demand a government based on the primacy of Jewish ideas and on classical republican principles. Only this positive goal can make a demonstration against the government more than a tempest in a teapot. Contact AYaacov Levi by email at jlevi_us@yahoo.com |
|
ORGAN HARVESTING: THE NEW BLOOD LIBEL
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, January 14, 2010. |
|
This was written by Gregg Rickman and it appeared in The
Cutting Edge website
Cutting Edge contributor Gregg J. Rickman served as the first U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism from 2006-2009. He is a Senior Fellow for the Study and Combat of Anti-Semitism at the Institute on Religion and Policy in Washington, DC; a Visiting Fellow at The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; and a Research Scholar at the Initiative on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in San Francisco. |
|
Mark Van Doren wrote in Liberal Education in 1943, "Respect for the truth is an acquired taste." When it comes to anti-Semitism, there is little respect for the truth and taste is never something that has been acquired by its practitioners. These notions have become alarmingly true with the anti-Semitic canard circling the world today, the fiction of Israeli organ harvesting. On August 17, 2009, Aftonbladet, the Swedish daily newspaper, published a story, alleging that a campaign began in 1992 to harvest organs of Palestinians because of a severe shortage of available organs for transplant in Israel. "While the campaign was running, young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza," wrote Donald Bostrom. "After five days Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open. Talk of the bodies terrified the population of the occupied territories. There were rumors of a dramatic increase of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied bodies." The paper soon published a second story on the subject. Soon the story spread to allegations of Algerian students being kidnapped off the streets for their organs. Aljazeera covered it as fact, as did other Arabic language newspapers. Once printed, it spread like a forest fire across the Internet on websites like the Palestinian Think Tank. Kawther Salam, writing there on August 25, 2009 provided further details of the supposed practice. As the story goes, a Fatah peace activist Salman Hussein Al-Zamaareh, was arrested by Israel's security service, the Shin Bet, in the village of Halhoul near Hebron. Soon afterward, Al Zamaareh was said to have been murdered. Salam wrote further, "The family of Al-Zamaareh buried him in a grave in the cemetery of the village. A few hours after the burial, the IDF criminals went to the cemetery and opened three graves until they found his body, because they were not sure where he had been buried." Salam concluded his article detailing, "The body of Mr. Al-Zamaareh was returned to his family stuffed with cotton." The Palestinian Authority took action on these falsehoods. According to a September 10, 2009 statement by WAFA, the official Palestinian Authority News Agency, "The Arab League Council publishes resolutions supporting the Palestinian issue and demands an investigation into the theft of the organs of our Shahids (Martyrs). At the conclusion of its assembly in Cairo a short time ago, the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers published a series of resolutions in support of the Palestinian people. In addition, they demanded an investigation of Israel's crimes of stealing organs of Palestinian Shahids (Martyrs). They demanded the establishment of a UN Fact-Finding Mission in order to confirm that Israeli government gangs have stolen the organs of many Arab inhabitants, and to provide Arab and international aid to the [Palestinian] national committees that would be set up to investigate these crimes." In November 2009, Allison Weir continued the story in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs by writing quite blithely, "The fact is, however, that Israeli organ harvesting — sometimes with Israeli governmental funding and the participation of high Israeli officials, prominent Israeli physicians, and Israeli ministries — has been documented for many years. Among the victims have been Palestinians." Finally, on November 26, 2009 at a pseudo academic conference in Kiev, philosophy professor Vyacheslav Gudin, boldly claimed that Israel had brought 25,000 Ukrainian children into the country for the express purpose of organ harvesting. A right-wing group in Ukraine that blames the 1930s era Soviet-imposed famine on the Jews sponsored the conference Gudin spoke at. Anti-Semitism is about conspiracy and blame spread by small minds. The accusations laid at the Jews throughout history never had to be true, they just had to be repeated enough and they were accepted as fact. Accusations of organ harvesting by Israel, seen now as the "collective Jew," is a modern-day equivalent of the infamous Blood Libel, whereby Jews were accused of killing Christian children for their blood either to drink or to make matzah with it. There are other versions of the slander as well. When I was in Saudi Arabia in 2007 in my capacity as the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, I was asked if Jews made their pastries with blood. It is amazing that such absurdity continues to abound. The more ridiculous the claim, the more readily the lie about Jews seems to be accepted. What makes this ancient practice of anti-Semitism all the worse is that it is so aided by the Internet where it spreads virally around the planet to wanting believers of anti-Semitism like the fiction of Israeli organ harvesting. Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
|
ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF ISRAELI OFFICIALS
Posted by Israel Project, January 14, 2010. |
|
Below: Attempted Assassination of Israeli Officials in Jordan; Poll Shows Jordanians Hold Nearly Unanimously Negative Attitudes Toward Israel and By a 2-1 Margin Support the Use of Rocket Attacks against the Jewish State. |
|
Anniversary of Peace Treaty Between Israel and Jordan
Israeli Army Radio has reported that two explosive devices were detonated near a car carrying three Israeli diplomats today (Jan. 14) in Jordan. The attack occurred near the Allenby Bridge crossing between Jordan and the West Bank. The Israeli Foreign Ministry at this time is not commenting on the attempted assassination of Israeli officials. No one was hurt in the attack.[1] Following is information on Jordanian attitudes towards Israel. On the fifteenth anniversary of peace between Israel and Jordan, a new poll commissioned by The Israel Project (TIP) shows intense Jordanian hostility toward the Jewish state. The poll, face-to-face interviews of 250 Jordanians, was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR) as part of a larger study for TIP that included interviews with 250 Gazans, 250 people in the West Bank and 500 Egyptians. The poll found that the Jordanian public, comprised largely of Palestinians, is opposed to accepting and engaging Israel. Not a single respondent gives Israel a favorable rating, a level of rejection that GQRR has never seen toward anyone or any entity in its 29-year history as a firm. In Jordan, Israel gets 99 percent very cool ratings (ratings between 0-25 on a scale that ranges from 0 to 100). Even 15 years after peace was made between Israel and Jordan, Jordanians have not reconciled themselves to the existence or permanence of Israel as a Jewish state. Less than a quarter of respondents in Jordan think Israel has the right to exist, and three-quarters think Israel is "not necessarily here to stay as a permanent Jewish state." It is not surprising, therefore, to find that most Jordanians also oppose the country's diplomatic relations with Israel. Nevertheless, Jordanians are divided over a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians; and they largely agree (50 to 35 percent) that in retrospect, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat should have accepted President Clinton's peace proposals at Camp David. That said, a strong majority of Jordanians, 66 percent, believe that peace between the Palestinians and Israel is not likely in the next five years. While a slight majority believes the Palestinians should negotiate directly with Israel, the Jordanians continue to support terrorism and targeting civilians. In Jordan, three-quarters agree that targeting Israeli civilians or sending suicide bombers is justified to fight the occupation and defend the Palestinians. And while the Gaza crisis produced support for stopping the rocket attacks among Egyptians and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordanians are an outlier, supporting the continuing use of rocket attacks by a 2-1 margin. "Jordan has a very large Palestinian population, but they are out of the line of fire in the West Bank and Gaza. On a number of measures, Jordanians are very rejectionist and stand out from their neighbors," said Stanley Greenberg, Ph.D., the chairman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, "The data show that most Jordanians get their information on Israel from the Arab media — and the attitudes resulting from what they see are catastrophic. It is critical for Jordan to open up their TV shows to the reality of the many coexistence projects that are enabling Jews and Arabs to work together to create jobs and hope." Above are key findings from a nationally representative survey fielded July 8-16, 2009 in Jordan of 257 respondents with a margin of error of +/- 6.1 percent. Click here for more information on data from the poll in Egypt, and click here for more information on data from the poll in Gaza and the West Bank. *** [1] Harel, Amos, "Bomb explodes near Israeli diplomats in Jordan,"
Haaretz, Jan.14, 2010,
|
|
ISRAEL BENDS TO TURKISH ULTIMATUM
Posted by Cpocerl, January 14, 2010. |
|
This is from the DEBKAFile. |
|
Erdogan ready to punch Israel again Israel-Turkish relations dropped to another low Wednesday, Jan. 13, when Jerusalem was forced to send a letter of apology to Ankara Wednesday, Jan. 13, by Turkey's president Abdullah Gul's threat to recall the Turkish ambassador from Jerusalem. Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recip Erdogan, buoyed up by is power to force Jerusalem to bend, is reported by DEBKAFile's sources to be planning to intensify his campaign for grinding down the Jewish state, playing to the radical galleries in Tehran, Damascus, Gaza and Beirut. He is targeting Egypt's Hosni Mubarak for a share in the ignominy. The crisis in Turkish-Israeli relations was only temporarily defused late Wednesday when prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu forced deputy foreign minister to write a letter of apology to Ankara according to a script virtually dictated by the Turkish president on pain of the recall of the Turkish ambassador the next day. Most of the day, foreign minister Lieberman and Ayalon refused to add to the half-hearted regrets they voiced earlier over the incident Tuesday, in which Lieberman and Ayalon, who saw red over the Turkish prime minister's constant abuse, summoned the Turkish ambassador for a dressing-down. Their foolish maneuver for putting Ankara in its place was to seat the ambassador on a sofa lower than his Israel hosts and calling TV cameras to witness his disgrace. Ankara hit the ceiling, blowing the incident up into a major row. Netanyahu, rather than fire the foreign minister and/or his deputy for pointlessly fueling the crisis, exposed his weakness to outside pressure and succumbed to Gul's ultimatum. Not only Turkey, but its new allies, Syria, Iran, Hizballah and Hamas, watched every move and drew their own conclusions. The aftershocks rocked other parts of the Middle East: President Mubarak found himself wondering how to respond to Saudi King Abdullah's effort to bring him over to Riyadh Thursday, Jan. 14 for a fence-mending encounter with Syria's Bashar Assad. By folding under Turkish pressure, Israel strengthened the hand of Erdogan's partner, the Syrian ruler, which meant that Mubarak would have to run an extra mile to settle his quarrel with Assad and oblige the king. This was more than he had intended. In other words, by kowtowing to Ankara, the Israeli prime minister effectively pulled the rug from under the moderate Arab Middle East bloc and awarded points to the radical Turkish-Iran-Syrian coalition; the corollary is a stronger hand for the extremist Hamas against the Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority. A high-ranking Turkish official confided to DEBKAFile at the end of the day: "I didn't know you Israelis were so stupid. You've made Erdogan's sweetest dream come true. Israel's letter of apology may calm the crisis for a short period, during which Jerusalem will act as though the old friendly relations are back to normal, while the Turkish prime minister gets his next move ready to slap down when Israel has its next vulnerable moment. DEBKAFile's sources disclose Erdogan is now working on a scheme to break the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. He recently approached Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and South African president Jacob Zuma with a plan for each to organize aid ships for the Gaza Strip. Because the expeditions would be led by the two presidents, he reckons that Israel and Egypt would hesitate to deny them access to Gaza for fear of a mighty international dust-up. DEBKAFile reported Tuesday: Israel's leaders, and some of its military and security chiefs, refuse to recognize that it is no good expecting Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recep Erdogan to stay friends with Israel while eagerly rushing into the arms of the radical anti-West Ahmadinejad, Assad and Chavez. Jerusalem's fond illusion is shared by the Obama administration which too refuses to accept that the Erdogan regime has divorced itself from the pro-Western bloc of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Israel and plunged headlong into the new "Northern Islamic Alliance" club, alongside Iran, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian extremist Hamas. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
U.S. ARMY INVESTIGATION OF FT. HOOD RECOMMENDATION; JORDAN TIMES CONDEMNS EGYPTIAN SHOOTING OF COPTS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 14, 2010. |
|
U.S. ARMY INVESTIGATION OF FT. HOOD RECOMMENDATION The U.S. Army investigated the circumstances of the Ft. Hood murders. It recommends that the Army devote more attention to detecting disaffected individual servicemen who pose a risk to fellow-Americans. Although many colleagues of Major Hassan warned about his aberrations, the military retained and promoted him (IMRA, 1/13). Why were the warnings ignored? JORDAN TIMES CONDEMNS EGYPTIAN SHOOTING OF COPTS The Jordan Times condemned the Muslim Egyptians who shot Christians (Copts). The newspaper said that this misbehavior makes trouble for Islam, which preaches tolerance (IMRA, 1/13). I agree with the condemnation. This persecution has gone on for centuries. Recently, Copts fight back. The newspaper makes this seem an anomaly and a recent phenomenon. Would the newspaper condemn Muslims who propose to shoot Jews and with the government of Jordan, which bans the sale of land to Jews? 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:
|
|
SOLDIERS WHO HELD PROTEST SIGN BOOTED FROM HESDER
Posted by Gil Ronen, January 14, 2010. |
|
Three soldiers from Kfir Brigade who were involved in unfurling large protest signs against the IDF's participation in eviction of Jews from their homes will be kicked out of the Hesder Yeshiva track which allows them to combine military service with Torah learning. They will have to serve in the regular 36-month military track, without Torah study, like non-Hesder soldiers. Hesder soldiers usually serve 15-18 months in the army, in between periods of intense yeshiva learning. The punishment was meted out to a soldier from Shimshon Battalion who participated in a protest at the Kotel in October, and to two soldiers from Nachshon Battalion who participated in a protest in November. Shimshon and Nachshon are both battalions in the Kfir Brigade which operates in Judea and Samaria. A supportive American donor gifted money to the Shimshon soldiers' families for each night they spent in jail. A similar offer was refused by the two Nachshon hesder soldiers, who have now been punished four times: 30 days in jail, demoted to the rank of private, removed from future combat positions, and eviction from the Hesder program. The two said that they do not want any money for what they did, and that if someone wants to donate money, he should donate to the Negohot family whose home was destroyed. In the first case, soldiers unfurled a sign that said "Shimshon Battalion does not carry out evictions at Homesh." In the second incident, two soldiers hung a sign from a rooftop at the Adorayim Base in southern Mount Hevron, following the destruction of two homes at nearby Negohot in mid-November. The sign said: "Nachshon Battalion does not evict Jews either." Immediately following these two protests, the brigade's commander, Lt.-Col. Oren Abman, sentenced the soldiers involved to 30 days in jail, demoted them to privates, and barred them from becoming commanders in the future. Gil Ronen writes for Arutz-7, where this article was published. |
|
JEWISH WOMAN FLEES GAZA WITH 4 CHILDREN
Posted by Hana Levi Julian, January 14, 2010. |
|
"Where are you?" demanded the brother-in-law of 29-year-old Oshrit Ohana suspiciously, just seconds before the taxi in which she and her children were racing to the Gaza security barrier managed to reach the Erez border crossing terminal. "Return home immediately!" Mahmoud, age 7, Sali, age 6, Abdel Rahman, 5 and Asma, almost 2 years old, had accompanied their mother in a desperate bid for freedom after she had quietly decided months earlier to leave her Arab husband behind. The children had no idea, of course. They thought they were going shopping, which is what Ohana had told her husband's brother. He had been watching her carefully for weeks and had already threatened to kill her if she tried to run away. His brother Abdullah, Ohana's husband, was sitting in an Egyptian jail. The young woman, originally a resident of Ashdod, had met Abdullah through friends in the city. She married her Muslim boyfriend and soon after, the two moved to Gaza seven years ago. Abdullah was not wealthy, and ended up working for smugglers in the tunnels underneath the border city of Rafiah between Gaza and Egypt. Eventually, she decided it had to end, but it took years to figure out how. Her chance to leave came finally after Abdullah was arrested in Egypt. Dressed in her hijab — the traditional Muslim woman's head covering — she told her brother-in-law she was escorting her sister-in-law to school before going shopping, and would later return to the apartment they all shared together. But then the plan went into action: Ohana had previously contacted her family in Ashdod by email, and they had been in touch with the Yad L'Achim anti-missionary and outreach organization. The group helps rescue Jewish women from unwanted marriages with Arabs — and they arranged for people in place, ready to help Ohana. The plan, coordinated by text messages, called for the young woman to bring her four children to the Erez Crossing, where IDF officials would let her through to the Israeli side. Yad L'Achim would find a safe place for her to live, where Abdullah would never find her, and would help her financially until she could get back on her feet on her own. Not so simple for a young woman in Gaza speaking Arabic with a Hebrew accent, to explain why she needed to take four children to the Erez Crossing, quickly. "I asked how much it costs to get to the Erez crossing," she related. "He said, 'It's 70 shekels.' I said, 'No. Take 100 shekels, and hurry.' I tried to speak as little as possible, so he wouldn't notice my accent." Cutting through the region, Ohana said the taxi had to pass through several checkpoints manned by Hamas terrorists. "Each time, I kept myself covered modestly and tried to speak as little Arabic as possible," she said, "so they wouldn't notice my accent." The Hamas officials let her through, all the way across the region, and even at the Erez Crossing. However, when she got to the other side, Israeli security officials were cautious, even though the commander had been notified that she would be arriving. Yad L'Achim had already been in touch with the Defense Ministry and Shas party chairman and Interior Minister Eli Yishai to make sure everything would go off without a hitch. She was questioned by Israeli soldiers to make sure she was not a suicide bomber or a spy. Still, one IDF officer told an official from Yad L'Achim, "I donate to your organization regularly and I feel that it is in that merit that I was privileged to be able to participate in this rescue today." According to Yad L'Achim director Rabbi Shalom Dov Lipshitz, there are still "hundreds" of other Israeli women caught in similar situations, "some in Gaza, others in Shechem or Tulkarm...and there are even some in neighboring Arab countries." Ohana and her children, meanwhile, celebrated their new-found freedom that night with her family. Her little ones will soon be given Hebrew names, and together they will all start a new life in Israel. Hana Levi Julian writes for Arutz-7, where this article was published. |
|
THE U.N. LATEST SCANDAL
Posted by Susana K-M, January 14, 2010. |
|
This was writtten by Rachel Raskin-Zrihen. |
|
The Associated Press reported that U.N. investigators say a Guatemalan lawyer who "appeared in a posthumous video accusing the country's president of his murder," actually contracted the hit himself. Attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg made a video before he was killed, saying that if anything happened to him, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom would be involved. The head of a special U.N. investigations unit, invited by the Guatemalan government to investigate, concluded that Rosenberg took the hit out on himself. He was killed May 10. I find this story especially suspicious in light of another story AP reported the same day about the UN cutting way back in investigating fraud and corruption within its ranks. The story notes that cases involving the possible misappropriation of millions of dollars have been shelved over the past year. In the past decade, the U.N. was found to have been taken for gazillions of dollars when more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries colluded with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk $1.8 billion from the body's oil-for-food program for Iraqi humanitarian relief. In response, the story notes, in 2006 it established a special anti-corruption unit that for the next three years uncovered "at least 20 other major schemes affecting more than $1 billion in U.N. contracts and international aid." But last year, the U.N. disbanded the agency and diverted its work to a different office. Since then, according to the story, the number of cases dealt with has dropped dramatically and most of its investigators have been let go. Sounds about right. Just as it's becoming abundantly clear that the failed experiment called the United Nations is corrupt to its foundation; abandon all attempts to clean it up. The head of an anti-corruption watchdog group says she "fears the U.N. is greatly diminishing its self-policing capabilities" — something of an understatement, in my view. "U.N. officials — who operate a $5 billion annual budget and whose extended agencies and funds spend at least $20 billion a year more — say their commitment to rooting out corruption is undiminished," according to the story. Excuse me while I guffaw. The story notes that, for instance, "nothing has come of a task force report completed in December 2008 that found $1 million a day flowing out of a safe in a U.N. project office in Kabul — part of $850 million intended for Afghanistan's rebuilding and elections between 2002 and 2006." Some of the missing money seems to have been diverted without authorization to expand U.N. operations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and investigators could find no documentation confirming "how the Kabul office used tens of millions of dollars meant to promote democratic elections in Afghanistan." "No action has been taken on a task force finding that about half of $350,000 in U.N. funds intended to launch a radio station for women in Baghdad was used to pay off personal loans, a mortgage, credit card bills and taxes, as well as for cash withdrawals from a bank in Jordan," according to the story. The corruption is rampant and widespread, according to the story. And it seems to me the enormous amounts of money involved makes it extremely unlikely that the countries and agencies involved will cooperate or come clean. The story says that at the end of 2008, the U.N. General Assembly refused to fund the task force any more — because of complaints of wrongdoing by some of the suspect but powerful nations. In my view this is just more proof, as if more were needed, that the United Nations is a waste of time and prime New York real estate — and an extremely expensive one, to boot. And the corruption may be operating at spy-novel levels. A Washington-based nonprofit law firm that defends whistleblowers, says "the U.N. quashed the task force, buried its cases and retaliated against an investigator trying to protect some probes' computer files," the story says. Foot-dragging on left-over cases appears to be allowing time for suspects within the U.N. to destroy evidence, the story says. New inquires have been barred into anyone outside the U.N., including former U.N. staff, according to the story. "The move undercuts oversight of billions of dollars in U.N. spending and more than 6,600 U.N. contractors who receive that money, say U.N. officials, diplomats and legal experts. Additionally, they say, U.N. staff members could avoid scrutiny — and potentially get away with fraud, embezzlement or theft — by simply quitting," the story notes. The scandal may go all the way to the Secretary General's office, according to the AP. "Ban Ki-moon says he has seen 'steady progress' in U.N. self-policing since the Office of Internal Oversight Services' creation, and he pledged 'full support' for the agency," according to the story, but "the investigation division has not had a permanent director for more than 2 1/2 years in a hiring process bogged down by Ban's office, which twice opposed the selection of an American for the job, say U.N. officials and diplomats," AP reports. An independent panel unanimously "deemed" the American candidate the most qualified, but "the appointment is improperly 'bottlenecked' in Ban's office," according to the story. Considering the lackadaisical way the U.N. approaches corruption and fraud, how seriously should we take the conclusions of the U.N. investigator into the slaying of the probably-Jewish Guatemalan lawyer, do you think? Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
ADMIRABLE WOMEN
Posted by Zeev Shemer, January 14, 2010. |
|
They say it a man's world. But I remember growing up knowing that Golda Meir was one of the greatest people alive. And although I learned of her blunder during the Yom Kippur war, she was still a remarkable woman and a genuine Zionist. Then there was Ida Nudel and how she managed to leave the Soviet Union. In Israel and in America most Jews have heard Shifra Hofman speak to our hearts. We have been blessed with Nadia Matar and Naomi Regan. And there is one more that stands out today, but before I mention her name, let me assure those skeptics that I know Israel has had its share of less-than-appealing female public figures as well. There was Shulamit Aloni who figured out that the best way to create Israelis without creating Jews was by stripping Torah from the Israeli public education system. Now hundreds of thousands of Israelis pursue financial idols using such unscrupulous behavior there is practically no country in the world without Israelis sitting in their jail cells. Then there was Yael Dayan who proudly lashed out at orthodox rabbis while in Jerusalem's Parliament claiming King David was a homosexual who had a love affair with Jonathan, this based on her personal bias. Yael Dayan, daughter of a war hero, has done nothing but spew hatred of anyone or anything that hints of Judaism. Joining her choir are the Women in Black, and those that have joined Peace Now and Betzelem, and have taken upon themselves to defend Israel's enemies, not only with a severe lack of remorse but with a perverse sense of pride. Last on this infamous list is Tzipi Livni who took over for Ehud Olmert in leading the blind in the metamorphosed Kadima party. Livni is the daughter of a true Zionist, a proud Jew who gave his life fighting exactly the kind of people his daughter now chose to become. Getting back to those who I can proudly call heroines, there is a unique thinker and writer among us who has the potential to turn the tide. Caroline Glick, a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, that has proven beyond any doubt that she has a much better understanding of Israel's political predicament than most anyone in this country. If Netanyahu, who she supports, had half the understanding that Glick has in terms of the Israeli-Arab conflict, we could start taking the necessary steps to begin a corrective trend that can once again put Israel in an advantageous position, one hopefully similar to the one it had during the pre-Oslo days. Then, I am sure she could find a better way to deal with both our internal and external enemies while keeping our Jewish interests intact. Zeev Shemer teaches at Western Galilee College. He is the author of The Answer and the trilogy 30-Day Rush. He is a member of Hatikva / National Union and lives in Naharia with his wife and children. Contact him by email at zeev.shemer@yahoo.com |
|
THE PALESTINIANS' UNILATERAL "KOSOVO STRATEGY": IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PA AND ISRAEL
Posted by JCPA, January 14, 2010. |
|
Below is the summary of the article by Dan Diker. Read the
whole article at the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA)
|
|
|
|
OBAMA'S BRZEZINSKI PLAN
Posted by Ted Belman, January 13, 2010. |
|
This article appeared in IsraPundit
|
|
In "Appraising Obama's Foreign Policy: From Hope to Audacity", Zbigniew Brzezinski, described Obama's, and his, world view which he characterized as "reconnect(ing) the United States with the emerging historical context of the twenty-first century." To this end, he writes Obama "has comprehensively reconceptualized U.S. foreign policy with respect to several centrally important geopolitical issues". I shall comment on each of these in turn.
This has always been America's policy. Even Bush 44, with his neocon stalwarts, refused, after 9/11, to identify the enemy as Islam. He avoided naming the enemy by declaring "war on terror". He went so far as to declare Islam, "a religion of peace". What Obama has done differently was to publicly praise Islam, at the expense of truth and to bow down to its titular head, the King of Saudi Arabia. He has moved from tolerance to overt partnership. But a form of partnership has existed between Britain, US and the Arab oil interests ever since last century's thirties. The British worked with the Arabs in the Middle East to thwart Germany's expansion there all at the expense of Jewish settlement rights. In the late seventies Britain, with the complicity of the US brought about the downfall of the Shah because the Shah wanted to have an independent oil policy and not one controlled by Britain. According to A Century Of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, by William Engdahl, a German historian. Their scheme was based on a detailed study of the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism, as presented by British Islamic expert, Dr. Bernard Lewis, then on assignment at Princeton University in the United States. Lewis's scheme, which was unveiled at the May 1979 Bilderberg meeting in Austria, endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an 'Arc of Crisis,' which would spill over into Muslim regions of the Soviet Union. So not only was this scheme intended to protect British oil interests in Iran, it was also intended to put pressure on the Soviets. In a Counterpunch translation of interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski in Le Nouvel Observateur (France) 1998, Brzezinski took pride in having brought on the Russian defeat in Afghanistan by supporting "some stirred up Moslems", the Mujahedeen, and dismissed the idea that "Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today". He said Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries. Pres Reagan continued this policy of working with Islamic fundamentalists when he rescued Arafat and his minions from total destruction by the IDF in Beirut. What other reason could there have been other than to use them one day to put pressure on Israel to return to the '67 armistice lines. Present Clinton also co-opted Islamic fundamentalist, this time from Kosovo, to dismember Serbia in order to reduce the power of Russia. Obama's policies totally reflect this mentality in his downplaying the "war on terror" and overplaying "engagement". Obama wants to deal with each Moslem country as though it was not part of the whole of them, as though they aren't all followers of Islam as represented by the Koran or "The Holy Koran" as he refers to it. Saudi Arabian fundamentalism has invaded Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Europe, US and parts of Africa. It has influenced the Muslim Brotherhood which is attempting to overthrow Egypt. Al Qaeda is an outgrowth of such fundamentalism. Iran with its Shiite brand of Islamic fundamentalism has taken over Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza at least politically if not religiously. Iraq with its 60% Shiite population could fall to them and already Turkey is cozying up to them. Yet Brzezinski and Obama maintain "Islam is not an enemy" even while the fundamentalists and the Arab street attack America as the Great Satin and not Russia. Remember that Brzezinski was a founder the Trilateral Commission along with Rockefeller, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and has attended meetings of the Bilderberg Group. Thus he strongly favours World Government and its institutions as does Obama. Nation states, such as Israel, are in their way. They find common cause with Islam because Islam too favours its own version of world government, namely, the Caliphate.
This conflict is so politicized as to make it impossible for anyone to be "fair minded" or "even handed" or any other liberal balm. While these notions sound great, they both ignore the facts and the law. You cannot do this and reach a "just" solution. The US and Britain are just as determined to undermine Israel as they were the Shah and for the same reason, oil. How can they be "fair minded" or trusted? "assertive mediator" is an oxymoron. Mediation is not arbitration. The role of the mediator is to help the parties reconcile their differences without coercion. To assertively mediate is to coerce. Obama certainly has been coercive to Israel. But all US administrations have been coercive to varying degrees. The difference being that Obama intends to impose a solution if he can. Brzezinski and Obama propose that
He argues that "It is important to remember that although the Israeli and Palestinian populations are almost equal in number, under the 1967 lines the Palestinian territories account for only 22 percent of the old British mandate, whereas the Israeli territories account for 78 percent." How could a man of his experience be so wrong. Israel together with Judea, Samaria and Gaza comprise 22% of the Mandate. The rest was given to Jordan in 1922. Now the international community wants Israel to divide up the 22% remaining, leaving even less for Israel than the 22%. He wants the refugees "to be resettled within the Palestinian state. They number in the many millions. How could Judea and Samaria possibly accommodate them. Imagine how destabilizing that would be. I venture to say that the present Arab inhabitants would be the most vociferous opponents to such an influx. Would it not be a better solution to resettle them all in Jordan. Not only is Jordan Palestine, its population is 60% Palestinian. Thus there would be no need to divide Jerusalem or put foreign troops along the Jordan.
The US, even under Bush, has been unwilling to really challenge Iran, preferring to talk them out of their agenda. Obama made engagement with Iran, a political platform. After a year of trying to engage Iran in a most humiliating manner, he has achieved nothing. And yet Brzezinski is still beating the same drum. Give it up already. What might the "other issues" be? Presumably, Middle East hegemony. How much hegemony is he or Obama prepared to concede? If none or very little, there is no point in negotiations. Besides, what would Saudi Arabia and Egypt have to say about this, to say nothing about Israel. Brzezinski argues But it is still possible, perhaps through a more intrusive inspection regime, to fashion a reasonably credible arrangement that prevents weaponization. Obama is following this prescription to a "T", without good results I might add. He is even unwilling to seriously support the opposition with words to say nothing of deeds.
He wants to engage with "receptive elements of the Taliban" arguing that "the Taliban are not a global revolutionary or terrorist movement, ... they do not directly threaten the West." But they do host al Qaeda who is a threat. His prescription is to enlist the majority Afghans to defeat them. Does this not oppose the idea of engaging them? Will this plan work? The US has been trying for the last five years or so to build up Iraqi forces to maintain order. Many believe that were the US to withdraw from Iraq as Obama intends, that the Iraqi forces would not be able to do so. So much more so, for Afghanistan. Brzezinski recognizes that the support of Pakistan is a prerequisite but recognizes how difficult this would be. Given that many Pakistanis may prefer a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to a secular Afghanistan that leans toward Pakistan's archival, India, the United States needs to assuage Pakistan's security concerns in order to gain its full cooperation in the campaign against the irreconcilable elements of the Taliban. Will this result in ceding Afghanistan to the fundamentalists? Pakistan wants to focus the war in Afghanistan rather than Pakistan and thus has different objectives to those of the US. So the US will have to reconcile her objectives with those of the Pakistani's, to gain their cooperation.
Is that another way of saying that the US should accept that they are socialists? Coming from the master of real politique, that's quite a fantasy.
Quite a workload. Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
|
THE UNITED STATES OF STUPIDITY
Posted by Susana K-M, January 13, 2010. |
|
This was written by Doug Gamble. |
|
I don't know precisely when the dumbing down of America began, but my guess would be sometime during the 1960's, the decade historians may someday identify as the beginning of the end of the USA. I believe this dumbing down has now caught up with us to the extent we are, collectively, one of the most stupid countries on the face of the earth. We are so stupid that, just a few years after we came under attack from Muslim fanatics, we elected as president an inexperienced man contemptuous of America and sympathetic to Islam, instead of a war hero alternative. We are so stupid we are politically correcting ourselves right into the grave. Terrorists must be doubled over with laughter (if extremist Islam permits laughter) as we hassle and search obvious innocents at airports instead of profiling those most likely to do us harm. It may turn out, looking back, that America was actually lost the instant the airplanes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11 and we are now going through a steady decline leading to the inevitable end. I'm sure terrorists can hardly believe their luck as they watch us doing ourselves in. Beyond that, while the terrorists are clever enough to kill seven CIA agents recently through trickery — the use of a double or triple agent — we are too stupid to outfox the terrorists the way the U.S. and our allies did to the enemy on occasion in World War Two. "American intelligence" is an oxymoron. We are so stupid that, while countries like China and India are graduating more scientists and engineers, we are graduating students barely capable of stringing two coherent sentences together. These are the same students who have little or no knowledge of American history, no clue who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are and why they are important, no idea of how we saved the world between 1941 and 1945. And if that isn't bad enough, students in public school, high school and university classrooms are being taught every day to hate America. We are so stupid we are deliberating destroying the best system of health care in the world. It's as stupid as "destroying the village in order to save it" during the Viet Nam war. But this time it's us this stupidity is going to kill. We are so stupid we have lending institutions allowing people to buy houses with no money down, and people falling for such schemes, ignorant of the severe economic consequences to individuals and the country as a whole. We are so stupid we sit in front of TV sets and watch mindless "reality" shows that not only have no redeeming value whatsoever but further debase our culture. America is a country where the results of "American Idol" are actually reported as a legitimate news story, not only on the network that carries the show but on the news broadcasts of competing networks as well. We're stupid enough to believe that celebrities matter in our lives. We are so stupid we have allowed ourselves to become slaves to high-technology, wasting hours in kneejerk, unnecessary texting and cell phone conversations, following any latest hi-tech fad in lemming-like fashion, losing our humanity in the process. Our stupidity is monumental. It has made us ripe for the picking. Our much smarter enemies know it but we will probably not wake up until it's too late. We're just too stupid to figure it out. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
FROM ISRAEL: FOR THE RECORD
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 13, 2010. |
|
A dear friend has suggested that in the context of my discussion yesterday regarding the very erroneous impression that there is a Palestinian Arab "entitlement" to a state, it is important for me to provide basic facts once again — even though I've run this information before. And she is correct. Trusting that those of my readers who are already conversant with this information will understand, I proceed here. You may want to retain this material; anyone who wishes additional information is invited to contact me. ~~~~~~~~~~ By way of background: When I speak of Palestine, I am referring to the area, approximately, of Greater Israel today, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. With borders that shifted somewhat in different time periods, this roughly circumscribes what had been ancient Israel/Judea. After the expulsion of Jews almost 2,000 years ago, the Romans re-named the area Palestina — anglicized as Palestine — to eradicate the Jewish connection to the land. Over the centuries, the region was controlled by a substantial number of occupiers but was always treated as no more than an appendage to a larger empire or holding, administered by outsiders from elsewhere. From the end of the Second Jewish Commonwealth to the establishment of modern Israel, there was never a state known as Palestine. As of 1922, this entire area was turned over to Great Britain by the League of Nations, for the Mandate for Palestine. Britain was mandated with promoting close Jewish settlement in this land, for purposes of establishment of a Jewish Homeland. This has never been superseded in international law. (The UN assumed the obligation of the League in its charter.) ~~~~~~~~~~ REGARDING TODAY'S CLAIM BY PALESTINIAN ARABS THAT THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO ESTABLISH A STATE ON THE LAND OF PALESTINE OR ANY PART OF IT: A necessary component for the establishment of a state is a people. The Arabs who are known today as "Palestinians," however, are not legitimately a people. They have no distinct culture, language, or extended history. In fact, the Palestinian Arabs who live in Gaza are culturally and linguistically more closely allied to the Egyptians than to the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria. There is no unified "peoplehood," with which all identify. Some Palestinian Arabs give their first allegiance to the hamula, or extended clan. To further complicate the picture, Hamas, which is broadly supported in Gaza, is not a nationalist movement at all, but an Islamist movement that promotes an international Islamic Caliphate. Until the middle of the twentieth century, those Arabs who lived in Palestine identified as part of the Arab nation or as part of Greater Syria. NOT as Palestinians. Palestinians were the Jews who lived in Palestine. Many of the Arabs who lived in Palestine were actually recent arrivals, having come from neighboring Arab areas to secure work. Their roots were elsewhere, not in Palestine. As Jews developed their state-in-the-making, job opportunities increased, and Arabs came. Yes, certainly some had been in the area for extended periods, but the image that is painted of a whole people with roots in the land for millennia is false. There is an enormous invented history that Palestinian Arabs have promoted to "prove" their ancient existence in the land. ~~~~~~~~~~ Identification of Arabs in the area as "Palestinians" — subsequent to the founding of Israel, when the Jews became Israelis — was done for purely political purposes. This term served to cement the image that they were the original indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, while the Israelis were interlopers or "occupiers." This self-identification caught hold, so that the Arabs of what had been Palestine began to see themselves as "Palestinians" and the world began to perceive them this way. Literally, a people invented, only decades ago. ~~~~~~~~~~ Note: From 1949, after the War of Independence, until 1967, Israel existed within the Green Line, with Gaza to the west and Judea and Samaria to the east. Israel did not assume control of all of Palestine (even though the Mandate extended to the whole area) because the Jews had agreed to abide by a 1947 (non-binding) UN General Assembly recommendation that Palestine be partitioned for a Jewish state and an Arab state; the Arabs declined to accept their allocated portion. The resolution called for an "Arab" state within partitioned Palestine — there was no mention of a Palestinian state for a Palestinian people. Sometime after the end of the War, Arabs who had remained inside of Israel were given citizenship. Legally, Gaza — controlled by Egypt, and Judea and Samaria — controlled by Jordan, were unclaimed Mandate land, or contested land. Arabs who had lived in these regions continued to do so. In addition, many of those who fled from Israel during the war (and were termed "refugees") now also lived there. When international relief began for the refugees, some Arabs from neighboring areas moved in, as well, to benefit from the assistance. Again, note: There was no talk of Egypt and Jordan turning over the regions they controlled so that it might become a Palestinian state for a Palestinian people. Historically, as recently as 43 years ago, the notion of a Palestinian state for a Palestinian people was not remotely on the international radar screen. In fact, UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the war in 1967 — when Israel gained control of Gaza, and Judea and Samaria — did not mention either a Palestinian people or a Palestinian state. It was understood that Israel would be dealing with the existing Arab states. ~~~~~~~~~~ ISRAEL'S RIGHTS TO THE LAND CLAIMED FOR PALESTINIAN ARABS: These rights have several bases, the first of which is ancient heritage. Judea and Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem, form the core of the ancient Jewish presence in the land. It is here that we find Hevron, with the Cave of the Patriarchs; ancient Shilo, where the Tabernacle rested; Beit El, where Jacob had his dream of the ladder; Shechem, where Avraham first entered the land and where Joseph's Tomb sits. In eastern Jerusalem is Har Habayit, where the Temples stood. Outside the old city, Ir David (City of David) — the original Jerusalem, which is 3,000 years old. In 3,000 years Jerusalem has never been the capital of any political entity other than Jewish. It is the quintessential Jewish city. This makes the Jewish claim to the land very strong. A people does not surrender its own heritage. A note here: The claim is often made that eastern Jerusalem and parts of Judea and Samaria are indigenously Arab, but this is fallacious. It is exceedingly important that people understand that in 1949, when Jordan took over these areas, they were made Judenrein : Areas where Jews had lived for centuries unending was suddenly forbidden to them, and the Arabs moved in. (And Jordan destroyed synagogues and Jewish cemeteries.) ~~~~~~~~~~ A second basis for Israeli rights to the land is physical presence. Although most of the people were banished, there has been a continuing, unbroken Jewish presence in the land. In Jerusalem, in modern times, Jews have represented the majority since the late 1800s. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yet another basis is legal. I have already alluded to the Mandate for Palestine, which specified the land for a Jewish Homeland. This fact makes charges that we are "occupiers" in Judea and Samaria ridiculous. Occupation takes place when the army of one sovereign state moves into the territory of another. Judea and Samaria, however, are not part of a sovereign state, but rather represent part of the Mandate land promised to the Jews. How, then, can it be said that Jews are "occupiers" there? And there are other legal factors as well: The Green Line, which is widely touted as the "proper" border of Israel, was never a border at all: It was an armistice line from 1949. When Israel signed the armistice agreement with Jordan, written into that agreement was a statement that the armistice line would not prejudice future negotiations on a border. In light of this, it is amazing how so much of the world has come to see the '67 line as Israel's border. UN SC Resolution 242, mentioned above, acknowledged that Israel required secure borders and that the Green Line would not comprise such a border — it was implicit in the wording of the resolution that Israel would remain in at least part of Judea and Samaria and not be required to pull back all the way. Lastly, here, is the fact that Israel acquired control of Gaza, Judea and Samaria in a defensive war. This makes a significant difference and makes Israel's case stronger. It happens frequently that nations fighting defensive wars acquire territory and this is accepted: the case is made that to return to the original border would put the nation in a position that was not defensible. Only in Israel's case is this so overtly challenged. ~~~~~~~~~~ THE TRUE GOAL OF THE PALESTINIAN ARABS IS ISRAEL'S DESTRUCTION, NOT A STATE: The Muslim Arab world simply does not accept the presence of a Jewish state here. The land we sit on is considered by them to be Muslim land, which must be reclaimed. Consider: The Palestinian Liberation Organization was founded (by Egypt) in 1964, BEFORE Israel controlled Gaza, Judea and Samaria. So, what was the PLO going to "liberate"? Israel within the Green Line. Please note carefully: At that time, assurances were written into the PLO charter that there was no claim made on Egypt and Jordan that Gaza and Judea and Samaria should be turned over for a Palestinian state. After Israel acquired these areas, then the PLO charter was changed, and the demand was made that Israeli give up the land for a Palestinian state. The true interest was not in the state, but in weakening Israel. Israel has fought several wars with her Arab neighbors who were intent on her destruction. After multiple defeats, the Arabs recognized that they would not be able to take down Israel in one fell swoop. And so an alternate plan (it is a written plan), called the Strategy of Stages, was put forth by the PLO. It envisioned weakening Israel one stage at a time, through combined diplomacy and military action. A state on part of Palestine was seen as a stage, not a final goal. It would provide a base for attacking Israel. The Palestinian Arabs could have had their state already if this is what they truly wanted. But their demands are always maximalist, and they have turned down two stunning offers (for which we must be most grateful) — made by Barak when he was prime minister in 2000, and then by Olmert in 2009. The so-called refugees have been used as a weapon to weaken Israel, as well. All other refugees in the world are settled as quickly as possible, even in a third country if necessary. Only the Palestinian Arab refugees have been allowed to fester in a state of limbo for four generations now, because it is said that no solution for them is possible except "return" to Israel. The goal is to move sufficient numbers of refugees into Israel to make a Muslim majority. This is why the PA won't acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state. If there were sincere desire to establish two states for two people, this would not be happening. Logically, refugees would go to the new Palestinian Arab state. Once Oslo Accords were signed, the Palestinian Authority devoted itself not to state building but to supporting terrorism and promoting incitement. This itself is clear evidence of what the priorities are. To this day the PA supports terrorism and promotes incitement, and it is still lacking the essential underpinnings necessary for a state. To this day, as well, the charters of both the PLO and Fatah (the controlling party of the Palestinian Authority) call for Israel's total destruction by violent resistance (terrorism). This past summer, Fatah held its first convention in 20 years. It voted NOT to removed the clause on violent resistance. For Western consumption, the PA alludes to "occupation" as Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria. In internal documents, "occupation" refers to any Israeli presence in the land. THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF A STATE, FOR ISRAEL AND THE WORLD: The PA is not prepared to establish a stable state, never mind one remotely resembling a democracy. Underpinnings are not in place. It does not have a vibrant economy, as commerce is stifled severely by corruption and nepotism. (Mahmoud Abbas and his buddies are very rich.) There is no adequate justice system, and precious little in the way of human rights. Its security forces, in spite of hype to the contrary, are not capable of taking on terrorism. The proposed constitution drawn up in preparation for a state calls for Sharia law, which is exceedingly repressive. Palestinian Arabs have received more international support per capita than any people in the world. They maintain a perpetual welfare mentality, and would continue to hold their hands out for more support, and more, if they established a state. There is vast likelihood that in due course Hamas would take over such a state, after the IDF (which does the real anti-terrorism work) was required to pull back. This serves the world ill, as it would provide a launching pad for terrorist attacks and further destabilize the area. Does the world need establishment of a state such as this? There would be no contribution of a positive nature. The notion that we have an obligation to foster founding of such a state boggles the mind. PLEASE, SHARE THIS AS BROADLY AS POSSIBLE. THESE ARE THE FACTS PEOPLE DON'T KNOW. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
CIA HOMICIDE BOMBER WAS A UN EMPLOYEE
Posted by CPocerl, January 13, 2010. |
|
This comes from the Atlas Shrugs website
|
|
There will come a day that the UN will be declared an enemy entity. Trust me, it's only a matter of time. That's if the good guys win, of course. This is a good indication of what the UN traffics in. Suicide bomber Al-Balawi struck a key CIA base Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border last week, killing seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer. (AP Photo/Nader Daoud) Photo: Nader Daoud / AP2010 (hat tip James) Unrwa homicide Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
MALAYSIA MUSLIMS FIREBOMB CHURCHES; IRAN BLAMES ISRAEL FOR
ASSASSINATING SCIENTIST; NETANYAHU CAVING ON BORDERS?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 13, 2010. |
|
ISRAEL TO PAY UN FOR DAMAGES TO FACILITIES AND PERSONNEL IN GAZA WAR 
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Israel agreed to pay the UN $10.5 million for damages to its facilities and personnel in the Gaza war. Israel is not accompanying payment with apology, because it blames Hamas for the destruction. Israel's reasoning is [Hamas bombardment of Israel required invading to stop it, and Hamas fights alongside UN and other civilian facilities, therefore, collateral damage is inevitable and not Israel's intention, but] since Israel seeks to improve relations with the UN, whose Secretary-General blamed Israel for the damage, Israel agreed to pay the UN claim (Joe Lauria & Joshua Mitnik, Wall Street Journal, 1/8, A11). We know what Hamas did wrong. What did Israel do wrong? Secretary-Gen. Ban should have blamed Hamas for aggression. He also should have blamed it for the fighting in civilian areas, inviting damage to civilian facilities. Shouldn't the UN oppose aggression rather than self-defense? Otherwise, what is its Security Council for? The Israeli government is deceiving itself, if it thinks that paying damages would improve relations. The UN is prejudiced against Israel. Payment does not erase prejudice. I think that, although the payment agreement does not assume any guilt by Israel, it does assume responsibility. Most people would suppose it is an admission of guilt. Israel has lost an opportunity to expose the UN's moral responsibility in practically ignoring Hamas aggression, until it is resisted, and then the UN wrongly and hypocritically blames Israel for damages to UN facilities. Israel's failure to stand firm on ethical principles here also misses the opportunity to show the consequences of Hamas war crimes. Paying the UN's unjustified claim is more likely to encourage lawyers to devise more claims. Thus one gesture of good will stimulates pressure for more, becoming a form of exploitation and not generating good will. NETANYAHU ON POLICY & INTENT IMRA commissioned a Maagar Mohot poll about PM Netanyahu's policy, which IMRA director Aaron Lerner believes shows what the public believes about Netanyahu's intent. About two-thirds of Israelis believe that PM Netanyahu: (1) Imposed a Jewish building freeze in Judea-Samaria with the intent vigorously to resume such construction afterward; (2) Offered to negotiate with Syria so as to show willingness for peace, not willingness to cede the Golan Heights; and (3) Would be willing to let the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza have a state if, among other things, it would be demilitarized, but he knows that a state cannot be required to be demilitarized and a new Arab state would not be. Thus the public is not suspicious of PM Netanyahu's motive. On the other hand, almost the same majority disapproves of PM Netanyahu's policy. Dr. Lerner deduces that the disapproval must be over those policies for getting out of control and having unintended negative consequences (www.imra.org.il, 1/8). Some negative consequences are immediate. One is to appear guilty, instead of making Israel's case. Another is to invite more demands upon Israel, so that Israel still seems defiant, but is in a weaker position. This is undignified. Other negative consequences would be, as we have seen before, that temporary or one-time Israeli concessions are taken by hostile groups such as the State Dept., as precedent to maneuver Israel to give up its policy principles altogether. Israelis know Netanyahu is being cagey. They believe they know whom he is being cagey with, but cannot be sure. He either succumbed to pressure or tricked them, before. POLL ON 
The same poll reported in the prior article asked Israelis their opinion of IDF bombing of Gaza tunnels extended under Israel, to permit terrorist access. Do Israelis approve of current policy? This policy lists various tunnels, and then strikes at only a couple, after rockets are fired into Israel. 20% approve. Do Israelis recommend that the IDF eradicate all such tunnels at once, and declare that no more will be tolerated. 67% approve (www.imra.org.il, 1/8). I think that the Israeli public makes more sense than their rulers. How can Israelis find and elect officials who share their values and common sense? When Israel built security fences, other commentators and I predicted that Terrorists would tunnel below it. So they do. OBAMA ORDERS SECURITY FIX President Obama ordered the security agencies to coordinate their information so when any agency assesses suspected terrorists, it gets a comprehensive story (Jonathan Weisman & Siobhan Gorman, Wall St. J, 1/8, A1). On the other hand Obama ordered what amounts to a security breach. By granting foreign terrorists given civilian trials in the U.S., he lets civilian lawyers advise them not to expose pending terrorist plots. If Congress declared war, the Administration would have less inclination to give foreign terrorists civilian trials and/or to release them back into battle against us. MALAYSIA MUSLIMS FIREBOMB CHURCHES 
Why did Muslims throw firebombs at two churches in Malaysia? The Malay language has only one word for God, "Allah," but more than one religion. The word is taken from Arabic. Many Muslims, who constitute 60% of the population, feel proprietary about the word, and so the government had banned its use by Christians. The country's High Court, however, ruled that Christians have a constitutional right to use it for their religion, too. Muslim groups urge a constitutional amendment to overrule the Court's decision. Resentment at Christian use of the word may have prompted the attacks (James Hookway & Celine Fernandez, Wall St. J., 1/8, A12). Some people try to assuage religious rivalry by asserting that all the monotheists believe in the same God. Apparently, the Muslims of Malaysia disagree. Westerners must wonder why they their disagreement is violent. IRAN BLAMES ISRAEL FOR ASSASSINATING SCIENTIST The government of Iran blames Israel and the U.S. for the assassination of Iranian Prof. Masoud Ali Mahammadi. The news brief claims that the act violates international law. Toward the end of the news brief, it mentions that the professor was a nuclear scientist (IMRA, 1/12). The professor was involved in theoretical physics, not germane to current nuclear development. But he is aligned with the opposition to the regime (Wall St. J, 1/13. The accusation does not come with evidence. I do not think that the U.S. was involved, and that Iran just included the U.S. for propaganda. Iran and the Arabs automatically blame Israel, often without knowledge or justification. Opposing Arab factions often accuse each other of being Zionist agents. It is a form of name-calling. The news brief first condemns, then states a motive which makes the act seem reasonable. Is it? U.S. policy is not to assassinate foreigners unless at war. Terrorism is deliberately attacking civilians for political reasons. There is an undefined legal status here and a possible discrepancy between legality and morality. There also may be hypocrisy by governments that use certain improper methods but condemn others that use them. Think of Iran and its formation of terrorist army Hizbullah. Critics of the U.S. and Israel try to anchor their ethical position on formal declarations of war. Congress has the power to declare war, but the President has the right to defend the U.S. without such declaration. Since WWII, most U.S. wars were undeclared. This creates legal confusion between wartime powers and peacetime rights. It should not create ethical confusion. Is Iran at war with Israel or at peace? It declares its policy is to overthrow the Jewish state and it finances terrorist movements against Israel. I consider that war, even if not a traditional form of war. I think that Israel is justified in doing what it can to hinder Iranian nuclear weapons development, just as it did to scientists developing weapons of mass-destruction for the Arabs. Just as the U.S. should have done to Adolph Hitler decades earlier. We may have other thoughts on this story as it develops. I am finding that the Wall Street Journal gives a fuller news report, emphasizing accuracy over opinion. (For information that may help in determining whether Iran is run
more for foreign policy or domestic, goto
NETANYAHU CAVING IN ON BORDERS? Here is what usually informed people are saying. The U.S. sent Abbas a secret letter promising all his immediate demands on borders. Egypt states that Netanyahu has agreed to the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem. Netanyahu denies this, but in a desultory manner that contradicts himself, considering the importance of the issues (Arutz-7, 1/12). What shall we believe? We have seen this, before, including with Netanyahu. The U.S. high-handedly promises foreign territory to others. The Arabs state Israeli concessions that the Israelis deny but did make secretly, behind the backs of their people and even their Cabinet. The denials do not come with ringing declaration of Jewish rights and entitlements. Israel's Muslim enemies complain that Israel plots against them. Israel more likely plots against its own people. For about 20 years, if not longer, Israel's leaders have made concessions contrary to common sense and the historical, legal, and security interests of their own people. Its leaders have acted more as enemy agents, seeking ways of making appeasement. But the more they appease, the more the Arabs hold out for. In that sense, appeasement keeps the Arabs from giving up on hopes of conquering Israel. The U.S. role in keeping Arab hopes of conquest alive help perpetuate the conflict. Thus, although my country is great in some ways, it is ignominious in others. The trick is to separate conflicts of interest from national interest. The financial crash demonstrates inability to do that. Israel complains about foreign media bias against it. Complaint justified. On the other hand, Israel does not make its own case. TURKEY ALIGNING ITSELF WITH ISRAEL'S ENEMIES? Turkey has continued strengthening its military alliance with Syria, Iran, and Lebanon, after signing defense pacts with them and conducting joint military exercises with them. Its President stood by while the Prime Minister of Lebanon declared Israel an enemy of Lebanon. Relations between Turkey and Israel were further roiled when a play was performed in Turkey that depicted Israeli troops as kidnappers of children, and Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister objected strenuously. In calling the Turkish Ambassador on the carpet, The Deputy Foreign Minister had the Ambassador sitting on a lower seat than himself. Turkey asked for an apology. Then Turkish President Erdogan accused Israel of attacking Gaza even though, he said, Hamas had loosed no rockets against Israel. Actually, rocket launchings against Israel had escalated for days (Arutz-7, 1/12). Not only did the Israelis seat the Turkish Ambassador lower, but Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister pointedly mentioned that fact to reporters (Wall St. Journal, 1/13). Israel's faux pas is gratuitously insulting. No excuse for it. An apology is due. I think that the Israeli diplomat has made a lot of sense on real issues, but if he generates unnecessary embarrassment, he will get himself fired. In some cases, Israel attacked Hamas rocket crews as they were preparing to fire rockets at Israel. Obviously, the President of Turkey is defaming Israel. Even if Hamas restrains its rocket crews on a particular day, Israel is not required to withhold attacks on Hamas rocket crews or arms smuggling tunnels or tunnels built to open at the border with Israel, for swift sallying out to attack. There is no peace and no armistice, and Hamas is an illegal organization formed to commit war crimes. It is clear that Turkey is joining the evil axis. Too bad. The only
enemies Turkey has is the Kurdish rebels, with whom it is trying to
come to terms and possibly Russia, which traditionally had designs on
Turkey and is led by a man with nostalgia for past empire-building.
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:
|
|
STRANGE THINGS
Posted by Dave Alpern, January 13, 2010. |
|
As a veteran and proud Israeli Jew, I am outraged, infuriated by and absolutely livid over this article. Why? Because in our supposedly "enlightened age," such an article must still be written... repeatedly! Dave This below is entitled "Israel's Right to Self-Defence" and was written by Harry Reicher. It appeared in the Jerusalem Post. Reicher is an Australian barrister. He lives in the US, where he teaches international human rights at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and is scholar-in residence at Touro Law Center. |
|
There is something about the Arab-Israeli conflict that does strange things to people. Even otherwise distinguished personalities, who in every other context are rational, sensible thinkers, become unrecognizable. The international law of self-defense is a case in point. It is trite to say that the first and most basic human instinct is that of self-preservation. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which enshrines "the inherent right" of self-defense, emanates from this. The occurrence of "an armed attack" triggers the right. In the context of Israel's incursion into Gaza last year, in response to several thousand rockets which had been fired from there into Israel over a period of years, a letter appeared in The Times of London, exactly a year ago today, signed by 31 lawyers. The lead signatory was Sir Ian Brownlie, professor emeritus of public international law at Oxford University, undoubtedly one of the world's preeminent international law authorities. The letter asserted, in so many words, the astonishing proposition that the thousands of rockets which landed in Israel (and were aimed at civilian populations and centers) "do not, in terms of scale and effect, amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defense." One is tempted to wonder what Prime Minister Gordon Brown would say to the notion that thousands of missiles lobbed into Britain would not, of themselves, constitute an armed attack. To this, one should add the International Court of Justice which, in its 2003 opinion arising out of the construction of Israel's security fence, concluded, by a vote of 14-1, that suicide bombers wreaking havoc on the country did not justify exercise of the right of self-defense, because they were not "armed attack[s] by one state against another state." To get to this result, the court (a) wrote into Article 51 words that simply do not exist, requiring the attack to come from another state; and (b), in any event, disregarded the fact that suicide bombers are recruited, indoctrinated, trained, financed and dispatched from outside Israel. And then there is Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, who issued a statement during the Gaza war, against the background of Hamas shamelessly, callously and cold-bloodedly embedding military personnel, arms, munitions and other military equipment in the heart of civilian populations (which international law expressly outlaws). Despite the fact that this made it well nigh impossible to distinguish between civilian and military targets, Falk declared that even in these circumstances, "launching [an] attack is inherently unlawful and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law." Simply stated, there was absolutely nothing Israel could do to protect itself. In reflecting on these examples, it is important not to lose sight of something fundamental. The question is not whether a particular proposition, however bizarre, can be supported by authority. As a senior queen's counsel told me in my first year out of law school, as we sat in his book-lined chambers: "You see these books? In these books, you can find authority for any proposition you want to put." In an adversarial situation, that makes perfect sense. It is, after all, the role of counsel to forcefully advance his or her client's interests: You give me the conclusion, I'll give you the argument! Wisdom and sound objective judgement, on the other hand, require an altogether different line of inquiry. It involves standing back, and asking objectively: Does this make sense? Is it realistic? In the present context, does it make sense, and is it realistic, to expect a country — any country — to sit passively and not respond as thousands of missiles rain down on it or as suicide bombers wreak their ghoulish horror? And does it make sense to give terrorist organizations carte blanche to use civilian populations as human shields with impunity, secure in the knowledge that that is enough to prevent a military response? And is all of this consonant with the most basic human instinct of self-preservation? To articulate these questions is sufficient. They really answer themselves. Sadly, though, the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to weave its spell. Contact Dave Alpern at daveyboy@bezeqint.net |
|
RESETTING EUROPE-ISRAEL RELATIONS
Posted by Gerald Steinberg, January 13, 2010. |
|
In the political realm, the relationship between the European Union and Israel went from bad to worse in 2009. But with the appointment of a number of new officials, as well as recognition of the costs of conflict for both Israel and Europe, there may now be an opportunity to shift gears. The first step in this process is to recognize the extent of the problem. A new ambassador in Tel Aviv, the entry of the Spanish government into the rotating EU presidency on January 1, a recently elected parliament and new commissioners will find a history of friction and frustration. They will be unable to avoid the scars of continuous and fierce arguments from both the distant and more recent past, under Swedish leadership, including tensions over EU proclamations on issues of war and peace, and particularly regarding Jerusalem. These European actions were seen by Israelis as signaling strong bias in support of Palestinian positions. At the same time, Israel's justified concerns were patronizingly dismissed, along with the policies of its government officials. These tensions were exacerbated when the Swedish foreign minister, who was expected to speak for the EU, became persona non grata, in part due to the failure of his government to condemn the "organ sales" blood libel highlighted in the prominent Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
AS SPAIN takes over the EU presidency, there is a chance to start over. Without Sweden's baggage, Madrid can begin working with Jerusalem, rather than leading the opposition. Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos has spent many years in the region, including a long stint as the EU's special peace envoy during the Oslo period, and has learned to distinguish between slogans and reality. In Brussels, the new European commissioners can learn from the record of failure in more than 30 years of initiatives related to Israel. From the 1980 Venice Declaration, in which the EU sought to overtake America as the leading peace broker in the Middle East, and through the various programs presented in 2009, these initiatives have only added to the tensions, rather than reducing them. A more modest and realistic approach from Brussels, and unbending condemnation of terror, would create a greater willingness among Israelis to include Europe in peace negotiations. Unfortunately, Catherine Ashton, Europe's new foreign affairs and security head, began her tenure by attacking Israel and sounding like Chris Patten, who held a similar position 20 years ago and is remembered for his hostility toward the Jewish state. But unlike Patten, Ashton may turn out to be a quick learner who can undo this damage as she discovers the complex realities. Assuming that Ashton and her colleagues on the commission are interested in repairing relations, Israel can reciprocate and expand the role of the EU. Both the current and previous governments have shown that they can work with individual European countries and governments — indeed, there is close cooperation with leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and most of the post-communist "new Europeans."
ANOTHER SOURCE of tension that must be addressed is the massive European funding provided to a small number of Israeli political groups that exploit the language of human rights, peace and development. These government-supported "nongovernmental organizations" (NGOs) are leading the campaigns that promote demonization of Israel and boycotts, using false allegations of "war crimes," "collective punishment" and "apartheid." The EU and its member states provide millions of taxpayer euros to B'Tselem, PCHR, Machsom Watch, Adalah, Yesh Din, Gisha and many more. In addition to organizing public rallies, newspaper ads and intense lobbying in the Knesset, these instruments of European policy are also "repeat players" in the Israeli courts. NGOs funded by Europe played a leading role in branding Route 443 an "apartheid road" and erasing Israel's legitimate security concerns. But as Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch (by no means a right-wing ideologue) emphasized in her decision in this case, the "apartheid" rhetoric is wrong and the security concerns are very real. The changing presidency presents EU and Spanish officials with an opportunity to reevaluate the damage done in this important dimension of relations. With Sweden, the problems were particularly pronounced, as Stockholm used the façade of "development aid" transferred via church groups like Diakonia to fund NGOs that led the "lawfare" and boycott, divestment and sanctions processes around the world. Spain's record is not nearly as bad as Sweden's, although a few particularly hostile NGOs are funded by the Spanish Cooperation Office in east Jerusalem, the central government in Madrid and regional governments such as Catalonia. An examination of funding for political NGOs and ending the lack of transparency that surrounds this process may ease friction between Israel and the EU. After 30 years of friction on many issues, a total reversal is unrealistic, and differences over EU policy will remain. But if the tone is changed, and the new European leaders engage in dialogue among equals, rather than trying to manipulate the Israeli public, important progress can be made. Mr. Steinberg is executive director of NGO Monitor and chairman of the
Political Studies Department at Bar Ilan University.
This article appeared January 11, 2010 in the Jerusalem Post.
|
|
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 13, 2010. |
|
Are all Muslims taught to be candidates for becoming "Manchurian Candidates", some knowingly, some unknowingly? (The original movie by this title has American soldiers held hostage by the Chinese Communists, being brainwashed to become killers and mentally implanted with the post-hypnotic suggestion that, on a given signal, he would assassinate the American President.) When a young Muslim is taught Koranic Law in a Madrassa (school for strict Islam), repeating his lessons by rote day-after-day, year-after-year, these lessons of Islam's superiority and violence are deeply implanted and never to be forgotten. Add to that the lessons he is taught about Mohammed, both his proclamations as recorded in the Koran and how he lived his life with instructions written in his Hadith (Oral Teachings). Few Muslim children (or adults) can resist what psychiatrists would call "post-hypnotic suggestion", otherwise called "reduced cues" or "subliminal cues". These strong inner motivations create a call to action, hence: the "Manchurian Candidate", under the post-hypnotic suggestion and instruction to attack America(ns), Israel(is), the un-believers of Europe and the rest of the "infidels" (non-Muslims). Once imprinted, such a manipulated brain cannot be cleaned. Like attack guard dogs, they cannot be de-programmed with any reliability that they will not attack when triggered. Clearly, Muslims seem to have multiple personalities that range from friendly (at times) but which can quickly change to anger and then to being willing killers. They exhibit the face they want you to see at any given time. "Jihadists" (holy warriors for Islam), such as Dr. Humam Khalil Abu al Balawi who was thought to be a reliable agent for the CIA and Jordan apparently had many faces. He used his Muslim Killer face when he exploded himself among ranking CIA agents in Afghanistan, killing 8 (7 American CIA agents and 1 Jordanian). Balawi was a Jordanian doctor — sometimes — when he was not being an Al Qaeda recruit. (1) Recall the 6 Muslim doctors who mounted failed car bomb Terror attack in Britain and Glasgow? British Police confirmed a Palestinian doctor and an Iraqi physician, plus a Muslim doctor arrested in Australia. July 2, 2007 (2) A group of 45 Muslim doctors threatened to use car bombs and rocket grenades in terrorist attacks in the United States during discussions on an 'extremist' internet chat site. (3) Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri was a co-conspirator with Osama Bin Laden, an Egyptian doctor who became a master of Terror — 'interested' in the use of biological and chemical warfare — like anthrax. Bin Laden paid Chechen mobsters millions of dollars in cash and heroin to obtain radiological "suitcase" bombs left over from the Soviets. (4) Our most recent 2 Muslim Terror attacks in America killed 13 American soldiers at Fort Hood by the base psychiatrist Dr. Nidal Abdul Hasan and the failed underwear bomber on Flight 253, December 25, 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whose underwear fire bomb was put out by irate and brave passengers. Did you read about the Palestinian, Mansor Mohammad Asad of Toledo, Ohio — on a Detroit-bound Delta flight in Miami who, as it was taxiing away from the Terminal, began making loud anti-Semitic comments and chanting in Arabic, saying to the Miami-Dade police: "I am a Palestinian and I want (to) kill all Jews," according to witnesses. (5) Passengers at U.S. airports have been jolted by at least two dozen disruptive security incidents since the failed Northwest #253 December 25. The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has tallied — 24 incidents at U.S. airports from Dec. 27 to Jan. 3; 37 incidents during the previous week; and 18 the week before that. (6) We often hear from at least two Presidents coming to the defense of Islam and Muslims — usually after a Muslim Terrorist attack. Remember that all the Terror attacks in the past 2 decades have been by Muslim Jihadi (warriors for Islam) Terrorists. In 2009 U.S. Intelligence reports that there were at least 139 such attacks. Presumably, that does not include attacks thwarted by the FBI and others of America's 16 Intel Agencies. Are Muslims merely ticking bombs, some awaiting instructions to go into action as "sleeper cells", while some unknowingly have altered attack brain cells, tucked into the dark recesses of their mind that springs into murderous action when circumstance calls it up. Presently, there is a new awareness in the West, namely, in America, England, France, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and others about so-called home-grown Muslim Terrorists, some of them second or third generations coming out of their host countries. Seemingly ordinary, even well-educated and well-to-do young men suddenly sneak off to Yemen, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan to learn attack methods — including suicide bombers — burning for the cause of Islam. To their victims it doesn't matter one whit if they are well-taught Manchurian Candidates or merely subliminally implanted with Koranic teachings that surface sometimes in their adult life. The Victims are dead and the radical Islamists cheer their success, handing out candy in their rejoicing — then they go on to recruit more volunteers. Some have forgotten their cheers after 9/11's 'success' in the Muslim communities around the world, including so-called peaceful, moderate Muslims in America. Among the Muslim Arab Palestinians, they were giving out candy and dancing in the streets, celebrating the 3,000 viciously murdered innocent souls. In places like Chicago — Flint, Michigan — Los Angeles, their parties were a bit more subdued (lest they be noticed). Many people are deeply concerned now about President Barack Hussein Obama's birth to a Muslim father and early education as a Muslim, with all that entails. Some wonder why Obama was selected by an American black convert to Islam, Khalid al-Mansour (principal adviser of Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal), so Obama was approved to receive considerable funding to attend Harvard University. These funds reportedly came from Saudi Arabia. Why was Obama profiled for greater things by Islamic leaders? What was there in his person or personality that brought him to the attention of the Saudis — among other Muslims? We still await the full story of why Antonin Rezko, a born Syrian, who changed his name to an Italian style, Tony, was so helpful in further funding Obama. Rezko is now in jail, having been convicted for kick-backs from companies seeking State Pension fund business through Governor Blagojevich. He also assisted the Obamas in a real estate hustle. I cannot help but wonder how many Muslim Americans have been funded for education and elections because they can operate freely inside the American system? How many second and third generation Muslims who pass as typical American but harbor plans to one day destroy America from the inside? In effect, all Muslims may be potential Manchurian Candidates who can be activated to kill for the cause of Islam — unless they already have. Something is pathologically twisted in the cult of Islam through Koranic teachings that leaves them slaves to whatever violence is demanded of them. In the Madrassas, mostly funded by the Saudis, the Mullahs and Imams speak disparagingly about the ungodly American ways, therefore, the Americans are deserving of conversion to Islam and strict "Sharia" laws. Also, that America, in its entirety, is destined to become an Islamic nation. Their preferred method of conversion is by the sword -which in today's age of advanced technology means sophisticated bombs. But, first the sleeper cells and the programmed Manchurian Candidates must subvert the targeted nations (America), weaken her financial system, have her ;military undermined through P.C. (Political Correctness), have her Courts similarly converted to judicial decisions compatible to Islam and Sharia laws. This is happening already in England, France, Canada, the Netherlands and other supposedly democratic "Free West" nations as the critical mass of Muslims grow in those nations and pressure their governments to 'lean' toward Islam. In Israel, one of the key targets of the "Jihadists" (holy warriors for Islam), we observe enormous pressure coming from the regime of President Barack Hussein Obama and the Arabist U.S. State Department to accept the Arab demands to surrender to their fate. Sadly, we also see Israeli politicians accept their diktats under U.S. pressure, to surrender Land — our Biblical Jewish Homeland, given to the Jewish people by G-d in perpetuity — including ALL of Jerusalem, our Eternal Holy Capital for 3000 years. With these surrenders, so goes our sovereignty as the only Jewish Nation/State in the world. This would be just to please Obama and the Leftists in Israel and Europe. Obama's hostility toward Israel while he is appeasing Iran, Syria and local Muslims is no longer conjecture but solid, observable fact. How can an American President and his wife be "Manchurian Candidates" who hate American ways, America's democratic system of government and America's once successful, capitalistic financial system? Why has Obama been so protectively cocooned by the State Department and America's 16 Intel Agencies? Why does Obama flaunt this protective barrier about his true life and past history? We all thought the President and the Government's job was to protect the American people from all enemies — domestic and foreign. Do they agree that America is destined to become a Third World nation where the non-workers are to be supported by the industrious — with their entitlements written into law? Obama promised during his eloquent election speeches to "Change" America and to "redistribute the wealth". Why does he pick the pockets of industrious, hard-working Americans who built this nation and who is actually guiding his fingers? Perhaps there are many different breeds of Manchurian Candidates — each with a separate mission which, in the end, serves the ultimate Muslim goal of harnessing a once great nation to the wagon of Islam. Remember that the Muslims are taught their goal is to create a Global Caliphate for Islam. And also, remember that Not All Muslims Are Suicide Killers — But All Suicide Killers Are Muslims. ### 1. "IT WAS A MUSLIM DOCTOR WHO KILLED 7 CIA AGENTS & HIMSELF" by
sheikyermami on January 4, 2010 2. "LONDON/GLASGOW TERRORIST ATTACK TERRORIST ATTACKS: THE MEN IN THE DOCK" by Chris Greenwood, PA The INDEPENDENT Dec. 16, 2008 3. "45 MUSLIM DOCTORS PLANNED US TERROR RAIDS" by John Steele TELEGRAPH.CO.UK July 5, 2007 4. "THE MAN BEHIND BIN LADEN: How an Egyptian doctor became a master of terror" by Lawrence Wright THE NEW YORKER September 16, 2002 5. "MAN THREATENING JEWS HAULED OFF FLIGHT IN MIAMI" Reuters
6. "WARINESS PERSISTS AT AIRPORTS" by Melanie Trootman & Mike Esterl WALL ST. JOURNAL January 8, 2010 7. "REBUTTAL OF AIR/TRAN DENIAL & CHARGES OF HOAX OR "URBAN LEGEND" by Emanuel A. Winston Dec. 11, 2009 re: Air/Tran Flight #297 on November 17. 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 |
|
THE PROBLEM WITH THE FBI
Posted by David Meir-Levi, January 12, 2010. |
|
Sh'lom Y'all, I've been reviewing my collection of articles about the FBI. Below is a very small selection. My conclusion: the FBI has been infiltrated by jihadist or pro-jihadist agents, at levels high enough to interfere with the work of experienced field agents. If my conclusion is correct, it explains why so many dots were never connected. And if the situation is unchanged, it explains how the panty bomber got on the NW airlines plane in Amsterdam for a trans-oceanic flight to detroit despite the facts that: he had no Passport Any one of these red flags should have had the Amsterdam employees of NW airlines calling their supervisors who would call the Amsterdam version of the CIA who would call the American embassy which would call the state department which would send CIA folks to talk with the panty bomber, maybe arrest him. With 8 (count 'em = eight) red flags, he surely should not have been allowed on the plan. Maybe the CIA is dirty too.
perhaps Obama will answer your emails. He ignores mine. David ML |
|
By Debbie Schlussel
November 13, 2007, — 3:34 pm
UPDATE: Arab FBI/CIA Agent Spy for Hezbollah is Sis-in-Law of Hezbollah's $20 Million Financier; FBI/CIA Allowed Her to Remain on Job for FOUR! Years; Shocker: Hezbollah Said They'd Infiltrate the FBI & They Did; When a Spy is "Not a Spy" NEW: EXCLUSIVE info on Hezbo's FBI/CIA spy Nada Nadim Prouty
UPDATE: I was right, yet again. I've read Arab FBI Agent/Hezbollah spy Nada Nadim Prouty's plea agreement (read it here). And guess what? Surprise! — She's the sister-in-law of Hezbollah's $20 million dollar financier Talal Khalil Chahine (owner of "La Shish" restaurants which remain open!), whom U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy allowed to flee the country. Prouty is the SISTER of Chahine's wife, Elfat El-Aouar. Yup, LUUUV those great FBI and CIA Background Checks of agents. "Nada Nadim Prouty: Hezbollah's Illegal Alien FBI/CIA Agent Spy" And get this: The FBI and U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy (and before him, U.S. Attorneys Craig Morford and Jeffrey Collins) knew Prouty was a spy for Hezbollah back in 2003, but they allowed her to work for the FBI and CIA for over FOUR Years! They did not remove her from the job until the end of this past September — 1.5 years after her brother-in-law was indicted for financing Hezbollah!!!!!! And I was right on another thing. She will do no or almost no jail time. Read the plea agreement, linked above. As reader Tim points out: Nada Nadim Prouty is facing less than 12 months of jail time, or no jailtime at all, and three years of supervised probation and a fine totaling $2,225 under the plea agreement. For infiltrating the FBI and CIA and spying for Hezbollah. **** I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised with today's prosecution of Nada Nadim Prouty, an American Arab FBI agent and CIA analyst, for spying for Hezbollah and passing information on to the terrorist group. Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and other Islamic terrorist groups have long said they'd infiltrate the FBI and other American law enforcement organizations and they did. That's no surprise. In fact, what is surprising is that this woman is among the first they've caught. She's a drop in the bucket. As long as we continue to hire Muslims to be translators and analysts, as long as we continue to give money to Arabic and Muslim schools to teach their kids Arabic instead of non-Muslim, non-Arab Americans, as long as the FBI (and ICE) continues to turn down Sephardic Jews and Maronite Lebanese Christians who speak Arabic and who've applied for jobs in favor of extremist Muslims, that's the result we will get. Spies, spies, and more spies. [,,,,] And we trust these Famous But Incompetents to protect us against terrorists? Heck, read the article. She was spying, and they still can't admit she was spying. Good Luck, America: A 37-year-old woman who previously worked as an FBI agent and a CIA analyst, pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges involving her disclosure of information to people outside the government, CBS News has learned. Sources say Nada Nadim Prouty, a Lebanese national and resident of Virginia, entered the United States on a student visa and earned citizenship through a sham marriage. While officials say there is no evidence of actual espionage and no evidence that she was working as a spy, she is accused of passing information to sympathizers of Hezbollah, a group the U.S. has labeled a terrorist organization. Sources say she came under suspicion after performing a number of computer searches unrelated to cases she had been assigned to. According to a Justice Department press release
Oh, and by the way, a later draft of the same CBS report says this: She used her access as an FBI agent to look up information about herself and her relatives, some of whom may have ties to Hezbollah. She also is accused of improperly taking classified information home with her. Nice. She works for the FBI, AND she and her family work for Hezbollah. Like I said, hurray for those awesome FBI background checks of agents. Alhamdillullah [Praise Allah]! The fact that she's being "prosecuted" in the Eastern District of
Michigan, the domain of Hezbollah-sympathizing U.S. Attorney Stephen
Murphy III a/k/a Abu Porno, And please explain this part to me: While officials say there is no evidence of actual espionage and no evidence that she was working as a spy, she is accused of passing information to sympathizers of Hezbollah, a group the U.S. has labeled a terrorist organization. Um, call me stupid, but if "passing information to sympathizers of Hezbollah" is not "evidence of actual espionage" or "evidence that she was working as a spy," then what the hell is? That quote above is one of the dumbest yet I've read coming out of the incompetent "Justice" Department. Coleen Rowley's Memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller
An edited version of the agent's 13-page letter May 21, 2002
FBI Director Robert Mueller
Dear Director Mueller: I feel at this point that I have to put my concerns in writing concerning the important topic of the FBI's response to evidence of terrorist activity in the United States prior to September 11th. The issues are fundamentally ones of INTEGRITY and go to the heart of the FBI's law enforcement mission and mandate. Moreover, at this critical juncture in fashioning future policy to promote the most effective handling of ongoing and future threats to United States citizens' security, it is of absolute importance that an unbiased, completely accurate picture emerge of the FBI's current investigative and management strengths and failures. To get to the point, I have deep concerns that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring. The term "cover up" would be too strong a characterization which is why I am attempting to carefully (and perhaps over laboriously) choose my words here. I base my concerns on my relatively small, peripheral but unique role in the Moussaoui investigation in the Minneapolis Division prior to, during and after September 11th and my analysis of the comments I have heard both inside the FBI (originating, I believe, from you and other high levels of management) as well as your Congressional testimony and public comments. I feel that certain facts, including the following, have, up to now, been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mis-characterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons:
Sincerely
NOTES 1) And both of the violations originally cited in vain by the Minneapolis agents disputing the issue with FBIHQ personnel are among those on which Moussaoui is currently indicted. 2) Just minutes after I saw the first news of the World Trade Center attack(s), I was standing outside the office of Minneapolis ASAC M. Chris Briesse waiting for him to finish with a phone call, when he received a call on another line from this SSA. Since I figured I knew what the call may be about and wanted to ask, in light of the unfolding events and the apparent urgency of the situation, if we should now immediately attempt to obtain a criminal search warrant for Moussaoui's laptop and personal property, I took the call. I said something to the effect that, in light of what had just happened in New York, it would have to be the "hugest coincidence" at this point if Moussaoui was not involved with the terrorists. The SSA stated something to the effect that I had used the right term, "coincidence" and that this was probably all just a coincidence and we were to do nothing in Minneapolis until we got their (HQ's) permission because we might "screw up" something else going on elsewhere in the country. (DML: no note #3 in the text as I received it) 4) Certainly Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which begins, "Upon the request of a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government" does not contain this requirement. Although the practice that has evolved is that FBI agents must secure prior approval for any search or arrest from the United States Attorneys Office, the Federal Rule governing Search and Seizure clearly envisions law enforcement officers applying, on their own, for search warrants. 5) During the early aftermath of September 11th, when I happened to be recounting the pre-September 11th events concerning the Moussaoui investigation to other FBI personnel in other divisions or in FBIHQ, almost everyone's first question was "Why? — Why would an FBI agent(s) deliberately sabotage a case? (I know I shouldn't be flippant about this, but jokes were actually made that the key FBIHQ personnel had to be spies or moles, like Robert Hansen, who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut Minneapolis' effort.) Our best real guess, however, is that, in most cases avoidance of all "unnecessary" actions/decisions by FBIHQ managers (and maybe to some extent field managers as well) has, in recent years, been seen as the safest FBI career course. Numerous high-ranking FBI officials who have made decisions or have taken actions which, in hindsight, turned out to be mistaken or just turned out badly (i.e. Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc.) have seen their careers plummet and end. This has in turn resulted in a climate of fear which has chilled aggressive FBI law enforcement action/decisions. In a large hierarchal bureaucracy such as the FBI, with the requirement for numerous superiors approvals/oversight, the premium on career-enhancement, and interjecting a chilling factor brought on by recent extreme public and congressional criticism/oversight, and I think you will see at least the makings of the most likely explanation. Another factor not to be underestimated probably explains the SSA and other FBIHQ personnel's reluctance to act. And so far, I have heard no FBI official even allude to this problem — which is that FBI Headquarters is staffed with a number of short term careerists* who, like the SSA in question, must only serve an 18 month-just-time-to-get-your-ticket-punched minimum. It's no wonder why very little expertise can be acquired by a Headquarters unit! (And no wonder why FBIHQ is mired in mediocrity! — that maybe a little strong, but it would definitely be fair to say that there is unevenness in competency among Headquarters personnel.) (It's also a well known fact that the FBI Agents Association has complained for years about the disincentives facing those entering the FBI management career path which results in very few of the FBI's best and brightest choosing to go into management. Instead the ranks of FBI management are filled with many who were failures as street agents. Along these lines, let me ask the question, why has it suddenly become necessary for the Director to "handpick" the FBI management?) It's quite conceivable that many of the HQ personnel who so vigorously disputed Moussaoui's ability/predisposition to fly a plane into a building were simply unaware of all the various incidents and reports worldwide of Al Qaeda terrorists attempting or plotting to do so. *By the way, just in the event you did not know, let me furnish you the Webster's definition of "careerism — - the policy or practice of advancing one's career often at the cost of one's integrity". Maybe that sums up the whole problem! 6) For example, at one point, the Supervisory Special Agent at FBIHQ posited that the French information could be worthless because it only identified Zacarias Moussaoui by name and he, the SSA, didn't know how many people by that name existed in France. A Minneapolis agent attempted to surmount that problem by quickly phoning the FBI's legal Attache (Legat) in Paris, France, so that a check could be made of the French telephone directories. Although the Legat in France did not have access to all of the French telephone directories, he was able to quickly ascertain that there was only one listed in the Paris directory. It is not known if this sufficiently answered the question, for the SSA continued to find new reasons to stall. 7) Another factor that cannot be underestimated as to the HQ Supervisor's apparent reluctance to do anything was/is the ever present risk of being "written up" for an Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) "error." In the year(s) preceding the September 11th acts of terrorism, numerous alleged IOB violations on the part of FBI personnel had to be submitted to the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) as well as the IOB. I believe the chilling effect upon all levels of FBI agents assigned to intelligence matters and their manager hampered us from aggressive investigation of terrorists. Since one generally only runs the risk of IOB violations when one does something, the safer course is to do nothing. Ironically, in this case, a potentially huge IOB violation arguably occurred due to FBIHQ's failure to act, that is, FBIHQ's failure to inform the Department of Justice Criminal Division of Moussaoui's potential criminal violations (which, as I've already said, were quickly identified in Minneapolis as violations of Title 18 United States Code Section 2332b [Acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries] and Section 32 [Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities]). This failure would seem to run clearly afoul of the Attorney General directive contained in the "1995 Procedures for Contacts Between the FBI and the Criminal Division Concerning Foreign Intelligence and Foreign Counterintelligence Investigations" which mandatorily require the FBI to notify the Criminal Division when "facts or circumstances are developed" in an FI or FCI investigation "that reasonably indicate that a significant federal crime has been, is being, or may be committed." I believe that Minneapolis agents actually brought this point to FBIHQ's attention on August 22, 2001, but HQ personnel apparently ignored the directive, ostensibly due to their opinion of the lack of probable cause. But the issue of whether HQ personnel deliberately undercut the probable cause can be sidestepped at this point because the Directive does not require probable cause. It requires only a "reasonable indication" which is defined as "substantially lower than probable cause." Given that the Minneapolis Division had accumulated far more than "a mere hunch" (which the directive would deem as insufficient), the information ought to have, at least, been passed on to the "Core Group" created to assess whether the information needed to be further disseminated to the Criminal Division. However, (and I don't know for sure), but to date, I have never heard that any potential violation of this directive has been submitted to the IOB or to the FBI's OPR. It should also be noted that when making determinations of whether items need to be submitted to the IOB, it is my understanding that NSLU normally used/uses a broad approach, erring, when in doubt, on the side of submitting potential violations. 8) For starters, if prevention rather than prosecution is to be our new main goal, (an objective I totally agree with), we need more guidance on when we can apply the Quarles "public safety" exception to Miranda's 5th Amendment requirements. We were prevented from even attempting to question Moussaoui on the day of the attacks when, in theory, he could have possessed further information about other co-conspirators.} (Apparently no government attorney believes there is a "public safety" exception in a situation like this?!) 2-FACED 'FRIENDS' OF FBI
WASHINGTON — A nationwide FBI project designed to improve ties between the Islamic and law-enforcement communities went horribly wrong when it was revealed the organizations have issued incendiary statements against the United States, The Post has learned. Questions are being raised by counterterrorism officials — including FBI field agents — over the bureau's high-profile involvement in a program called Partnering for Prevention and Community Safety Initiative, which is being run out of Northeastern University. Among the groups participating in the project is the Muslim Public Affairs Council — an organization whose members have claimed Israel was to blame for 9/11, have opposed freezing the assets of Islamic charities linked to terrorism and have denounced several FBI arrests of suspected terrorists in the United States. Steven Emerson, whose Investigative Project think tank studies Islamic extremism in the United States, released a tape of a speech MPAC National Director Ahmed Younis gave in Irvine, Calif., on July 14, 2002, in which he directed incendiary comments at then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. "I am a person who believes that if Thomas Jefferson or Madison or the like were alive today, they would go to John Ashcroft's house and just shoot him," Younis said, according to the tape. Emerson called the FBI's partnership with these groups "a slap in the face of FBI agents and victims of terrorism." "Getting together in campfire, roast-marshmallow sessions with these bad groups only empowers them and legitimizes them," he said. The project, which started in 2002, stated its goal was to create a "basic curriculum for future law-enforcement training activities." Michael Rollins, the FBI special agent in charge of counterterrorism in the Washington Field Office and the bureau's point man on the project, admitted that some groups involved are potentially objectionable, but added that if the program gets off the ground, "the FBI will have veto power over who participates." "If you say one thing to us and then go back to your group and make anti-American statements, you will not be at the table," he said. Directors of the project at Northeastern University referred calls about the project to the FBI. Younis did not return calls to his D.C. office. FBI compromised
Cover-up in FBI's 2002 terror probe: Florida terror investigation missteps and retaliation against whistleblower agent, included forged and altered documents and violation of federal wire tap laws. Other allegations are inadequate pursuit of leads, failed to document important meetings with informants, and tolerated violation of federal law re wiretaps. New York Times
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation mishandled a Florida terror investigation, falsified documents in the case in an effort to cover repeated missteps and retaliated against an agent who first complained about the problems, Justice Department investigators have concluded. In one instance, someone altered dates on three F.B.I. forms using correction fluid to conceal an apparent violation of federal wiretap law, according to a draft report of an investigation by the Justice Department inspector general's office obtained by The New York Times. But investigators were unable to determine who altered the documents. The agent who first alerted the F.B.I. to problems in the case, a veteran undercover operative named Mike German, was "retaliated against" by his boss, who was angered by the agent's complaints and stopped using him for prestigious assignments in training new undercover agents, the draft report concluded. Mr. German's case first became public last year, as he emerged as the latest in a string of whistle-blowers at the bureau who said they had been punished and effectively silenced for voicing concerns about the handling of terror investigations and other matters since Sept. 11, 2001. The inspector general's draft report, dated Nov. 15 and awaiting final review, validated most of Mr. German's central accusations in the case. But the former agent, who left the bureau last year after he said his career had been derailed by the Florida episode, said he felt more disappointment than vindication. "More than anything else, I'm saddened by all this," Mr. German said in an interview. "I still love the F.B.I., and I know that there are good, honest, hard-working agents out there trying to do the right thing, and this hurts all of them." Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., has emphasized repeatedly, both publicly and in private messages to his staff, that employees are encouraged to come forward with reports of wrongdoing and that he will not tolerate retaliation against whistle-blowers. Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has been a frequent critic of the bureau, said of Mr. German: "Unfortunately, this is just another case in a long line of F.B.I. whistle-blowers who have had their careers derailed because the F.B.I. couldn't tolerate criticism." Michael Kortan, an F.B.I. spokesman, said the bureau had not been briefed on the findings. But Mr. Kortan said that when the F.B.I. received the report, "if either misconduct or other wrongdoing is found, we will take appropriate action." Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the inspector general's findings, coming just days after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from an earlier F.B.I. whistle-blower, pointed to the need for tougher measures to protect those who report abuse. "With courts reluctant to protect whistle-blowers, it is crucial that Congress pass additional protections," Ms. Beeson said. Mr. German's case dates to 2002, when the F.B.I. division in Tampa opened a terror investigation into a lead that laundered proceeds, possibly connected to a drug outfit, might be used to finance terrorists overseas. The F.B.I. was considering initiating an undercover operation to follow the lead, and Mr. German, who had extensive experience infiltrating militias, skinheads and other groups, was asked to take part. But in the coming months, Mr. German would alert F.B.I. officials that the Orlando agent handling the case had "so seriously mishandled" the investigation that a prime opportunity to expose a terrorist financing plot had been wasted. He said agents had not adequately pursued leads, had failed to document important meetings with informants, and had tolerated violations of rules and federal law on the handling of wiretaps. The report, in one of its few dissents from Mr. German's accusations, said it could not confirm that the F.B.I. had missed an important chance to expose terrorism. Rather, it cited two findings by the bureau that the prime informant had misled agents about the terrorism angle in the case and that "there was no viable terrorism case." Nonetheless, the inspector general found that the F.B.I. had "mishandled and mismanaged" the investigation, partly through the failure to document important developments for months at a time. The report also found that supervisors were aware of problems in the case but did not take prompt action to correct them. Moreover, after Mr. German raised concerns about the lack of documentation, an unnamed agent in Orlando "improperly added inaccurate dates to the investigative reports in order to make it appear as though the reports were prepared earlier," the inspector general found. In addition, someone used correction fluid to backdate by two months a set of forms that the main informant had signed as part of a bugging operation, in which he agreed that he had to be present for all undercover taping. The backdating was significant, the inspector general said, because the informant had taped a 2002 meeting with several suspects but had left the recording device unattended while he went to use the restroom — a violation of federal law. Mr. German became increasingly vocal within the F.B.I. about what he saw as the bureau's failure to correct missteps, taking his concerns directly to Mr. Mueller in a 2003 e-mail message. His complaints, the inspector general found, led agents in Florida, Washington and Oregon to distance themselves from him. In the most serious instance, the head of the F.B.I. undercover unit, Jorge Martinez, froze Mr. German out of teaching assignments in undercover training and told one agent that Mr. German would "never work another undercover case," the report said. Mr. Martinez told investigators that he did not remember making the statements but that if he had, it was a "knee-jerk reaction but did not mean to indicate I was retaliating against him," the report said. The inspector general disagreed. It said in the report that Mr. Martinez's treatment of Mr. German amounted to improper retaliation and "discrimination that could have a chilling effect on whistle-blowing." Furious Obama blasts U.S. intelligence for failing to connect the dots over Christmas Day bomber
Agencies knew al-Qaeda affiliate planned to strike U.S. Obama: 'Make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison' Further security measures expected by the end of the week No 10 angers U.S. by stating Britain supplied intel on bomber President Barack Obama has angrily blasted the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies over the failed Christmas Day terror attack on a transatlantic airliner. Mr Obama told high-level officials in the White House Situation Room the failed bombing was 'a screw-up that could have been disastrous' and should have been avoided. He then informed the U.S. public that the government had enough information to thwart the attack but that the intelligence agencies, though trained to do so, 'did not connect the dots'. He said: 'That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it. It is clear that intelligence was not fully analysed or fully leveraged.' He added: 'We will do better, and we have to do it quickly. American lives are on the line.' Mr. Obama said he expects to impose further security measures when reviews on airport screening and watch lists are completed by the end of the week. But he insisted that his delayed plan to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp would go ahead. Nearly half of the 198 terror suspect detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are from Yemen. 'Make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison,' he said, describing the camp as an 'explicit rationale for the formation of al-Qaeda operating in Yemen'. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian suspect who allegedly tried to set off an explosive device aboard the plane as it came in for a landing in Detroit, has told U.S. investigators he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. His father warned the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria that his son had drifted into extremism in the al-Qaida hotbed of Yemen, but that threat was never fully digested by the U.S. security apparatus. He is accused to trying to ignite the explosives he brought on board the flight carrying nearly 300 people — thwarted only by a malfunction with the explosives and the quick action of fellow passengers and crew once his efforts resulted in a fire. Mr Obama said: 'We dodged a bullet but just barely. It was averted by brave individuals, not because the system worked, and that is not acceptable. 'The information was there. When a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day, the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way.' He also outlined more warnings that had been flagged up about Abdulmutallab, including information that an al-Qaeda affiliate in the Arabian Peninsula planned to strike not only American targets in Yemen but the U.S. itself. Abdulmutallab's name was in a huge U.S. database of about 550,000 terror suspects, but was not on a list that would have subjected him to additional security screening or kept him from boarding the flight. That omission prompted a review of the National Counterterrorism Centre's massive Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database. His U.S. visa also remained intact despite his father's warnings. And airport screening failed to detect the bomb-making material he brought on board with him. It comes as Downing Street caused a major rift with the White House over combating terrorism yesterday. Gordon Brown's official spokesman infuriated U.S. officials by announcing that Britain had supplied intelligence on the syringe bomber's links to extremists before his attempt to blow up the Detroit-bound plane. The gaffe threatened to undermine the special relationship between British and American spies. Government spokesmen do not usually comment on intelligence matters and are particularly careful not to damage relations with U.S. security services who supply them with huge amounts of information. But Mr Brown's spokesman revealed that Abdulmutallab's name was included in a dossier of people who made contact with known Islamist militants in the UK when he studied at University College London between 2005 and 2008. 'Clearly there was security information about this individual's activities, and that was information that was shared with the U.S. authorities,' the spokesman said. 'That is the key point.' White House officials contacted Downing Street to demand a clarification as senior government officials expressed dismay at the gaffe. In a further statement, the spokesman said: 'There is absolutely no suggestion the UK passed any information to the U.S. which they did not act on.' He then insisted that 'it goes without saying' that the White House and Downing Street 'enjoyed an excellent relationship'. White House officials were barely able to conceal their irritation. A former CIA man with close links to the Obama administration said: 'So much for our closest ally. There are guys with their feet to the fire over here and you've got some blabbermouth making out that they ignored intelligence. It's not helpful.' In London a senior official said of the 'schoolboy error' that: 'We don't comment on exchanges of intelligence. It's that simple.' In an effort to assist Mr Obama, Home Secretary Alan Johnson told MPs: 'While we did provide information linked to the wider aspect of this case, none of the information we shared indicated that Abdulmutallab was about to attempt an attack.' Since the attack, the U.S. government has added dozens of names to its lists of suspected terrorists and those barred from flights bound for the U.S. People on the watch list are subject to additional scrutiny before they are allowed to enter this country, while anyone on the no-fly list is barred from boarding aircraft in or headed for the U.S. Airlines were directed give full-body, pat-down searches to U.S.-bound travellers from Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and 11 other countries from Monday. 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 |
|
BRAVO KISSIN
Posted by Truth Provider, January 12, 2010. |
|
Dear friends, You may know that the arts is very short on artists who speak their mind on the right side of the political spectrum. Because the art world is replete with leftists, socialists, peacenicks etc. an artist who does not join the chorus, or speaks against it, may suffer the consequence of his/hers courage and conviction. I am among the few, very few, who dared speak their mind against show-me-the-money-BBC-NPR and other news organizations for their abominable bias against Israel and support of the "Palestinian" false cause. Now there is another brave one. The internationally renouned great pianist Evgeny Kissin. Bravo Kissin, Shame Barenboim! Shame all those who do not stand with Israel. Your Truth Provider,
Below the article was written by Stephen Pollard and Robyn Rosen.
It is called "Pianist Kissin launches anti-Israel BBC bias campaign."
It was published December 30, 2009 and it is archived at |
|
The Russian-born pianist Evgeny Kissin, who became a British citizen in 2002, has accused the BBC of "slander and bias" against Israel, broadcasting material he describes as "painfully reminiscent of the old Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda". Mr Kissin, 38, who until now has not generally been known as politically engaged, has written to the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson. According to a close friend of the pianist, he has decided to become "actively involved in exposing and countering the evil propaganda of certain British media and especially the BBC." Mr Kissin's decision to use his fame and artistic renown to campaign on Israel's behalf contrasts with the criticisms against the Jewish state regularly voiced by musicians such as Daniel Barenboim, who holds Israeli citizenship. In Mr Kissin's letter, he accuses the BBC's Persian Service of a "blood libel concerning Israel's alleged harvesting of Palestinian organs and blood for future transplant". He continues: "It beggars belief that the British taxpayer should be funding an organisation which is aligning itself with Iran's despotic leader in its antisemitic propaganda. Other print media like the Guardian, which erroneously printed this libel propagated by Israel's enemies, have since apologised. I am not aware of any such retraction from the BBC." Mr Kissin, who was a child prodigy in his native Russia and is now widely recognised as one of the greatest living pianists, intends from now on to speak out against media bias against Israel, which he sees as both fuelling and being fuelled by antisemitism. In his letter, he says that when he became a British citizen he was "inspired and proud to belong to the country of Winston Churchill, who famously said: 'There is no antisemitism in England because we do not consider ourselves more stupid than the Jews'. Above all, the BBC and especially its World Service, had always been a beacon of light, of truth and objectivity to those of us behind the Iron Curtain, in the 'Evil Empire'. Reaching out to far corners of the world, it was the voice of a country which for us was a model of democracy and human rights." He concludes by asking: "Is it not time for the BBC to return to the values for which it was so much respected, before it finds itself in the garbage of history, together with Pravda, Tass, Volkischer Beobachter and Der Angruff?" The classical music promoter, Lilian Hochhauser, said this week: "I fully support Evgeny Kissin's initiative to counter the increasing bias displayed by the BBC and others against Israel. I encourage all in the arts world to act against the growing stigmatisation of Israel, as well as increasing our cultural co-operation with the country." A spokesman for the BBC said the corporation was unable to comment until it had received Mr Kissin's letter. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
|
FROM ISRAEL: AS IT IS
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 12, 2010. |
|
Barry Rubin recent column, entitled "A gold mine for understanding US Middle East policy," touches on a variety of subjects by drawing upon statements made recently by Secretary of State Clinton at a press conference. But I want to focus on one particular critical observation Rubin made: "BUT ANOTHER thing Clinton said is more disturbing and has become an Obama administration talking point. She said the Palestinians 'deserve' a state. In this approach, having a state isn't something earned by ending terrorism and incitement, truly accepting Israel's existence, providing strong security guarantees and resettling refugees in your own country. According to the US government, Palestinian statehood is an entitlement, a prize they get no matter how they behave. (emphasis added) ~~~~~~~~~~ This is hardly surprising. And it's not just the Obama administration. It's the EU and others. It's sort of a "given" that the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians are entitled to their own state. Never mind entitled, but entitled to all the land beyond the Green Line. Whatever I say about the Palestinian Arabs, I have to give them this: Their PR is masterful, that they have achieved this. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Kurds are a real people, with a real and legitimate right to their own state, Kurdistan. They live in the highland plateau region at the intersection of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Numbering well over 20 million, they are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own nation; they have their own language, their own cultural traditions and their own history, which reaches back for many centuries. While they have obtained some autonomy (in Iraq), and have successfully developed governmental structure and commercial ventures, they are denied independence because none of the nations in which they reside will support this. But do you hear about a UN day in solidarity with the Kurds? Of course not. Because there is no such day — only the Palestinian Arabs "merit" such support. Incredible, when you think of it, is it not? ~~~~~~~~~~ Beyond the success of Palestinian Arab PR, I think there are probably other reasons why the distorted notion has arisen that they are entitled to a state. A Christian Zionist here, whom I respect enormously, shared with me his observations based on his organization's interaction with the European community. What he told me was that Europeans feel guilty about the Holocaust, but not particularly guilty about what was done to the Jews. Rather, they believe that Jews would not have fled Europe for Palestinian if not for the persecution of the Holocaust. In other words, they buy into the also fallacious notion — which ignores Jewish history and heritage — that there is an Israel today only because of the Holocaust, and that fleeing Jewish refugees pushed out indigenous Arab population in the area. Thus, believing they have responsibility for creating the situation that made them suffer, they feel beholden to the Palestinian Arabs. An interesting perspective. ~~~~~~~~~~ It behooves us to speak out forcefully in every possible venue with arguments that refute the belief — whatever its source — that there is a Palestinian Arab entitlement. Who are these "Palestinians," it must be asked, and what constitutes their uniqueness as a people. WHY do they deserve a state? How will the world benefit from such a state? What is the genuine Jewish historical and legal entitlement to the land the Arabs claim? ~~~~~~~~~~ More news with hopeful potential: Borzou Daragahi, an American born journalist of Iranian descent, wrote in yesterday's LA Times that the movement of anti-regime activists in Iran is spreading out of the main cities — where anonymity is more possible — into the Iranian heartland. "More than 60% of Iranians are younger than 30, and 70% of college students reportedly opposed Ahmadinejad. "What has happened over the last seven months in Birjand [a potential opposition stronghold], and consistent with reports from other small cities around the country, illustrates how the opposition movement has gained a foothold nationwide. Students began organizing small gatherings at their universities. In the classrooms, professors lifted students' spirits by discussing the Islamic Republic's missteps, and what sorts of protest action were effective and which were counterproductive. The students followed the news on opposition websites and via BBC Persian and Voice of America. They have mastered the use of proxy servers to get access to banned websites as well as shield their surfing habits from surveillance technology." ~~~~~~~~~~ At her press conference yesterday, Secretary of State Clinton said that decisions were still being made, but the thought is that focused sanctions against those making the decisions in Iran would be most effective. It is assumed that she is referring to the Revolutionary Guard. Regrettably, she said, once again, that the US is still interested in dialogue with Iran, even as sanctions are under review Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
PALESTINIANS NEED A GENERATION OR TWO
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, January 12, 2010. |
|
"Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation" is antisemitism. A Case in Point: Yardsticks — Turkey versus Palestinian Arabs. For over 46 years, Turkey has knocked on Europe's door requesting membership in the European Union. The Europeans, however, have been in no rush to invite a Muslim country into their midst, even if it is the most westernized and most democratic Muslim country in the Middle East. To add to it, Turkey is already a strategic partner in NATO and nearly 3 million of its citizens are peaceful and productive immigrants/guest workers in Europe. Joining the EU, however, demands of Turkey far-reaching political and social reform "on the ground" and "10 to 15 years of negotiations" while the Turks prove democratic changes are "irreversible." On the other end, U.S. [and the Quartet] yardsticks for the Palestinian Arabs, a hostile society demanding statehood, amount to praise for fabricated non-existent reforms and call to abandon the required incremental progress as clearly stated in the "goal-driven Roadmap." The end to violence and democratic reform, that Palestinians have yet to begin, is tolerable by the U.S. administration — all in order to forge the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state within two years, one which will endanger the very survival of a free and democratic Israel and the rest of the free world. Comparison of the goals and the ramifications of each: The Turks' goal is membership in the European Union — a political alliance that the Europeans have already stated will have an iron-clad reversibility clause for Turkey if it fails to live up to its commitments. The Palestinians' goal is sovereignty as a State — status for which there is no reversibility mechanism if 'Palestine' turns into a rogue state — the kind of polity the U.S. is currently grappling with in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and elsewhere. Logically, the yardsticks of judging readiness and maturity should be at least equal, if not more stringent for the Palestinian Arabs, a society that consciously and purposely sacrifices its own youth for political gain and tactical advantage, with a leadership that champions the murder of Jews and suicide bombers. Freedom House, a non-sectarian organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt to monitor civil rights around the world, appraised the Palestinian Authority with the lowest possible rating in its 2009 survey — deeming it "Not [a] Free" society. At that level political rights and civil liberties are absent or virtually nonexistent, and people experience severely restricted rights of expression and association — all as a result of the extremely oppressive nature of the regime. These "realities on the ground" are totally ignored by the EU and the U.S. in their effort to advance immediate Palestinian statehood. Requiring Israel to cede parts of its land in favour of the Palestinians' empty promises, while their Charters call for the dismantling of the Jewish State, is "applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation." Eli E. Hertz is president of Myths and Facts, Inc. The organization's objective is to provide policymakers, national leadership, the media and the public-at-large with information and viewpoints that are founded on factual and reliable content. Contact him at today@mythsandfacts.org |
|
POLITICIDE — VOLUME TWO
Posted by Victor Sharpe, January 12, 2010. |
|
A compilation of published articles written by the author over a period of nearly ten years, detailing every aspect of the Arab and Islamist war against Israel and the relentless attempts by them to murder the Jewish State. Politicide is the word originally coined by an Israeli statesman to describe just such an act of State murder. Like the original book, this second volume provides an easily readable account of the Biblical and post-Biblical history of the Jewish state. It also outlines the refusal by the Islamists to accept the rebirth of Israel in its ancestral homeland: the main obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict. Both volumes provide an essential primer for all who wish to understand the conflict. The picture on front cover shows Hamas suicide bombing of Jerusalem bus in which 21 Israeli civilians perished.
Contact Victor Sharpe by email at janvic@verizon.net
|
|
INDICATORS OF OUR TIME
Posted by Ari Bussel and Norma Zager, January 12, 2010. |
|
"The only difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets..." Will Rogers |
|
For those who are not following the price of a barrel of oil this year, it has crept up above $80. There is direct correlation between the price of oil and the major economic indicators. The better the "feeling" that the economy is performing well, the higher the price of oil. It is nothing but sheer folly, for we know that oil is our downfall. There was a short period of time that the price of oil tumbled lower, and then even lower still. The skies were gloomy, the economy at a standstill. These were some of the best times, since we were all forced to look in a new direction: alternatives to oil, heightened sensitivity to the subject matter, searching to lessen our dependency. This is somewhat counter-intuitive, looking to find substitutes for oil when its price is in a free fall. Our addiction is apparently not price sensitive, and the cure will not be found when the price skyrockets again to $150 per barrel (some $5 per gallon). It is something else altogether — feeling threatened. Apparently, the knowledge that every time we fill up the tank in our cars we support terrorism against us is not a sufficient enough threat. Something else must shake the very foundations of our daily comforts and existence. Perhaps a sequence of (hopefully failed) attempts to blow US-inbound planes or homicide bombings in our shopping malls would be productive? It is just a year after the tsunami or avalanche of financial meltdown. As I look at the financial system, its institutions and the underlying behavior, not much has changed from a year ago — other than a few more trillions in debt (primarily, the US now in the hands of the PRC). Along the way we lost of sense of the value of money, and our government spends at will. Congress throws money around like a sailor on shore leave. Billions are just a fraction of the overall debt, and under the heading of "urgent necessity," all is permissible. We live the moment and forget that the bills are in the mail and will become due. We will pay the price, possibly sooner than we would want. The folly of recovery will at that time explode into very many fragments. What would we do then? China will refuse to further finance our adolescent behavior, the public will be up in arms against the corruption at the very top, and there will be no one to come to our rescue. Have we changed our ways? After the Enron scandal the top business schools in the country looked at what went wrong. New classes were added teaching corporate responsibility and ethics in the workplace. Coins of language that were previously acknowledged but not practiced since the lure of making money was stronger, addicting and blinded everything else, were carefully examined, perhaps for the first time. When the financial meltdown resumes, there will be courses not only in business but in history looking at this era, examining what led to the Second Great Depression, to the escalation of a Third World War. Future generations would want to learn what could have been done differently to avoid the horrible eventuality. We have elected a President who promised us transparency, a new dawn in politics. What did we get instead? An administration coated in Teflon to which nothing sticks. The financial meltdown was "inherited." The extreme measures are "necessary." Anything wrong is not his Administration's fault. Congress covers its egregious deal making like a freezing spinster huddled beneath six layers of quilts on a cold New England winter night. Transparency? Indeed — the likes of which brings tears to my eyes. Tears of laughter mostly. Congress has replaced the locks after locking out the Republicans from public hearings. The Democrats act more like hooligans than elected members of Congress. Pass your own bill? Not a problem since we have a majority. But what happens when the party's own members need to be bought (in broad daylight, of course, everything is transparent)?!! Americans have long mistrusted Congress, now we must ask ourselves if they even exist within the same species as us? Exclude the Republicans, and with them half or more of the country, twist the arms of members of your own party, threaten and bribe, do everything possible without shame. A windy city typhoon has blown through Congress. For those who know that this majority will not survive the upcoming election, safety mechanisms were added — things cannot be undone without an absolute majority that is guaranteed to create legislative gridlock for years to come. They have been devious enough to think of all eventualities, while continuing to strangle their prey, devouring the innocent and weak in their wake. Any voice of opposition is silenced using one of several mechanisms. First, invite only those in your favor, to the exclusion of all others. If the signal is not clear enough, proceed to malign and destroy those who think differently and may interfere with your agenda. Fox News is a good example. The ZOA (Zionist Organization of America) is another. One day we will look for those to blame for the lost hope once inspired in us, for the positive change that never came, for the price we will ALL have to pay. May we then all possess the courage to stand together, like members of one family, and move forward united once again. God knows we will have no other alternative. Contact Ari Bussel and Norma Zager at aribusseli@gmail.com 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. |
|
OUTRAGEOUS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REPORT
Posted by Susana K-M, January 12, 2010. |
|
This was written by Steven Emerson, world-renouned terrorism expert. |
|
A hallmark of research is that it is neutral and thus open to unanticipated results and findings. Reading "Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans," a new report funded by the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice, and authored by researchers at Duke and the University of North Carolina, it seems like these two NCAA rivals came together to violate this cardinal principle of scholarly research. The report's headline is that the threat of homegrown extremism is exaggerated. That's an odd conclusion just a week into 2010. While the authors acknowledge 2009 was an unusually active year for homegrown terror plots, the litany of cases is insufficient to alter, or even place an asterisk by their conclusion. "The recent spike of cases in 2009 is disturbing," the authors write, "but it is far too early to know if this is an aberration or a trend. Even if the levels of radicalization of Muslim-Americans do increase, it is important to emphasize that the numbers of individuals engaged in these activities are extremely small." This seems to rebut an argument no one has made while miscasting the very nature of terrorism. Terrorism does not require large numbers of people to achieve its purpose, which is the creation of fear through calculated and often symbolic acts of violence or the threat of such acts. Terrorist groups have lasted decades and wreaked havoc without having more than a couple dozen members. Further, it doesn't take an army of thousands to generate death and devastation. Ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists were able to kill more than 180 people and hold Mumbai — a city of more than 14 million people — hostage over three days. Pointing out that relatively few people become terrorists is irrelevant. Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 soldiers and wounded 30 more at Fort Hood on his own. Even national Islamist organizations, loathe to acknowledge the very existence of Islamic extremism, admitted in December that they need to do more to combat radicalization among young Muslim Americans. The Duke/North Carolina study identifies 139 people linked to terrorist violence since 2001, an average of 17 people per year. But in the past 14 months, 20 young Somalis disappeared from the Minneapolis area and are thought to have gone to East Africa to join the jihad there. Five D.C. area college students were arrested in Pakistan last month as they tried to join the jihad against American troops in Afghanistan. Jihad, group leader Ramy Zamzam explained outside a courtroom last week, is not terrorism. NARROW DEFINITIONS Like the Zamzam group, most of the cases included in the study involve terrorist plots outside the United States. For example, David Headley is charged with plotting to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and with helping the Mumbai plotters by scouting possible targets. The report devotes a page to the North Carolina jihad plot, emphasizing the group's desire to wage jihad abroad. But it fails to mention that Daniel Patrick Boyd is accused of scouting the Marine base at Quantico for a possible attack and that he and defendant Hysen Sherifi were charged in September with plotting to kill American soldiers. And the data doesn't count cases involving terrorist financing, listing them as "exclusively non-violent activities ... because, in our view, individuals have not fully radicalized unless they are willing and have taken steps toward violent action to further their radical views." It is simply bad social science to view the phenomenon of terrorism as isolated from all other factors and activities besides violent acts. Terrorist acts are at the tail-end of a process of radicalization through which an individual comes to believe in the necessity of radical action through interactive social processes often fostered and guided by Islamist movements. Violent Islamist movements do not just blow things up. They produce propaganda, raise funds, engage in dawah and educational efforts, and often provide services to their constituency. All of these efforts are an interrelated part of a whole and cannot be separated — not even by two universities with first-rate basketball teams. We should expect better from a research team that prominently features a sociologist. The emphasis on the number of people prosecuted diminishes significance of the threat of terrorism because plots were interdicted before they had a chance to succeed. If even a fraction of them were successfully executed, the death toll could reach into the thousands. It's a fundamental weakness of the argument to argue this threat is exaggerated. Their definition ignores the radical dogma that goes along with "non violent activities" and the often-used Koranic solicitation that those who finance jihadists are blessed the same as if they participated. It also buys in to the "covenant of security" understanding many Britons now regret. In essence, radical groups were tolerated as long as their violence did not target the United Kingdom. The report also seems plagued by other arbitrary standards. The research team interviewed 120 people in four mid-sized U.S. communities. It found that Muslim communities do a good job of self-policing against radical elements and that "Muslim-American organizations and leaders have consistently condemned terrorist violence here and abroad since 9/11, arguing that such violence is strictly condemned by Islam." It isn't clear how those subjects were chosen or whether the researchers sought out contrary points of view. They are not difficult to find. Writer Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, sees American Muslim leadership as a part of the problem more than as part of the solution. In the wake of the Zamzam arrests in Pakistan, Fatah noted the radical ties of those expressing concern and making vows to combat the extremist trend. "[T]he leaders of the American Mosque establishment have still not yet recognized that their rhetoric no longer works and that most Americans can see through their tired old cliches about 'peace' and 'love'." After the Fort Hood massacre, journalist Asra Nomani described Nidal Malik Hasan's slaughter as "a cautionary tale to all Muslim communities about the consequences when we fail to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world with moderate interpretation of Islam over rigid, literal interpretations." She interviewed a man who attended the same Maryland mosque as Hasan and debated theology with him. Hasan espoused clearly radical views and a literal interpretation of the Quran. "No one in the mosque responded with concerns about Hasan's extremist views," Nomani wrote. But they did object when his interlocutor handed out a newspaper article about an Afgan suicide bomber who accidentally killed his mother and other family members. An angry mosque member accused him of creating a "fitna," or division, in the community. Nomani met with the same anger when she tried to change her mosque's policy of segregating women from men during prayer. The report credits the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS), but makes no mention of their well-documented radical ties and the counter-productive ideologies they espouse. WARTS IGNORED ISNA was created by Muslim Brotherhood activists in the United States, some of whom remain active. While it engages in numerous interfaith outreach programs, it has a history of tolerating radical statements in its conferences and by some of its own activists. For example, Jamal Badawi, a senior member of ISNA's leadership, the Majlis A-Shura, and scholar of the ISNA-directed Fiqh Council of North America, spoke last February at the Chebucto Mosque of Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the topic of "Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom." He justified the actions of those who die fighting the enemy, particularly "the noble Mujahideen" of Gaza. Concerning these Gazan jihadists, he said: "Indeed Allah purchased from the believers, their lives and their property, in return for Paradise. They fight in the Way of Allah, they slay and they get slain themselves... And then it [the Qu'ran] says, "Who is more faithful to his covenant or promise, than Allah (swt), then rejoice with this bargain." You see, it's a bargain. Allah bought it [life], but he gives something in return." As we've reported, ICNA is related to the Jamaat-i-Islami, which advocates for revolution to create an Islamist state in Pakistan. While officials expressed shock that American college students were arrested in Pakistan as they tried to join a jihad against American troops in Afghanistan, the group canonized an American who died waging jihad in Kashmir 12 years earlier. Then there's CAIR. The FBI cut off contact with the group, despite its political profile, because it has not determined "whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS." That connection was demonstrated in documents admitted into evidence at the Hamas-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation, which ended with sweeping convictions in November 2008. CAIR, along with MAS, often perpetuate the notion that American anti-terror efforts amount to a war on Islam, a message considered pivotal in radicalization. Even if their intentions are good, their efforts are likely to fall short based upon the organization's inherent beliefs, wrote M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and executive director of the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy. "CAIR and [the Muslim Public Affairs Council] have typically renounced the use of terror and violence, but they have never taken a position against the ideology of political Islam," Jasser wrote. "They have also been constant antagonists to efforts by law enforcement to understand and mitigate the real stages of radicalization of Muslims in America. Just recently these groups called for government to naively "decouple religion from terror." These organizations have a history of reacting defensively, of crying entrapment when informants help expose plots before they turn violent and even impeding law enforcement investigations. That fact is not analyzed in the report, which casts the groups as a part of the solution. "Muslim-American organizations and the vast majority of individuals that we interviewed firmly reject the radical extremist ideology that justifies the use of violence to achieve political ends," David Schanzer, the co-author of the study, said in a statement. When one reads such a statement about groups that have recommended one of Osama bin Laden's favorite books — Sayyid Qutb's Milestones — it is hard not to laugh. If he modified this statement to explain they only rejected the use of violence to achieve political ends here, but not elsewhere, Dr. Schanzer would have been closer to the truth. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
SEE NO JIHAD, HEAR NO JIHAD, SPEAK NO JIHAD!; JEWISH CRAZE HAS NO LIMIT;PA: FORGET ABOUT COOPERATION FOR PEACE
Posted by Steven Shamrak, January 12, 2010. |
|
See NO Jihad, Hear NO Jihad, Speak NO Jihad! Is the U.S. government still serious about protecting Americans (world) from the extreme violence of Islamofascism — or isn't it? * The Department of Homeland Security, created to defend the nation after the Sept. 11 Islamic terror attacks, has dramatically shifted its focus, earlier this year advising police nationwide to watch out for "right-wing extremists"... Regular Americans understand the Islamofascist war that's been declared on America. The government and media either don't — or won't. What's going on here? Does the government really care about national security anymore? (Suicide bomber who attacked CIA post in Afghanistan was trusted informant from Jordan — It is time to end the stupidity of political correctness, pretence and appeasement of enemies. We must clearly identify our enemies and start a real war against global Islamic terror!) Jews are still Used as Deflectors of Public Opinion. The United States pledged to be ''even more committed this year'' to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, warning that any further delay would only hurt the interests of all parties involved. ''We know that the Palestinians deserve a state to fulfil their aspirations... So we're going to be even more committed this year'' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. (While the Obama administration is failing on all fronts and breaking most of its election promises, it has resorted to the traditional method of deflection of public opinion — Jews! Personally I do not know how "the Palestinians deserve a state to fulfil their aspirations". Could Mrs Clinton explain? We only know that they committed acts of terrorism and made fake land claims.) White House Fed Up with Israel and PA. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel has told Israeli officials that the US government is fed up with both Israel and the PA. "Were tired of you Israelis adopting ideas too late, and we also are tired of the Palestinians always missing opportunities for peace." (If this is so, allow Israel to resolve the conflict?) Israel's Fifth Column. Three Arab employees of Israeli institutions revealed that they use their positions to slam and undermine Israel. Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak Israel must stop responding to international criticism and accusation and do what is right for Israel and Jewish people. This technique works: Barack Obama has been successfully ignoring demands to prove that he is "a natural born citizen" — Why is it so difficult to produce the birth certificate? — Now almost nobody cares if he is a legitimate president of the United States! It is Time to Make it Clear. The Israel Beitenou party has introduced a draft law requiring Knesset deputies to swear allegiance to a ''Jewish, Zionist and democratic'' state of Israel. Deputies refusing to swear allegiance will not be able to do their jobs. The law is specifically meant to target Arab deputies. Where is International Outcry? Clashes broke out last week in the Egyptian port of El Arish between security forces and pro-Palestinian activists in the Viva Palestina convoy led by British deputy George Galloway. More than 50 people were injured. Death Threat Is Shabak Fabrication. Chairman of the National Union party, MK Yacov Katz, says that the letter threatening the life of Defense Minister Ehud Barak is a fake engineered by the Israeli Secret Service and meant to weaken the national camp. "The extreme left is terminally ill with nothing left inside. They are fighting us in every way possible," Jewish Heritage of 'Palestinians'? Jordan and the PA have asked Canada to seize Israel's 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls, currently on display in Toronto. The PA acknowledges that the scrolls are Jewish, but claims that they are "also part of Palestinian heritage just as ancient Roman and Byzantine ruins comprise part of their history." (Wasn't the existence of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem recently denied by 'educated' Arabs?) Quote of the Week: "The PLO did not represent a state and was no political authority. Most leaders of the PLO were from the elsewhere in the region, Arafat for example was an Egyptian, Faizal Husseini (Arafat's chief assistant) was from Iraq. The biggest mistake, therefore, has been that these people were recognized as representatives of the local Arab population... There are many Muslim leaders in Rome who have fled the extremist situation in their home countries. Therefore they consider the threat they faced in those countries as the same as threat that Israel is now undergoing." — Professor Sheikh Adbul Hadi Palazzi, an Italian Muslim leader. Political Stupidity in IDF Must End. Leftist activist Edna Canetti has used her presence on Channel 2's Big Brother program to make political comments and attack the IDF's policy in Judea and Samaria. Now it turns out that the Defense Ministry has invited her to speak to disabled IDF veterans and share her views with them. (The IDF have been systematically hindering propagation of Zionist ideals in the army. Soldiers must know what they fight for!) Know the Enemies and Their Cronies. During U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's first year in office, some of the heftiest contributions to her husband's charitable foundation came from royal families of Arab nations. (Foreign contributions corrupt politicians and have an adverse influence on US policy. Shouldn't they be forbidden?) Do International anti-Semites Care about Western Sahara? After the King of Morocco announced a countrywide regional re-organizing program that includes the Western Sahara region, the Algerian Assembly, Abdelazziz Ziari has accused the Alouite kingdom of acting like a colonial power: ''The Western Sahara is about colonization.'' He compared Morocco's actions in the large desert area populated by Sahraouis, an area that Algeria wants for itself, to former colonial activity by France in North Africa. Recycling Islamic Terror. According to The Times of London, 12 former prisoners at Guantanamo have joined the ranks of Al Qaida in Yemen. Jewish Craze has NO Limit. A small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews flew from New York to Egypt on Friday to celebrate the Jewish Sabbath in Gaza, in an unlikely show of support for Hamas. The four members of the Neturei Karta sect, vehemently opposed to Israel's existence, were an unusual sight in Gaza. Hypocricy of the Headlines. "Five Americans Arrested in Pakistan Planned to Attack U.S." - Time.com and LA Times — The fact that all of the so-called "Americans" are Muslims was well concealed in convoluted articles by both 'reputable' publications. No wonder that after 8 years of the War Against Terror the US has no hope of winning it — The first rule of war "Know your Enemy" is long forgotten! War Among Arabs. US president Barack Obama finally brought himself to accuse al Qaeda in Yemen of the failed attempt to blow up a US airliner Saturday, Jan. 2. The plot was writ large five months ago when an al Qaeda assassin using explosives hidden in his underwear failed to murder the Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, chief the Saudi campaign in Yemen. (They hate each other, Shiites and Sunnis, a lot. But there is no difference between them in what they are prepared and willing to do to satisfy their hate toward the West.) It is Time to Start Representing Israel. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman opted to conclude last week's conference of Israeli ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry by chastising the 150 or so diplomats: ''I have seen that some ambassadors identify themselves with the other side to such an extent that they are all the time trying to justify and explain the position of the other side.'' Non-Jewish Walls Can't be Criticised? The Egyptian minister of legal affairs, Mofid Shehab, has accused Al Jazeera TV of seeking ''to provoke a civil war'' there by broadcasting images of the metal barrier being built at the Rafah crossing with Gaza. He accused the Qatari TV of ''working against the Egyptian government to begin a civil war and inflame the Egyptian and Arab street.'' (Why is it OK to inflame Jewish "streets" only?) Another Jewish Miracle. Israel's economy grew in 2009, against all expectations, and in contrast to other developed economies in the world. Israel's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.5%, in contrast to an OECD average of negative 3.5%. International Facilitation of Terror. The Islamic Hamas government of Gaza has declared a budget of $540 million for 2010. Only $60 million comes from taxes raised (including a tax on tunnels), while the rest comes from ''assistance from outside.'' Forget about Cooperation for Peace. The Palestinian Authority has refused an Israeli request to arrest one of the murderers of Rabbi Meir Chai a few weeks before the attack that took the rabbi's life. The Shabak Israel Security Agency made the request after it received information that 36-year-old Anan Subuh of Shechem had returned to terror despite the terms of his amnesty. 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 |
|
LET'S TAKE BUREAUCRACY OUT OF INTELLIGENCE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 11, 2010. |
|
John Bolton, author of the article below, is light years ahead of America's bureaucracies in clearly seeing the extreme danger to America by the spreading Islamization of the free world, as Muslims immigrate into the Free West countries. As they achieve 'critical mass', they move toward their goal of creating a Global Caliphate for Islam. Bolton, former U.S. Ambassdor to the U.N., has the courage to speak about the observable facts deliberately obfuscated by America's politicians who (so far) have not been able to see or speak of these dangers lest they are forced to act against them. P.C. (Political Correctness) is oozing from every pore of President Barack Hussein Obama's regime, which has put America's U.S. Intelligence Agencies on a short leash. Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007). This article appeared today in the Wall Street Journal. Read On! |
|
Although the U.S. intelligence community (IC) has been stung by failures relating to the Christmas terrorist attack, these failures are symptomatic of far larger problems. In analyzing the ongoing Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs, both the IC and policy makers are guilty of politicizing intelligence, exactly the behavior harshly criticized during the Bush administration. Now, however, the politicization threat dwells inside the IC, especially in the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) bureaucracy. Policy officials move in and out of intelligence jobs as if those jobs were interchangeable, carrying all their existing policy biases. Even worse, intelligence officers increasingly disdain to hide their philosophical proclivities, which have colored their intelligence analysis in years past. And, like generals refighting the last war to correct their mistakes, the IC is reacting against charges it overstated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction by understating the threat of Iranian and North Korean weapons programs. So much for the wall of separation between policy and intelligence. Ill-concealed policy preferences dominated the now-discredited 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear weapons program. So eager were the NIE's drafters to forestall the use of force against Iran that they distorted the intelligence, ignored contrary evidence, and overstated their conclusions. We are still paying the price for this bureaucratic insurrection, as information emerges about Iran's extensive efforts to conceal its nuclear program. Recent reports, for example, show that Qom is far from Iran's only hardened underground enrichment facility. So much is unknown about Iran's progress that the administration's confident estimates about the time available to engage in fruitless negotiations work in Tehran's favor. Similarly, A.Q. Khan, proliferation's pre-eminent entrepreneur, reportedly believes that Pyongyang's clandestine uranium-enrichment began earlier and made more progress than many previously acknowledged. This and other new information, as recently explained by South Korea's foreign minister, runs counter to the biases of officials who have tried to minimize the risk from Pyongyang to justify six-party talks. Instead, it suggests that the North's repeated pledges to end its nuclear weapons program have been utterly worthless. The Christmas terrorist attack demonstrates that we need more effective communication and analysis within the IC. Achieving this goal does not require more centralization of authority, more hierarchy, and more uniformity of opinion. The IC's problem stems from a culture of anonymous conformity. Greater centralization will only reinforce existing bureaucratic obstacles to providing decision makers with a full range of intelligence analysis. The problem is often not the intelligence we collect, but assessing its implications. Solving that problem requires not the mind-deadening exercise of achieving bureaucratic consensus, but creating a culture that rewards insight and decisiveness. To create that culture we should abolish the DNI office and NIEs. Eliminating the DNI should be accompanied by reversing decades of inadequate National Security Council supervision of the intelligence function. The council is an awesome instrument for presidential control over the IC, but only if the national security adviser and others exercise direction and control. Sloughing off responsibility to the bureaucracy embodying the problem is a failure of presidential leadership, and unfortunately gives us exactly the IC we deserve. Contemporary NIEs (and other IC products) reflect the bureaucracy's lowest-common-denominator tendencies and should be abolished. Each intelligence agency should be able to place its analysis of data into a competitive marketplace of classified ideas — this will help determine which is the superior product. Finally, the real debatable issue is often not intelligence or analysis, but the inescapably political judgment of how much risk to our national security we are willing to tolerate. Today, the Obama administration's level of risk tolerance for potential terrorists and proliferators is far too high. Changing that doesn't just mean fixing the IC. It means fixing the White House. 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 |
|
FROM ISRAEL: A SHIFT OF NOTE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 11, 2010. |
|
It's not possible for me to say that the world has gained sanity. Would that I could. But there are shifts I'm observing in response to the insanity that are at least modestly heartening. Most significant is a change in the messages coming from our government. I wrote the other day that whatever else transpired, what mattered most for us was how Netanyahu responded: a stiff spine was required. Well, I'm seeing encouraging signs of that stronger spine now. It's difficult to say precisely what brought about this change — the likeliest guess is that he has had it, been pushed just too far — but there is a difference in what we're hearing from the prime minister and his government. Consider the following: ~~~~~~~~~~ At the Cabinet meeting yesterday, Netanyahu made a statement that was released to the public: "Last week 20 rockets and mortar rounds were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. I regard this very seriously. The IDF responded immediately...The Government's policy is clear: Any firing at our territory will be responded to strongly and immediately. ~~~~~~~~~~ The PA incitement — whether in school texts or media or the honoring of terrorists — is hardly new. What is new is a prime minister's readiness to publicly finger this incitement and challenge Palestinian Arab leaders to eradicate it, instead of ignoring it for misguided tactical reasons (that is, the notion that if we charge the PA with incitement it will slow down the "peace process"). This readiness certainly seems to signal a new acceptance of reality: we do not have a partner for peace. For the first time, instead of babbling about the window of opportunity for peace and our need to get on with negotiations now, Netanyahu has said that the PA is not in the right place for advancing peace. ~~~~~~~~~~ And there is a shift discernable in another government statement as well. For some time now, Israel has been praising the PA security forces. This has been the case in particular with regard to the US training of some of those forces under General Keith Dayton and the willingness of the IDF to grant them increased responsibility. All part of "making nice" and going along with the US-promoted myth that PA forces can take over if a state is established and the IDF pulls out of Judea and Samaria. I have found it nauseating, to be blunt, because I know the reluctance of PA forces to act against terrorists, and I am aware that the IDF acts nightly in PA areas to pursue terrorists (with the PA forces operating during the day only). Well, we have some Senators in town now — John McCain (R-Arizona), Joe Lieberman (Independent-Connecticut), John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) and John Thune (R-South Dakota). And Netanyahu told them that "[the PA forces] are showing timidity about addressing their own renegades." He was referring to Al Aksa Brigades, which is part of Fatah. His allusion (mentioned also in his Cabinet statement) is to the drive-by shooting of Rabbi Hai — with Abbas not only refraining from condemning this act but conferring upon the perpetrators the designation of shahids (holy martyrs). ~~~~~~~~~~ What Netanyahu said merely touches the surface of the issue. The PA forces really aren't great at going after Hamas forces either — doing so only when they are threatened and never, ever when Hamas is committing terrorist acts against Jews. And it's not just "renegades" that have to be looked at, it's the entire willingness of the Fatah to incorporate Al Aksa at all. But none-the-less, this signifies a shift in the line that has been advanced until now and is a modest — and perhaps significant — step in the right direction. ~~~~~~~~~~ Lastly, Netanyahu's statement — "any firing on our territory will be responded to strongly and immediately" — merits note. This could well be nothing more than bluster, and is perhaps most realistically read as such. It was, however, followed up by a related item in the news today citing defense officials who are saying that in the event of a new operation into Gaza, the IDF may take over the Philadelphi Corridor (a narrow swath of land in the south of Gaza that is adjacent to the border with Egypt). This action was rumored during Cast Lead last year but was vetoed by Olmert. Are we seeing the possibility of a tougher stance now? Not sure. I don't believe the allusion to such a possibility — which came yesterday from Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yom-Tov Samia, former head of the Southern Command, in an Army Radio interview — was done without a nod from higher up. There is concern that since that since Cast Lead Hamas has grown even stronger and has smuggled in longer-range rockets. Occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor would enable us to locate and take out the smuggling tunnels, many of which open up inside of homes in that area. We left Gaza too soon last time. Now General Samia has said, "We are facing another round in Gaza. I am skeptical that Hamas will suddenly surrender or change its way without first suffering a far more serious blow than it did during Cast Lead." ~~~~~~~~~~ At least for now, the Gilad Shalit negotiations seem stalemated, if not dead. This, after rumors had us believing it was pretty much a done deal. Whatever the particulars, it does seem that Netanyahu and his inner cabinet did not cave in ways we feared they would. On Sunday, Netanyahu told a gathering of Likud MKs that he didn't intend to release "symbols of terror," such as Marwan Barghouti. "I don't intend to release mega terrorists and I am trying to prevent releasing terrorists to Judea and Samaria." "Trying to prevent" sounds a tad weak, as this should be a matter of simply saying it won't be done, period. But none-the-less, Netanyahu seems to have been resolute enough to block the deal. Khaled Abu Toameh has reported that Hamas is blaming the prime minister for the collapse of arrangements. Elsewhere I have read that Hamas is charging that Netanyahu actually refused to release a larger number of terrorists than what media reported. And so, right on! ~~~~~~~~~~
Encourage him to continue to be strong. In Hebrew: Hazak, hazak!
~~~~~~~~~~ I note this simply in passing: There was quite a flack the other day about an allusion George Mitchell, US envoy, made on the Charlie Rose show, apparently indicating that the US might withdraw loan guarantees if displeased with our cooperation with regard to peace efforts. The response from here was most appropriate: Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz simply let it be known that we could manage without those guarantees. But, as it turns out, the threat was overstated by the media. See
Herb Keinon on this:
~~~~~~~~~~ Where the Obama administration is concerned, I am far less sanguine with regard to genuine policy changes. And yet, here, too I am seeing the suggestion of changes — specifically with regard to policy on Iran. From the Wall Street Journal : "The Obama administration is increasingly questioning the long-term stability of Tehran's government and moving to find ways to support Iran's opposition 'Green Movement,' said senior U.S. officials. The White House is crafting new financial sanctions specifically designed to punish the Iranian entities and individuals most directly involved in the crackdown on Iran's dissident forces, said the U.S. officials, rather than just those involved in Iran's nuclear program. In recent weeks, senior Green Movement figures — who have been speaking at major Washington think tanks — have made up a list of Revolutionary Guard-related companies they suggest targeting. This is good news. ~~~~~~~~~~ Then, from CNN yesterday, a report that cites Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, regarding the existence of military contingency plans for Iran. This, of course, leads us further into speculation, as having contingency plans (which, as the General said, it would be negligent not to have) says nothing about intent to fall back on those plans. ~~~~~~~~~~ I found this small news item to be of note: Egyptian scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said in a sermon in Qatar, where he lives, that if it is true that PA president Mahmoud Abbas instigated Operation Cast Lead, he must be stoned to death. He wasn't issuing a fatwa yet, he said, because first the situation needed to be investigated, and he called upon the Arab League to pursue the matter. The PA has demanded a public apology. But the fact of the matter is that, while I certainly wouldn't say Abbas "instigated" our operation into Gaza, he most certainly did encourage it. It was his hope that we would take out Hamas and that the PA could then reassert itself in Gaza. "Hit them hard," was his covert message to us in the beginning. That was before he began to condemn us publicly. This situation most certainly weakens Abbas even further — and while this particular Sheikh is in Qatar, we should not fail to note that he's Egyptian. There's a great many Egyptian machinations going on that we're not privy to. This simply strengthens my conviction that it would be close to impossible for Abbas to sit at the table with us, if we are engaged in hostilities in Gaza. As things seem to be heating up in Gaza, Abbas will likely find excuses not to negotiate. ~~~~~~~~~~ I'm amused that the Saudi Sheikh Sulaiman al Dowaish has called upon Saudi authorities to institute a travel ban to the US because of enhanced screening that will be put in place for specific countries that include Saudi Arabia. Saudi security researcher Sultan Al Anqari said the new US regulation was political blackmail because of Saudi anti-Israel policies: "collective punishment." The fact that some major terrorists, including those of 9/11, have been Saudis, is, of course, irrelevant. ~~~~~~~~~~ "The Good News Corner" A new study done at the Departments of Neonatology and Pediatrics at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center reveals that music by Mozart has a positive effect on babies born before term. Premature babies exposed to 30 minutes of Mozart's music daily seemed to gain weight faster. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
THREATENING LETTERS SENT TO MINISTER BARAK REMIND HAIM MISGAV OF DARKER DAYS
Posted by Steven Plaut, January 10, 2010. |
|
1. Leftist smear campaign? Threatening letters sent to Minister Barak remind Haim Misgav of darker days This was written by Haim Misgav and appeared in It seems that hundreds of thousands of members of the national-Zionist camp are looking at recent events in the political arena with great anxiety. This is so because many of them fear that again we are seeing some intelligence elements, which are hidden from view, making an effort to smear a very large group of citizens. It already happened in the past, when the Shin Bet employed (with the knowledge of top prosecutors) an agent provocateur meant to taint the image of settlers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. It may be happening now as well. I do not know whether Defense Minister Ehud Barak really received threatening letters and whether they are authentic, yet something about this somewhat odd story reminds me of Avishay Raviv. This was the name of the agent deployed by Shin Bet chiefs, with the approval of top leaders, in order to accelerate provocative acts against Arabs and create a sort of de-legitimacy for settlers in areas earmarked for unilateral evacuation. He was also a very close friend of Yigal Amir and many words have been written about his part in Prime Minister Rabin's assassination. Meanwhile, a report compiled by former Chief Justice Meir Shamgar already mentioned everything that needs to be mentioned about the ugly and anti-democratic moves adopted by authorities during the infamous Oslo accords; moves led by Avishay Raviv and his masters. Only history would be able to judge whether there was any way to prevent Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, yet Raviv's mysterious masters no doubt played a crucial role in the despicable provocations meant to make some people fed up with the settlement enterprise beyond the Green Line; people who are both foolish and naïve to think that if only the IDF will withdraw from territories that were taken over legally in 1967, the Arabs will make do with that. There was never a shortage of these types of fools in Israel, yet one thing must not be accepted: That free discourse will be limited or tainted by unknown elements, which face no supervision, via provocations reminiscent of dark regimes and dictators. Civil wars start like that. There are quite a few recent examples of popular uprisings against regimes that make use of these kinds of methods. I am indeed uncertain that what I'm saying is true, yet past experience proves that there are some top political figures in the State of Israel who believe that reckless smearing of the other side would serve their interests. This is what David Ben Gurion and his comrades did in the past when they tarnished the "rebels," members of the Irgun and of the Stern Gang, and this is what socialist movement veterans did later on to Menachem Begin when they sought to dub him a fascist. This is also what the Oslo people did to those who objected to their moves, while disgracing the democratic regime. As noted, all of the above may be the result of the sick imagination of a person who has been fed quite a few despicable conspiracy theories created by the leftist camp. However, when we see that everyone involved in the Raviv deception never paid a price for it — while many of those involved are today at the very top of the government pyramid, there is no reason not to suspect that another smear and de-legitimization campaign is being led against Judea and Samaria settlers, ahead of possibly another act of diplomatic folly. Dr. Haim Misgav is a lecturer at the Netanya Academic College 2. On January 22, 1942, The New York Times ran an editorial that rejected the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. The immediate context was the idea of forming a Jewish brigade within the British Army. The Times based its objection, among other things, on the assumption that Jews did not need a state of their own, because once the Allies achieved a victory, they would be citizens with equal rights in their countries of residence, in accordance with the Atlantic Charter signed by the United States and Britain in August 1941. Hopes for a Jewish homeland would be fulfilled, the Times wrote, by "the winning of a new world in which Jews along with other religious and national minorities may live peacefully and happily in every nation, enjoying the full rights of other citizens." 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
|
|
THE TRENDIES OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS TOWARDS ISLAM
Posted by Susana K-M, January 10, 2010. |
|
This was written by William Katz
and is archived on his website
|
|
ANOTHER SURRENDER — Little by little, we are giving up our freedoms to the trendies of political correctness, especially where Islam is concerned. From the New York Post: The Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition area slated to open in 2011, The Post has learned. I know of no similar sensitivity that the Met, a museum with vast national influence, has ever shown toward Christianity or Judaism. Three years ago, the Met changed its "Primitive Art Galleries" to the "Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas" for the sake of political correctness, said author Michael Gross, author of "Rogues' Gallery," a book about the Met. COMMENT: It wasn't too many weeks back when Yale University decided to publish a book about the Danish cartoon controversy, without printing the cartoons. The claim is always that institutions want to show "respect." The reality is fear. Or, just as bad, the reality is that there are large contributions involved. Money talks, and Muslim groups, especially fronted by Saudi Arabia, use large amounts of it to buy influence in the United States and Western Europe. HARRY REID IS IN TROUBLE, TRA-LA, TRA-LA — Look, with that personality, Harry Reid is lucky to be considered alive. But now, facing strong odds against reelection in Nevada this year, Reid is in further political trouble. The Politico reports the damage: Republican leaders called on Harry Reid to step down as Senate majority leader, Sunday, after the Nevada senator apologized for calling Barack Obama as a "light-skinned" African-American who lacked a "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the second ranking Republican in Senate, also pointed to a "double standard" in how Democrats have treated Reid as compared to Lott. It's about time somebody said this. "If he should resign, then Harry Reid should," Kyl said on Fox. "If they apologize and you know what is in their heart, my feeling is they shouldn't but in this case he should." COMMENT: The double standard is a disgrace. Beyond Reid there is the case of Robert Byrd, the "revered" senator from West Virginia, once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, who has made racist comments periodically during his "distinguished" career in the Senate. The political rule is that only Republicans can be racists. Democrats have "bad moments," or "express themselves awkwardly," or, well, you know the drill. And then there is the case of Bill Clinton, quoted in a new book about the 2008 campaign as saying to Ted Kennedy that Barack Obama would have been serving coffee to them not many years before. The comment has not been confirmed by an independent source, but let's see how far the controversy goes. As far as Eleanor Holmes Norton is concerned, she's loyal only to herself. She used to be a player in New York politics, moved to Washington, became the non-voting D.C. rep in Congress, and has melted away. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
OBAMA INCREASES THREAT LEVEL AGAINST ISRAEL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 10, 2010. |
|
It has been reported that American President Barack Hussein Obama has threatened Israel with a cut-off of aid and a cut-off of loan guarantees unless Israel bows to Muslim Arab Palestinian demands — in addition to Saudi demands. This is too reminiscent of the threats by then President George Herbert Walker Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker III, when Yitzhak Shamir was Prime Minister. Bush and Baker threatened to withhold the loan guarantees to help absorb the million or more refugees from the Soviet Union. (Remember that loan guarantees are not gifts of money but, just 'guarantees' enabling Israel to gain funds on loan from banks as somewhat lower rates of interest.) The Bush/Baker plan was to push Shamir out of office because he refused to accept another Muslim Arab Palestinian State within Israel's heartland because Shamir correctly viewed that as too great an existential threat to Israel's survival and sovereignty. In addition, the U.S. President and Arabist State Department wanted an Israeli Prime Minister who would easily bend to U.S. demands that Israel accommodate Yassir Arafat. The U.S. then and now are using threats to force Israel to abandon strategic Land from our ancestral homeland, gifted to the Jewish people in perpetuity by G-d — as well as Jerusalem, our Eternal, Holy Capital. Bush/Baker had selected Yitzhak Rabin as their designated Prime Minister who, along with Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin (all three long known as Labor Party Leftists), gave the U.S. the Oslo Accords. Now it is Obama playing the same game of betrayal and pressure against current Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, not known for his will to resist pressure from Washington Arabists. Today's threat comes through U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, who happens to be Lebanese. There are some reports that Mitchell/Obama are downplaying this "implied" (but stated) threat. However, given Obama's obvious hostility to the Jewish Nation/State and his efforts to bow to and placate the Muslim Terrorist States like Iran and Syria by threatening Israel, it is hard to believe any such denials of threat. Moreover, prior threats to Israel, under both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush to accept the so-called Saudi plan for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 "border" (which were actually the 1948 Armistice Lines) tells a different story. Israel was then (and perhaps now) threatened with a cut-off of aviation fuel, spare parts for aircraft bought from the U.S., technology — despite the innovations Israel had given to the U.S. — for aircraft, armor, artillery and more. Israel was threatened to force her obedience despite the existential risks to her safety, security and sovereignty. It seems that Obama and his advisors — like James Baker III, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, among the other hostiles on his staff, such as Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, wish to promote a complete severence between America and Israel. Presently, Obama is backing away from even minor sanctions of Iran and continues his delaying plans, pushing Israel to make the strike against Iran's Nuclear operations. (If you want to eye-ball the Nuclear R&D sites in Iran, just view National Geographic's August 2008 issue and its excellent map with those sites labeled clearly. A few new ones, formerly 'secret' like at Qom, need to be added.) Iran's nuclear threat would be catastrophic to Israel but, also to the 300,000-500,000 Americans based in the Middle East, Europe, Russia and even America by submarine or plane. Then, when Israel is forced to take out Iran's Nuclear sites, Obama can castigate Israel for whatever retaliation Iran can muster — even to the point of severing relations with Israel, terminating paid for arms shipments and blaming Israel for what Obama should have done — but, he wimped out. I hope it doesn't turn out that Netanyahu is not a co-conspirator in this plan so he can claim he has no choice in evacuating 300,000 Jewish men, women and children from Judea and Samaria, plus 40,000 from the Golan Heights — the Jordan Valley, and 300,000 from Jerusalem. (G-d forbid!) All of these pointless sacrifices of Jewish blood, sweat, savings and tears will only endanger the Jewish Nation/State — both in Israel and world-wide. These have been favorite targets of the radical Leftist, Israel's current Defense Minister Ehud Barak. If I was looking for the fingerprints of Israeli Leftists who deliberately practiced subversion against the Jewish Nation/State, I would check the documentary evidence (computers, emails, phone records, etc.) of Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Yossi Beilin and, lastly PM Netanyahu (who I hope would not be so implicated). Obama needs a battle he can win through pressuring Israel under the false illusion that the Muslim Arabs, be they Palestinians, Fatah, Iranians, Syrians, Saudis, Hezb'Allah or Hamas will never cease assaulting Israel under their mandate of Koranic Law. Obama confirms to the World that Allies had better watch their step when relying upon the promises of Obama to keep even the past treaties they have signed in good faith. On the mystical level, many believe that the rise up of a people with evil motivations in their religion, like the radical Muslim Islamists, is a punishment for what the nations have done to the Jews. If that is a fact, Obama has tracked this filth into his own House and to America who didn't deserve the catastrophes visited upon her innocent citizens. I refer especially to the financial meltdown, the extreme weather, freezing oranges in Florida, earthquake in Eureka, California, tornadoes, hurricanes, swine flu, et al. Perhaps not so strangely, each time American and Europe join Islam in bashing Israel, terrible things happen to their countries: Money goes bad; crops are either frozen or killed by drought; disease becomes rampant, mutating into more virulent forms (and the vaccines have built-in dangers). Perhaps it is all 'coincidental' but I wouldn't bet on it. As Obama plans his attacks on Israel, up crops Yemen as another Afghanistan and Obama doesn't know what to do. Perhaps he can send George Mitchell as an envoy to Yemen to talk-talk-talk to Al Qaeda. 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 |
|
HOW HAVE PORTUGUESE JEWS RETAINED THEIR GENETIC IDENTITY?
Posted by K_hallal, January 10, 2010. |
|
This was written by Cnaan Liphshiz and appeared in
Haaretz
|
|
A genetic analysis of northern Portuguese crypto-Jews recently yielded a mysterious discovery: It exposed an isolated Jewish community that has somehow retained its genetic identity for centuries — while avoiding the inbreeding that usually occurs in such situations. Now scientists are trying to understand how these Jews managed to bypass a condition which worries most small, closed Jewish communities in the world. The new study by researchers from Porto and Coimbra Universities showed that Jews from the (northern) Bragança area are genetically closer to Middle Eastern Jews than to the surrounding Portuguese — even after living there for 500 years. This emerged from an analysis of the Y chromosome, which is passed exclusively from father to son with negligent recombination. This genetic match was observed also in the Jews of Belmonte, a small town situated some 200 kilometers south of Bragança. However, the genetic analysis of Belmonte Jews showed a dramatic drop in genetic diversity, indicative of inbreeding. This is normal for isolated communities, simply because less genetic material is introduced each generation. "All small-sized gene pools tend to lose diversity, but the communities from the Bragança area have succeeded in maintaining a very high diversity, with a relatively small non-Jewish introgression," said Professor Antonio Amorim, a geneticist from the University of Porto who performed the research. The recently published research by Amorim's team of scientists characterized examined the paternal lineages of 57 unrelated males of established Jewish origins from around Bragança. The community there is estimated at a few hundred people at most. A high lineage diversity was found, at both haplotype and haplogroup levels (98.74 and 82.83%, respectively), demonstrating the absence of a strong genetic drift, the research said. It was the first time that the genetic makeup of northern Portuguese Jews had been analyzed. "The results of surprised me," Amorim told Haaretz of his team's study, which appeared a few weeks ago in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. "My surprise is two-fold," he added, referring to both the low level of inbreeding and to the retention of Jewish genes. "These results can only be explained assuming that the effective size of the population is much greater that it would seem at the first sight," Amorim concluded, "and/or that there is a reproductive strategy minimizing the loss of male lineages but not avoiding totally the input of non-Jewish males." The team of researchers said that "a deeper and more detailed investigation is required to clarify how these communities avoided the expected inbreeding caused by over four centuries of religious repression." They are still waiting for the analyses on the maternal lineages, Amorim said. Jews have resided in the rugged and isolated towns around Bragança since 1187, but most settled there after the 1492 Decree of Expulsion from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. Jews were allowed to stay in Portugal if they converted to Christianity, but whole communities continued to practice in secret, becoming crypto-Jews. The people studied in the research belonged to such families. Portugal is currently seeing the turning toward Judaism of thousands of Portuguese who believe they are descended from crypto-Jews. They are assisted by the Jerusalem-based organization Shavei Israel, headed by the U.S.-born Michael Freund. "This study demonstrates the extent to which the Jews of Portugal who were forcibly converted more than five centuries ago sought to preserve their Jewishness down through the generations," he said. "They made heroic efforts to sustain their Jewish identity in secret, and many only married among themselves, as the findings of this study indicate," he said.
|
|
MORE EVIDENCE FOR THE BIBLICAL KINGDOM OF DAVID
Posted by Chuck Brooks, January 10, 2010. | |||
|
This was written by David Hazony and it appeared in
Commentary
| |||
|
Every once in a while, archaeologists in Israel hit pay dirt, undoing years of speculative claims that the key stories in the Bible never happened. For decades, it was claimed that King David never existed — putting into question the pivotal stories of the books of Kings and Chronicles on which a great deal of the biblical narrative turns. But then, in 1992 at Tel Dan, archaeologists uncovered the first clear nonbiblical evidence of David's reign, an explicit reference to the king himself. Now it has happened again. For years, biblical "minimalists," as they are called, have been telling us that most of the Bible had to have been written many centuries after its stories took place. Basing their view mostly on the lack of Hebrew texts being found that date back to the time of David and Solomon, scholars like Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University have insisted that the ancient Israelites back then didn't have the textual skills needed to record the stories of the Bible and that, at best, the texts we now have were written in the 7th or 6th centuries B.C.E., three or four centuries later. But last week, Prof. Gershon Galil of Haifa University revealed what may be the most important discovery in the last decade: he succeeded in deciphering a text dating to the 10th century B.C.E., written in an ancient proto-Canaanite script, discovered near the Elah Valley in Israel 18 months ago. (Click here for a reproduction of the text and analysis.) Employing verb roots that are uniquely Hebrew, the text tells readers to protect the widows and orphans and strangers in their midst — themes immediately familiar from the prophecies of Isaiah and other biblical texts, and mostly absent from any of the neighboring peoples' texts. Judge for yourself: 1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord]. Sound familiar? As Galil puts it, the discovery "indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research." Archaeology is not an exact science, and while books purporting to offer conclusive debunkings of the biblical accounts continue to sell well, they are usually grounded in the absence of evidence supporting the Bible, rather than in any hard evidence contradicting it. Yet as the renowned Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen once said, in archaeology "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." And the evidence that does exist overwhelmingly supports the reality of ancient Israel in the land of Israel very much as described in the biblical books beginning with Joshua. Maybe not everything in the Bible has been proved, but there's more than enough to indicate that it's far from a string of myths about a fanciful kingdom that never existed. For more than a century and a half, new "scientific" proofs of the falsehood of the Bible have been the surest way to establish yourself in the inner circles of academic fashion. Yet in most cases, these proofs unravel with the continued work of archaeologists, whether at Tel Dan in 1992, or in the discovery of King David's Palace in the City of David in the early 2000s (full disclosure: I was at the time the editor of a journal published by the Shalem Center, which also sponsored that dig), or in the Elah Valley this week. None of this proves that one has to accept the Bible's authority as a source of faith or morals. But it does suggest that efforts to use science as a bludgeon against religion are not really working. Contact Chuck Brooks at chetz18@aol.com |
|
EARLIEST HEBREW WRITING FOUND AND ASSESSED; B'TSELEM GIVES
VIDEOCAMERAS TO GAZA YOUTH
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 10, 2010. |
|
EARLIEST HEBREW WRITING FOUND AND ASSESSED Scholars have deciphered a shard found south of Jerusalem and west of Hebron. Analysis showed it was in Hebrew and not another Semitic language. It was written three thousand years ago, in the period of King David, hundreds of years before Hebrew was thought to have taken written form. The wording and the provincial town's fortification are impressive, indicating a mature society in the center. This means that the Bible might have been written earlier than believed and that the Jewish kingdom is more ancient than had been supposed. The text was not copied from the Bible, but it had similar discussions about the royal duty to take care of widows and orphans www.imra.org.il, 1/8). B'TSELEM GIVES VIDEOCAMERAS TO GAZA YOUTH B'Tselem, which purports to be a civil rights organization in Israel, distributed video cameras to Arab youth in Gaza. Many of them are studying journalism. What did they film? Here are two examples. 1. Arab children calling themselves suffering pioneers of Palestine, and omitting reference to the children of southern Israel, who were injured by Hamas rockets. [Is that the normal way those children speak? Or were they directed?] 2. A film on tunnel youth ignore the use of tunnels for smuggling Iranian weapons from Egypt to Hamas "The absence of any images of the effects of Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli victims emphasizes the politicization of human rights in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and B'Tselem's role in this." What did they not film? Instances of Hamas oppression of Arabs — they wouldn't dare — and instances of Israelis abusing them — too rare to find. B'Tselem's one-sided, pro-Arab view of the Arab-Israel conflict fosters terrorism and oppression. Genuine civil rights organization and backers do not do that.) GHAJAR, LEBANON-ISRAEL BORDER-STRADDLING VILLAGE: UPDATE Lebanon refuses to make any security arrangements that would enable the IDF to withdraw from the Lebanese half of the village of Ghajar, without concern that Hizbullah would return to it and try to infiltrate into Israel. Accordingly, Israel has been trying to negotiate arrangements with UNIFIL (www.imra.org.il, 1/7). UNIFIL is here today, gone tomorrow, and a weak presence today it is. It let Hizbullah build a war machine. The blame is multiple: Hizbullah violated the ceasefire; Lebanon collaborated with it; the UN gave UNIFIL insufficient authority; Israeli PM Olmert and Foreign Min. Livni approved the predictably counter-productive UN ceasefire that they nevertheless laud as a success. What is Netanyahu's excuse for continuing to rely upon UNIFIL? 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:
|
|
STAKING ISRAEL'S CLAIM TO JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Posted by Ted Belman, January 10, 2010. |
|
This is entitled "Israel's Right in the 'Disputed' Territories" and was written by Danny Ayalon, the deputy foreign minister of Israel. It appeared in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). This is the first time in living memory (OK I exaggerate but not by much) that a Minister of the Israeli government reasserted out right to Judea and Samaria and in the WSJ no less. BRAVO. |
|
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. [This is because, according to the Geneva Convention, a country can only "occupy" a land of another country. And the world's opinion is based solely on that Convention.] 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." 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. Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
|
MR. PRIME MINISTER, MAKE YOUR DECISION...
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, January 10, 2010. |
| Meantime, Iran is getting closer than ever to becoming a nuclear
power — with Israel as its primary target — and openly stated as such.
When folks repeatedly and openly speak in terms of another final
solution, Jews (many, at least) take them very seriously.
What especially complicates matters is that if Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs think they're going to collapse via an internal revolt and they have become a nuclear power — or even if they "just" have numerous biologically and chemically-tipped missiles (which they surely have...those other weapons of mass destruction that Iraqi Arabs already used on Kurds and probably also on Iranians during their war primarily over Iran's Khuzestan/"Arabistan" province's oil in the '80s) — they will very likely launch their strike against Israel before they collapse to help bring about their deeply rooted Shi'a belief that the chaos that will next ensue will, at long last (after the massive Israeli retaliation, and so forth), bring their Hidden Imam — the Mahdi — out of hiding, ushering in their own version of the Christian Armeggedon (from the Hebrew, Har Megiddo) and the return of their own Shi'a Messiah. Now, Iran is a big country with about 73 million people. Geographically, about seventy-five Israels would fit into Iran, and the former's population is about one tenth of the latter's. The Mullahs have already shown they are willing to sacrifice millions of their own people for their cause — as displayed when young boys were used as living mine detectors and such in fighting Saddam's then Sunni Arab-controlled Iraq. Waiting, thus, is far more dangerous for Israel than many other folks realize or give a hoot about. Some — myself, for example — could make a good argument showing that Israel has already grossly endangered itself by caving in to outside pressure to not striking earlier while the targeting would have been easier, etc., and so forth. While no one wants to see innocents on either side die as a result of the Mullahs' deadly, genocidal games, Israel can't afford to take a first hit for both geographic and demographic reasons described above. Iran will survive a retaliation by the Jewish State — especially because the latter (unlike all of its Arab and Iranian enemies) will try its very best to zero in on military and political targets. On the other hand, Iran will try its very best to destroy the entire Jewish State and will primarily and deliberately target Jewish population centers...as their Arab soul mates — when it comes to this subject, at least — do. Alright, my friends. Each of you is now the Prime Minister of Israel. Recall that in 1938, Czechoslovakia was sold out in Munich by its "friends" for an alleged "peace for our time." The world was soon at war anyway, because Hitler had his sights set far beyond the Czechs' Sudetenland. Given all of this, Mr. Prime Minister, now decide on your
course of action for your own sole, resurrected nation — one which requires a magnifying glass to find it on a world globe.
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. His recent book is entitled "The Quest
for Justice: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Greater Perspective" (See
http://q4j-middle-east.com).
Contact him at honigman6@msn.com or go to
his website: http://geraldahonigman.com/blog.php
|
|
OUTRIGHT STUPIDITY
Posted by Susana K-M, January 9, 2010. |
|
This was written by William Katz
and is archived on his website: |
|
THE FORGOTTEN STORY — With all our focus on terror, we've pushed aside a story that is even larger, essentially the collapse of our Iran policy. The New Year's deadline for Iran to show progress in negotiating its nuclear program has come and gone, with no punishment, and Washington is now talking of softer, "targeted" sanctions, rather than the "crippling sanctions" that were all the rage only a month ago. Iran has noticed: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed continued defiance to the threat of further sanctions on his country on Saturday, saying the Islamic Republic will not be deterred from pursuing its nuclear program. Iran even escalated its demands: Meanwhile, in an announcement seemingly in line with his confrontational attitude towards Western nations, the hardline president has ordered the formation of a team to study the damages the country suffered from the 1941 Allied invasion in order to demand compensation. And... Ahmadinejad also warned that Iran may also demand compensation for the damages it suffered during World War I, the Western support for the former Pahlavi Dynasty and its hostility towards Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. COMMENT: We're being laughed at. This is what Obama gets for his naive "outreach" policy. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
THE CHURCH FIGHTS BACK AGAINST ISLAMIFICATION
Posted by Boris Celser, January 9, 2010. |
|
This was written by Damian
Thompson and it is archived at
Lord Carey's brave call to limit immigration is a timely defence of Christian values, says Damian Thompson. |
|
We have had to wait decades for this moment, but it has finally happened. A leading British clergyman has said something sensible about immigration. Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, this week signed a declaration by the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration calling for an urgent tightening of borders to stop the British population reaching 70 million by 2029. He also gave an interview yesterday in which he called for a tougher Church. "We Christians are very often so soft that we allow other people to walk over us, and we are not as tough in what we want, in expressing our beliefs, because we do not want to upset other people," he said. Tougher church ... people walking all over us ... controls on immigration: it really is not all that difficult to join the dots. Later in the interview, Lord Carey almost joined them for us, suggesting that there might be a "points system" based on respect for Britain's Christian heritage. Some of Lord Carey's critics will accuse him of blowing a dog whistle to racists. That is nonsense. Lord Carey is a veteran anti-racist: he enjoys the sort of following among African evangelicals that Bill Clinton did among black Americans. But if Lord Carey were accused of whistling to Christians worried by the prospect of millions of dogmatic Muslims in Britain, then he would find it difficult to rebut the charge. Politicised Islam is at the forefront of his mind: he knows that Britain's evangelical Christians are fed up with being told to develop ever closer ties with their Muslim neighbours. These evangelicals see Muslim communities that are increasingly hard to distinguish from ghettos; whose young men are sympathetic towards Islamist insurgents; and whose elders enforce a Sharia law that bullies young British Muslim women at home and persecutes Christians abroad. (Nothing, not even the issue of homosexuality, has done more to damage the authority of Dr Rowan Williams in the conservative provinces of the Anglican Communion than his idiotic equivocation on British Sharia.) Britain's black and Asian Christian leaders will support Lord Carey in this controversy; many of them have seen Islamism at work in their home countries. Only one Church of England bishop has resigned his see in protest at Church leaders' feebleness in the face of Islamism, and he is an immigrant: Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester. In contrast, the rest of the hierarchy, together with all the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales, still adhere to the old orthodoxy that immigration is by definition a glorious blessing because it "enriches" our culture. In Europe, however, many Catholic bishops never really subscribed to that orthodoxy in the first place, and now they are talking openly about the coming "Islamification" of Europe. Yesterday, just as Lord Carey was issuing his own warning, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the Archbishop of Prague, marked his retirement with a melodramatic prophecy. "Unless the Christians wake up, life may be Islamised and Christianity will not have the strength to imprint its character on the life of people, not to say society," he said. The Cardinal is right, but only up to a point. The Islamification of parts of Europe is indeed under way. As Christopher Caldwell says in his book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, Muslims "vie for dominance" in Rotterdam, Strasbourg, Marseilles, suburbs of Paris and Berlin, Bradford, Leicester, the periphery of Manchester and east London. Where Cardinal Vlk displays naiveté is in his proposed remedy: he is optimistic that the Church can persuade the West to reject the empty secularism that has created a Europe-wide vacuum filled by people of another faith. The message that "secularism" is the real enemy of Christianity is parroted by liberal bishops everywhere. Although they may be horrified by Cardinal Vlk's talk of Islamification, they share his belief that the essential division in the world is between "people of faith" and rootless materialists. Pope John Paul II also subscribed to that world-view. But Pope Benedict XVI, significantly, does not. Benedict wants to convince secular-minded people that, in an odd way, they are already part of the Christian flock, because many of their ideals are rooted in the ethics of Christianity. In other words, the Church's respect for the dignity of the human person is broadly shared by those secular intellectuals committed to a free society. The Pope recognises this, which is why he has spent so much time talking to them; so does Bishop Nazir-Ali, whose friends include atheist thinkers whose respect for the West's Christian heritage is far greater than that of Muslim community leaders or their multiculturalist allies. In the long term, the future of Western civilisation can be secured only by an alliance between Christians and secularists against the totalitarian ideology of Islamism. That is a strange prospect; and even more uncomfortable is the realisation that Christianity's survival as a mass movement may depend on something as prosaic as immigration control. But that is surely what Lord Carey is hinting at, and it is brave of him to do so. Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
|
CAN ABU BARACK AL OBA MAO OR ANY MUSLIM EVER BE GOOD AMERICANS
Posted by Cpocerl, January 9, 2010. |
|
This was written by Aaron Breitbart
|
|
Charles is right on, no Muslim or Obama can ever be good Americans? Theologically — NO! Because: their allegiance is to Allah, the Moon God of Arabia, is their pagan god. Religiously — NO! Because: no other religion or belief is accepted or tolerated in their world but Islam. Obama's own gaffe, he stated he is a Muslim on TV, is undeniable on ABC, G. Stephanopoulos, Sept. 6, 2008. Scripturally — NO! Because: their allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam as the Koran states. Obama's own gaffe stated there are 57 states, (as the Koran states 57 times) on TV, is undeniable. Geographically — NO! Because: their allegiance is to Mecca (Arabia), to which they turn to in prayer five times a day, they must return to, and "god damn America" as Obama's spiritual leader Rev. J. Wright stated, is undeniable, "Doing black theology in the black church". Socially — NO! Because: their allegiance to Islam, and forbids them to make real (true) friendships with Christians, Jews or any infidel (non-Muslim) republican or demoncrat, only to Obama's czars. Politically — NO! Because: they must submit to the mullahs (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and the destruction of America, who state the great satan (America) must be destroyed, Obama's spiritual leader Rev. Wright stated many times (god damn America), as Obama is doing financially. Domestically — NO! Because: they are instructed, it's ok to marry up to four women and beat and scourge (mark) their wife or wives if they disobey them. Obama is the great black half white divider deliberately destroying America. Constitutionally — NO! Because: they cannot accept the American Constitution, since it is based on Biblical principles and they believe the Bible to be corrupted by infidels, and Obama can't prove any ligitimate birth right to hold office. Philosophically — NO! Because: Islam, Muhammad, and the Koran do not allow freedom of religion and expression, Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist, and every Muslim nation or government is either dictatorial (leaders) or by autocratic (religious mullah leaders) just like Obama's appointed czars. Spiritually — NO! Because: when Americans declare "one nation under God," the Christian God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as our heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Koran's 99 excellent names, Obama will admit to that, egotistically, "America is not christian nation", Obama said it, undeniable. Honestly — NO! Because: the Koran states its ok to cheat, lie to and kill anyone (infidels) who are not Muslim, just like Obama does. Truthfully — NO! Because: Islam (Muslims) and Christianity are diametrically opposed to one another. Just ask any Sunni or Shiite living or dead (lol). Like Islam is a religion of peace, as is Obama's a form of government for We the People. Sexually — NO! Because: pedophilia is allowed by Islam, after all it was Muhammad's (9) nine year old bride who eventually poisoned him. Just like Obama had killed his bl*w jobber driver man in Chicago. Intellectually- NO! Because: Islam only believes in Islam, nothing else matters or is tolerated, just like Obama's health care plan says, "take the pills" and die (infidels) Obama said to America. Therefore consider and deliberate; perhaps America should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country, for obviously they cannot be "good" Muslims and "good" Americans at the same time, can they or he. Be that on a plane a voting booth, their pulpit shouting "god damn America" or sitting there agreeing. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
HUNDREDS OF AL QAEDA & ISLAMIC JIHADI MEMBERS ARE FLEEING YEMEN AND AFGHANISTAN TO LEBANON
Posted by Elias Bejjani, January 9, 2010. |
|
This was written by Hamid Ghoriafi, Middle East Analyst & Journalist and it was published on 09/01/10 by the Kuwaiti Daily Al-Seyassah. It was translated from the Arabic by Elias Bejjani, LCCC Chairman |
|
Egyptian and Jordanian security sources warned yesterday that Hezbollah, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (general command), Fatah Al Intifada and other radical Palestinian organizations have opened their centers inside and outside the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to host hundreds of Al Qaeda and Islamic jihadi fighters who have been massively fleeing from Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and other countries since last December. This flow of jihadists to Lebanon came as a result of the two concentrated international military campaigns on the Afghanistan — Pakistan boarders, against Al Qaeda, and the Taliban and Salafist groups, and in Yemen against the Houthis, Al Qaeda and other pro-Iranian radical groups including Hezbollah. All these terrorist organizations are losing ground and retreating on both frontiers. It is believed that Al Qaeda leadership has been forced to move hundreds of its fighters and those of its allies out of Afghanistan and Yemen to Somalia, Sudan and Lebanon. The Iranians are playing a major role in facilitating Al Qaeda's members escape through their strong ties with these three countries. Iran which is allied with Al Qaeda and others Salafist Islamic radical groups, is militarily engaged on four war frontiers: 1- In Lebanon and Gaza, against Israel through its militant proxy, Hezbollah, from Lebanon and the Hamas movement from Gaza; It was revealed by high ranking Egyptian intelligence sources that the flow of these terrorist groups to Lebanon under the leadership of Al Qaeda has increased dramatically during the past three weeks. Syria is facilitating the safe and easy entrance of these terrorists through its borders with Lebanon. A few days ago, Iran deported to Syria one of Osama bin Laden's sons with a number of his relatives and family members at their own request. Reports from Syria stated that these members have settled in the city of Aleppo, the birthplace of one of Bin Laden's wives. Meanwhile, reliable sources in Germany have mentioned that many of the Al Qaeda fighters and leaders who could not take refuge in Pakistan with Bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahiri and other top notch Al Qaeda leaders in the aftermath of the Western war on Afghanistan at the beginning of the third millennium, were given a safe sanctuary in Iran. The sources said that the Iranian authorities have recently arranged the transfer of all these people to Syria. Jordanian intelligence sources in Beirut notified Lebanese security bodies that many leaders of these terrorists who illegally entered Lebanon through Syria were immediately received and accommodated by Hezbollah and Hamas in rented apartments and houses located in different parts of western Beirut, southern Beirut suburbs inside the Hezbollah mini-state, numerous southern Shiite villages north of the Litany River, Sidon, and Tyre, as well as in Ain el-Hilweh, Mieh, Mieh, and Rashidieh Palestinian refugee camps. The sources added that the Iranian embassy in Beirut is directly supervising the housing, financing and safety of these terrorist infiltrators. The Lebanese Al-Nahar and the Israeli Ha'aretz newspapers affirmed on Thursday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's foreign policy and security advisor, Christoph Heusgen, has reportedly informed Lebanese officials about the infiltration of terrorists from Arab countries into Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. An Nahar daily said Friday that Heusgen told the officials during his visit to Beirut about the necessity to monitor activity inside and outside the camps and the areas surrounding Beirut airport. Heusgen also expressed his government's readiness to provide the necessary monitoring equipment, according to the newspaper. The Egyptian intelligence said that a number of Al Qaeda leaders and other Salafi movements (some were Negroid) travelled to Lebanon on flights that took off from Cyprus, Arabian Gulf Emirates and African countries. They entered through the Beirut Air port with forged Arabic and foreign passports. Those who infiltrated through the Syrian borders were escorted and protected by Syrian intelligence officers and Hezbollah men. The same source added that hundred of these terrorists are already in Lebanon and many others are still pouring in. In the same context and according to European reports, the information that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's foreign policy and security advisor, Christoph Heusgen, has conveyed to the Lebanese officials on Thursday, was also provided by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel to her allies in the European Union, the USA and Israel 10 days ago. The leadership of the United Nations International Forces (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon was also made aware of these reports. It responded with strict security measures fearing that the terrorists might target its units. Meanwhile, Israel has intensified its AWACS, warplane and drone flight surveillance over Lebanon and increased troop numbers on her borders with Lebanon in a bid to abort any terrorist infiltration attempts. European reports quoted Israel defense experts saying that Al Qaeda groups have arrived at Hezbollah, Ahmad Jibril and Abu Mousa military bases and that the Lebanese security authorities have absolutely no control over them. In summary, all these events that are dramatically unfolding could lead to a rapid and dangerous deterioration of the fragile relatively tranquil status between Lebanon and Israel, and possibly also between Syria and Israel. The imminent war that has been on the horizon for a few months is becoming more and more an actual possibility. Elias Bejjani is a Canadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist,
journalist and political commentator. Email him at
phoenicia@hotmail.com and visit his websites:
|
|
IDF LETS PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY FORCES OPERATE AT NIGHT; ISRAEL DEPLOYING IRON DOME ANTI-MISSILE DEFENSE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 9, 2010. |
|
IDF LETS PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY FORCES OPERATE AT NIGHT The IDF now lets Palestinian Authority forces operate in their cities at night, without IDF permission. The IDF reserves the right to make exceptions. The motive for the change is to that the P.A. forces are not seen as agents of Israel. The P.A. arrests Hamas men but not members of other terrorist organizations (www.imra.org.il, 1/6). To clarify, the IDF had complained that the P.A. police did little against terrorism, so the IDF had to raid terrorists, itself. The IDF did it mostiy it night. It did not want P.A. forces nearby, because those forces opened fire on IDF troops. Hence it often ordered the P.A. police not to operate at night. PALESTINIAN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS CONDEMNS HAMAS PERSECUTION OF FATAH The Palestinian Center for Human Rights condemns Hamas for persecuting Fatah. At the end of December, people were celebrating Fatah's 45th anniversary. Hamas arrested dozens of Fatah members, and beat and tortured some of them (www.imra.org.il, 1/6). Arafat would have deplored it, too. He would say it is Fatah's place to arrest Hamas members. So far, no word from the UN. So long as Israel is not harming the Arabs, no outsiders seem to care about harming of Arabs, when by Arabs. TERRORIST TRIALS IN NEW YORK CIVILIAN COURTS TO COST A FORTUNE Trying terrorists in civilian courts in New York City will cost $200 million a year, said Mayor Bloomberg, because of the security precautions needed (Wall St. Journal, 1/7, A8). Remember when Obama's Attorney-General denied that the process would be expensive? Heaven help my city if the U.S. decides to try more terrorists here! Actually, in later news, the Mayor has asked the federal government to pay the additional cost. ISRAEL DEPLOYING IRON DOME ANTI-MISSILE DEFENSE On time, Israel has developed the Iron Dome anti-missile system, and is ready to deploy it. It is meant to handle short-range artillery and rockets. Other systems are for longer-range missiles (www.imra.org.il, 1/6). An earlier article explained that it was a poor system of defense compared with its rival, but was the more remunerative for certain influential people. 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:
|
|
ISLAMIC CHRISTIANOPHOBIA
Posted by Sanne DeWitt, January 8, 2010. |
|
This was an Editorial in Wall Street Journal Europe. |
|
In Egypt, seven Coptic Christians were murdered Wednesday by a Muslim gunman as they filed out of a midnight mass in Nag Hamadi. In Pakistan, more than 100 Christian homes were ransacked by a Muslim mob last July in Bahmaniwala. In Iraq that same month, seven Christian churches were bombed in Baghdad and Mosul in the space of three days. Such atrocities — and there are scores of other examples — are grim reminders that when it comes to persecution, few groups have suffered as grievously as Christians in Muslim lands. Little wonder, then, that once-thriving Christian communities in the Muslim world have now largely voted with their feet by fleeing to safer havens, often in Europe or the U.S. That's true even in Bethlehem where the Christian majority has largely fled since the arrival in the 1990s of Yasser Arafat's repressive government and the ascendancy of Islamist groups such as Hamas. By contrast, Christians practice their religion freely and openly in Israel, just a few miles distant. Attention seems endlessly focused on "Islamophobia," but the West's tolerance for its large Muslim populations stands in sharp contrast to the Muslim world's bigotry and persecution of its own religious minorities. Contact Sanne DeWitt by email at skdewitt@comcast.net. |
|
DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS VISAS CONTINUE TO INCREASE FROM ISLAMIC TERROR SPONSORING NATIONS
Posted by Cpocerl, January 8, 2010. |
|
This is from the Atlas Shrugs
website
|
|
I have been documenting the increase of outrageous and dangerous "diversity" and "religious" visas. Back in June 2009: "Diversity Visa Numbers: Importing Jihad In The Tens Of Thousands" and April 2009: "Diversity Visas" and "Religious Visas: Importing Jihad," I reported the advancement of this importation of jihad. Below I show the employment, diversity, all types of immigrant visas for January 2010. Nigeria and Egypt (Gaza) among the largest ones. Obama wasted no time in opening up the visa regulations when he took office last year, beginning with "religious visas." Before, whoever wanted to enter as a supposed 'missionary' needed to demonstrate his/her affiliation with a religious institution for at least two years. Obama changed it to almost no proof at all. "Missionary" Christians come and go, and priests, pastors, nuns, ministers have used this visa, but their number is so low that it is insignificant. The Jews also use this type of visa, but it is the same as the Christians. The numbers are low, and, as with the Christians, generally those folks use a tourist visa. It is predominately Muslims who use the "religious visa". And that number is quite high. Many countries such as Pakistan or territories such as Palestine use this type of visa, because it has been harder for them to get a regular visa (though that is no longer true for the Palestinians). But because most Muslims can't really provide or do not want to provide the information of a specific mosque they've attended or they've "preached" at, they complained — and now DOS has granted their wish of waiving the 2-year proof requirement. Bottom line, this yet another type of visa they are using, and this change helps them enormously. Another type of visa that is dangerous and is an IV (Immigrant Visa), is what is called a "Diversity" visa — a class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants." Diversity Visas (DV) each fiscal year are made available to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The annual DV program makes visas available to persons meeting the simple eligibility requirements. A computer-generated, random lottery drawing chooses selectees for diversity visas. The visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration. Just to give you an idea of the impact of these changes on regions rife with jihad, look at the numbers. And don't be fooled by Europe's number — diversity means we are importing Europe's Pakistanis, Moroccans, Algerians, etc., and we know how well they have integrated into those societies. New numbers show a dramatic increase. And remember Egypt includes Gaza and Ethiopia includes Somalis ... thats how they hide those numbers. Egypt 12,300 this program must END.
|
|
MEETING ONE'S MP IN THE UK FOR A DISCUSSION
Posted by Boris Celser, January 8, 2010. |
|
He was so busy toeing the Government line he tied himself in knots. He said how could I say we weren't winning the war in Afghanistan — there were no Taliban there any more. I said oh really — who was blowing up our soldiers, then? He said insurgents. I said yes — Taliban. He said no. I said Ok so it's all right if insurgents blow our troops up but not Taliban? No answer He said the government was winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslims in this country, by reaching out to moderate Muslims so they can turn the extremists around. I asked him did he know anything about Islam? Muslims are not allowed to go against other Muslims. He said I was exaggerating the danger we face from extremists, because the policy was working. I said was that why so many extremists were recruiting on our University campuses? And why the security forces have God knows how many separate plots to investigate? I said to British people, one person killed by Muslim extremists is one too many, and the fact that British people are increasingly stopped from voicing their anger at the way the government cares more about Muslims' human rights than the indigenous population's was causing resentment. He agreed with me that some Muslims known to have extreme views should be locked up. I said then why don't you do it? He said because we're a democracy. I said OK — so it's fine that Islamists can walk through London saying Death to the Jews and supporting Hizbullah and nothing is done, but when relatives and friends of the soldiers from Luton who marched through their town and were insulted by Muslims — a banned group of Islamists — they were told to move on or they'd be arrested. Did he consider the government was on top of the situation when an extremist Islamic group which had been banned was allowed to openly insult British soldiers? He tried to say we have to adopt a fluid approach. I said what a load of tosh. He said I shouldn't want people locked up just because they said things I don't like. I said that's not the case — I want Islamic extremists locked up before they kill me. They can say what they like - as long as I as a British citizen who incidentally, helped vote his government into power, can say what I like without being called racist and prosecuted. He said there are ways to campaign to have laws changed. I said true — but by the time they were changed how many atrocities could be committed, and how much of Britain would be taken over by Islamists? He said I was being extreme. I said OK. He said human rights was an issue. I said whose human rights? He said you can't mean to sit there and tell me you're afraid to walk down the street. I said could he guarantee there would not be a time in the future, given the way things are going here and in Europe - that I wouldn't be afraid to do it? No answer. So, there it is. I left soon after. God help us all Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
|
STANDWITHUS-ISRAEL OPENS FIRST-TIME PHOTO EXHIBIT IN HARBIN CHINA JANUARY 6-10
Posted by Jen Kutner, January 8, 2010. |
|
To Coincide With The Ice And Snow Festival Grand Opening With Dignitaries And A Week Of Lectures And Meetings |
|
(Jerusalem, Israel) — For the first time, Israel is being represented in Harbin, China as a StandWithUs student delegation showcases Israel in a special photography exhibit entitled "Inside Israel" during the city's world-famous International Ice and Snow Festival from January 6-10. The week includes lectures, speakers and meetings with Harbin's universities and dignitaries. StandWithUs is a non-profit, international Israel education organization with chapters throughout the United States, Israel and the UK. (http://www.standwithus.com) 
On January 6 in a traditional rope cutting ceremony and in front of international media, Harbin's governor officially opened the exhibit at the Harbin Jewish "New Synagogue" to a multitude of visitors. Israel's Ambassador to China, HE Amos Nidai expressed gratitude to the people of Harbin for creating a safe haven for Jews feeing persecution in Eastern Europe to create a vibrant social, economic and cultural life in Harbin. Yuli Edelstein, Israeli Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs video taped a message. 
The historic event was attended by government ministers, an official from the University of Heilongjiang and Iris Elhanani, curator of the exhibition. The StandWithUs delegation comprised Michael Dickson, director of the SWU Israel office, Jonnie Schnytzer, regional executive of StandWithUs in charge of the Haifa/Technion and Bar Ilan campuses and student graduates of SWUI Fellowship from Bar-Ilan university Anna Ben Ezra, Roei Duani and Shmuel Junger. The 'New Synagogue' was built in 1921 and now renovated it was once the largest synagogue in Northeast China, which used to accommodate 800 congregants. It now houses a museum on the Jews of Harbin. Attendees — as well as all visitors to the exhibit — receive StandWithUs educational materials which were translated into Chinese. These include the its signature primer, "Israel 101," and booklets describing Israel's environmental, technological innovations and its diversity. The SWU delegation is also distributing Ahava beauty products and materials promoting the Dead Sea, which is currently short-listed in a competition to find the new seven wonders of the world. "Inside Israel" was assembled by curator Iris Elhanani in partnership with the Israel Asia Center and includes 50 photographs by 30 of Israel's leading artists and showcases Judaism, and modern Israel's landscapes and natural beauty, lifestyles, ethnic groups, and architecture. (http://www.israelasiacenter.org/). Stated Minister Edelstein in his taped message, ""I am sure visitors will enjoy these views of Israel and meeting with the young Israelis who are representing our country For me, it is a sign of the close ties between the people of Israel and the people of China. Our cooperation is that of two countries rich in history with cultural traditions that go back thousands of years. It is no less important that the exhibition takes place in Harbin, once the residence of the largest Jewish community in the Far East." On Thursday, the Israeli students gave lectures to students and faculty members from Heilongjiang University and discussed increasing exchange links with the university administration. They also paid their respect at the Jewish Cemetery in Harbin. The Bar-Ilan University students conceived the idea of the China exhibit as StandWithUs-Israel Fellows in the year-long StandWithUs Fellowship program that annually identifies and trains 150 student leaders from six Israeli universities to be effective global representatives for Israel. (www.standwithus.co.il) "We believe that the presence of these impressive future leaders and photos at such a well-attended event will introduce a large population to Israel, and will enhance Israel's standing in China," stated Michael Dickson, Director of the StandWithUs Israel office who is accompanying the delegation. The idea for the exhibition developed when the 150 StandWithUs Israel Fellows of 2009 were challenged to pitch projects for educating the world about Israel. "There were 150 ideas, but eventually we whittled them down to 3, and our campus chose the China exhibition. We felt that relations between Israel and China are vital, and that this project would be a way for thousands of Chinese people to see Israel through our eyes," explained Jonnie Schyntzer, an Australian-born Bar-Ilan University student who has lived in Israel for many years and is now a StandWithUs-Israel regional coordinator. Qu Wei, President of the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences invited the StandWithUs-Israel delegation, which was co-sponsored by the Foundation Tamar. The Student Delegates 
Anna Ben Ezra, with a BA in English Linguistics and an MA in International Affairs, speaks Russian, English, and Hebrew. Her studies have focused on how Judaism is viewed in the world, and Chinese culture. She has met with many academic delegations from China. Roei Duani, with an MA in Communications and International Affairs, is currently an apprentice at one of Israel's leading news companies. He has trained many elite units in Israel and around the world in various forms of combat. Shmuel Junger is working on a joint degree in education and law. He is currently head of a unique leadership program at the "Eli" Yeshiva. Jonnie Schnytzer, regional executive of StandWithUs in charge of the Haifa/Technion and Bar Ilan campuses, was an Israel Fellow last year and represented the organization at the 2009 AIPAC Convention. He is currently writing an MA thesis on Israeli sports culture and success. He has ties with influential Chinese academics, artists, and businessmen. Michael Dickson, StandWithUs-Israel/International Director, will lead the delegation. Michael is the leader of an international team at the StandWithUs office in Jerusalem that produces pioneering Israel education initiatives, hosts delegations of prominent foreigners, runs Israel's Fellowship program, and works with thousands of students from all over the world. Michael regularly lectures, writes, and broadcasts on Israel and public diplomacy. StandWithUs StandWithUs, an international, non-profit Israel education organization, ensures that Israel's side of the story is told in communities, campuses, libraries, the media and schools through brochures, speakers, conferences, missions to and from Israel, and thousands of pages of Internet resources that are distributed globally. Based in Los Angeles, the organization has offices across the
U.S. and in Israel and the UK. SWU was founded in 2001 in response to
the public's need and desire for more information about the
Arab-Israeli conflict. StandWithUsCampus helps college students
challenge anti-Israel bias.
StandWithUs Fellowship Program The StandWithUs Fellowship is the flagship program in Israel. It brings together 150 of Israel's elite students each year, selected from a pool of over 1,500 applications. The prestigious program trains these outstanding students from six major Israeli universities to be effective global ambassadors for Israel and prepares them to assume leadership roles in Israeli society. The Fellows' training includes debating skills, running campaigns and building coalitions along with a deep understanding of the media, with the goal of equipping them to share a positive image of Israel globally. More information about StandWithUs: We run several websites with relevant information:
Contact Jen Kutner by email at jenkutner@aol.com
|
|
ISRAELI SECURITY REQUIREMENTS AND INTER-ARAB VIOLENCE
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, January 8, 2010. |
|
1. Galal Nasser, a prominent columnist in Egypt's Al Aharam Weekly, Dec. 23, 2009: "Violence has become the norm in Arab life, both on official and non-official levels...There are many types of violence besetting the domestic scenes of Arab countries, making relations among them unpredictable and unstable...It can take the form of insurgency by political groups and attempts by the regime to suppress the opposition... "Sectarian violence breaks out sporadically, engulfing parts of Arab countries and sometimes an entire state. Lebanon and Iraq are cases in point. And, don't forget Yemen, where a fifth civil war is underway between the government and the Al-Huthi clan. Other conflicts relate to ethnic, nationalist or secessionist issues... Many countries have fallen into the inferno of such conflicts. Somalia may be an extreme case. But in Iraq, Sudan and Yemen, governments are having a hard time keeping their countries together... 2. An Israeli withdrawal from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (the most effective tank obstacle in the region, overtowering Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the 9-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean) would ignore the intense, volatile and unpredictable 1,400 year old inter-Arab violence and its implications for the security requirements of the "infidel" Jewish State. 3. According to Egypt's Galal Nassar, "Jihadist groups are bent on fighting particular states as well as rival groups, Al-Qaeda being the obvious example... Some analysts speculate about a culture of violence and argue that its roots are embedded in religious texts that call for Jihad, that urge the faithful to wage a perpetual fight for virtue and against sinfulness... "Neighborliness doesn't seem to count for much either. There are many instances of strained relations among Arab countries. Currently, tensions exist between Morocco and Algeria, Libya and Tunisia, Jordan and Palestine, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq... 4. According to Dr. Marwan Kabalan (Persian Gulf News, Dec. 18, 2009): "Six decades ago, immediately after the departure of the colonial powers, the Arab world had big and ambitious dreams: unity, development, equality, prosperity and a reasonable degree of economic independence. Sixty years on, one is tempted to ask if the Arab world has really realized any of these objectives and whether they were realistic and achievable in the first place... 5. Due-diligence of the 1,400 year track record of inter-Arab violence, behooves the Jewish State to maintain a Middle East-driven (and not wishful-thinking-driven) threshold of security. Israel's defensible borders and Israel's agreements concluded with Arab leaders must withstand the implications of potential highly probable and violent abrogation and inter-Arab regime-change. Israel's security requirements must be the derivative of the 1,400 year old inter-Arab reality: No inter-Arab comprehensive peace, no inter-Arab compliance with most inter-Arab agreements, no inter-Arab ratification of all inter-Arab borders and no Arab democracy! Hence, the security indispensability of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria — the Cradle of Jewish history — for the survival of the Jewish State. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il |
|
A GIANT STEP IT THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Posted by David Wilder, January 8, 2010. |
|
Please pray for Rabbi Shneur Zalman ben Dvarusha, critically injured in an auto accident |
|
Yesterday Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon visited Hebron, together with MK Anastassia Michaeli, both of the Yisrael Beitenu party. Ayalon works together with party head Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The visitors, together with an entourage that included senior members of the foreign ministry and Hebron leaders, toured Hebron, including Tel Rumeida, Beit Hadassah, the Avraham Avinu synagogue and neighborhood, and of course Ma'arat HaMachpela. Before leaving they participated in a festive lunch which included final summaries of various activities common to Hebron's Jewish community and the Foreign ministry Speaking to the Deputy Foreign Minister after he arrived, I told him that I'd been waiting decades for people like him to work in positions of responsibility in the Foreign office. Just a week ago he wrote an Op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal dealing with the difference between 'occupied territories,' as Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. West Bank) are labeled, and 'disputed territories.' The final two paragraphs read: "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, (Eugene) 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...this is morally and factually incorrect... " ]http://goo.gl/eBHc]. It's been quite some time since a very senior member of the Israeli foreign ministry made such a declaration. While here Danny Ayalon spoke of Hebron as the roots of the Jewish people, saying, 'a people with no past have no future.' When asked about Hebron's future, following any kind of political negotiations, he replied that he expected Hebron's Jewish community to remain here, growing and thriving. When the interviewer persisted, asking if such was Israeli government policy, Ayalon answered, 'I don't know if it's been discussed, but there are some issues which are self-evident and don't need to be discussed.' Ayalon also spoke of the necessity to send both Israeli and foreign diplomats into Hebron, to witness firsthand the cradle of civilization. Later in the tour the Deputy FM was asked about TIPH — the temporary international presence in Hebron, which has frequented the streets of the city for the past 15 years [http://goo.gl/C1PS]. Ayalon made clear that temporary is supposed to be just that, temporary, not permanent. He emphasized that renewal of the TIPH mandate, which occurs twice a year, should not be taken for granted. This morning the Israeli newspaper Maariv-NRG (internet) [http://goo.gl/8nd3] headlined: "It seems that the TIPH mandate in Hebron will not be renewed." Ben Caspit, in Maariv, writes: 'After the visit of Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon in Hebron, he noted the option not to extend the mandate of Tiph to be realistic.' "They exceeded their authority," Ayalon said. The article reports that Ayalon's trip to Hebron came under orders from FM Lieberman, who ordered him 'to check out the situation on the ground.' Ayalon told Caspit, "they (TIPH) report harassment of Arabs by Jews, but not the opposite." The article reveals segments from a document prepared by the foreign ministry about TIPH: "Sometimes a certain tension exists between the Government of Israel and TIPH due to our claim that they often deviate from their mandate", for example, "in part by demanding investigations on cases that occurred and / or demands that Israel provide reports to donor countries. In addition they are involved in very extensive public relations activities, exemplified by a heavily invested web site which features, among other things, forms for Palestinians to file complaints against the Israeli authorities." Ayalon's visit was a breath of fresh air. Today's press release, officially recommending that the TIPH mandate not be renewed is a tornado, sweeping into Hebron a totally new atmosphere. The foreign groups plaguing Hebron, including CPT, EAPPI, and others, are headed up by TIPH, which has international recognition and backing. TIPHs removal from the scene will surely weaken the other organizations, and hopefully lead to their swift departure also. This is certainly a giant step in the right direction.
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.
|
|
HAMAS TIED TO AL-QAIDA; JIMMY CARTER'S APOLOGY ON ISRAEL DUPLICITOUS; IRAN BUILDING RAILROADS AND PIPELINE IN CENTRAL ASIA
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 8, 2010. |
|
HAMAS TIED TO AL-QAIDA 
Westerners increasingly declare Hamas unaffiliated with al-Qaida, so they can open a dialog with Hamas. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton (who co-chaired the influential Iraq Study Group during the Bush years) and former U.S. ambassador to the UN Thomas Pickering, called on the Obama administration to begin talking to Hamas without preconditions. Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a small congressional delegation to Gaza in February 2009 without meeting Hamas officials. Is their outlook valid? No. Hamas has the same goal of attaining a global caliphate as does al-Qaida. They use the same means, including suicide bombing which they try to justify by citing Islamic principles. Members of one group transfer to the other. Al-Qaida held a fundraiser for Hamas. An al-Qaida affiliate helped Hamas kidnap an Israeli. There have been other cases of the two groups' operational coordination. A U.S. Under Secretary of State, France's Foreign Minister, and Egypt cited international or al-Qaida links used by Hamas in coordinating its missions and Hamas letting al-Qaida units train in Gaza for attacks on Egypt and other states. This is like the Taliban hosting al-Qaida (www.imra.org.il, 1/6). Hamilton, Pickering, and Kerry are notorious for proposing appeasement. Appeasement does not work. It is such a failure, and helps the enemy so much, that its advocacy by officials who should know better is cause for concern about them. This is especially true now that Hamas is shown even more to be working with al-Qaid U.S. TEACHING AFGHANS FARMING 
The U.S. military is trying to wean Afghan farmers back to apricots and other national specialties from poppy. The poppy finances terrorists. Many Afghan farmers fled or were killed. The U.S. has been teaching Afghans agriculture (New York Times via www.imra.org.il,1/6). JIMMY CARTER'S APOLOGY ON ISRAEL DUPLICITOUS: PART 1. ZOA REACTION After more than 30 years of "maligning Israel with vicious falsehoods and tendentious allegations in innumerable op-eds, interviews, speeches and books, Jimmy Carter issued a brief statement that he calls an apology but that the Zionist Organization of America calls an insult. The supposed apology and plea to be forgiven retracted none of his numerous slanders. It reaffirmed them. He put it: "we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel (Ron Kampeas, 'Carter apologizes to Jewish community,' Jerusalem Post, December 22, 2009). Nor was it honest to call severe denigration "criticisms for improvement." "In other words, Carter's calling Israel an apartheid, human-rights abusing, war-mongering state are still in his view true, but he is merely sorry that they 'may have' harmed Israel's image! He did not say these criticisms were untrue or actually harmful and retract them." Jimmy Carter's animus against Israel has been confirmed from many reliable quarters [besides his remarks' evident self-indictment]. His Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, once revealed that if Carter had won a second term, he intended to sell Israel down the river. In The Unfinished Presidency, Douglas Brinkley writes, "There was no world leader Jimmy Carter was more eager to know than Yasir Arafat," whom he befriended already in 1990, three years before Arafat supposedly accepted Israel's right to exist and signed the Oslo Accords. Carter also saw fit to accept a prize from Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates whose Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up has promoted Holocaust denial." "...Jimmy Carter wrote falsely that in its military operations in Gaza during December 2008 and January 2009, Israel destroyed 40,000 homes; destroyed hospitals; rendered several hundred thousand Palestinians homeless; that Gaza was surrounded by an impenetrable wall; and that the Goldstone Report had investigated the deaths of 1,387 Palestinians in that conflict ('Goldstone and Gaza,' International Herald Tribune, November 6, 2009)." [The numbers are exaggerated at least ten-fold. The Goldstone Report discussed only sample cases.] "In his 2007 book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, as ZOA outlined in detail at the time, Carter falsely claimed that:
"Carter's book also omitted any mention of the long history of Palestinian and Arab-state sponsored terrorism against Israel before 1967; the persecution, expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab lands since 1948 and the expropriation of their property; the desecration and destruction of Jewish synagogues, graveyards and homes in eastern Jerusalem and prevention of Jewish worship at Jewish sacred sites after Jordan captured that part of the city in 1948; and the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in an operation funded by current Palestinian Authority president..." "...the title [of Carter's book] seems to have been maliciously chosen to harm Israel's reputation in the minds of anyone who merely sees the book's cover, because even Carter admits in the book that the situation in Israel 'is unlike that in South Africa.'" (1/6 press release by ZOA, headquartered in New York and of which I am a member.) Most public figures' apologies are mendacious pretenses that add insult to injury. Their insincerity is manifest, especially when they put it as, "If I hurt someone's feelings." Group slander hurts feelings, and if not in an inappropriate joke, the slander is made intentionally. Carter, like Goldstone, like Obama, like Mearsheimer and Waltz, like many, base their objections to Israel on false premises. People of goodwill should see through them. People of ill will do not want to see through them. CARTER'S APOLOGY ON ISRAEL DUPLICITOUS: PART 2. OTHER REACTIONS "P.S. The ZOA also strongly disagrees with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)'s Abe Foxman's acceptance of Jimmy Carter's "apology" as constituting the "beginning of reconciliation"; the Simon Wiesenthal's Rabbi Marvin Hier's belief that "we have to look at it seriously" and not dismiss it; and National Jewish Democratic Council chief executive Ira Forman's belief that, for these vague and misleading words, Jimmy Carter should be "congratulated and encouraged." The ZOA regards this as a mistake which makes it evident that Messrs. Foxman, Hier and Forman have completely misunderstood what Carter really said. Some might even construe these responses as naïve in view of the three decades of Jimmy Carter's anti-Israel record. It is also surprising that someone such as Mr. Foxman, who is supposed to be fighting those who attack the Jewish state of Israel, rushes to embrace Jimmy Carter's phony apology. But then again, some time ago, Foxman rushed to ensure that Bishop Desmond Tutu, a hostile critic of Israel, had his invitation to deliver a major address at a university in Minnesota reinstated after it had been rescinded following exposure of Tutu's hostile anti-Israeli statements. Similarly, Mr. Foxman defended Professor John Roth's appointment as Director of Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, even after it came out that Roth had compared some Israeli policies to Nazi policies and made many other harsh statements." ISRAEL WANTS LAWYERS ADVISING DURING COMBAT The Israeli Defense Forces had lawyers advising during war planning, but now also want them to advise during war. Unlike other Western armies, the IDF wants them to work in divisional headquarters, not, as in the U.S. and other Western armies, in lower level headquarters. Israel does not want their presence to interfere in combat. The Israeli Defense and Foreign Ministries also are coordinating with other governments how to respond to asymmetrical warfare in lawful manner. Some Israelis have found from experience that some of the international protocols need to be changed to reflect the new realities of such warfare. Some do not believe that foreign governments would be willing to reform the Geneva Convention, but do hope to work out a "dynamic" method of coping. They want to avoid unrealistic charges of war criminality. THE PAKISTANI PROBLEM WITH AFGHANISTAN The problem with Afghanistan is Pakistan, as President Obama observed but without full comprehension. Obama treats it as a matter of securing better cooperation. He hopes to work with Pakistan on a basis of mutual trust, for which the record shows no basis. The problem is much deeper. The problem is Pakistan. Whether Pakistan nominally is ruled by civilians or soldiers, liberals or conservatives, the military and religious leaders make basic strategic policy. That basic policy is to regard Pakistan as an Islamic state seeking strategic depth, if not expansion, by influencing neighboring countries. Pakistan exerts influence on Afghanistan and on India by terrorist proxies. So ingrained is the expansionist outlook, that even when a military ruler tries to curb it, other officials continue it. Efforts at curbing it have invoked attacks on the military. It was the Pakistani intelligence agency that got the Taliban to oust the warlords from Afghanistan. When the U.S. came in, the intelligence agency lay low. Then it sent the Taliban back from Pakistan, and U.S. troops were killed. The agency also recruits disaffected Indian Muslim youth and sponsored Islamist terrorist groups to attack India not only in the Kashmir area. It is setting up bases to control [the Pakistani breakaway state of] Bangladesh. Although the Pakistani Army has moved against some Islamist areas, al-Qaida is gaining strength in other provinces. Al-Qaida is using its new footholds for international plotting. What can the U.S. do for Afghanistan, under these circumstances: (1)The Taliban and al-Qaida are interlocked, so the U.S. cannot fight just al-Qaida; (2) Sending more troops might chase Taliban away, until President Obama brings the troops home; (3) Bringing the Taliban into Afghanistan politics simply would let them work politically to take over the country. The Taliban might take the money, but that does not buy out the ideology that motivates them; (4) U.S. withdrawal would mean Pakistani expansion for sure; and (5) Offend sensitive Pakistani officers, and their cooperation would become more elusive. The U.S. may be locked in (Memri in www.imra.org.il, 1/6). We are told that these problems have to do with the Arab-Israel conflict. Who sees any connection? IRAN BUILDING RAILROADS AND PIPELINE IN CENTRAL ASIA 
Iran is building railroads and pipelines in Central Asia. Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are involved. Iran notes that this is changing Iran's orientation (www.imra.org.il, 1/6). Britain and Germany once vied for influence by building railroads in Asia. They say that Iran's economy is precarious, but it acts like a powerhouse.
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:
|
|
TALIBAN IN PAKISTAN. FLACKING HELLFIRES
Posted by CPocerl, January 8, 2010. |
|
January 8, 2010: The Taliban are running a propaganda campaign in Pakistan, in an attempt to halt the American use of UAVs, firing Hellfire missiles, to kill Taliban and al Qaeda leaders. The Taliban effort is based on pushing civilian casualty statistics that cannot be checked, much less documented, as well as insisting that many more missiles have been fired, that missed their target, and killed civilians instead. The propaganda claims that each missile killed fifteen civilians, and that less than ten percent of the missiles actually hit Taliban or terrorists. While both of these claims are unlikely based on known performance of Hellfires, there is no way to verify the Taliban claims. Many Pakistanis will believe this stuff, as will many foreigners, simply on ideological grounds. Some Pakistani politicians will demand that the government do something to halt these attacks, which many Pakistanis see as a violation of their sovereignty. But the last thing the Pakistani government wants is a halt to these attacks. That's because the missiles kill many terrorists who have killed, and are planning to kill, Pakistani politicians. It's an open secret that the government even allows the UAVs to operate from Pakistani air bases, and the Pakistanis would like to have their own force of Predator UAVs, armed with Hellfire missiles. At the moment, the Pakistani military uses helicopter gunships and F-16 fighter-bombers to take out similar targets. Since this "decapitation" (of key terrorists) program began in 2008, over 700 terrorists, including two dozen senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, and nearly a hundred mid-level ones, have died from the UAV missile attacks. There have actually been few civilian deaths, as the UAVs stalk their targets, and seek to catch them while travelling, or otherwise away from civilians. Journalists visiting the sites of these attacks later, find few locals claiming lots of civilian casualties. For all of 2008, there were 36 attacks, causing 317 deaths. The UAV campaign actually began in earnest a year ago. Since then, there have been over sixty attacks. The rate of attacks has been increasing this year. The number of attacks has not increased a lot, but the number of senior terrorist leaders killed has. No wonder that the Taliban leadership is desperate to try anything to stop the Hellfires. While the terrorist groups are concerned about the losses, especially among the leadership, what alarms them the most is how frequently the American UAVs are finding their key people. The real problem the terrorists have is that someone is ratting them out. Someone, or something, is helping the Americans find the terrorist leaders. It wasn't always that way. In 2007, there were only five UAV attacks, compared to three in 2006, one in 2005 and one in 2004. Back then, it wasn't just the lack of identified targets that kept the UAVs away, but fewer UAVs, and Pakistani resistance to American UAVs making attacks inside Pakistan (even though the targets were terrorists attacking Pakistanis, including senior leaders.) By 2008, the Pakistanis changed their mind. This Hellfire campaign is hitting al Qaeda at the very top, although only a quarter of the attacks so far have taken out any of the most senior leaders. But that means over half the senior leadership have been killed or badly wounded in the last two years. Perhaps even greater damage has been done to the terrorist middle management. These are old and experienced lieutenants, as well as young up-and-comers. They are the glue that holds al Qaeda and the Taliban together. Their loss is one reason why it's easier to get more information on where leaders are, and why rank-and-file al Qaeda and Taliban are less effective of late. While al Qaeda believes local Pakistanis are responsible for leaking location information to the Americans, it's a bit more complicated than that. First of all, the U.S. does have a good informant network in the Pakistani tribal territories, especially, during the last few years, in the Taliban heartland of North and South Waziristan. This is a relatively small area (11,500 square kilometers) of mountains and forests along the Afghan border. Over a decade ago, U.S. intelligence operatives returned to the Afghan border area, and began developing an informant network inside Afghanistan, using tribal connections on the Pakistani side. This was a tedious business, especially in Waziristan. After September 11, 2001, this network was worked with greater urgency. The growing force of Predator (and later the larger Reaper) UAVs were available to run round-the-clock surveillance on what was going on down there. The main obstacle to using all this information was the Pakistani president (Pervez Musharraf), an army general who did not want to anger the tribesmen by letting the Americans launch a lot of Hellfire missiles from their UAVs. Musharraf insisted on personally approving each Hellfire strike, and he did not approve very often. Musharraf lost his job over a year ago. The U.S. and the new civilian Pakistani government agreed that it was now open season on al Qaeda. The new Pakistani government asked the Americans to be as discreet, and accurate, as possible, and then hunkered down for the public outrage over this American "attack on Pakistan." But in fact, the Hellfire attacks were killing men who were responsible for terrorist attacks that had killed thousands of Pakistanis. The U.S. intelligence network in Pakistan had connections everywhere. Even pro-Taliban tribesmen were willing to earn some money by informing on al Qaeda. That's because many Taliban do not like the al Qaeda people (most of the them foreigners) much at all. The Taliban has tried to maintain good, or at least civil, relations with al Qaeda. But that efforts has frayed to the point where al Qaeda big shots like Osama bin Laden spends most of his time staying hidden from U.S. UAVs, Pakistani troops and hostile Pushtun tribesmen. Pakistani officials believe that the multimillion dollar rewards on bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders may now actually work. The problem has always been that you can't capture an al Qaeda big shot without the assent of local tribal leaders. For a large chunk of that reward, that assent may now be had from some chiefs, and bin Laden knows it. He also knows that he has lost an irreplaceable number of veteran leaders (and allies), to U.S. Hellfire missiles, in the last two years. Rumor has it that big money was paid for the information that made some of these attacks possible. It's bad enough that al Qaeda is losing senior people, it's worse that they are now seen, by local tribesmen, as a way to get rich. Al Qaeda leaders now know what it's like to be terrorized. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
BLATANTLY ANTI-SEMITIC EXCHANGE ON C-SPAN
Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, January 8, 2010. |
|
|
|
A caller on a C-Span interview program Monday complained about "all these Jews" having "way too much power" in America and pushing the U.S. into wars with the Muslim world. He found his comments echoed and expanded upon by the studio guest. Michael Scheuer, the former director of a CIA unit assigned to track down Osama Bin-Laden, calmly expressed the view that American soldiers are now dying in Iraq for the sake of Israelis. He further claimed that any debate of American support for Israel is squelched in the public sphere. The interviewer for C-Span's Washington Journal program did not react to the blatantly anti-Semitic exchange. Several other callers praised Scheuer for his position regarding Israel, adding their own condemnation of the Jewish State and its supporters. An excerpt of the initial discussion follows: John (on the phone from Franklin, New York): "Good morning. I, for one, am sick and tired of all these Jews coming on C-Span and other stations and pushing us to go to war against our Muslim friends. They're willing to spend the last drop of American blood and treasure to get their way in the world. They have way too much power in this country. People like Wolfowitz and Feith and the other neo-cons — that Jewed us into Iraq — and now we're going to spend the next 60 years rehabilitating our soldiers. I'm sick and tired of it." C-SPAN host (to Scheuer): "Any comments?" Scheuer: "Yeah. I think that of course American foreign policy is eventually up to the American people. One of the big things we have not been able to discuss for the past 30 years is our policy towards the Israelis. Whether we want to be involved in fighting Israel's wars in the future is something that Americans should be able to talk about. They may vote yes. They may want to see their kids killed in Iraq or Yemen or somewhere else to protect Israel. But the question is: we need to talk about it. Ultimately, Israel is a country that is of no particular worth to the United States." C-SPAN host: "You mean strategically?" Scheuer: "Strategically. They have no resources we need. Their manpower is minimal. Their association with us is a negative for the United States. Now that's a fact. What you want to do about that fact is entirely different. But for anyone to stand up in the United States and say that our support for Israel doesn't hurt us in the Muslim world, or our support for Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship doesn't hurt us, is to just defy reality." [Watch the video clip here or the full interview with Scheuer here. Earlier in the same interview, however, Scheuer made it clear what he felt should be done regarding Israel. In his opinion, the U.S. should "persuade" Islamic terrorists threatening America "to focus their anger" on Israel and on oppressive Middle Eastern regimes. American Jewish Groups 'Hurt' Critics of Israel Scheuer also later elaborated on what he said is the way criticism of Israel is prevented. A caller named Nicki from Maryland thanked him for his comments on Israel and asked, "Why is it that the United States does not want to talk about Israel?" Prefacing his remarks by asserting that "Israel has every right to do what it needs to do" to defend itself, including the development of nuclear weapons, Scheuer said that the U.S. has no real interest in either Israel or the Palestinian Authority. "That is a religious war in which we have no stake," he continued. Scheuer: "Why don't we talk about that? Because AIPAC and other influential American Jewish groups are extraordinarily involved in the funding of American political campaigns and have the ability to reach out and make sure that people lose their jobs, or are otherwise hurt, if they dare to criticize Israel." Scheuer went on to claim that he lost a job with the Jamestown Foundation think tank for saying that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was "doing what I call the Tel-Aviv Two Step". As a result, he claimed, "the donors to that foundation" ordered that he be terminated. He concluded the discussion of Jewish political influence by saying, "You know, you always talk about the Israel Lobby and its power, but to see it up close and personal aimed right at me was very educational. In fact, it was worth the experience of losing a job." Editor's Addendum: From CAMERA: "Washington Journal, C-SPAN's daily public affairs interview program, has become a megaphone for anti-Jewish, anti-Israel conspiracy theorists. Its January 4 segment with former CIA staffer and anti-Israel obsessive Michael Scheuer, epitomizes the problem. Phone-in portions frequently feature anti-Semitic rants — often from repeat callers in violation of C-SPAN's ostensible 30-days-between-calls rule. Washington Journal's rotating hosts 'catatonically,' as one critic put it, ignore the vitriol." TO CONTACT AT C-SPAN Brian Lamb, Chairman and CEO
Steven Scully, Political Editor and Washington Journal anchor
Craig Caplan, Executive Producer, Washington Journal
These are the members of the Board of Directors of C-Span Robert Miron, Chairman of the Board, President
Stephen B. Burke
Allan J. Block
Rocco B. Commisso
David J. Keefe
Jerry Kent
Thomas O. Might
Send email to assistant Sherry Harms
Tom Rutledge
Neil Smit
Amy Tykeson
Landel C. Hobbs, COO
Nissan Ratzlav-Katzwrites for Arutz-7 and this article appeared in Arutz-7
|
|
OBAMA'S GUANTANAMO OBSESSION
Posted by Susana K-M, January 8, 2010. |
|
This was written by Charles Krauthammer. |
|
On Wednesday, Nigerian would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was indicted by a Michigan grand jury for attempted murder and sundry other criminal charges. The previous day, the State Department announced that his visa had been revoked. The system worked. Well, it did for Abdulmutallab. What he lost in flying privileges he gained in Miranda rights. He was singing quite freely when seized after trying to bring down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit. But the Obama administration decided to give him a lawyer and the right to remain silent. We are now forced to purchase information from this attempted terrorist in the coin of leniency. Absurdly, Abdulmutallab is now in control. And this is no ordinary information. He was trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and just days after he was lawyered up and shut up, the United States was forced to close its embassy in Yemen because of active threats from the same people who had trained and sent Abdulmutallab. This is nuts. Even if you wanted ultimately to try him as an ordinary criminal, he could have been detained in military custody — and thus subject to military interrogation — without prejudicing his ultimate disposition. After all, every Guantanamo detainee was first treated as an enemy combatant and presumably interrogated. But some (most notoriously Khalid Sheik Mohammed) are going to civilian trial. That determination can be made later. John Brennan, President Obama's counterterrorism adviser, professes an inability to see any "downsides" to treating Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal — with a right to remain silent — a view with which 71 percent of likely voters sensibly disagree. The administration likes to defend itself by invoking a Bush precedent: Wasn't the shoe bomber treated the same way? Yes. And it was a mistake, but in the context of the time understandable. That context does not remotely exist today. Richard Reid struck three months after 9/11. The current anti-terror apparatus was not in place. Remember: This was barely a month after President Bush authorized the creation of military commissions and before that system had been even set up. Moreover, the Pentagon at the time was preoccupied with the Afghan campaign that brought down the Taliban in two months. The last major Taliban city, Kandahar, fell just two weeks before Reid tried to ignite his shoe on an airplane. To be sure, after a few initial misguided statements, Obama did get somewhat serious about the Christmas Day attack. First, he instituted high-level special screening for passengers from 14 countries, the vast majority of which are Muslim with significant Islamist elements. This is the first rational step away from today's idiotic random screening and toward, yes, a measure of profiling — i.e., focusing on the population most overwhelmingly likely to be harboring a suicide bomber. Obama also sensibly suspended all transfers of Yemenis from Guantanamo. Nonetheless, Obama insisted on repeating his determination to close the prison, invoking his usual rationale of eliminating a rallying cry and recruiting tool for al-Qaeda. Imagine that Guantanamo were to disappear tomorrow, swallowed in a giant tsunami. Do you think there'd be any less recruiting for al-Qaeda in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, London? Jihadism's list of grievances against the West is not only self-replenishing but endlessly creative. Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa commanding universal jihad against America cited as its two top grievances our stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia and Iraqi suffering under anti-Saddam sanctions. Today, there are virtually no U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. And the sanctions regime against Iraq was abolished years ago. Has al-Qaeda stopped recruiting? Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's No. 2, often invokes Andalucia in his speeches. For those not steeped in the multivolume lexicon of Islamist grievances, Andalucia refers to Iberia, lost by Islam to Christendom — in 1492. This is a fanatical religious sect dedicated to establishing the most oppressive medieval theocracy and therefore committed to unending war with America not just because it is infidel but because it represents modernity with its individual liberty, social equality (especially for women) and profound tolerance (religious, sexual, philosophical). You going to change that by evacuating Guantanamo? Nevertheless, Obama will not change his determination to close Guantanamo. He is too politically committed. The only hope is that perhaps now he is offering his "recruiting" rationale out of political expediency rather than real belief. With suicide bombers in the air, cynicism is far less dangerous to the country than naiveté. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
FROM ISRAEL: NONSENSE UNRAVELING
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 8, 2010. |
|
Were I to report on every announcement with regard to the Israeli-Arab conflict, I'd be at my computer continuously, sending out multiple postings — so much seems to be happening. But my take, at the end of the day, is that a good deal of it is meaningless — and that not much is happening at all. Obama is desperate. Everything he had set out to do at the beginning of his term, which is just a year old, has failed: He has not a single success to point to, either domestically or internationally. What is more, Democrats are abandoning ship, as there are resignations both in the House and Senate. Please G-d, we are witnessing the turning of the tide. It has occurred to me that precisely because he is desperate, he is hoping that "the peace process" can be hurried along, so he can point to what he has achieved here. This is perhaps the most logical way to account for what we are hearing from the Obama administration now. ~~~~~~~~~~ It made news this week that the US is beginning a new, more concerted push for Mid-East peace. Hillary Clinton, speaking with inflated optimism (Hillary as Pollyanna) said that we are now in a new year and so it's time for a fresh start: "We're going to be even more committed this year." Oh joy. But how the turn of the calendar year even remotely affects the reality on the ground eludes me. At any rate, hints of the new Obama "plan" were then released, with precious few specifics. One of the things that struck me is that it said there would be letters of guarantee given by the Obama administration to both parties. The nature of these guarantees was left vague, and I've seen different versions in different sources. One version spoke about guarantees to Israel that some settlements could be retained and guarantees to the PA that the '67 lines would be the negotiating basis (this is "'67 lines with adjustments"). Another said that the US would guarantee the endgame. The bottom line, however, is that the US can "guarantee" nothing. The two parties will come to an arrangement, or they will not. Meetings are being held with Jordanian and Egyptian officials, as the involvement of these two nations is viewed as important by the US. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile, US envoy George Mitchell, speaking on the Charlie Rose show, said that once negotiations start resolution shouldn't take more than two years, and it was his opinion that it could be accomplished in less. This, in my own opinion, makes him certifiably daft. ~~~~~~~~~~ What concerns me most with regard to all of this is the strength of the Netanyahu administration, and the prime minister's readiness and ability to "just say no." The pressure on Netanyahu right now has to be unreal. But, while it's very nice to be diplomatically clever and to utilize games to avoid a direct confrontation with Obama, there comes a time when our government must simply say, "NO MORE!" ~~~~~~~~~~ This week, on Sunday and Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak "disappeared." There has been vast speculation as to where he was. One thought was that he had gone to Jordan, to meet there with Abbas — a thought that was vastly unsettling. But another guess was that he was with National Security advisor Uzi Arad in India, with regard, presumably, to Iranian issues. We simply don't know. ~~~~~~~~~~ At the same time, it should be noted, Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, has given a statement rejecting a two-year time frame. "In the past, attempts to impose time frameworks have not proved either realizable or helpful." So, we are not automatically going along with what the US is proposing. ~~~~~~~~~~ And where is the PA in all of this? I still believe that Abbas prefers not to come to the table, and is bound by internal politics to present a tough line. But the pressure is enormous on him, as well — from the US, Europe and even Egypt. Abbas had the impression for a long time that the international community would do his work for him: declaring a state on '67 lines, without his need to negotiate. But he's finding that this is not the case. Perhaps most disconcerting for him is the failure of the European community to support him by declaring a Palestinian state. He runs the risk, should he continue to be obstinate, of losing some of the European largesse that has come his way so consistently. People are growing tired of his stance. And so, this becomes a "watch and see" situation. I hasten to note that even if he is pushed, reluctantly, into sitting at the table, this does not mean he will forge a deal. He will not — he cannot. Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat has just insisted that negotiations must begin where they left off with the Olmert government. (We have no obligation legally to do so.) The offer made by Olmert — which was the most "generous" ever made and included almost all of Judea and Samaria as well as part of Jerusalem — was not accepted by Abbas. This means they want to start there, and demand even more. No chance, no way. What is not being perceived by those pushing for "peace" is that there is a built-in irresolvable conflict in terms of Israeli and Arab end goals. Obama is setting himself up for yet another failure. ~~~~~~~~~~ And then there is that elephant-in-the-room that I haven't mentioned for a while: Hamas. I reiterate: The presence of this jihadist group in control in Gaza makes the whole idea of a "peace agreement" nonsense. If there is no reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, and no unity government put in place, then — were we to reach an agreement with the PA — we would end up with two Palestinian Arab entities, not one. A patently ridiculous state of affairs which no one is paying attention to. If there is reconciliation — which Abbas is said to be working towards — then Fatah would be sharing a government with a group that refuses to even recognize Israel's right to exist or to adhere to previous agreements. (I was going to also say, which endorses terrorism, but so does Fatah — even though the world ignores this fact.) How could Israel even pretend to negotiate given such parameters? How could the US endorse such negotiations when Hamas is on the US list of terrorist organizations? ~~~~~~~~~~ Speaking of Gaza and Hamas, allow me to throw in this factor as well: Since Cast Lead, our operation in Gaza a year ago, it has been relatively quiet, with periods in which no rockets at all were shot into Israel. But that period of quiet may be coming to an end. There now have been rockets fired into Israel again, and mortar fire aimed at crossings. A warning came recently from head of the IDF Southern Command Maj-General Yoav Galant regarding the fact that the situation may be heating up again. And, in fact, Israel has begun actions inside of Gaza again — an operation carried out yesterday by our air force hit a terror tunnel in central Gaza, two weaponry smuggling tunnels in the Rafah Border area and one weaponry manufacturing facility in Gaza City. Over 500,000 leaflets were dropped urging civilians to avoid certain areas. ~~~~~~~~~~ Two thoughts occur here: The first is the question of why things should be heating up right now. Is this an attempt by Hamas to sabotage any possible "peace process" between Fatah and Israel? And then, perhaps even more to the point, is the related question of how this does affect possible negotiations. If we are once again going to be firing on Gaza, it makes it almost impossible for Abbas to sit at the table with us. He cannot — absolutely cannot — be seen as being on our side when there is a military action against Palestinian Arabs. Which, indeed, may be why Hamas would seek to incite such IDF action now. ~~~~~~~~~~ This still leaves aside the tensions heating up between Egypt and Hamas, which are not insignificant, but which I will address in a future posting. ~~~~~~~~~~ Mindful of my priorities, and the opportunity to embrace joy as it comes, I leave off now in order to prepare to be with my family for the bar mitzvah of my grandson tomorrow. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
DEBKAFile: JUDEA & SAMARIA ("WEST BANK") CAST INTO FERMENT BY DIPLOMATIC-SECURITY VACUUM
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 7, 2010. |
|
Full scale hearings should be held immediately to determine if Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and America's President Barack Hussein Obama intend to use the 10 month construction freeze as the first step in forcing Jews to abandon Judea, Samaria and those parts of the Jerusalem occupied and desecrated by Jordan for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. Let's have no more secret Oslo's or secret planning like that by former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert to abandon, surrender and destroy Gush Katif/Gaza — leaving South Israel to pay the price of their connivance. What Netanyahu is planning leaves ALL of Israel in the same situation as Sderot. IF Bibi's spine is still made of rubber, he must be impeached as Prime Minister ASAP. This below is from DEBKAfile. |
|
January 2, 2010, West Bank mosque vandalized Matters are slipping out of hand on the West Bank. DEBKAFile's military sources and security agencies in the region see the unrest spreading unless it is brought under control. The Netanyahu government's construction moratorium on settlement construction has had an acutely polarizing effect on Israelis on both sides of the Green Line. Three major Palestinian terrorist attacks were foiled in the last ten days. Whoever trashed a village mosque near Nablus early Friday, Dec. 11, tossed a match onto dry firewood. The Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin warned the security cabinet this week that Mahmoud Abbas has spearheaded a campaign in world capitals for Israel's ouster from the Middle East equation by making the Jewish state unacceptable as a negotiating partner and blackening its policies. He is harnessing governments to his objective of foisting a Palestinian settlement on Israel. Diskin called this tactic "a diplomatic uprising (intifada)" which could blow up at any time. The response of Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak to Abbas' boycott is appeasement and concessions, such as the freeze on Jewish construction in the West Bank. This policy is not seen by Palestinians and Arab extremists as a desire for peace but as evidence of weakness and an invitation to build up pressure. Not only are Jewish settlers and their supporters furious at what they see as the Likud leader's back-stabbing, but in the last fortnight, DEBKAFile's military sources report, Palestinian extremists are trying to use their leader's diplomatic intifada as the starting-point for the real thing, a campaign of terror. The Obama administration and some European capitals are partly to blame for letting the West Bank crisis get out of hand by allowing Mahmoud Abbas to slip the reins and pursue his dangerous game of excluding Israel from diplomacy. But the Netanyahu-Barak duo and Abbas must bear most of the responsibility for the widening political, diplomatic and security vacuum. The prime minister and his defense minister have spent the first year of their current term in office showing a marked lack of initiative on any front, whether to counter the Abbas campaign or face looming perils posed by the heavy rearming of Hizballah and Hamas and a potentially nuclear-armed Iran. In the last fortnight, the IDF is under orders to play down the upsurge of Palestinian attempts at violence on both sides of the Green Line. Our military sources confirm that, ten days ago, Israeli forces intercepted a band of six terrorists making their way from the northern West Bank into Israel for an attack. Last week, two large roadside bombs were discovered near Beth El primed to blow up against a passing IDF patrol. An alert scout discovered it in time. Another explosive device was uncovered near Beit Umar in the Hebron sector of the southern West Bank. And earlier this week, a Palestinian, believed to be a Popular Front member, was prevented from reaching central Jerusalem with six pipe bombs, enough for the biggest multi-casualty attack seen in Jerusalem in years. In his short term as prime minister, Ehud Barak ignored similar obvious portents of the coming Palestinian war of terror unleashed in 2000 by Yasser Arafat; his suicide killers darkened Israel's cities for more than three years. Even when it climaxed, he told Israeli troops not to turn their guns on the assailants but direct their fire at open ground. Later, when he returned to government as defense minister in the 2007-2008 Olmert government, Barak watched Palestinian missiles battering southwestern Israel from the Gaza Strip with the same unconcern. Then, too, he instructed the Air Force to confine its bombardments to open spaces. It was only when popular ire forced the government's hand, that the defense minister launched the three-week Operation Cast Lead in late December, 2008. Israel's friends and enemies alike are asking what has happened to Israel's strong defense posture in the face of present and impending threats. Some critics see prime minister Binyamin immersed in a fool's game, playing to the American gallery and trying to soft-soap the settlers while lacking the courage to address the escalating Palestinian challenge. His dependence on Barak, whose short span as prime minister was cut short by a snap election in 2002 after he offered Arafat 92 percent of the West Bank, reinforces the sense of infirmity at the top of government. This sense has planted the suspicion that the West Bank building freeze was planned to place markers on areas to be ceded in readiness for Israel's handover of territory — at a time when Palestinian intentions are the reverse of peaceful. Friday, Dec. 11, all these tensions boiled over: Before the police had even broached its investigation into the willful damaging of the Kfar Yasuf mosque, Palestinian spokesmen and their Israeli supporters pointed the finger at "right-wing extremist settlers." One Israeli broadcaster accused "those madmen." Within hours, the same Palestinian activists and their Israeli champions were rioting in Sheikh Jarrah against the homes Jews have purchased in this predominantly Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem. Police forces stopped them marching on those homes. In the melee, 22 rioters and 6 policemen were hurt. West Bank rabbis have pleaded for the holy places of all faiths to be excluded from the conflict between the two nations. But the ferment on all sides is rising, inflamed by the diplomatic vacuum dictated by the Palestinian side and the lack of firm resolve and direction in Jerusalem. 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 |
|
ISRAEL MUST GET READY FOR CHINA'S DOMINATION OF SCIENCE
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, January 7, 2010. |
|
I have argued for some time that Israel needs to disengage itself from the West. The West is dying and Europe is nearly dead. Why should we expend energy fighting the Jew haters of the West when we can easily abandon them to their own ultimate and near-at-hand destruction by the Jihadists and focus on the East? The future for Israel lies in expanding its ties with India, China and Asia in general. The markets for Israeli goods is much larger and infinitely more friendly. Diplomatically these countries share our concerns over Islamic Imperialism. Nearly all of them have histories of being conquered by Arabs and were persecuted for centuries by them. Many still have ongoing problems with Jihadists. Unlike those in the West, they understand very well what we are fighting. Our ties to the West are a combination of cultural momentum that has lead Israel's ruling elite to believe in the superiority of the West over the East and the control Western interests have over our politicians. The following article deals with China but it should be remembered that India is also undergoing a major economic and scientific awakening. These two giants alone encompass over 1/3 of the world's population. This was written by Jonathan Adams and it appeared yesterday in
New Scientist
|
|
SINCE its economic reform began in 1978, China has gone from being a poor developing country to the second-largest economy in the world. China has also emerged from isolation to become a political superpower. Its meteoric rise has been one of the most important global changes of recent years: the rise of China was the most-read news story of the decade, surpassing even 9/11 and the Iraq war. Yet when it comes to science and technology, most people still think of China as being stuck in the past and only visualise a country with massive steelworks and vast smoking factories. That may have been true a few years ago, but it is no longer the case. Very quietly, China has become the world's second-largest producer of scientific knowledge, surpassed only by the US, a status it has achieved at an awe-inspiring rate. If it continues on its current trajectory China will overtake the US before 2020 and the world will look very different as a result. The historical scientific dominance of North America and Europe will have to adjust to a new world order. In the west, we are largely familiar with research systems in which money, people and output stay roughly the same from year to year. Research spending in Europe and North America has outpaced economic growth since 1945, but not by a dramatic amount. Not so with China. Data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that between 1995 and 2006, China's gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) grew at an annual rate of 18 per cent. China now ranks third on GERD, just behind the US and Japan and ahead of any individual European Union state. Universities have experienced similar growth. China's student population has reportedly reached 25 million, up from just 5 million nine years ago. China now has 1700 higher education institutions, around 100 of which make up the "Project 211" group. These elite institutions train four-fifths of PhD students, two-thirds of graduate students and one-third of undergraduates. They are home to 96 per cent of the country's key laboratories and consume 70 per cent of scientific research funding. China's student population has reached 25 million, up from just 5 million nine years ago What impact has this had? I recently authored a report analysing China's research strengths and its patterns of international collaboration. The data was drawn from Thomson Reuters, which indexes scientific papers from around 10,500 journals worldwide. In 1998, China's research output was around 20,000 articles per year. In 2006 it reached 83,000, overtaking the traditional science powerhouses of Japan, Germany and the UK. Last year it exceeded 120,000 articles, second only to the US's 350,000. Compare that rate of growth with the US, where research output increased by about 30 per cent over the past decade, and it is clear that normal ideas about science management simply do not apply to China. China is also diversifying its research base. A traditional industrial economy would focus its research on physical sciences and engineering, and our findings confirm that this is where China has been concentrating. But it is also rapidly shifting out of the old economy into new areas. China produces 10 per cent of the world's publications in engineering, computer sciences and earth sciences, including minerals. It now also produces 20 per cent of global output in materials sciences, with a leading position in composites, ceramics and polymer science and a strong presence in crystallography and metallurgical engineering. The implications for future industrial development are enormous, as China makes the transition from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy based on research coming out of its own institutions. Agricultural research is also expanding as China takes a scientific approach to its vast food demand and supply. Its relatively small share of molecular biology and related areas — around 5 per cent — has suddenly become an investment focus too. If growth in biomedical sciences is as rapid and substantial as it has been elsewhere then China's impact on gene and protein research will be profound. An obvious word of warning needs to be made here: quantity is not the same as quality. Measuring the volume of China's scientific output is clearly both valuable and surprising but it doesn't tell us whether that research was any good. For that we turn to a useful proxy: China's scientific collaboration with other countries better known for the high quality of their science. The results here, too, are eye-opening. China is not doing science behind closed doors; its international collaborations are growing. Nearly 9 per cent of papers originating from Chinese institutions have a US-based co-author. Japanese and British co-authorship is also growing. Collaboration with South Korea and Singapore almost trebled between 2004 and 2008 and collaboration with Australia expanded too — signs, perhaps, of an emerging Asia-Pacific regional network. So what does this all mean? Firstly, China's emergence as a scientific superpower can no longer be denied, and it is a question of when rather than if it will become the world's most prolific producer of scientific knowledge. Perhaps more importantly, China's expanding regional collaborations show that Asia-Pacific nations no longer rely on links to the European and American institutions that have traditionally led the science world. The question for the EU and the US as we enter the new decade is no longer about whether we should collaborate with China, but what we can bring to the table to ensure that China wants to collaborate with us.
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. He writes, "In the history of the world, no tyranny has ever voluntarily relinquished power or been replaced by peaceful means." |
|
EU SUBSIDIZES HAMAS REGIME; PA BURNS GOODS BOUGHT FROM ISRAELI
SETTLERS; ANOTHER U.S. ESTIMATE ON IRAN'S NUCLEAR SCHEDULE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 7, 2010. |
|
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY HELPS RESCUE ISRAELIS A bus driving to the Jewish community of Noqedim broke down and caught fire near Bethlehem. Israelis crews rescuing the passengers were joined by a first-response team from the Palestinian Authority (www.imra.org.il, 1/5). Israelis have helped rescue Arabs, too. That is the way to get along. EU SUBSIDIZES HAMAS REGIME IN GAZA The EU just sent the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) 6.3 million euros as part of its effort to keep government services continuing there. Part of the subsidy goes for salaries and pensions in Gaza (www.imra.org.il, 1/5). The P.A. is notorious for the high proportion of troops in its government. The P.A. uses its subsidy to hire unneeded people who otherwise might be discontent, to find a sinecure for terrorists whom the P.A. euphemistically calls police, and for an exceptionally high proportion of troops for guess what. Europeans have been among the critics of the U.S. for supporting dictatorships. What else is this EU subsidy of the P.A., comprising two dictatorships? Ironically, these dictatorships are anti-Western. I am not sure that European governments still consider themselves part of the West, after they joined in a Mediterranean state union and are letting immigrant Muslims smother Western values. The EU, like the U.S., professes to be against terrorism, and does take some measures against it, but supports terrorist governments. Britain reserves its boycott for products made by Jews in Judea-Samaria. We've reported EU and New Israel Fund financing of subversive Israeli organizations, too. IRAN REGIME NOT PRECARIOUS? 
An Op.-Ed. made a case that the regime in Iran is not precarious. It contends that the crowds opposing the regime are not large enough to represent a majority, have no leadership, program, or plan for action, and have annoyed citizens for exploiting national mourning for politics. The protesters may want change, but not significant regime change. The authors advise the Obama administration not to count on the regime falling to pull the nuclear-arms-menace out of the fire for us. Instead, the Administration, which hardly strove for "engagement" with Iran, is advised to redouble its effort (Flynt Leverett & Hillary Mann Leverett, NY Times, 1/6). I thought the Op.-Ed. was making a plausible case, until it revealed an agenda of "engagement." Now I wonder whether the desire for more diplomacy with Iran drove its analysis of popular opinion in Iran, or did its analysis simply lead to its conclusion. Even if correct about democracy not being popular enough in Iran, the conclusion that we should negotiate more does not necessarily follow. The U.S. and other countries tried long and hard to deal with Iran. Iran either rebuffs the U.S. or stalls, meanwhile pursuing nuclear development. It uses negotiations to forestall being coerced. IRAN TUNNELS NUCLEAR FACILITIES Turns out, Iran has built a maze of tunnels for military and civilian purposes, including nuclear development and production. These nuclear facilities were erected in secret. Iran kept UN inspectors from them as well as from facilities recently discovered to be in Qom. The tunnels are so extensive, that they probably surpass in difficulty Israel's capability of detecting and destroying them A CNN broadcaster asked a key question. If not illicit, why secret? (William J. Broad, NY Times, 1/6, A1). Yes, a sovereign state has the right to develop nuclear energy. When a country signs onto the UN treaty, however, it pledges now to develop nuclear weapons and it agrees to make known to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) its facilities and to submit to inspection of them. Iran has hidden facilities from the IAEA. It declared the Qom facilities off-limits to the IAEA. Iran therefore is in violation of the treaty. Let us pose a more precise crucial question. Why does a country that purports to be developing nuclear facilities for non-military purposes violate its treaty that is meant to verify whether those facilities are for non-military purposes? PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY BURNS GOODS BOUGHT FROM ISRAELI SETTLERS 
Salam Fayed, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, throws a package into a fire set to burn products from Jewish settlements. (AP/Nasser Ishtayeh)
The Palestinian Authority (P.A.) confiscated goods that its people purchased from Jewish towns in Judea-Samaria, and burned them. It wants to build its own industries to produce those goods for its people. The P.A. called upon other countries to do likewise, for ethical reasons. The news brief did not say whether the P.A. compensated the Arabs whose goods it seized and destroyed (www.imra.org.il, 1/5). It is ironic to hear the P.A. call for a boycott of peaceful people, in favor of its bellicose people, and in the name of ethics. See my recent article on Abbas adulation of mass-murderers. ISRAELI SUPREME COURT MEDDLES IN MILITARY MATTERS The Shurat HaDin law firm chided Israel's High Court for meddling in military affairs beyond its competence, without seeking expert opinion. It rules by itself, contrary to what the commanders recommend. For medical and transportation matters, the Court does seek expert opinion. Shurat HaDin suggests that the Knesset bar the Court from continuing to rule on military matters, as in re-opening Highway 443 to Palestinian Arab traffic, which rulings create problems. SHOULD ISRAEL NEGOTIATE IN PART OR IN TOTO? The U.S. seems interested in negotiating the borders of a future, second Palestinian Arab state first, and then the other issues. Israeli leaders find the idea harmful to its position. Such a bifurcation would have Israel throw in its major chips for nothing in return, while leaving crucial issues such as Jerusalem and refugees later. Then what would Israel have to negotiate with? (www.imra.org.il, 1/5). The State Dept. consistently presses Israel for concessions and irreversible commitments. It does not press the Arabs for concessions and irreversible commitments. Hence the U.S. interest in borders. Israel often makes agreements and concessions for nothing in return. I think that PM Netanyahu should have specified that since any government that the Palestinian Arabs acquire must be demilitarized, and since the PLO has been militarizing ever since it signed Oslo and agreed not to, sovereignty, which includes the right to militarize, must be ruled out. Why didn't he? One possibility is that, as before, he thinks that he can word principles obscurely, leaving himself room to claim later that he had warned people of his intent. That is an unscrupulous method. Another possibility is that, as before, he poses as a nationalist but is appeasement minded. He lulls his people into complacency, while giving up too much. He may be doing both. PALESTINIAN ARAB TERRORISTS COW ISRAELI BUS COMPANY Arab terrorists threw a Molotov cocktail, near Mt. Hebron, at a commuter bus to Neguhot. The Egged bus company canceled that leg of its route. Egged explained that only a handful of customers travel to that village. It doesn't pay to armor-plate a few buses for that business. The customers would prefer better security measures (www.imra.org.il, 1/5). Military strategists might figure out the likelihood of such terrorist attacks in relation to removal of checkpoints, the way New York Police Dept. uses Compstat to relate policing to crime. The Palestinian Authority gets credit from the U.S. for reducing terrorism. Does it? Or does it contribute to it? ANOTHER U.S. ESTIMATE ON IRAN'S NUCLEAR SCHEDULE` The Obama administration referred to unnamed U.S. inspectors who estimate that Iran now would need 18 more months to produce nuclear weapons. The estimate takes into account outdated equipment and major problems at Iran's Qom facility. U.S. inspectors report a 20% drop in the number of operating centrifuges in Natanz. The New York Times reports a general Western belief that Iran cannot produce a weapon covertly. The import of the estimate is that sanctions now have a chance to work. On the other hand, three rounds of sanctions have failed. The U.S. is wary of harsh sanctions that would turn the anti-regime demonstrations in Iran into anti-U.S. demonstrations. But Iranians are not supporters of the U.S. now. U.S. estimates have proved over-optimistic. Israeli estimates are more pessimistic. Israeli officials believe that Iran is almost at the point where no sanctions could prevent its development of nuclear weapons (Yechiel Spira, yeshivaworld.com via Winston Mideast Report and Analysis, 1/5). The new estimate reminds Mr. Winston of the infamous one that on its face was phony but generated sufficient headlines to discourage Pres. Bush from taking action at the end of his tenure. The State Dept. and CIA officials who produced that estimate never were held accountable for possibly undermining U.S. national security. Winston surmises that the new estimate is President Obama's attempt to stall controversial action until the mid-term Congressional elections have passed. But it also may stall action until Iran has bombs. Then Iran could dictate terms to the Arab world. Iran would be far along the path to unifying the Muslim world behind its drive for jihad and global dominance. Winston lacks faith in Obama's reliance upon sanctions. Sanctions have proved too mild to work (1/5). Considering that sanctions are asked of Iran's suppliers, who are not particularly friend to the U.S., the failure of sanctions was not surprising before. The U.S. inability to realize this is surprising now. Under those conditions, sanctions are a pretext for inaction. A summer issue of Foreign Affairs explained that Iran has neutralized
much of the U.S. naval capability in its region. We know that Iran
can bombard U.S. bases in the region. We also know that Iran has
hidden much of its nuclear network and hardened parts of it. One
should not consider a military strike a simple, swift action.
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:
|
|
YEMEN'S PROBLEMS ARE OURS, TOO
Posted by Susana K-M, January 7, 2010. |
|
This was written by Clarence Page. |
|
Having a Yemen visa stamped in my passport has brought wary questions from border officials over the past few years. Nowadays I'll be lucky if I don't get strip-searched. What a difference a botched terrorist attack makes. Yemen has become a top priority for the Obama administration since Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day. Yemen is where he told authorities he received his training and the bomb that famously fizzled in his underwear. Yemen has been popping up on our terrorism radar screen repeatedly since the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole killed 17 Americans in the port at Aden. Ten prisoners involved in that attack later escaped from a Yemen prison. Escapes like that seem to happen a lot in Yemen. That's one reason why Yemenis make up the largest bloc — 88 out of 200 — of the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. One of 23 suspected al-Qaida members who tunneled out of a high-security prison in Sana'a in early 2006 was Nasser al-Wuhayshi. He now leads al-Qaida's Yemen franchise, which claimed responsibility for the underwear bombing. I happened to be visiting Sanaa, Yemen's 1,000-plus-year-old capital at the time with two colleagues from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, of which I am a board member. The escapees might well have been digging beneath my feet, I calculate, while my colleagues and I happened to be meeting with government officials upstairs. There's little question that they received help from members of Yemen's security forces. Yemen has all the makings of another Afghanistan except that Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland, is even more poor, corrupt, repressive, unstable and therefore hospitable to al-Qaida. Foreign Policy Magazine's latest "Failed States Index" agrees, noting that "refugees and extremists were perhaps Yemen's most noteworthy imports in 2008." My most striking memories are of daggers and khat, each of which says a lot about what makes Yemen both fascinating and dangerous. The jambiya is a curved dagger traditionally with a handle carved from rhino horn and worn in the belt of Yemeni men. It beats only the AK-47 and other automatic weapons as a popular male fashion accessory, especially in the rural areas. Once the jambiya is withdrawn from its sheath it must draw blood, according to tradition, even if the owner must cut his own hand to do it. The colorful weapon symbolizes an irrepressible warrior culture that currently fuels an ethnic rebellion in Yemen's north, a secessionist movement in its south and al-Qaida sympathies everywhere. Khat is unofficially the country's national recreational drug and a major agricultural commodity. Little business gets done in Yemen after lunchtime unless it is done over khat (also often spelled "qat," among other ways), whose bitter green leaves are chewed like tobacco and parked in the cheeks. As Slate writer Elisabeth Eaves wrote in 2004, "After four weeks in Sana'a, I have met, through qat, government officials, ministers, politicians, business owners, journalists, poets, aid workers, a Hamas official, and an actress. Suffice it to say that without qat I would have neither friends nor sources." Since past attempts to illegalize khat have resulted in at least one government overthrow, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh looks the other way while the drug sucks up human energy and the country's water supply. The leafy evergreen plant is so lucrative and low-maintenance as a year-round cash crop that about 40 percent of the nation's dwindling water supply is devoted to its cultivation. That leaves the country importing food amid widespread malnutrition, unemployment and dwindling oil reserves. Team Obama is looking at ways to deepen military and intelligence cooperation with Yemen's government, which like Kabul barely controls much of the country outside of its big cities. Saleh has stayed in power for 31 years, following a string of assassinated predecessors, by balancing the interests of tribal warlords and religious leaders against those of neighboring countries. Since President Bush turned up the post-Sept. 11 heat, Saleh has tended to cooperate, as long as this country doesn't make its influence too obvious. Obama has stepped up covert operations against Al-Qaida in Yemen and plans to send $70 million over the next 18 months to equip, train and work with Yemeni security forces to strike al-Qaida bases. But Yemen's desperate economic, political and social problems call for a broader strategy. We need to work with our allies and the World Bank to boost Yemen's economic development and push for a settlement of its internal disputes. One Afghanistan is enough. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
MEDIA BIAS? WHAT MEDIA BIAS?
Posted by Tom McLaughlin, January 7, 2010. |
|
As a history teacher, I must strive for objectivity. However, I know it's not possible for a thoughtful person to study history, politics, or economics and not develop biases. Best practice would be to disclose those biases to students because it's inevitable that I'll teach concepts I believe in with more enthusiasm than concepts in which I don't believe. It's human nature. To detect this, students would need to understand the left/right political spectrum and the terminology used to describe it, so I sketched one out and taught it. Then I advised them to point out my bias when they detect it. Those exercises train them to identify and to be aware of a presenter's political perspective when any sort of information is promulgated. As their own biases develop, they need to be conscious of them when they listen to information. Facts are facts, and when they learn things that contradict their tentative understanding of cause and effect, they have to be willing to do the work necessary to adjust it. Thoughtful, informed teachers and students inevitably develop a point of view on issues. Only a robot could play it completely down the middle every time. The same would be true for a reporter. Some stories are just straight news and bias doesn't come into play, but when a reporter researches background to find causes for example, it probably will. He or she will look for certain things and not others according to his/her understanding of cause and effect. An editor can mitigate that by suggesting alternative areas of inquiry to the reporter, but when the reporters and editors all share the same biases, that's just not likely to happen, and that's been the case for decades in our mainstream media. Up to now, I've been pointing out unintentional bias, but evidence is increasing that Mainstream Media (MSM) bias is becoming more and more deliberate. By MSM, I mean the three major broadcast networks of ABC, NBC and CBS. I mean the big-city broadsheets like the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. I mean the weekly newsmagazines like Time and Newsweek, and I mean taxpayer-funded media like PBS and NPR. Although MSM influence is waning fast due to the rise of the internet, of talk radio and of cable news, it still predominates with much bigger audience share. The clearest example of MSM left-wing bias is their coverage of the last presidential campaign. Compare the merciless vetting of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin with the almost complete lack of scrutiny into Sen. Barack Obama. Obama had been impressing crowds with his oratorical skills — especially compared to the hum-drum speechifying of rival Sen. John McCain. But when McCain picked Palin as his VP nominee, she gave a speech that electrified conservatives and many independents as well. Then she followed up with another hard-hitting speech at the GOP convention and the MSM went after her relentlessly. One poll indicates that 90 percent of Americans believe the MSM actively helped Obama get elected and 70 percent believe they're promoting this administration. When we were promised lower ocean levels by reduced carbon emissions, the MSM cooperated by hyping alleged human causes of global warming. When liberals pushed the Cap and Trade bill, CBS's Scott Pelley compared global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers. When a hacker exposed the bias, lies and hypocrisy of global warming scientists in Europe and the United States just prior to the big "climate change" summit in Copenhagen, again the MSM ignored the story. When Obama made his speech before Congress on health care "reform," he used erroneous examples of people who allegedly suffered at the hands of insurance companies, but the MSM declined to investigate. When he made a speech in New Hampshire claiming surgeons would rather make $30-50 thousand on a amputation than treat a patient to save his leg, that was a whopper. Medicare pays $700-$1,200. Did you see any scrutiny of that? Not unless you saw it online, or on AM Radio, or on Fox News. Then there was ACORN, the "Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now." ACORN officials were filmed during a sting operation in five cities across the country offering to help people avoid tax laws, start prostitution services, and smuggle in underage illegal aliens to work in them — all with public tax money. The MSM ignored the story until Congress cut off ACORN's funds. As a columnist, I deal in opinions. Pushing a point of view and is part of my job. However, my turf is increasingly encroached upon by people purported to be reporters in the MSM. They brazenly amplify stories reinforcing their point of view and they play down or ignore stories that contradict it. Do they do so consciously and deliberately? Evidence is mounting that they do, and that is the most insidious form of propaganda. Tom McLaughlin is a history teacher and a regular weekly columnist for newspapers in Maine and New Hampshire. He writes about political and social issues, history, family, education and Radical Islam. E-mail him at tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net. |
|
SHANNON ORAND RECEIVES CONVERSION TO JUDAISM IN ISRAEL
Posted by Jewish Israel, January 7, 2010. |
|
We would like to wish a heartfelt Mazal Tov to JI member Shannon Orand upon her conversion to Judaism which she received in Israel earlier this week. Welcome to the Jewish people, Rachel (Shannon's Hebrew name)! Members of the Beit Din were Chief Rabbi Dov Lior of Hevron, Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed, and a respected rabbi who requested that his name be withheld. In addition, another recognized Chief Rabbi facilitated in the conversion process. Shannon withstood an extremely challenging test over these past few weeks, as news of Leib Tropper's compromising behavior hit the press and blogosphere. Shannon is a valued member of Jewish Israel. She actively participates in our interactive forums and talkbacks, and provides us with invaluable information. We were in touch with her and very much aware of the disturbing circumstances involving Leib Tropper. We offered Shannon our hopes and prayers for a quick, proper, and decent resolution to this episode. We opted not to publish any information until this incident came to a positive and fruitful conclusion, and indeed it has. Jewish Israel had the opportunity to speak with Shannon this week, and she graciously afforded us this interview: [Note: one of the rabbis handling Shannon's conversion asked that she no longer refer to Leib Tropper as "Rabbi"] JI: How are you feeling? You're a Jew now. Shannon Relieved after such a long process. I feel like I came out of Egypt. Many potential converts undergo severe testing, and I've certainly had my share. JI: Were the rabbis involved with your conversion fully aware of the episode that transpired over the past few weeks? Shannon: They were fully aware of the situation, are in possession of tapes, heard evidence, thoroughly questioned me, and required me to submit a written statement. JI: Is there something you would like the online public to know that was not exposed in the press reports? Is there a statement that you would like to make? Shannon: I think it needs to be understood that the information which went public was intended for trusted rabbinic authorities only. It should never have been leaked. The worst thing for me is the chilul Hashem that was created by all of this and the pain it has caused the Jewish community. I'm sick over the media's treatment of this episode and the aspects they chose to focus on. The outstanding questions are, how did I allow this situation to happen? Why didn't I put a stop to it and just go elsewhere? But the press reports virtually ignored the fact that I have been immersed in an ongoing legal battle involving my children and my ex-husband who sexually molested my daughter, pleaded guilty, and is a registered sex offender. Leib Tropper was taking care of the tremendous legal expenses I was incurring — which put me in a terribly difficult situation. I don't think the press or blog reports conveyed the desperate and powerless situation I found myself in. JI: In addition to the humiliation and pain caused by the Tropper scandal what are the other emotional costs you have incurred? Shannon: I lost the trial and although my ex-husband is forbidden from seeing my daughter, he has been granted visitation rights to see my son. I had planned on making aliyah, but after this verdict that is no longer possible at this time. A major concern I have is, how will the people in my community react? They are confused, and because I have been silent thus far, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. I want the opportunity to clear my name, and to be accepted by the community as a Jew. There are other costs. My mother, who is a devout evangelical/messianic and was never supportive of my conversion efforts, has told me that I'm going to hell and taking her grandchildren with me. My father, who used to be a preacher, has left the church and now considers himself Bnai Noach. He is supportive. (Shannon's parents are divorced.) JI: And you still insist on being a Jew after all of this? Shannon: Yes. I came from an idolatrous Christian background and worshipped a man instead of G-d. And now I have a relationship with G-d that no man can take away from me. I began studying counter-missionary literature when I was part of the church. I realized that the Christian bible had been severely altered, and that's how I became interested in Judaism. JI: You've had a chance to explore the rigors of the conversion process in both America and in Israel — in the Hareidi and the religious Zionist worlds. Is the approach different? Shannon: I found that the Israeli process is just as stringent, but was far more focused on what it means to be a Jew, whereas the American Hareidi system placed a great — almost exclusive — emphasis on halacha. For example, the Israeli rabbis asked me questions about halacha, but also asked me questions pertaining to the 13 principles of faith, the idea of messiah, belief in one G-d, the importance of the land of Israel, the mitzvot, and what being a Jew means to me. The American rabbis grilled me on the various laws pertaining to Shabbat observance. I have to say that I found the Israeli approach to be refreshing and inspiring. I feel very fortunate to have had what I consider to be the best of the best conversions, under such an amazing Beit Din. To be able to sit in front of and speak to such pure individuals that I respect and admire was beautiful. These people understand what it means to be a Jew, that it's much more than a black hat, and they live it every day. JI: Shannon, thank you for your honesty. May G-d grant you the strength, focus and wisdom needed to continue on the correct path and to meet the challenges ahead. We hope the Orthodox community in Houston will welcome Shannon as a valuable member of the Jewish community, assist her, and enable her life and the lives of her children to return to normalcy. This article is archived at
|
|
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY PROF RALLIES TO RESCUE ISLAMOFASCISM FROM THE KORAN
Posted by Steven Plaut, January 7, 2010. |
|
Islamist fascism has a problem. It is that traditional Islam, and the Koran in particular, explicitly acknowledge that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. The war of Islamofascism against Israel and its population thus directly contradicts the teachings about Jews and Israel found in the Koran itself. The Islamofascists, however, have found a solution to this dilemma. And they are being provided with this "solution" by a notorious Jewish anti-Semite. Let me explain. The Koran itself is extraordinarily clear about the status of the Land of Israel in Islam. While in general criticizing Jews for their supposed sinfulness, something the Jewish Bible does quite a lot of also, the Koran relates in Sura 5:21, that Moses (a revered teacher in Islam) tells the Jews to "enter into the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you." Moses adds to his people, according the Koran: "O my people! Remember the bounty of God upon you when He bestowed prophets upon you, and made you kings and gave you that which had not been given to anyone before you amongst the nations. O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God has written for you, and do not turn tail, otherwise you will be losers." Elsewhere (Sura 17, 104) the Koran proclaims: "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.'" The founder of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl, could not have said it better! The legitimacy of Jewish claims to the Land of Israel is repeated in Sura 10:93-94: "We settled the Children of Israel in a beautiful dwelling-place (Israel)...If thou wert in doubt as to what We have revealed unto thee, then ask those who have been reading the Book from before thee." The Koran also explicitly documents the existence of the Jewish Temples on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Sura 17:7 records the destruction of the First Jewish Temple by Babylon and the Second Temple by Rome, and Mohammed never contests the Bible's claim that the Temples were in Jerusalem. Indeed, the return of the Jews to their homeland after centuries of exile can be seen as the fulfillment of Islamic prophecy. Sura 17:104 of the Koran says: 'And we said to the Children of Israel afterwards, "Go live into this land (Israel). When the final prophecy comes to pass, we will summon you all in one group.' As noted by Prof. Khaleel Mohammed, from the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, the medieval exegetes of the Koran — roughly analogous to the Talmud for Judaism — recognize Israel as belonging to the Jews, as their birthright given to them by God. Two of Islam's most famous exegetes explained thus: 'Ibn Kathir said: "That which God has written for you, i.e. that which God has promised to you by the words of your father Israel that it is the inheritance of those among you who believe." Muhammad al-Shawkani interprets Kataba to mean "that which God has allotted and predestined for you in His primordial knowledge, deeming it as a place of residence for you."' From the above, one would think that Islamofascism faces a theological quandary in its attempts at conscripting Islam for a genocidal jihad against Israel and the Jews. But Islamofacsists have invented a solution. They can jihad all they want against Israel and the Jews, Islamic theology notwithstanding, because they claim that the Jews ... are not the Jews. If modern Jews are really not Jews at all, then Israel is not a country of Jews, and so Israelis have no rights to sovereignty in their own homeland as promised in the Koran. So just why are modern Jews not Jews, in the pseudo-theology of the jihadis? Because the Islamofascists are recycling the old mythology about European Jews or "Ashkenazim" being nothing more than converted Khazars. And the new guru of the "Jews-Not-Being-Jews" hoax is none other than Tel Aviv University history professor Shlomo Sand. To explain this mind-numbing development, let's take a few steps back. Yes, there was indeed a Kingdom of Turkic peoples living north of the Black Sea in the Dark Ages called the Khazars, and — yes — its ruling family and part of its population did convert to Judaism. The Khazar kingdom was largely destroyed by the expanding Russian kingdom in the tenth century, and anything remaining was destroyed in the Mongol invasions. What actually became of the Jewish Khazars is unknown. Some may have integrated themselves into other Jewish communities in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Later a myth was created about the Khazars being an important component of European Jewry. This myth was to a large extent the invention of the 1976 book, The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler, a writer better known for his lifelong battles against totalitarianism in all its forms. Koestler wrote his book largely in order to create interest and sympathy for Jews and Israel, believing the Khazar story would serve as a basis for respect and fascination with Jewish history. In reality, there is very little evidence of any type, from genetic markers to family and place names, that there is any significant Khazar "blood" among Western or Ashkenazi Jews. Meanwhile, Koestler's public relations ploy backfired. In recent years, the Khazar myth has been hijacked by Neo-Nazis and Islamofascists to invent a racialist argument against Jews being entitled to self-determination, independence, or a homeland in the Land of Israel. If Jews are nothing more than converted Khazars, or so goes the argument of the anti-Semitic racialists, then they are foreign interlopers in the Levant and have no right to statehood there. Now, as a matter of fact, even if the Khazar myth were true, and Ashkenazi Jews were descendent from converted Khazars (and — we repeat — the myth is NOT true!), it still would not make the slightest difference. Jews never defined themselves in genetic or racial terms. They always saw themselves as an ethnic group marked off by religion, tradition, and language. Converts are just as Jewish as are those born to a Jewish mother and just as entitled to participate in Jewish self-determination. And, to top it all off, most Israeli Jews are not even Ashkenazi Jews. Meanwhile, the popularity of the Khazar myth among anti-Semites represents a return of modern anti-Jewish bigotry to the racialism of the 1930's and earlier. Nearly every anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi website denounces Zionists and Israelis as "Khazars." Web chat lists in which Jews defending Israel are dismissed as "Khazar usurpers" are too numerous to count. The racialism once again in vogue holds that Jews would only have legitimate claims to the right of self-determination in their homeland if they were appropriately Semitic from a racial point of view. Palestine is part of the Semitic racial lebensraum and those who do not possess the correct pure racial markings have no business being there. Racial purity is suddenly the new basis for national rights. If we take the racialist argument to its illogical conclusions, Palestinian Arabs have the right to exercise all claims to sovereignty in Israel due to their being true racial Jews, while Zionists are non-Jewish Khazars — racial imposters and usurpers. But to make things even sillier, Arabs themselves are, of course, a mix of racial strains, with a particularly large Caucasian component thanks to Arab intermixing with Spanish and Italian Europeans, Caucasian Berbers, Vandals, Goths, and even some Vikings. Lest the world dismiss "Khazar Zionist" nonsense as something as pathetic as the conspiracist "911-Truth" form of mental illness, along comes an anti-Semitic pseudo-academic from Tel Aviv University itself to lead the racialist charge against the Israeli "Khazars" and against Jewish self-determination. Professor Shlomo Sand is a hard-core Stalinist and Jewish anti-Semite. He was active for a while in the 1960s and 1970s in a tiny Israeli Maoist splinter named Matzpen. From its ranks emerged an espionage ring of Israeli Jewish and Arab communists, who trained as terrorists in Syria and were jailed by Israel in the 1970s. Writing mainly in French, Sand has built much of his "academic" career on churning out Marxist boilerplate diatribes. He is a fanatic anti-Zionist and makes no attempt to hide his desire to see his own country obliterated. Sand last year recruited himself to the aid of the Islamists seeking to annihilate Israel. So the Koran says the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews? In that case, Sand himself, a professor at Tel Aviv University, will recycle Neo-Nazi mythology about Israeli Jews being converted Khazar interlopers. The result was Sand's book, The Invention of the Jewish People, a pseudo-history published in English by Verso Books, a publishing house set up by "New Left Review," specializing in communist and Bash-Israel "books." Sand's book about Jews being a fraudulent "invention" is amazingly un-original. If submitted as a student paper I suspect it would be rejected as plagiarism of the contents of anti-Jewish web sites. Sand's book has been hailed as ground-breaking scholarship by Neo-Nazis, jihadists, terrorist web sites, anti-Semites and communists of all stripes. Serious historians have dismissed it as pseudo-academic poppycock, as fraud, and as little more than a comic book recycling of Neo-Nazi myths about Jews being Khazars. Sand's conclusions from the imaginary "evidence" about the Khazar roots of Israelis resemble those of his jihadi groupies, namely, that Israel has no right to exist and that Jews are not Jews at all, certainly not any sort of a people. Tel Aviv University has won for itself the dubious honor of serving as home base for arguably the world's worst "academic" anti-Semite, and has raised questions all over the globe about the academic standards it has obviously abandoned. Meanwhile, we have grown accustomed in our 21st century to the bizarre collaboration between Islamist fundamentalists and far-leftists. Even so, one cannot help marvelling at the spectacle of an Israeli Stalinist professor devoting himself so passionately to prolierating the myths required by Islamofascist fundamentalists, and by so doing grant them the means for ignoring the Koran itself. [A shorter version of this appears here:
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
|
|
CARTER APOLOGIZES, AGAIN
Posted by Naomi Ragen, January 6, 2010. |
|
This essay is entitled "Former President apologizes for stealing Auschwitz sign." and was written by Shmuel Savage. |
|
JEWLARIOUS SATIRE — Calling it "the single biggest mistake of my career, outside of running for a second term" Jimmy Carter apologized to the Polish, Jewish and American people this past Sunday. Carter was caught red-handed at a Warsaw Dunkin Donuts, quietly sipping a latte and sitting with the arbecht macht frei sign, which had otherwise hung at the Auschwitz concentration camp, since its inception. A chastened Carter defended his actions and relationship with the Jewish people, telling the Jewlarious News Network (JNN), "Calling Israel an apartheid state, cuddling with Hamas leaders and stealing the arbecht macht frei sign do not make me an anti-Semite. I love the people of the book, but just wish that there were fewer of them and that they had less land so that we could fully monitor and appreciate them, never taking them for granted again." When pressed by JNN as to why he was at the site and how he managed to steal the sign without anyone seeing, Carter explained: "It was a lark. Rosalyn and I build those habitats houses so we are pretty handy with tools these days. I just got onto her shoulders — Rosalyn is as strong as an ox — and we took out a ratchet set and removed the screws. Then, she just carried me away." A tearful Rosalyn Carter told JNN confidentially, "Jimmy has gained 20 pounds in the last three years. It was awful." Friends and foes struggled to understand what Carter wanted to do with the sign. Long time Carter critic Allan Dershowitz told Jewlarious, "Jimmy is straight up crazy. Can I just leave it at that?" President Obama immediately distanced himself from Carter saying, "We all know that they give these Nobel Peace Prizes out to anyone, even the least accomplished people. Jimmy got one. I got one. On the upside, he is making me feel more deserving." Thorbjorn Jagland, Chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee, reached at his home in Oslo for comment, told JNN: "Once an individual receives the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize Committee then stands behind all of their subsequent actions unhesitatingly. That went for Yasser Arafat, and of course the same policy applies to Mr. Carter. We wholeheartedly support Jimmy's right to damage and steal the arbecht macht frei sign." 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. |
|
MICKEY MOUSE AIR SECURITY. REAL AIR SECURITY REQUIRES PROPER PROFILING
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, January 6, 2010. |
|
This is from The Australian and is archived at
|
|
AS hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London's Heathrow airport in 1986 comes to mind. It consisted of an El Al security agent quizzing Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to "get rid of the thing," he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in "the Holy Land". He also insisted on their travelling separately. Murphy, later described by the prosecutor as a "simple, unsophisticated Irish lass and a Catholic," accepted unquestioningly Hindawi's arrangements for her to fly to Israel on El Al on April 17. She also accepted a wheeled suitcase with a false bottom containing nearly 2kg of Semtex, a powerful plastic explosive, and she agreed to be coached by him to answer questions posed by airport security. Murphy successfully passed through the standard Heathrow security inspection and reached the gate with her bag, where an El Al agent questioned her. As reconstructed by Neil C. Livingstone and David Halevy in Washingtonian magazine, he started by asking whether she had packed her bags herself. She replied in the negative. Then: "What is the purpose of your trip to Israel?" Recalling Hindawi's instructions, Murphy answered, "For a vacation." "Are you married, Miss Murphy?" "No." "Travelling alone?" "Yes." "Is this your first trip abroad?" "Yes." "Do you have relatives in Israel?" "No." "Are you going to meet someone in Israel?" "No. "Has your vacation been planned for a long time?" "No." "Where will you stay while you're in Israel?" "The Tel Aviv Hilton." "How much money do you have with you?" "Fifty pounds." The Hilton at that time costing at least pound stg. 70 a night, he asked: "Do you have a credit card?" "Oh, yes," she replied, showing him an ID for cashing cheques. That did it, and the agent sent her bag for additional inspection, where the bombing apparatus was discovered. Had El Al followed the usual Western security procedures, 375 lives would surely have been lost somewhere over Austria. The bombing plot came to light, in other words, through a non-technical intervention, relying on conversation, perception, common sense, and (yes) profiling. Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
|
WHITE HOUSE ON NEW JEWISH HOUSING IN JERUSALEM; P.A. ROLE IN RABBI'S
MURDER; ROAD RE-OPENING TO PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ARABS: UPDATE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 6, 2010. |
|
WHITE HOUSE ON NEW JEWISH HOUSING IN JERUSALEM: PART 1: CONDEMNATION 
"The Jerusalem Planning and Construction Council has approved the construction of four apartment buildings in the Beit Orot yeshiva complex on Mt. of Olives. The decision to turn the yeshiva into a small neighborhood has been in the works for several years." "Ten families currently live in caravans — mobile homes without wheels — on the campus, forming a close-knit and vibrant community. The new buildings will house six families each. Beit Orot is located on the northern slopes of the Mt. of Olives, not far from the Mt. Scopus campus of Hebrew University." "Peace Now and other left-wing elements in Israeli politics were quick to attack the decision, falling in line with the expected United States government criticism. Peace Now attacked Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat for the decision, saying he is turning Jerusalem into a Hevron-like locality in terms of Jewish-Arab relations. City councilman Meir Margalit (Meretz) said the move is a 'provocation that is designed to impede peace.'" "The White House interrupted its Christmas vacation last week to release a strong statement against new Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said, 'The U.S. opposes all new Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem. The status of Jerusalem is an issue for permanent status talks which must be solved by the sides via negotiations and with the support of the international community.'" www.imra.org.il, 1/5.) WHITE HOUSE ON JEWISH HOUSING IN JERUSALEM: PART 2. REFUTATION The White House statement seems its most explicit to date. Its bias is clear. Based on its rationale that the status of Jerusalem should be determined by negotiations, it opposes Jewish construction. If its rationale were correct, why would it not also oppose Arab construction? The answer is that the State Dept. is anti-Zionist; it has made up its mind that eastern Jerusalem, at least, should be taken from the Jewish state and given to an Arab one. It also has been supporting the Palestinian Arab terrorists sufficiently for them to refuse to negotiate and to expect the great powers to coerce Israel into surrender what it might not negotiate away. Hence the phrase, "with the support of the international community." "International community" is a pleasant-sounding euphemism for the biased and corrupt governments of the world to make trouble there and ignore trouble elsewhere. They would be irresponsible in their "support" for setting up another Arab terrorist state, whose doctrine mandates its conquering all of Israel. Let the city stultify until negotiations conclude some year? Just as the Administration's conclusion is biased, its premises are false. For one thing, the status of Jerusalem is not an issue for permanent status talks. Israel annexed all of Jerusalem. Jerusalem no longer is in the unallocated part of the Palestine Mandate. Remember: (1) Jerusalem in 1948 had no other legal status. Israel did not conquer it from any legal sovereign state owning it; and (2) It conquered it in self-defense, thereby gaining a second legal right to annex it for security. That is a right under international law, still the law though the powers that be do not like it for the rights it gives Israel. This legal principle makes sense, for unless countries can protect themselves against repeated aggression, aggressors can keep trying without penalty and without losing strategic advantage for aggression. Oppose this principle of international law, and you indirectly support aggression. The Administration has another false premise. You see, housing does not determine the legal status of territory. It does have a psychological influence, but not a legal one. Therefore, the U.S., even if Jerusalem's legal status were not already regularized, has no legitimate basis for questioning Jewish construction there. Again, if it did, the same would apply to Arab construction. When the Meretz Party characterizes new Jewish construction as a "provocation that is designed to impede peace," it is expressing the same language and attitude as the Arab enemies of their country as similar to that of the Communists. To accuse Jews whose plan to build houses in their capital city of is "designed to impede peace" connotes a conspiracy for which there is no evidence and in fact which is contrary to Israeli philosophy. That is calumny. It is unethical. It also gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Using the same wording as the enemy makes one wonder whether Meretz and Peace now should be considered allies of the enemy. To call Jewish building and not Arab building a "provocation," when the Arabs have refused to negotiate and end strife and when Abbas honors terrorists who spread strife, encourages Arab terrorism and recalcitrance. Thus Peace Now really is agitating for conditions leading to more war. The earlier Israeli withdrawals that Peace Now advocated did lead to wars in Lebanon, Gaza, and the Oslo Accords that produced Intifadas. JORDANIANS: PUNISH CALLING THEM 'PALESTINIANS' Two Jordanian lawyers demanded that their government issue arrest warrants for two Israeli Members of Knesset for calling Jordan a Palestinian state. The lawyers claimed that such a designation threatens Jordanian security. Meanwhile, Jordan has ignored its agreement to hold interfaith
dialog, had stopped Jewish tourists from bringing Jewish religious
objects into Jordan, and is boycotting Jewish-made products from
Judea-Samaria
The Members of Knesset are accurate, the Jordanians have a legitimate fear, but the lawyers' anti-democratic solution is not legitimate. The Palestine Mandate was drawn up for the Jewish people, based on the boundaries of their ancient kingdom, with a Bible in one hand and a drawing pen in the other. It included what is now Israel with the Golan, Judea, Samaria, and the trans-Jordanian provinces. Before officially approved, the Golan was removed for non-pertinent reasons. Britain emancipated the trans-Jordanian provinces from the Mandate, as Israel later did for itself. But although such facts may not be convenient for those who would like a second partition of Palestine, the Jordanians are Palestinian Arabs. The people of Jordan include descendants of a small number of people thrust from Saudi Arabia, Bedouin, and a preponderant majority of Palestinian Arab refugees. If Jordanians are not Palestinian Arabs, what are they, and what are the Arabs who are to be called Palestinians? These designation are political and opportunistic, not logical. Jordan indeed is a Palestinian Arab state. If the world recognized that fact, it might suggest that the Palestinian Arabs from outside Jordan either federate with Jordan or enter it. Considering that the PLO tried to take over Jordan before, this prospect does threaten Jordanian security. The proposal to curb free speech reflects undemocratic tendencies and a tendency to resort to lawsuits for every problem. This resort is a way of imposing one's will on others, including the majority, whom one is unable to persuade. Jordan-Israel relations were better before their peace treaty. Treaties with the Arabs have not ended their enmity. But the Arabs got concessions for formal agreements, much of which they do not implement. I think less stock should be placed in formal agreements. Barring Jews from bringing their own prayer shawls in with them is discriminatory. If you hear of someone who opposes Israeli treatment of Arabs also opposing that Muslim discrimination against Jews, please let me know. I have yet to see even-handedness. Inconsistency by anti-Zionists in issues of tolerance beclouds their sincerity. ISRAELI STUDENT INDOCTRINATES STUDENTS Ram Cohen, principal of an Israeli school in Tel Aviv indoctrinates his students in left-wing politics. He urges them to denounce the IDF as an occupation army, and praises Hamas terrorists as freedom fighters. Knesset Member Alex Miller suggests firing Mr. Cohen. Miller said
that if the principal had advocated right-wing politics, there would
be a big public outcry to fire him
MK Miller's observation is accurate, that the Israeli media and often the government tendency is to denounce, fire, beat up, or arrest Jewish nationalists but not Jewish leftists for the same deeds, such as civil disobedience or mere peaceful demonstration. I prefer the American principle of equal enforcement of the law and without police brutality. However, the American Left is getting less democratic and more censorious. The Obama Administration has been reported as using its discretionary powers to coerce various business sectors to support its policies. Education is a special category, dealing with children. Educators have a responsibility to educate rather than indoctrinate children. Biased Israeli law enforcement bias has a certain perversity, in that it favors treasonous activity or views over patriotic ones. To call the most barbaric terrorists "freedom fighters," is particularly perverse. A terrorist targets civilians for political purpose. That is inherently criminal, picking on the unarmed and the innocent. It is the Islamist Arab view that their religious ends justify any means; it should not be an Israeli's view. The principal overlooks what happened and happens in Gaza and what it means. The Arabs inside the Mandate area and several Arab states outside rejected peace and attempted to exterminate the Jews of Israel. The Jews defended their independence. They were the freedom fighters. In defending themselves, eventually they gained control of a non-sovereign part of their homeland, including Gaza. It is not as if Israel seized a foreign country, for Gaza belonged to the Mandate, not to any government. Israel raised the Arab standard of living in the areas it took control of. Then it gave the Palestinian Arabs autonomy and then evacuated from Gaza. It certainly is not occupying Gaza. Hamas used its freedom of movement to make war on Israel. It does not want peace with Israel, will not recognize Israel, and remains dedicated to bring down Israel. To gain its way, Hamas had thousands of rockets fired into Israeli civilian areas. To praise the Hamas terrorists and warmongers, who oppress their own people and wish to oppress others, as freedom fighters, is irrational. I think it is emotionally disturbed. ISRAELI ARABS WHO SUBVERT EMPLOYERS OVER HISTORY 
Palestinian Authority TV interviewed three Arab employees of official Israeli institutions in Jerusalem, a teacher, a researcher and a guide who stated that "...they do not convey to students and visitors the historical information which they are meant to impart — contrary to the guidelines of their Israeli employers, and without their knowledge." On one program, Mustafa Othman, a teacher from the Beit Safafa neighborhood in the western part of Jerusalem, said that he"...teaches Israeli Arab children that the Israeli state curriculum is 'only for the test; you shouldn't consider it as information'. The truth, he teaches Israeli Arab youth, is 'that [Israel] conquered our land by armed force, robbed it, destroyed the houses, expelled its people from the cities and from the villages.'" On another program, a history scholar and an Arabic-language tour guide at the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem, "defined the Israeli historical narrative regarding the Jewish connection with Jerusalem, which they are meant to convey to tourists, as 'false,' and testified that they teach different information instead. According to one, the museum invents stories for the purpose of 'creating a historical right and a historical dimension, claiming that they [the Jews] were here 3,000 years ago and that they had buildings here, and that they had a presence here." The tourist guide in the museum said that the information signs on the walls of the museum are incorrect, while the history scholar reiterated the central Palestinian historical distortion denying the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, referring to it as the 'alleged Temple'" (Palestinian Media Watch, from Al-Filistiniya (Fatah) TV, Sept. 10, 2009, relayed by www.imra.org.il, 1/5). The Tower of David Museum is one of the most interesting I have been to. Don't miss it if you visit Jerusalem and after you visited the Western Wall. This kind of subversion, in addition to local Arab stoning of Israeli vehicles and past attempt at genocide makes one wonder whether Western notions of tolerance and integration can work with a culture that has a fanatical intolerance except for violence. The Hebrew Testament, which Christianity adopted, was written well over 2,000 years ago and much of it was recorded orally even before that. It described events, the later ones of which were contemporary. To say now that its story was contrived for set up an historical claim to the country for use now is absurd. Such is the ideologically driven, misapplied scholarship of those Arab researcher, teacher, and guide. History records that the Arabs got to the country by conquering it. Great imperialists were they! They and their successors set up conditions that drove most of the remaining Jewish families out. The Arabs lost control relatively soon to Turks, the British, and then to the Jews. History came full circle. What did the Arab teacher mean, "our land." In modern times, Jews bought land there. The Arabs tried again to drive the Jews out. They failed, so they fled. Very few were expelled, and those few for military security. This I remember. Only then did the Jews obliterate some abandoned Arab villages, to suit plans for rebuilding the country. Thus the researcher, teacher, and guide deny history, in order to eliminate the Jewish claim and establish the Muslim Arab claim. This is just the opposite of what they claim the Jews did. I wonder where they think the Jews came from? We know where the Arabs came from, the Arabian Peninsula. TIGHTER SECURITY FOR FLIGHTS INTO U.S. 
Passengers on flights to the U.S. that are from state sponsors of terrorism or certain other countries will be more carefully screened, patted down, etc.. These 14 countries are: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and, according to the New York Times, Algeria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. I'll be taking a vacation, soon. The airline called to advise passengers to wear clean underwear. The stricter measures stem from recent terrorist attacks. I await lawsuits calling this ethnic profiling. Half of my friends' children are becoming lawyers. I suppose that the trial lawyers association has a division of labor: one third draft statutes; one third find loopholes in the law; and one third sues over the law. I'm putting a lighter touch into some comments. I hope you will understand it is tongue in cheek. P.A. ROLE IN RABBI'S MURDER The Palestinian Authority (P.A.) signed an agreement with Israel that Israel would grant amnesty to certain wanted terrorists, if they promised to cease terrorism. If those removed from the wanted posters resumed terrorism, then the P.A. agreed to extradite them to Israel. One promised and resumed was Anan Subuh. Israeli intelligence found out. It asked the P.A. to turn him over. The P.A. refused, on the grounds that Subuh belonged to Fatah, same as Abbas, and not to Hamas. The "international community" makes a distinction between Fatah gunmen and Abbas [who encourages and hires them]. Subuh murdered Rabbi Meir Chai. The IDF pursued him, and shot him hiding in his arms cache (www.imra.org.il, 1/5). The P.A. is an accomplice in the murder. Considering that the P.A. has violated all its agreements with Israel, including the Oslo accords, what sense does it make for Israel to consider making more agreements with the P.A. that it will violate? By making that criminally negligent agreement, Israel aided and abetted the murderers. IRAN BANS PEOPLE'S CONTACT WITH FOREIGN ORGANIZATIONS Iran has barred its citizens from having contact with 60 foreign organizations. Among them are the Human Rights and BBC, the one that might discover government abuse of its people and the other that might report it (www.imra.org.il, 1/5). ROAD RE-OPENING TO PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ARABS: UPDATE The Israeli Supreme Court decided to re-open key Highway 443 to Palestinian Authority (P.A.) licensed cars, after years of it being off-limits because of numerous terrorist attacks on it. The Court said it would give Arabs a sense of being discriminated against. The attorney for some of the Jewish communities concerned in the case put it into the context of "...the High Court's other rulings concerning Judea and Samaria in the last few years. Through a long string of decisions, the court has repeatedly and incrementally cut away from the government's ability to safeguard Israelis from Palestinian terror — whether by repeatedly rerouting the security fence, always to Israel's disadvantage, or by limiting the abilities of soldiers to defend themselves or by interfering with the demolition of the homes of Arab terrorists." The judges usurped "...the right to overrule any government action they deem unreasonable. When the court started using this test in the 1990s, critics warned that it would inevitably lead to judges imposing their ideology on the country, and replacing their judgment for that of elected officials — a slap in the face to democratic rule, according to which it is the voters, not the unelected judges, who ultimately decide whether their leaders are doing a reasonable job. The 443 ruling proves, again, that the critics were right." The attorney, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, finds that "always Israel that loses, step by step, control over land whose future would rightfully be left for the parties to negotiate over — effectively creating facts on the ground that will prejudice the outcome in favor of the court's conspicuously ideological bent. The ruling is another step in a prolonged process in which the High Court, salami-style, predetermines the country's future borders, without negotiations, without respect for the democratic process." "BY INSISTING that the feelings of equality of a small number of Palestinians trump the feelings of physical security of a large number of Israelis, it is the court that is fostering a 'sense of discrimination,' not the IDF. And though the court's decision asserts that the IDF 'went beyond its authority' in preserving 443 as an access road for Israelis traveling to and from Jerusalem, it is the court that has gone beyond its authority, in intervening in reasonable judgment calls that are the job of elected officials to make. Even if one argued that since the Palestinians don't vote in Israeli elections, sometimes the courts need to get involved in protecting them from IDF abuse, this should only be done in the most egregious cases." "Now the judges have ruled, and we all know who will pay the price: Some Israeli on his or her way to work, targeted by terrorists who will take advantage of their new, easy access to Route 443, and make their quick getaway." Blood will be shed, and then, one way or another, the road will be closed again. Why go there? (www.imra.org.il, 1/5.) There is a pattern of closing the barn door after the horses are stolen, then unlocking the barn and putting new horses into it, without having caught all the horse thieves.
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:
|
|
FROM ISRAEL: SOARING INSANITY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 5, 2010. |
|
It's difficult to get a handle on what's going on, with regard to our relationships with the PA and with Obama's administration. So much is bewildering: enormous stupidity if not outright insanity. Last I wrote, I discussed what is likely a Netanyahu "theatrical game," in which he lets certain assumptions be made, by way of innuendo or vagueness, without actually committing to anything. The specific issue at hand was whether he had agreed to accept "'67 lines with adjustments" as the starting point for negotiations. Yesterday, according to a source in a closed door meeting (with the leak most surely sanctioned), Netanyahu overtly denied that he had either agreed to this formulation, or shown flexibility on issues of Jerusalem and refugees. According to the report, he insisted, "It's simply not true." This was the Palestinian notion of what should take place, he said, but "That is not going to happen." ~~~~~~~~~~ Yet on Monday other news also broke. According to Egyptian sources, Obama is going to be putting forth a plan that calls for completion of negotiations and a Palestinian state within two years. In accordance with this, the two sides would exchange mutual letters offering guarantees. When negotiations began, they would focus on establishing borders — with this to be completed in nine months, i.e., by the end of the current building freeze. (That way there'd be no fighting about building, as we'd be able to build only in the areas that we would know are going to remain in Israeli hands.) Negotiations would then move to issues such as refugees and Jerusalem. I hasten to point out that this didn't come from the White House or State Department sources. There is a tendency for involved parties to attribute positions or statements to others that comport with what they hope to see. It's a form of manipulation. IS this Obama's plan? Is this something the US is floating indirectly to gauge reactions? Minister Moshe Ya'alon has stated that what Egypt is attributing to the US is "not even close to being accurate." Do he and others in the government know what Obama intends to propose? However, if one definition of insanity is being out of touch with reality, then this plan, whomever it belongs to, is certainly insane. To be truly and solidly sane would be to recognize that it's impossible for borders to be established for a Palestinian state (and in the next nine months, yet). For even what we might (G-d forbid) offer in the way of a horrendously generous deal would be less than what Abbas would (or, in line with his political constraints, could) accept. It's simply not going to happen. ~~~~~~~~~~ There are other objections to this plan as well, and our government has now made clear what they are. Israel's position is one of "all or nothing." There's no deal until there's a full deal. As one senior Israeli official pointed out, the above formulation would mean we relinquished land, and the communities on this land, without getting anything in return up front. We would have no picture of the sort of state that would be established on the other side of the line we would have agreed to, no parameters regarding demilitarization or anything else. People in our governments sometimes do foolish things. But no one in our government — from right to left — is on board for this. ~~~~~~~~~~ Additionally, it has been reported that Foreign Minister Lieberman told Quartet Envoy Tony Blair yesterday that: "It is important to hold an honest, open dialogue with the Palestinians without sowing delusions that are disconnected with reality and that will only lead to violence and frustration. It is not possible to reach a full agreement within two years. Not for a second do I think that this statement was made without a nod from the prime minister's office. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile, Abbas has met with Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh, and his statements simply confirm my impression that he's not coming to the table. He says he has no pre-conditions. No, no. It's just that: "We have said and are still saying that at the time when settlement construction is stopped and the international legitimacy is recognized [presumably with regard to the '67 lines as borders], we will be ready to resume the negotiations." ~~~~~~~~~~ Egyptian delegations will now be headed to Washington and London to discuss advancing the "peace process." Media reports persist in saying that the Egyptians are carrying "new ideas" that had been proposed in Cairo by Netanyahu. An anonymous Palestinian official cited in the Post said these ideas touch upon all core issues. But unless there is something concrete revealed I give this no credence. Perhaps Netanyahu has made suggestions that we are not privy to. Perhaps he has "suggested" certain things via innuendo. But it's just as likely that this is one more instance of a rumor without basis in fact floated for ulterior purposes. The Egyptians, when they serve in a mediating role, are not disinterested third parties. They have their own vested interests, and we must not forget this. What is more, they become inappropriately invested in the negotiating process itself. When the negotiations about Shalit stalled recently, the Egyptians were angry with us. They had worked so hard, they had brought the sides so close. But because we were stubborn and wouldn't release Barghouti, or insisted that certain terrorist be deported, we were chastised by them for "ruining" their efforts. If only we would be more forthcoming, then their good work would not be in vain. Never mind our right to protect our interests. ~~~~~~~~~~ Defense Minister Ehud Barak got on the phone today, with our "good friend" Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General, and asked him to help get talks with the PA going. Precisely what is this urgency about? Couple this with Netanyahu's statement that "there is a change in the atmosphere [and] the time is ripe for kick-starting the peace process." I must be missing something with regard to that changed atmosphere. This "feels" crazy, and perhaps it is. ~~~~~~~~~~ Except... except...it is possible that the push by our government to get negotiations going might be an attempt to expose the duplicity of the Palestinians, who are not truly committed to peace, while we are. I remain too cynical about the world to be confident that this would work. For it would require the international community to view the Palestinian Arabs objectively, rather than perpetually cutting them slack. But it seems our government is trying. And it would sure give a different slant to some of what Netanyahu is doing. Consider this. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign yesterday put up on the homepage of its website "Behind the Headlines: The Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate," which says: "The consistent rejection by Palestinians of Israeli peace initiatives and its current refusal to negotiate leaves Israel questioning whether its neighbors are in fact committed to peace." Making a very solid case, it then details all the times Israel has advanced peace initiatives, and all the times the PA has rejected them.
How I would love to think that this is part of a plan that would lead, finally, to our saying, "enough": We're finished with concessions; if the Palestinian Arabs genuinely want peace, they can let us know. As Lieberman actually said something similar the other day, it is perhaps not too far-fetched a hope. ~~~~~~~~~~ There has been news that Obama is getting fed up with the Iranians and will be pushing sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard; apparently there are consultations already going on with other nations in this regard. That's a much-welcomed announcement — although it remains to be seen how serious these sanctions will be. However...Hillary Clinton, in making the announcement about sanctions, also said, "We've avoided using the term 'deadline' ourselves. That's not a term we have used because we want to keep the door to dialogue open." Is it that they cannot admit that "dialogue with Iran" was a futile notion? After the way that Iran has spit on Obama's outstretched hand, and the hard evidence that the Iranians are grossly deceptive, why would the president imagine that anything positive could be achieved via this "open-door" policy? It simply makes the US look very foolish. One more failure to embrace reality. ~~~~~~~~~~ This post is dedicated to the memory of my cat Amber, a dear companion for eight years, whom I lost prematurely yesterday to disease. Love takes many forms in this hard world. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
OBAMA APPOINTED SELF-HATING ANTI-SEMITISM CZAR; IRAN IS ARABS WORST ENEMY; MESSAGE TO ANTI-ISRAEL OBJECTORS
Posted by Steven Shamrak, January 5, 2010. |
|
Obama Appointed Self-Hating Anti-Semitism Czar.
In her first major interview since becoming President Obama's newly appointed anti-Semitism czar (it took Obama a while to find an ideologically compatible self-hating Jew to fill the position), Hannah Rosenthal blasted the Israeli government. She characterized as "most unfortunate" a decision by Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, to not attend the annual dinner in September of J Street, a (self-appointed) lobby group that is mostly led by left-leaning (anti-Israel and anti-Jewish) Israelis and receives funds from Arab and Muslim Americans... J Street supports talks with Hamas, a terrorist group whose charter seeks the destruction of Israel. The group opposes sanctions against Iran and is harshly critical of Israeli offensive anti-terror military actions. (Rosenthal serves on the board of J Street) Regarding a recent UN report, accusing Israel of war crimes during the Jewish state's defensive war in Gaza last year, Rosenthal told Haaretz, "it is not anti-Semitic to look at a certain policy of Israel and say — I disagree with it. Half of the population in Israel isn't anti-Semitic by not agreeing with policies." (If this is so, will she call for the investigation of war crimes allegedly committed by the US army in Afghanistan and Iraq?) Increase in US Contempt and Disrespect. Israel's ire reached a new level after an incident on November 13 in which a five-car convoy of consulate vehicles with diplomatic plates arrived at the Gilboa crossing (the West Bank). The drivers refused to identify themselves or open a window or door. The drivers tried running over one of the Israeli security guards and made indecent gestures at female guards. Israel is also furious that one of the consulate cars was found to have transported a Palestinian without permits between Jerusalem and the West Bank. (There is a saying: "Fish starts to rot from the head". By electing a president with an anti-Israel and anti-democratic agenda, who is still hiding his Islamic heritage, Americans have allowed 'scummy' behaviour — first at home and now in Israel!) Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak When civilians actively have been supporting Islamic terrorism against the state of Israel and actively participated in or covered the hostile actions of enemies during the war, as they have been doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore they became enemy combatants. Killing them is not a war crime! The UN's high-priced international lawyers know this, but anti-Semitic international politicians are still waging an anti-Israel smear campaign! Gaza Aid Convoy Heads Back to Syria. An aid convoy headed to Gaza says it has to detour through the Mediterranean port of El Arish after Egyptian authorities denied it permission to cross at Rafah. At the same time The UN 'independent expert' on Palestinian rights, Richard Falk, has again called for a threat of economic sanctions against Israel to force it to lift its blockade of Gaza. (Sanctions against Egypt were not mentioned! Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian controlled territories. The UN is subjecting only Israel to such discriminatory and humiliating scrutiny — not even Iran, North Korea or Saudi Arabia!) Arabs and Druze are Most Murderous Israelis. While Arab and Druze Israelis constitute 20% of the country's population, they accounted for 59% of the country's murders. Out of 121 murders in Israel in 2009, 71 were committed by or among Arabs and Druze. The vast majority of criminal bombings occurred in the minority sector, particularly the Arab sector, where 85 events of planting bombs and 65 of throwing grenades at targets were recorded Keep Traitors Out of Likud. Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara joined with MK Tsipi Hotoveli in opposing efforts to encourage Kadima Mks to join the Likud, or to encourage Kadima to join the government. "Those who tried to destroy the Likud have no place in it," Kara said. "The traitors who jumped ship have no place among us. We will not take back those who tried to wreck our party" It is Only Egypt. A humanitarian convoy, around 210 trucks and 500 people, loaded with food and medical supplies and intended for the Gaza strip is stuck in Jordan, trying to access the Egyptian-controlled Rafah Terminal, but Egypt is not allowing to convoy to move on to Rafah. (No international outcry or condemnations — Not big news!) Israel Must Follow USA's Lead and End Hamas/Fatah Charade! The air strike in Eastern Yemen Thursday, Dec. 24, which left more than 30 dead, was in fact a US drone attack which wiped out a large part of al Qaeda's leadership in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Among them were two high-ranking Yemen al Qaeda operatives Saud al Qahtani, Mohammed Amir, al Qaeda's commander in Saudi Arabia, Saad Shahani, and Anwar al Awkali, the American imam who preached to US. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who murdered 13 US military personnel at Ford Hood, Texas last month. Quote of the Week: "We are not seeking revenge against the Arabs. The difference between us and them is that we are human beings. We won't shoot them in the head for no reason. We are Jews, holy people, human beings." — Eliyahu, 16, one of Meir Avshalom Hai's seven children — It is the duty of the Israeli government to support Zionism, the Jewish independence movement, and to clear Jewish land from hostile Arab occupation. Iran Became Arabs' Worst Enemy. Iran's nuclear threat to regional security has replaced Israel as the Arab world's public enemy number one, according to an Arab survey commissioned by the Doha Debates group. Nearly a third think that Tehran is just as likely to target them as Israel. (Israel and the US are in the perfect position to remove the nuclear threat to Arab countries from Iran — the time is now!) Fatah Controlled PA Funds Hamas Terrorists. The PA pays monthly salaries to terrorists released from Israeli prisons. Abu Mazen's administration covertly funds Hamas terrorists, publicly claiming that it is committed to peace with Israel. Most of the PA's budget comes from billions of dollars donated to it by the US, EU and other governments. (who are pretending that they know nothing about the misuse of the funds they provide.) Harassment of Jewish Patriots by Self-Hating System. Police have withdrawn charges against four Maon Farm residents. The charges refer to an event that took place four years ago when an Arab, who was not persecuted by police, tried to plough Jewish owned land in the South Hebron hills region and was blocked by four Jewish residents. In Spite of Having Oil. A report published by the United Nations Development Program and the Arab League shows that 40% of people in Arab countries live under the poverty line, a figure that has not changed over the past 20 years. In addition, unemployment among young people in the Arab world ranks among the highest in the world. Message to anti-Israel Objectors. by Steven Shamrak You would like to call and see yourself as genuine and objective supporters of a just cause but you never worry about the factual correctness of the anti-Israel information you are using. Quite often you knowingly using forged information and even deliberately make fake accusations or twist the facts in order to make an anti-Israel smear. When we show you factual proof that so-called Palestinians are a fake nation and are actually the occupiers of Jews' land, you dismiss it as Zionist propaganda. Years of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Jews in Israel are unable to shake off your support for terrorists and the murderous population, Palestinians, which sustain them! If you are not anti-Semites, why don't you care so much about the occupation of: Tibet by China; Basque region by Spain and France; Northern Ireland by the United Kingdom; Kurdistan by five countries; Kashmir by India and Pakistan; Western Sahara by Morocco? Where is your concern about the fate of refugees created by the war in Congo, the genocidal policy of the Sudanese government and so on? You did not care that Indonesian Christians of Sulawesi have suffered 10,000 murders, 80,000 homes destroyed and 1,000 churches burnt down from 1998-2002. You did not scream out when more than 1,100 people (including 777 children) were burned alive and slaughtered in Beslan, Russia, in 2004. Neither the UN nor the Vatican or others of the usual international anti-Semitic suspects were outraged by the many atrocities committed against Christians and even fellow Muslims in the name of Allah in Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq and many other Muslim countries. They are mute about discrimination and genocide committed against other ethnic and religious minorities in Muslim countries. Only lip service is paid to the abuse of women. Nothing is done about the education of children, which perpetuates the genocidal tradition of hate, when suicide bombers become role models. You do not care about any of it! Do you care that every year there are about 50 million refugees all over the world who are deprived of help because for over 60 years billions of dollars have been given to professional 'Palestinian refugees' every year? Do you actually care about "poor Palestinians"? I don't think so! What is most important for you is hate toward Jews and your need to feed and satisfy it. You are hiding it behind 'politically correct' anti-Israel campaigning. Don't kid yourself — it does not absolve you from the 'honourable' title of anti-Semite! At least your predecessors were honest about this pathologically inherited hate that they sucked with the milk of their mothers and did not bother to hide this animalistic trait of human ugliness! 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 |
|
GAZA BELONGS TO ISRAEL, ALWAYS HAS ...
Posted by Paul Lademain, January 5, 2010. |
|
TO: Joel Brinkley (joel.brinkley@stanford.edu) Dear Mr. Brinkley: We are the Secular Christians for Zion — the SC4Z. We support the Patriots of Israel not because of matters of religion but because we regard Israel as the boulder on the path of Islamic imperialism. We want a larger boulder. No, we NEED a larger boulder! We understand you are a visiting professional in the journalism department at Stanford University. We read your article about Gaza and your stated objections to the blame cast upon Israel for the supposedly hapless condition of the Arabs occupying that region. Your article dwelt at length on the supposedly wretched living conditions in Gaza. However, this emphasis upon the latter point begs several questions:
For a refresher course in international law pertaining to the Jewish Homeland, we recommend Prof. Howard Grief's meticulously researched and recently published book The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law reviewed by Wm. Mehlman at: http://mideastoutpost.com/archives/000590.html Quoting from the review: "With The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law (Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem - available at www.amazon.com) 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." Our position: International law ends land disputes We say: No more begging for peace: International law prevails over all Islamic claims to the lands of Israel. All Jews "wherever they are to be found" must demand the restoration of the lands of "Jewish Palestine" now known as "Israel" and the US is bound by Treaty to support these demands or else the US will fall victim to the schemes of the UN and its Islamic functionaries. We predict that Israel can expect many loud and underhanded skirmishes from Israel's resident seditionists because application of international law will end their careers. The actions of Jewish leaders who agreed to cede away Israel's lands were "ultra vires" and such concessions can and must be renounced and reversed. The next question a journalist should ask is whether the US State Dept. uses the same persuasive tools on Netanyahu as applied to Gorbacheve, to wit: promise of a comfortable future lifestyle either in the US or as requested by Nettie. Funds to be provided to Netanyahu if he "cooperates" and withholding of funds to the nation of Israel along with increasing US funding of Mubarak and family. We think a review of the rewards accorded to Gorbachev might shed light on Netanyahu's secretiveness and his double-talk to the people of Israel. Viva to Professor Howard Grief and the Patriots of Israel. Respectfully yours -
Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
|
OUR IRAN POLICY A SHAMBLES
Posted by Susana K-M, January 5, 2010. |
|
This was written by William Katz and is archived on his website:
|
|
OUR IRAN POLICY A SHAMBLES — AT 5:48 P.M. ET: The only way we can get tough sanctions on Iran is to bring China and Russia on board. Both have veto power in the UN Security Council. China has given its answer. From AP: China does not plan to hold debates on more sanctions on Iran's nuclear program during its Security Council presidency this month, despite US demands for tougher sanctions, the Chinese ambassador to the UN said on Tuesday. COMMENT: What precisely is our Iran policy? Is anything left of it? The deadline passed, we ignored it, and our rhetoric got dramatically softer. If Iran gets the nuclear bomb, it will make our current terrorism concerns seem trivial. And Iran is moving toward the bomb. Nothing serious is being done about it. YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP — AT 5:44 P.M. ET: Just read this, please: WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says it has revoked the U.S. visa of the Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day. Spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's visa was one of several the agency has revoked since the Dec. 25 incident as the result of a review into security procedures ordered by President Barack Obama. Crowley would not say when the decision on Abdulmutallab's visa was made or how many others had been withdrawn. There are no words. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
REVERSING CAUSE AND EFFECT: JUSTIFYING TERRORIST ACTS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, January 5, 2010. |
|
Mary Morphy ("The Cause of Terrorism," PADN, 01/05/2010) seems unaware that cause must come before effect. The Arab world's hatred of America vastly pre-dates American support for Israel. In the 1700's, centuries before Israel was born, Islamic kingdoms in North Africa maintained endless attacks against infidel countries' ships plying the Mediterranean. This Muslim piracy jihad was America's first encounter with Islamic hatred of the infidel. Congress chose for decades to pay tribute to Algiers and Tunisia, to free captured American sailors and avert future attacks. Almost 20% of the American government's budget went to the coffers of the Dey (ruler) of Algiers. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Algerian ambassador to Britain. Jefferson asked the Algerian ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. Jefferson reported to Congress the Algerian ambassador's answer: "...(Islam)...was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise." Ransom payments stopped, and Congress launched a naval and marine campaign which ended in 1815 with the total defeat of the Muslim countries engaging in jihad piracy against American ships. Muslim enmity toward the USA started long before American support for Israel. As ambassador Adja admitted 224 years ago, it started with the Qur'an. US support for Israel is merely this century's lame excuse for Islam's 1,375-year jihad against the non-Muslim world. 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 |
|
US INTEL: SOUTHERN GAZA IS THE NEXT YEMEN
Posted by Cpocerl, January 5, 2010. |
|
This is from today's DEBKAFile report. |
|
The year 2010 will see a new Israeli military operation in Gaza — not against the Palestinian Hamas, which is not eager for more punishment, but the al Qaeda bastions spreading across the southern Gaza Strip. This prognosis is shared by intelligence circles close to the Obama administration and the CIA, DEBKAFile's intelligence and counter-terror sources report. A senior White House terror expert warned recently that strengthened al Qaeda networks in the Gaza Strip would be as dangerous and menacing as the jihadists' strongholds in Yemen. This threat prompted Egypt to build its iron wall along the Gaza-Egyptian border. Their access to Sinai would not only directly imperil the peninsula, but might well spill over into Egypt proper, first terrorizing the cities along the Suez Canal and the vital waterway itself. US intelligence watchers have picked up a working link between the Gaza-based networks and Pakistan accompanied by a swelling influx of Pakistani fighters into the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory at a rate estimated at dozens a month. They include some Saudi jihadists. According to current US evaluations, while al Qaeda's new headquarters in Pakistani Baluchistan is working hard to push reinforcements into Yemen, its operational planners are not neglecting the Gaza Strip, assuming that this Palestinian enclave will be the next Western-jihadist warfront after Yemen. Bruce Riedel, who produces the latest evaluations on the Afghanistan and Pakistan conflicts for president Barack Obama, predicts another Gaza war may be triggered by a jihadist cell ambushing another military patrol on the border of Gaza, killing several and capturing one or two. Israel will not be able to endure another Shalit ordeal for the return of its captive soldiers and will therefore go into the Gaza Strip with maximum force. "Another Gaza war would be another gift to al Qaeda," says Riedel, especially if the ambush is timed to take place on the anniversary of 9/11 in September 2010. Worries about al Qaeda's spreading tentacles were also voiced in Lebanon by Fatah commander Brigadier Sultan Abu al-Aynayn. Sunday, Jan. 3, he accused external parties of seeking to "export" fundamentalists to refugee camps across Lebanon. "We have taken measures to prevent Al-Qaeda from infiltrating Palestinian refugee camps after we received information that external parties were seeking to export extremists, particularly from Iraq, and stir up tension inside the camps," Abu al-Aynayn said in an interview. Contact CPocerl at Cpocerl@aol.com |
|
US REACTION TO RECENT TERRORISM; EGYPTIAN ANTI-TUNNEL FENCE AT GAZA; HEBRON ARAB SELLER WANTS PA TO TRY HOUSE CASE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 5, 2010. |
|
U.S. REACTION TO RECENT TERRORISM Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano retracted her assessment that the underwear-bomber's failure means "the system worked." "Former federal prosecutor and international law writer Andrew C. McCarthy said 'it was idiotic for Napolitano to say Hasan's was not an act of terrorism and that there are no indications Mutallab is part of a larger terrorist conspiracy. Already, evidence to the contrary is overwhelming, on both scores.'" Casual reactions by Napolitano and by President Obama invoked outraged calls for her resignation. Her retraction seems more like damage control than serous re-evaluation. HAMAS: FATAH STOPPED TORTURING ITS MEN When Hamas seized Gaza from the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) in 2007, and started rounding up hundreds of Fatah men, P.A. forces pursued Hamas men in the remaining area of P.A. control. The P.A. arrested 4,000 of them. It retains 500. 8 died in prison. Tales emerged of severe torture of Hamas men in P.A. prisons. Hamas acknowledges that this has ceased. P.A. Prime Min. Fayyad said that his regime jailed, fined, or demoted 45 prison guards for abuse (NY Times, 12/4, A6). N. KOREA EXPLAINS REASON FOR ITS NUCLEAR ARMS N. Korea stated its goal as a nuclear-weapons-free Korean peninsula. It claims it developed nuclear weapons only to deter a U.S. attack (www.imra.org.il, 1/3). I remember the Korean War, started by N. Korean invasion that pushed Republic of Korea and U.S. forces to the southern tip. N. Korea retains large forces on the border of S. Korea. The U.S. recovered and could have unified Korea, but did not want to pursue the war. ISLAMIC RULING FOR EGYPTIAN ANTI-TUNNEL FENCE AT GAZA "The Islamic Research Council of Al-Azhar University, Islam's highest seat of learning, said that the tunnels were used to smuggle drugs and threatened Egypt's security, the Al-Masri Al-Yawm newspaper reported." "Construction of the underground barrier has drawn angry condemnation from the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip, which relies on the tunnels for food and fuel, as well as the weapons and other contraband the barrier is designed to" www.imra.org.il, 1/3). From Egypt's point of view, Hamas abuses Egypt's trust of it by bringing in drugs and letting terrorists pass through. HEBRON ARAB SELLER WANTS P.A. TO TRY HOUSE CASE An Arab was recorded on video and by documents as having sold "Peace House" to some Jews. House sales to Jews is a capital offense in the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). When word of the sale got out, the former owner denied having made the sale. An Israeli district court suggested that a lower court make the final decision between claimants. The Arab suggested that the case be turned over to a P.A. court. The district court rejected that idea, because Jews could not get justice in the P.A. court where such a sale is banned ((http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/4) by its apartheid legislation. HOW ISRAEL BEAT IRAN IN SPORTS 
The head of the Iran Football Federation was dismissed for having sent an e-mail to all members of the world association, without deleting the Israeli federation's e-mail address. Israel reciprocated the greeting of good will. At the last Olympics, in which an Israeli was entered in the swimming
competition, Iran removed its swimming champion, so they would not be
in the same pool (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/4).
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:
|
|
MY CLASSMATE, THE PLANE BOMBER
Posted by Steven Plaut, January 5, 2010. |
|
This was written by Venetia Thompson and it was posted December 30, 2009 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. |
|
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 sttudying '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 thatt 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. A Note by Steven Plaut: : Thought from Peter Simpson: Is it a strange coincidence that the Xmas day bomber attended the same Engineering Faculty at University College London in Gower Street London WC1 as the bomber of the Israeli Embassy in 1994, Samar Alami. Perhaps they have a department devoted to this subject — it is strange how the latter's connection has not been mentioned in the press and media! See http://www.freesaj.org.uk/ 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
|
|
JORDANIAN LAWYERS SEEK ARREST OF TWO KNESSET LEGISLATORS
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, January 5, 2010. |
|
Lawyers in Jordan have petitioned its courts for an arrest warrant for Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and National Union Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad for their labeling Jordan a "Palestinian state." They told government attorneys that the legislators' statements constitute a threat to Jordanian security. Jordan signed a peace accord with Israel 15 years ago, but relations have chilled in the recent years as demands of the Palestinian Authority have grown. The two MKs, Rivlin, a veteran Likud legislator, and Eldad, a long-time National Union lawmaker, said Jordan's existence as a country for Palestinians precludes the need for the PA's existence in Israel. Jordan announced last week it is cutting imports of Jewish products from Judea and Samaria as part of a growing boycott against Israel. Jordan also has failed to implement agreements with Israel for interfaith dialogue. Jewish visitors have been stopped at the Jordanian border several times for carrying religious items, such as tefillin (phylacteries). High Court Justice Elyakim Rubenstein recently commented, "The peace agreement with Jordan is not as warm as we would have liked." The Jordanian lawyers' appeal comes at the same time that Israel has rejected a British invitation to senior officers because the British government said it was not able to promise that the officers would not face arrest. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon commented Tuesday morning, "This not only damages us but also damages Britain," who he said is at the "mercy of terrorists." Ayalon noted that the recent wave of threats in European countries to arrest Israeli military and political leaders is a result of terrorists exploiting the law that originally was aimed at Nazis. He said he will explain to visiting British Attorney-General Baroness Scotland of Ashtal that the law needs to be changed and that she should have the power to affirm or deny appeals to arrest officials. Last month, a British judge authorized an arrest warrant for former Foreign Minister and acting Prime Minister Tzipi Livni because of alleged IDF crimes in the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign last year. She cancelled her trip although claimed she did so because of a busy travel schedule and without any connection with the arrest warrant. Ben Gedalyahu writes for Arutz Sheva (www.Israelnationalnews.com) where this article appeared today. |
|
WHEN ANTI-ZIONISM IS ANTI-SEMITISM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 5, 2010. |
|
PART 1. SAMPLE OF PATHOLOGICAL COMMENTS Readers are submitting more thoughtful and informed comments than before. Others are submitting thoughtless ones, reflecting pathology or ignorance. Here are some examples of those others just from one day, spelling theirs. The title of the article commented about appears in bold print, followed by links to my original articles, and finally the comment in quotes. Subsequent article(s) within this mini-series discuss the comments as a whole and some misconceptions behind some of the comments. "nuke israel, as a jesture of good faith to the civilized world and end terrorism overnight" PART 2. GENERAL THOUGHTS Although not all anti-Zionists are antisemites, notice that many are. Some of them abuse the comments privilege to vent unadulterated bigotry. Others use anti-Zionism as an excuse for venting against Jews. Those comments I deleted, but here I want to bring them to your attention. I also delete or reprimand derogatory comments about Islam as a religion. People who denigrate other religions sully their own character. I am calling on any anti-Zionists of integrity, those who assert that their dispute with Israel is just over its policies toward the Arabs, to renounce the Jew-hate, expressed unmistakably vulgarly. If you do not oppose Israel because you hate Jews, disassociate yourselves from those who do. Denounce those who do. Tell them that their language and message is not acceptable in civil discourse and serious political discussion. If none of you stand up for civilized, intellectual discussion and debate, then your reticence becomes a kind of silent consent. It also would leave other people wondering whether you welcome any and all support, even by those who engage in gutter insult. Surely those of you who oppose war do not accept the rant of those who suggest nuclear-bombing of Israel. Surely, those of you who believe yourselves tolerant do not accept the rage of those who express the basest intolerance. Your dispute with Israel is supposed to be over the issues, not over the ethnicities. Demonstrate that you stand for civilization, by rejecting those who also oppose Israel but they do so because they stand for barbarism or nihilism. Just calling names is not discussion. Why don't you demand that they stick to the issues and not personalize them, else hold their peace? PART 3. EPITHET 'ZIONAZI' Some comments call Jews who report anything favorable to Israel, "Zionazis." This is related to the Arab hijacking of Zionism. This hijacking falsifies history so that the Arabs replace the Jews as the aboriginals. If falsifies history so that the Arabs appear the victims of sympathy for the Holocaust, whereas their opposition to Jewish immigration was a major factor in changing Germany's policy from deportation of Jews to extermination. It reverses the facts by depicting Israel as a violent oppressor, instead of defending itself from violent oppression. What is Zionism? Zionism is a part of Judaism; Judaism's paramount values may be summed up as "Torah, Land, and People." Torah is Jewish law, religious and ethical. Land is the Land of Israel, the ancient homeland. The People are the Jewish people, a complex notion that is tolerant of other faiths and does not value people on the basis of their race. Since most Jews were driven out of their homeland, Zionism is the ideology of "in gathering the exiles," to pursue their national destiny in a holier manner. No simple task. Modern Zionism is a more organized implementation. Most of its leaders were secular. They had ideals about cooperation with Arabs. The Arabs rebuffed them. Arab terrorism and war required self-defense. Critics see the violence of the defense but somehow miss the instigating violence of the Arab aggression. The State of Israel retains earlier ideals of tolerance and of defending oneself ethically. (I think Israel goes too far in this, becoming unethical toward its own people by not protecting themselves enough.) The anti-Israel side, and sometimes that includes Israeli leftist Jews, defames Israel and ignores Arab war crimes. That forfeits its ethical standing and credibility. Some of those far leftists and many other anti-Zionists try to portray Zionists as if modern Nazis. So, what is Nazism? The Nazi movement was a response to the economic depression in defeated Germany. It blamed Germany's woes upon the WWI Versailles peace treaty, with some justification though Germany caused its own hyper-inflation. It also battened upon chauvinism and centuries-old, religiously-based antisemitism to blame the Jewish people without justification. Accusations were dreamed up, just as they are, today. The movement was headed by an insane imperialist, who instituted racism as if scientific. Nazism thought Jews an evil race, the Negro race sub-human, Poles and other Slavs not worthy to live, and Germanic peoples superior to all others. Finding the Japanese their allies, the Nazis designated them "honorary Aryans." The Nazis murdered about five million people besides Jews. As Germany expanded, it gained influence among the Arabs. They had common enemies, particularly Britain, the colonial power. But their ideology, too, became popular among the Arabs. They had in common a violent, terrorist, imperialist, anti-democratic, and antisemitic ideology. The Nazis influenced the Arab view of Islam to a more racist view of the Jewish people as sub-human. There was a pro-Axis coup in Iraq. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem organized Muslims into two, Jew-exterminating SS divisions and helped influence Hitler against sparing Jewish children. Nevertheless, the Muslim head of the Palestinian Authority, President of Iran, and former Foreign Minister of Syria deny the Holocaust and some of them wrote papers or books about that. After WWII, many Nazis fled to Egypt and Syria for safety and, in some cases, jobs helping make war on the Jewish state. Hitler's autobiography was a best-seller in some Arab countries for decades, along with his favorite book, the fraudulent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. When Nasser took power in Egypt, he made the autobiography required reading for his officers. If any people should be associated with Nazism, it should be the Arab Islamists. The Radical Muslims, like the Nazis and Communists, seek to conquer the world for its oppressive ideology. Civilization needs the main body of Islam to repudiate them and other Radical Muslims. I think this is happening. The question for the survival of mankind is whether the counter-reaction is strong enough to stop the many jihads around the world and in time to save Europe from forfeiting its civilization to the Radical Muslims. PART 4. ETHICS OF BLOCKADE Part 1 of this mini-series quoted a comment that Israel deprives Gazans of food and medicine, and that therefore Judaism is unethical. That comment is misguided for these reasons: 1. Israel's blockade is partial. Israel does not block food and medicine! Earlier articles of mine mentioned the "humanitarian" truck convoys that Israel lets through. 2. A blockade is a traditional act of belligerency, allowed under international law. It is used in war to compel an end to violations of international law. Israel's blockade of Gaza is a reaction to Hamas' declaration and waging of war on Israel and of doing so by means of war crimes, such as firing rockets into Israel's civilian areas. Why did the critic of the blockade denounce Israel's reaction, but not the causative Palestinian Arab war crimes? The critic's assumption is that Israel owes it to its enemy to supply it. Odd notion. Let's hear the critic denounce the Arab boycott of Israel, which attempted to do to Israel what he mistakenly complains Israel does to Gaza. Most countries once blockaded South Africa. There was little resentment of the resulting hardships upon ordinary people in it. Why the double standard about a partial blockade of Gaza over its war crimes? 3. The critic erroneously holds Judaism responsible for actions by the State of Israel. Israel largely is a secular state and follows secular law. Israel does not enshrine Jewish law and ethics, else it would not release hundreds of convicted terrorists to release one Israeli captive, which leads to more captivity for Israelis. Does the critic blame Islam for the (actual) war crimes and bigotry of Radical Muslims in the name of Islam? No? Then why blame Judaism for (falsely attributed) wrongdoing by Israel? PART 5. "MUSLIMS DON'T KILL MUSLIMS' In response to my report about Radical Islamic terrorism in Pakistan, someone wrote in that those terrorists cannot be Muslims, because Muslims do not fight against Muslims. He surmised that the terrorists must be CIA agents. Let's examine that premise and conclusion. Islamic history records much internecine combat. To mention a few, there were the original and continuing Sunni-Shia conflict, numerous civil wars in Arab states, Hamas men pushing Fatah men out of the windows in Gaza during the coup, and numerous jihads even in Muslim countries or against Muslims of other races and nationalities as by Saddam against the Kurds, the Kurds against the Turks, and Sudanese Arabs against Sudanese Muslim blacks as well as non-Muslim blacks. In some Muslim countries, the terrorists have escalated their jihad into full war. Such countries include embattled Pakistan and now Yemen, too. Both perpetrators and victims number in the thousands annually. Do all those Muslim countries mistake CIA agents for Muslims? Can a CIA shrunk to the point where it hardly can provide accurate intelligence come up with those thousands of agents a year? The CIA was blind to 9/11 and blind to the fall of the Soviet Union. The CIA used to be able to stage a coup here or there, but it has been intimidated by politicians' second-guessing and its own liberal political correctness. It still can fire missiles by remote control, but it is averse to criticism. Rather than seek a scapegoat outside Islamic society, and preferably a U.S. (or Israeli) scapegoat, Muslims disturbed by the mayhem in Muslim countries would find it in their self-interest to repudiate Radical Islam as a danger to all, to themselves and to others. Yes, Muslims are not supposed to terrorize civilians nor fight against each other, but the Radicals violate those injunctions. Bring them to account! 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:
|
|
ISRAEL THE BEAUTIFUL: OLIVE ORCHARD IN THE GALILEE
Posted by Yehoshua Halevi, January 5, 2010. |
|
This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images. HOW I GOT THE SHOT: In the 1980s, one of my mentors, the incomparable alpinist and adventure photographer, the late Galen Rowell, developed the idea of image maturity — how some pictures are so ahead of their time that they are not believed to be real. Nowadays, an opposite phenomenon has taken hold, what might be called image fatigue — too many pictures of the same subject. As a professional, I fight this in my work, because photo buyers often request common images, such as the olive grove landscape, one of the quintessential visual representations of Israel. I shot this photo in the Misgav region of the Galilee, while on an assignment for the Jewish Agency two years ago. En route to our meeting place, I drove a small road along the spine of one of the Galilean hills with a dramatic overlook to the valley below. I pulled over and admired the bright, green, fresh-winter growth and how it combined with the darker foliage of the olive trees and the reddish-brown earth. The image presented here is almost full frame, but I pondered the edges for some time before settling on this crop. Because there is no clear focal point to the image, I tried to strengthen the border to keep the viewer contained, albeit wandering, within the frame. Fortunately, nature never holds its pose too long. Even the most frequently photographed subjects provide new opportunities for novel interpretation.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
|
|
DROP DEAD JIMMY CARTER
Posted by Naomi Ragen, January 5, 2010. |
|
Dear Friends, Are we impressed by Jimmy Carter's belated apology? Me thinks not. His
change of heart,
which has conveniently come about just as his grandson is about to start a
political career in which he needs Jewish votes, doesn't pull at my
heartstrings. Irwin N. Graulich, whose "Drop Dead Jimmy Carter" is making
the internet rounds, I guess is of the same opinion. It appeared in MichNews
Be warned: Not for the faint or forgiving of heart. Irwin N. Graulich is a motivational speaker on morality, ethics, Judaism and politics. He is also President and CEO of a marketing, branding and communications company in New York City. He can be reached at irwin.graulich@verizon.net |
|
Sorry Mr. President — I just don't forgive you. How dare you think you can demonize one of the most moral nations in history — and get away with your crimes. How dare you blame Jews for your pathetic world view, which gave credibility to the most evil characters on the face of the planet. Your apology is worthless. President Jimmy Carter will undoubtedly be known as the worst president in American history. He allowed the Shah of Iran to fall and the evil Khomeni to gain power, giving Muslim extremism the fuel to spread like cancer throughout the world — ultimately leading to 9/11. His presidency was a true calamity from interest rates skyrocketing to 21.5% to the disastrous rescue attempt of the US embassy hostages, to the Carter "malaise" he created throughout America. A total catastrophe and tragedy would sum up the Carter administration at its best. I mean, a born and bred true Polish anti- western antisemite in the tradition of those who aided the Nazis, actually became his National Security Advisor — Zbigniew Brzezinski. Carter's cute little al chayt prayer of forgiveness is as impressive as Jeffrrey Dahmer's apology cries. The ex-President finally realizes what a total putz he is — so what? "We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Carter wrote recently. Please Jimmy, save those platitudes for your wife. You cannot write books filled with outright lies about Israel and Jews, going on lecture tours and media interviews — fraudulently accusing Israel of apartheid, occupation, war crimes, terrorism, obstacles to peace, targeting innocents and other despicable labels. And then you beg for forgiveness? I mean is that a joke Jimmy boy? Ex-President Carter recently met with Hamas — the modern day version of the Nazis. Chamberlain redux? No, Carter is much, much worse. What Jimmy Carter has done is join the list of well known historical antisemites to create a new type of Jewish Blood Libel. With tremendous passion and foolishness, Carter pretty much alone gave credibility to the "Israel Blood Libel," which propagated throughout mainstream Western democracies, especially in Europe, to falsely accuse Israel and Jews of using Arab/Muslim blood to expand Israel's territory. In a similar vein to his fellow antisemites throughout history, Carter focused on the blood of children in Gaza and the West Bank, as if Israel purposely targeted non Jewish children to explain their horrific deaths. The fact that terrorists stationed their weapons and missiles in schools was totally irrelevant to the Jimmy Carter immoral psyche. These Jewish Libel accusations by someone who was an ex-president of the United States gave instant credibility to the lies coming out of the Arab and Muslim world. The original Jewish Blood Libel gave rise to attacks on Jews from the first century through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, right up until the Nazi era. It was pretty much Jimmy Carter who created the modern day scenario which spurred attacks on Jews in France, England, Spain, Belgium, Mumbai, and many other countries. It was obvious to Jews throughout history that the Jewish Blood Libel was all based on lies because the Jewish Bible, the Torah contains many specific laws against using blood in any way — even animal blood. This same Bible is filled with laws pertaining to the sin of harming innocents. Therefore, this concept of being extremely sensitive to hurting innocent people has become dominant in the Jewish psyche and behavior. Thus, when Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, et al all accuse Israel of purposely targeting innocents, Jews worldwide know that this Jew Hatred is based on pure lies. However, as we know about lies, if it is repeated often enough, people, especially Europeans and the Left begin to a believe it as a fact. That is the tragedy facing both America and Israel today — the 2 most moral nations of modernity. Is there a nation in the history of the world, who during a war instigated against it, actually dropped brochures, made phone calls and sent emails warning innocent civilians to leave an area that was going to be attacked? Only Israel has cared so much for "the lives" of innocent people, even people who hate it and wish it destroyed. However, due to Carter's Christian faith, he actually believes that all Jews should and will actually forgive him, showing a major difference between Judaism and Christianity about sin and forgiveness. Since Jesus' death atones for the sins of those who have faith in Him, Carter mistakenly thinks that all Jews will ultimately forgive him and move on. However, only non-Jewish Jews like Abe Foxman of the ADL, who have almost no knowledge of Judaism, will forgive Carter for his massive evil. According to Judaism, God Himself cannot forgive anyone for sins against another person. The only way that Carter can actually be forgiven, would be to go to every Jew worldwide and ask for forgiveness — not make his blanket empty announcement, because his grandson is running for office in a Jewish district in Georgia. What is ironic about Carter is that he has committed the same "libel accusations" on America, creating the American Blood Libel. Carter's comments over the last decade have included the rhetoric that "America is a torturer at Abu Ghraib, has performed criminal acts by water boarding in Guatanamo, we're occupiers in Iraq and colonialists, we attack Arab countries for Halliburton or for oil," etc. etc. Some day we can all expect an empty Carter apology to America. So for the damage that Jimmy Carter has caused to both Israel and America, I do not forgive him and neither do many millions of other Jews or Americans. The best I can do for one of the most horrific American men of the past 3 decades is say, "Drop Dead Jimmy Carter," and then you can ask your maker for forgiveness. 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. |
|
A DARING QUEST
Posted by Paul Lademain, January 4, 2010. |
|
Nettie brags that he is the fat cat no one dares to bell. We worry you won't get the bell on him in time to save Israel. But why does the fat cat pose with his finger upside his nose as if he has a something tucked up his sleeve as he oscillates like a weathervane tossed by a breeze? His vagaries and broken promises to his people got us to speculating that Hillary and Mitchell might be tempting the cat with the same treats that were offered to and accepted by Gorbachev: A fine house, or two. Funds galore: Speakers fees. Millions of untaxed funds pouring into his very own foundation so that he and his relatives can live out the rest of their days in privileged luxury, just like Jimmy Carter. Throw in a villa in the South of France. And yes, even promises of a Peace Prize. And fetes hosted by the very best Euroids and a fine bowl of cream poured just for him by the Saudis (a couple hundred million dollars is but chump change to the royals.) And all this splendor coupled to a threat: If the cat won't cooperate, if the cat refuses to lap up these treats, then the US will double-cross Israel and its people will suffer and the State Department, without confessing its dark schemes, will make it seem that the cat is entirely to blame. (Is Hillary is looking for someone to bully? Hasn't she already seen how Jews cave with wan smiles? Is the Pope Catholic?) Is this possible? Sure it is. It worked for Gorbachev, didn't it? But, will the cat betray his nation? Will the US betray its ally? Well, hold onto your hats, here come the rude questions: Were there Jewish kapos in Hitler's death camps? Did they not pass out those little bars of soap to their naked brethren as they were herded into gas chambers disguised as showers? Well, one need not speculate along these lines because we think you get the drift. However, you still are free people and Israel is a democracy, no? Then, you can ask questions! And you can demand answers. Do not let the cat ignore you. (Or, maybe get a brave Muslim to demand answers about who or what is working the cat to get him to agree to hand the lands of Israel to the radical Muslims whom everyone knows will keep to their promise to murder non-Muslims "wherever they are to be found.") Repeat these questions. Day after day, because if there is any truth to our speculations, US allies ought to learn what might be in store for them, too. And have him tell you whether he studied Prof. Howard Grief's recent book: The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law [Reviewed by Williamm Mehlman here and here. Quoting from the review: "With The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law (Mazo Publishers, Jerusalem — available at www.amazon.com) 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."] If the cat is ignorant, hand him the book, then remind him that Prof. Grief did not explore the idea of renouncing Oslo by declaring it void, being, as it really was, an ultra vires act. But if the cat is aware of international law, and refuses to uphold it, then the people of Israel must kick the cat out of the house. The same goes double for that fat mouser, Ehud. And if you don't have powers of impeachment, you must invent them and use them on all those who are willing to piece Israel away. (BTW — are we the only ones to notice that Ehud seems to be morphing into Herr Goerring?) Viva Israel from the PC-free SC4Z (Secular Christians For Zionism). Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
|
LONG TERM MUSLIM JIHADIST TERRORISTS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, January 4, 2010. |
|
Read the following and let's start figuring out what we must do to win the war that our Muslim Jihadist terrorist enemies are waging against us. |
|
We are in deep doo-doo. Iran declared war on the USA in1979 when the newly empowered Ayatollah Ruholla Khoumeini supported the student take-over of the American embassy in Teheran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. This was an act of war against the USA, and the beginning of the Ayatollah's "Islamic Revolution" by means of which Iran would finish the job that Muhammed started in 638 AD. Since then Iran has been the leading supporter and deployer of Muslim terrorism against Israel and against the West....with the Saudis and the former USSR following close on Iran's heels. This terror war has as its goal the supremacy of Islam over the entire world. That was what Muhammed preached according to the Qur'an and the Sunna, and that has been the avowed goal of all too many major Muslim leaders since then. That's why Osama opens his speeches with: "My war, first and foremost, is against global non-belief". Not all Muslims are terrorists, but since February 11, 1979, when the Ayatollahs took over Iran and drove the Shah in to exile, almost every terrorist in the world has been a Muslim, and almost every act of terrorism has been perpetrated by Muslims with the support of Muslim countries. Yet, no US President, from Carter on (with the partial exception of President Bush and the "Bush Doctrine"), has ever acknowledged that we are one of the victims of this terror war. This willful blindness is now being taken to a truly perilous extreme by Obama. Responding to the Detroit flight attempted suicide bombing, he maintains the dangerous illusion that our defenses are working, and our attackers are isolated extremists. Note the Rubin Report quote (see below for full article):
"This incident, like several that have preceded it, demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist." The first part of this sentence is horrifying enough. It says, in essence, that the State Department failed, the intelligence agencies failed, the Transportation Security Administration failed. But no problem! The other passengers jumped on the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and stopped him. This is far from an honest assessment of a dangerous failure. And when democratic leaders don't confront such things openly and accurately, they are laying the foundation for future ones. And it seems like others in the current administration are following his example. Note the Chicago Tribune quote (see below for full article): On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano implausibly said on CNN that the failure of the bomber's plan showed that "the system worked." No, what worked was the reactive courage of the passengers and crew who subdued Abdulmutallab before the plane exploded. The reality, as Obama and Napolitano belatedly acknowledged, is that the "system" did not work. The commander-in-chief of our armed forces pretends that we are not at war (as did almost all of his predecessors). Leaders below him are quick to distance us from the real nature of our adversary and from the real nature of our adversary's goals....even as el-Qaeda leaders in Yemen and Arabia proudly declare their responsibility for this attack and unabashedly tell us in no uncertain terms that there are more attacks in the pipeline. They also tell us that they will fight until victory or martyrdom, and victory is defined very succinctly as "Islam uber Alles". Obama has been strangely deaf to the flood of information from Saudi, Egyptian, Yemeni sources about el-Qaeda in Yemen....and the result : David Headley revealed as aide to el-Qaeda, Fort Hood shooting, the Detroit underwear bomber....and we don't know what else, because no one is connecting the dots, even 8 years after 9/11, and because our most recent captive terrorist has been given a lawyer, as though he were an American citizen with American civil rights instead of an enemy operative captured in war time. Obama's responses to the underwear bomber, like Napolitano's, and like his responses to the Fort Hood massacre, reek of minimization and obfuscation of the threat posed to our nation and to all of Western civilization by el-Qaeda and a variety of other tangentially related but effectively interactive off-shoots. And this most recent terror attack comes after Obama commits to closing Guantanamo, some of whose already released inmates now have surfaced in Yemen as el-Qaeda operatives, fatter and healthier than when they entered Guantanamo, and perhaps involved in inspiring and training our most recent attackers. While, on the other hand, some of our own CIA agents now face ex-post facto legal consequences for carrying out orders that were intended to help us defeat the Jihadist enemy. That will certainly inspire our covert warriors to do their utmost to keep our country safe. And to compound the undermining of our nation's ability to achieve victory in the current war against Islamofascist Jihadist terrorism, Obama has stricken the words "terror" and "terrorist" and "terrorism" from the State Department's vocabulary, and given Khalid Sheikh Muhammed a wonderful podium from which to preach Jihadism to millions upon millions of avid listeners around the world, once he is on trial in NYC. All of the above will make it harder for our forces to gather intelligence and use it competently against the Jihadist enemy that Obama refuses to see. It seems clear that President Obama thinks that terrorism is a criminal act and that terrorists are isolated individual law-breakers who must be dealt with much as American law enforcement agencies deal with bank robbers: hunt down and capture them, give them the same rights that American citizen law-breakers enjoy, try them, and if convicted, punish them in accordance with the American law. This perception of terrorists and terrorism is what formed President Clinton's "Clinton Doctrine" regarding terrorist attacks, which in turn guided USA responses to terror attacks. Hence he sent the FBI to Arabia and Yemen to track down the perpetrators of the USS Cole attack (Oct., 2000, presaged by the unsuccessful attack on the USS The Sullivans in January, 2000), and he was disappointed to find that Saudi and Yemeni law enforcement agencies did not cooperate (some suspects arrested in Yemen were later freed and disappeared). The "Bush Doctrine," although unevenly and unsuccessfully implemented, correctly established that terrorism is an act of war, and terrorists are enemy belligerents to whom are due only those rights granted to prisoners of war by the 4th Geneva Convention, and, as is the case with prisoners of war, are to be held in prison camps until the end of the war when their fate becomes part of the treaty or agreement which ends the state of belligerence. The Bush Doctrine also defines those countries which support, arm, supply, train, shelter and deploy terrorists to be countries which are enemies of the USA and engaging in the same act of war as the terrorists themselves. Within days of the Fort Hood massacre, it emerged that Nadil Malik Hasan had connections within el-Qaeda and was inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki (see below, MEMRI), as were the 7/7 UK bus bombers and the would-be Fort Dix Bombers. Yet Obama, and most mainstream media, described him as a lone gunman, demented and stressed. Within a day of the underwear Christmas bomber's (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab) attempted downing of Northwest's flight 253 it emerged that he too was connected to Anwar al-Awlaki and worked with el-Qaeda in some way. Yet, Obama first described him as an "isolated extremist." More than 8 years after 9/11/2001, and after at least 25 terror attacks against Americans on US soil (*), our Commander-in-Chief and his support staff (the CIA and the State Department and related national intelligence agencies and the Transportation Security Administration and Homeland Security) are still not able (or are not willing) to "connect the dots". The New York Times and CNN report (cf. Palo Alto Daily Post, "Missed Clues" and Palo Alto Daily News, "Obama: US intel had info ahead of airliner attack," 12.30.09) that a variety of security forces missed 6 very compelling clues about Abdulmutallab:
Plenty of dots....but no one to connect them; and plenty, including Obama himself, to pretend that they cannot be connected. I count 25 (see below), and include only those attacks identified as terrorist attacks, and exclude those which could be understood as individual crimes committed by Muslims on other individuals (mostly wives and children of Muslim perpetrators). 2001- 9/11 the "big 3" Muslim terrorist attacks
2002 — the year of Muslim sniper attacks: 12 attacks
2003 — 2 attacks, both apparently Muslim attacks on Jews
2004 — 2 attacks, 1 seems to be a Muslim terrorist attack
2006 — 4 attacks, 3 clearly Muslim terror attacks
2007 — 1 attack apparently a Muslim terrorist attack
2008 — 2 attacks, 0 called terror attacks
2009 — 6 attacks, 3 clearly Muslim terror attacks
And despite the obvious and horrific pattern emerging from the past 8 years, we have lost a year in dealing with Iran because Obama still insists on negotiations even as the Mullahs and their president continue to shoot the finger at him as they continue their quest for WMDs. And Obama is silent as a grass-roots rebellion in Iran gains steam and would probably be even more powerful if he were to offer words of support and recognition for the efforts of oppressed and terrorized Iranians to overthrow their oppressors and join the civilized world. Similar appeasement for Hugo Chavez has brought nothing but greater danger to our shores as Iran and Venezuela get cozier and cozier, and the number of Arab and Iranian terrorists in the northern reaches of South America grows. China continues to openly support Iran even as Obama continues to unsuccessfully entreat the Chinese premier to join him at a meeting where he plans to shower one of the world's most odious regimes with money to promote clean energy. One cannot know what Obama expected to get when he did his world tour early in his first year, apologizing to all and sundry about America's so-called misdeeds, appeasing Russia at the expense of our Eastern European enemies, and telling the Muslim world how terrible the USA has been and how he will change all that. But what he got for being the first American president ever to demean his predecessors in public international fora, and the first American president ever to insult his own country with a mendacious distortion of our own country's history, was nothing less than an increase in anti-American sentiment throughout much of the world and howls of disappointment from our allies in Europe. As a number of observers and commentators have noted, silence in the face of Muslim tyranny over Muslims (and non-Muslims unlucky enough to live under Muslim sovereignty and Shari'a law) merely aids the Muslim oppressors and makes reform from within all the harder. And as numerous commentators have noted regarding Obama's diplomatic efforts in the Arab-Israel conflict, he has failed miserably in every way imaginable. His demand for a "settlement freeze" created an impossible situation for Israel and gave Abbas a grand excuse for not responding to Netanyahu's invitation to negotiations. It is also a demand which is contrary to American and international Law. His, and Hillary's, pressure on Israel from day-one of his presidency have emboldened the PA and Hamas such that their leaders have openly proclaimed that they do not need to do anything now but wait, with folded arms, while Obama delivers Israel to them.....because his policies are essentially doing just that. And he has retreated from America's traditional pro-Israel stand on the issue of defensible borders, and the State Department is refusing to aid American relatives of Israeli Intifada terror victims as they pursue their quest for justice in American and international courts. None of the above makes any sense. Is Obama a myopic naïf who thinks that he can charm the world's worst dictators in to cooperating with him (and does not seem to learn from him failures) by coddling them and skewering our allies, or he is deeply ignorant of the realities of Jihad and its practitioners and thinks that Hamas' talk of genociding Jews is just the enthusiastic rhetoric of the high school football coach who hypes his team for their next sports meet, or he is (God forbid, but it is beginning to look that way) some sort of a Manchurian candidate setting up the USA for defeat as he hamstrings US military efforts, betrays US allies, befriends our enemies, while setting the deadline for our retreat from the arenas of our current war.....so that all the jihadists need to do is wait until we pull out, and then ratchet up their war against any and every Muslim government from Iraq to Mauritania that opposes Shari'a and Jihad....until they have a base of operations spanning the entire Middle East (with the possible exception of Israel) from which to launch phase 2 of the last great final Jihad against the West? The average person may succeed in living in the world the way he wishes it were, up to a point. But the single most powerful person in the Western World, the commander-in-chief of the world's most powerful armed forces, and the recognized leader of the Free World.....he does not have that option. Obama seems to befriend our enemies, advance their cause through his dawdling and disinformation, betray our closest and strongest allies, and pretend that there is no war even as massive transnational Muslim Jihadist terrorist forces are arrayed against us. With that kind of leadership, what are our chances of winning this war? If Obama cannot, or will not, deal with the reality of the war that a very significant part of the Muslim world is waging in the name of Islam against Israel, the USA, world Jewry, world Christianity, and Western Civilization, then we may lose this war. Our civilization, western civilization, what some call "Judeo-Christian civilization", has been 4,000 years in the making. But its future is now in grave peril. 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 |
|
HOW I BECAME A BANNED AUTHOR IN CANADA
Posted by Resa Kirkland, January 4, 2010. |
|
This was written by Howard Rotberg of Vancouver, Canada, about a startling series of events that changed his life. This is what I wrote him before inviting him to do a guest editorial: I only recently came across your site through facebook, and was struck by the Karl Popper quote. That we tolerate, nay, aid and abet, intolerance in the name of tolerance is beyond mental illness, it is deliberate and contrived evil. Then I read a little about your fear that we were "tolerating" ourselves into Islammunist (my word, the coming together of Islam and communism in this day and age) oppression and destruction and knew you were the man for me! But I am doing some reading on it now. |
|
A quiet Sunday afternoon at the Chapters store in Waterloo, Ontario. (Chapters is Canada's monopoly book retailer with 73% of the retail book market — ed) A nice, relaxed informal lecture to a small group about The Second Catastrophe, my new novel. I had just started talking about why I had written the book — about how, after the failure of the Oslo process, and Arafat's rejection of Barak's generous offer for a two-state solution at Camp David II, the Palestinians had started the Second Intifada. I mentioned how disappointed a lot of us were to see that Arafat apparently did not want a state alongside Israel, but one in place of Israel. That was a mistake. I now realize that I was in Canada, where only politically correct speech is protected. I was in Canada, the land of cultural relativism, where the most important value is tolerance. Criticizing any other country or culture is a breach of the now distorted policy of multiculturalism. Now, I would pay the price. If I had only known how big a price. A young man came in and sat in the second row. He picked up a copy of my book from the table, took a perfunctory look at it, and started interrupting me. "You think all Muslims are terrorists," he asserted. "I do not," I replied, as categorically as possible. "Well, that's what your book says," he retorted. It looked to me as if he had just taken a few glances at it, so I replied: "Have you read my book?" He paused and then said, "Part." I decided not to take him seriously and I continued. Another mistake. Suddenly a man appeared, standing off to my left, and started into a rant. It was something about how the Americans and the Israelis are the real terrorists, and that democracy is really fascist. He was scary. University of Waterloo Professor Dennis Stoutenburg was there and tried to calm the man. "Sir, this is a lecture. Why don't you sit down and listen?" Another mistake. The first man identified himself as a Palestinian, and the second as a Kurdish Iraqi. Then they took turns talking — and talking. It was apparent that they were not going to let me speak any more. They had decided to take over my lecture. The Palestinian was shouting something about how the Israelis kill five Palestinians a day. Some audience members had heard enough. "Be quiet and let the author continue with his lecture; he has the right to give his lecture," said one audience member. "He has no right to lecture if he is going to say things in support of Israel," said the Palestinian. His words cut me like a knife. Then the Iraqi started in. Again someone pleaded with him to be quiet so I could lecture. Then came the words that still ring in my ears: "He's a f****** Jew." Up to this point there had been no store employees sitting in on the lecture. A couple had earlier come by and stood at the periphery of the seats for a few minutes each. One of them, a young woman, was wearing a hajav, the head-covering worn by many Muslim women. That was the end of the lecture. I said something to the effect that I would not be called a "f****** Jew" at my lecture. The store manager came over to me and told me not to swear. I told him that I was the one being sworn at; he said that it didn't matter. He gathered up the books on the table and escorted me to his office at the back. "I want you to call the Police." I said. "What for?" he replied. "Because these totalitarians just stopped my right to lecture, and are swearing at me, and who knows what they will do next?" I said. "I don't have the number," he claimed. I couldn't believe this. "Try 911," I suggested. Professor Stoutenburg and his wife Laura, who teaches English at Conestoga College, came by to see if I was all right. I wasn't. I was in a state of shock. Stoutenburg said he had just finished talking to the store employee with the hajav. "She is a Palestinian," he added. "I think she knew the protestors." Finally, the police officer indicated he was ready to talk to me and any witnesses. He had been interviewing the protestors outside. "Do you know that one fellow stopped my lecture, and then called me a "f****** Jew‚" I said. Apparently he didn't know, because he began to jot down the derogatory expression. "I hope you are going to charge them," I said. "Well, I have investigated, and the only thing I could really charge them with would be causing a disturbance, but I decided to let them go, with a warning not to come back to this store." I was incredulous. He had let them go before talking to me and some of the witnesses, like the Stoutenburgs. "Do you mean that it's not a crime to use Gestapo tactics to break up a lecture and tell the author that he is a "f****** Jew?" I said. The constable looked as if he would rather be somewhere else. "Well, we get 2 or 3 racial slurs a day in Kitchener-Waterloo; I can't charge everybody," he replied. "But don't you see a difference between a racial slur used in a dispute over a traffic accident, and one used to silence an author at a lecture he was invited to give by Chapters?" "I can't give you any special treatment because you are an author," he said with what sounded a lot like sarcasm. I was in shock. I said to him, "Don't you understand what it is like for a Jewish author whose grandparents were gassed in Auschwitz to be called a 'f****** Jew' at a lecture?" He looked at me blankly. Then I understood. I said, "You don't know what Auschwitz was, right?" He didn't say anything. I asked him to escort me to my car, for my safety. When we got outside, there was a man milling around, who looked to me like he might be of Middle Eastern background. The officer just climbed into his cruiser. "Aren't you going to escort me to my car?" I asked. He started his car. "I can see what happens from over here," he replied. That evening Mantua Books, my publisher, issued a press release saying they regretted to announce the cancellation of my speaking engagements at Chapters/Indigo, including the previously advertised events at the Ancaster store on May 30 and the Ottawa store on June 13. The release went on to say that Mantua was NOT giving in to inflammatory tactics, but were trying to protect the author from physical harm and not inconvenience and annoy Chapters/Indigo and its customers when it came to heckling and racial/religious slurs. In the meantime, Mantua Books said they would endeavour to find more secure forums for me to lecture, where they can provide the necessary level of security for my physical safety, and where they can provide personnel who can eject those whose purpose is not to engage in free and open debate but to silence those with whom they disagree. Another mistake. My publisher had not precleared the wording of the press release with the director of public relations at Chapters. Sorya Ingrid Gaulin, the PR director, went ballistic. She called me and said it was improper for my publisher to issue a media release before going over it with her. I said that it was up to my publisher, and that I didn't think my publisher's release had been in any way critical of Chapters. Then she lowered the boom: "I heard you said some things at the lecture just as objectionable as what was said to you. We are going to issue our own press release, and you may not be happy with what it says." "What are you alleging that I said?" I was shocked, to say the least. "Racist things." "What do you mean, exactly?" I asked. "I heard that you said that all Muslims are terrorists!" I was sinking deeper into my state of shock. All I could say was: "I definitely did not say that. If you put out a press release with such nonsense, I will sue to protect my reputation." I hung up. She issued her press release all right. Suddenly, I was in an Orwellian world where the victim of racism was now the racist. The press release apologized for any "inappropriate behaviour and... racist comments both from the guest author and some of the attendees at this particular event." Two months have passed. I have written to or spoken with most of the civil rights organizations in Canada, most of the Jewish organizations in Canada, and the organizations that serve the interests of authors. Some ignore my letters, some call back with messages of empathy, some even say they are investigating. But to date, not one organization has published a statement, in a newsletter, in a press release, or by verbal statement to the media, expressing dismay at what has happened to me, at what has happened to freedom of expression, at what has happened to someone who dares support Israel, at what has happened or not happened in the police investigation. I have had a lot of support from individuals on Internet sites. I have had no official support from any organizations to date, Jewish or non-Jewish, except from PenCanada (which says it wrote a letter requesting Chapters to reschedule the lecture — which letter Chapters President Heather Reisman denies receiving) and the Canadian Coalition for Democracies. Three newspapers saw fit to report the incident. One (the Kitchener-Waterloo Record) portrayed it as a "scrap" with competing claims of who was the racist. Until this article in the Jewish Tribune, only one newspaper (the Globe and Mail) has thus far carried an opinion piece (by Professor Emeritus Herbert Lefcourt) warning that allowing this to happen unchallenged is conducive to the "slippery slope" where it is much easier for the next incident to happen. Professor Lefcourt was right. In June, someone wrote in to the Public Forum message board of the website for the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, a message board where quite a few people had posted messages of concern over the incident. This person used the name of a reputable Jewish family in Waterloo, and in broken English, wrote that he/she was in attendance at my "reading" (if he had been there, he would have known it was a lecture not a reading), that he was Jewish, and that I am a "hypocritical evil little bigot," a "rascist (sic) scum" and then the clincher; he claims that in response to my being sworn at, I had said, "This just proves that all Arabs and Muslims deserve to die." The Canadian Coalition for Democracies, to its credit, is undertaking a court application to require Rogers, the Internet provider for the computer from which this message was sent, to disclose the name of its customer. The awful irony for me is that my book, The Second Catastrophe, is in part about a Canadian professor who writes a book about Israel, and then gets in trouble after giving a lecture at his university. Most of the lecture is completely unassailable, but in one small portion he gets a little loose with his wording. The lecture takes place in early 2002, the peak of the suicide bombings. He asks what are Israel's options when faced with these almost daily attacks. I have him state: "(One) suggestion is to create a series of impenetrable fences and buffer zones, essentially to keep the animals in the zoo." Of course, the next day, the novels Anti-Israel student newspaper runs a big headline: "Zionist professor calls Palestinians (animals in the zoo)." The poor professor pays dearly for his slightly inappropriate wording. He is charged with offences against the university's Human Rights Code, which makes it an offence to demonstrate bias against an ethnic, religious or national group, and an offence to make statements that would reasonably cause some students to think a professor is biased against them. However, as much as I think about what I have said, or what I have written, I can never find the words that are inappropriate or find any words that are racist. Maybe I should not have repeated the 'f' word, even to admonish someone else for using it. But a racist I am not. I have met my Waterloo, and I don't like it. Postscript After this article was written, we continued with the Court Application. I was aided by Alastair Gordon of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, who was quite upset that his organization's internet public message forum should be used for the posting of the message with the terrible allegation against me. The family name used by the person making the post was the name of a reputable Jewish family in Waterloo, who were well known to me. In fact the gentleman is the son of Dutch Jewish Holocaust survivors. I asked him if he knew of anyone in his family with the first name given on the posting. His response was interesting. He was sure that there is no such person in North America with that name. He said that since his family had been mostly wiped out in the Holocaust, he had made it a hobby to look for other people with his family name, in the hope of someday finding some relatives. With the internet of course it is far easier to make these searches than it used to be. He told me with some confidence that there could not be a person with that name in Canada, and that the name was probably made up. Thanks to the footprints that everyone unwittingly leaves in cyberspace, and the pro bono legal services generously provided by Toronto law firm Weir Foulds LLP, the Court Order referred to above was successfully obtained. What we found out when Rogers made disclosure was truly fascinating, and enlightening. At the same time it was truly frightening. The Internet subscriber from whose computer the posting originated was identified as Ms. Howaida Wahdan of Waterloo at an address listed in directory assistance under the name of Mr. Elsayed Khedr. The address was a few doors away from the Jewish family whose name appeared on the posting! The Jewish family whose name was "stolen" for purposes of the nefarious internet posting were well acquainted with the Wahdan/Khedr family. In fact, up until recently, their children had played together! For some reason, the Jewish family told me, the Khedr child had stopped coming around to their house, just about the time of the posting! The Jewish family told me that Ms. Wahdan is the wife of Elsayed Khedr, that they are well-to-do Palestinians, and that Mr. Khedr is an Engineer, working often in Egypt, while Ms. Wahdan looks after the children in Canada. In today's world, there are some Islamists who will riot and kill over a political cartoon. I am not pleased that Chapters has falsely accused me in print of making anti-Muslim "racist" comments. I am even more upset when it is alleged in print that I said "all Muslims and Arabs must die". This could be dangerous to my life. Does anybody care about all the lying going on? Does anybody care about the danger to Canadian authors? In the meantime, Mantua Books brought a Court Action in Small Claims Court claiming damages as a result of Chapters' actions and words, based on their employees actions and words, which hurt their author's credibility and damaged Mantua financially. Something very odd happened during the course of the litigation. Chapters/Indigo had returned all of my books shortly after I demanded a retraction from them for calling me a "racist". They had been carrying 7 copies per store, and some stores in the bigger cities had already sold out their allotment. Yet the vice-president who wrote Mantua Books said they were returning ALL of the books due to "slow sales". This was a bit odd, because normally they would first reduce their inventory down to 1 or 2 from 7, or would carry it only in the stores where it was selling well. The really odd thing that happened was that during the Israel-Hezbollah War, the flagship Indigo store at Bay and Bloor in Toronto suddenly ordered 30 copies from the publisher, perhaps not knowing about the "ban" on the book. Usually orders from Chapters/Indigo are done centrally, but it seems individual stores have the ability to make their own orders. The publisher mentioned the order to the lawyer for Indigo, but did not hear anything right away, so went ahead and shipped the 30 copies. These were not placed as part of a special display, but rather all placed back in the stacks of fiction indexed by author's last name. Mantua then advertised in a newspaper ad that the book was available at that store. But by the time purchaser's came to the store, someone at Indigo/Chapters found out about this order of the "banned book" and instructed someone at the store to remove all copies, so that when purchasers inquired, first store staff had no idea what happened to all the books, and then they were told to offer customers coupons if they wanted to buy a different book. Anyway, later, after legal threats, Indigo put the books back on the shelves, but the original customers who were attracted by the ad, were not aware of that. But regardless, of the 30 books, ordered, and without any further advertising, at least 25 were sold. This was despite Chapters' website stating that the book was unavailable at any of their stores, which was of course, untrue. Obviously there was a large market for the book, especially during that war. As part of the law suit we finally got to see the written statements of Chapters' staff. Here is the original 2004 statement of the part time employee at Chapters Book Store in Waterloo : "I went to see the author signing fifteen minutes into it and when I got closer to the area, I heard voices that became louder and louder. I saw two people in the audience, one calmly stating basic facts to the author, the other yelling out, 'What are you ... a f***ing Jew?' only to have the author yell back, 'A f***ing Jew? This only proves that Middle Eastern people are terrorists.' From there the yelling progressed, eventually reaching a point where the managers asked the audience members to leave, and the author gave up and stepped into their office. "For a person to come into my workplace and insult and judge me in such a manner without him knowing anything about me is absurd. According to him, when walking down the street, I should be avoided at all times because my skin is darker and I wear a headscarf. I am aware that the man in the audience should not have cursed at all given the atmosphere. Nonetheless, the author, as a professional and as a representative of what books the company holds should have controlled himself against saying such piercing words. It was uncalled for, rude and worst of all it was racial discrimination. "What frustrates me most about this whole scenario is the fact that both customers and employees alike had to witness something so hateful towards those of Middle Eastern descent. At one of the most difficult times to be of a visible minority for Arab and Muslim people, it was completely unjust for him to generalize the way that he did. I also noticed that he kept repeating the word 'they' and 'them' like we were some vicious robots that act, think and speak alike with one brain. Even if it was for a split second that someone looked at me and thought, 'So she's a terrorist?' that is one split second too much. I have never in my life done anything to intentionally hurt anyone, and to be accused of being one that intentionally inflicts pain upon others is hurtful and untrue. It seems as if my genetic makeup caused him to automatically make an unfair assumption. And that is racism at its worst." Note that the allegation made against me verbally at the beginning of all this was that I said that "all Muslims are terrorists", but by the time the part time employee had to reduce it to writing it was changed to "this only proves that all Middle Easterners are terrorists". Of course, I did not say that, but even had I done so, a claim that all "Middle Easterners" are something or other would be not racist, but just plain stupid, since Middle Easterners include white Jews, brown Jews, black Jews, Coptic Christians, Armenian Orthodox Christians, Bahais, Druze and various Muslims. Here is the bookstore clerk's retraction obtained just prior to the start of trial, this week. I have agreed to only post it and not make further comments: 1. At the presentation given by Mr. Rotberg on Sunday, May 16, 2004, I observed two individuals arrive part way through his presentation and commence interrupting him, to which he responded. The Iraqi Kurdish individual then called Mr. Rotberg a "f*****g Jew", which was completely inappropriate and very offensive. 2. Mr. Rotberg stated that he would not be called that slur and he repeated this slur several times himself, as if he could not believe it had been used. I then heard him say something further, in response, concerning Middle Easterners and terrorism. 3. I cannot say with certainty that my written statement contained a completely verbatim transcription of Mr. Rotberg's comment, which he would have made in the heat of the moment. I wrote down my belief and understanding of what I thought I heard him say. He was understandably upset at the time and these comments all happened in a matter of a few seconds. It is possible that I may have misunderstood what he intended to say. 4. Any dispute between Mr. Rotberg and myself as to the precise content and meaning of his words, and the beliefs they reflect, could easily be attributed to our respective life experiences and built-in biases, as people of Jewish and Palestinian backgrounds. The events of that day are not evidence that either one of us is racist. Well-intentioned people of different backgrounds occasionally mis-communicate. 5. In exchange for the Terms of Settlement dated August 27, 2008, between me and Mantua Books, I disclaim any and all legal rights against Mantua Books and Howard Rotberg that have arisen to date. And so, by the time of this settlement, the allegation was further downgraded to the allegation that I said"something further, in response, concerning Middle Easterners and terrorism." So, the monopoly book chain in Canada called me a racist, then banned all my books because I said "something" concerning Middle Easterners and terrorism in response to hecklers taking over my lecture with no protest by their employees and in response to being called a "f*****g Jew". The actual Small Claims Court proceeding was a farce, because the rules of the Small Claims Court allow the defendant to file affidavits of people who do not have to appear in Court and be cross examined before the Court. We were successful in collecting the money owed for the books sold (Indigo paid up after the Claim was started) but in Court the Judge would not hold Indigo responsible for the actions of its employee who stood by smiling as the lecture was taken over by Islamists. While the Court had some adverse things to say about Indigo and we achieved payment of the amount owing to us, which Indigo had withheld for a year, incredibly blaming "computer problems" for non-payment, the Court rejected the most important matter of Indigo's liability in negligence for actions and non-actions of their employees. Unfortunately, the Court absolved Indigo from anything that happened before the Manager came back to the lecture after hearing the commotion. The Court said that "what occurred was a rapid escalation, a sudden conflagration which culminated within a matter of minutes". It appears that we did not make our case that Indigo was negligent in allowing the take-over of an author lecture by extremists who announced, in the presence of at least one Indigo employee, that they would not allow the author to talk. We did not make our case that this take-over of the lecture happened before the "rapid escalation", which, in the view of the Court, Indigo managers handled properly in their conduct to the guest author. The result was that Indigo was held not to have breached a common law duty to protect its guest author from verbal assault and racist taunts. While the Court found that the guest author "presented as an intelligent man with a passion for civic and community involvement", with "many commendable civic and community activities", the Court found that the guest author, in yelling out that he would not be called a "f*****g Jew" was as blameworthy as those who called him a "f*****g Jew" and stopped his right to lecture at a location where he had been invited to speak. Perhaps it was a waste of time to sue the bookstore. Of course, we wouldn't have bothered if the police would have agreed to charge the hecklers with the offense of causing a disturbance. One of the things that bothered me most was that no civil rights organizations would honour my request to ask the police to reconsider their quick determination not to lay criminal charges for "causing a disturbance" (easier to prove than a charge of hate crime). When I was quoted in the Canadian Jewish News bemoaning that fact, the director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who I had known for years and had unsuccessfully asked for assistance, got angry. He then in print said that he had no knowledge of what happened in the store, that the Congress was not an "investigative" organization (notwithstanding that I had offered him written and sworn affidavits from audience members, and most immorally of all, that he had "every confidence" in the Waterloo Police Force. This was after I requested an investigation by a detective. The detective assigned, a woman named Detective Dietrich, treating me with the utmost sarcasm and finally told me that I should stop bothering the police about the incident or she would find something to charge me with! I no longer feel that I have freedom of expression in the country to which I have given so much. I practiced law with a stellar record for 20 years, I participated in community and volunteer organizations, often in a leadership position, I donated money to charities, I wrote for a number of different newspapers and magazines, wrote four books, set up a publishing company for authors whose works were too politically incorrect for mainstream publishers, raised three children, and I am an award-winning developer of affordable housing for low income working people in converted heritage buildings in various cities in Southern Ontario, and lecture widely on the topic of affordable housing. But when I think of myself as a Canadian citizen, all I can think about is how I am a "f*****g Jew". Resa Kirkland blogs as Warchick at
|
|
THE SURVIVAL OF AVRUM ARYEH BEJELL DURING WORLD WAR II
Posted by Israel Resource Review, January 4, 2010. |
|
Mr. Avrum Aryeh Bejell passed away recently in Jerusalem. Aspects of his autobiography put a human face on the recent history of Israel and the Jewish people. Summer of 1939. The air was saturated with the smell of the storm of the approaching war. The policy of appeasement by the superpowers of Europe, Great Britain and France did not satisfy the appetite of Hitler the Furer of the Third Reich. After the conquest of Czechoslovakia Hitler presented his demands to Poland which meant surrender of its independence. Great Britain and France declared their readiness to protect the independence and integrity of Poland. These declarations and warnings didn't deter Hitler from his plans of aggression. Soon after signing the non aggression treaty with the Soviet Union, Germany invaded Poland. On the First of September 1939 World War II began. With the start of the war the Nazi propaganda also preached the destruction of European Jewry. The Polish army was no match to the German armor. In a matter of days Polish defense was shattered and forced to surrender. The German army advanced with great speed toward eastern Poland. My hometown of Maciejow, where I was born and raised was in the region of Volynia in Eastern Poland, today part of the Western Ukraine. The area was part of Poland between the two world wars. With the advance of the German armies there began a flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees into Eastern Poland. Anticipating the complete defeat of Poland, they hoped to find refuge from the Germans in the Soviet Union. The majority of refugees were Jews. They told us of the atrocities committed by the invaders against the Jews under their occupation. As the Germans came closer concern and fear of the future heightened. The only hope for shelter and salvation was to the East, in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the non-Jewish Ukrainian population in the area saw the Nazis as their saviors. They were led to believe that Hitler would declare the Ukraine an independent state. From day to day tension grew. On Sunday the 15th of September the people of Maciejow awakened to find that we were left without the local government. There was no form of law enforcement at all. Word also spread that the Red Army had invaded our region from the East. Later that day we were showered with leaflets from a low flying Soviet plane telling us that the High Councils (Parliaments) of the Ukrainian and White Russian Republics had decided to liberate and annex the western parts of the Ukraine and White Russia as parts of the Soviet Republics. We understood that this action was part of the Ribentrop-Molotov Agreement. The German army was not to enter the region east of the Bug River. The Jews were somewhat relieved though they were far from total relief. A new period of wait and see began. For about a week we lived in a lawless state. Certain Polish unit, which withdrew from the Soviet frontier, hid in the forests and plotted to kill Jews. They accused them of collaborating with the Soviet enemy. Luckily, no such incidents took place in Maciejow. It took the Soviet armored units a week to reach Maciejow on their way westward to the Bug River which was the new frontier with the rest of Polish territory under German occupation. I remember the jubilation of the people in our town who came out en mass to witness the entry of a tank column. The commander of the unit declared in his short speech, "We are liberating you from the rule of the Polish nobility forever". The next day members of the Polish communist underground, many of whom had spent years in prison, filled the political vacuum and organized the local police and municipal authority. This period was one of deep crisis for our family. My father had died in 1925, when I was just two years old. My mother headed a one parent family with four young children. The oldest of three boys was just nine years old. The youngest, my sister, was born a few months after my father died. My mother was very capable and talented in running the business she was left with while managing the household with the help of her mother. With the new situation the business as well as other investments collapsed. My plan to join my older brother in Eretz Yisrael was shelved. Mother was constantly concerned about the fate of my older brother who lived in Western Poland under Nazi occupation. The economic situation in our region deteriorated to full bankruptcy. The inventories in businesses dwindled to nil. The supplies reaching from the Soviet Union were minimal and of poor quality. Lines formed at the stores for daily necessities even bread grew from day to day. The farmers were only interested in bartering products. Inflation was rampant and the ruble depreciated from day to day. The dreams about the Soviet Garden of Eden dissipated. Promises for better times did not materialize. The symbol of the hammer and sickle turned to be a symbol of hunger and poverty. My mother was of great help in tutoring me in the Russian language. Thanks to her help I was accepted to the ninth grade of the high school in the town of Kovel. I commuted to school by train. At the same time I got involved in bartering to help support our family. Any spare time I had was spent bicycling to Kovel with produce to exchange for all kinds of necessities. This lasted for about ten months when I entered tenth grade in my hometown of Maciejow. Our family didn't experience any food shortages. We were not hungry for bread and the cow we owned supplied ample dairy products. Our greatest concern was my brother Yosef who was living under German occupation in the city of Radom in western Poland. The news that reached us was of ghettos being created for Jews, forced labor, Jews being treated as sub-humans and murders of innocent civilians only because they were Jews. All this caused my mother anguish and sleepless nights. In our region we didn't experience official anti-Semitism. There were Jews in the local government. We lived in our home which was a two family house built in the late 20's. With the arrival of the Soviets the tenant that shared the house with us was evicted and the local council moved its office there for a short time without paying any rent. Afterwards the police moved in for a period of six months. We were warned by the commanding officer to see, to hear and to keep quiet. Non-compliance would mean eviction from our own home. The office of the police interrogator was adjacent to our room. Interrogation of suspects hostile to the Soviet regime, both Jews and non-Jews would take place late at night. The interrogations were conducted aggressively with beating until blood ran. Screaming, abuse, insult and crying was heard when the interrogated insisted he was innocent. One night I was awakened by screaming and I heard the suspect begging his interrogator to stop torturing him and to do away with him by hanging. The answer was: "We do not hang our enemies we shoot them like dogs. I couldn't stand any more of the horror that night and I ran out of the house. And so we adhered to the warning and kept our mouths shut. After six hard months the militia moved out and joined their offices with the NKVD. In its place we got new tenants: the family of the deputy of the head of the NKVD and the family of the deputy of the head of the militia. The rent was not paid and no reimbursement was made for services rendered. The relations with our new tenants were cordial, especially with the wives. The children were our guests mainly at dinner time. They loved my mother's cooking. In December 1940 we received a letter from my brother Yosef from Radom. From the hidden style of the letter we understood that the situation in the ghetto was deteriorating by the day. Yosef was ready to cross the border illegally. He wanted to know what the consequences would be when he was caught by the Soviet authorities. My mother went to consult our tenants. The answer was that they would no be able to help. They cited the law which stated that any person illegally crossing the border would be sentenced to three years of "educational work" in a labor camp. Mother answered Yosef's letter but we didn't know if the letter reached him. After the war I learned that he perished in Aushwitz. In the spring of 1941 reports penetrated from abroad about the impending invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany. Officially the Soviet government denied the possibility of a German attack stating that they were a provocation by France and Britain aimed at damaging the relations between the Soviet Union and Germany. Despite the Soviet denial, we soon learned from foreign broadcasts that these reports were true. We heard about spies and gangs of saboteurs who crossed the border and organized a Ukrainian underground to fight the Soviet regime when the time came. Our two tenants were involved in a battle with saboteurs and they were both badly wounded. This event was not reported in the official press. It was no secret that the Soviets were fortifying the new frontier along the Bug River. When the school year ended in June 1941 I was sent to work on the construction of an aerodrome in the vicinity of the village Novosilki, about 7 km from Maciejow (Lukiv). My job was to receive building materials that were transported from the railroad station by horse and wagon. I traveled to work by bicycle. The work was carried out by thousands of prisoners, brought in from the Soviet Union and was supervised by military personnel. On Sunday June 21, 1941 I was up early to travel to work. My mother walked in and told that all night and in the morning there was a lot of air activity. Heavy planes were flying back and forth from the frontier. On my way to work I passed by the camp of an armored unit located in the buildings that once housed the monastery. I saw that the unit was moving out towards the frontier. As I came closer to the camp I heard the sound of approaching aircraft followed by bombardments and explosions. I realized that the Nazi assault on the Soviet Union had begun. I returned home. After a few hours we heard officially from the Soviet news agency Tass of the invasion and of the bombardment of large cities in the western USSR. About noon-time we heard about the seriousness of the situation in a speech delivered over the radio by Stalin. Needless to say, the Jews were especially concerned. Our town was of no strategic importance. On the first day of fighting the German armor advanced with lightning speed on the main highways. Our immediate area was bypassed by hundreds of kilometers. We were left in a vacuum. All we saw was truckloads of wounded being transported eastward. At noon-time a large army truck pulled up to our house. The two families living in our house and their belongings were loaded onto the truck. They left without saying goodbye. Had they offered to take our family along we would have seriously considered it. Maciejow was left without any authority and without any security for anyone. The following days were very fearful for the Jews. There were German commando units in the area and we expected pogroms. On the night of June 23 a unit of German soldiers entered Maciejow and took over the town administration. Representatives of the Ukrainian population welcomed the new occupier. Their request to attack the Jews was nor approved. From the first day of the war a trickle of young people began leaving Maciejow with the intention of reaching Kovel which was still in Soviet hands. On Wednesday morning I went out to meet some of my friends to organize a group to leave town at night. I was not successful. When I returned home I found my mother, grandmother and sister crying. A Ukrainian schoolmate who lived in our neighborhood had passed by our house and told my mother: "Avram- we shall cut his throat and hang him". My mother told me: "If you desire to run away to save your life — do so". I had expected this kind of reaction from her and I made my plan. I never really thought that I was about to leave my family and home forever. My mother also suggested to my sister Sima that she go with me. Sima didn't want to leave and my mother didn't have the strength to convince her that leaving was the right thing to do. I wasn't sure either that it would be good for her to come with me. She was 16 years old, I thought, "How would she be able to cope with the situation if I was drafted into the army?" Mother sent me to say goodbye to our family members in Maciejow. They all had the same remark: "Avrum, think about what you are doing. You are leaving your mother, sister and grandmother on their own. My answer was that my mother told me to run. I packed a backpack with some clothes and mainly with bread and water. I took all our valuables like silver and gold jewelry and buried them in the barn. We sat down to eat supper. Each bite was soaked with tears. But I didn't imagine that this was going to be the last meal I ate at my mother's home. I hoped that a Soviet counter-offensive would begin soon and I would be able to return home. As darkness set in mother accompanied me on my way out of town. We passed by the home of my friend Yakov Sobel. He joined me as we had made up to leave town together. As we walked we spoke about the situation. At the moment of parting we hugged and kissed and cried and mother said to me, "When this time of anger comes to an end don't forget to come home as a Jew". This was her last wish. From that moment Yakov and I were alone on our way to the unknown. On the horizon all we could see was fire. We could hear the explosions which shook the ground. Flares lit up the skies. We walked to the side of the main road about 100 to 200 meters from the road in order to avoid gangs of German commandos. We walked quickly as we wanted to reach Kovel by early morning. In the dark of the night we came upon a relative of my father. He had deserted the Soviet army and was on the way home to his wife and children. I told him that I had left home with my mother's blessing. Past midnight we reached the railroad overpass near the military camp at Cherkasy. As we tried to cross machine gun fire was directed at us from the forest. We heard the bullets hitting the rails. We ran for cover into the forest where we decided to go to sleep. We were tired and we fell into deep sleep not feeling the mosquito bites. We were up with day break. Our water was finished and we were very thirsty. From far we could see a clearing in the forest and in its center a farmhouse with a well in its yard. We decided to walk over and ask for water. The Ukrainian farmer came toward us and said" "Jew boys, what are you doing on my land?" "We are thirsty. All we are asking for is some water to drink" was our answer. His face turned red and he began screaming: "Water? Water? My God cursed you and condemned you to die, I should give you water to drink?" He pointed to a pitchfork and screamed:" Get off my land or I'll kill you!" We started out again and came across a puddle in the forest. We drank the water for breakfast with some bread. While eating we heard the oncoming bombers. Their target was the munitions stored in the forest. The bombardments lasted a few minutes. The ground shook and the sky was dark from the smoke. We were frightened. We continued towards Kovel. We walked with branches attached to our bodies, camouflaged from the German pilots who entertained themselves by shooting at civilians. At about noon we reached Kovel which was still in Soviet hands but in a state of panic. After securing bread and water for the way we slept in Kovel. At dawn we started out again. Kovel was in disarray. The governing institutions were not functioning. The prison was open for the criminals to leave. Political prisoners were not so lucky. They were executed in the prison yard. We were on the road to the city of Luck (Lutsk) which we were told was in Soviet hands. The road was packed with remnants of military units in a disorganized retreat from the front line. After covering about 20 kilometers we found ourselves in a wooded area on the banks of a river in the midst of Soviet military. There was much confusion. We could hear the voices of German soldiers on the opposite bank of the river. We were told that Luck was encircled. We were depressed. We asked for help from an officer and he advised us to return in the direction of Kovel and find our way eastward through the marshland. By sunset we were back at the outskirts of Kovel. We were extremely tired and we found our way into a wheat field. Without taking off our back packs we lied down to rest. In no time we were sound asleep. We woke up at dawn and started to make our way eastward again. It was a difficult journey in the woods and though the marshes, full of suspense. We were determined not to fall into the hands of the Nazis. After nine days of wandering, on the night of the fifth of July, we were discovered in the dark by Soviet military police. We were already on the Soviet side of what was once the border with Poland. Their first question was, "Who are you? How did you cross the front lines? We showed them our Soviet ID cards and we told them that we ran away from the Germans and that we hadn't crossed any front lines. They suspected us of being German spies. We were put on a military truck and we were taken to the headquarters of the NKVD in a Kiev suburb. After a short interrogation we were given food and drink and a corner to rest in. After a few hours of rest we felt much better, both physically and mentally. In the morning we were told to take the train to the botanical gardens in the center of Kiev and to join the thousands of refugees, mainly Jews. Under the circumstances we were treated humanely. We lived in tents and were given bread and soup three times daily. We were also able to but all kinds of necessities. The tense situation in Kiev was felt in the air. On the front lines the situation was deteriorating day by day. The German armies came closer and closer to the city. Kiev was preparing for a siege. In the streets we felt the hatred of the Ukrainian population for the Soviet regime. Graffiti appeared in praise of the German army and of Hitler. We decided that we should leave Kiev quickly. We were fortunate to find a train in one of the suburbs that took on refugees desiring to be evacuated to the east. We reached the Poltava region, about 250km east of Kiev. We didn't want to go too far because we hoped that the situation would change for the better. We were sent to work in a sugar refinery. The work was very hard. Fuel was in short supply. We were fed semolina with milk and sugar three times a day. After three days we felt we were losing our strength. We hadn't seen a slice of bread since we arrived there. We decided to run away from there at night. We reached Poltava. This time we were sent to work on a collective farm. We worked hard but we were fed well. After about a week we were sent on military orders, together with many others to build fortifications and anti-tank trenches on the Denieper River. Tens of thousands of people worked on the project. We were fed knaidlach boiled in water with no salt, three times a day. They were as hard as rock and I remember them as Poltaver knaidlach. After being there a week, when we neared our place of work near the river we heard explosions and artillery shooting. It was a battle between Soviet ships on the river and German military on the Southern side of the Denieper. Soon shells began to fall near our work places. Instantly, tens of thousands of people ran in a panic towards the North. At night when we were already far away we could see the flames and the red sky on the horizon and we could hear people screaming. Days later we found out that the screaming was from the refugees, mainly Jews from Kiev who were bombarded on the ships on the river and were burned alive. Later at night we reached a railroad station. We got on a train that was loaded with grains and machinery that was evacuated to the east. We covered ourselves up to our necks in the grain so as not to be discovered by the authorities. This time our goal was to reach the border of Iran or Afghanistan. The feeling was that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. In such a situation we should try to reach the Near East and Eretz Israel. Our train was moving very slowly as priority was given to military transports on their way to the front and to trains loaded with wounded traveling in the opposite direction. After a week of very slow movement we reached the railroad station of Kuibyshev. The place was congested with refugees, most of them Jews. Here we met other Matzevers: Srul Shtam and son, Leibel Teper and Gershon Sznaiderman. After sitting it out at the railroad station for two days we were approached by an army officer who told us that he was on his way to Tashkent and he would be glad to arrange transportation for us too. He gathered a large group of military age youth. We were given a separate freight car. We were given rations that were to last us till we reached Tashkent after seven days. We were supposedly army conscripts on our way to an army camp in Uzbekistan. We realized that he was a deserter and that he was on his way to Uzbekistan to find his family which had been evacuated from the Ukraine. When we parted he said to us, "Children, you don't know me and I don't know you. I wish you good health." We arrived in Tashkent in mid-August. We registered in the office for refugees. A large group of us was sent to the regional city Kokand in the district of Fergana. Our group of seven was sent to a collective farm. The governing body of the collective received us very nicely. We were given a large room. Each of us got a bed with a straw filled sack as a mattress and a blanket. The climate was very extreme. In August and September the mid-day temperatures were in the 40's C. Our first jobs were in the cotton fields and with vegetables. The work began at 6AM. We had our mid-day meal with the locals between 10-11AM in the field. The meal consisted of a slice of bread, vegetable soup and a fruit. After lunch we would rest in our room and at 4PM we returned to the fields to finish the day's work. Between 10AM and 4PM the heat was unbearable. In October we finished harvesting the crop and we began to prepare the land for the next season. They assigned the most strenuous jobs to the refugees such as digging irrigation channels with very primitive equipment. We worked a six day week. Each day we were given four pitot or 600 grams of bread. We received a miserable monthly pay and some products from which to prepare hot meals. We bought milk and dairy products from the locals. We were starving as the amount of food we received was not enough to sustain our bodies. We were forced to supplement by stealing food. We knew where the fruit and vegetables grew. When we came to the warehouses we also helped ourselves. Stealing was the Soviet way of surviving. The situation on the front lines during 1941-42 was very bad. It seemed that the great Soviet Union could possibly collapse. We already heard about the atrocities the Nazis were committing in the territories they had occupied. We knew that the murdered were Jews. After the war I found out that my family was murdered in the first Aktzia in Maciejow in the beginning of August 1941. In the spring of 1942 I became ill with Malaria and Dysentery. There was no medicine available. I was in very bad condition. Through "protekcia" I got to the head of the local hospital. She was Jewish and had been deported to Uzbekistan by Stalin in the mid 1930s. When I came to her I was in serious condition on the verge of collapse. The doctor was a good human being with a Jewish heart. After she gave me a thorough examination she said, "My child, if I don't hospitalize you, you will die. I am taking you into the hospital and until a bed is available you will be on a straw mattress in the corridor. "After a week in the hospital I was on my way to recovery. Over the next month I was at the clinic a number of times where the doctor personally took care of me. Thanks to her I survived this horrible illness. After another month I returned to work, fully recovered. When I first came to Uzbekistan I wrote letters to my older brother who had left for Eretz Yisrael at the age of 16 in 1936 and to my mother's sister and her family who lived in New Jersey. After a year I still had no responses. One day in July of 1942, I came home from work and I found a notice to report that same evening to a particular interrogator at the regional office of the NKVD. As soon as I sat down opposite him I noticed on his desk an airmail letter from the Royal Air Force with my brother's name as the sender. The first question I was asked was, "Who do you know in the Royal Air Force or who in the Royal Air Force knows you?" Then he asked me if I recognized the name of the sender of the letter. I said that I did and that although he addressed me as his dear brother we were not related but only dear friends from the same town in Poland. My explanation was plausible because my brother left Poland under a fictitious adoption and he kept that family's surname. The interrogator asked me for my internal passport. He also told me to tell my friend Yaakov that he should come with his passport. A week later our passports were returned. We noticed that different codes were written into them. We realized that because of the letter we were suspects. About 10 days later we received notice to report for induction into the army. We passed a medical and we were drafted into the army. We were brought to the railroad station in the town of Kokand. Here we were loaded with 800 draftees into cattle wagons and we began a journey that lasted a month, Northward to the Ural mountains — the gulag region. We were packed in, 30 people per car. We slept on platforms of boards with a blanket to cover us. We received 600 grams of bread daily and whenever we stopped at a station we got some hot water to drink. At the stations we bartered food products. We traveled 30 days without a shower. We left Uzbekistan in August where the temperature was 40C. At our destination in the Urals winter had begun and it was 20C below zero with a lot of snow. During our journey we had no heating. Many of our people fell sick and some died. Our first destination was the city of Serov. Serov was a big industrial center specializing in steel production. Our train was put on side tracks which had no exit. We were told that there were no barracks for us and that we would be living in cattle cars. Each car was given a small metal stove. We had to bring in our own firewood for the stove from the nearby forest. We brought water in buckets from the nearby river. Our job was to develop the railroad system of the huge industrial city. Our biggest problem was the shortage of proper clothing which could withstand the bitter cold weather which we had never before encountered. Instead of boots we were given wooden shoes and rags to wrap around our feet. Our work day began at 6AM, hours before sunrise. Three times a day we were fed watery soup seasoned with vegetable oil. The main course was mashed potatoes with a piece of salted fish or a tiny piece of meat. Our bread ration was 1kg a day. The bread was of poor quality as it was loaded with water like a sponge. Each evening we had to line up to receive our bread. Often there was a shortage and we had to go to bed very hungry. We were never compensated for the bread not received. The bread was our main source of nourishment. I was loosing weight and my health was deteriorating. In December 1942 I took ill again with Malaria. The attacks were coming every other day. They always started in the afternoons at work and I was carried to our car on a makeshift stretcher in a state of unconsciousness. The next day I had to go out to work or I wouldn't receive my daily ration. I was loosing my strength and I was hardly able to walk. I decided not to go to work and not to worry about the consequences. The head engineer in charge of our unit came to see me. He found me in a sad physical state. He ordered the doctor to free me from work until I recovered and not to cut off my food ration. After about a month the attacks stopped. I was very weak and feeble -a skeleton. I needed a richer diet. This wasn't available. I was starving. The lower part of my body swelled up. My feet were heavy, I couldn't lift them. The swelling kept on advancing to the upper part of my body and I had difficulty breathing. One evening I felt that I was choking because of shortness of breath. My heart beat was very weak. My coworkers called for the doctor. The doctor told my friends that he was sorry but he couldn't help me because there was no medicine available. From what I understood, he told them that this might be my last night. I was thinking of my home and my mother and how great her disappointment will be when I don't return after the war is over. (Then I was not aware that my family was no longer among the living.) I cried myself to sleep. I dreamt about my mother and my family. In the morning I woke up and felt my chest and I realized that the swelling was down and that I was breathing easily. I burst out crying — this time from excitement. The doctor came in to see me and he was also glad to see my change for the better that took place over night. He said, "Yes, a miracle has happened". The doctor referred me to a medical commission and suggested that because of my physical state, caused by malnutrition, to free me from work for six months and allow me to go to the southern regions of the Urals. He thought that in the South I would be able to find work in a collective farm where I would have enough food to recover completely from my illness which was caused by malnutrition. The medical commission decided that I should have a medical leave of only three months. In order to leave the Gulag region I had to have the consent of the company head and it commissar. The commissar told me that he would not consent to let me go for that period. He said that if I got leave and my health would improve I would be drafted into the army and the company would loose a worker. He decided to free me from work for three months and to continue giving me rations as if I were working. I was disappointed but I had no choice but to accept his decision. I had to find a way to improve my physical state. I suggested to my coworkers that they give me their daily bread coupons and I would deliver their bread so they would not have to wait in line after work. They agreed. I became friendly with the person on charge of the bakery in Serov. I got to the bakery every early morning with the bread coupons. Instead of 15 kilos of bread I received 7.5 kilos of cookies. I would the stand next to the milk counters in the farmers market where the workers of the nearby steel mills would frequent. They were my main customers as they liked to have a cookie with their milk. I never took more than half an hour to sell all of my goods. With the cash I took in I secured the bread for my coworkers and with the profit I bought myself all kinds of food products that until that time I could only dream about. From time to time I also bought some clothing. This was my fight for survival that lasted for more than three months. There were many risks. Had I been caught by the authorities I would have been in a lot of trouble. The risk paid off — I fully regained my health. In April 1943, I was sent with a large group of workers to the southern Urals to plant potatoes for our consumption. This was done because the potatoes supplied to us from the south were usually not edible by the time they reached us. In May we returned to Serov and I was healthy enough to return to my regular work of building the railways. The end of my sick leave coincided with my return to health. While I was away, Yaakov was transferred to the North with his unit to work on improving the railways near the town of Boguslovsk. From time to time we used to travel on our days off to visit each other. During the second half of 1943 the situation on the front lines improves. The Red Army went over to a counter offensive and regained lost territories. Shipments of food from the US reached our region too and our nutrition improved. It was now the period of the High Holidays. We, a group of Jewish workers, decided not to go to work on Yom Kippur. We assembled in one of the barracks and conducted prayers. We forfeited our breakfast. Between 8 and 9 AM we had a surprise visit from NKVD plainclothesmen. They came in for a few minutes and walked out without saying a word. About an hour later the head of the company walked in. He was a Jew. He greeted us with a holiday greeting and then said, "I want you to know that I know the religious laws." (We Knew that his father was once a rabbi in Leningrad.) He told us that he was given the task of making sure we go to work. He continued, "If you refuse nothing is going to happen to you but I will pay with my head. Do as your conscience tells you to do." He added, "If you finish praying around noon-time and go out to work, I promise you, you will receive the complete food ration for the day." We were confronted with a problem of mortal danger, At 12 noon we went back to work. This was not the only time he revealed his Jewish identity. We knew from hearsay that he was transferred with the railway building company from Leningrad to the Urals and that he had brought his parents and brother with him who were observant. In October 1943 we were transferred to a new work project. We were placed north of the town Karpinsk in the vicinity of coal mines. We were building new railways to the mines. It was 6-7 kms from the place where Yaakov was stationed. In Karpinsk I discovered Leah Kelmises who was married to Yehoshua Dashut. They were sent to the Urals from Kazachstan. Whenever I came to Karpinsk on the days of the farmers market I was a welcome guest of theirs. I appreciated Leah's cooking. One Sunday, on my way back to my base with a loaf of bread under my arm I was stopped by two young Germans from the Volga region. At the beginning of the war they were exiled to the Urals. They worked in the coal mines. They offered to exchange the loaf of bread for a lambskin coat. This turned out to be the best deal in all four years on the Urals. The coat served during the day as a warm wind breaker and as a warm blanket at night in the freezing railroad car. In the town Karpinsk a new prison was being built in a central location. This prison was to detain suspects under investigation for all kinds of crimes. Here prisoners were kept for the duration of their investigation and then transferred to labor camps while waiting for their trials. No fence had yet been erected around the installation. There was a public path alongside the building. One day I was brought a note from my friend Yaakov. Unbeknown to me, he had been imprisoned in this facility. Yaakov wrote that he had been arrested when he was found in the farmer's market and was being investigated on suspicion of being involved in the black market as they found 15,000 rubles on him. (This was the value of 15 kilos of bread.) I knew that Yaakov was no black marketer. He got the money from the sale of his leather jacket which he brought with him from home. He sold the jacket in order to buy food. In the note, Yaakov asked me to bring some food which will have to be sent up to him by rope to the third floor. Officially, he was not allowed to receive anything while his interrogation was in process. He said that a rope would be lowered to me to attach the package. At first I didn't agree to do it as I knew what was awaiting me if I was caught. A few days later I received another message from Yaakov asking for food again and saying that if I didn't do it he would die of starvation. After this message I consented. I went to the prison. The rope was quickly lowered, I attached the package and ran. A Russian woman who walked behind me and witnessed this clandestine operation said to me, "My son, had they caught you your punishment would have been harsher than awaiting the person in jail. Luckily I was not caught. A week later I received another message asking for more food. I came again with another package. It went up speedily. At the same instant I heard a whistle and a call to halt. At that moment I felt that all hope was lost. The guard brought me to the office of the interrogators and reported that he caught me talking to a prisoner. I relaxed and tried not to show signs of anxiety. "With whom did you speak?" I was asked by the interrogator. I answered him that I didn't speak to anyone. I said that I was walking on the path close to the prison wall and I heard my name called and that is when I was stopped by the guard. A body search was done on me and a photo of Yaakov was found. They asked me whose photo it was and I said a friend of mine. They asked me his name and I answered, "Yaakov Sobel". They asked me where he was and I told them that we both worked for the company building the railroads in different locations, I in Karpinsk and Yaakov in Bogoslovsk. The interrogator said to me, "He is the one who called your name". He also told me that he was under suspicion of being involved in the black market. He suggested that I try to convince him to talk and tell them who was giving him the goods to bring to the market. I tried to tell the interrogator that Yaakov was not involved in black marketeering and where he got the money from. He didn't accept my explanation. I was released with the warning that if I was caught again I would get 5 years in a labor camp. Two weeks later I received a letter from Yaakov by post telling me that the interrogation was over and that on a specific date he would be sent to a labor camp until his trial. He asked that I come to the departure and bring some food. I came to the prison as Yaakov asked me. The weather was very stormy, snow mixed with rain. I found Yaakov with a group of 50 prisoners on their knees, deep in the snow shaking from cold. Yaakov was very pale and had lost a lot of weight. I was given permission to hand him the package but not to talk to him. The same day I visited the Dashut family in Karpinsk and told them the story of Yaakov's detention. A month later I received a letter from Yaakov telling me of the horrors of the camp. He was assigned to work with a shoemaker. He was exposed to temperatures of 40-60 below zero. Six weeks later I received another letter telling me that he would be brought in a week to Boguslovsk for his trial. The trial was to take place in a movie theater. He asked me to be present at the trial. On the assigned day I witnessed a wholesale trial, open to the public. Te suspects on trial sat in one line along the width of the theater. They were guarded closely by NKVD personnel. I sat down behind Yaakov. As soon as he realized that I was there he began to speak to me in Yiddish. I listened without answering. He told me about the horrors of the work camps and that he did not believe that he would survive. He asked me that if I survived I should tell his family what happened to him. He told me the address of his aunt, which came to him in a dream, who lived in Brooklyn, NY. The policeman watching thought that Yaakov had gone out of his mind and that he was talking to himself. The prosecutor had requested that Yaakov be sentenced to 15 years at hard labor (no one could survive such an ordeal). The judge sentenced him to 3 years. When Yaakov heard his sentence he burst out laughing. Those present thought he had really lost his mind. We parted that day with a feeling of sorrow and disappointment. The same day I got to the Dashuts and told them about Yaakov's conviction. I asked Leah to write to Yaakov's aunt and tell her what happened. Leah was prepared to do it because she thought it would help her establish contact with he own aunt who lived in Brooklyn. May 1945: World War II came to an end in Europe and the Nazis were defeated. Yaakov writes that in accordance with the amnesty declared by Stalin he is being released after two years of gruesome incarceration in labor camp. He was given the opportunity to pick his destination. I suggested that he go to Maciejow, our home town, and learn in person what happened to the Jews there, including our families. I told him that before he leaves he should come to me and I would help him financially and with food. He agreed and upon his arrival we went to meet with the Dashuts. There awaited us a pleasant surprise; The day before Leah had received a letter from her aunt in Brooklyn. Her aunt's address helped me in 1946 when I returned from the USSR to Poland to make contact with our own family the Mandelbaums' and through them with my brother Chanoch. Yaakov reported to me on the Shoah of the Jews of Maciejow. The reality and his despair caused him to consider suicide. I wrote to him telling him that that was not what his parents had intended when they sent him away to save himself. I told him that he must overcome his feelings and concentrate on rebuilding his life. I told him to continue westward. Yaakov left the USSR for Poland and then he went further to the west. I met up with him the following year in Italy. From Italy Yaakov immigrated to Canada where he had family. Contact between us was reestablished when I reached the US. We were very close. We visited each other and Yaakov always attended our family celebrations. Yaakov passed away in1983 as a result of illnesses he contracted while in labor camp. In 1944, soon after the Red Army liberated the Western Ukraine, I wrote to the local authorities in Maciejow inquiring if there were any survivors from my family. The answer that reached me was short and clear: "There are no survivors from your family." The handful of survivors left Maciejow soon after the liberation. The hope I lived with was that Chanoch was among the living in Eretz Yisrael. In 1946 I found myself in the same displaced persons camp in Italy as Leon and Elka Newmark, survivors from Maciejow. Leon was a friend of my brother Yosef and Elka was my classmate. From them I found out that my family was murdered among 400 Jews during the first Actzia in August 1941. They were buried in a mass grave behind the monastery in Maciejow. The time I had spent in the Urals between September 1942 and February 1944 seemed like an eternity. The harsh climate, the inhuman living conditions, shortages of food, medicine and proper clothing, the diseases and above all the totally negative attitude of the people who were in charge all took their toll. People died of disease, starvation, work accidents and suicide. Every morning the dead were collected from the cars and buried in common graves. Every day I reminded myself of the warning we received when we were brought to the Urals: "You will have to get used to the new circumstances. If you don't you will die." I was close to death but I didn't surrender. The will to survive did not leave me. I was determined to survive and return to my mother and family. It took all kinds of risks. At times I conformed with the Soviet system at other times I broke the rules in order to survive. My mission was to overcome all the difficulties and to survive. When possible I also helped others. One morning at the end of February 1944 we reported to work. We were told that that day we were not going to do the regular work. Instead we were going to dig out our train from the deep ice and snow. We sensed that something important was happening. There was talk that we were about to be turned over to military command. On that day we were given our monthly food rations and we ate well. Towards evening the train was placed on the main track. We started moving as the dark set in. Our destination was not revealed to us. Our train was given first priority all the way and we hardly stopped at all. After two days we realized that we had passed Moscow going west. We were told that evening that the Red Army had begun a counter offensive on the Leningrad front and that the Germans were in disorderly retreat. We were told that we would be restoring the railroad tracks that the Germans had destroyed while retreating. By the next evening we reached the place which had been the front line just two days before. The next morning we got off the train with our equipment and began a two day march along a path which the army had cleared of land mines. We reached the town of Pskov which had been totally destroyed. We were to rebuild the destroyed railroad station there. Five lines in different directions originated from there. I was appointed head of a 15 man crew. We found living quarters in the surrounding villages within a radius of 2 to 3 kilometers of our place of work. We walked every day to work and back. Each day the engineer in charge of our group would outline our crew's quota for the day. The work was very hard and my crew was not able to fulfill the assigned daily quota. The main reason for our failure was the poor physical condition of the workers and the lack of proper tools. One morning I was asked by the head engineer, "Abrasha, please tell me why your crew doesn't fill the daily quota?" I answered that it was because of the lack of tools, appropriate clothing, food and the poor physical state of the workers. "If so", he said to me, "come with me to the head of the company and we will tell him that we don't like the Soviet regime". I responded, "I answered your question without political intentions, as far as the Soviet regime, I am in love with it". He understood my cynical reply and said to me, "You will die like a dog!" This is how the superiors related to the workers. Within a month the main railroad tracks were restored. Freight trains with supplies to the front were going through and returning with the wounded and units on short leave. Among the military were many Jewish soldiers and officers. From them we heard about anti-Semitism in the army, about slogans: "Kill the Jews and save Russia". Some of them were very angry and hurt and they felt that there was really no reason for them to fight. Our train was eventually brought up and placed on a side track of the Pskov railroad station. We went back to living in our wagons. With the reconstruction work progressing and the weather improving we were getting more and more visits during the day time from German reconnaissance airplanes. The bombers came at night and the bombardments intensified from night to night. Despite the heavy anti-aircraft fire the loss of life and property was tremendous. We were forced to leave our wagons and to move into the bunkers previously used by the Germans. In August 1944, our reconstruction work was completed and we were about to return to the Urals. We were given two days leave before the trip. We spent the time in the nearby villages bartering and stocking up with food products. For my fur coat which I bought with a loaf of bread I received 80kg of flour and cereals which lasted me for a year. We returned to the Northern Urals at the beginning of September. Our crew remained close to the railroad station in Bogoslovsk. We were transferred from the railroad cars to barracks. My crew was given the task of preparing firewood for the winter. Every morning we would go deep into the forest to cut down trees and then cut them to smaller pieces to fit into the furnace. This continued until the end of October when we became maintenance crews for the rail lines during the winter. At this time a new engineer was put in charge of our crew. He was not a party member. We found a common language concerning our obligations to our jobs. We came to an understanding that I should be let off work as soon as I filled my daily quota. This arrangement gave me an average of two hours of free time each day. This gave me a chance to go to town to drum up some additional income. My supper was always waiting for me. I supplied the raw products and my friend did the cooking. There were times when I had to be released from work for a day or two — Ivan arranged it for me. He knew that he would be compensated for his favors. This situation lasted for almost a year. My economic situation improved, I didn't suffer from lack of food and I was able to dress like a human being. My physical well-being improved considerably though I was left with chronic bronchitis since the winter of 1942-43. On the front line the Red Army was advancing each day coming closer to Germany itself. I registered for repatriation to Poland. On May 8, 1945, two days before my twenty-second birthday, World War II came to an end. We knew that we had no homes to return to. Though the Allies were victorious for us Jews it was the greatest defeat in the history of mankind. I knew that Poland would just be a transit station. I hoped that my brother Chanoch had survived the war and that we would be reunited in Eretz Yisrael. We departed from the Soviet Union and arrived in Poland on Erev Pessach. We went from slavery to freedom. This is a short summary of my survival in the Soviet Union. I am thankful to the Russian People for giving shelter to Jews when they fled from the Nazis. The greatest part of the remnant of Polish Jewry survived in the Soviet Union and not in Poland despite the great difficulties. When we returned to Poland we found ourselves among an anti-Semitic population which continued to murder the survivors of the Holocaust. I left Poland soon after the pogrom in Kielce. While in Poland I was able to quickly establish contacts with my brother Chanoch and with the family in the US. The credit for my survival is to be given to my mother, zal, who through her death promised me and you, my children and grandchildren our lives. We are all Holocaust survivors. I closed the circle when I returned to Maciejow in 1993 to erect monuments on the mass graves where the Nazis and their local accomplices murdered the 5200 Jews of Maciejow and the surrounding area for no other sin but for being Jewish. The Israel Resource News Agency website is at http://Israelbehindthenews.com. |
|
ISRAEL NOT THE CAUSE OF GAZANS' WOE
Posted by Israel Behind the News, January 4, 2010. |
|
This was written by Professor Joel Brinkley and it appeared in The Sacramento BEE. Joel Brinkley is the Visiting Hearst Professional in Residence. Brinkley joined the Department of Communication in the fall of 2006 after a 23-year career with The New York Times. There, he served as a reporter, editor and Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent. |
|
Many Palestinians in Gaza, no matter their religious affiliation or political bent, are living in squalor and growing ignorance. Thousands are trying to flee. Gaza has never been a prosperous enclave; the 140-square-mile territory has always been a poor, dependent state. But for Hamas, the radical Islamic terrorist group that seized control of Gaza in 2007, the long-term pursuit of a political impossibility trumps even the slightest concern for the the group's 1.5 million "constituents." Residents of this territory have been subjects of other states — Turkey, Great Britain, Egypt, Israel — for half a millennium. But all the while, during both prosperous and desperate times, they struggled to ensure their children's education. As a result, Palestinians have been among the best educated people in the world. Literacy rates, even for girls, have hovered around 99 percent. By comparison, in Iran, perhaps the Palestinians' biggest defenders now, and Israel's greatest enemy, UNICEF reports that only 77 percent of the population can read and write. Even Israel's literacy rate is lower: 97.1 percent. But now, for the first time in the modern era, Gazans as young as 9, 10, 11 are being put to work in ever larger numbers, forgoing school. "Learning achievement has declined along with primary school enrollment," UNICEF reports. Much of the world blames Israel. During its invasion of Gaza last January, Israeli troops were said to have damaged or destroyed nearly half of the territory's schools along with much of the remaining infrastructure. The condemnation of Israel continues to this day in the United Nations and elsewhere. Still, most of the people behind the continuing reproval take little note of Hamas' own campaign of terror in the previous months, lobbing hundreds of missiles toward Israeli population centers. No matter. That's a debate for another day. The point is, a year has passed. What political concessions has Hamas offered that might have enabled it to make repairs, improve the lot of its people? None. The United Nations reported this fall that one in five Gazans now live in what it called "abject poverty." That is why, it is claimed, many parents are no longer sending their children to school. They need the pennies their children can earn at menial jobs to buy food. Their chieftains don't seem to care. I have interviewed the leaders of Hamas many times over the years, and all of them offered one consistent refrain, time and time again: We are patient. Our resistance will continue as long as it takes — even centuries — until we reach our goal, full control of Palestine. Of course, that includes the state of Israel. One of them, Ismail Abu Shenab, now deceased, once told me: "There are plenty of open areas in the United States that could absorb the Jews." Even Shenaeb, zealot that he was, must have known that nothing like that was going to happen even in his grandchildren's lifetimes — if ever. But he and all his colleagues, then and now, pursued that ludicrous goal in exclusion of all else, and now it is leading to the social destruction of their own people. Israel and Egypt have locked the gates to Gaza. Israel's closure is more understandable than Egypt's, given that Cairo pretends to be the Palestinian's greatest friend and protector. In any case, it's impossible to know just how many Gazans endorse Hamas' chimerical, single-minded, objective. The majority of Gazans I have met want to live peaceful lives and provide for their children. Sure, all of them would love to turn the clock back to 1967, before Israel won control of Gaza. That's why most of them still choose to live in decades-old refugee camps, to show that they refuse to accept the current state of affairs. But now a growing number — half the population, according to recent polls — is trying to get out of Gaza, escape from Hamas control and the deprivation that comes from its rule. In one famous case early this month, a healthy man joined the thousands who are fleeing to Egypt and Israel with bribes and fake medical reports, by pretending to be dying of cancer. He didn't get away with it. Now, a year after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, it's time to stop blaming Israel for the desperate plight of Gaza's people. Without question, it's Hamas' fault. The Israel Resource News Agency website is http://Israelbehindthenews.com. |
|
THE TERRORISTS' BEST WEAPON: INTELLIGENCE FAILURES
Posted by UCI, January 4, 2010. |
|
This was written by Ryan Mauro and it appeared in FrontPage Magazine. |
|
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received help from Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch in carrying out his attack, but he was also inadvertently helped by, in President Obama's words, the "human and systemic failure" of the United States' counter-terrorism apparatus. More and more information is coming to light showing that major vulnerabilities continue to exist leaving the country open to attack. The government had suspected that Abdulmutallab had ties to terrorists for at least two years. In early August, the CIA later picked up information about an individual called "The Nigerian" who was suspected of meeting with terrorists in Yemen to plan an attack. Then, in November 19, Abdulmutallab's father, a former minister in Nigeria's government, went to the U.S. embassy in Abuja and told the CIA about his son's extremism and ties to Yemen. The dots were not put together, and to make matters worse, the State Department system to track active visas did not alert the proper officials that Abdulmutallab had a visa to travel to the United States. The next day, when Abdulmutallab's father's tip was sent back home, the State Department again did not warn about his visa, enabling him to later travel to the U.S. from Amsterdam on the flight he would try to destroy. The State Department responded by saying the responsibility to revoke Abdulmutallab's visa fell under the National Counterterrorism Center. An anonymous U.S. intelligence official involved in the investigation reacted by describing the State Department as providing the Center with "very thin information" that didn't rise to the standard required for a visa to be revoked and have him placed on the no-fly list that would have prevented him from boarding the airliner. The U.S. should have been aware of Al-Qaeda in Yemen's tactic of using plastic PETN explosives that can get through metal detectors, as Abdulmutallab used in the Christmas Day plot. The group previously used that same type of bomb on August 28 when it tried to assassinate Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's Deputy Interior Minister. Although Abdulmutallab made his way past the metal detectors with the PETN-based bomb, other technology could have prevented the explosive from making its way onto the plane. A machine that uses a burst of air to analyze substances, dogs, full-body scanners, or even a typical search with swabs could have detected it. The plot itself even has roots in an intelligence and political failure. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which declared responsibility for the attempted bombing, has been strengthened by the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. Said Ali al-Shihri was released in 2007 and went to Saudi Arabia's infamous terrorist "rehabilitation" program, and then became the deputy-leader of Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, the one that worked with Abdulmutallab. Muhamad Attik al-Harbi is another former prisoner who joined Al-Qaeda's ranks in Yemen, although he later went back to Saudi Arabia and left the group. Another was killed by the Yemeni military. Similar intelligence failures allowed Major Nidal Malik Hasan to commit his November 5 shooting attack on Fort Hood in November that killed 13 people. When he was supposed to be giving a lecture about psychiatry, he talked about Islam, saying that infidels would go to hell and suffer punishments like having burning oil poured into their throats. His former classmates say that he stated that he was more loyal to Sharia Law than the U.S. and that he spoke in support of suicide bombings. As a psychiatrist, he spoke to superiors about bringing war crimes charges against some of his patients who served in the military. Hasan attended the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, at the same time as two of the 9/11 hijackers when Anwar al-Awlaki was the imam. Al-Awlaki is now known to be an Al-Qaeda recruiter currently residing in Yemen, and he ties these two plots together. He is believed to have given his blessing for the Christmas Day plot, and Hasan exchanged at least 18 emails with him in the six months prior to the attack. After the shooting, al-Awlaki praised Hasan. The FBI was monitoring al-Awlaki's communications when they became aware of Hasan, who told al-Awlaki that he was eager to join him in the afterlife. The FBI saw that Hasan was making postings on radical Islamic websites, one of which hailed the effectiveness of suicide bombings and another he argued that they were heroic and did not contradict Islam. The FBI has reportedly found that Hasan had links to other people suspected of being connected to terrorism. Despite all of this information about Hasan's activities, an investigation was not opened. The Fort Hood shooting and the Christmas Day airliner plot should serve as reminders that we are only one intelligence failure away from a calamity taking place. 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." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" |
|
EXPANSION OF AL-QAEDA-AFFILIATED JIHADI GROUPS IN GAZA: DIPLOMATIC IMPLICATIONS
Posted by JCPA, January 4, 2010. |
|
This was written by Dore Gold and it is the abstract of his article that appeared as a Jerusalem Issue Brief, Vol 9, No. 17. Contact us at briefmail@list-jcpa.org. |
|
SUMMARY
|
|
JORDAN/PA DEMAND DEAD SEA SCROLLS; ARABS RIOT AGAINST IDF; VIOLENCE AGAINST ARAB WOMEN INCREASES?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 4, 2010. |
|
JORDAN AND P.A. DEMAND DEAD SEA SCROLLS The Dead Sea scrolls, under Israel's custody, are being exhibited in Canada. Jordan and the Palestinian Autonomy government each has asked Canada to extradite the scrolls to itself. Canada does not want to adjudicate the dispute. "The Dead Sea scrolls are about 900 documents and Biblical texts, discovered in one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century in the 1940's and 50's in caves in and around Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea [in Judea]. The texts include some of the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 B.C.E., and preserve evidence of Jewish life during the Second Temple period." As the Israeli Antiquities Authority points out, the scrolls are of Jewish history. [I found a brief visit worthwhile.] The scrolls were brought to public attention after Jordan relinquished control over Judea, upon losing a war it started with Israel. In the prior war, invading Jordanian armies seized Judea and Samaria, which were unallocated territories of the Palestine Mandate. Jordan tried to annex those territories. Having seized them by aggression, it had no standing for annexing them. Only Britain, its original sponsor in aggression, and Pakistan, recognized Jordan's claim. [So much for the validity of British governmental opinion on international law in this area where it had a conflict of interest.] Jordan argues that since the scrolls were found in "disputed territory," Canada should confiscate them until the dispute is settled. [An odd argument, now that Jordan no longer disputes the territory! Why should Canada become custodian?] Jordan cites the Geneva Convention on occupied territories. [I have seen explanations by international legal experts that Israel is not occupying those territories. Their explanations have not been refuted by experts who disagree.] The Israel Antiquities Authority points out that in any case, the Convention does not prohibit the custodian from temporarily exhibiting cultural relics abroad. "The Globe and Mail reports that the PA acknowledges that the scrolls are Jewish, but claims that they are "also part of Palestinian heritage just as ancient Roman and Byzantine ruins comprise part of their history." However, western Palestinian Arabs asserted a claim to a nationality as such only a short time ago, and most of its people are of relatively recent immigrant families. "Famously, a top member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Zuheir Muhsin, who headed the organization's Military Department and was a member of its Executive Council, said in March 1977, 'Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel... '" (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/3). Can the P.A., not having sovereignty, legitimately can assert a sovereign right over property in an area where it has no sovereign rights? WHEN ANTI-ZIONISM IS ANTISEMITISM: PART 1. SAMPLE OF PATHOLOGICAL COMMENTS Readers are submitting more thoughtful and informed comments than before. Others are submitting thoughtless ones, reflecting pathology or ignorance. Here are some examples of those others just from one day, spelling theirs. The title of the article commented about appears in bold print, followed by links the comment in quotes. Subsequent article(s) within this mini-series discuss the comments as a whole and some misconceptions behind some of the comments. U.S. reneges on understanding with Israel over Jerusalem TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN AND WHO HATES MUSLIMS: PART 1. BOMBING IN KARACHI "A misleading article. These bombings are a work of USA's CIA. Muslims can not kill their fellow Muslims." TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN: PART 2. WHO HATES MUSLIMS? "'Judaism judges people by their ethical behavior" Well, what about the ethics of starving innocent children in Gaza by BLOCKADING food supplies? What about the ethics of killing sick people by PREVENTING medical supplies from reaching Gaza? Does the 'god' of Judaism condone the inhumane treatment of 1,500,000 living human beings due to the policies of the Israeli govt with the direct support of American Zionists? What would 'Yahweh' think of what the so-called chosen ones now? Is the Jewish god a 'good god' or an 'evil, blood thirsty god'? If Judaism were an 'ethical religion'; then Jews would not act with such impunity and disregard of basic human values!" ISRAELI LEADERS BETRAY PEOPLE FOR PEACE? Caroline Glick's December 31, 2009 column in the Jerusalem Post is entitled "A Low and Dishonest Decade." It can be read below. My assessment of Netanyahu differs from Caroline Glick's. Netanyahu turned over most of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority. The turn-over included hills around Hebron, enabling terrorists to shoot down into the Jewish area. People implored Netanyahu to re-take the hills, but he did not. The deal was supposed to include release of Jonathan Pollard, but Clinton reneged and yet Netanyahu failed to hold Clinton to the deal. Instead he went through with its negative part. What motivated the last half-dozen prime ministers? Appeasement? Defeatism?" "Treason?" What else keeps them hewing to a failed policy? Bear in mind that the Intifadas preceded offers to cede more territory. One of my sources, Emanuel Winston, believes that the Israeli leaders colluded with the Arabs and the U.S. to launch Intifadas, in order for the leaders to claim the only relief would come from offering the Arabs more. Before the Intifada on his watch, Netanyahu helped arm the P.A. police with the weapons used in shooting Israelis. HAMAS LAUNCHES ROCKETS, IDF BOMBS TWO TUNNELS Terrorists in Hamas-land fired a rocket at the Israeli town of Netivot. In retaliation, the Israeli air force successfully bombed two tunnels adjacent to Israel. These tunnels were fashioned for infiltrating terrorists into Israel. The IDF announcement ends with boilerplate wording about not tolerating attacks on Israel. Not found in the announcement are pertinent facts for evaluating whether the IDF does or does not tolerate those attacks: How many infiltration tunnels does the IDF know about? Does Hamas dig them as fast as, or even faster than, Israel destroys them? If the IDF is not destroying known tunnels faster than they are dug, then the IDF is risking Israelis' lives. Tunnels known about, but not destroyed, may be used at any time to attack into Israel (www.imra.org.il, 1/2). Israel's tit-for-tat combat plays into Hamas' hands. The Arab world has more resources than Israel, which cannot afford wars of attrition. Israelis have a right to live without the menace of unearthed tunnels. I suppose that Israel's defeatist leaders, who no longer try to win, worry about being criticized for a bigger offensive. They always are criticized, because anti-Zionist criticism, like antisemitic criticism, is not based on ethics or facts, it is based on prejudice. Therefore, criticism occurs whatever Israel does or does not do. Israel may as well defend itself properly. Let it try to explain its self-defense through the fog of an ignorant, indifferent, or antagonistic media. I think that Israel should destroy all the infiltration and arms smuggling tunnels it knows about. It should inform Hamas that it will not leave infiltration tunnels untouched, like a roadside bomb ready to go off when signaled. Perhaps it also should inform Hamas that if Hamas fires more rockets, then the IDF would bomb all Hamas buildings in daytime. Such a strategy requires more thought. We do know that the minor invasion of Gaza, that they world became hysterical about, failed to cripple Hamas. It had to fail, because it was so limited. We also know that Israel's current policy does not deter Hamas attacks. It lets Hamas build up for greater attacks and stronger defense against any invasion it provokes. Israeli leaders may boast and even believe that the relatively fewer rocket attacks indicate deterrence of Hamas. More likely, Hamas is devoting itself to a major build-up which it does not want interrupted by provoking Israel with many rocket attacks. Calm for the time being is a short-sighted policy for Israel. ARABS RIOT AGAINST IDF "Arab youths from the village of Beit Rima rioted Friday outside the Jewish community of Nevei Tzuf in the Binyamin region of Samaria, north of Jerusalem, throwing rocks that injured a 16-year-old Israeli." "Photographs of the confrontation between the Arab rioters and IDF soldiers show the Arabs brazenly confronting IDF soldiers. The Arabs appear unafraid...They do not even bother to mask their faces with keffiyeh headdresses, seemingly not worrying that any punitive steps will be taken against them." 
There were about 100 rioters and 30 troops. Photographs show the troops refraining from using weapons and riot-control gear, but wrestling with the youths for about 90 minutes. "The soldiers are obviously reservists and not the professional 'riot-busters' that the IDF, Border Police and civilian police use for controlling violent crowds when they wish to strike fear into the hearts of demonstrators. According to Lt-Col (res) Itzik Shadmi of the grassroots Samaria Residents' Council, these only arrived after 90 minutes of a tug-of-war between the soldiers and the rioters, and ended the disturbance swiftly." Leftists distribute video cameras to Arabs in the hope of filming violence against the Arabs. The troops fail to use their video cameras to film violence against Jews (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/3). To what end did the troops wrestle with the Arab youths? Doesn't that rioting with impunity encourage the Arabs to confront the troops? Israeli forces videotape Jews in the Territories. Why do they not videotape Arabs? Why don't the troops arrest the rioters? This may take violent steps, but that is reasonable if the rioters resist arrest. I have seen photographs of Israeli troops and police beating unresisting Jewish civilians, which is not reasonable. In many of those cases, the civilians were not only not rioting, they were not doing anything illegal. Israel has a double standard between Jews and Arabs. VIOLENCE AGAINST ARAB WOMEN INCREASES? The Palestinian Women's Information and Media Center is located in Gaza, where it finds increased violence against women since June 2007 and the advent of Hamas control. The Center's study depends on interviews of 350 women. How much violence? Men inflict it upon 77% of the women in Gaza, the Center alleges. Why so much? Financial strain, suggests the study. Many men are divorcing their wives because of financial difficulty. They take out their financial frustrations against their wives. During the two-year study period, 31% of the women were divorced or threatened with it. How much violence? The study has different figures for it from the ones above: "67 percent of those surveyed said they had been subjected to verbal abuse, 71 percent had suffered mental cruelty and 52 percent experienced physical violence. More than 14 percent had been sexually assaulted." Almost half of the victims were abused in more than one way. A fourth of the women do not feel safe in their own homes. The study exhibits some other confusion, as by asserting that women two-thirds of the women are the family breadwinners, but, self-contradictorily, that two-thirds of the women depend on international donations of food, and only about 10% of the women work. The study or the news brief about it do not state by how much violence has risen since Hamas took over Gaza. The study points out that laws against domestic violence are scanty, police rarely are interested in it, and shelters are scarce. "Honor killings" incur lesser punishment. Hamas denies that it is imposing Islamic law on Gaza. It does force women to dress more in line with Hamas views of Islamic modesty. Men there more often quote Quranic verses to justify brutality against women, such as "Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them...and scourge them." (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/3.) A scourge is a whip. An implication is that Hamas rule makes men feel more comfortable in reverting to a more brutal role, by giving it religious sanction. Noted feminist leader, Phyllis Chesler experienced being wife of a
Muslim. In a speech touching on Muslim brutality to women, I heard her
explain that American feminist organizations sometimes are more wedded
to leftist ideology than to upholding feminist rights for Muslim
women. Hypocrisy and conspiracy seem more integral to human nature
than many idealists understand.
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:
|
|
RESPONDING TO THE CRITICS ON ISRAEL AND AIRPORT SECURITY
Posted by Sheridan Neimark, January 4, 2010. |
|
David Harris is Executive Director, AJC, and Senior Associate, St.
Antony's College, Oxford University. This article appeared yesterday
in the Huffington Post
|
|
Here, in the wake of the Christmas-day terrorist attempt, I thought I was writing about enhancing our flight security by seeing what we might learn from Israel, a country with its own share of experience in this area. It turns out, instead, that for some readers my last piece, posted December 31, provided a handy excuse to unleash their unbridled hostility toward Israel. Sorting through the chorus of critics, certain themes emerge. Let's look at five of them. The first essentially says: "We despise Israel and, therefore, there's nothing we can learn from it." Hmm, that's an intelligent approach to life. This is not the time or place to speculate about the roots of this anti-Israel venom. But if a country has something to share with us — intelligence, technology, experience — that could save American lives, is it rational to summarily reject the information because Israel, for whatever unfathomable reason, is deemed beyond the pale? In fact, given Israel's outsized role in technological innovation, such a dismissive attitude could cost us big-time if taken to its logical conclusion. The second group asserts that an Israeli company manages security for Amsterdam's airport and failed the test, which, ipso facto, disqualifies Israel from the discussion. The security operation in Israel is run by the government. To date, it has been remarkably successful. All the pieces of the security puzzle appear to operate in harmony, so that no piece of relevant information gets lost or sidelined. In Amsterdam, airport security is in the hands of a private company that works at the behest of the Dutch government. The two situations are not comparable. Moreover, unless the U.S. government shared the information that the father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab warned about his son's radicalization — which it did not — or that American officials picked up intelligence chatter about a Nigerian with Yemeni connections planning an attack — which again it did not — how were security personnel in Amsterdam supposed to be on the lookout for him? For that matter, if the facts that the plane ticket was purchased with cash and that Abdulmutallab had no luggage were not shared from the point of origin, i.e., Africa, how would this be known for a passenger transiting in Amsterdam? And if the Dutch airport authority opted, for whatever reason, not to install advanced passenger scanning equipment at every checkpoint, this cannot be blamed on a security company, which, at the end of the day, doesn't have a blank check to do everything it wants. A third group claims that Israel gets financial aid from the U.S., siphoning off the monetary resources that could otherwise be spent to improve our own airport security. Yes, as an ally in a dangerous neighborhood, Israel gets foreign military assistance from the U.S. (apropos, not only does Egypt get almost as much support, but also its debt to the U.S. of nearly seven billion dollars was canceled several years ago.) The bulk of that aid to Israel, however, must by law be spent in this country, which means the U.S. defense industry and the American worker are direct beneficiaries. By the way, it may come as a surprise that total U.S. foreign aid to Israel, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and scores of other countries, amounts to 0.2 percent of U.S. Gross National Income. The U.S. also gets another return on its investment: Israel has tested American equipment in real-life situations, found ways to enhance it, and shared the knowledge with the U.S., which accrues to the benefit of our armed services. And it has scored many intelligence coups during and since the Cold War, which have also helped the U.S. defense posture. On a related note, the decades-long American military presence in countries from Japan to South Korea, from Germany to Italy, is counted not in our foreign-aid budget, but in our defense budget. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more, protecting our allies with troops and treasure. That should put our support for Israel, which, incidentally, has never asked for American troops to defend it, in some perspective. The fourth group conjures up all kinds of nightmarish scenarios of Israel's security brutishness at airports, asserting that such behavior is not for America. Unverified stories are trotted out and exceptional cases, if true, are presented as the norm, and as if they never happened at any other airport in the world. Israel has only one goal — to assure the flying public, irrespective of race, religion, or nationality, a safe journey. And Israel knows that safety cannot be taken for granted. History has shown there are those who wish to do harm either on the ground or in the air, and Israel has no choice but to try to find them before they strike. Israel's procedures have worked, with a minimum of inconvenience for the vast majority of travelers, who spend no more time at the airport than their American counterparts. The fifth group of critics goes the furthest in suggesting that, were it not for Israel, terrorism would magically disappear and humankind would live happily ever after. Right! Apart from the blindingly obvious fact that Israel is a front-line target of terrorism by those who wish its annihilation, there is another blindingly obvious fact: Those very same terrorist groups share in common a larger hatred — of the United States, irrespective of who sits in the Oval Office; the West; moderate Arab regimes; democracy; secularism; pluralism; and modernity (except for the modern tools they have at their disposal to pursue their medieval aims). You don't have to take my word for it. The terrorists shout it from the rooftops. They proclaim it in their charters and covenants. Their spokesmen trumpet it on videos and websites. And, of course, they act on their beliefs. If Israel weren't around, would 9/11 not have happened? Or the London bus bombings? Or the Madrid train bombings? Or the Bali massacre? Or the attacks in Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey? Or the Fort Hood shooting spree? Or the daily strikes on civilians in Pakistan? Or the al-Qaeda presence in Yemen? Or the training camps in Somalia? Or the Taliban campaign to snuff out any glimmer of freedom for women? Or the latest attempt to kill a Danish cartoonist? Or Abdulmuttalab's plan to blow up Flight 253? It's high time to grasp the essential fact that there exists a jihadist ideology driven by zealous belief, not downtrodden misery, which has us in its crosshairs — in the air, on land, and on the high seas. Rather than pretending it doesn't exist, or rationalizing it, or ascribing it to right-wing warmongering, or blaming everyone but those responsible, let's get real and focus on those who wish us harm — not those, like Israel, who stand with us. Contact Sheridan Neimark by email at sneimark@browdyneimark.com |
|
CANDIAN MP PROF. IRWIN COTLER SPEARHEADS CAMPAIGN FOR INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS ON IRAN
Posted by Susana K-M, January 4, 2010. |
|
This was written by David Bedein and Arlene Kushner. 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 Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
This past Wednesday, December 30, 2009, Professor Irwin Cotler, a member of the Canadian parliament and former Canadian minister of justice and Canadian Attorney General, conducted a press briefing at the King David Hotel in which he announced that he was spearheading new international sanctions against Iran. Speaking of the parallels between the current situation and 1939, Prof. Cotler addressed the issue of the Iranian threat from multiple perspectives: The Iran of Ahmadinejad, says Cotler, is a clear and present danger to Middle East stability, Israel and Jews more broadly, and its own people. Of great concern is the indifference and inaction of the international community with respect to these dangers, and the impunity with which Ahmadinejad is permitted to proceed. He proposes an approach to Iran that is broad-based, and demands accountability of Iran with regard to all of the threats it currently represents: 1) Iran is defying the international community with regard to its nuclear development. It is in standing violation of UN prohibitions. Prof Cotler asserts thatr it is a mistake to focus only on the nuclear threat. This marginalizes the other threats, and allows Iran to proceed as if there is no international concern at these various levels. Engagement with Iran must deal with all of it. Professor Cotler is working with some 60 international human rights lawyers, who will be releasing a petition very soon that will provide documented evidence of Iranian violations and propose actions to be taken. Members of this group will be visiting Western capitals — 15 have been targeted — in an attempt to energize specific actions against Iran. Recommendations include comprehensive, calibrated and targeted sanctions: a) Iran is currently in violation of five sets of UN resolutions,which are not being enforced. The start is the enforcement of these resolutions. These sanctions are only the beginning, however. Additional Cotler recommendations include: 1) The eight precursors to genocide have already been identified existing in Iran. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
DIFFERENT...NO?
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, January 4, 2010. |
|
Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at
freify@netvision.net.il and
visit |
|
ARABS EMPLOYED IN ISRAELI INSTITUTIONS MISUSE POSITIONS TO SLANDER ISRAEL
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, January 4, 2010. |
|
A teacher instructs his Israeli Arab students that the Israeli curriculum should "not be considered information" A researcher of the Tower of David Museum of Jerusalem's History calls the museum's information "lies" A guide at the museum prefers to convey "the Arab point of view" rather than the museum's "deceptions" to Arabic-speaking visitors |
|
Interviews with three Arab employees of official Israeli institutions in Jerusalem, a teacher, a researcher and a guide, were recently broadcast on Palestinian TV. The interviewees revealed that in the course of their work they do not convey to students and visitors the historical information which they are meant to impart — contrary to the guidelines of their Israeli employers, and without their knowledge. Mustafa Othman, a teacher from the Beit Safafa neighborhood in the western part of Jerusalem, revealed on Palestinian television that he teaches Israeli Arab children that the Israeli state curriculum is "only for the test; you shouldn't consider it as information". The truth, he teaches Israeli Arab youth, is "that [Israel] conquered our land by armed force, robbed it, destroyed the houses, expelled its people from the cities and from the villages." In another broadcast, two employees of the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem, a history scholar and an Arabic-language tour guide, were interviewed. Both defined the Israeli historical narrative regarding the Jewish connection with Jerusalem, which they are meant to convey to tourists, as "false," and testified that they teach different information instead. According to one, the museum invents stories for the purpose of "creating a historical right and a historical dimension, claiming that they [the Jews] were here 3,000 years ago and that they had buildings here, and that they had a presence here." The tourist guide in the museum said that the information signs on the walls of the museum are incorrect, while the history scholar reiterated the central Palestinian historical distortion denying the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, referring to it as the "alleged Temple". The following is from the interview with the Arab teacher, Mustafa Othman, describing what he teaches Israeli Arab youth in Israeli schools: "In the [preferred] Jordanian or Palestinian curriculum, if I may say, the material is studied on the basis of them [Israel] having conquered our land militarily, robbed it, destroyed the houses, expelled its people from the cities and from the villages. When I taught the Israeli curriculum I would tell the [Israeli Arab] students that it was only for the test, 'you shouldn't consider it as information.'" [Al-Filistiniya (Fatah) TV, Sept. 10, 2009] The following is a transcript of the television interview with the two employees of the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem: Abir Zayyad, history scholar, employed by the Tower of David Museum
PA TV Host, Houloud Al-Afifi: "[Speaking about the site known as David's Citadel] So we've spoken about its importance, its location, and its connection to the Christian religion, and that it's an Islamic structure, but what, inside this Citadel... is [related to] the alleged Israeli history, which the Israelis claim? What exactly is inside the Citadel?" History scholar Abir Zayyad: "... In the hall pertaining to the Bronze Age, which they [the museum] call the [period of the] "First Temple" — and this appellation is not correct — in that period they focus on the issue of Palestine — that the Jews, comprising 12 tribes, entered it, and how Palestine was divided in this period between the 12 tribes, and the process of the conquest of the city of Jerusalem by David, and the construction of the alleged First Temple by Solomon." [Zayyad goes on to say that the archaeological findings indicate that David and Solomon did not live in Jerusalem or in "Palestine", and that there are no structures in Jerusalem that can be attributed to them.] Host: "What are they [the Israelis] proving by means of their version? And what is inside the Citadel? What are they trying to create in order to prove this matter and to sell it to the world?" History scholar Zayyad: "It's the creation of a historical right and a historical dimension, claiming they were here 3,000 years ago, and that they had buildings here, and that they had a presence here, and that all of Palestine was under their rule, as though they created the city of Jerusalem and created all of Palestine." Host (addressing tour guide Rubin Abu Shamsiya): "Mr. Rubin, when you accompany groups of tourists, how do you treat [the subject] — especially when you see the [museum's] history full of lies, the artificial and alleged history — how do you relate to these groups of [Arabic speaking] tourists in presenting the history that is found there?" Tour guide Abu Shamsiya: "From my tour-guiding experience in the Tower of David Museum, I see many historical deceptions, which are displayed on the [museum] walls... Obviously, if I try to treat it in a more neutral way, from a historical point of view, I try to show the neutral historical point of view by means of information which I have drawn from a number of [other] historical institutions. I do not rely exclusively on that which is written on the museum's walls and texts. It is more important to me to convey the Arab point of view, but by means of greater historical neutrality." History scholar Zayyad: "There is a documentary film at the Citadel which they present on the history of Jerusalem. This film is full of historical lies and historical deceptions and their dissemination." [PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 13, 2009] Visit PMW Video Archives here. 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. He is Director of PMW. |
|
ISRAEL'S SETTLEMENTS ARE LEGAL
Posted by Geoffrey Alderman, January 4, 2010. |
|
What role, if any, does the present UK government see for itself as a peacemaker in the Middle East? Does it see itself as an honest broker, or has it already taken sides? Some developments over the past fortnight — which build on the lesson we must learn from the UK government's refusal to condemn or even criticise the Goldstone report — do I think enable us to answer these important questions. At the beginning of the month, feverish diplomatic to-ing and fro-ing in Brussels centred on a Swedish attempt to have EU member states endorse a resolution demanding the creation of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. This proposal was defeated — - thanks to some impressive manoeuvring by Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Instead, on December 8, EU Foreign Ministers announced their agreement that Jerusalem must become a "shared" capital. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was clearly annoyed that the Swedish draft had been killed off. But the British government was among the backers of the Swedish proposal and, within 48 hours of its defeat, presented Mr Abbas with a consolation prize. On December 10, the department for the environment, food and rural affairs (DEFRA) published new guidance to shops and supermarkets on the labelling of produce sold in the UK that originated from Judea and Samaria. Hitherto, such goods have been labelled as "Produce of the West Bank." Henceforth, warned DEFRA, they should be branded either as "Palestinian Produce" or "Israeli Settlement Produce." A spokesman for UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband wasted no time in explaining that "this is emphatically not about calling for a boycott of Israel. We believe that would do nothing to advance the peace process. We oppose any such boycott of Israel. We believe consumers should be able to choose for themselves what produce they buy." But, he added ominously: "we have been very clear, both in public and in private, that settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace." And in an announcement (hilariously labelled "technical advice") quite separate from its new guidance on labelling, DEFRA's head, Hilary Benn, warned that UK food outlets would be committing a criminal offence if they labelled produce that originated in Judea and Samaria as "produce of Israel". Although it is being sold as nothing more than an aid to consumer choice, this spiteful policy looks very much like a boycott invitation to me. My recommendation to the government of Israel is to take appropriate steps to frustrate the intentions of Messrs Miliband and Benn, and to refuse absolutely to label produce from Judea and Samaria other than as originating from Israel. This could perhaps be done by re-routing produce through distribution points within Israel's pre-1967 borders. But the success or failure of this latest boycott initiative is not my present concern. My present concern is with the assumption — virtually unchallenged in the media — that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal. In — of all places — the excellent online journal of the Law Society of Scotland (September 14 2009), the distinguished Anglo-Canadian jurist, Professor Gerald Adler, considers this very assumption. In a painstaking analysis of Jewish claims stretching back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 and the Palestine Mandate of 1922, Professor Adler demonstrates that Jews have a right to "close settlement" on the West Bank, and that this right was in fact specifically preserved, and carried forward on the demise of the League of Nations, through the deliberate wording of article 80 of the founding charter of its successor body, the United Nations organisation. In his "technical advice", Mr Benn is silent on these matters, preferring to dwell instead on the fourth Geneva Convention (1949), which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into occupied territory. But, quite apart from the fact that Israel has done no such thing (no Israeli is compelled to live in Judea or Samaria), Mr Benn needs to understand that the right to which Professor Adler draws attention pertains to Jews, not Israelis. This is a right — granted by the League of Nations and guaranteed by the UN at its foundation — with which neither Mr Benn nor Mr Miliband (nor, incidentally, Mr Netanyahu) has the moral or legal authority to interfere.
This was published December 17, 2009 in the JC at
|
|
EXPANSION OF AL-QAEDA-AFFILIATED JIHADI GROUPS IN GAZA: DIPLOMATIC IMPLICATIONS
Posted by Jerusalem Center (JCPA), January 4, 2010. |
|
This was written by Dore Gold. The full article is in Vol
9, No. 17, January 4, 2009 and is available at
|
|
|
THE PEACE HOUSE CASE. ISRAELI COURT: NO PA JUSTICE IN BEIT HASHALOM
Posted by Jewish Community of Hebron, January 4, 2010. |
|
This was written by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva (www.Israelnationalnews.com); |
|
(Israelnationalnews.com) A district court has ruled that the Palestinian Authority judicial system cannot be trusted to decide fairly who owns the Peace House in Hevron, where police expelled the Jewish residents a little more than a year ago. The Peace House was ordered to be emptied until lower courts decide who is the rightful owner of the property. Judge Yitzchak Avner noted that the PA law that imposes the death sentence on an Arab who sells land to a Jew precludes a fair hearing in its courts. Tal Investments, representing the Jew who paid cash for the multi-story building on the road between Kiryat Arba and the Patriarchs' Cave in Hevron, had asked the court to rule against Arab interests who wanted the case to be heard in PA courts. Attorneys for the Jew who says he purchased the building have provided filmed evidence of the transfer of money, but the Arab who is said to have sold it claims the evidence was forged. He faces a death penalty at the hands of the PA if the sale is verified. Judge Avner noted that the death sentence precludes a fair hearing in the PA courts. He wrote, "Even if I suppose that the PA court in Hevron has authority in this case, it is not practical" in this case, commenting that Israelis are not allowed to enter Arab areas of Hevron. Referring to the PA law against selling land to Israelis, he stated that if it is disclosed that the transfer of property was done through Arab intermediaries whose identities become known, a fair ruling "is very doubtful" because of the threat of a death penalty. He also said that the alleged Arab sellers previously have depended on the Israeli judicial system. The Arab petitioners who asked for the case to be handed over to the PA courts were ordered to pay 10,000 shekels ($2,600) in court costs. 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. |
|
WHERE'S OUR LEADERSHIP?
Posted by Charles Jacobs, January 3, 2010. |
|
We are a small people. We have multiple and powerful external enemies. Striving for Jewish political unity is our natural and rational impulse. Criticizing other Jewish leaders and mainstream Jewish organizations is usually just not done. But these are extraordinary times. We face daunting challenges for which there are no known answers. Chief among them are Islamic anti-Semitism and the global jihad that pose enormous, unanticipated threats to Jews around the world. In my last column I criticized the Anti-Defamation League and its head, Abraham Foxman, for its inadequate response to these threats. In truth, it is not only the ADL that is failing: Few Jewish leaders and almost no mainstream organizations have alerted our community that we face a radically new and potentially existential threat profile. Jews are caught up in a perfect storm: In Western societies, real danger to Jews no longer comes from Christian hatred of Judaism or from Nazi-like animus against our "race"; it comes instead from a hatred of the Jewish state and its Jewish supporters. That this animus comes mostly from the ideological left, with which a majority of Jews identify, is painful and confusing to many. At the same time, blowing in from the Muslim world is a different sort of anti-Semitism, one which combines modern anti-Zionist themes with primordial Islamic theological hatred. Jew-hatred now drives countless masses around the globe. Imbibing this poison, Muslim radicals have attacked and murdered Jewish people from Israel to Europe, from India to Seattle. Islamic hatred has indeed come to America. In 1999, Sufi Sheikh Hisham Kabanni, head of the Supreme Islamic Council, testified to the State Department that 80 percent of American mosques are in the hands of radicals. A study by Freedom House, a Washington, D.C. policy center, found Saudi-produced anti-Semitic literature in Islamic Centers around the country. "Close Guantanamo, Re-open Auschwitz" has been shouted by Muslims at anti-Israel demonstrations in Fort Lauderdale and posted on Bostonbased Muslim Web sites. Jewish leaders, at least at the national level, are not blind to these threats. Two years ago at an international conference on global anti- Semitism in Jerusalem, the heads of many major American Jewish organizations heard speakers like Robert Wistrich, the director of Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, who described Muslim Judeophobia as an existential threat. Last March, Wistrich wrote in Haaretz that "the scale and extremism of the literature and commentary available in Arab or Muslim newspapers, journals, magazines, caricatures, on Islamist websites, on the Middle Eastern radio and TV news, in documentaries, films, and educational materials, is comparable only to that of Nazi Germany at its worst." Through the Internet, this material is available to Muslims living among us here. Because the mainstream media for various reasons downplay these threats, Jews who depend on The New York Times, The Boston Globe or CNN mostly don't see how our situation has been radically altered. And so the question remains: If they know, why haven't our leaders told us? I suggest three reasons. First is a fear of being attacked as racists, bigots and Islamophobes — a line of attack that has been particularly effective against Jewish organizations. Second is a fear of being targeted for "defamation" suits like the one launched against activists and media outlets in Boston who reported on, or asked questions about the radical connections of leaders of the Saudi-funded Roxbury mosque. "Lawfare" works: Legal defense costs can be crippling. But I think the real reason that our leaders are silent is that they simply don't know what to do. Rather than admit this, they stay mum and mostly limit their public efforts to issuing reports and posting on their Web sites. In this context, the letter to the Advocate by ADL's New England head, Derreck Shulman — in which he protests that I am "unaware of ADL's activism" against radical Islam — was a bit disappointing. Shulman points to articles about Islamic extremists and Arab anti-Jewish cartoons on ADL's Web site, instances of Congressional testimony and consultations with world leaders. Surely this is not a serious effort for an operation with a $50 million annual budget that claims to be our chief defender. Where is the big-picture strategy? I don't blame Derrick — in fact his letter exposing CAIR (Committee on American Islamic Relations) just published in the Globe is a step in the right direction. The problem resides in New York. Should Jews not expect Foxman — and our other leaders — to level with us? To tell us what they know — about the penetration of the Muslim Brotherhood into our communities and about the proliferation of radical mosques across America, and about the intimidation of Jewish students by Muslims on campuses? Help us, Abe. We cannot continue with PC-denial and with timidity. Silence is potentially deadly. Let us face this challenge forthrightly, and together. Charles Jacobs is president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance. www.peaceandtolerance.org This article appeared December 31, 2009 in the Boston Jewish Advocate. |
|
FROM ISRAEL: WHAT IS GOING ON??
Posted by Arlene Kushner, January 3, 2010. |
|
With Netanyahu, that is, and his purported acquiescence to "67 lines with adjustments" as the basis for negotiations, which is making press in various quarters. The concept of "67 lines with adjustments" is not new, but was advanced in the current context in November by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The idea, which I will return to in more detail soon, is that everything beyond the Green Line (or '67 line) belongs to the Palestinian Arabs — which is most certainly is not the case. This formulation, it is being said, would be great for Israel, because we would be allowed to retain major settlement blocs and, in return, would just have to give the Arabs land in the Negev or elsewhere inside the Green Line. The stuff of nightmares. But close to what Abbas wants: recognition that Judea and Samaria (and eastern Jerusalem) are "theirs." And now, this proposition is being floated as part of Mitchell's "terms of reference" for resuming negotiations. ~~~~~~~~~~ The statements regarding Netanyahu's alleged concession on using this as the starting point for negotiations are coming from Palestinian Arab, US, and Egyptian sources. A PA official, for example, spoke yesterday in Ramallah about "encouraging signs" that peace talks may begin soon. There is not so much as a leak from inside of Israel. Netanyahu went to Cairo last week and consulted with Mubarak regarding ways to jump start negotiations. At that time Netanyahu apparently proposed that Mubarak host a meeting between himself and Abbas; Abbas will be seeing Mubarak this week. After Netanyahu left Cairo, he declared, "It's time to move the peace process forward." Caroline Glick, on Friday, wrote, "The most sympathetic interpretation of Netanyahu's proclamation is that he was engaging in political theater. It was a low and dishonest statement..." She said nothing about any concessions he had made. ~~~~~~~~~~ My take is similar. And I think Glick's description — "theater" — is on the mark. I believe Netanyahu is playing a game. An exceedingly stupid, dangerous, and cowardly game: He is not taking stands that should be taken, not drawing lines that must be drawn in bright red, and publicly. Instead, he is being deliberately vague — engaging in studied ambiguity — so that it cannot be said that he (perish the thought!) is responsible for stopping movement forward on the peace process. He is, once again, seeking to avoid confrontation with the Obama administration. But he is doing this without having made any firm commitment on "'67 lines with adjustments" or any other specific formulation. He just lets others draw conclusions, hear what they are oh so eager to hear. I am convinced that at the end of the day, with all of the game-playing, he continues to bank on the assumption that Abbas doesn't even want to come to the table and in any event has not the leverage or clout within his own party to close a deal. I believe that he considers this game "safe." I don't. Not because Abbas will cut a deal, but because precedents may be set that should not be set. Things may be acknowledged, even implicitly, that should never be acknowledged. And somehow, once again, we are perceived as being the ones who have to "give more." ~~~~~~~~~~ I would like to cite from an article in today's Post by Khaled Abu Toameh: When Netanyahu was in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that Netanyahu discussed positions that "surpass in our estimate what we've heard [from the Israelis] in a long time. I can't say that he has come with changed positions, but he is moving forward." How does Prime Minister Netanyahu do this? That is, leave people with the impression that he is "moving forward," even as he brings no changed positions? But the fact that he hasn't brought new positions should not be missed. ~~~~~~~~~~ I've consulted others whom I respect who offered the same take on what's going on. Quite frankly, I truly hope I'm correct here, not because I need to be right, but because if I'm wrong, things are even worse. ~~~~~~~~~~ The irony is that I believe Abbas is playing a game as well. I am convinced that he doesn't want to come to the table — PA statements about "encouraging signs" notwithstanding — and could not possibly benefit from doing so: There is no deal he could strike that would satisfy his basic (maximalist) demands. Were he to settle for less, he would jeopardize his shaky political position and quite possibly his life. for the tenor of Palestinian Arab politics is growing ever more extremist. It was not politically correct to condemn the terrorist attack by members of Al Aksa on Rabbi Chai, and so he did not. But when the IDF shot those terrorists, after they refused to surrender, he sent an envoy to tell their families that he had named them as "Shahids [holy martyrs] of the Palestinian revolution." Now he is talking about breaking off all security cooperation with Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ For a different model of how an official in Israel responds to the current situation, we can look to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman called a conference of Israeli ambassadors last week (calling them home from their posts for this), and, as their boss, said the following to them: "In the acceptable codes of the Middle East, concepts such as 'national pride' have a very important value. You don't have to provoke or incite, but there must not be an attitude of groveling or self disparagement. Blessings upon him! He understands how much is lost when representative of our nation fail to exhibit national pride. No more groveling. ~~~~~~~~~~ As to the PA, Leiberman said: "Enough hypocrisy. We do not have to pay any additional price in order to talk with [Mahmoud Abbas]. We have paid enough, and have made many gestures and steps, but we have received nothing in return." Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
|
LIFE OF A JEW IN PRISON DURING THE JEWISH HOLIDAYS
Posted by Jewish Magazine, January 3, 2010. |
|
This was written by David Ben Israel and it appeared in the January
issue of Jewish Magazine
Chanukah in Prison- A Personal Re-dedication |
|
The taste of a kosher donut filled my mouth with gladness. It was the last night of Chanukah, 2007, the eighth night. A Chanukah I will always remember. It began the first night....of course. The first night celebration consisted of a two inch by four inch piece of paper, a ducat. A ducat is a prison pass. It allows the named holder to go out of the building to see the doctor, visit with family, anything other than eating in the chow hall or walking on the yard. This ducat read "Chanukah Service" with the next day's date. My first thought was, "The rabbi is here!" In seven months at Avenal State Prison I faced many challenges in my attempts to lead a Jewish life and pray with other Jewish men. I remember my first day, May 22, 2007. I said I wanted to pray. I asked when and where the Jewish group prays. "There is no Jewish group" was the reply. "They're too afraid of persecution." There was no rabbi, no kosher food and no Jewish Prayer time. I was given the name of a Jewish man. He turned out to be a Messianic (another name for Christian) Jew. A short six months later a rabbi and twenty men said the Chanukah prayers, lit the Chanukah menorah and sang the dreidel song. I immediately showed my ducat to Greg and Michael. Greg's Dad is Jewish. He was brought up Christian with a very Jewish surname. Greg was beaten and blinded in one eye in County Jail. He was placed in an area with gang members who are always ready for such an opportunity. The Sheriff's deputies removed him only a few minutes after condemning him to that area, bloodied, broken and barely conscious. Our friendship continues to grow. Judaism adds depth to his understanding of himself and his relationship with G-d. Michael's Mom is Jewish. He's new to the Yard. Men filled with hatred and ignorance attacked him on one Yard. A kite (message) was sent and members of that group on the next Yard did the same. He was beaten unconscious both times suffered many bruised and broken ribs, blows to the head and was badly bloodied. Worse still the prison rewarded him with poor and delayed medical care, verbal abuse and three months in the hole. No, this is not a movie. These two men lived through my greatest fears in prison. This Yard is much safer for Jewish men. It is a Special Needs Yard (SNY) made up of men at risk on "Mainline" yards. I remember walking back to my building carrying two bags; my monthly canteen purchase. As I sat next to the building eating a chocolate bar a new man walked up, pillow case of possessions in hand, facing a closed door. I told him the door would open in fifteen minutes and offered him some chocolate. He gladly accepted then introduced himself. "I'm Michael and I'm Jewish." Divine Providence! I was the first one he met on the yard. I smiled and said "Shalom" then to make sure he knew I was actually Jewish I began VeAhavta Et A-donai E-lochecha.... This is a very special prayer to me. I say the Shema and Veahavta before I go to sleep and upon waking in the morning. My observant son suggested it prior to my entering prison. I've said it every day since. I didn't bring up my children in an observant home. About six years ago my daughter spent a year at Neve Yerushalayim and returned an Orthodox and observant Jewish woman, followed by my oldest son. Now my third child, a young man of 23 is living in the Old City of Jerusalem at a Yeshiva. Another daughter wears a head covering. G-d is truly blessing our family. Many years ago my Hebrew School principal told me how reciting VeAhavta saved his life. While escaping the Nazis he tried to gain entrance to a "safe house." They didn't know him. Knowledge of how to chant Veahavta Et Adonai Elochecha.... meant the difference between life and death. That lesson stuck with me, thank G-d. I'm also thankful to the person who opened the door for a boy who later enriched the lives of so many young people. I went to sleep with my ducat placed safely in my Siddur. I've received so many books through the mail. My wife, Catholic by birth, has a way of picking the most wonderful and amazing books. I've read more books in the last year than in the last twenty. Man's search for Meaning, The Chosen, The Promise, many by Rabbi Telushkin and Rabbi Kushner. Books published by Aish HaTorah. My favorite book read in prison is My Grandfather's Blessings by Dr. Remen. I cried while sitting in a 6' by 12' cell reading about people with challenges far greater than my own. It is such a life affirming book. I've shared it with many. Bob was my cell mate for one month. Every afternoon we took turns reading one story. Usually that led to two or three. Bob, a Christian man took on the nick name of "Stiff Neck, the Israelite." It was so true of both of us. I'm laughing just thinking about it. Bob is serving 45 to life for a crime he swears he did not commit. He was 72 years old at the time, just completing the first year of his sentence. The second night of Chanukah arrived filled with anticipation. Twelve of us stood by the chapel door waiting for the rabbi to arrive. An hour later nothing had changed, no rabbi. Door still locked. A request to the Sergeant opened the chapel doors to a Chanukah feast of hard boiled eggs, cold baked potatoes, peanut butter, jelly, bread, pears and hot tea. This must be the official food for Jewish Holy days as it was served for lunch on Yom Kippur. If this confuses you don't feel alone. On Yom Kippur, a great disappointment became an even greater spiritual moment. The Kol Nidre Service was scheduled for the main chapel. All eleven Jews and that many inmate guests would attend. Four people were given parts in the service. I prepared intensely for three days just to memorize the Kol Nidre Prayer. I only remembered how to sing the first line, both from my Temple as a child and from The Jazz Singer. I had to create my own tune for the rest. Aleph Foundation sent our only Machzor just weeks earlier. That gift made our Yom Kippur possible. At the last minute our Chapel time was cancelled, I was threatened and potential attendees dispersed. A friend suggested we hold service on the bleachers. With six in attendance and men walking by on the track we proceeded with a partial service. My life long dream of chanting Kol Nidre came true. Drops of rain began to fall from heaven during the recitation of the prayer. The same friend said he felt spiritually cleansed. I sang the prayer three times. Each recitation more intense, more passionate. As in sports, I left everything on the field. My life since my arrest has been Teshuvah: repentance. I hadn't been a practicing Jew since my Bar Mitzvah, 35 years ago. Looking at a probable prison term brought me to the lowest point in my life. Low enough that suicide seemed like the only logical next step. I hit rock bottom. One Saturday morning I decided to go to the Temple of my youth. Sitting in the congregation, singing and listening to the prayers in Hebrew brought a feeling of healing in my heart. It felt good. I hadn't had one good feeling in weeks. But now I felt good. As a child we went to Temple Friday nights and Saturday mornings for Shabbat services. I learned the prayers and was even in the Boy's choir. I have my parents to thank for that as well as my Grandparents. My Dad was in the Men's Club and my Mom literally ran the kitchen. I donated money for memorial plaques in my parent's names. Then I decided to attend services at the Temple close to my home. I was greeted by a congregation lacking a rabbi made up of some real characters. I instantly fell in love. The congregants embraced me. A 96 year old, the oldest man and member became my best friend. We were connected at a soul level. I was home and this was my spiritual family. In two weeks I was a choir member. In three weeks we had a new rabbi, a truly spiritual man, a brother and a father. A friend and a mentor. He is the rabbi I would have liked to become had I continued my Jewish studies. But when asked if I wanted to be a rabbi, as a teenager, I said no. Now I was excited to pray; under the leadership of my rabbi. I also helped prepare the Oneg Shabbat. Like my Mom and my Grandpa who was the Shamas at his Temple in Chicago, service is a part of me. My Grandpa loved me unconditionally. I knew it then and I still feel it. I carry his love with me always. In the prison reception center, the first stop on my prison journey, we were not allowed to receive books through the mail. The intellectual vacuum of cell living without books, phones or program was devastating to my mind. Twenty three plus hours each day locked up. Only one hour per week on the Yard. So, when a pile of books appeared at my cell door I was initially very happy. The Tower Guard remotely opened my cell door. It slid sideways to reveal five or six books. On top was a book of IQ tests and one of mental puzzles. Then I saw it. Unbelievable! A Machzor, blue with a spongy cover. The very prayer book my grandfather gave me at my Bar Mitzvah. My name etched in gold colored ink. I cried. While still free I enjoyed services with the Rabbi. Amazingly I remembered 90% of the Hebrew prayers and soon all of them plus prayers and melodies common at this Temple but new to me. Then it happened, during the Torah service. Now, as a child, the "Torah service was the most boring part of Temple. We just sat and watched or followed the chanting of words I didn't understand. It seemed to go on forever. But on that day watching and listening to the Rabbi chant from the Torah scrolls was very different. It was transcendent. Here, before me, were the words of G-d. A direct connection between the infinite Creator of the universe and me. He was speaking directly to me. These were the same words and the same chant that resounded on that day throughout the world, unchanged for thousands of years. The Torah seemed like a living gateway to G-d. I didn't know how many more times I might hear it. I was going to prison, maybe I wouldn't return. Or I might still end my life. So this might be the last time I ever heard someone chanting from the Torah, the words of G-d. I breathed it in. I tried to draw it down to my soul as deep as possible, never to let it go. It was glorious. I don't know if I had ever felt such a spiritual high, such contentment, such a connection with the Lord. The rabbi approached me after the service. He noticed a change in my face during the Torah service. I told him how much I loved and appreciated the Torah, how it is our direct connection with G-d. I shared all I had felt and thought. The next Shabbat I was called to the bima during the Torah service. The rabbi handed me an old well used book with a hard black cover containing the Torah in Hebrew with vowels. He asked me to stand next to him and point at the words. Not to go ahead but to point at them as he chanted them. I was ecstatic. Surprisingly I was able to do it. I hadn't gone to Temple many times and my Hebrew education ended decades ago. So I stood there in the vortex the soon to be convicted felon, honored beyond my dreams. Members of the congregation congratulated me and I thanked the rabbi. How was I to know that on the next Shabbat the blessings continued? I was directed to stay on the Bima until the end of the service where I sang along with the entire congregation. What was I doing up there? Than I realized, G-d was welcoming me back. I was acceptable in G-d's Temple. I was and am very grateful. Although I never asked I was called to the Bima every Shabbat. The High Holy Days came and I was in the choir. My wife, three of our children and my Aunt were in attendance when the rabbi called my name again. For both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I received an honor I didn't deserve. An honor I am speechless to explain. It was the second night of Chanukah but it was our first night. We stepped into the Multi faith room. Its walls festooned with Islamic religious aphorisms and Arabic letters. A poster of The Dome of the Rock was prominently displayed. The Muslims control the room. It is their clerk's office. Sadly, their domination is enforced with violent threats. The lessons of the world are all too clear in prison. None of the Messianic Jews were ever Jewish. It's very confusing. Referring to themselves as Jews they had refused to pray with me, never heard of the Shema and called our Holy Days feasts. Rosh Hashanah was the Feast of Trumpets. None the less, tonight was Chanukah and it was my job to lead everyone who came to celebrate and pray. I told the story of Chanukah and we recited the three prayers (our first night). We talked about how laws are called Mitzvot (blessings). I realized in prison that anytime I do anything with G-d in mind I feel blessed. Doing G-d's Mitzvot is a blessing. I told stories of my childhood Chanukah experiences. We sang O Chanukah O Chanukah Come light the Menorah....I was surprised how much there was to say about the dreidel and how many men had questions. My Dad always began the nightly Chanukah celebration by saying, "the feast of Dedication lasts eight days." I guess we do have feasts. I never thought about the use of the word dedication. We never focused on the rededication of the Temple. Then, it hit me. As part of Teshuvah Chanukah gives me the opportunity to rededicate my "Temple" to G-d. So, each of us, together, rededicated our lives to a relationship with G-d and a commitment to improving ourselves and helping others. What better gifts could we hope to receive on Chanukah? The service was over before I knew it. All the food found its way into mouths and pockets and bags. The next morning I felt sad. We hadn't lit the Chanukah candles. Not only was there no rabbi, but no Menorah, no candles and no matches. Nor was anyone inclined to help in this area. I came up with an idea of how we could perform the Mitzvah of lighting the Chanukah candles. That evening I set up nine chairs. Eight were brown metal folding chairs. One cushy chair was set in the middle with four on each side. That would be our Menorah and the men would become Chanukah candles. We are to be lights unto the nations. It made sense. As men entered the Chapel one man sat on the Shamas chair. I didn't know this man. I asked if he likes to help people. He said, "Yes I do." I explained that he was the Shamas, the helper candle and it's an honored position in our service. It was the third night. When it was time to light the Menorah all but four men got up from the specially placed chairs revealing our Menorah, human candles in their proper places. I told the story of Chanukah and spoke specifically about the miracle and the oil. We said the prayers. I explained the process of lighting the Menorah as we acted it out. I walked up to the Shamas and shook his hand. He stood up signifying being lit. He then walked to the man representing the candle for the third day and shook his hand. Day three stood up. The Shamas continued to days two and one in that order. Each stood up. The Shamas returned to his position. I shared that the light from Chanukah candles is sacred and not to be used to simply light the room. We discussed the significance of being a light to the world and being a light on the Yard. My grandmother used to say, "Men make plans and G-d laughs." She was born in Poland in the 1870s. She worked to send her brothers and sister to America before she came herself. I remember how respectfully she was treated at our Temple. Even at 90 she attended Temple, wore a wig, koshered her own meat and lit the Shabbat candles. What happened to me? I believe G-d has a sense of humor. In fact things are always happening in my life where I catch G-d laughing at me. I'm just happy He remembers who I am. The cosmic joke that night was the name of our Shamas — Mr. Candler. He found his way to the Menorah every night. The fourth night saw twenty men in attendance. Jews, Messianics, Christians, Pagans and Muslims were all there. When I began Baruch Atah Adonai the room responded in one voice. It almost knocked me over. When did everyone learn the prayers? I was the only one with a prayer book. I don't recall a Chanukah night as special as that one. We added the dreidel song accompanied by Greg on the organ. We said the Mourner's Kadish although I don't know why. We sang Adon Olom responsively Adon Olom, Adon Olom Asheyr Malach Asheyr Malach. A room of mostly non-Jews singing prayers in Hebrew with excellent pronunciation and passion. We left the chapel walking on air. I was informed the next day the Messianics refused to attend future Chanukah celebrations. They were offended by the presence of Christians and Pagans. I guess praying with Jews was hard enough but this was too much. The fifth night brought another full room and two hours of celebration and spiritual upliftment. We talked about being children of One G-d. What does it mean to be Jewish? To have a covenant with G-d. Shema Yisrael, what does that prayer mean? More praying, lighting candles, singing and eating. The next day a Christian man asked how I could allow Pagans to pray with us. I asked if Easter was an important day to him. He said, "Yes, it is the day of the resurrection of my Savior." "Well, if I asked to go with you to church on Easter to pray would you let me go?" "Of course I would," he replied. "Who am I to refuse men entrance to pray with us?" He understood. Each night had its own theme. G-d was gracious unto us. Topics also included repentance, forgiveness, healing and obedience. Condemnation of my actions continued each day. But the tide had turned. Different men began to approach me in the building and on the yard. I heard many stories of men's connections with Judaism. They asked to attend our Jewish meetings and to learn to read Hebrew. Our prison yard was feeling very Jewish. I planned a special service for the eighth night. Yet, I had a feeling the service would not go on as planned. The Sergeant was mad. Men were eating dinner then eating again at Chanukah. Our building officers released us late. I stood outside in the "insulin" line and watched time go by without the Chapel door being opened. We finally got into the chapel, most of us hungry since we skipped dinner. Only fifteen men were there so I wanted to wait a few more minutes. I thought to sing a prayer while we waited but I couldn't match the organ music. So I took a breath and prayed silently. The Chapel door opened and in walked the rabbi. Petite with bright red hair she resembled my favorite aunt. I was overjoyed. Kind and pleasant she set up an electric Menorah while handing out prayers and Chanukah songs. She's also a Cantor. Her angelic voice lifted us spiritually. Our Temple was rededicated that night. Prison can be a place of repentance, forgiveness and healing. It is a wonderful place for Teshuvah. Chanukah is a time when we rededicate our own lives to G-d and our spiritual journey. Many of us are lost and broken. Living a Jewish life can literally be the difference between life and death. It is for me. The website of Jewish Magazine is
|
|
DANIEL AYALON: ISRAEL'S AMBASSADOR FOR CHRISTENDOM
Posted by Ellen Horowitz, January 3, 2010. |
|
|
|
Israel's Foreign Ministry is sponsoring a bid to upgrade the status of evangelicals in Israel and recognize them as a sovereign group or an independent church. The Interior Ministry is opposing the move on the grounds that, "it would open the flood gates and similar requests from other religious groups would come pouring in." But it's likely that the Interior Ministry is also concerned about the missionary nightmare such an arrangement would unleash. It's been reported that a joint committee from the two ministries will be established in order to find a solution. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon reportedly feels that the evangelicals, who "donate untold sums of money" and support Israeli public relations efforts within the US are deserving of this gesture. The Israeli press placed an emphasis on tax and customs breaks, while the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) ran headlines, "Israel May Reward Christian Zionists for Faithfulness", and pinned their hopes on the simplification of the visa process. Jewish Israel has posted numerous reports on how Christian missionaries have used underhanded tactics to gain visa or even aliya rights in Israel. Below is an example of how a volunteer for Christian Friends of Israel (CFI) bragged about her visa status and used it to her advantage: Erin Elizabeth Adams (now Erin Kol), managed to bring an Israeli policeman to Jesus and get him baptized and married. She wrote the following entries in her online diary: "...And the most exciting part is that I am granted an automatic permanent visa in Israel — that's right! CFI is so highly respected by the Israeli government that I am granted automatic visa renewals without any trouble on a permanent status...Now I am watching my dreams unfold before me of being a permanent missionary/volunteer in Israel...This is my highest calling to the people of Israel... that they would know Messiah." For quite a while now Daniel Ayalon and his wife Anne — the daughter of devout evangelicals — have made it their business to court Christian groups. While serving as Israeli ambassador to Washington, Danny Ayalon regularly spoke at church events and befriended a number of evangelical pastors — including those affiliated with groups like Assemblies of God. AOG actively targets Jews for conversion and Jewish Israel recently reported on the inroads AOG is making in Israel. The type of rhetoric Ayalon used at these meetings can still be found on the Israeli Embassy Website: "Your Judeo-Christian heritage is entwined with ours...We are brothers, and we will dwell together in unity." Back in 2007, Ayalon — as the outgoing Israeli ambassador to Washington — told Christians sitting at a gala farewell banquet, that he intended to be "their ambassador to Israel". And it seems he's doing everything he can to make good on that pledge. While running for the Knesset on the 2009 Yisrael Beiteinu ticket, Ayalon, criticized "the harsh policies against Christian volunteers living in the Holy Land". An article which appeared in publications like the messianic magazine "Israel Today" and the evangelical publication "The Jerusalem Connection" quoted Danny Ayalon as saying, "We should be more open to our Christian brothers...Israel Beiteinu will push for making relations between Christians and Jews and Israelis much closer, much stronger." The article brought up the issue of visas and noted that, "many Christian volunteers are now subject to tighter visa rules...". It's something of a disgrace that Daniel Ayalon and his wife are pictured in the article with the very people who tried to spiritually defraud the Jewish people by ripping the halachic and civil foundations out from under the Jewish State. After the elections and Daniel's appointment to the position of Deputy Foreign Minister, Anne Ayalon appeared on Christian missionary Daystar television boasting of her Christian evangelical roots. And very recently Daniel Ayalon completed a three-part interview with the highly controversial televangelist, Benny Hinn. In Hebrew, the term "avoda zara" is literally translated as "strange worship", and nothing is stranger (to us Jews) than the kind of worship Benny Hinn practices. It's also strange to hear our secular Deputy Foreign Minister speaking about how we will continue "to live for God's Glory". Maybe Daniel's been "touched" by Benny's supernatural spirit, but it's more likely that Anne has been training Danny in the fine art of speaking "Evangelese". Daniel Ayalon manages to get a plug in for Nefesh B'Nefesh on Hinn's program. But do we Jews really want to be pooling our aliyah resources from the likes of shamans and showmen like Hinn? Is playing with Benny's strange fire really good for the Jews and for Judaism? Those who are enamored with the Palestinian pastor, counter by saying that he supports the territorial integrity and biblical mandate of Israel. But they should note that Hinn, the magician, can play two sides of the table at once. It's Hinn who has the power to organize what was hailed as an "historic" and "highly productive" meeting in Washington between top evangelical leaders and numerous Arab ambassadors. The sons of the founders of TBN and CBN, as well as Falwell Jr. were all present. Gordon Robertson (Pat's son) proclaimed,"now more than ever Christians need to reach out with love and compassion to the people of the Middle East. I join with Pastor Benny Hinn in reaching out to Israel with one arm and the Arab nations with the other." Of course for years we've all been hearing from the likes of Yechiel Eckstein and Isi Leibler that the evangelicals are "not monolithic". But if that's the case then why is Ayalon and the Foreign Ministry trying to create a colossus "Zionist"church. There are massive missionary problems that would be part of that parcel... Will the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) which claims to represent 420 million evangelicals, and which openly calls for efforts to convert Jews, be included in the special Foreign Ministry status? And what about Jews for Jesus? They are an evangelical church by definition and members of the World Evangelical Alliance, the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability, the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa, the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, and the Evangelical Federation of France. J4J and all of their limbs are sure to request inclusion in the special status. And let's not forget about all of the other "Zionist" evangelizing (missionizing) messianic entities which will be vying to be a part of the new Frankenstein monster established by Israel's Foreign Ministry. In this case the Interior Ministry has great reason for concern. Maybe Aish can set Daniel straight. He claims to study Torah each week at Yeshiva Aish HaTorah and was the 2008 recipient of their 'Builder of Jerusalem' award. Is he building Jerusalem or helping to destroy it? Just two weeks ago Ayalon was promising that he would not compromise Israel's control of the Cenacle shrine on Mt. Zion, and headlines hailed him as a defender of King David's Tomb. Jewish Israel expressed concerns about Daniel's ability to hold his own in negotiations with the Vatican and we were somewhat relieved at reports that talks had failed due to "disagreement in respect to the Vatican's demand for sovereignty at the Last Supper Room on Jerusalem's Mount Zion." However, latest reports seem to indicate something of a softening in Ayalon's stance over the room sitting above the traditional tomb of King David: "Danny Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, said he hopes a compromise could be reached. But while Israel might consider giving the Vatican a greater role in operating the site, he warned that turning over sovereignty is unlikely." [note: Jewish Israel had warned in our report that the "language " was changing and could be a factor] In addition to the Foreign Ministry's plans to upgrade evangelical church status, and possibly compromise on Mt. Zion, Israel's Tourism Ministry recently announced a three-year plan which sets their sights on "Evangelical Christians, Russian Orthodox and Catholic Christians". It seems the Ministry of Interior sure could use some support from the Jewish man or woman on the street who wants to keep the Israeli street, and State of Israel, Jewish. Write to: Interior Minister Eli Yishai: eyishay@knesset.gov.il and register your protest at the Foreign Ministry to: Foreign Ministry Avigdor Liberman: aliberman@knesset.gov.il Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon : dayalon@knesset.gov.il
Ellen Horowitz lives in the Golan Heights, Israel with her husband and six children. She is a painter, an author and a columnist for Israelnationalnews.com. The Jewish Israel group is concerned with missionary activity in Israel. Email her at info@jewishisrael.com The original article has live links to additional articles. |
|
YEMEN ASKS FOR WESTERN COUNTER-TERRORISM AID; P.A. HONORS
MASS-MURDERER; IDF COLLUDES WITH EU AGAINST HEBRON JEWRY?
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 3, 2010. |
|
YEMEN ASKS FOR WESTERN COUNTER-TERRORISM AID The government of Yemen requests Western help against al-Qaida terrorists. Yemen estimates that al-Qaida has up to 300 agents in its country, plotting attacks. To deal with such attacks, Yemen wants more training and logistical support (www.imra.org.il, 1/1).
(For earlier article on this, go here:
HIZBULLAH WARNS CHRISTIANS NOT TO EXPECT U.S. SUPPORT 
Hizbullah leader Nasrullah offered Christians a place within Lebanon, but warned them not to count on the U.S.. He observed that the U.S. does not help allies but harms them (www.imra.org.il, 1/1). As an American, I wish I could deny it. I personally and particularly dislike betrayal. My earlier articles noted U.S. and other great power betrayal of allies or of potential allies, such as the people of Iran. I knew it was only a matter of time before enemies would scare off potential U.S. allies by depressing their hope for U.S. succor. ISRAEL'S HIGH COURT RULING ON HIGHWAY: UPDATE This is the case won by Palestinian Authority Arabs barred from using a highway under Israeli administration and which terrorists used to attack Israelis often. The terrorists made it hazardous, if not impassable, for Israelis. The Court ruled as if Israel built the highway with a false promise that Arabs could use it, and then double-crossed the Arabs by barring their use of it. That way of putting it is misleading. Arabs did use it initially. If they didn't continually commit terrorism on it, they still would use it. Their people, and not some apartheid mentality by Israel, caused this inconvenience to themselves. The judge advised the IDF to let the Arabs back onto the road and to find some other way to secure the road. Sounds reasonable. It is not. The IDF already had tried to find some other way. It could not. When, as a result of the Court ruling, terrorists resume murdering Israelis on that road, the Court would disavow its share of responsibility for those deaths by solemnly repeating that it had advised the IDF to institute security measures. Circular reasoning (Dr. Aaron Lerner, www.imra.org.il, 12/31), criminal negligence. How about checkpoints and roadblocks? Oh, I forgot, the U.S. demands that they be taken down for the convenience of terrorists, I mean, Palestinian Arabs. FOREIGN VIOLENCE AGAINST ISRAELIS CONTINUES My Israeli associate reports that foreign elements in Hebron continue to attack Israeli troops at checkpoints and shield Arabs from law enforcement (1/1). This report updates the following report: "(Israelnationalnews.com) A crowd of 50 including Arabs accompanied by Israeli and foreign sympathizers, threw rocks at Israeli security forces as part of regular violent disturbances against Israel's security barrier next to Na'alin, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, on Friday afternoon. Another 150 attacked troops at nearby Bil'in." "The security forces responded with riot control measures (12/31)." Which riot control measures? Obviously, these regular riots are not discouraged by the "riot control measures" used. Are they intended to control the riot or arrest/deport rioters so that they do not come back the next week? BILL TO OUST MKS WHO AID ENEMY 
MK Danny Danon introduced a bill authorizing dismissal of sitting Members of Knesset who aid the enemy. The bill is in reaction to United Arab List MK Taleb a-Sanaa, accepting a telephone call at an anti-Israel rally in Israel from Hamas head Haniyeh, which call he held up to a loudspeaker. He charged the telephone account to his Knesset account. In other words, he had Israel pay for Hamas to propagandize in behalf of war on Israel. Various charges were suggested for Arab MKs. One is insulting the country's leader (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/1). Laws against insulting national leaders have been distorted to penalize criticism of leaders. This is an anti-democratic measure. Free speech is more desirable. SAN FRANCISCO ZIONISTS CONFOUND ANTI-ZIONIST PROTESTORS 
A demonstration against the Israeli side of the Gaza war was shaping up in San Francisco as the usual anti-Zionist shouting down of older Zionists. Anti-Gaza protests were scheduled for all over, but San Francisco is particularly hostile to the Israeli cause. Protesters included Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, International Solidarity Movement of Northern California, Code Pink, Women in Black, et al. "San Francisco Voice for Israel (SFV4I), a local pro-Israel group affiliated with the StandWithUs organization, has since 2004 been publicly confronting what the group terms 'anti-Israel hate speech' in the California Bay Area. Taking no position on Israel's borders or on the fate of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, SFV4I attempts to present Israel as a Western democracy closely allied to the United States. To that end, the group holds regular counter- demonstrations — often featuring American flags alongside Israeli ones — across from more belligerent and sometimes violent anti-Israel forces." This time, a new group of much younger people, Zionist Freedom Alliance (ZFA) of Northern California, stood besides the older SFV4I demonstrators and acted as bodyguards for them. ZFA had a different, more assertive message. It championed "...Jewish national rights to all territory between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River. Caught off balance by the unapologetic and forceful Zionist message, anti-Israel activists, although employing their familiar tactic of presenting Israeli policies in a negative light, found themselves unable to challenge the assertion of Jewish rights." Some ZFA positions challenge recent Israeli appeasement, too. SFV4I initially was apprehensive about the forceful new group eclipsing it, but welcomed its daring and success in bringing facts before passers-by. ZFA explains that it opposes discrimination against anyone, including Arabs. In San Francisco, it found two forms of discrimination. One is discrimination against the Jewish people's right to sovereignty in its own homeland. The second is U.S. government pressure not to allow Jews to live there. As for Gaza, ZFA leader Yehuda Katz said, "The war was a direct result of the forced expulsion of Jews from their homes in Gush Katif. If not for that tragic crime, both Jews and Arabs would be living better lives in Gaza right now." http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/1.) Note: some of these anti-Zionist organizations do not just disagree with some Israeli policies. They want Israel to perish. FATAH DISPUTES HAMAS CLAIMS OF MEDICAL SUPPLY SHORTAGE The three-year conflict between Hamas and Fatah has killed hundreds of Arabs, mostly in Gaza. The two parts of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) also disagree over the state of medical treatment in Gaza. Hamas claims a shortage of medicine. The P.A., run by Fatah, denies it. The P.A. said that it sent 13 truckloads of medicine to Gaza [probably through Israel], last week. Hamas denies it. The P.A. accuses Hamas of restricting for propaganda reasons many of the dozens of Arabs in Gaza who enter Israel every day for medical treatment (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 1/1). My earlier reports confirm that Hamas has barred some Gazans from exiting for medical care. Those reports draw no condemnation that I have seen from people, except for Hamas' rival, Fatah, who denounce Israel's partial blockade of Gaza, alleging falsely that it deprives Gazans of medical treatment. These complainants do not acknowledge that Israel, itself, treats many Gazans medically. Are they unaware of what is happening, and being exploited for anti-Israel propaganda, or are they aware and deliberately making false anti-Israel propaganda? Israel may demonstrate more compassion for Palestinian Arabs than they aver, Fatah is right to the extent that Hamas prefers complaining about medical supply shortages to acknowledging receipt of truckloads of it. P.A. HONORS MASS-MURDERER Fifty years ago, Dalal Mughrabi led a band of Arab terrorists who hijacked an Israeli bus and murdered 37 civilians; now the Palestinian Authority is honoring her. Abbas sponsored a ceremony celebrating her birth. He already had named a computer center after her. The ..."Governor of Ramallah announced the naming of the 'Dalal Mughrabi Square'". "An article by Fatah spokesman Jamal Nazal in the official PA daily defined the terrorist Mughrabi as 'the heroine of Palestine's heroines.'" In the last two years were named 1- Two PA Dalal Mughrabi Girls High Schools Murdering civilians is heroic? What barbaric values! The chief barbarian, Abbas, is the one that the U.S. claims will make peace with Israel. Not a convincing claim. ARAB PLOT FOR SECURITY COUNCIL TO FOIST STATEHOOD "DEBKAFile's Middle East sources report that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) are secretly drafting a UN Security Council motion granting Palestinian statehood within the pre-1967 war borders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Jerusalem its capital. This group is working under tight wraps, using diversionary tactics, to keep the US and Israel from discovering their scheme. Libya, or if it is elected to the Security Council, Lebanon will table the motion." [In the UN, "table" means put on the table, whereas in Congress, it means to take off the table.] If passed, the proposed Resolution would encompass all the 1967 borders and subject Israel to sanctions. The Arabs hope that the U.S. would not oppose the motion, since then Abbas would resign, leaving a Hamas legislator as next in line for the P.A. presidency. According to DEBKAFile's Jerusalem sources, the Netanyahu government shows no sign of anticipating this hostile diplomatic gambit and the foreign ministry does not appear it is ready to pre-empt it or fight back. Analysis Emanuel Winston doubts that the U.S. and the Israel Prime Minister and Left are unaware of this effort, widely discussed in the Mideast and by means of Abbas traveling all around it. The lack of Israeli anticipation convinces him. He thinks they will pretend not to have found out until too late (Winston Mideast Report & Analysis, 1/1). I agree. In any case, the secret is out, now. The plot is to get the PLO a state without its having to end the terrorism it was supposed to against the Jewish state, which would be deprived of secure borders that could defend against Arab invasion. This would end Jewish sovereignty in short order. The Security Council rarely uses its authority to good purpose and often uses it to ill purpose. It should be stripped of the right to make international law. IDF COLLUDES WITH EU AGAINST HEBRON JEWRY? Is the IDF and Israel's Civil Administration colluding with the EU against Hebron Jewry? Hebron is Judaism's second holiest city and its first capital. It contains the Cave of the Patriarchs, to which observant Jews make a pilgrimage from all over. Hebron Jews go there often, by means of an access road. Eight years ago, terrorists attacked worshipers on the access road. Weighing the right to live safely, freedom of worship, and the right to enjoy one's property, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to secure that access road. Among the security measures was sealing the windows of some Arabs' houses facing the access road. A few weeks ago, the IDF and Civil Administration told Hebron Jewry to take a different route, while it repaired sewage pipes on the regular access road. Instead of bringing in pipes, however, building materials were brought in. The EU and Gulf states have donated tens of millions of dollars for a housing project for Arabs, right there. The Jewish community considers this an enemy initiative. The Jewish community asked the government to halt the project. A week later, it had not. Jewish found that the safety measures were undone, the windows unsealed. The government must be party to this fraud and this new invitation to terrorist attack upon Jews. Jews must be able to reach their shrine safely and not have their spiritual existence threatened (hebron@hebron.com, 1/1). What was that about Netanyahu being a hard right-wing nationalist? What was that about the government of Israel being anti-Arab? It does not much protect its Jews from violent Arabs, but tries to deceive its people. OBAMA ADMINISTRATION INCOMPETENCE ON PLANE BOMBER 
It was bad enough that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said "the system worked," after a suicide-bomber set off his explosive device but it sputtered and a passenger tackled him. Luck and pluck. The system had all the needed information for denying him passage and arresting him, but the various units in the system failed to coordinate the data. This is a system failure! It was worse when President Obama waited three days after the incident, until it became known that al-Qaida "provided the chemicals, training, motivation, and funding." Then Obama declared the incident the work of a single individual (Winston Mideast Report & Analysis, 1/1). Obama and Republicans are blaming each other for our insecurity. What a sorry spectacle! They should work together as Americans to tighten security. FEDERAL COURT REBUKES OBAMA ADMIISTRATION ON TERRORISM A federal district court rebuked the Obama administration as "unhelpful" against terrorism and the State Dept. as "mealy-mouthed about it. The case involved an American shot to death in eastern Jerusalem, allegedly by Fatah and Palestinian Authority (P.A.) police. The case has run for nine years. The P.A. and PLO defendants were appealing against a second court order for a default judgment against them for failing to respond to the complaint by the family of the victim, Esh Kodesh Gilmore. The Court also asked the State Dept. whether it sees foreign policy ramifications of the case. "In deciding to vacate the second default subject to the defendants' posting of a one million dollar bond, Judge Kessler noted that the State Department had 'declined' to file the Statement of Interest. Instead, it filed what the Judge described as a 'mealy-mouthed Notice,' which 'for all practical purposes, said nothing and certainly provided no substantive guidance whatsoever to the Court regarding the Government's position or concerns about any impact a decision might have on the delicate situation in the Middle East.'" The Zionist Organization of America points out that international Islamist terrorism is a continuing, grave threat to us all. P.A. and PLO counsel acted to delay justice. The State Dept. response was indifferent to the problem and to justice for American victims. The State Department should have emphasized its war on international Islamist terrorism. "We call on President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to explain: Why isn't the United States fighting the war against terrorism on all fronts, by firmly and forcefully advocating for American victims seeking just compensation for their losses?" (12/31 press release by http://www.zoa.org/, headquartered in New York and to which I belong.) In other cases, I reported that the State Dept. has urged courts not to help American families, who suffered from Palestinian Arab terrorism, collect the compensation awarded them and to penalize terrorist organizations. Thus although the U.S. is returning to a law enforcement mode against terrorism, it does not pursue legal remedies sufficiently.
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:
|
|
STRATEGIC DANGER TO THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Posted by Israeli Initiative, January 3, 2010. |
|
As a result of Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent political moves, I published the following in the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon: While the right is busy battling the temporary building freeze, it seems that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using all his force to move towards a major strategic decision that is similar to Sharon's disengagement. There are many signs to this move: The attempts to add Kadima to the coalition, sharing secrets with America, and now a trip to Cairo, which led the Egyptian foreign minister to remark that Netanyahu has "made significant progress" in his opinions on the peace process. Until now, everyone thought that Netanyahu threw the ball into the Palestinians' court, so that they would miss it. Now, it seems that he is doing everything so that the Palestinians will raise their catcher's mitt. Netanyahu's vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state, which he described in his Bar-Ilan Speech, may become a reality faster than those who oppose a Palestinian state imagine. Netanyahu was elected because of his opposition to his predecessors, who developed the Oslo Accords, which brought much disappointment and bloodshed. After he was elected, he refused to include the "two states solution" formula in his coalition baselines. Now, it seems that something has changed. No, the imprudence and danger in establishing a Palestinian state haven't lessened. What changed is that the Prime Minister wants to garner the world's favor through a step that may be a strategic disaster. The strategic significance of establishing a Palestinian state — regardless of what limits are put on it — is a significant weakening of Israel and a threat to its survival. From the minute Judea and Samaria are given to the Palestinians, they will move to their next target — the Negev and the Galilee. Hizballah's "spider web" theory will be proven, and the efforts to destroy the State of Israel will only gain momentum. Today, Israel enjoys relative quiet due to Israel's success in repressing the terror in Judea and Samaria. As soon as there will be a Palestinian State, the IDF will not be able to enter Nablus and Jenin, just as it does not enter Gaza today. If Israel allows a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, the only way to prevent terror will be an operation in the style of "Cast Lead," with a high body count and further international delegitimization of Israel's existence. Of course, establishing a Palestinian state will not solve the major problems of the conflict: refugees, economic differences, Israel's survival in a Muslim region. These problems will remain, but Israel will have to deal with them from an inferior position in the international and legal spheres. The slippery slope the Prime Minister is leading us down is a direct result of the lack of an alternative vision. The "Bar-Ilan Speech," despite its brilliant Zionist talk, still showed the fear of changing the "two-state" paradigm, which has failed for the past 15 years. Instead of presenting a different, daring political vision, Netanyahu preferred to adopt old, tired two-state plan and then do damage control. The result of this move: The old paradigm is accepted, and any opposition has become marginal. Anyone who understands the consequences of a Palestinian state must immediately adopt an alternative political vision. "The Israeli Initiative" has offered such a vision for years, but unfortunately, those who oppose Oslo still haven't understood its importance. Today, more than ever, it is clear that without this vision, the establishment of a Palestinian state, and with it the shattering of the Zionist dream, are just a matter of time. For an insight of Netanyahu's moves, read Steve Rosen's article:
As always, I'm happy to hear your comments and questions, Yoav Sorek
This appeared as #26 December 31, 2009 on the Israeli Initiative
website:
|
|
ISRAEL'S UNTENABLE DEMAND
Posted by One Jerusalem, January 3, 2010. |
|
We have been skeptical and critical of Israel's stated position of coming to a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Our skepticism begins with the belief that there is no one on the Palestinian side who can reach an agreement and impose it on his people. Abbas speaks only for his isolated inner circle. And Hamas refuses to recognize the State of Israel. But let's pretend that Israel has a serious negotiating partner. To please the Obama Administration, Israel keeps declaring that it wants to begin negotiations immediately without preconditions. Our question is: Shouldn't Israel have preconditions on the table before entering any negotiations? In our view, Israel should be insisting that anyone it negotiates with recognizes the Jewish State of Israel, drops any demands based on the so-called "right of return", recognizes Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, and agrees with the United Nations that the future of land captured during the Six Day War will be negotiated between Israel and its negotiating partner. Israel should put an end to the charade that everything is negotiable. The sooner Israel makes that clear the sooner reality will enter the stalled negotiating process. The latest, Israeli official to declare that there are no preconditions for talks is Foreign Minister Lieberman. He also slammed the Palestinian leadership for demanding more Israeli concessions before returning to the negotiations table. This was posted today on the One Jerusalem website
|
|
APPRECIATION ARAB STYLE
Posted by Jock Falkson, January 3, 2010. |
| This was said by Dr. Arieh Eldad, Member of the Knesset, when he was interviewed by the New English Review. |
|
"I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well as for war time or mass casualty situations. This skin bank is hosted at the Hadassah Ein Kerem University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the chairman of plastic surgery. "This is how come I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza, who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheba after her family burned her. Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair. We supplied all the needed homografts for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague Prof. Lior Rosenberg, and discharged to return to Gaza. She was invited for regular follow up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheba. "One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life. It seems that her family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her. "This is only one example of the war between Jews and Muslims in the Land of Israel. It is not only a territorial conflict. This is also a civilizational conflict." To be put on Jock Falkson's email list, contact him at falkson@013.net |
|
MUSLIM WORLD: IRAN — THE END IS NOT NIGH
Posted by Jonathan Spyer, January 3, 2010. |
|
The ongoing demonstrations in Iran are testimony to the continued strength and resilience of Iranian civil society. They make a mockery of the Islamic Republic's ambition of offering a model for successful Muslim governance to the world. The next major manifestation of the protests is likely to be February 11 — the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. The seventh and 40th days following the deaths of those killed this week are also likely to witness dramatic scenes. Still, the overheated punditry of the last week predicting the imminent demise of the regime, claiming that this is the beginning of the end for the Islamists in Teheran and that a "tipping point" has been passed is misleading and should be questioned. Two parallel movements exist in Iran, each of which seeks to change the nature of the Islamic Republic as it has existed since 1979. The first of these has been much in evidence this week, in the protests and demonstrations that have rocked Teheran and other cities. This is the so-called "Green movement." It has no clear ideology beyond a deep dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. Within its ranks, one may find supporters of the reformist wing of the current regime, including former presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami. The protest movement also undoubtedly includes individuals and groups with a far more determined and radical agenda, who would like to see the end of the regime established in 1979. But no credible, organized revolutionary leadership with a clear program for toppling the regime can yet be identified from within the broad mass of this movement.
THE SECOND "movement" exists within the regime itself. This is the trend whose most visible representative is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The coalition of hard-line conservative political associations which produced Ahmadinejad, along with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, have been steadily advancing in the institutions of the Islamic Republic over the last half-decade. Unlike their opponents in the Green movement, this group has a clear and unifying set of ideas and goals. Their aim is a "second Islamic revolution," which will revive the original fire of 1979. What they are aiming at is the replacement of clerical rule with a streamlined, brutal police-security state, under the banner of Islam. This state will be committed to a goal of building regional hegemony — through possession of a nuclear option and the backing of radical and terrorist movements. This year has been mixed for the Iranian hard-line conservatives. On the one hand, the electoral "victory" of Ahmadinejad and the subsequent backing given to him by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei represented their biggest advance yet. Ahmadinejad later reinforced his victory by forming a cabinet packed with hard-line conservatives and Revolutionary Guardsmen. This cabinet is currently administering Iran. There were gains further afield, too. The closest regional allies of the hard-line conservatives — Hizbullah — have become the effective governing force in Lebanon. Iran's Palestinian clients, Hamas, are maintaining power in Gaza, as well. But on the other hand, 2009 is also the year in which the limitations of the hard-liners and their ideas became apparent. The ongoing unrest in Iran may not constitute an immediate danger to the regime, but it surely indicates that large numbers of Iranians have no desire to see their country turned into the instrument of permanent Islamic revolution and "resistance" envisaged by the hard-line conservatives. The domestic unrest thus hits significantly at their legitimacy and their ability to promote their regime as a model for governance to the Arab and wider Muslim world. More tangibly, the Iranian hard-liners have not had it all their own way over the last year in the field most dear to them — the practice of political violence. Their resistance model failed in a straight fight with the IDF in the early part of the year. Hamas's 100-man "Iranian unit" suffered near destruction in Gaza. The client Hamas regime in Gaza managed to kill six IDF soldiers in the entire course of Operation Cast Lead. This is a failure, and has been recorded by all regional observers as such. In addition, there appears to be an attempt to demonstrate to the Iranians that the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy is a two-way street. Hence the killing of 29 Revolutionary Guards in a bombing near the Iran-Baluchistan border in October, and the mysterious explosion in Damascus last month which killed a number of Iranian pilgrims. These are significant setbacks. Still, the bottom line remains that for as long as they maintain the loyalty of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Basij militia, and the patronage of Khamenei, the control of the hard-line conservatives is not in danger. Should a real challenge to the power of the hard-liners emerge, the likely prognosis would be for prolonged civil strife, rather than their swift departure. This is not a tired and decaying elite, parallel to the East European communists in 1989. The Iranian hard-liners and their allies regard themselves as the wave of the future, only now ascending to the pinnacles of power. They will not go quietly. So the prospect is for a long struggle in Iran. The Iranian people are not about to enter the stage like a deus ex machina, with one stroke destroying the Islamist regime and solving the agonizing problem of the Iranian nuclear program. The most determined revolutionary current in Iran remains the hard-line conservatives. Their eventual failure is a near certainty, because they are likely to fail in building the real-world basis — political, social, economic and military — which alone could support their boundless ambition. Even then, much will depend on the will of the Western and regional enemies of the regime in confronting them. But contrary to some of the more overexcited opining this week — the playing out of all this still has a way to run. The end is not yet at hand.
Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel
This article is archived at
|
|
A LOW AND DISHONEST DECADE
Posted by Truth Provider, January 2, 2010. |
|
Dear friends, Hello from beautiful Israel where I landed in 75F degrees, green fields and bright sunshine. I think I will make it a habit to always fly on January 1st. The flight was half full and airport searches seemed to be back to normal. Following the events of last week, has the TSA secretly decided to begin profiling the passengers as they should? I surely hope so. The following article by the fabulous Caroline Glick is a
must read. What a great lesson she teaches us for the dawn of a new
decade! It appeared December 31, 2009 in the Jerusalem Post.
Caroline Glick remembers historical facts and, unlike the majority of her blind media colleagues, is not attempting to disguise the inconvenient truths. Every fact of the last decade is clearly listed and illuminated by her. By reading the article, you will have a opportunity to follow the stupid actions and policies of all the Israeli governments of the past decade and draw your own conclusions. It was after Barack's failure in 2000 to grovel to Arafat in Camp David, that the "token ringed" for me. It was enough for me to move the entire political spectrum from left to right. Those of you who still dream of peace between Israel and the "Palestinians," please read the article and maybe you too would become wiser by the facts. I hope you do not need 10 more years until your token rings... I pray PM Netanyahu has learnt from the mistakes of the past decade, those of his predecessors and those of his own in 1999. Your Truth Provider,
|
|
Upon returning from Cairo on Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu proclaimed, "It's time to move the peace process forward." The most sympathetic interpretation of Netanyahu's proclamation is that he was engaging in political theater. It was a low and dishonest statement uttered at the end of what has been, in the immortal words of W.H. Auden, "a low and dishonest decade." Everyone with eyes in their heads knows that there is no chance of making peace with the Palestinians. First of all, the most Israel is willing to give is less than what the Palestinians are willing to accept. But beyond that, Gaza is controlled by Hamas, and Hamas is controlled by Iran. For its part, Fatah is not in a position to make peace even if its leaders wished to. Mahmoud Abbas and his deputies know that just as Hamas won the 2006 elections in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Hamas would win elections today. To maintain even a smudge of domestic legitimacy, Fatah's leaders have no choice but to adopt Hamas's rejection of peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state. Clearly, now is not the time "to move the peace process forward." No less than what it tells us about Netanyahu, his statement is notable for what it tells us about Israel. Our continued willingness to ensnare ourselves in the rhetoric of peace processes demonstrates how little we have progressed in the past decade. In 1999, Netanyahu was ejected from office by an electorate convinced that he was squandering an historic opportunity for peace between Israel and its neighbors. A majority of Israelis believed that Netanyahu's signature policies of demanding that the Palestinians abide by their commitments to Israel, and maintaining the IDF's security zone in south Lebanon were dooming all hope for peace. His successor, Ehud Barak, promised to remove IDF troops from Lebanon and forge a final peace with the Palestinians and with Syria within a year. After winning the election, Barak famously promised a swooning crowd at Rabin Square that the "dawn of a new day has arrived." Barak lost no time fulfilling his campaign promises. He withdrew the IDF from south Lebanon in May 2000. He launched talks with Syria in December 1999. For four months he begged Syrian dictator Hafez Assad to accept the Golan Heights, stopping only after Assad harshly rebuffed him in March 2000. And in July 2000 at Camp David, Barak offered Yasser Arafat Gaza, 90 percent of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem in exchange for peace. After Arafat rejected his offer, Barak sweetened it at Taba in September 2000, adding another 5% of Judea and Samaria, the Temple Mount, and extra lands in the Negev, only to be rejected, again. Barak made these offers as the wisdom of appeasement exploded before his eyes. Hizbullah seized the withdrawal from Lebanon as a strategic victory. Far from disappearing as Barak and his deputy Yossi Beilin had promised it would, Hizbullah took over south Lebanon and used the area as a springboard for its eventual takeover of the Lebanese government. So, too, with its forces perched on the border, Hizbullah built up its Iranian-commanded forces, preparing for the next round of war. Similarly, Barak's desperate entreaties to Assad enhanced the dictator's standing in the Arab world, to the detriment of Egypt and Jordan. To the extent he required encouragement, the ascendance of Hizbullah, Syria and Iran made it politically advantageous for Arafat to reject peace. Buoyed by their rise, Arafat diverted billions of dollars in Western aid from development projects to the swelling ranks of his terror armies. Instead of preparing his people for peace, he trained them for war. Arafat responded to Barak's beggary at Camp David and Taba by launching the largest terror offensive Israel experienced since the 1950s. The Palestinians' orgiastic celebration of the mass murder of Israelis was the final nail in Barak's premiership, and it seemed at the time, the death-knell of his policies of appeasement. A year and a half after he took office, the public threw Barak from power. Likud leader Ariel Sharon — who just a decade earlier had been taken for dead — was swept into power with an electoral landslide. To the extent the public vote was for Sharon, rather than against Barak, the expectation was that Sharon would end Barak's appeasement policies and defeat Arafat and the terror state he had built in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. But this was not to be. Rather than abandon Barak's policies, Sharon embraced them. He formed a unity government with Labor and refused to fight. He didn't fight after 22 teenagers were massacred outside the Dolphinarium nightclub in June 2001. He did not fight after the September 11, 2001, attacks and the Palestinian celebrations of the slaughter in New York and Washington. Sharon did not order the IDF to fight until the carnage of March 2002 that culminated in the Seder massacre at Netanya's Park Hotel forced his hand. Had he not ordered the IDF to dismantle the Palestinian terror infrastructures in Judea and Samaria at that time, he faced the sure prospect of being routed in the Likud leadership race scheduled for November of that year. Operation Defensive Shield was a textbook example of what you get when you mix weak politicians with a strong society. On the one hand, during Defensive Shield, the IDF took control of all the major towns and cities in Judea and Samaria and so enabled Israel to dismantle Palestinian terror networks by remaining in place in the years that followed. On the other hand, Sharon refused to allow the IDF to launch a parallel operation in Gaza, despite repeated entreaties by the army and residents of the South. Most important, Sharon barred the IDF from toppling the PA or even acknowledging that it was an enemy government. And he maintained that the Palestinian jihad began and ended with Arafat, thus absolving all of Arafat's deputies — who were then and today remain deeply involved in the terror machine — of all responsibility. In acting as he did, Sharon's signaled that he was not abandoning appeasement. Indeed, he made clear that his aim was to re-embrace appeasement as his national strategy as soon as it was politically feasible. Most Israelis explained away Sharon's behavior in his first term as the price he was forced to pay for his coalition government with Labor. So when in 2003 Sharon, Likud and the political Right won an overwhelming mandate from the public to lead the country without the Left, the expectation was that he would finally let loose. He would finally fight for victory. Instead, Sharon spat on his party, his coalition partners and his voters and adopted as his own the policies of the Left that he had condemned in his campaign. To implement those policies, Sharon dismantled his government and his party and formed a coalition with the same Left the nation had just overwhelmingly rejected. The past decade's major policies: the withdrawal from Gaza, the construction of the security fence, the acceptance of the road map peace plan, the Annapolis Conference, Operation Defensive Shield, the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead all shared one central feature. They were all predicated on ignoring the lessons of the failure of appeasement in 2000. Whereas Defensive Shield's strategic success was owed to Israel's decision to maintain control over the territory the IDF seized in the fighting, in launching the wars with Hizbullah and Hamas, Sharon's successor, Ehud Olmert, ignored that success and chose instead to emulate the operation's failures. To further his government's appeasement policies, Olmert refused to order the IDF to seize south Lebanon or Gaza. By the same token, like Sharon in Defensive Shield, Olmert announced at the outset that he had no interest in defeating Israel's enemies. He limited the goals of the campaigns to "teaching them a lesson." And of course by not seeking victory for Israel, Olmert enabled both Hizbullah and Hamas to claim victory for themselves. By opting not to defeat Hizbullah or Hamas, Olmert communicated the message that like Sharon before him, his ultimate strategic aim was to maintain the political viability of appeasement as a national strategy. He was fighting to protect appeasement, not Israel. As we move into the second decade of this century, we need to understand how the last decade was so squandered. How is it possible that in 2010 Israel continues to embrace policies that have failed it — violently and continuously for so many years? Why, in 2010 are we still ignoring the lessons of 2000 and all that we have learned since then? There are two main causes for this failure: The local media and Sharon. Throughout the 1990s, the Israeli media — print, radio and television — were the chief propagandists for appeasement. When appeasement failed in 2000, Israel's media elites circled the wagons. They refused to admit they had been wrong. Misleading phrases like "cycle of violence" were introduced into our newspeak. The absence of a security fence — rather than the presence of an enemy society on the outskirts of Israel's population centers — was blamed for the terror that claimed the lives of over a thousand Israelis. Palestinian propagandists and terrorists such as Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti were treated like legitimate politicians. Palestinian ties to Iran, Syria, Iraq and the nexus of global jihad went unmentioned or uncommented upon. At the same time, opponents of appeasement — those who had warned of the dangers of the Oslo process and had spoken out against the withdrawal from Lebanon and a potential withdrawal from the Golan Height and Gaza — were not congratulated for their wisdom. They remained marginalized and demonized. This situation prevails still today. The same media that brought us these catastrophes now derides Likud ministers and Knesset members who speak out against delusion-based policies, while suddenly embracing Netanyahu who — with Barak at his side — has belatedly embraced their pipe dreams of appeasement-based peace. Then there is Sharon. The man who built the settlements, who removed the PLO from Lebanon, who opposed Oslo, Camp David and the withdrawal from Lebanon; the man who opposed the security fence and pledged to remain forever in Gush Katif. As Israel's leader for most of the past decade, more than anyone else Sharon is responsible for Israel's continued adherence to the dishonest, discredited and dishonorable dictates of appeasement. Whether due to his alleged corruption, his physical enfeeblement, his fear of the State Department, or his long-held and ardent desire to be accepted by the Left, Sharon betrayed his voters and his party and he undermined Israel's ability to move beyond failure. Auden's "low and dishonest decade" was the 1930s. It was the West's obsession then with appeasement that set the world on course for the cataclysm of World War II. As Israel enters the new decade, we must redouble our efforts to forestall a repeat of the cataclysm of the 1940s. Disturbingly, Netanyahu's call for a fraudulent peace process shows that we are off to an ignoble, untruthful start. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
|
U.S. JUDICIARY ON TERRORISM; PEACE NOW LAWSUIT
BACKFIRES; RABBINICAL COUNCIL MEETS WITH US AMBASSADOR
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 2, 2010. |
|
WEST BANK FREEZE FOR JEWS: UPDATE Having run into difficulties with its regulation against and construction work by Jews, the government has adjusted the regulation. Starting next year, it will allow local governing councils to approve infrastructure work such as sewers and roads, and minor household improvements, such as installing windows, air conditioning, closing in patios, and repairs. The councils also would be allowed to compensate contractors stuck with purchases they cannot now put into a finished product (www.imra.org.il, 12/31). ISRAELI FIRM IN CHARGE OF U.S. AIRPORT SECURITY Israelis have long experience in counter-terrorism. Many countries hire Israeli companies to manage airport security. In the late 1980s, two men in charge of accounting for the Likud Party, Ehud Olmert and Menachem Atzmon were charged with graft and corruption. Only Atzmon was convicted. As soon as he was released, Atzmon became CEO of the Israeli firm, ICTL. From jailbird to CEO in one step seems like some kind of a payoff. ICTL employs 11,000 security personnel deployed in 22 countries. When ICTL bought an American company, it took charge of security at the airports in Newark and Boston. Those were the two airports at which the 9/11 hijackers boarded. ICTL also was responsible for security at the Dutch airport where the current airplane bomber boarded for Detroit (Barry Chamish, 12/30). REOPENING ROAD TO P.A. ARAB TRAFFIC: UPDATE Not mentioned in earlier reports was the fact that highway 443, the one being re-opened to Arab residents in the Palestinian Authority area by Israeli court order, is one of only two linking Judea-Samaria to Jerusalem. That link is too vital to take is coming back under security threat lightly. Security officials are concerned that 443 will again become the site of shooting and that terrorists may plant roadside bombs there. [Arabs sometimes try to drive Jews off the roads.] The State anticipates that Arabs will petition the courts to reopen the 59 kilometers of other roads now closed to them. In a counter-move, some Members of Knesset are preparing a bill to annex highway 443 or overrule the Supreme Court. Making it part of the State of Israel would put it more fully under Israeli jurisdiction. The MKs believe that this would enable Israel to bar Arab non-citizens (www.imra.org.il, 12/31). They may be mistaken. Israel's Supreme Court does not go as much by the law as by what it would like the law to be. U.S. OPENS TURNSTILE TO TERRORISTS 
Appeasing popular disapproval of U.S. excesses at Guantanamo, President Obama is giving terrorists an open turnstile. Obama is hastily trying to close the prison there. He has released terrorists to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. From prisons in Yemen, terrorists escape. From Saudi Arabia' terrorist rehabilitation program, 20% of the graduates return to terrorism. As a result, former inmates of Guantanamo continue to commit terrorist crimes. Nevertheless, the Administration wants to release dozens more to those countries. Part of its misguided policy derives from its misconception of terrorism as a matter of individual aberrations, to be treated under our civilian criminal justice system. This is not a matter of wayward individuals, but of an ideology that wages war, one way by inducting terrorists by Internet. War can't be solved by a civilian judicial system (Wall St. J., 12/31, Ed.). I have seen figures that the rate of recidivism by terrorists whom Israel releases is 40%. If the figures are accurate, then apparently Israel lacks a program for reducing that rate. I have not heard of Israel having such a program. Israel treats terrorists well. Many terrorists think that Israeli decency is a weakness. Israel educates prisoners, but that can make them more effective in terrorism. The underwear-bomber was described as from a well-to-do family. He is still another example of the error in attributing terrorism to poverty. Poverty may play a role, but ideology U.S. JUDICIARY'S EFFORT ON TERRORISM 
A few weeks ago, we speculated about the effect on Radical Muslim terrorism by trying arrested terrorists in U.S. civilian courts. The current underwear-bomber's arrest turns speculation into certainty. Because Umar Abdulmutallab was brought before the civilian judiciary, he had to be read his Miranda rights: "You have the right to be silent." His lawyers insist on it. He refuses to be explain what happened. Prompt interrogation is important. Does he know of other plots? Who prepared him? Where are they and their supply of explosives? How did he evade airport security measures? Timely information could enable counter-terrorist action that may save lives and help defeat international terrorism. After he is convicted, he may be interrogated. That may take years. By then it would be too late. For example, a prior case tried in civilian courts was that of Zacarious Moussaoui. That case took three years. His case was cited as a triumph of our civilian judicial system against terrorism. Massaoui might not even have been convicted, given prosecutors' reluctance to let sensitive intelligence be seen by adversaries, but he pled guilty. Some triumph! President Obama deplores human blunders that let the underwear-bomber get as far as he did. My source focuses on Obama's blunder that hinders acquiring intelligence from prisoners (Victoria Toensing, Wall St. J., 12/31, Opinion). HOW MUSCULAR SHOULD U.S. FOREIGN POLICY BE? muscular should U.S. foreign policy be? Like Foreign Affairs, Fouad Ajami laments the isolationist tendency in current U.S. foreign policy. He reports U.S. abandonment of foreigners yearning for democracy and cynicism whether they would be capable of keeping it. He refers to the current "...absence of an overriding commitment to the defense of American primacy in the world,..." (Wall St. J., 12/31, Opinion). Isolationism almost cost the world its civilization, during my childhood. It is not the answer. Collective security has proved ineffective, too. Europe had such a system, but the totalitarian powers effectively picked off individual members of the allies against aggression. The main members sacrificed minor members, until they lacked enough allies to protect themselves. It happened in ancient times, too. The UN is supposed to provide collective security, but imperialists have great influence in it. They paralyze it. President Obama thought he could talk antagonistic states out of bellicosity. His supposition was conceited. He is getting nowhere with them. What about "American primacy?" Never advisable. Too much power breeds complacency and corruption. The U.S. can no longer maintain superpower status. The U.S. lacks the resources and liberal policies are depressing its economy. The U.S. cannot fight every foreign political evil. It must select when and how to engage carefully, picking issues it can win. The primary purpose should be to defend trading lanes and against imperialist efforts aimed ultimately at it. A secondary purpose should be to reduce oppression. It must husband its resources in all this. How to accomplish that? For one thing, rebuild economic strength. For another, as a summer issue of Foreign Affairs explained, the U.S. must allocate military resources in ways that enemies cannot easily counter-act. Its big ships become liabilities in narrow Persian Gulf waterways, where Iran's small ships can attack them. Unfortunately, its momentum of military appropriation according to lobbying does not furnish the best defense. The U.S. should continue to promote democracy abroad. It should not write off Muslims abroad, such as in Iran, as incapable of it. The Iranian people want democracy. The U.S. should encourage them. Just speaking up for them and denouncing their dictators as illegitimate would hearten them and perhaps encourage them to overthrow their despots. Once the people rule there, Iranian imperialism may end. What does that cost? Not much. Someone suggested that since the Iranian organization which the U.S. declared terrorist has disarmed and not committed terrorism in nine years, it could be declared non-terrorist. It might help in a real Iranian revolution. Most important of all, the U.S. should evaluate the enemy wisely. That enemy is Radical Islam. The U.S. should learn to work with non-Radical Muslims against Radical Islam, a threat to all. It should oppose the Radical jihadists not only militarily and economically, but also ideologically. The U.S. government has done little about this. NETANYAHU EXPLAINS ISRAEL'S STRATEGIC NEEDS PM Netanyahu explains Israeli strategic needs. He said that agreements with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), signed or unsigned, do no good. Same for UN ceasefire resolution 1701 for the Lebanon war. That agreement left the border to UNIFIL, which then said it lacked authority to really patrol it. As a result, Hizbullah now has three times as many rockets facing Israel as before the war. The problem is that unless Israeli forces can patrol the area, the P.A. and Hamas, like Hizbullah, smuggle weapons in. Israel made a mistake in abandoning the Gaza border with Egypt, where the smugglers operate. Therefore, in any future arrangement with the P.A., Israeli forces must be able to patrol its border with foreign states (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/,12/31). The article referred to "state," for a future arrangement. That wording, or is it the analysis, is careless? A state is sovereign. It can dismiss Israeli patrolling. This is the time for Netanyahu to explain carefully that the P.A. must not gain sovereign statehood. Otherwise, he may back it into statehood. Perhaps Netanyahu thinks he can finesse the State Dept.. I disagree. I think that the State Dept. is cleverer than Israeli leaders. I also think it is a mistake not to explain Israel's rights and principles. Otherwise, people may adopt the State Dept. or Arab view for incorrect reasons. PEACE NOW LAWSUIT AGAINST JEWISH TOWN BACKFIRES Residents of Kiryat Netafim village in Samaria are pleased that the Peace Now lawsuit against it backfired. The village was founded by Jewish religious Zionists in 1984. Many Jews originating from Yemen live among its 85 families. The village and the 15 more proposed houses are on the town site originally planned. Peace Now alleged that the village was built partly on land owned privately by Arabs. The village contemplated suing Peace Now for defamation. [Peace Now already lost such suits.] The building plans were legitimate, for land belonging to the village, not to Arab individuals. The only reason that the plans lack final approval is that the Defense Minister refused to sign them, for political reasons. The court investigated. It ruled that the plans warrant final approval, and since the approval was held up artificially, then as soon as approval is signed, construction may commence (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/. 12/31). The power to withhold approval should not be so discretionary. Approval should be required with a couple of months, unless a war intervenes or there is some stated problem with the plans. Peace Now falsely alleges that land is owned by Arabs and that lacking final approval in Israel is not something ethically wrong by settlers. ISRAELI RABBINICAL COUNCIL ON PEACE MEETS WITH U.S. AMBASSADOR A delegation of the Rabbinical Council for Peace met with U.S. Ambassador Cunningham to propose a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict. The Council told the Ambassador that whatever land Israel ceded to the Arabs became a base of hatred and terrorism. The land-for-peace formula is futile, obsolete, and dangerous. It leads to bloodshed and instability. This harms vital U.S. interests, unless that interest is to champion terrorism. The formula also contravenes the Divine will, the delegates said. A petition declaring land-for-peace forbidden, because it costs lives and creates instability was signed by 350 rabbis and shown to the Ambassador. Rabbi Sholom Gold said, "'It's all a play of words, there is no peace process. From the day that we started conceding and withdrawing we did not have one day of rest and peace. Why should our enemies want to make peace with us when they see that with terrorism they get what they want? Even the U.S., Israel's supposedly best friend, sides with them in demanding a freeze and evacuation of settlements." "Ambassador Cunningham told the rabbis that he does not see how the problem can be solved 'without taking into consideration the Palestinians,' to which Rabbi Gold remarked: 'Ever since we started taking the Palestinians into consideration the situation only worsened.'" "The ambassador asked the rabbis, 'So what is your solution to the problem?'" "Rabbi Gerlitzky replied: 'You must switch the entire approach to
the situation. We all believe in the Holy Bible and up until now we
tried every formula except for that which is delineated in the Bible.
Let's try it and who knows, Mr. Ambassador, maybe this is your
defining moment, that G-d Almighty has placed you [and the U.S.] in
this capacity in order to precipitate a new course which will bring a
true peace to the entire region.'"
I make no comment about the religious angle. That is not my place. AYATOLLAH URGES MURDER OF IRANIAN DISSIDENTS Mehyaddin Haeri Shirazi said on the Islamic Republic's national TV
that arresting and torturing dissidents merely leads to more strife.
Killing them ends the strife. He doesn't worry about the ethics of
this, because, he avers, the hidden Imam is behind the regime. The
regime has killed more protesters recently
(http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 12/31).
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:
|
|
LUCKY TO HAVE A CHANCE TO GET OFF A SERIES OF SHOTS LIKE THIS, RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR HOME
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, January 2, 2010. |
|
Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il
visit
|
|
CHRISTIANITY & ISLAM
Posted by Susana K-M, January 2, 2010. |
|
This was written by Ibn Warraq, He is a senior fellow at the Center for Inquiry Transnational and the author of five books on Islam and Koranic criticism, including Why I Am Not a Muslim. |
|
Often, when I am criticizing crimes inspired by Islamic extremism, I am interrupted by the remark that Christianity was once culpable of similar abuses. That Christianity may have been intolerant in the past, however, does not make criticisms of Islam's present-day intolerance any less valid. Also, Islamic intolerance is an immediate danger, whereas Christian intolerance is generally a historical phenomenon and no longer a threat to civilization. And Christendom's crimes were recorded by Christians themselves — a stark contrast to our politically correct climate, in which many, especially Muslims, are reluctant to criticize Islam. Still, one might point out Christianity's historical shortcomings in order to avoid demonizing Islam alone. But this principle should work both ways: we should also avoid demonizing Christianity and be prepared to point out Islam's shortcomings. In December 2008, Boris Johnson, mayor of London, presented a biased BBC program on the Crusades that laid the blame for them entirely on Christians. The program pointed out that after expelling the Moors from Spain, Christians converted a mosque into a church — an act of "vandalism." However, it failed to note that the Crusades were a reaction against over 300 years of jihad and persecution of Eastern Christians, during which Muslims destroyed hundreds of churches and converted many others into mosques, including the magnificent Byzantine church Hagia Sophia. Consider the situation in the Holy Land 100 years before Pope Urban II's call in 1095 for a crusade to liberate it. It was part of the territory ruled by the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim, whose cruelties Christian and Muslim historians alike recorded. Fourteenth-century historian Ibn al-Dawadari tells us that al-Hakim destroyed the Church of Saint Mark in al-Fustat, Egypt (on the outskirts of modern-day Cairo), which Christians had built in defiance of a law forbidding new church construction. The al-Rashida mosque arose not only over the ruins of Saint Mark's but also over Jewish and Christian cemeteries, surely an act of vandalism. But the height of al-Hakim's cruelties was the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which, according to Muslim sources, began in September 1007. Also known as the Church of the Resurrection, this was possibly the most revered shrine in Christendom — considered not only Golgotha (or Calvary), where the New Testament says that Jesus was crucified, but also the place where he was buried and hence the site of the Resurrection. According to historian Moshe Gil, al-Hakim ordered that the Church of the Resurrection be torn down "to its very foundations, apart from what could not be destroyed or pulled up, and they also destroyed the Golgotha and the Church of Saint Constantine and all that they contained, as well as all the sacred gravestones. They even tried to dig up the graves and wipe out all traces of their existence." A new generation of Western medieval scholars has tried to rectify misconceptions about the Crusades. Historian Jonathan Riley-Smith has pointed out that "modern Western public opinion, Arab nationalism, and Pan-Islamism all share perceptions of crusading that have more to do with nineteenth-century European imperialism than with actuality." Muslims, in particular, have developed what Riley-Smith calls "mythistories" concerning the putative injuries that they received at the crusaders' hands. This is not to deny, of course, that the crusaders were responsible for outrages, including what is sometimes called the First Holocaust — the massacres of Jews that began in Worms on May 18, 1096, and continued into Mainz, where the Jewish community, one of the largest in Europe, was decimated. It is rather to say that the Crusades are misunderstood on multiple levels. For one thing, they were not exclusively concerned with combating Islam. Pagan Wends, Balts, and Lithuanians; shamanist Mongols; Orthodox Russians and Greeks; Cathar and Hussite heretics; and those Catholics whom the Church perceived as its enemies — all were targets of the broader mission to extirpate heresy. Nor were the Crusades "thoughtless explosions of barbarism," as Riley-Smith accurately characterizes their reputation today. They had a sophisticated underlying rationale, elaborated theologically by Christian nations threatened by Muslim invaders who had managed to reach into the heart of Europe — from central France in the eighth century to Vienna in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were a response to the desecration of Christian shrines in the Holy Land, the destruction of churches there, and the general persecution of Christians in the Near East. A Crusade had to fulfill strict criteria for the Church to consider it legitimate and just. It had to be waged for purposes of repelling violence or injury, with the goal of imposing justice on wrongdoers. A Crusade was not to be a war of conversion but rather a rightful attempt to recover unjustly seized Christian territory. And only a recognized church authority like the pope could call for one. Most crusaders would have laughed at the prospect of material gain. In fact, crusading became a financial burden as the costs of warfare increased. The Crusades were far more concerned with saving not only Christendom from Islam, but also the souls of the crusaders themselves. Many believed that, by taking part, they would redeem their sinfulness. It's commonly believed today that modern Muslims have inherited from their medieval ancestors memories of crusader violence and destruction. But nothing could be further from the truth. By the fourteenth century in the Islamic world, the Crusades had almost passed out of mind. Muslims had lost interest, and, in any case, they saw themselves as the victors. The Muslim world did not renew its interest in the Crusades until the 1890s, but now it saw them through a Western prism. Western imperialist rhetoric, infused with a tendentious reading of crusader history, gave Muslims the false idea of a continuing Western assault, while the novels of Sir Walter Scott encouraged the myth of the culturally inferior crusaders confronting civilized, liberal, and modern-thinking Muslims. Many Arab nationalists believed "their struggle for independence to be a predominantly Arab riposte to a crusade that was being waged against them," as Riley-Smith notes. "Since the 1970s, however, they have been challenged by a renewed and militant Pan-Islamism, the adherents of which have globalized the Nationalist interpretation of crusade history." Thus the spectacle of modern Islamists invoking the Crusades. As Osama bin Laden wrote: "For the first time, the crusaders have managed to achieve their historic ambitions and dreams against our Islamic umma, gaining control over the Islamic holy places and the Holy Sanctuaries, and hegemony over the wealth and riches of our umma." The battle, according to bin Laden, is between the people of Islam and the global crusaders. In trying to make sense of their humiliation under Western imperialist powers, aggrieved Muslims have come upon an ingenious but false interpretation of history that sees their nineteenth- and twentieth-century exploitation as a continuation of the medieval Crusades. Such a reworking of history enables them to cast contemporary events, such as the war in Afghanistan and the American presence in Iraq, in an anti-Western light, making the West and the Crusades a convenient scapegoat for the shame and dishonor that Muslims have experienced for decades. Their distorted reading of history gives Islamists both a cause for grievance and a justification for their sense of superiority — since Muslims did, after all, succeed in expelling the infidels from Islamic lands. Contact Susana K-M by email at suanema@gmail.com |
|
THE FIRST KISS
Posted by Teresinka Pereira, January 1, 2010. |
|
January 1st. 2010 (1:00 am) Contact Teresinka Pereira at tpereira@buckeye-express.com |
|
UPRISING PLANNED TO TARGET 'WEST BANK' JEWS
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, January 1, 2010. |
|
This sounds like a planned re-play of the start-up of Yassir Arafat's first Intifada after the Oslo Accords were signed and 7 cities in Judea and Samaria were surrendered to Arafat. I always believed and I wrote that the First Intifada was a "Riot Trap" to advance the abandonment of Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights and most of Jerusalem. It was guided by Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Arafat and the CIA as follows: Rabin went to Washington to meet then President George Herbert Walker Bush to plead for more American pressure on Israel to push for evacuation of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Peres went to France to meet with the President of France and then on to England to meet then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — to get both to pressure Israel for the ultimate surrenders — same agenda. Both Rabin and Peres needed a high profile action event to make their case and the "coincidental Riot Trap" that Arafat gave them was the First Intifada. It started in Rafah, a town half in Israel and half in the Sinai Desert, earlier surrendered to Egypt by PM Menachem Begin. As the "First Intifada" built in violence, both Rabin and Peres refused to return to Israel, giving the uprising sufficient time to build — thereby assisting their mission to get America, France and England to force Israel to abandon more land in useless gestures of "withdrawal". The idea was to demonstrate that outside foreign pressure was needed to bring peace to the Middle East by "pacifying" Arafat and the Muslim Arab nations. That Leftist trick has been repeated several times since then and now under Abbas, Netanyahu and Obama. Since Arafat was in contact with Rabin, Peres and the U.S. Arabist State Department, no doubt with the deft hand of the CIA (which was excellent at starting insurrections anywhere in the world, the "Intifada" grew and grew — as planned. Strangely, on the Egyptian side of the border in Rafah, the Muslim Arab Palestinians were also rioting. The Egyptians sent in several of their Army trucks. They dropped their tailgates and displayed 50 calibre machine guns. They raked the rioters with live ammunition. When the street was littered with dead Muslim Arab Palestinians, they closed up and drove away, leaving the dead right where they were. That ended the Intifada rioting on the Egyptian side of the border. In the meantime, Rabin and Peres stayed on in America, France and England, refusing to return to stop the Intifada on the Israeli side of the border. If that was the plan they conspired by colluding with Arafat, with possible CIA overview, it worked. Of course, Rabin and Peres had crossed the line if they were knowing participants into the murky realm of "High Treason". Since they controlled the Israeli Government as her leading officials, there was no follow-on investigation or questioning. The low-level start-up of an "Uprising" mentioned in the following Aaron Klein article is suspiciously like the earlier start-up of Arafat's first "Intifada". Only, this time, we hear from the current Defense Minister Ehud Barak, stating that there is increased "Terror" in Judea and Samaria (pejoratively called the "West Bank") which is linked with the Netanyahu, Barak, Obama plan to drive the Jews out of Judea, Samaria, (Gaza is already gone), all of Jerusalem that Jordan occupied and desecrated for 19 years from 1948 to 1967, the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley. If the First Intifada plan worked once, why not try it again? Many of the same traitors are still around and in power. President Barack Hussein Obama has already given the "green light" to advance hostilities against Israel — so an Abu Mazen Intifada is to be expected. This article below was written by Aaron Klein and it
appeared December 27, 2009 in World Net Daily
|
|
JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Authority has decided to support and encourage a "low-level" popular uprising in the strategic West Bank, according to Palestinian and Jordanian intelligence sources. The decision comes at a time of increased international pressure, including from the Obama administration, for Israeli-Palestinian talks aimed at an eventual Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank. The determination also comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has been enforcing a 10-month freeze on Jewish West Bank construction in line with U.S. demands. The Palestinian and Jordanian sources told WND the decision empowers local leaders of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization to lead what would be viewed as a "popular struggle" of Palestinians protesting as well as throwing stones, rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers and Jewish residents of the West Bank. The "struggle" would be concentrated against Israeli West Bank communities, anti-terror checkpoints and an Israeli security fence that snakes alongside the West Bank. According to the Palestinian and Jordanian sources, a PA committee has been studying how to best support and finance the "popular struggle." The sources said that for now the PA has decided against "higher-level" terrorist attacks, such as roadside shootings or suicide bombings. Just yesterday, a young Israeli woman was moderately wounded when Palestinians hurled a firebomb at the bus in which she was riding south of the West Bank biblical city of Hebron. Also yesterday, some 20 Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israel Defense Forces soldiers stationed in Hebron, with one soldier lightly wounded after a Palestinian protestor bit him. Last week, Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai, a 40-year-old West Bank Jewish teacher and father of seven, was murdered in a shooting attack on a road near his home, in an area where Israel had recently lifted a roadblock restricting Palestinian movement. According to sources inside the PA speaking to WND, the Palestinian Authority was against the shooting of Chai, which they said was financed by the Iranian-backed Hezb'Allah militia in Lebanon. Indeed, according to Israeli security officials speaking to WND, Israel has specific information that Kais Obeid, a Hezb'Allah militant in Lebanon, directed and financed Chai's murder. Obeid was also responsible for the 2000 kidnaping of Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was released by Hezb'Allah in a 2004 prisoner exchange. Obeid is an Israeli Arab who crossed the border into Lebanon and joined with Hezb'Allah in the 1990s. Over the weekend, an Israeli raid killed three Fatah terrorists that Israel says were responsible for Rabbi Chai's murder and were, according to Israeli sources speaking to WND, directed by Obeid.
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 |
|
ARREST-RELEASE KAHANE'S GRANDSON IN MOSQUE FIRE; IDF-JEWISH-MUSLIM NOISE DISPUTE IN HEBRON
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 1, 2010. |
|
ARREST AND RELEASE RABBI MEIR KAHANE GRANDSON IN MOSQUE FIRE Israeli police arrested the grandson of Rabbi Meir Kahane for burning holy books in a mosque near Ma'ale Adumim, my associate reports. The youth proved he was elsewhere, when the fires were set in the mosque. Police released him. On days when the Cave of the Patriarchs was open only to Muslims, Jewish prayer books were burned several times. No arrests, incidents soon forgotten. My associate in Israel raises the question, "Whose country is it?" (12/31/09.) Same for the destruction of Joseph's Tomb and attacks on Rachel's Tomb. I deplore unequal enforcement of the law and all vandalism but especially against somebody's holy site or books. Let's be clear about this. My associate's complaint that the majority lacks full protection by law enforcement does not mean wanting the minority unprotected. But a government is more sick when its appeasement-mindedness, political correctness, or ethnic self-hatred causes it to discriminate against its own people, because this is so unnatural. Until Israeli discrimination against Jews who are observant or live in Judea-Samaria became so blatant as to encourage Arab violence against them, there was almost no violence by them against Arabs. The Israeli Left seizes upon what violence has developed as confirmation of its long-standing complaint about such violence before it really existed. (The Left ignores weekly leftist violence at the security fence. Weekly!) I think that the Left should take responsibility for much of the violence against Arabs as due to leftist discrimination that risks the lives of fellow Jews. For example, Israeli police usually do not arrest Arab rioters and trespassers but usually do arrest Jews who defend themselves or were complained about by Arab perpetrators, as if the word of Jewish victims does not count. IDF-JEWISH-MUSLIM NOISE DISPUTE IN HEBRON Earlier I reported that the Army ordered a Jewish center adjoining the Cave of the Patriarchs to stop broadcasting Jewish religious music into the street, on pain of arrest. Similar orders were not given to the muezzin whose loudspeakers inform Muslims of the times for prayers, including 4:30 a.m.. Police in Hebron ordered the respective decibel levels measured. The Jewish music was within the legal limit, but Muslim announcements were outside it. The Jewish Community of Hebron expects the Army to rescind its orders against the Jewish center, letting its music be aired, and to issue restraining orders against the muezzin (Jewish Community of Hebron, 12/21). I checked with the Community. When they indicated what they expect, they mean on the basis of the Army rationale and equity. However, I find that the government is not fair to Jews in Hebron, and its rationales are pretexts. 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:
|
|
FATAH: HAMAS IS HARMING SICK GAZANS FOR PROPAGANDA
Posted by Hillel Fendel, January 1, 2010. |
|
The Fatah-Hamas rivalry continues. Fatah sources in the Palestinian Authority accuse the Hamas government in Gaza of inventing a supposed "medicine shortage" and preventing sick patients from receiving treatment abroad. The PA's health ministry in Ramallah denies the Hamas reports about a shortage of hundreds of medicines and medical equipment in Gaza. Spokesman Dr. Omar Al-Nasser said that a Hamas announcement to this effect "has no truth, and is designed to create confusion and harm the morale of patients and citizens in the Gaza Strip." Fatah is the central body in the Palestinian Authority, but was violently unseated from its control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 by Hamas. There are now two Arab entities in the Land of Israel: Hamas in Gaza, and Fatah in Judea/Samaria, making it hard for proponents of the "Israel/Palestine two-state solution" to specify which Palestine they mean. Fatah's Al-Nasser noted that the Ramallah ministry had sent last week no fewer than 13 truckloads of medical equipment and medicines for various diseases and medical conditions to Gaza. The deliveries, worth three million shekels, were paid for by the PA health ministry, and were sent to Gaza on Tuesday, Dec. 23. Al-Nasser called on Hamas to stop "playing with patients' lives" by placing various restrictions on their trips outside Gaza for treatment. He further said that Hamas had similarly lied when it denied receiving advanced medical equipment for the detection of swine flu. Hundreds of people — some reports say 600 — have been killed in the past three years of Hamas-Fatah warfare. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
|
SHABBAT PROTEST FOR SECURITY NEAR MA'ARAT HAMACHPELA
Posted by Jewish Community of Hebron, January 1, 2010. |
|
This construction is being financed — on the order of
tens of millions of dollars — by enemy organizations, as part of the
war against the Jewish people and Eretz Israel.
|
|
Tevet 15, 5770, 1/1/2010 
Over the past few days it has became clear that the IDF and Civil Administration are permitting construction of a crowded Arab neighborhood on the access road used by people walking to and from the Tomb of the Patriarchs. This road is known as Simtat Erez — the Erez walkway, is named in memory of Erez Shmuel who was murdered there a number of years ago, and which serves as the access route from Kiryat Arba to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. As a result of the terrible terror attack on the nearby Worshiper's Way 8 years ago, the Supreme Court ordered that security measures be implemented in order to allow safe and secure passage on the walkway. They ordered that all 'dangerous areas and windows be sealed, in order to offer protection to people walking to and from Ma'arat HaMachpela. 
A few weeks ago the Hebron Brigade Commander requested that the Erez Walkway be closed to people on Shabbat, and to prevent the passage of Jews through that street for a few weeks in order to allow work on the sewer system in the area. People avoided walking there for a couple of weeks, believing that this was truly the reason for the closing. However, lately it was noticed that the work being carried out under the noses of the army and civil administration is nothing less than a large-scale construction project, allowing establishment of a large, dense Arab neighborhood, funded by the Gulf States and the Europe Union. This will significantly change the demographic balance in the entire area and result in additional security risks for people, between Hebron and Kiryat Arba. After having discovered this fraud, Hebron Kiryat leaders demanded that the Hebron brigade commander reestablish all the security measures which had been dismantled. In their letter they wrote, among other things: "We want to remind you, that the sealing of these openings became the subject matter in the High Court of Justice, after the state declared before High Court of Justice that security needs are minimal, and after Supreme Court judges (Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, and judges Cheshin and Procaccia — 10497/02 HCJ 10356/0) ruled that these steps should be implemented, and that this is the right balance between the various human rights (right to life, right to worship, freedom of worship and freedom of expression, and property rights). For this reason, the IDF immediately sealed the openings compromising security, otherwise they would have been in contempt of court (as explained to us many times when the IDF acted resolutely against Jewish residents in the city, according to the High Court decision or positions of the Supreme Court). " After a week, seeing that construction work was not discontinued, and that people's security was still being compromised, area leaders today called for all residents to participate in a struggle for a secure way to and from Ma'arat HaMachpela. A notice was distributed to Hebron-Kiryat Arba residents, which stated: The works are carried out in the area of the Erez Walkway is being done under the guise of misleading fraud: we were told that the work being done was to renew the sewer pipes, and for this reason we stopped on walking there on Shabbat. However, instead of working on the sewer line, a hostile crowded Arab neighborhood is being built. This construction is being financed — on the order of tens of millions of dollars — by enemy organizations, as part of the war against the Jewish people and Eretz Israel. All the safety measures placed on the road were removed, and that road is now being abandoned to terrorists and murderers! We will not we reconcile with this situation! We demand that the Arabs cease construction, ensuring the rights and safety of Jewish people in the city of the Patriarchs! We should all remember: our physical and spiritual existence is based on our connection to the Tomb of the Patriarchs; safe passage to Ma'arat HaMachpela is part of our essence! Residents are being called on to participate in a protest called for Shabbat morning together with rabbis and community leaders. Orit Struck, director of legal department of the Jewish community in Hebron, said that "We see ourselves as guardians of the Tomb of the Patriarchs and of the ways to reach this holy site. If we did not struggle for this over the years, Ma'arat HaMachpela today would be in the same condition of Joseph's Tomb in Shechem, or at best, as Rachel's Tomb. We can not allow this to happen. Jews all over the country and the world who come to this holy place are entitled to reach it safely. Even the Supreme Court understood that, after weighing the right of property and freedom of movement of Arabs in the region, nevertheless ruling in favor of the right to life, and the right to freedom of worship. We will not allow this principle to be violated. "
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.
|
|
LIBERAL LIES AND CONSERVATIVE TRUTHS
Posted by Bryna Berchuck, January 1, 2010. |
|
This was written by Burt Prelutsky
It was posted December 26, 2009 on the Patriot Post website:
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/burt-prelutsky/2009/12/26/ liberal-lies-and-conservative-truths/ Burt Prelutsky is author of "Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco (A Hollywood Right-Winger Comes Out of the Closet)." He has been a humor columnist (L.A. Times), a movie reviewer (Los Angeles magazine), a freelancer (NY Times, TV Guide, Modern Maturity, Sports Illustrated, Washington Times, etc.) and written for TV (several movies, plus episodes of MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, McMillan & Wife, Dragnet, Diagnosis Murder, etc., etc.) Contact him by email at burtprelutsky@aol.com |
|
These days, as we see Obama's approval rating plummeting in the polls and we hear more and more people expressing buyer's remorse, it occurs to me that the only two areas of advertising in which blatant lies are permitted are movies and politics. And I, for one, would like to know why we can get our money back if we buy a toaster that burns the pumpernickel, but not if we're tricked into seeing a Will Ferrell movie the ads insisted was a laugh riot. And why is it we're not allowed a do-over if it turns out we voted for a devout Marxist only because he swore he was a centrist during the campaign? Next, I'd like to know why when congressmen swear to uphold and defend the Constitution, which still included the 1st and 2nd amendment the last time I looked, Rep. Henry Waxman gets to say, "If someone is so fearful that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, it makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all." If I recall correctly, that's the same thing that King George III said back around 1775. It seems that the King, who was nicknamed Mad George, was only intermittently out of his gourd, according to his contemporaries. But even on his worst days, it's unlikely that he, unlike Mad Henry, would have voted to continue funding ACORN. Sometimes I give myself a headache trying to figure out why so-called intellectuals — those in the obsequious media and academia — are so bloody anxious to give a giant shout-out to such idiocies as cap & trade, 12 trillion dollar deficits and Castrocare — policies guaranteed to bankrupt America, programs that wouldn't redistribute wealth, but would merely guarantee poverty. Why, I ask myself, would anyone want to emulate England and Canada, where you have to enter a lottery in order to get dibs on a doctor and wait months, sometimes years, for an operation? The only reason I can come up with is that these eggheads believe that only by radically shaking up the status quo will they obtain the power and prestige they crave so desperately. Even if the end result is a dictatorship, they're okay with it so long as they wind up in the inner circle. Oddly enough, although they love to parrot Santayana's line about those who don't learn from history being doomed to repeat it, it's they who were obviously dozing off in class when they should have been taking notes. The fact is, as history tells us, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro, all treated their useful idiots — I mean their intellectuals — the exact same way; namely, as compost. Yet another obnoxious thing about elitists is the way they go on about the wonders of diversity. But of course the only diversity they ever champion is the one defined by pigmentation. When it comes to diversity of opinion, they all become as censorious as Cotton Mather. Let a conservative try to speak on a college campus and he'll be shouted down. Let a conservative speak his mind on the radio, TV or Internet, and the president makes threatening noises about shutting them down and shutting them up. Recently, we were told one of the biggest lies of all. We were told by the New York Times, the U.S. military and Barack Obama, that Major Hasan had simply cracked up. We were told he was suffering from the very first case of pre-post-traumatic stress disorder. We were even told that he killed 13 soldiers and an unborn baby and wounded 30 other people because he had at one time or another been teased. What we weren't told, because it might embarrass Muslims, is that Major Hasan was a devout Islamic. On the other hand, if Hasan had been a devout Christian who had hollered "Christ is great!" as he went on his slaughter spree, why do I doubt that the N.Y. Times, General Casey and Barack Obama, would be trying to bury the truth under a truckload of politically correct manure? Frankly, I'm sick and tired of our leaders trying to convince us that we're not engaged in a religious war. There is a reason that in the wake of 9/11, we didn't immediately bomb Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen or Syria. Oil aside, we didn't bomb them because the U.S. wasn't attacked by any one country, as we had been when Japan leveled Pearl Harbor. This time, the sneak attack was perpetrated by a religion. It was the same vile religion that took hostages in 1979, that bombed our embassies and our Marine base, that blew a hole in the USS Cole, and that first tried to bring down the Twin Towers, in 1993. And because it's a religious war, a jihad, I don't understand why neither we nor Israel fights it in the appropriate fashion. Why is it that our military doesn't dip its bullets and bombs in pig blood and why doesn't Israel announce that the remains of suicide bombers will henceforth be buried in pigskins? It's hard to imagine that even after 61 years of constant attacks and threats of extinction, Israel still insists on taking prisoners. Eventually, when Israel has jailed enough of these vermin, the enemy kidnaps, tortures and murders, an Israeli soldier, and then swaps his corpse for a hundred or two hundred terrorists. I suspect that liberals will find my suggestions not only insensitive, but downright repulsive. Leave it to a liberal to be more deeply offended by the spilling of a pig's blood than that of a human. It just seems to me that if you have kryptonite, you're a schmuck if you don't use it. |
|
THIS LAND IS NOT FOR STEAL- OR SALE — OR DEAL
Posted by Helen Freedman, January 1, 2010. |
|
This is an account of the AFSI Mssion to Israel in November 2009. |
|
The ugly scar of a huge wall separating Bet Horon from the rest of Israel was our introduction to the Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI-Manhigut Yehudit/MY Chizuk mission of Nov. 8-16, 2009. Our tour began when Yehudit Tayar took us around the 270 family community, not far from Ben Gurion airport, and told us the stories of the brave Golani youth from the community who were killed in the 2006 Lebanon war. She opened up our hearts to what was to come. Israel Danziger of Mishmeret Yesha, brought us back to the Nachliel Yeshiva, struggling to stay alive to benefit difficult students. We inspected the trees we had planted on a previous visit and saw the makings of a carpentry shop that would be used to teach the students some useful trades. Always under pressure from the Israeli government, they are always under threat of being closed down. We chose to visit Harasha on Mt. Horesh, the highest point in the area, because orders had been given by the Israeli government to destroy 8 brick buildings, plus all the temporary buildings in the yishuv. Rabbi Ori Stetner, head of the Yeshiva which boasts 45 students, gave us a moving talk about the power of Torah as a fence against foreign cultures. We pray that the government will rescind its orders to destroy the buildings. In Psagot, one can see the encroachment of Ramallah, with the Mukata, which is headquarters for the PA. Ramallah, a sprawling city with its villas and apartment buildings, like all Arab cities, is not confined by a fence or a wall, and has grown to the point that it almost abuts Psagot. We met with Yossi Dayan, a resident of 28 years in the city, who proudly pointed out views of the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean which could be seen from Psagot's high point. Psagot, of course, a Jewish city, is fenced in and has huge concrete blocks placed strategically to protect against the shelling from Ramallah. The large city of Ariel, boasting the University of Judea and Samaria with its 11,000 students, and home to 20,000, was our last stop for the day. Ari Zimmerman, our guide through the city, explained that Judea and Samaria contained blocs of communities, like Gush Etzion, Maaleh Adumim, and Ariel, and each of these was suffering from building freezes. This was before PM Netyanyahu announced the "real" ten month settlement freeze. Only one hundred units were permitted to be built last year although Ariel is scheduled for 60,000 residents. Inside the city we saw the small caravan (trailer) community in which 25 families of the original Gush Katif refugees from Netzarim are still living, four and one/half years since the expulsion. They have been joined by 25 additional families of refugees. They are the forgotten people, living in their refugee housing, a blight on the beauty of the city, but unable to get out of their situation. This is an ongoing accusation against the Israeli government that has allowed such deplorable conditions to exist. Despite the size and accomplishments of Ariel, there are many who consider it to be "over the green line" and therefore subject to boycott. The Barkan winery, which had been located in the Barkan Industrial zone of Ariel, decided to move "inside the green line" when its sales were hit by EU boycotts. Ariel was also disqualified from the Madrid ecological conference because of its location in Samaria. It is because of its contested location, and the Ashel HaShomron hotel located there, whose business has been seriously affected, that we make it a point to stay overnight at the hotel and visit Ariel. Ron Nachman, the Mayor of Ariel and long-time friend of AFSI, greeted us in his office and gave us a fascinating talk about the history of the city, established in November, 1977. He cited the Barkan Industrial Park, noting that it employed over 7,000 people. He is proud of the city's absorption of 9,000 Russian immigrants, its 7 schools and 25 kindergartens, and sees Ariel as a melting pot. After three decades of involvement in the growth of Ariel, Mayor Nachman made it very clear that he will continue to defend the city with all the grit and determination at his command. Leaving Ariel the next morning, and joined by Shmuel Sackett of Manhigut Yehudit, we drove north along the Jordan Valley to Maskiot. Yossi Kazoot and Ron Allswang met us and explained that the community housed Gush Katif refugees from the former Shirat HaYam, a unique sea-side settlement on the Mediterranean. The expellees, who have relocated five times since the Gush Katif expulsion, chose to locate to the dry and hot Jordan Valley for ideological purposes. At present, they have a permit for only 20 permanent homes, but hope to increase to 100. As we continued driving north through the Galilee, we observed what we had seen so many times, the unchecked proliferation of huge Arab homes, sprawling in the sunshine. Many of the homes were two and three stories tall with ample room between buildings. The contrast between the Jewish communities, frozen into tightly controlled areas by the Israeli government, and the unchecked legal or illegal building of the Arabs, couldn't have been in sharper contrast. We arrived at Pe'ekin, our destination, and were greeted by Aharon Pulver, head of the Israel Independence Fund. Guided by Bar-Nea Salavan, we explored the cave of Simeon Bar Yochai which dates back 2500 years to Mishna times, learning that the holy man had lived in the cave for 13 years, living on the fruit of the carob tree and the water from the spring. Since our visit there, we learned that the cave had been desecrated and a home being built by a Jew in the city had been burned down. The problem of Arabs stealing land, produce and cattle, as well as threatening Jewish lives, is a very real one in this area of the Galilee, where there are 90% Arabs and 10% Jews. We were introduced to members of HaShomer HaHadash, the new guardians, an organization created to protect Jewish agriculture. They patrol the Jewish farms on horseback, hoping to prevent the pillage. We were told that the Arabs are well coordinated in their drive to take over Jewish land. The Shomrim described the front line as being everywhere. The hilltop outposts exist throughout the Galilee. Yoel Zilberman explained that there are 15 different kinds of regional councils who are afraid to act. The government does NOTHING to prevent the ongoing harassment of Jewish farmers. Situations were described to us where cows were killed, animal food stolen, fences cut, sheep stolen, and in some cases, farmers beaten almost to death. The motto of HaShomer HaHadash is, "Jewish land is not for steal." We believe this applies throughout the land of Israel. Joel Busner, of B'ahavat Israel, reinforced what we had seen for ourselves when he spoke to us at Kibbutz Lavi about the Arab takeover of the Galilee. He attributed the seriousness of the problem to the fact that "this isn't a Jewish state." He believes the law validates lawlessness and cited the Shai Dromi story of the Jew forced to kill an Arab, who was arrested and exonerated after a costly trial. Unfortunately, Jews who try to defend themselves against Arab criminals and terrorists often become the accused, with the Israeli justice system weighted in favor of the Arabs. Busner's message was that "the Jew can do" — and efforts should be made to buy land and save the Galilee with Jews willing to work. Driving south on Wednesday, we headed for Hermesh in the northern Shomron. As we drove past the border crossing, we noticed that the Israeli soldiers were in civilian clothes. This was an ominous sign to me, because I have a vivid recollection of the soldiers at Kever Yosef who guarded the grave site in their civvies so as not to offend the PA officers who strutted around in full uniform. We know what happened to Kever Yosef when it was turned over to the PA for "protection." It was almost totally destroyed. Seeing these soldiers out of uniform meant that it was only a matter of time before control would be turned over to the enemy, with G-d forbid, the same results. Pesach Reuben, an aeronautical engineer, met us and showed us around the peaceful looking bedroom community which had been established in 1983. Suffering from the same restrictions on growth that exist throughout Judea and Samaria, enforced by Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, the community has only 60 families and is enclosed by a smart fence with patrol cameras. A bright red Area A, no Jews allowed sign greets one near the entrance to Hermesh. Despite these warning signals, Pesach Reuben explained that during the olive picking season, wild olive trees growing inside the fence are made accessible to Arab olive pickers. This struck me as incredibly trusting and foolhardy and so typical of the Jew. Alana Peleg, a jewelry maker, whose husband works in high-tech, explained that she loved the community and its proximity to the train station, only 20 minutes away in Binyamina. Tragically, a sister community, Mevo Dotan, which we didn't visit, has been in the news recently as the Israeli government sent in Arabs and Yassamnikim (special forces dressed in black) to destroy an agricultural development nearby. We pray Hermesh will not suffer the same fate. We arrived in Yerushalayim and went directly to the Knesset for meetings that had been arranged by Manhigut Yehudit with Likud Knesset members. MK Ayoob Kara, a Druse, pointed out that more than 90% of Jordan is "Palestinian," and Amman is the legitimate capital of "Palestine." MK Danny Danon predicted that the settlement freeze would be turned down by Abu Mazen if there is a time limit on it. He called on us as Americans to put pressure on President Obama, asking him to stop pressuring Israel. MK Zev Elkin, who has the Russian spot in the Likud, lives near Herodian in a caravan. He is waiting for a building permit. It seems his wait will be even longer, now that the freeze is being implemented. On the subject of the Gush Katif expulsion, he confirmed that millions of shekels had been wasted on bad decisions regarding the refugees — and most are still homeless and without jobs. Moshe Feiglin met with us that evening, emphasizing the importance of linking Jewish identity with Jewish holy places. When asked what his first action would be if he was elected Prime Minister of Israel, he said it would be to walk on the Temple Mount. Again, he stressed the need for Jewish leadership. He believes Israelis are suffering from loss of faith in the right to be in Israel. Of course, anyone who reads and believes in the Bible, sees the covenant between HaShem and the Jews repeated over and over again, asserting our biblical roadmap. We met with Moshe again in Hebron that Shabbat Chaye Sarah. Ellen Horowitz and Avraham Liebler spoke to us after dinner. They run a group entitled Jewish Israel which concerns itself with what they believe is rampant missionary activity in Israel, with many Christians and Jews participating. The subject is a controversial one, providing for a great deal of thought and concern. Thursday morning we woke up in Yerushalayim, with many of us ready to begin the day by ascending the Temple Mount. After following the necessary ritual preparations, we gathered at the Temple Mount entrance near the Kotel to meet our guide, Yitzchak Reuben, from the Temple Mount Institute. As hundreds of Christian tourists moved past us, simply going through the regular security screening, our group of Jews had to hand over our passports and wait an hour while our credentials were checked before finally being admitted. Once on the Har HaBayit, both Israeli and Arab guards followed us as we walked around the perimeter of the holy place, making sure that we did not pray and offend the Muslims. Clearly, the Arab boys playing soccer nearby were not violating any rules. The Christian groups were allowed to walk freely around the Mount. It was only the Jews, in the Jewish state of Israel, who were treated as unwanted outsiders. How did such a situation develop? How can it be reversed? Exploring with Moti Dan and Elan, of Ateret Cohanim, was next on the agenda. Moti, who lives in the "Christian Quarter" of the Old City, greeted us at the ancient synagogue, Ohel Yitzchak, which has been beautifully restored by the Moskowitz family. Their good works were everywhere, as we went on to see the amazing growth in eastern Yerushalayim at Maaleh HaZaytim, overlooking the Mount of Olives and the walls of the Old City. It was the vision of Dr. Irving Moskowitz, and his wife, Cherna, that had turned what had been an abandoned shack into glistening, extensive housing units for Jews. Construction was continuing on the next phase of the development and we had the pleasure of being invited into a home so that we could see how lovely a place it was. We then drove along the narrow path, adjacent to the ugly, scarring, huge wall that runs through Yerushalayim. Passing the area of Abu Dis, designated as the HQ of the PA, we arrived at Kidmat Zion, a small Jewish enclave housing a few families. The view from the roof is amazing and sadly gives one endless views of illegally built Arab homes. However, there are also glorious views of the Old City, and so one's eyes try to focus on that. A visit with Don Kates at the Yeshiva HaKotel, including a fabulous view from the rooftop, completed our time in the Old City. Back at the hotel, Judy Balint, author of "Jerusalem Diaries," journalist, and friend, met us for a talk about her visits inside PA cities. She described the development in Nablus/Shechem as very extensive. We had seen this at a distance when looking out over Shechem from Har Greezim. One could easily see that the city was growing without restriction, boasting huge homes and towering minarets. Balint spoke about the 24 unrecognized Bedouin "villages" in the Negev where thousands of children, 65% of them under the age of 13, are being supported by Israel. As Israeli citizens, they are entitled to the same privileges as Jewish citizens of Israel; however, didn't we just learn about Bedouin thievery and criminal activity which was bedeviling Jewish landowners? And how does one account for the fact that where there had once been many Bedouin in the IDF, now only 2% serve in the army? The problems seem insurmountable. Jeff Daube, ZOA's "man in Yerushalayim", then joined us for a talk. Jeff and I had spent a lot of time in Washington, DC before he made aliyah, in efforts to educate the Congress regarding the great myth of the "Palestinians" and the destructive path of the Oslo "Peace" Accord. Once again, Jeff pointed out various Congressional resolutions that we could support, such as the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 2009 which would supplant the one of 2005, doing away with the waivers which make implementation almost impossible. Listening to Judy and Jeff describing their activities in Israel, and remembering all the people we had met, drove home the fact that there was so much work to be done, and so many different ways of doing it — all in an effort to preserve our beloved biblical heritage. Friday morning meant starting the day with a visit to Shdema, the contested area just outside of Yerushalayim, being safeguarded by those remarkable women, Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover, and their team of devoted workers. As our bus arrived at 9 AM, we were greeted with signs, flags, music, and hugs. We'd been to Shdema many times, knowing how important it was to lend our support to the preservation of this strategically important location. A former army base, located only 5 km. from the main road connecting Yerushalayim to Gush Etzion, it is located in Area C, meaning that it is under complete Israeli control. Despite this, and to America's shame, U.S. Aid money has gone to establish an Arab enclave there, as international organizations are working to take over the area. As a statement of ownership of the land, we planted little saplings, with the hope that we would see them grow into huge trees as Israel maintains control over its land. Unfortunately, we learned that the saplings were torn out shortly after we planted them. Women in Green will keep re-planting. Israel Danziger then led us to a target practice area where we met three of the trainers who work for Mishmeret Yesha, the rapid response organization formed by Danziger. Sharon, the leader of the trio, and a good friend, told the group about the 200 killed by terrorists in 65 infiltrations into Jewish communities since 2001. He explained that rapid response within a community is the most complicated type of warfare. Friendly fire is a great concern, and Arabs usually attack on Friday and Saturday nights, knowing that families are together celebrating the Shabbat. Since it takes the IDF at least ½ hour to respond to news of an attack, Danziger has more requests for training than he can possibly fill. In addition to training the local men to be skilled first responders, he also creates and makes bullet proof vests that are specifically designed for them. We then moved on to reach Rav Eliezer Waldman's Yeshivat Nir in Kiryat Arba in time to prepare for Shabbat Chaye Sarah. This was the cornerstone of our visit to Israel at this particular time in November. For years, AFSI has timed its Chizuk mission to Israel to coincide with the reading of the portion of the week, Chaye Sarah, in Hebron. Commemorating Abraham's purchase of the grave for Sarah in Hebron, thousands of Jews arrive in the city to participate in this event. Since there are no hotels in Hebron, camping out is very common. Israel Danziger and his wife, Wendy, set up a wonderful lean-to tent which served as our rest stop throughout Shabbat. We had our luxurious accommodations up the hill in Kiryat Arba at Rav Waldman's Yeshiva. Celia Ofer has always made the arrangements for us, and as usual, we were comfortably set up with our rooms and meals with the inspiring Hesder Yeshiva students (young men who combine their Torah study with service in the IDF) and their rabbis. We joined the streams of people marching down to the Maarat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, enjoyed a rousing Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) in the Yitzchak room, open to Jews only 10 days a year, and then climbed back up the hill to our Friday night meal at the Yeshiva. A few of us had the additional blessing of being rained upon when there was a sudden downpour. But no one complains of rain in Israel when water is such a necessary commodity. The rain was warm and wonderful, but required changing into a whole set of dry clothes before sitting down to dinner. The meal is always enhanced by the strong singing of the students as they joyfully welcome the Shabbat and dance energetically once the meal has ended. But our day wasn't over. Through the efforts of Michael Freund, Chairman of Shavei Israel, Return to Israel, arrangements had been made for B'nai Menashe, Jews from India, who traced their ancestry back 2700 years, to meet with us after dinner and tell us about their lives in Kiryat Arba where many had settled. Tzvi Khaute was my contact person, and I was on the lookout for him as we were reciting the Birkat HaMazon. To my astonishment, about 100 people appeared at the dining room door. Khaute had brought women, children, elders, and teenagers to meet with us. We quickly made room for everyone, clearing the tables in the dining room and rearranging the chairs, so that we could give them all our attention, and they had an opportunity to study us. Khaute emphasized their total identity with Judaism and members of the group spoke about the issues of adapting to their new land of Israel. It was an extraordinary experience for us, and perhaps also for them. Shabbat morning meant prayers at the Ma'arat HaMachpela in Hebron, a visit with the Danzigers in their tent, a return to the Yeshiva for lunch, and an afternoon tour of Hebron with David Wilder, an indefatigable spokesman for Hebron. It was wonderful walking around the parts of the city open to Jews and seeing so many familiar faces. It was a special treat to meet Prof. Jerrold Auerbach and his son, Jeffrey. Auerbach has just written a remarkable book entitled, Hebron's Jews. It details the history of the holy city and the extraordinary Jews who have kept a portion of the city in Jewish hands despite the incredible difficulties presented by the Israeli government and terrorist Arabs. Some of the more energetic members of the group visited the Jewish cemetery in Hebron, and climbed the hill to Tel Rumeida, the caravan community which is part of the Jewish area of Hebron and site of the grave of Ruth and Jesse. Everyone eventually returned to Yeshivat Nir for Shalosh Seudot, and Havdalah. It was the end of another beautiful, spiritually uplifting Shabbat Chaye Sarah. Ami arrived with our bus, and we headed for Ashkelon, dinner there at a seaside restaurant, and much needed sleep, with visions of Shabbat Chaye Sarah running through our heads. Sunday was the last day of our mission, and the last time the group would be together. We had bonded with each other, and there was a strong feeling of unity as we met Laurence Beziz, our guide for the day. Laurence is a good friend with whom I cried heartfelt tears during the expulsion from Neve Dekalim, in Gush Katif. Whenever we meet, the tears well up again. They just sit inside my chest, ready to erupt whenever the tragedy of the expulsion comes to mind. Laurence reminded us that the State Commission of Inquiry report confirmed that the government failed in the Gush Katif case and the Supreme Court even ruled that the "disengagement" was actually an expulsion! Our first meeting was with Rav Rafi Peretz, a Lt. Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. He had been living in the Old City of Jerusalem with his eight children when he decided to move to Gush Katif and open a Mechina, or pre-army institute. He began with 28 students and now, in his temporary location, has close to 200. Five of his students were killed and many wounded when terrorists infiltrated the Mechina in 2002. During the 2005 expulsion he refused to leave willingly. We were shown a tragic film of the students packing up the Torah scrolls and books prior to the destruction of their school. We continued on to Sderot, the city that had sustained over 8,000 rocket attacks in eight years. We've been there many times, beginning in 2001 and 2002 when the rockets had begun falling. Once the Gush Katif expulsion took place in August, 2005, the city was bombarded constantly, with the entire community traumatized. We have always visited with some of the citizens there, listening to their tragic stories, have enjoyed the huge growth of Rabbi Fendel's Hesder Yeshiva, admired the great work of Noam Bedein at the Sderot Media Center, and developed a special relationship with Alon Davidi of Ofek Chadash, the Sderot Defense Council. Lunch at Victor's restaurant was always a special treat. Victor had catered our meals at the Pagoda restaurant, on the beach in Gush Katif. We were looking forward to being with him again, but to our sorrow, learned that he had closed down. Laurence had arranged lunch for us at another restaurant on that sunny, tranquil afternoon, and so we feasted, shopped, and continued on our way. We drove on to Yevul in the Negev where refugees from Netzarim are housed in temporary caravans while waiting to move to their permanent homes in Halutziot. The Halutz dunes region is adjacent to the Egyptian border and is therefore a very strategic area. Driving through this desert area, we realized that this must have been what Gush Katif looked like when the pioneers first went there in 1970. The first sign of greenery we saw was in Halutziot where there were some hothouses growing esrogim, carrots and potatoes. We visited Pinchas, a refugee from Netzarim who had been a security guard there and had been wounded in an Arab terrorist attack. He has started his farming once again. The same problem we had been told about in the Galilee, of Druse and Bedouin theft of farm materials, fertilizer, and building materials is a nightly menace to the new residents of Halutza. In addition, Sudanese refugees arrive at night, crossing over the Egyptian border. Israel has a huge problem with absorption of these desperate people. At B'nai Netzarim, a new community of caravan homes, we were told of the demand from the government that had to be met by those seeking permanent homes. They had to put up 100,000 shekel checks to prove their sincerity and desire to stay. The government would not supply the infrastructure until they had the guarantee money. There are now eleven couples living in caravans. Tehilla, our guide through the area, lives in one of them. She explained the interdependence of the families. Anita Tucker, our dear friend from Netzer Hazani, was waiting for us at Yesodot, the site of their new community. We saw a busy scene of construction equipment, and again were told that the new residents had to pay millions of shekels for the land. Anita had a table of refreshments set up for us on the rocky hilltop and we said "shecheeyanu," celebrating the fact that we were the first group to arrive there by bus. The men in the group gathered to daven Mincha, the afternoon service, and it was a beautiful sight. May their prayers serve to hasten the completion of the project in record time and with full success. We had to hurry on to Nitzan, another temporary caravan community, where Rachel and Moshe Saperstein were waiting for us, along with Miriam, Aliza and Ayalah, women who work with Rachel on her Operation Dignity project. The project helps so many people, including the 9 kindergartens and the 40 B'nai Menashe families who live there. Rachel told us that only 90 out of 500 families are building their permanent homes, with thirteen families who have actually moved into their homes. She thanked members of our group for their special donations to the community: Cheryl Jacobs Lewin, who arranged for a needed new piano, and "anonymous", who supplies toys and clothing, and silverware for brides-to-be from the former Gush Katif communities. We then descended on the "Orange Gallery", which houses a treasure trove of items hand made by the Gush Katif women artists. It was finally time to say shalom to our good friends, knowing that we would return as soon as possible. Ami guided us back on the bus for our return to Ashkelon and our gala farewell dinner. It was hard to say goodbye to the friends with whom we had bonded so closely in our extraordinary week. Many thank you's were offered and ACTION plans were suggested as we enjoyed our last dinner together. The evening ended with the trip to the airport for those who were returning that night to the states, and the final stop back in Yerushalayim for those who were staying on. How does one sum up the extraordinary impressions, sights, people, experiences that we had in the eight days we were together? Israel — such a beautiful country — seems to be slipping out of the grasp of Israelis who don't know who they are. One example is PM Netanyahu, who has announced a freeze on all "settlement" construction while Arab building continues non-stop. It is even aided by the U.S. and the international community, and such confused groups as the JNF, which, betraying their mandate, supplies trees to enhance new Arab cities. Fortunately, there are the Israelis who have such a strong sense of identity that they never finish sacrificing their safety, their money, their energy in order to hold onto the land of Israel. The slogan of the Shomrim — This Land is Not for Steal — or Deal — or Sale — is one we have to affirm in every way we possibly can. This is our pledge to ourselves. Since we can never stop lending our support, plans are already being made for the May 9-17, 2010 Chizuk mission. It's never too early to put in your reservation. Just call the AFSI office, 212-828-2424; 1-800-235-3658; or write: afsi@rcn.com, and we'll add your name to the list. When you ask, "what can I do?", joining our mission is a partial answer. In addition, if you wish to contact any of the people and places named in this report, please call or write to me at the AFSI office and I will be happy to provide you with the information. 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 and organizer of the AFSI Chizuk missions. This articles was published December 2, 2009. |
|
RETURN TO SHECHEM
Posted by David Ha'Ivri, January 2, 2010. |
|
Six worshippers who tried to enter Joseph's Tomb in Shechem Thursday evening were arrested by Palestinian Authority police. The PA police turned them over to the Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria, which turned them over to the Israel police for investigation. The worshippers say their vehicle was hit by the Palestinian police vehicle after an illegal chase. Today there is a big red sign at the entrance to the city that says in Hebrew Area A, is forbidden to Israelis, dangerous and against the law to enter. A large event is planned on Saturday night at the southern entrance to Shechem to promote a return of Jews to the city in general and the tomb in particular. For information on buses, one can call 052 607 1420 or 054 638 0607, except during Shabbat. 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/
|
|
READER-SELECTED VIDEOS
Posted by Various Readers, January, 2010. |
|
PLEASE READ AND PASS IT ON ! From Wake Up Americans (31jan10) For family and friends in Massachusetts, this Tuesday we have the chance to not just change the direction of Massachusetts, but we can change the direction of the presidency. Is this REALLY our AMERICA ?????? Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200 — Key Points BBC News — Film seized 'shows children being radicalised' From Boris Celser (31jan10) Guess where>
Counter-terrorism police say their discovery of a film of children being encouraged to hold guns is evidence of attempts to radicalise youngsters. The Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) in North West England revealed they found the film during a raid in Manchester. Officers say it shows two children, aged about three and six, playing with a pistol and a Kalashnikov rifle. Material seized separately included the advice: "No child is ever too young to be started off on Jihad training." The footage, which police believe was filmed in Pakistan, was uncovered on the hard drive of a computer during a raid carried out under the Terrorism Act 2000. Police have not revealed when the material was seized. 'I want to kill' Police believe the firearms are real. The video shows a girl and young boy playing with guns and a man's voice says: "What do you do with the weapon?" He answers his own question: "I want to kill the infidels [non-believers]." A senior officer in the CTU, who cannot be identified for security reasons, said: "We believe this was filmed abroad. "We have no idea who the children are. We were shocked to find it at the house. We have no reason to believe this is faked. The guns are real." It just shows the mindset of some people and what we are up against Senior CTU officer Police say they have also found flash cards, used to teach young children the alphabet, in another house raid. The officer said: "We found a series of flash cards and documents on how to raise Mujahid children [who will fight for Islam]. The cards were written in English — and instead of having M for Muhammad they had M for Mujahideen..." "They have the potential to indoctrinate. It just shows the mindset of some people and what we are up against." Police say they also found documents downloaded from an extremist website which instructs parents to raise Mujahid children. The documents say: "The key is to start instilling these values in them while they are babies. Don't wait until they are seven. No child is ever too young to be started off on Jihad training." 'Awful to see' David Thompson, Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, said the majority of the Muslim population supported the police's counter-terror operations in the region. He said: "My view is [that] the majority of the community across the board see the threat that we're dealing with and are hugely supportive." MP Kim Howells, chairman of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, was shown the footage. He said: "It's a dreadful thing to see and I hope I never have to see it again actually. "That's as serious a piece of evidence of the kind of thing we are up against as I have ever set eyes on." Anjum Anwar MBE, who works for the church as a community dialogue development officer, said the film must not be used to implicate the rest of the Muslim world. Most of the Muslim community do not bring up their children in that way, she said. Muslim toddlers are inculcated to kill Jews, infidels — In England. "Redneck Love Song...." GOOD FOR LAUGHS From CPocerl (3jan10) amuzin' 65 years after... Never Again! From Yael from Road 90 (27jan10) This week as we commemorate the 65th anniversary since the liberation of the nazi death camps by the Allied forces, we would like to share with you some new videos, from Israel and the rest of the world, that show these commemorations. Please forward these videos to your friends, and do not forget to upload new original videos you might have on Road 90! Let's pray all together in the memory of those who lost their lives, and say once more, "Never Again". - Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints [click here] - Highest anti-Semitism in Western Europe since World War 2 [click here] - Prime Minister Netanyahu at Yad Vashem- Intl. Holocaust Remembrance Day [click here] - CNN: Haiti Day 6 — No one but the Israeli's have come [click here] - Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon addresses the plenum of the Council of Europe [click here] Editor's Note Another video of IDF forces operating in Haiti:
Photographs of IDF operating in Haiti: www.idfspokesperson.com . A BRITISH VIEW OF SAUDI ARABIA & HUMAN RIGHTS From CPocerl (27jan10) Chocolate Waterfalls of the Negev From Zalmi (27jan10) Israelis appreciate the simpler things in life.
Obama: America's National Nightmare. From Rock Peters (26jan10) A Series of videos of Muslim demonstrating hate toward America Think you will enjoy this dancing From Fred Reifenberg (26jan10) Moiseyev Dance Company performance, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, January 8, 2009 Newt Gingrich: 'I'm deeply worried...' From Boris Celser (25jan10) Livia Rev — Great Hungarian Piano Player From Boris Celser (25jan10) Chopin 4 Impromtu-4 Lívia Rév 90th Birthday Concert in Szeged Synagogue WOW, THIS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.....THE ARABS MAY WANT THIS MAN DEAD From Boris Celser (24jan10) Do Israeli scientists know about it? Craig Patrick reporting on Fox26 News. Inventor Klein has a patent using water for welding and fuel. H2O to HHO Philadelphia — new Jewish history museum From Roberta Dzubow (24jan10) Jewish-American History Museum Videos on Culture, History, Judaism, Nature, People, Society, Town From Boris Celser (24jan10) a collection of Road90 videos on different subjects I am Israel — Documentary Film Version From Boris Celser (24jan10) Richard Landes interviewed on the Goldstone Report by Roger L. Simon From Maurice Ostroff (23jan10) Holy Land Hoaxes: the Smearing of Israel UN watch — unseen footage From Roberta Dzubow (23jan10) The statement by the Israeli is stunning...the reaction is unbelievable. Listen carefully! Canada's man in Tehran from 1977 to 1980 was a CIA spy From Boris Celser(23jan10) Globe and Mail Michael Valpy interviews former Canadian Ambassador, Ken Taylor Celebrated Iraq war veteran's view of the Gaza conflict From Daily Alert (22jan10) Colonel Tim Collins sees Gaza a year after the IDF took action in the Gaza strip European Parliament Member: Global Warming Is A Scam, Al Gore Is A 'Snake Oil Salesman'... From Boris Celser (21jan10) Godfrey Bloom voices his skepticism in Strassbourg Israeli Fire Escape — Incredible From Roberta Dzubow (20jan10) A Novel And Effective Fire Escape For A Skyscraper. Haiti: Israel's Disproportionate Response From Yael from Road 90 (20jan10) Despite its small size, Israel sent a large contingent of highly-trained aid workers to quake-stricken Haiti. Two jumbo jets carrying more than 220 doctors, nurses, civil engineers, and other Israeli army personnel, including a rescue team and field hospital, were among the first rescue teams to arrive in Haiti. In fact, they were the first foreign backup team to set up medical treatment at the partially collapsed main hospital in Port-au-Prince. Take a look on those videos if you want to learn more about the disproportionate response of Israel: - IDF Field Hospital in Haiti. Baby Delivered There, Named 'Israel' [click here] - Israeli Aid Delegation Begins Work in Haiti [click here] - IDF Search and Rescue Team Saves Man Trapped in Collapsed Building in Haiti [click here] IDF Field Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti [click here] - IDF Footage of Rescue of Hatian Girl from Collapsed Building [click here] Something different: - 3D simulation of Israel's pavilion at EXPO 2010 [click here] Introduction to Judea and Sameria From Ben Avraham (20jan10) This is from www.Torahalive.com. Judea/Samaria (Yedid Nefesh.AVI) Sweden in the Grip of Muslims Attacks on Jews. From Susana K-M (20jan10) This is from One Jerusalem. This is a must watch. This government as well as most Eurpean governments must change immigration policies right now. Arabs must chose to stay and accept living according to western rules or leave to their countries. Under Sharia law there is no intellectual honesty, no dialogue and no respect — Arabs protesters must live and let other people live. They demand respect and so does the free world. Otherwise, deportation can work wonders. This is 2010.Touch down in this century! Jews harrassed in the city of Malmo in Sweden. You don't look Jewish From Boris Celser (18jan10) Vanessa Hidary's Poetry. "The Hebrew Mamita" IDF Forces Rescuing Quake Victim After 6 Hours From Jonas S. Lieberman (17jan10) How come no is covering the Israeli delegation that was sent to Haiti. Israel is practically the smallest country in the world yet they have sent their people wherever they can rescue lives not just of Israeli citizens or Jews. Because Israel believes in the saying "If you save just one life, it is like saving the world" Rock-A-My Soul In The Bosom Of Abraham From Resa Kirkland (16jan10) And for fun: Pat Condell on Anjem Choudary From Truth Provider (16jan10) Thanks to extreme Islam, the situation in England and in Europe is getting worst by the day, so here is the wonderfully serious/funny commentator, Pat Candell, talking about a radical Muslim leader in Britain by the name of Anjem Choudary. Are we immune to radical Islam in the USA? You decide! In the meantime, do not forget to stay alert and open your eyes (and brain). Remember what your President thinks and watch the "art" of "political correctness" exercised by our various branches of the US government, particularly in out airports. Remember Iran, Hamas, Hezballah. Also remember that our oil reserves in the USA are the largest in the world, yet we continue to depend on Saudia (the largest contributor to radical Islam next to Iran) instead of drilling ourselves to complete independence. Talking about Anjem Choudary of the religion of peace Clown Doctors — who would have believed... From Boris Celser (14jan10) This 6 minute video about the creation of 'Clown Doctors' and the wonderful things they are doing as part of the medical team in children's hospitals throughout Israel is really something special! Israel, so often the trailblazer for good, has taken a poignant and unique idea to a powerful new level. Imagine a Bachelor of Arts in 'Clowning'? They are now working on a 'Masters Degree'! Medical therapy — clowning in pediatric wards. Israel — We're back! From Yael from Road 90 (13jan10) We are finally back after 2 weeks of "silence", due to (a lot of) technical problems and we are happy to share our exclusive videos from Israel with you again. Please take a few moments to watch the videos below, and forward them to your friends! All the team of Road 90 would like to wish you a happy new year 2010. Must see: Dan Margalit vs. Jamal Zahalka [click here] - Israel wins the Hummus War! [click here] - Cool Facts about Israel — New Version [click here] - The Secret to Jewish Success [part1] - The Secret to Jewish Success [part2] - Sderot Children Send New Year Messages to Gaza [click here] - Herzl and Zionism (9 parts!) [click here] Virtual Tour of The Kotel In the left side there is a map with 13 points, on every point there is a virtual trip. You can look it also in full screen, the pictures are great From (3jan10) Jewish DNA From CPocerl (8jan10) JLTV's Brad Pomerance reports on Author Jon Entine's Book "Abraham's DNA: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People." Author Jon Entine: DNA shows Jews are Jews over 3 millenia. Video interview with George Mitchell from last night on Charlie Rose From Boris Celser (7jan10) Apparently there's talk of him mediating proximity talks, as opposed to direct talks, so he runs from room to room. Proximity talks would have done wonders for Tiger Woods. Charlie Rose interviews George Mitchell The Monty Hall puzzle explained by game theorist, Professor Aumann From Boris Celser (7jan10) Prof. Bob Aumann of Hebrew U won the Nobel Prize in Economics on game theory. Aumann, of course, was worried about other aspects of game theory, such as strategic applications and political negotiations. Click on the first link and watch the video. After, if you're still confused, read the explanation just below the link. It is not immediately obvious why, but the key to understanding it is to look at the unspoken information provided by the game host to the contestant: the game host knows the door that contains the prize. The contestant doesn't, but he or she knows that the host does. Got it? This is another way of explaining the same thing. One Year Since Israel's Gaza Operation From Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) (7jan10) Ambassador Dore Gold and Judge Richard Goldstone debated UN report at Brandeis.
Video of Dore Gold's presentation, Nov 5, 2009
Payback From Boris Celser (6jan10) A musician named Dave Carroll recently had difficulty with United Airlines. United apparently damaged his treasured Taylor guitar during a flight. Dave spent over 9 months trying to get United to pay for damages caused by baggage handlers to his custom Taylor guitar. During his final exchange with the United Customer Relations Manager, he stated that he was left with no choice other than to create a music video for youtube exposing their lack of cooperation. The Manager responded : "Good luck with that one, pal". So he posted a retaliatory video on youtube. The video has since received over 5.5 million hits. United Airlines contacted the musician and attempted settlement in exchange for pulling the video. Naturally his response was: "Good luck with that one, pal". Taylor Guitars sent the musician 2 new custom guitars in appreciation for the product recognition from the video that has lead to a sharp increase in orders. Retaliation when guitar was damaged on flight and airline wouldn't pay. Jewish jokes From Boris Celser (3jan10) Rabbi Bob Alper — stand-up comic Kseniya Simonova's Amazing Sand Drawing on World War II, concentration camp, etc. She startes with a couple holding hands on a bench, followed by a woman's face crying, then a baby arrives and woman smiles. War returns. Chaos. Finally, a man stands outside, his hands pressed against the glass, a mother and child inside. In Ukraine in WW2, 8-11 million were killed out of a population of 42 million. From Boris Celser (6jan10) Watch Simonova create her sand drawings On Judaism From Boris Celser (6jan10) Two famous (non-Jewish) interviewers at TV Globo in Brazil interview a rabbi on Judaism. It's in Portuguese, but the first part shows videos and pictures. In the second part the rabbi answers questions from people in the streets, such as difference between Bible and Torah, marriage, persecution, etc. Natália Thinberg apresenta e Ana M.Braga entrevista. In Portugese. Excellent candid shots of Jerusalem, etc. Interview on Judaism. Candid shots of Jerusalem PR Man Diagnoses OCID Obsessive Compulsive Israel Disorder From Yaacov Levi (6jan10) (IsraelNN.com) The United Nations and media suffer from "Obsessive Compulsive Israel Disorder (OCID)," says the British-born designer of the FreeMiddleEast.com, website which illustrates the anti-Israel agenda. "Stop defending Israel and start showing the truth proactively", he tells Israel supporters. Knesset Member Yuli Edelstein published statistics Wednesday that show that 91 percent of Israelis feel that Israel has an extremely negative world image and is seen as an aggressive and unfriendly country. Jonathan Bash now lives in Israel and was also co-founder of a media watchdog website. He Stop defending Israel and start showing the truth proactively. He feels that the fixation of the eyes of the world can be broken by repeated showing of what is happening to recent refugees in Darfur and other places. The Arab world and the United Nations have instead focused on the poor living conditions of Arabs left to languish in "refugee camps" for decades instead of being absorbed into their host country's population, as is done with other refugees. Unique From Israel Ben-Ami (4jan10) Choral Group: coral de surdos modo group Hava Nagila British pop teen style From Carrie Devorah (3jan10) British singer Lauren Rose has released a modern version of traditional Jewish song "Hava Nagila," and gambling pundits have even given odds on the song to take the top spot in the U.K. Christmas pop charts. According the British newspaper The Sun, bookmaker William Hill has given 17-year-old Lauren Rose a 16-1 shot at having Britain's best-selling song on December 25. The Sun also reports that Lauren's father, Mark Goldberg, has quit his job as boss of Bromley Football Club to manage his daughter's music career. Hava Nagila, British pop teen style Screening for Airport and Air Flight Terrorists From Susana K-M (3jan10) From the Wall Street Journal onejerusalem.org/2010/01/how-israel-screens-for-terrori.php Is Waterboarding Torture? Was Amanpour misleading? From FSM (1jan10) Marc Thiessen challenges CNN's Amanpour with evidence that she misled viewers about the CIA's waterboarding techniques |
| Home | Featured Stories | Background Information | News On The Web |