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ARTWORK BY FRED REIFENBERG: DRY WEEDS AND CACTUS BLOSSOMS
Posted by Think-Israel Staff, September 30, 2007. |
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Courtesy of artist Fred Reifenberg. Fred was born in Germany, and
grew up during the Hitler period. In the 40's he moved to NY. He is a
veteran of the Korean War. Currently he lives in Israel. He enjoys
harmonizing with nature, and photographing nature in its many
wonderful forms. He also create a variety of abstracts, combining
photography and graphics. See more of his art at
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| The office was closed during the Yom Tovim. But we wanted to maintain a record of some of the important stories that we would have posted. So the top items of this month's blog-ed page are some comments on these stories -- in no particular order. |
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THE OLMERT-RICE-ABBAS SCAM
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 30, 2007. |
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Let's take a deeper look into the Olmert-Rice-Abbas Scam. Let's take it as a given that Bush-Rice-Baker in collaboration with the E.U., U.N., Russians, Arab League, Saudi Arabia succeed in voting Israel's territory over to the Arab Muslims. That includes Judea, Samaria, (Israel's heartland), half of Jerusalem as a "capital" for the Fatah/Hamas, the Golan Heights down to the Kinneret and the Jordan Valley (which is seen as a natural barrier from invading armies through Jordan). Up to this point, the Jews of Israel have remained silent and obedient to its Leftist government and the Supreme Court who usually rule in favor of any move that gives up land to Arabs such as Oslo, Gaza, Jordan, most of Israel's water resources, etc. Now it is up to Olmert and the IDF to drive 250,000 to 500,000 Jews out of the above named territories. How does Olmert, in planning with the Bush Administration along with those attending the November Conference intend to accomplish this? How do Olmert and Bush plan to pay for re-settling the 250,000 to 500,000 Jewish men, women and children? The cost will be in the Billions -- unless the plan is simply not to pay as follows: The "Gaza Trick" worked once. That is where Sharon, along with his 'advisor' Ehud Olmert, Weisglass, Livni and the Kadima Cabinet promised compensation but, in fact, they and the U.S. planned to pay little or nothing. With 10,000 settlers who were evicted from Gush Katif/Gaza still wandering the country with no appreciable payment for their destroyed homes, farms, factories, etc. They remain an ugly object lesson, even for Leftists who cheered the forced evacuations. Granted, Jews have a short memory. They have forgotten being evacuated out of Spain by King and Church with property confiscated, debts to Jews cancelled or being forced to sell homes, businesses and all assets for a pittance. The Jews have apparently forgotten how the efficient Germans stripped them of all valuables -- and then their lives. First homes, businesses, art collections, the gold fillings in their teeth -- and then their lives. Of course, this happened time and again throughout Europe. The elegant French collaborationist Vichy government confiscated Jewish apartments to be handed out to French businessmen and relatives who, even after WWII, kept Jewish properties. Some of the most notorious leaders of France of today gifted Jewish apartments to friends and relatives. Ask them about the paintings hanging on their walls, belonging to now dead Jews they helped to send to the Gestapo and on to the Death Camps. So, here we are again with the Vichy-like government of Olmert/Kadima, dealing -- not with the Nazi Germans but, with descendants of the family who helped finance Hitler's industrial/military complex. The killing nations of Europe, now assembled under the E.U. and the U.N. who are NOT only bonded with the Arab Muslims but, took Billions in bribe money from Saddam Hussein's great Oil-for-Food swindle. Of course, there are the Russians who retain the title of the Evil Empire, in concert with the Jew-hating pro-Arab Muslim U.S. State Department. They are all meeting to decide the fate of the Jews -- again -- as some have done repeatedly over the centuries. And, of course, as in times past they count on Jewish traitors to work from the inside, as did the Judenrat and Kapos during WWII. So, what's the plan? First, they must have a statement out of the mouths of Olmert and his treasonous Kadima council to the effect that he, Olmert, agrees to abandon the ancient heartland of Israel. That lays the foundation of capitulation and betrayal. The group assembled will dutifully tell Olmert and world Jewry that they will have to raise Billions of Dollars to compensate the 250,000-500,000+ Jews for driving them out of their homes from the territories mentioned above. Hitler's henchmen used this ploy to get Jews to virtually pay for the cost of their own evacuations and executions. Naturally, as with Sharon, Olmert would have little or no intention to pay those he evicted. What monies that would be paid would inevitably go through government fingers and never, ever reach the intended victims for whom it was donated. This would follow the pattern set by Yassir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) who were fellow terrorists, companions, compatriots for 40 years. Billions were contributed to the so-called "Palestinian people" but always ended up in the pockets or deep bank accounts of Arafat and all his terror organizations -- most of which are now under control of Abu Mazen -- still receiving their share of the donor loot. For Olmert to accomplish de-Judaizing the territories, followed by a thorough ethnic cleansing of all Jews, he will need unquestioning obedience of the Army, the Police, Shabak, Mossad and any civilian quislings who might act the role of Judenrat. In addition, it would be expected of the November Assembly of Jew-hating nations to offer "Peace-Keeping Forces" or, at least, that is what they will be called. I forecast this years ago when the E.U. made a deal with NATO to use them as a Rapid Response Forces, of course, always with U.S. approval. The U.S. was the prime supplier for NATO's weapons from aircraft, missiles, tanks, small arms and ammo, explosives, etc. Yes, indeed, NATO will definitely need the U.S. and the Arabist State Department approval to participate in a war against the Jews. The idea of driving the pioneering Jewish settlers out of the territories in a phased plan began in the early 1980s through Rabin, Peres and certain Left-Wing Generals, who were fully prepared to use military force to attack their own Jews. The "Phased Plan" was to include bribes at first to buy out those willing to leave, followed by Government cut-off of services and delaying of permits to build, installation of water, sewage services, roads, electricity, regular telephone, etc. Then Special Forces called Yassam would be used, selectively, at first to harass. IDF checkpoints and patrols would be withdrawn so the roads would become exceedingly dangerous. Then the Yassam (or Yatom) Special Forces would attack with brutal force as they did in Amona but, in larger numbers. Finally, it would be up to Arafat and his Terrorist to make life so dangerous and miserable that even the most staunch pioneers would opt to leave. When I wrote about this in the early 1980s, I entitled it "RAISING THE MISERY INDEX". That plan ultimately failed but, it was resurrected through the Baker Madrid International Conference in 1991. That "plan" morphed into the secret Oslo Accords under Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin -- accepted by Yitzhak Rabin. Not so strangely, it is Baker and Hamilton (James Baker III and Lee Hamilton) who wrote the Iraq Study Group Report about how America could leave Iraq. The section to drive the Jews out of Israel was never published and remains a "national secret". Not so strangely, it is the Baker-Hamilton Plan of today, put into motion by George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and the other nations, following the Rabin-Peres plan of the early 1980s and the later Oslo Plan -- all wrapped up together for the grand Bush International Conference planned for November. You can expect Israel's current Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in concert with Olmert, to launch strikes against Gaza to demonstrate that this perfidious government is finally willing to release the Army, heretofore under orders of President Bush for "restraint". The purpose is to trick the Israelis to believe the Olmert government has flip-flopped on defense -- just prior to releasing the pledge to abandon all the territories mentioned. Staging a short term military show would be a collaborative effort between Olmert and the planners of the U.S. State Department. This would be micro-managing the Israeli population prior to the November International Conference so Olmert isn't forced out of office too soon. Start to look for the usual bombing of empty buildings and abandoned Hamas training camps in Gaza. There are, of course, the unexpected. The Israeli Army may revolt against an unlawful government making treasonous deals with foreign nations to the detriment of Israel's safety and sovereignty. The Israeli people may wake up and march en masse to Jerusalem, their nation's eternal, golden Capital to take back their government. This, of course, would include emptying the Israeli Supreme Court of its biased judges and replacing them with a non-activist Court system. The ordinary soldier may simply refuse to obey patently illegal orders requiring that they attack their own people. The entire segment of intended evacuees could revolt in a "coup d'etat" and themselves take back the government. This, of course, would require gathering up the traitors currently in government and, like Napoleon, finding something like the Isle of Elbe to keep the traitors in permanent lock-down. However, should Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and the others in Kadima -- with their supporters in the Knesset, succeed in abandoning all these territories in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, the Jordan Valley and more than half of Jerusalem then, all of Israel will be bombarded with missiles as are now being launched down from Gaza. Then mere exile for these government ministers who cause death of their own people would be inadequate. Justice would require the equivalent of the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials where the perpetrators would have to pay the ultimate price for enabling the Muslim "Jihadists" to slaughter the Jewish people. This then is my forecast of things to come IF the Jews remain quiescent and accepting of the fate planned by Bush-Baker-Rice, with Olmert-Peres-Barak, in collusion with the E.U., U.N., Russians, Arab League and especially Saudi Arabia. I have, of course, left out any miraculous intercession of G-d where the plotting nations are destroyed in earthquakes, crop destroying heat, floods and storms of biblical proportions, the plagues exceeding those of Egypt and all the things we see ramping up now in our lifetime.
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@gwinston.interaccess.com
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FEEDING THE HAND THAT BITES YOU
Posted by Michael I. Krauss and J. Peter Pham, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by
Michael I. Krauss and J. Peter Pham and it appeared September 25, 2007
in the American Thinker
Michael I. Krauss is professor of law at George Mason University School of Law. J. Peter Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. Both are adjunct fellows of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies |
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Two years ago, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led his country in a fateful decision to "disengage" from Gaza, uprooting 8,500 Jewish residents, many born in Gaza and some domiciled there for nearly four decades. Sharon did this because, as he put it to 1.3 million Palestinian Gazans, "...it is not in our interest to govern you... we would like you to govern yourselves in your own country, a democratic Palestinian state." Sharon held out hope that if things worked out in Gaza, he would move to withdraw from the West Bank as well. That this hope has turned to literal ashes is now well known. Not only has a viable Palestinian government willing to live in peace and security with Israel failed to materialize, Hamas, a terrorist group whose charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel, won legislative elections and forcibly drove Fatah rivals out of Gaza. Gaza has become the locus for blatant acts of war against Israel, including repeated Qassam rocket barrages against Israeli residential areas and recurring efforts to infiltrate suicide bombers. Twelve Israeli civilians have died and countless thousands have been dislocated by these missiles. In the early hours of September 11, one rocket launched from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza hit an Israeli basic training camp in Zikim, wounding fifty military recruits. Israeli Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped inside Israel and is being held prisoner inside Gaza. Hamas has smuggled in large quantities of weapons through the porous Egyptian border. Twenty tons of materiel entered Gaza in July 2007 alone, and the IDF now believes that Hamas possesses anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank rockets, most likely Sagger guided missiles. On September 18, the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to juridically recognize these facts: it declared that a terrorist organization has turned Gaza into "hostile territory." This declaration opens the way for Israeli authorities, at a time and in a measure of their choosing, to reduce the amount of electricity, water, and fuel they have continued to supply to Gaza since Israel's departure two years ago. [Egypt, during its entire occupation of the territory from 1948-67, never developed Gaza's energy infrastructure, leaving the strip destitute and primitive. Israel's integration of Gaza into its supply grid has allowed Gazans to develop their industry and agriculture.] Despite the deliberative tone of the cabinet's decision -- it noted that "sanctions will be enacted following a legal examination, while taking into account both the humanitarian aspects relevant to the Gaza Strip and the intention to avoid a humanitarian crisis" -- critics hastened to denounce the move. One United Nations official interviewed on Israeli Army Radio termed the decision "collective punishment," and "a violation of international law," while UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared that any interruption in the utilities would be "contrary to Israel's obligations towards the civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights law." The UN statements were, typically, hysterical in tone and dead wrong on the law. If Gaza is territory under the control of the enemy -- as it manifestly is under Hamas -- then the Israeli government is both within its rights and arguably obliged by its responsibilities to its citizens to treat the strip as "hostile territory." Siege and blockade of a hostile territory is a legitimate tactic of war, used in declared and undeclared (e.g., Cuban) conflicts and explicitly recognized by the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Conventions' sole limitation is that there be "free passage of all consignments of food-stuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers, and maternity cases" (Fourth Convention, art. 23) -- and even this exception was conditioned on there being "no reasons for fearing... [t]hat a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy" (for example, if resources destined for humanitarian aid will be commandeered by the enemy). Israel has carefully respected this requirement. An anti-Israel pundit will doubtless soon point to the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which states that "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited" (art. 54). But Israel is starving no one. No one responsible has suggested cutting off food supplies to Gaza -- which, ironically, exported food (grown in Israeli-built greenhouses, which were demolished by Palestinians after Israel's withdrawal) before 2005. In addition, Israel is not a party to Additional Protocol I (neither is the United States). Even if that treaty bound Israel, the official commentary to the Protocol does not preclude the right to blockade a declared enemy. In cases of siege the Protocol provides for relief of besieged civilians "subject to the agreement of the parties" (art. 70) -- does anyone think Hamas will sit down with Israel anytime soon? Similarly, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court can be read to make it a war crime to deprive civilians of "objects indispensable to their survival" (art. 8 (2) (b) (xxv)). But Israel is not a party to the Statute and, in any event, the context of the provision makes it clear that it refers back to the Geneva Convention's "food-stuffs, clothing and tonics" for children and pregnant women, which Israel is not blockading but which, in any event, Israel is certainly not obligated to itself supply. To the joy of Hamas, Gaza is now Judenrein. But it is a miserable place. Its residents, having voted for a regime that is waging war on Israel, must now suffer the consequences of their electoral (and military) support of the terrorist group. Of course, a cut-off of electricity, water, and fuel, might strengthen the extremists among them, so Israeli authorities are wise to weigh their actions carefully. But if they choose to reduce supplies to their enemy -- a measure far less aggressive than a military takeover -- they are absolutely legally entitled to do so. If Palestinians wish to claim equality among the nations of the world, they should expend energies building a state at peace with its neighbor and supplying its citizens with basic services, rather than devoting themselves to destroying their neighbor and then carping about the standard of living that Israelis allegedly owe them. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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THE SAUDI REIGN OF TERROR
Posted by Daily Alert, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Youssif Ibrahim and was published September 14, 2007 in the New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/article/62636?page_no=1. The original article has live links to additional material. |
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Six years after visiting its brand of terror on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia has become a world-class exporter of Islamist violence. The toll is grisly: Well over 3,000 Saudi citizens roaming the world -- and just as many schemers are actively involved at home -- are managing terrorist networks and planning and executing suicide bombings and jihadist attacks that span the globe:
ABC's "World News Tonight," anchored by Charles Gibson, got it right on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks with an impressive segment documenting how Islamist terror begins -- and ends -- with Saudi Arabia, its people, and its government. It conjured an Orwellian image of a conveyor belt with human bombs placed on it running out of the House of Saud and reaching around the globe. Saudi-funded mosques and madrassas supplied ideological content, and wings of the Saudi ruling establishment stoked the fire of its infernal machine. There is no shortage of evidence for ABC News's case. The numerous sources for it include the CIA, the FBI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, and, astonishingly, the Saudi press itself. The question, therefore, is why the Saudis keep doing it and why America looks the other way. One reason, of course, is what has become known as the "Bush-Saud Family" factor, which has been documented in many books and articles. Whether it stems from misplaced friendship or financial benefit, it yields the same outcome: a lot of money for the American partner and a lot of clout for Saudis. President Bush, his family, associates, and friends -- going all the way to his father's administration -- are deeply beholden to the generosity of the corrupt Saudi royal family. But in fairness, this corrupting process has penetrated deeper than just the Bushes or the Republican Party and reaches into every segment of the American ruling establishment over three decades. Democratic administrations, including those of Presidents Clinton and Carter, and much of official Washington's diplomatic and journalistic establishment have all eaten at the Saudi table and benefited from the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the notorious former Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to gain influence here. His royal highness had the town wrapped around his finger. His money and displays of generosity at his $150 million worth of mansions in Virginia and Colorado, on private planes and sumptuous vacations, as well as through the Saudi "consultancy" contracts he arranged, touched all. That, too, has been amply documented. The result is that while Washington hears the music, it is not listening to the words. During the bloody unraveling of the Red Mosque takeover by Pakistani jihadists in Islamabad this summer, the director-general of Saudi TV network Al-Arabiya, Abdelrahman Al-Rashed, immediately wondered if there might have been any Saudis among them. Why? Because, he said, since those September 11 attacks, we, the Saudis, have become time bombs, "mentally and politically ready to be pawns in the hands of organizations with very dangerous political plans." The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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RICE INDICATES SHIFT IN POLICY: PALESTINIAN STATE BEFORE COMPLIANCE
Posted by Dr. Aaron Lerner, September 30, 2007. |
| This was published September 27, 2007 |
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When U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talks in a public forum she is extremely careful about what she says. And what she doesn't. That's what makes her remarks at the 23 September press conference at United Nations Headquarters she held with Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and other Quartet Principals so disturbing Here is what she first said: "And if you look at the phase-one commitments, it is very hard to imagine the establishment of a Palestinian State in which the phase-one commitments have not been realized or have not been carried through. And so, absolutely, those phase-one commitments have to be met." So far so good. But then she said: "... But it is absolutely the case that you're not going to be able to establish a Palestinian State if you don't have a commitment to end terror, if you don't have a commitment to end settlement activity, if you don't have a commitment to non-violence. All of those things have to be achieved. The Palestinians will have to have capacities. They will have to have security forces that can provide security against terrorism, but that can also provide security for the Palestinian people." Fancy footwork. First Rice says that "it is very hard to imagine the establishment of a Palestinian State" if the phase-one commitments haven't been carried out. But Rice doesn't make it a red line. Instead the red line is "commitment" rather than action. Put simply, the solid red line is that before there is a sovereign Palestinian state the PA has to issue are really well written declaration -- a really strongly worded one. And they have to be armed to the teeth. What about actually doing something on the ground? "terror" has been given the same weight as "settlement activity". As far as Rice seems to be concerned, the people building a sukkah in Ramat Eshkol are just as much a problem as the terrorist trying to blow up a bomb in Tel Aviv. This gives tremendous "wiggle room" to argue that both parties are not behaving. But again: while the Roadmap spoke of action -- Rice's red line appears to be only declarative in nature. But that's not what phase-one was all about. It requires both talk and action. Here is the wording:
Talk: "Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere." Action: "All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel." Talk: "Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism " Action: "and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere." And while Rice talks about apparently arming the Palestinians to the teeth (does "but that can also provide security for the Palestinian people" mean an ability to fight Israel?) she also ignores action: "Rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. This includes commencing confiscation of illegal weapons ..." Instead of real action we have some photo ops. This week the PA tried to make a splash in the press by handing over some pipes to Israeli authorities -- claiming that they were Qassam rockets. Similar hollow photo ops can be expected in the future. This while "moderate peace partner" Mahmoud Abbas continues to take a strong position against Israel right to defend itself from terror attacks. The last thing that Israeli officials can afford to do is ignore this policy shift. The shift away from requiring Palestinian compliance before the forming of a Palestinian state isn't a matter of nuance. IT IS FUNDAMENTAL. Dr. Lerner is Director of IMRA -- (Independent Media Review & Analysis). Contact him by email at imra@netvision.net.il or visit the website: http://www.imra.org.il |
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DEAR CHRISTIAN FRIENDS OF ISRAEL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 30, 2007. |
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No doubt you have been observing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's efforts to pull together what amounts to an International Court of Inquisition to judge the fate of the Jewish State of Israel and impose upon her conditions for survival. If you do not wish the State of Israel to be re-partitioned and surrendered to the Muslim Arabs, you will have to step forward. It will be too late once the judgements are rendered and given the cloak of legitimacy through the organizations of World Powers. Christians in America have a great deal of moral and political power which is very persuasive when utilized. Perhaps you will agree to bring that power out of the column of potential and into the column of applied power. I am, of course, speaking of the current Administration and the American Congress. This is what the Land and People of Israel face. Rice (with the counsel of James Baker III) wishes to pacify radical Islam by re-partitioning Israel at first transferring Judea and Samaria (Israel's biblical heartland) to the Muslim Arab Palestinians. That includes one/third of Israel drinking water from the Samarian and Judean mountain aquifers. Then Rice/Bush/Baker plan to abandon the Golan Heights and the second/third of Israel fresh water resources to Syria -- on the unlikely chance that Syria will cease its terrorist attacks on Israel and Lebanon through their proxy, the Hezb'Allah and sending terrorists into Iraq to kill American soldiers and Iraqi citizens (soldiers and civilians). Then C. Rice wishes to transfer over to the Muslim Arab Palestinians the Jordan Valley which has been a natural barrier to any attack by armies and armor from the long eastern border. Just across this long valley sits Jordan with only 5 entry passes through its long mountain range for invading armies from Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran and/or Saudi Arabia to invade. (Note! The U.S. has recently signed an agreement to assist Jordan go nuclear, ignoring the fact that when (not IF) the King is overthrown by Jordan's 80% Palestinian population, these nuclear facilities will fall into the hands of a united Hamas and Fatah, plus those states listed above.) Another entry into the international meddling mix is Japan, who offers to fund an agricultural, industrial Park in the hotter climate of the Jordan Valley due to its below sea level topography. They plan on Israel to supply the water to grow vegetables and fruits which could supply Jordan, the Arab Muslim States and Europe by being transshipped through the Muslim Arab Gulf States. So, Israel loses another crucial defense barrier and bread basket -- like the Jews had well-developed in Gush Katif/Gaza -- as well as her water and the profits. Once these four strategic areas are acquired by the Muslim Arabs, they will be lined with missiles, able to devastate the coastal cities of Israel where 80% of her population lives and works -- as well as the Ben Gurion International Airport which will then be made vulnerable to easy attack. You have seen, no doubt, the Kassam Rockets launched daily from the Gaza Global Terror Base. This tragic event was forecast by all who petitioned against surrendering Gush Katif/Gaza and evacuating the 10,000 -- 16,000 Jewish men, women and children. You know that Hezb'Allah in Lebanon now have re-armed with 20,000 Katyusha Rockets, after 4000 were launched at Israel's northern cities, towns and villages last summer during what is called the Second Lebanon War killing and wounding civilians and soldiers. There is much more but this outlines what Israel faces in the near future IF events continue. The Bush Administration and C. Rice have also put the "status of Jerusalem" on the bargaining table to be butchered in order to give the second Palestinian State its capital. They plan that to be all the areas in Jerusalem that Jordan occupied and desecrated for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. If you think, O, that's only "East" Jerusalem where the Arabs live, you are very wrong. They plan to re-occupy all the North, South and "East" (which includes Israel's Jewish Temple Mount). That includes all the new Jewish neighborhoods and their homes as well. Who will take over these homes? They have included all the descendants of the Muslim Arabs who fled Israel in 1948. That was 480,000 people then but, they "claim" to have multiplied to 5 million (or more). You do the math. All of this is listed in the Declaration of Principles, which has all the hallmarks of having been probably written by the State Department. See at the conclusion of this essay. To accomplish this re-division of Israel in a phased program of extinction, Rice and the U.S. State Department have assembled what can only be described as a Court of latter day Inquisition. At this time that includes the so-called Quartet created by and including the U.S. State Department who have tried to undermine and eliminate the Jewish State of Israel since her birth. The E.U. (European Union) has a record includes culpability for centuries of anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust -- through today with its donor monies supporting the Terrorist Arab organizations, nations and proxies. Then the U.N. (United Nations) 3/4s of the countries in the U.N. vote countless resolutions against Israel and America. The U.N., of course, includes the whole Arab League -- the leaders of which are 12 key Arab Muslim states: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen and Syria. The Arab League operates as a collective but each of these countries also has its own individual agenda regarding Israel. Remember that Syria was just voted in as Deputy Chairman of the U.N. Human Rights Watch this year. And, the U.N. accords full dignity to today's Hitler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while the U.N.'s IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency has "closed" the issue of Iran's Nuclear Weapons. Needless to say, very well-armed Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran stand out as implacable hostiles to the whole West and Israel. The fourth leg of the Quartet is Russia. It is no secret that Russia has always been hostile to its Jewish population. Now, President Putin has joined Syria and Iran who sponsor, fund, train, safe-house Hezb'Allah who attack Lebanon, Israel and to infiltrate Iraq to kill American soldiers and Iraqi citizens (both soldiers, police and civilians). Rice coached by Baker, who is no friend of Israel or Jews generally, wants Israel to divide her already minuscule land mass for a second state to be called Palestine. They would also insist on forcing Israel to receive the descendants of the Arab Muslims who left in 1948. The demographics which the U.N. records is that 480,000 left and now 5 million or more who (say they) wish to return. Jerusalem is a tragic story unto herself. While Muslim Arabs never considered Jerusalem a holy place, given that it was rejected by Mohammed as the direction of prayer was reversed from facing Jerusalem to facing Mecca -- wherever in the world they were. Nevertheless as a strategy of Koranic War for a Global Islamic Caliphate, Jerusalem is now being claimed as Islam's third holiest city with Mecca and Medina before it. The Koran doesn't mention Jerusalem even once, but it is spoken of 667 times in the Torah (the Jewish Bible) and the highest Holy City of the Jewish people. For reasons of their historic legacy, Bush and Rice are desperate to be recorded in History as having made a difference and brought democracy to Islam. This is to be accomplished by assembling all of Israel's dedicated enemies in a so-called International Peace Conference or Kangaroo Court setting. Rice has easily recruited such weak Jews as Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, and Ehud Barak who neither honor the Land of Israel which was given to Jewish people by G-d in perpetuity. The idea of there being a G-d is extremely offensive to Rice's recruits. Fortunately, there are Torah-observant Jews who love the Land will defend it for the Jewish people. So, as friends of Israel, there are many things you can do that we cannot. 1. A possible Conference of Christian leaders in an emergency session in Washington -- where its weight will reach the U.S. State Department -- the driving force behind this assault on Israel. No doubt, you have your own ways and ideas of how to speak to our U.S. Government in a persuasive way. If those attending this so-called Peace Conference vote penalties, embargoes, insertion of NATO troops, it will be too late. Thanks you for what we hope you will do. (For our general list, please forward this call to action to your Christian friends and organizations -- particularly those with large congregations and/or constituencies.) 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@gwinston.interaccess.com |
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GW BUSH, C. RICE, JAMES BAKER III PROMOTE NOVEMBER KANGAROO COURT TO DESTROY ISRAEL
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Emanuel A. Winston, Mid East analyst and commentator. It was received September 20, 2007 |
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Is America to be dragged down into a reputation of betrayal as Hitler stained Germany with the Genocide of the Jewish People? Hitler had two objectives. One was to satisfy his pathological hatred of Jews. The other was to stir up not so latent anti-Semitism across Europe as his troops conquered all the European nations. In any case, it was a successful diversion and 6 million Jews paid the price. It has been 62 years since Germany and the Europeans completed their human sacrifice to Moloch (a flesh-eating god) always demanding more human sacrifice. The monster is back again, demanding his due and, regrettably, we observe the nations gathering once again to feed Jews to Allah as their sacrifice. The Shame for America is that we have leaders who are leading and guiding all others to use Israel as the selected sacrifice. The American people who are decent, generous and honest will come to hate those scurrilous leaders for shaming all of us in order to bribe the Arabs for a "good deal" on their oil. Think about what some American leaders have already done mostly without the knowledge of the American people. The State Department, with the approval of several Presidents funneled Billions of American tax-payers' dollars to the arch-Terrorist and grandfather of modern Arab Terrorism, Yassir Arafat, little of which passed through to the Arab Palestinian people. Instead, those who provided American dollars knew for a certainty that the money was being used to arm Arafat's Terrorist Army and the hundreds of Terrorist operations against Israeli civilians, to include children and women. Rice-Bush-Baker know and just don't care that Saudi Arabia has been the deep pockets for Global Terrorists, many of whom migrated to Iraq to kill American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. For years, there has been a group at the highest levels in Washington dedicated to protecting Syria -- despite knowing that they were planning Terrorist actions. Recall the 242 Marines from Pennsylvania who were blown up in their barracks in Lebanon in 1983. When President Ronald Reagan ordered our battleship in reprisal to fire its 16 inch guns at Syria positions, then Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger countermanded Reagan's orders. Weinberger shielded Syria while carrying on a deadly vendetta with Israel. James Baker III, a frequent visitor to Hafez al Assad could, no doubt speak to the matter of who was responsible and why Syria was never held accountable for its many Terrorist operation against America and Israel. Why did Congress never ask, "Who are these guys and what are they receiving as agents for foreign countries?" Would you believe that the U.N. just voted on September 17th for Syria to serve as Deputy Chairman for its 51st session in Vienna of the General Conference of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) -- the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. This was just two weeks after Israel's bombing raid in Syria, to take out North Korean nuclear materials. And, of course, the Syrian news agency SANA proudly announced "the Israeli nuclear deterrent arsenal is an item on the agenda of the conference." While Iran will be a focus of the discussions, the agenda does not refer to the Iran Islamic Republic by name. The Director of the IAEA is Mohammed El Baradei. (1) Arab Muslims, be they Arab League or Palestinian Terrorists (either Fatah or Hamas) have detailed, non-cancelable Charters and Fatwas calling for the elimination of Israel by any means possible. Rice-Bush-Baker, knowing all of this, still insist upon the corrupted Olmert give-away of vital tracts of Jewish Land vital to the defense of the small State of Israel. Olmert offers this defensible Land to hostile Arab Muslim Palestinians who will and have already brought in Al Qaeda, Hezb'Allah, Hamas, Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigade of Fatah, Tanzim, and other proxies of Iran and Syria to battle Israel from within and without. Rice and Bush and especially Baker know all of this from U.S. and Israel Intelligence but, even knowing these truths, they insist that Israel commit national suicide for whatever good it will do them with a species of killer who will not ever be appeased. Knowing is being a collaborator in the next Jewish Genocide. Rice, Bush and Baker know with certainty that Syria has acted both as an entry point for Terrorists going into Iraq to kill American soldiers and has chosen NOT to respond. After Arafat died, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), his 40 year companion, financier, fellow leading terrorist took over Fatah, which is the main operational Terrorist organization of the PLO. The U.S. not only ignored the on-going Terror against Israel through her many factions but also paid money, trained and armed Arafat's Army still in place under Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas). -Syria and North Korea have been extremely close in the exchange of missile technology and supposedly recently discovered interchange of nuclear technology and materials. I have mentioned only a fraction of what has been happening with Bush, Rice, Baker and earlier Father Bush have either watched in silence or even assisted. The SHAME I have mentioned earlier is that the Bush Administration is perfectly willing to gather all of the above gang of cut-throat nations to judge Israel and hang her as appeasement bait to the murderous Arab Muslims. The names of nations are the same used by Hitler in his Genocidal march to his 1000 Year Third Reich. Why must Bush and Rice leave a legacy that will mark America with an ugly stain much as remains on Germany and participating nations? Certainly, the nations made every effort to kill off G-d's messengers leaving only perhaps 15 million Jews on the planet today. Now you and yours are diligently trying to eliminate even this remnant. So, will this be your legacy, namely that President Bush and nations eliminated the last Jew on earth? This then is what Rice, Bush and Baker are planning for Israel in the coming November Kangaroo Court, arranged just for the Jewish Nation and staged by Washington. Americans will then have to share in the Shameful history of Germany. Jerome S. Kaufman is National Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America and hosts the Israel Commentary website (http://www.israel-commentary.org). |
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HOW TO MANIPULATE THE ISRAELI PUBLIC
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 30, 2007. |
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The Israeli government currently under control of Ehud Olmert has totally failed to stop the Kassam Rockets from the Hamas Terrorists in Gaza. A closer look would conclude the failure is due to deliberate inaction on the part of a Dovish Prime Minister who refuses to release the IDF (Israel Defense Force) to stamp out the Terrorists and their Kassam Rocket launchers. Olmert is, of course, doing this both to fulfill his Dovish ideology but, more to satisfy U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who seems to be representing Saudi vested interests. So, how does one go about "tricking" an angry Israeli public, enraged over the daily rockets on its towns and cities, like Sderot and Ashkelon. After artful avoidance of hitting the Rocket Launchers, Olmert makes threats: "If you don't stop it, we know what to do" is the usual statement of threat but, it is rarely if ever carried out. The latest threat is that "We're going to cut off fuel oil, electricity and water to the Terrorists in Gaza!" Of course, there is no intention to actually do so but the public thinks something is about to be done so they stop screaming at Olmert and the Government while Condi is in town. Meanwhile, the Israeli Leftists start whining about the tragedy of it all to deprive the poor "innocent" Arab Muslim residents of Gaza. However, they say little to nothing about the daily Rockets -- which aren't hitting their cities of Tel Aviv -- yet. Olmert naturally had to ask permission of Condi to make the threat which she allowed because she did not wish to see Olmert thrown out of office before the planned November give-away of Israel territory at the International Conference Kangaroo Court in Washington. Olmert should have been deposed by now, given the various investigations about his swindling in the Bank Leumi deal, or his total failure in the 2006 War against Hezb'Allah in Lebanon whose Katyusha Missiles were hitting towns and cities all over Israel's Northern territories, including Haifa. The Winograd Commission appointed by Olmert to investigate the fiasco of losing to Hezb'Allah had only a fraction of the report released. It supposedly eviscerated Olmert leadership during that War but, the Final Report was stifled again. It was supposed to be released in August and now it seems "postponed" indefinitely -- or as long as Olmert is needed to lead the surrender of vital Land and Water to the Muslim Arabs in Judea Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights and all those parts of Jerusalem occupied and desecrated by Jordan for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. Winograd went into virtual hiding, refusing to release the Full Report lest it hasten the day Olmert is forced out of office. Here again you will find the fingerprints of Rice, the U.S. State Department and Olmert's Kadima confederates all over the Winograd investigation and report. Winograd, as a friend and confederate of Olmert, should himself be warming a cell for conspiracy. Suddenly, we hear that Olmert makes another threat after a Kassam lands near a nursery school and another injures 69 Israeli soldiers in basic training in an Army Camp Zikim near Ashkelon. Olmert threatens cut-off of gas and electricity but, only following a humanitarian investigation of the impact that cut-off would have on those "innocent Palestinians" who support Hamas, voted it into power and dance on their roof-tops when a particularly grizzly attack on Israeli innocents succeeds. This investigation will, of course, take months -- possibly years -- to conclude, which means that Olmert's threats were always meant NOT to be implemented. His Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni held a self-serving press conference to show her credentials of being a tough broad by saying that Hamas is, indeed, a hostile entity. To back her up, Condi also told the press that "Hamas is a hostile entity to us as well -- but we will not abandon the 'innocent Palestinians' in Gaza" and "We have been assured that Israel would not deny essential humanitarian supplies to Gazan civilians". (1) Nice dancing, Tzipi, I guess you will continue to ship food and medical supplies to those good, innocent Palestinians and NOT ship stuff to the Hamas Terrorists. Oh, you say the Hamas will take the "stuff" from the civilians any way? Congratulations, Tzipi, you are learning to be as an accomplished a liar as are Olmert and Peres. In the meantime, the "Fifth Column" confederates of the Palestinian Terrorists inside Israel are huffing and puffing about how all these threats are immoral, illegal and unjust as "collective punishment". And what would you call the continual assaults with Kassam Rockets? Playtime in the kindergartens and playgrounds? When the sirens go off, the kids only have 15 seconds to reach safety. What to do? One solution would be to drive Olmert out of power -- if not out of the country. Another would be for the military to bomb Gaza into grains of sand. A third solution would be to gather up the various "Fifth Column" supporters of Arab Muslim Terror and ship them off to Syria and Iran. A fourth solution might be for the citizens of Israel to take back their country and start from scratch to establish a Government -- Of the people, By the people and For the people. I wonder whose idea it was to make Israel the responsible patron of Gaza or any of the other 7 cities which Rabin and Peres gave over to control to Yassir Arafat -- now inherited by Abbas. Surely Rice and Bush deserve to take care of the Terrorists whom they have funded through the State Department and other NGOs (non-governmental organizations). In any case, the phony threat by Olmert to cut off services to Hamas of which the Palestinians are an inseparable part, is just that -- a phony threat. ### 1. "Israel Calls Gaza 'Hostile' in Step to Tighten Penalties: Rice Arrives for Talks on Peace Principles" by Steven Erlanger & Helene Cooper New York Times Sept. 20, 2007 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@gwinston.interaccess.com |
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SAUDI DIVORCES WIFE FOR WATCHING MALE TV HOST
Posted by Avodah, September 30, 2007. |
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This comes from
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A Saudi man divorced his wife for watching alone a television programme presented by a male, an act he deemed immoral, the Al Shams newspaper reported on Saturday. The man, whom the paper did not identify, ended his marriage on the grounds his wife was effectively alone with an unrelated man, which is forbidden under the strict Islamic law enforced in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the paper said. Men in Saudi Arabia have the authority to divorce their wives without resort to the courts. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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FATAH HOAXES
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 30, 2007. |
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This is From Khaled Abu Toameh, writer for Jerusalem Post
to Dr Aaron Lerner (imra@netvision.net.il). |
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The Honor Killing Hoax
In the context of the Hamas-Fatah power struggle, Fatah officials and security agents have distributed a video documenting the alleged killing of a 16-year-old girl in the Gaza Strip. But it has emerged that that the footage was taken in Iraq, where a 16-year-old girl was killed for "dishonoring" her family. Fatah claimed that the victim was Nahed Juha, a 16-year-old girl who was indeed killed together with her two sisters, Lina and Suha, in the Gaza Strip last July. Fatah security officials even provided reporters with two "eyewitnesses" who claimed that that had witnesses the lynching of Nahed Juha. For the past few years, both Fatah and Hamas have been involved in a smear campaign against each other. The two parties have devoted tremendous efforts to manipulate the media, often feeding reporters with false information. [Editor's note: Of course, honor killings are a fact of life over all the Arab world -- and have even occurred in America. And "eye witnesses" are routine in all these hoaxes -- remember the ISM members who swore that Rachel Corrie was run over by an Israeli tank -- twice. Of course, it would have left her a flat as a pancake yet their own pix showed her very 3-dimensional.] The Brave Fatah Saving Israel Hoax: #1 "A Conversation With Mahmoud Abbas"
...Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ...discussed the peace talks with Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth. [...] Q. But will Israelis agree to go to final-status talks when they are constantly threatened with attacks on their cities? A. Last night, [our security forces] seized two rockets. We handed [them] over to the Israelis. We are very worried about these deeds and I think we can put an end to all this. Our security apparatus is ready to stop all kinds of violence. ... #2 The truth From: Khaled Abu Toameh
Last week Fatah managed to sell another hoax to reporters when
it claimed that its security forces had discovered rocket launchers in
Bethlehem that were directed against Jerusalem. It later turned out
that the "rockets" were simple pipes that has been set up by children
who were trying to imitate Hamas.
#3 The question:
Will The Washington Post run a note about this?
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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AN INTERVIEW WITH BANAFSHEH ZAND-BONAZZI, THE ENGLISH EDITOR OF IRAN PRESS NEWS
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 30, 2007. | ||||
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This is an interview conducted by Michelle Malkin (www.michellemalkin.com) with Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, Iranian democracy activist. The interview was conducted on the streets of New York, during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ego trip at Columbia. Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi is the English editor of Iran Press News and a lifelong Iranian democracy activist who, along with her family, has been battling the mullahs since they took power in 1979. Like everyone else who isn't a student of Columbia University, she was locked out of yesterday's forum on the campus featuring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Had she been allowed to confront Ahmadinejad she might have been able to ask him what the regime has done with her father, who has been a political prisoner since 2001. Reactions to interview:
See it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REERy0C1sKo
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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FOX NEWS: SENATE APPROVES SYMBOLIC REBUKE OF IRAN
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 30, 2007. |
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FOX News: Senate Approves Symbolic Rebuke of Iran
The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a measure sending another rebuke to Tehran, this one aimed at sending a message to the Islamic regime to end military tactics targeting U.S. forces in Iraq. The vote came one day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told international leaders gathered at the U.N. General Assembly that Iran only seeks a peaceful nuclear program, and said that the conversation on the Iranian nuclear program "is now closed." The Senate, showing it was not convinced by Ahmadinejad's proclamations, approved the nonbinding measure on a 76-22 vote. It was sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. The measure -- an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill under consideration in the Senate -- is in response to growing concerns over Iranian support for insurgent activity in Iraq. Military officials say Iranian weapons have been discovered in insurgent hands, and U.S. officials have captured agents with alleged Iranian ties. The amendment calls on the State Department to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as "a foreign terrorist organization." The designation would allowed for more economic sanctions to be set against the country. The measure's opponents, which include Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said the language is too open-ended, and could be construed as Senate authorization to use force against Iran. One portion of the amendment reads: "It is the Sense of the Senate ... that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies." "This proposal ... is Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream. It's not a prescription for success. At best, it's a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy. At worst, it could be read as a back-door method of ... gaining congressional validation for action without one hearing or without serious debate," Webb said Tuesday. At the urging of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, Lieberman and Kyl took steps Tuesday to remove the most controversial parts of their measure. Lieberman said Webb was off-base on his interpretation of his proposal. "Our colleague (Webb) has given the darkest possible interpretation ... There is no intention of declaring war," Lieberman said. Go to http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/001198.html to see an updated list of a few recent reasons for declaring war on Iran. Posted by Forkum (http://www.coxandforkum.com)
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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9/11 LOGIC; IRAN & IAEA; FORD FOUNDATION: PROFOUNDLY ANTI-ISRAEL;
OUR SAUDI & PAKISTANI "ALLIES
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2007. |
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9/11 LOGIC At Ground Zero, today, dozens of young men chanted, "9/11 was an inside job." Inside job? That notion might have a shadow of credibility if the World Trade Center had not been attacked before by leading Islamists. If Pres. Bush wanted to stir a war, he could dramatically have reviewed the many attacks against American targets here and abroad and demanded action against jihad. One hears that Muslims reproduce rapidly. A few months ago, the media cited 1 billion Muslims. Then 1.1 billion. Next, for a few months, 1.2 billion. Recently it was 1.3 billion. On 9/11, I read a reference to 1.4 billion. Not that rapidly! To make the Israel lobby seem all-powerful, Professors Mearsheimer and Walt accused the NY Times of campaigning for Israel against the US national interest. That's a good one! How it must pain the publishers of that ex-Jewish paper, anti-Zionist from the 1920s! The Times pursues the same line as the traditionally anti-Zionist State Dept.. The Times has campaigned against Israeli survival and in favor of Arab take-over of Jewish national patrimony, but would like the Muslim Arabs to behave long enough so that the Times can pretend this is peace-making. I must have written 500 pages about the Times' propaganda techniques that are unfair to Zionism. As I've explained, the State Dept. and the Times harm the US national interest when they work to weaken our Israeli ally against jihad. W. Europeans, who hold a low opinion of the US, are starting to question their own views (shared by most Democrats I meet). Their conventional wisdom is that the US invoked terrorism against it because it went to war against Muslim regimes. Otherwise, the theory goes, there would not be this jihad against us. The problem with that theory is that the terrorism against the US, as against other countries, originated from the growth of Muslim brotherhoods. It was encouraged by the lack, I emphasize, lack of a strong US counter-punch under the Clinton Administration. First came jihad, and then came the Bush Administration's vigorous reaction. The theory about the US engendering terrorism is as invalid for being chronologically out of synch as the theory that Arab Muslims make war on Israel because Israel holds the Territories. First the Arab Muslims made wars on Israel, and then, fighting back, Israel acquired the Territories. IF ISRAEL ADVERTISED FOR THE ANTI-SETTLER POLICE "Dear Turks and Russians: Join our anti-settler police for triple your usual pay. Enjoy beating up religious Jews without fear of prosecution." POLICY ON N. KOREA Think negotiations are the answer to N. Korea's nuclear proliferation? We've negotiated with N. Korea for years. Deadlines pass, but nothing comes of it. Actually, something has come of it. First, in return for promises that N. Korea always breaks, the US and S. Korea have given N. Korea food and fuel. That strengthens the N. Korean regime, the most repressive in the world. Second, absent stiff penalties, N. Korea keeps developing nuclear energy. The State Dept. is over-eager to regularize relations with N. Korea. (That's the weakness of democracies, willingness to take credit for phony problem-solving.) There are some indications that the State Dept. will accept N. Korea's next phony promise as a satisfactory commitment. If N. Korea can't come up with satisfactory language, the State Dept. will. Whisk, the problem is swept away! Or is it? "Precisely because our knowledge of the North's nuclear program is incomplete, we need an intrusive, indeed invasive, verification mechanism before having any confidence that North Korea's nuclear program is in fact being dismantled. We need smart and extensive verification activities inside North Korea, including no-notice inspections, a full range of sensors and sampling, unrestricted interviews and document reviews." "We need to know...how many nuclear weapons the North has manufactured, how and where...how many it now has, and how much reprocessed plutonium remains available for weaponization. If any devices, fissile material or nuclear manufacturing equipment have left North Korea, we need to learn the specifics." "We need to understand the full extent of its uranium enrichment program, and if weapons-grade enriched uranium was produced, where it is and how much... We also need to know specifically if North Korea possesses any enriched uranium metal or any weapons -- or missile warhead-design information." "Pres. Bush has stressed that we must also deal with Pyongyang's biological, chemical and ballistic missile programs...Failure to make explicit the important connection between weapons and delivery systems will certainly come back to haunt us.." "Finally, we need to learn the details of North Korean nuclear cooperation with other countries. We know that [or whether] both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched. Whether and to what extent Iran, Syria or others might be 'safe havens' for North Korea's nuclear weapons development, or may have already participated with or benefited from it, must be made clear." (IMRA, 9/9 from John Bolton.) Syria holds Iraq's nuclear program. IRAN & THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY I encapsulate and analyze news. Not my function to reproduce lengthy and complicated articles. The story about implicit IAEA support for Iran's nuclear military development is lengthy and complicated. Here is a summary. Iran continues to violate international controls and its own agreements to abide by them. Nevertheless, and without benefit of inspection, the IAEA describes Iran's belligerent development as peaceful. It should demand full-scale and intrusive inspection, which has some chance of finding incriminating evidence. The IAEA reports that it is about to conclude discussions with Iran satisfactorily. They discuss old and irrelevant issues, not Iran's continuing uranium enrichment. Non-confrontation is IAEA's poor answer to Iran's confrontation (IMRA, 9/9). HOW DID UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE) DO IT? The UAE issued an amnesty to illegal foreign workers. 300,000 accepted it and departed. Now Dubai has a shortage of construction workers (IMRA, 9/7). How did the UAE do it? Did it discover some method that the US could use to get some millions of our illegals to depart? U.S. EFFECT ON ISRAELI SECURITY Shin Bet security head Diskin said, "We have also seen some sporadic attempts at preventive action on the part of Palestinian security forces..." "They have limited effect, but they show a certain change in policy." (Does "certain" mean a sure, partial, or temporary change? I think, partial and temporary.) Dr. Aaron Lerner commented, "With General Ward and Secretary of State Rice breathing down our necks to literally stake our lives on the ability of Palestinian security forces, the above is the most Diskin can say about the Palestinian 'security forces'". (IMRA, 9/9.) The P.A. has made clear that those forces do not promote the security of Israel (although their agreements with Israel stipulate that they should). Notice that although the P.A. has not ended its jihadist Covenant, jihadist propaganda, and arming of terrorists, the US insists that Israel reduce its defenses against terrorism. The US cites at its reason that this would make more popular the very regime that had not ended its jihadist Covenant, jihadist propaganda, and arming of terrorists. Who says Bush is favorable to Israel? He is pressuring it at the cost of its people's lives. The regime is not patriotic enough to resist. PREJUDICING ONESELF My friends tend not to discuss issues but to demonize Pres. Bush. They declare him wrong about everything, without examining the facts. PRES. ASSAD They tell us that Pres. Assad of Syria is not experienced, smart, or strong. I just read a CBS interview with him. I don't agree with him, but found him conversant with the issues and expert at denial and at the Arab specialty of justifying what he does by citing somewhat similar actions by others. He challenged his critics to produce the evidence behind their accusations against him. SILLY, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT Some commentator is claiming that the US is about to invade Iran. Another commentator suggested thinking about it skeptically. The US does not have enough troops for its present commitment. How could it invade? Similar logic applies to Palestinian Muslim claims that there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount. Think about that. King Herod built a big mount before the Arab conquerors built al-Aqsa mosque atop it. Was that big mount built for nothing? Were all the Roman, Jewish, and Christian historians and chroniclers mistaken about the Jewish Temple on the Mount, writing as they did centuries before it became in the interest of jihad to pretend there was none? LIGHT UNTO THE NATIONS? Judaism charges Israel with the duty to become a light unto the nations. That is difficult to do with an unfair reputation for oppressing the Palestinian Arabs. The opposite is true. Israel has tried to be peaceable and decent with the Palestinan Arabs, but the Arabs commit aggression against the Jews. Opposition to Israel because of religious rivalry, appeasement, business, secularism, and ignorance has made its way into Israel's leadership. As a result, the government of Israel also undermines Judaism. It does this by expelling Jews from parts of their homeland, withdrawing protection from Jewish holy places, diluting the Jewish population by counter-productive immigration policy, turning Jewish land over to Arabs, failing to enforce the law against Arabs, etc.. Since this is not done all at once, and old subsidies persist, many Americans fail to perceive the trend. Israel is teaching the world how to conserve vital water, but that is technology, not ethics. ISRAEL FLOUNDERING Gaza terrorists amass and fire rockets into Israel faster than the minor Israeli raids strike down terrorists and launchers. An IDF base is only one kilometer from Gaza. Parents warned the IDF it is easy target. The IDF paid no heed. A rocket recently wounded 30 soldiers there, at least one fatally (IMRA, 9/10). If Israel had not withdrawn the settlers from Gaza, it would have had patrols out, preventing the rocket-launching. This news confirms my point that the presence of settlers protects troops, not, as proponents of withdrawal said, that troops risk a great deal by protecting settlers. Will those withdrawal proponents stand up and admit their dangerous mistake? SEN. OBAMA'S ADVISOR The book by professors Mearsheimmer and Walt was discovered to have been advertised on Sen. Obama's web site. Obama said the book's theme is just plain wrong. His foreign policy advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former Carter National Security Advisor, defended the book. He credited it with having "rendered a public service by initiating a much-needed public debate on the role of the 'Israel lobby' in the shaping of US foreign policy." Prof. Alan Dershowitz, a chief critic of the book, and an ally of Obama's rival, Sen. Clinton, asks Obama to repudiate his advisor. Brzezinski was known as anti-Israel during the Carter administration and has accused it of war crimes in Lebanon recently. The Obama campaign thought the new controversy contrived (Russell Berman, NY Sun, 9/12). It's not contrived. Brzezinski has a record of blind hostility to Israel that makes him a poor advisor. Worse is when he credits the error-filled book by the bigoted Mearsheimer as a public service. Brzezinski's comment indicates that he thinks there is a problem with the Israel lobby. He thus joins Mearsheimmer and other antisemites in exaggerating Jewish power, their inconsistency glaring in view of the power of the Arab lobby. The difference between the lobbies is that Israel is pro-US while the Arabs are, are least in the long run, anti-American. DAILY TELEGRAPH ERROR ABOUT NAZISM IN ISRAEL Israelis were shocked to find a gang of "home-grown" neo-Nazis, "all recently arrived Russian immigrants" (Tim Butcher, NY Sun, 9/10, p.8). If recently arrived, they are not home-grown. Israelis shouldn't be shocked -- the special police who beat up settlers include antisemites from Russia and Turkey. BARNARD COLLEGE TENURE CASE Up for tenure, a professor of Palestinian Arab origin wrote a book about Israeli use of archeology to form an Israeli identity and to uphold Israel's territorial claims as the ancient home of the Jewish people. Rejecting outside criticism, faculty want to decide the issue, themselves; some call it a matter of academic freedom (Deepti Hajela, NY Sun, 9/12, p.3). Books bear on the matter of tenure, under the old rubric, publish or perish. I didn't read her book, and the news brief fails to cite enough from it for an outsider to form an opinion about her professional worth. If she works with genuine evidence and logic, then disliking her views enough to demand her ouster would be an infringement on academic freedom. If she distorts evidence and logic, then she lacks academic integrity, and doesn't belong in academia. The Jewish people's claims and the world's recognition of Palestine as the Jewish homeland, reflected in the League of Nations Palestine Mandate for the Jews, preceded most of the archeological finds that buttress it. Israel has used archeology as the article states. There is nothing wrong with that, because Israeli archeologists are forthcoming with evidence. The evidence supports Jewish claims. There is no "Palestinian" archeology. Under the present anti-Zionist regime, Muslims are allowed to destroy Jewish archeological artifacts in order the better to deny Jewish claims to Jerusalem and environs. If her book fails to expose the anti-Zionist destruction, then it is tendentious propaganda, evidence of her unworthiness for tenure. BARD COLLEGE PROFESSOR'S ANTI-ZIONIST BOOK CASE Calling Israel an apartheid state, Prof. Joel Kovel wrote in advocacy of rescinding Jewish statehood. The U. of Michigan and a London company published his book. It has been denounced as a "collection of anti-Israel propaganda, misquotes, and discredited news stories." The University Press temporarily halted distribution on the grounds that the book was "hate speech," but resumed distribution on the grounds of free speech (Elizabeth Green, NY Sun, 9/12, p.5). Labels such as "free speech" and "hate speech" can be applied dishonestly or without definition. If publishers meet their obligation to quote accurately, drop discredited news stories, and do not indulge in false propaganda, they should offer various viewpoints; we shouldn't ban authors. I suspect bigotry in ignoring apartheid in Muslim states and erroneously finding it in the Jewish one. MORE ARCHEOLOGICAL CONFIRMATION OF JEWISH CLAIMS Roman historian Tacitus wrote that his contemporary Romans besieged 600,000 Jews in Jerusalem. Israeli archeologists have uncovered the Temple Mount's drainage canal in which, according to Josephus Flavius, some of the besieged hid and escaped from while tens of thousands were crucified (Arutz-7, 9/10). THE PETITION PROF. MEARSHEIMER SIGNED When the US was invading Iraq, Prof. Mearsheimer signed a petition warning that the wartime distraction of the US would give Israel the opportunity to expel all the Arabs from Israel and the Territories. As you know, Israel didn't. Those academics don't understand the Jews they defame. What they warned about is alien to the Jewish people (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/10) though not to me. People ought to laugh Mearsheimer out of academia. DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES BETWEEN THE WITHOUT-FOLLOWERS OLMERT AND BEYOND-WEAK ABBAS 1. Israel would begin withdrawing even before full agreement is reached. (That means the Arabs would gain even if they renege, which they usually do.) 2. "establishment of two states." (Israel already is established. What great principle is there in a 23rd Arab state, a second Arab Palestinian state, and jihadist enemy of Israel and of the US?) 3. "Each evacuated area will be turned over to the P.A. where law and order will prevail. And law and order will be established in Gaza..." (Pie in the sky.) 4. The Arab state would be unarmed. (Oslo couldn't get them to disarm.) 5. Territorial exchange. (Why cede some sovereign Israeli territory to the Arabs, in exchange for keeping some of Judea-Samaria that the Mandate entitle it to? Send Israeli Arabs to their state, the P.A..) 6. Two capitals in Jerusalem, which will cooperate. (The P.A. did not cooperate with Israel, and when Jerusalem last was divided, Arabs shot at the Israelis. 7. Access by both peoples to the holy sites. (Neither side allows Jews access to some holy sites.) 8. Neither state will commit violence against the other (IMRA, 9/11). The P.A. would claim it didn't commit the terrorism it still indoctrinates in, and the world would tell Israel it is committed not to fight back. WHAT POVERTY IN ISRAEL? Israel calls impoverished those earning below 45% of the median reported wage. That means no matter how much income people have, officially, almost half will be called poor. That's ridiculous. The income used by government agencies, which keep their records secret instead of available to economists, includes some people not living in Israel and students, retirees, and others not in the labor force. Billboards post ads against hunger, but there are no available statistics about hunger. Hospital records indicate there is no such problem (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/11). FORD FOUNDATION AGAINST ISRAEL "The Ford Foundation was taken over a few years back in a leftist coup, and ever since its funds have been used to finance the Far Left...Ford steps in where even George Soros fears to tread. Among other things, Ford currently funds the pro-terror jihadis in the Council for American Islamic Relations." "It pumps oodles of dollars into PLO advocacy groups." "The main Jewish anti-Zionist leftist recipient of Ford Foundation wampum is the 'New Israel Fund,' a group devoted to promoting the political agenda of Tikkun Magazine...Without Ford, the New Israel Fund could not afford a felafel. Some of New Israel Fund's activities are harmless political correctness wackiness... They also fund just about every communist front group in Israel, starting with the pro-terror Machsom Watch." "The New Israel Fund was in the news a few days ago when it leapt at the opportunity to sponsor an event in the UK with Haaretz ultra-Israel-hater Danny Rubinstein, so that he could spout his encephelophobic theory about how Israel is an apartheid regime. But that is only the tip of its seditious iceberg. NGO-Monitor has a detailed report on New Israel Fund." "The New Israel Fund people are up to their kafiyas in bed with Azmi Bishara, the treasonous Israeli Knesset Member wanted for espionage." "The 'New Israel' that it seeks to erect is in fact Palestine. Its agenda differs little from that of Israel's own communist party. Among the major beneficiaries of NIF grants are the Arab Association for Human Rights, Hamoked, I'lam, Adalah, Ittijah, the Ahali Center for Community Development, the Arab Association of Human Rights, and Mossawa. Each is essentially an anti-Israel propaganda organization. It turns out Bash-Israel propaganda for a variety of international organizations, and is an apologist for the Hamas. It funds many Arab anti-Israel propaganda groups." "Most democratic countries (including the US) regulate the funding of domestic political groups by those outside the country. How much more so should Israel crack down on these anti-Israel kibitzers, especially when those outsiders doing the funding are seeking to harm that country and fund Israeli sedition" (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/11). HOW THE UNO WORKS Ignoring Libya's oppression, UNO Secretary-Genrral Ban is working with Libya as an intermediary in the Darfur problem. Gadhaffi's help has brought a breakthrough, say Ban's aides, such as an October summit in Libya. Actually, Libya secretly financed and armed Darfur groups and the governments of Chad and Sudan, thereby increasing violence (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 9/11, p.8). A summit is a breakthrough? That's like saying the value of talk is more talk. Ghadaffi is doing what the Arabs often do. After secretly having helped instigate or perpetuate a crisis, the Arab leader takes credit for mediating. WEST'S LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE Hampering its self-defense, many Westerners tend to blame their own governments for Muslim hatred of them. On the other hand, Western police, such as New York City's, understand that the origin of terrorism is not the plot but the radicalizing of Muslims by Islamists (Daniel Pipes, NY Sun, 9/11, p.6). Imagine, police forces have a more advanced and intellectually perceptive understanding of crime than do intellectuals! Many of my own friends blame Pres. Bush's policies for terrorism. If they were informed and alert, they would realize that his policies are a reaction to terrorism, and that Islam always supported imperialism when it could. They are parroting a knee-jerk reaction provided by their ideological newspaper. It writes, they talk. OUR SAUDI & PAKISTANI "ALLIES" S. Arabia has not prosecuted any of the Saudi financiers of al-Qaeda identified for the Saudi authorities by the US. Unhindered by the government, rich Saudis continue to donate millions of dollars each to al-Qaeda. Pakistan rarely attacks al-Qaeda sanctuaries. With Pakistani sanctuaries and Saudi funds, al-Qaeda has been able to train new recruits. The Saudi and Pakistani governments claim the US has not given them evidence, just allegations (9/15). The claim may or may not be true. What is definite is that al-Qaeda gets funds and sanctuaries. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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KNOWING THE ARABS
Posted by Bernice Lipkin, September 30, 2007. | |
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Salah Choudhury is a journalist, a columnist, and Editor and Publisher of Weekly Blitz (www.weeklyblitz.net). He is also a hero of our times. He was arrested by the Banladesh police when he attempted to leave the country to go to a writer's conference in Israel. Since then, he was jailed for 17 months, and has accumulated heavy legal expenses as his trial is scheduled, delayed and rescheduled. He is charged with treason! He looks to us to help meet expenses as well as strike a blow against the jihadists by purchasing his book "Injustice and Jihad.". He recently wrote me this letter:
Below is Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury's article entitled, "Knowing the Arabs." | |
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Almost all the non-Arab Muslim nations consider Arabs as 'brethren' or 'beloved part of Muslim Ummah'. However, let us have a glimpse over the Arab mind. In their mind, those Arabs always hold a kind of superior attitude thus considering most of the poor Muslim nations as 'Miskins' [baggers]. Bangladeshis working in the Middle East are well acquainted to such brutal Arab mentality. Arabs consider themselves to be a kind of superior creations of God and treat all other Muslims, especially those from poor nations to be subject of fulfilling their luster and nasty desires. We know about sexual and otherwise exploitation of tinder-aged boys from poor Muslim nations to Arab countries, especially United Arab Emirates, are not only used as 'Camel Jockeys' but also are molested and sexually abused by Arab sheikhs as well affluent Arabs for decades. This is not the only side of the nasty Arab face. Whenever a poor Bangladeshi would go to Arab countries to work in various projects or offices, they are treated like unconditional slaves by their Arab employers and in some cases even worst. Arab men and women in many cases try to sexually abuse and harass the domestic employees, which is a very common phenomenon. There are at least a few hundred cases of Bangladeshi workers [both male and female] who went to Arab houses as domestic employees, and finally they are back home with the horrifying memories of being sexually abused by their masters. In some cases, Bangladeshi females, who worked in Arab houses came back home with HIV virus infection. In addition, most interestingly, in case of any such incidents, Arab employees mostly remain above the law while there are some instances where male employees were charged with rape charges by the Arab women, who failed to ultimately get the poor workers in meeting their sexual urge. Istiak, a Bangladeshi village youth went to Saudi Arabia as domestic servant in 1997. He was recruited by one of the Arab businessperson who owns large super markets in the country. Istiak's employer had seven wives at home and had a bad habit of attending many more concubines and prostitutes. This made his wives mentally sick and they virtually turned into a kind of beast searching human flesh. Istiak was rather a handsome young man with well-built physical structure as he worked in agricultural fields for years before he found the 'opportunity' of a job in Saudi Arabia. When he went to Kuwait, Istiak found to have been provided a rather luxurious life in comparing to what he has lived since his childhood in Bangladesh. The employer provided him a room at the top floor of his mansion and his job was to keep the house clean. Things were 'excellent' for him for first 18 days after he arrived in Kuwait. Then at one evening, his employer did not come back home. Istiak was asked by his employer's third wife to clean her bedroom right after the supper. The Bangladeshi Youngman innocently went in her room as per instructions and started mopping the floor. At one stage, he was horrified to see that the employer's wife locked the door and went to take shower, asking Istiak not to leave the room. Few minutes later she entered the room by in a panty and short bikini with an ulterior motive of seducing his. He was asked to massage olive oil in her body. Istiak had no option left but to obey her orders in fear of loosing job. Once he started massaging oil, she suddenly grabbed him and forced him into physical relations. The poor man was abused sexually for the whole night and things ended in the morning with some cash incentives to the domestic servant for the 'extra duty' of the night. This was the beginning of horror for the young employee as he was subsequently forced to provide similar 'services' to most of the wives of the Saudi businessman. In a letter written to one of his close friends in Bangladesh, Istiak narrated such stories and told that he was desperately looking for opportunity to get rid of such notoriety. Due to hard work as well sexual exploitations, Istiak was becoming physically ill. Nevertheless, he had no room to complaint or even fell the hellish situation. But, worst things were even waiting for him. One day, right before lunch, one of the seven wives of the Kuwaiti man invited Istiak to her bed room and when they were in extreme intimate situation, suddenly the house master came back home and knocked the door. They wife hurriedly wore clothes and opened the door thus complaining of being attempted to have been raped by the domestic servant. The Saudi employer was angry and called the police instantly. The story ended with Istiak being executed for adultery thus letting the real story of him of being rather sexually exploited by the wives of his employer. We can also look into the sordid story of 21-year-old Bangladeshi women Rina [not real name], who went to Saudi Arabia as hospital nurse at the age of 17. Her parents managed the money to send Rina abroad in search of good fortune. After working in a hospital for almost three months, Rina came into the attention of her Saudi employer who offered her double the salary to work at his house to look after his elderly mother. She accepted the offer and left her job in the hospital to join her employer's domestic job. But, on the second night, some time in the late hours, Rina realized that her employer was already in her bed room. He was looking for physical pleasure with her. But, this was something she never wanted as she was not married yet and did not want to lose her virginity. She tried initially to convince her employer with words saying rape was seriously against Koran and it is one of the worst crimes in religion. But, the employer was drunk and had no intention of leaving her untouched. He forcibly took off her clothes and raped her for consecutive five times, and left her in blood and unconscious condition. This was the very beginning of her nightmare when she had to allow her employer to use her almost every night. Few months later, the Arab employer had another girl from India for the same domestic services as Rina was hired for and she was sent back to Bangladesh with an amount of US$ 2,000 as salary and the cost of her virginity. Two years later she came back from Saudi Arabia, Rina died in a local hospital because of Aids. Human rights groups have highlighted human trafficking problems in Arabi countries for years but in recent years Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were downgraded to Tier-3, the lowest level of compliance. The report evaluates countries' efforts in fighting the trafficking of roughly 800,000, mostly women and children, forced into servitude or the sex trade every year, often lured with false promises of work or other benefits. The downgrade ranks the four Arab Gulf States with such countries as Myanmar and Sudan as well as Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea and Jamaica. Cambodia and Togo were also downgraded to Tier-3 in recent years. Tier-3 lists nations that "do not fully comply with the minimum standards (laid down by U.S. law) and are not making significant efforts to do so." Officials from the Gulf countries have made no comment on the downgrade for a de facto promotion of slavery. Slaves to the Arab Gulf States are imported mostly from Asia to serve as domestic servants and laborers, women prostitutes and boy camel jockeys as young as three, according to the annual report. The report cited the case of a 17-year-old orphan, Lusa, who was kidnapped from Uzbekistan and sold into a slavery ring in the United Arab Emirates. She was eventually "no longer usable" as a prostitute and the Emirates' immigration service said she should serve a two-year prison sentence for entering the country illegally. Saudi Arabia is accused of having turned a blind eye to the problem of poor or low-skilled workers brought into the country and exploited, or who go there voluntarily but find themselves in "involuntary servitude." Saudi employers or members of their families physically and sexually abuse migrants, withhold pay and travel documents and use migrant children as forced beggars, the report said. "We have domestic workers being brought in from many countries into domestic servitude, child beggars, a lot of beatings, reports of beatings and rape." Worst stories are not only coming from the ordinary employers in the Arab countries, but even from those dictatorial monarchs. We all have heard about those nasty stories inside Arab palaces within 'most-restricted' Princess of royal families. It is needless to mention as to how much 'naughty' the Arab kings and Princes are. Sexual abuse is possibly one of the very regular stories inside the palaces, just like morning breakfast. But, also we need to know the brutalities in the palaces with the poor domestic helps. In 1991, two servants of Prince Saad Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his wife, Princess Noora, who lived on two floors of the Ritz-Carlton in Houston, filed a lawsuit against the prince. They said they were held for five months against their will, "by means of unlawful threats, intimidation and physical force." They claimed say they were only partially paid, were denied medical treatment, and suffered mental, physical and sexual abuse. In 1988, the Saudi defense attaché in Washington, Colonel Abdulrahman S. Al-Banyan, employed a Thai domestic worker until she escaped his house by crawling out a window. She later said that she had been imprisoned there, did not get enough food, and was not paid. Her work contract specified that she could not leave the house or make telephone calls without her employer's permission. In 1982, a Miami judge issued a warrant to search Prince Turki Bin Abdul Aziz's 24th-floor penthouse to determine if he was holding an Egyptian woman, Nadia Lutefi Mustafa, against her will. Mr. Turki and his French bodyguards prevented a search from taking place, then won retroactive diplomatic immunity to forestall any legal unpleasantness. Bahrain is one of the alluring destinations for women and men who migrate legally but fall victim to conditions of sexual servitude, debt bondage or conditions of work that constitute involuntary servitude. The government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Bahraini law does not criminalize homosexual relationships between consenting adults aged 21 and over. The adult prevalence rate of persons with HIV/AIDS is reported at 0.2%, with fewer than 600 people said to be living with HIV/AIDS. Most of the Bangladeshi workers [especially female], who went to Bahrain with employment had been sexually abused by their employers and came back home with numerous nightmares of such incidents. But, do the Arabs in general feel ashamed of what they are doing with the poor workers employed from foreign countries especially those Muslim nations? The reply is, certainly not. Because, the Arabs consider non-Arab Muslims as a kind of inferior creatures. They believe that, by sexually or otherwise abusing these poor Muslims, they commit no crime. |
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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM?
Posted by Steven Shamrak, September 30, 2007. |
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Point 1: Most people base their ideas and opinions on emotions, beliefs and assumptions, not on facts. Blinded by personal psycho-emotional history, we dismiss out of hand the logic of the facts and create assumptions to fit and support our own belief systems. Point 2: Completely opposite ideologies: Communists, Socialists, Fascists, many Christian branches and Islamists find themselves united on one issue only -- Hatred of the Jewish State. At the same time, the Western democracies, Russia and the Arab states are quite happy to maintain instability in the Middle-East region, which allows them to raise the price of oil, using Israel as a scapegoat. Quite often I am accused of being a Right wing propagator. I wonder why? I do not promote Communism or Capitalism. and I am not a member of any political party. I can't understand why, in relation to Israel's right to exist and to the right of Jewish people to live in peace on the land of their ancestors there are Right or Left wing political points of view. Isn't it supposed to be a point of view based on historical facts? Why do those 'bleeding-heart liberals' jump with unconditional support for any national minority liberation movement, but not the Jewish one? Just because I do not support the stupid 'political correctness' of current the Jewish leadership, do not like the self-hating attitude of many Jews (which has been developed after the sanctuaries of enduring anti-Semitism) and refuse to bow to Jew-haters -- it does not make the Right wing extremist. But, because I base my conclusions on facts, logic and self-respect it makes me Right! Police arrested 64 Arab residents of areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority on Saturday in and around Tel Aviv. Food for Thought. When Jewish leadership and the Jewish press do not support Zionism -- The Jewish National Liberation movement and ignoring the fact that most of the Jewish land is still under Arab occupation, what can we expect from others! Fighting Against Self. Over two dozen special-unit members and regular policemen burst into the homes of three Land of Israel activists Wednesday. The three Jews were arrested on suspicion of planning the construction of a new settlement in Judea and Samaria (Yesha). The police also confiscated items such as orange hats, bumper stickers and T-shirts promoting with the most common slogan: "Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) -- We Continue with Our Heads Held High." (Who is the enemy? Why are Jewish patriots arrested?) Rain of Mortar Shells and Rockets. At the time when Jews in Israel celebrate Sukkot Gaza-based terrorists fired four Kassam rockets and some 25 mortar shells at Israeli towns in the western Negev Wednesday morning. New Energy Source for Israel. Israeli biomass energy start-up company Genova is setting up its first pilot plant, using olive pits to make energy. An engineer Dr Yuri Wladislawsky, who immigrated to Israel from Tbilisi, Georgia in 1996, came up with a new way of burning the biomass, organic waste. When will Stupidity End? The IDF is working on a proposal that calls for a "complete disengagement" from the Gaza Strip -- involving the closure of all border crossings with Israel and the transfer of all responsibility over the Gaza Strip to Egypt. The proposal was recently raised by Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky. (1. Gaza is the land of Israel! 2. Egypt has been facilitating the Gaza violence and has already several times rejected the idea. 3. Wouldn't it be more effective and easier to transfer all 'Palestinians' to Sinai?) Quote of the Week: "I have spent a full year in prison... I regret the lack of interest on the part of the Israeli Government and the Israel Defence Forces in my case..." -- Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the first sign of life from the young serviceman since he was abducted. A recorded message released by Hamas. -- Hamas kidnapped and is holding an Israeli soldier! How much more proof does Israel's government need that it is time to take decisive action and clear Gaza of its Hamas infected, hostile population! Ramallah-Lynch Terrorist Nabbed. IDF soldiers have arrested the last of the PA terrorists responsible for the brutal lynching of two IDF reservists in Ramallah seven years ago. Soldiers apprehended 36-year-old Tanzim (Fatah) terrorist Hayman Zaben. Shadow of Arafat's Homosexuality. According to the Jerusalem Post, Hamas and Fatah have recently issued several statements accusing senior members of the rival terror group of engaging in homosexual sex and adultery. Hamas has made similar allegations against Fatah for months. Olmert is Still Delusional. PM Ehud Olmert spoke in favor of continuing negotiations with the PA. In the past, he said, Israel had no partner for peace, but now Olmert praised PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as a "moderate." He said he planned to continue releasing terrorist prisoners as a "gesture" to Abbas. (How many 'gestures' for nothing can Israel afford and why do we keep making them?) Is It a Freedom of Speech? Knesset guards, last Monday, forced children of Jewish prisoners to change their shirts because they bore pictures of their fathers. The children accompanied their families to a meeting with Public Security Minister Avi Dichter (Kadima), protesting the government agreement to free terrorists while leaving their fathers in jail. In Honour of the Victims of Hevron Massacre. The Hevron Jewish Community accused the Israeli Government of breach of trust, abuse, and hostility towards the Jewish owners of Arab-stolen property in the City of the Patriarchs and preventing "the return of the Jewish properties to their owners, and to prevent the correction of the historic injustice of the 1929 pogroms". Entitled "The State of Israel's Management of the Stolen Jewish Property in Hevron," the report was issued in honor of the 78th anniversary of the Hevron massacre, when Arabs brutally murdered 67 of their Jewish neighbours in their homes and in the local yeshiva. The Jewish survivors were then removed from Hevron, leaving behind their homes and land to be stolen by the Arabs. Jewish Contribution to Humanity: MARCEL Marceau (born as Marcel Mangel) a Holocaust survivor, who revived the art of mime and brought poetry to silence, died in Paris at the age of 84. He was born in the Alsatian town of Strasbourg on March 22, 1923. After his father was killed by the Nazis in 1944 Marcel joined his elder brother in the Resistance and later he joined the French Army. One-State Solution -- Unpublished Letter by Steven Shamrak. I sent this letter to "The Australian Jewish News" a while ago, as a reply to several letters about 'Two-States solution' and 'Jordanian option' (transfer control of the West Bank to Jordan) that had been published by the paper. As usual it was not printed. Pro-Zionist ideas are considered as radical, but ideas based on self-hate and treason are not! The idea of a two-state solution has become the only focus of the peace process in the Middle East. For many years Israel has tried education, negotiation, economic stimulation, political and territorial sacrifice. Israel gave control of the West bank and Gaza to the PA after the Oslo agreement. Nothing has worked so far! The idea has failed to bring peace to Israel, just more terror. The idea of the removal of 240,000 Jews from their ancestral land, Judea and Samaria, does not shock "Peace Now" supporters. At the same time they are rejecting the idea of the transfer of Arabs from Jewish land. Why is the idea of giving up Jewish land to enemies, whose goal is the complete destruction of the State of Israel, not considered radical, but advocating the rights of Jewish people to the land of their ancestors is? The fact that our enemies, not just Arabs, have been persistently working on a one-state solution, a Muslim state without Jews, is completely ignored by many Jews! Recently, a new Islamic order has emerged in the Gaza Strip. People have started to talk about three or four states on Jewish land: Israel, Jordan, Fatahstan and Hamastan. Any idea is acceptable for consideration, but not the Jewish one! Peace in Israel and the two-state solution are mutually exclusive. One-state alternative: Israel as the Jewish state on all Jewish lands is the only effective way to bring peace and end Arab terror in Israel permanently. Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com |
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ARMY TOLD NOT TO USE ISRAELI BULLETS IN IRAQ
Posted by Michael Travis, September 30, 2007. |
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The first item below was a comment posted by "Father of a Soldier" on the
September 26, 2006 issue of Atlas Shrugged The second is an older article from the Useful Fools website -- exposing
the fools in media, academia, the Left, and elsewhere
Apropos the Atlas article bemoaning the perfectly reasonable expressions of Israel hatred oozing from the State Dept............... Please remember, using translators provided by the enemy is encouraged, supplying first-rate ammunition to our troops is not. |
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Israeli-made bullets bought by the U.S. Army to plug a shortfall should be used for training only, not to fight Muslim guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. lawmakers told Army generals on Thursday. Since the Army has other stockpiled ammunition, "by no means, under any circumstances should a round (from Israel) be utilized," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, the top Democrat on a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee with jurisdiction over land forces. The Army contracted with Israel Military Industries Ltd. in December for $70 million in small-caliber ammunition. The Israeli firm was one of only two worldwide that could meet U.S. technical specifications and delivery needs, said Brig. Gen. Paul Izzo, the Army's program executive officer for ammunition. The other was East Alton, Illinois-based Winchester Ammunition, which also received a $70 million contract. Although the Army should not have to worry about "political correctness," Abercrombie was making a valid point about the propaganda pitfalls of using Israeli rounds in the U.S.-declared war on terror, said Rep. Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the subcommittee on tactical air and land forces. "There's a sensitivity that I think all of us recognize," Weldon told the Army witnesses, including Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, who led the U.S. Third Infantry Division that captured Baghdad in April 2003. Blount, now the Army's assistant deputy chief of staff, said the Army had sufficient small caliber ammunition -- 5.56mm, 7.62mm and .50 caliber -- to conduct current operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. But taken together with training needs, the United States had strained its production facilities, he testified. "To fight a major combat operation in another theater will require the Army to impose restrictions on training expenditures and to focus current inventory and new production on combat operations," Blount said. As a result, he said the Army hoped to stretch U.S. supplies to supplement the capacity of the government-owned Lake City plant in Independence, Missouri, that currently makes more than 90 percent of U.S. small caliber ammunition. The Lake City factory, operated by Alliant Techsystems Inc., has nearly quadrupled its production in the past four years. This year, it will produce more than 1.2 billion rounds, Karen Davies, president of the ATK arm that runs it, told the panel. Lake City provided more than 2 billion rounds a year during World War II and Vietnam, she said. The Army's needs will grow to about 1.5 billion to 1.7 billion rounds a year in coming years, Blount said. "In the near-term, balancing training requirements with current operational needs is a manageable risk-mitigation strategy," he said. The Army does not want to repeat its history of building capacity during wartime "only to dismantle it in peacetime," Blount added. "Army Cannot Use Jewish Bullets"
You know, sometimes the craziest ideas come up: Israeli-made bullets bought by the U.S. Army to plug a shortfall should be used for training only, not to fight Muslim guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. lawmakers told Army generals on Thursday. Since the Army has other stockpiled ammunition, "by no means, under any circumstances should a round (from Israel) be utilized," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, the top Democrat on a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee with jurisdiction over land forces. [ ... ] Although the Army should not have to worry about "political correctness," Abercrombie was making a valid point about the propaganda pitfalls of using Israeli rounds in the U.S.-declared war on terror, said Rep. Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the subcommittee on tactical air and land forces. "There's a sensitivity that I think all of us recognize," Weldon told the Army witnesses, including Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, who led the U.S. Third Infantry Division that captured Baghdad in April 2003. I once had lunch with a mercenary who had found Muslims in Africa. His group always greased their bullets with pigfat. Sounds fine to me. If they're worth killing, they're worth offending.
Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com
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SHAMEFUL!
Posted by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, September 30, 2007. |
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I find it astonishing and shameful that nothing has been learned from our recent history. How is it possible that just sixty short years after Hitler, a new Hitler is being feted at one of New York's most prestigious institutions -- Columbia University? Can it be that anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugly head -- even in America? Or is that which we are witness to, an indication of academic absurdity -- academicians who are leaning so far to the left that they are actually legitimizing terrorism... How else can one interpret Columbia President Lee Bollinger's decision to invite one of the most evil men of our time to speak in the hallowed halls of Columbia University in the guise of "Freedom of Speech."? Yes, I am very much aware that President Bollinger made some very tough cutting statements when introducing Ahmadinejad, But that does not alter the fact that a man sworn to the destruction of America, a man who is responsible for the murder of American soldiers, a man who spreads terror throughout the world, is given a platform in a university from which he can address all of America and the entire world. And I didn't even make mention of his denial of the Holocaust and his determination to annihilate Israel. Yes, I know that this is all in the name of freedom of speech there are many who will protest, asking, "Isn't this what America is all about? Isn't this the freedom of speech that the founding fathers of our great republic guaranteed for all its inhabitants? No! This is not what those visionaries had in mind. As a matter of fact, it is a perversion of everything they stood for. Yes, America is a most wonderful country, and I, a survivor of the Holocaust have never lost sight of its many blessings... and yes, it is blessed precisely because it guarantees freedom to every man -- but not freedom to abuse those rights... not freedom to pervert the truth, not freedom to advocate oppression, terror, murder, and the obliteration of a people. No, that's not the freedom that our founding fathers dreamt of -- and one need not be a dean, a professor, or a student at an Ivy League University to recognize this. Long ago, at the very genesis of our history, we, the Jewish people, were taught the simple truth: Hachayim V'Hamoves B'yod Haloshon -- "Life and death are in the tongue" It was with his lethal tongue that Hitler brought a conflagration upon the world. Mind you, he never lifted a gun or fired a bullet, but his tongue did it all. Yes, he drenched the world in blood and slaughtered six million of our people with his tongue. It was with his frenzied, satanic oratory that he galvanized almost the entire world against our people. Moreover, this did not take place in the primitive, dark, middle ages, but in enlightened, twentieth century Europe. And we dare not forget that the nation that produced Hitler, the culture that nurtured him, was the bedrock of academia which prided itself on its intellectual achievement, its sensitivity to the arts and its sophistication in the sciences. Yes, that was twentieth century Germany, the seat of world intelligentsia. And now we are witness, G-d forbid, to a repeat performance. There is no real difference between the agendas of Ahmadinejad and Hitler. They share the same goals and employ the same methods. Dean John Coatsworth of Columbia has no problem with this comparison and readily conceded that if Hitler was alive today, he too would be invited to speak -- all in the name of freedom of speech. But there is a grotesque double standard here. This same university has barred many conservatives from speaking including our own military -- ROTC, and this same university would never allow a man on campus who advocated that Moslems or Africans be wiped off the map So why is Ahmadinejad, who calls for the destruction of Israel invited? Still, there are those who will argue that, "Despite everything, you have to talk to these demagogues. You have to allow them to express themselves. Well, we have a precedent for that as well. Remember Chamberlain announcing that he had had a great meeting with Herr Hitler? Remember how, after his celebrated discussion with that demagogue, he displayed a worthless piece of paper and assured the world that we would have "peace in our time". The Chamberlains of today would have us believe that if we enter into dialogue with Ahmadinejad, and give him a platform from which he can spew forth his venom, we will achieve "peace", but that peace will be as catastrophic as that of Chamberlain, -- a peace that resulted in Holocaust. To be sure, there are some fine differences between yesterday and today. After his meeting with Hitler, Chamberlain just waved a piece of paper -- but Columbia's Bollinger handed Ahmadinejad a microphone through which he was able to address the world and thus legitimize himself.. But the most devastating difference between Ahmadinejad and Hitler is that if Ahmadinejad is permitted to pursue his goal, he will have weapons available to him that Hitler never dreamt possible, weapons which, at the push of a button, could G-d forbid, wipe Israel off the map. Irony of ironies, this man who is scheming a new Holocaust, denied that a Holocaust ever occurred, and very cleverly protested that, as an academician, he was merely requesting scholarly research to determine the veracity of the Holocaust, even as one would research physics. And he went on to express concern for the Palestinians, who for the past sixty years have been oppressed, tortured, and murdered by the Zionists." "Why," he pleaded, "should these unfortunate Palestinians be penalized for Europe's problems with its Jews? There is no place for a Zionist state in the homeland of the Palestinians." When asked if he plans to annihilate Israel, he once again pleaded the cause of the Palestinians and launched into his predictable rhetoric. Pressed to give a "yes" or "no" answer, he waxed eloquent on his love for all people, including the Jews who live under his regime. Amazingly, while all this was transpiring, no one hissed, no one booed...And worse, he was actually applauded! And yet, just a year ago, this same Columbia audience booed and drove Jim Gilchrist of the Minutemen (the right-wing organization that is anti illegal immigration) off the stage. But there was still more. When asked about the oppression of women and the persecution of homosexuals, he very sincerely protested that the Iranians love women and kiss their mothers' hands. As for homosexuals -- they just don't exist in Iran as they do in the U.S. Incredibly, no one jumped up to protest; no one pointed out to him that kissing your mother's hand and loving women has nothing to do with laws that subjugate, oppress, and give license to execute them. And if there are no homosexuals in his country, it is because he killed them all off. This is all the more shocking, since this same Columbia University refused to allow the ROTC on campus on the grounds that they discriminate against gays. Surely, you don't have to be a Columbia academician to discern such simple truths. When questioned about nuclear weapons, he self-righteously claimed that Iran was pursuing nuclear research for peaceful purposes...and of course, he denied being responsible for the murder of our American soldiers; and skirted the issue by speaking about the terrorism inflicted on Iran. And so it went, on and on. What I found most jarring however, was the applause with which the Columbia audience responded, To be sure, at one point, when Ahmadinejad claimed that there were no homosexuals in Iran, there was laughter and some hissing, but that was just one isolated instance. However, when the annihilation of Israel and Holocaust denial was the subject, there was no protest, no hissing -- but there was applause! True to their leftist persuasion, these Ivy League students found the gumption to protest the oppression of homosexuals, but when this despicable monster spewed forth his obscene lies regarding the Holocaust and Israel, there was no hissing, but there was applause! So, you might well ask, "What is happening in America? What are we doing to ourselves? Contact the Hineni Organization at webmaster@hineni.org |
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REASONS FOR A "MISSION TO SDEROT"
Posted by Dawn Treader, September 30, 2007. |
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This comes from William Blesch. |
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As some of you may know, my name is William Blesch, and I am an American/Israeli professional filmmaker. The following link to a video entitled Reasons for a "Mission to Sderot" on YouTube.com, is an interview director William Blesch conducted with Jeremy Gimpel of Israel National Radio. It was shot by Director of Photography, Chris Obal. The purpose of the video is to help gain funding for a much larger, feature length documentary on the town of Sderot and the situation evolving in the southern Negev. To view the video, please go to: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2eKFvCudog" A full informational packet is available. To request a packet, please E-mail the director here: dawntreader3@yahoo.com The issue of Sderot is so important. There are thousands of people who have no clue what is going on. I would love to urge anyone who cares, to put those with means of funding, in touch with the filmmakers. Best Regards,
Contact Dawn Treader at dawntreader3@yahoo.com |
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YES, WE HAVE NO HOMOSEXUALS
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 30, 2007. | |
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[Editor's note: The cartoon is from Cox and Forkum and not part of Dr. Plaut's article.] | |
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You may recall that old song, "Yes we have no bananas," written by two yiddin (Frank Silver and Irving Cohn in 1923)
Original Lyrics, worth reading, can be seen here:
It seems that a new version is now necessary, thanks to Ahmadinejed, recovering from his trip to the Upper West Side, and similars from the world of Islamofascism, insisting that there are no gays in the House of Islam. First, here is Joseph Massad (the jihadnik from Columbia University), commenting on tales of Gay Ramallah! No Castro Streets for us, please, we are Arabs! (Or, The ZIONISTS Make us Gay!)
We also thought these new lyrics, slightly adopted from Silver and Cohn, might work well: There are no fruits on our street
When you the Ayatollah anything, he always answers "no".
"Yes! We have no homosexuals
Yes! We have no homosexuals
Meanwhile, More on Yes we have No Homosexuals from the Jerusalem Post. It's entitled "Fatah-Hamas mired in tawdry accusation" and was written by Khaled Abu Toameh. It appeared September 29, 2007.
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. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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NORWEGIANS GIVING AID TO QUR'AN SCHOOLS IN PAKISTAN ... DHIMMITUDE KILLS !!!
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 30, 2007. | |||||
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"Liberalism is a mental illness." Here's another example of it. Dhimmitude Kills !!! The population of Norway is 4 million. 20% are immigrants. There are over 200 000 muslims, in 20 years time, that 20% population will have risen to 80%. The Norwegians will be shaking their heads still, and saying "Oh, we are so multicultural." Consider, say, the Pakistanis who settled in Norway during the 1970s at already adult age: Practically all of these became Norwegian citizens after a few years, although most of them married compatriots. Their children were thus born in Norway with a Norwegian citizenship, but are for all practical purposes Pakistani. Now these children born in the seventies, who import spouses in even larger numbers than their parents and are more devotedly Islamic than their parents, are themselves in child-bearing age. This third generation now counts as perfectly Norwegian and no longer contributes to the total estimated number of Muslims, making the statistics look less frightening.... A country I can avoid ... plus Their products. The socialist Norwegians love the fact that they are literally giving their nation away -- it makes one simply sick. This is from Norway also.
In fact; I'm shocked that Norway hasn't offered to move all the madrassas right to Oslo directly. Norwegians giving aid to Qur'an schools in Pakistan This next comes from the September 25, 2007 Dhimmi Watch on Jihad
Watch | |||||
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118 of them. Will they welcome the graduates into Norway? "Critics blast Norwegian aid to 'Koran schools' in Pakistan," from Aftenposten (thanks to Fjordman): Norway's Foreign Ministry has been sending financial aid to controversial religious schools in Pakistan. Researchers and local Pakistani experts want it to stop, as does a conservative politician. Government Minister Erik Solheim said the aid was aimed at promoting dialogue and religious tolerance. Critics aren't at all sure that's what will happen. As much as NOK 6 million (more than USD 1 million) has gone to 118 so-called "Koran schools" in northwest Pakistan. Some local experts, however, fear Norway risks supporting fundamentalist groups because it makes no demands on the schools' curriculum. Karin Ask, a researcher at the Christian Michelsen Institute, told newspaper Dagsavisen that Norway could wind up even supporting jihadists, those encouraging holy war. These are some comments to the story on Norway supporting the madrassas. In addition there were a few that the minimized number of immigrants and discounted their hostility.
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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WHERE IS THE ISSUE OF EDUCATION FOR PEACE IN THE OLMERT-RICE-ABBAS INITIATIVE?
Posted by JCPA, September 30, 2007. |
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This essay was written by Dore Gold and is Volume 7, #15,
September 25, 2007 Jerusalem Issue Brief, published by
Institute for Contemporary Affairs
at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA).
It is archived at
Dr. Dore Gold, Israel's ambassador to the UN in 1997-99, is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and author of The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (Regnery, 2007). |
Why Oslo Failed The U.S. and Israel are in the midst of intense negotiations to prepare a joint Israeli-Palestinian declaration for the planned Washington peace conference scheduled for November 2007. The intended purpose of the declaration is to provide a "political horizon" for the future Palestinian state that presumably will strengthen politically moderate elements in the Palestinian Authority (PA) who prefer a negotiated settlement of the conflict with Israel over the Hamas strategy of ongoing "resistance." The underlying assumption of this diplomatic approach is that Palestinian moderation will grow by focusing on the most difficult permanent status issues -- and giving the Palestinians a taste of the shape of a final settlement -- instead of getting bogged down in other interim goals of peacemaking. Yet one of the glaring oversights in this strategy is the whole issue of the Palestinians' commitment to undertake programs for their schools to advance education for peace and to halt incitement more generally. Since Yasser Arafat's death in November 2004, incitement has abated in some respects. There are no calls in Palestinian Authority-controlled media on the Palestinian population to enter into active conflict with the Israel Defense Forces as there were at the height of the Second Intifada. Nonetheless, in 2007 there has been an ongoing use of hostile terminology, even in Fatah-dominated news outlets, including references to towns within pre-1967 Israel, like Ashkelon and Sderot, as being "occupied." And virulent anti-Semitism continues in the Hamas media. Worse still, throughout 2007, political cartoons in the official PA daily al-Hayat al-Jadida utilized anti-Semitic motifs which dehumanize Jews as insects or as a sinister worldwide force with blood on its hands.[1] When former U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross sought to understand the failure of the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, in which he was an active participant, he zeroed in on the need to bring about a "transformation" of political attitudes that the Palestinian leadership failed to encourage.[2] Yasser Arafat, according to Ross, "continued to promote hostility toward Israel."[3] Ross pointed to the education that Palestinian children received at summer camps. He concluded "that no negotiation is likely to succeed if there is one environment at the negotiating table and another on the street."[4] Given the critical importance that Ross assigns to this issue in his effort to grapple with the lessons of the peace process from nearly a decade of experience, it is striking that in the public discourse concerning the upcoming peace conference, almost nothing has been said about Palestinian incitement or the Palestinian educational system. Moreover, the need to address the fundamental issue of incitement in the Palestinian education system appears to be growing. During the visit of a delegation of U.S. Congressmen led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) to Ramallah in August 2007, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad frankly admitted that the Palestinian Authority was not promoting a program of education for peace: "You wouldn't call our curriculum a 'peace curriculum.'" This response came after successive questions on the subject by members of Congress, who perceived Fayad's statement as an admission that efforts to stop the incitement had not been successful. Cantor interpreted his response to mean that there wasn't willingness on the part of the PA to insist on a peace curriculum.[5] Little Improvement in Palestinian Textbooks The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, which has prepared five analyses over the years on the content of Palestinian Authority textbooks, is now completing a sixth analysis of PA textbooks for the years 2006 and 2007. Dr. Arnon Groiss, who is heading the project, noted some improvements in eleventh grade Palestinian textbooks during 2005 in which the name "Israel" appeared for the first time in maps in the text. References to ancient Jewish history were also mentioned, as well as the importance of inter-religious tolerance. However, there now seems to be a regression to the use of more hostile language including references in the latest twelfth grade texts to jihad and martyrdom. Emphasis on the need for steadfastness against the enemies of Islam returned to the texts for the twelfth grade as well. "Israel" was removed from all the maps in the text. Moreover, religious education in the West Bank is being handled through the Palestinian Ministry for Religious Endowments (Awqaf) -- even under the Fatah-dominated government in the West Bank -- which still uses older textbooks. This arrangement allows the Palestinian Authority to circumvent any minimal reforms instituted in the Palestinian Ministry of Education and to maintain hostile propaganda against Israel in Palestinian schools. Education for Peace was an Oslo Requirement The idea of halting Palestinian incitement and promoting education for peace has been a legal undertaking that the Palestinian leadership took upon itself throughout the Oslo peace process. In Article XXII of the September 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo II), Israel and the PLO agreed "to foster mutual understanding and tolerance." They specifically obligated themselves to "abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda, against each other." Finally, Israel and the PLO agreed to "ensure that their respective educational systems contribute to the peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples." Abbas personally agreed to defining "preventing incitement and hostile propaganda" as a "Palestinian obligation" in the January 1997 Note for the Record that accompanied the Hebron Protocol. The Note for the Record was signed by Dennis Ross, on behalf of the United States. In the October 1998 Wye River memorandum, the Palestinians undertook to issue a decree which built on the Interim Agreement and the Note for the Record, prohibiting all forms of incitement to violence and terror "and to establish an enforcement mechanism."[6] To its credit, on the declarative level the Bush administration has repeatedly spoken up about the problem of incitement. For example, in January 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Arab states to boost the peace process by ending anti-Israel incitement.[7] In March 2007, she revealed that the U.S. was discussing with the Palestinians an end to incitement against Israel in schools, and to print maps that included the State of Israel.[8] These statements aside, the primary question is how combating incitement is woven into the legal fabric of the obligations of the parties as the peace process proceeds. What happens if the Arab states or the Palestinians persist to foster racial hatred? Does the international community just move on and expect fresh concessions from Israel in order to keep up forward momentum? What happened to past U.S.-Israel understandings on reciprocity -- that Israel does not proceed forward until the Palestinians fulfill their obligations? The Road Map: End Palestinian Incitement Before Negotiations The April 2003 Quartet Roadmap, drafted under the auspices of the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and the UN Secretariat, also touched on the issue of incitement, but it is less detailed than the Oslo Agreements. The Roadmap envisions a three-phase diplomatic process toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the outset of Phase I, the Roadmap obligates the Palestinian leadership to issue an "unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security." There are no negotiations whatsoever about Palestinian statehood, according to the Roadmap, until the Palestinians' Phase I obligations are fully met. Besides demanding an "unconditional ceasefire," the Roadmap insists already at this initial phase that "all official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel."[9] This language makes only an implicit reference to Palestinian educational institutions. Subsequently in Phase I, the Palestinian Authority is supposed to begin dismantling the military infrastructures of terrorist organizations, while the Arab states must halt all funding to them (e.g., Saudi aid to Hamas). Bypassing the Roadmap? Only after Phase I obligations are met, the Quartet then convenes an international conference in order to "launch a process, leading to establishment of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders." Indeed, in the past, the U.S. Congress has taken the firm position that a Palestinian state should not be recognized until the Palestinian Authority takes "effective steps to ensure that its educational and communications systems promote the acceptance of Israel's existence and of peace with Israel and actively discourage anti-Israel incitement."[10] Up until this time, there has been strong bipartisan backing in Congress which has included Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) embrace of the February 2007 Palestinian Media Watch report on Palestinian textbooks in the U.S. Senate.[11] The current effort of Secretary of State Rice to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for a November 2007 joint declaration in Washington over the parameters of a future Palestinian state essentially circumvents the Bush administration's own 2003 Roadmap sequence. Under such conditions, critical Palestinian obligations appearing in the Roadmap tend to be superseded in preparatory discussions by the larger permanent status issues, like borders, Jerusalem, and refugees. It is in this context that the Palestinian obligations to educate schoolchildren for peace -- and not jihad -- can fall between the cracks, despite the lessons from the Oslo years of the importance of assuring a transformation of Palestinian attitudes and eradicating incitement. This leaves Israel highly exposed, for while Rice has been working with Abbas and Olmert, according to Ahmed Yusef, political advisor to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Fatah and Hamas have been engaging in secret backchannel negotiations to restore their relationship.[12] The planned Olmert-Abbas declaration, it will be argued, is only an outline of a "political horizon" for the future. But how can Israel obligate itself on sensitive issues of borders or security already if it is in the dark over what kind of Palestinian neighbor it will have, especially if that neighbor still teaches the toxic hatred that undermined previous efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace? Notes [1]"The Distribution of Virulent Anti-Israeli and Anti-Semitic Hate
Propaganda Continues in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Although
Incitement in the Official Media Has Abated under Abu Mazen,"
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for
Special Studies (C.S.S.), December 5, 2005,
2 Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004), p. 765. 3 Ross, p. 766. 4 Ross, p. 769. 5 Author's e-mail exchange with Rep. Eric Cantor, September 23, 2007. 6 "The Wye River Memorandum," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
October 23, 1998. See
7 "Rice Says Syria Risks Long-Term Rift with U.S. Over Iraq Role,"
Voice of America, GlobalSecurity.org, January 18, 2005,
8 "Rice to Palestinians: End Incitement Against Israel,"
YNetnew.com, March 21, 2007,
9 "A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to
the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," Press Statement, Office of the
Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, April 30, 2003,
10 Aaron D. Pina, "Palestinian Education and the Debate Over
Textbooks," Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, April
27, 2005,
11 "Senator Hillary Clinton Introducing PMW Report on Palestinian
Schoolbooks," Palestinian Media Watch, February 8, 2007,
12 Khaled Abu Toameh, "Abbas Ready to Settle Tough Issues,"
Jerusalem Post, September 20, 2007,
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NEW NATIONAL SYMBOL
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 30, 2007. |
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This was forewarded to me by Irene. The new symbol probably fits many governments, no? |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il |
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BEWARE THE "MODERATE" PA; CEDE LAND, GET WAR; PEACE NOW'S DUPLICITY; COMING SOON, ANOTHER HOLOCAUST
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2007. |
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WHO ARE THE AMNESTIED TERRORISTS? The 178 terrorists whom Israel has taken off the wanted list as they sign pledges to abjure terrorism include almost the entire leadership of Fatah. The leaders are least likely to keep their pledges to infidels. They will revive Fatah terrorism! HOW TO GAIN MUSLIM GOODWILL Israel releases terrorists to the P.A., where many of them resume their depredations. PM Olmert claims this would obtain Muslim goodwill and strengthen Abbas. He rationalizes that the freed terrorists did not "have blood on their hands." If they wounded Israelis, they spilled actual blood, but Israel uses that vague phrase "blood on their hands to obscure its appeasement's infamy. As it matters which are released! What matters is their ill will. Given another chance to plan or conduct terrorist raids, they may very well draw Israeli blood. Now Israel is considering escalating the releases to include terrorists who did injure Israelis, some from before the Oslo Accords. Here's how to obtain Muslim goodwill. As the Muslims are released, issue them weapons and stand unarmed Israeli civilians in front of them. Let them mow down the Israelis. That would put the Muslims in a good frame of mind. A sure-fire way to strengthen Abbas would be to capture thousands more terrorists and radical imams, and execute them. There would be nobody left to contest Abbas' rule or to commit anarchy. EXAMPLE OF DANGER OF POWER Judaism's main principles have been summed up as devotion to Torah, the People, and the Land. But Israel's Shas Party of Ultra-Orthodox Sephardim has used its political power to advance its religious institutions to the detriment of People and Land. In return for government subsidy, it lets hostile parties retain power. Recently, it let Sharon and Olmert brutally expel religious and patriotic Jews from parts of the Jewish homeland -- Gaza and northern Samaria. Then its leader directed his usually obedient followers in Knesset to vote in as President Shimon Peres, arch secularist and plotter against Israel's national security and traditions. Peres plans to defy tradition and continue to promote similar appeasement of the Arabs, even while the Arabs are planning war on Israel. This is a case study in corruption by power and the danger of Ultra-Orthodox reliance upon the wisdom of their leaders to tell them what to do, while they lead their daily lives without paying much attention to the world outside their communities. They are needed to help defend Judaism and Israel. BEWARE THE "MODERATE" P.A. ARABS! Fatah is rocketing Israeli cities. "The 'moderate' Fatah gunmen are the ones General Dayton wants to strengthen with more weapons and training (conditioned on their being willing to be recorded on the payroll of the PA security forces)." (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 9/4.) He's arming them against Israel. SUPREME COURT RESCUES OLMERT PM Olmert was hastening final status talks with the P.A., before the Winograd Committee report is due, this autumn. The report finds he mishandled the Lebanon War. He would not get a chance to surrender Israeli territory after that report, since it likely would split up his coalition. Out of office, he no longer would have any power to appease the Muslims to please leftist prosecutors. This would render him susceptible to prosecution for extensive corruption. Now we hear that the Supreme Court has saved him from that predicament. It requires the Committee to hold time-consuming interviews with criticized officials, first. That will delay publication. Meanwhile, members of his coalition kept finding excuses not to bolt: #1. "I have to stay inside in order to fight" (and keep my lucrative post). Israel would have no future. Sharon showed how a PM could exercised power unchecked by the Cabinet. The only check on him is to pull out of the government and pull it down. Then force a new election, in which Olmert's and Peres' parties, including Shas, lose seats. But would another Prime Minister be independent of the US? "DETONATED IN A CONTROLLED FASHION" Those are the words used by the IDF to conclude a briefing about a military operation that confiscated explosives from terrorists. It implies that the bomb squad takes the explosives outside and blows them up safely, so they cannot cause an accident nor be used again by terrorists. I think that they should use confiscated explosives to blow up the evacuated houses in which the terrorists stored them. It would be a fitting punishment. THEY'LL SIGN ANYTHING Some people are relaxed about the negotiations and conferences being set up to promote Israeli concessions and terrorist sovereignty. They think that Israeli officials and the public would not let dire concessions be given. They remember that Arafat refused concessions offered by Barak and now by Olmert. The Knesset Members are behaving just as they did when Sharon proposed to relinquish Gaza. They thought they could stop him at the last minute. He was too fast, undemocratic, and unscrupulous, and brutal to resisting Jews. Later, when Olmert and Peres probably bumped him off, they inherited his special, brutal, foreign, antisemitic police unit intact. Arafat did not refuse to sign the Oslo accords. Some Muslim would be found to sign Israel's new document of appeasement. The Knesset had better think of saving their lives rather than saving their Knesset seats. They give priority to current income. They know that if they bring down the government in such a way as to require a new election, half of them would be defeated. HITLER SET ISRAEL'S STANDARD Israeli law set conditions permitting immigration and automatic citizenship that define eligibility the same as the Nazis defined a Jew. People who reject Jewish identity but had a Jewish grandparent or married a Jew are eligible. Hundreds of thousands took advantage of the benefits. Some of them formed neo-Nazi gangs that deface synagogues and beat up Jews. Police caught one such gang. They committed many crimes and possess explosives (Arutz-7, 9/7). It's stupid to give benefits to people who hate you. Why do those neo-Nazis like Nazism, which got 20 million Russians killed? Didn't Russians learn the hard way to abhor Nazism? Shouldn't they question the validity of antisemitism, which was the philosophy of the Nazis that behaved so bestially in the Soviet Union? Why do they now behave bestially? JORDAN EXAGGERATING ABOUT JERUSALEM Jordan contemplates declaring Jerusalem the capital of Arab culture (IMRA, 9/4). Jerusalem never was a center of Arab culture, like Damascus and Baghdad, or, for that matter, the Kaaba. When Jordan seized the Old City of Jerusalem, which is what Jordan is referring to now, inasmuch as Zionists built the New City of Jerusalem, it invested nothing in the Old City. The King did not pray there nor visit it. He was following the custom of the Muslims in treating Jerusalem contemptuously when they controll it, and calling it vital to them when they don't. Most people think that the Muslims denigrate only the Jewish interest in Jerusalem, a major part of Judaism. In denying that the Jewish Temples were in Jerusalem or even in Israel, and in asserting that Jesus was an Arab, the Muslims contradict the Christian Bible. Christian doctrine describes Jesus as a non-conformist rabbi playing a major role in Jerusalem at the Temple. SAUDI WOMEN TREATED LIKE CHILDREN Saudi police bar female Saudi journalists and Saudi women seeking visas or having other business with foreign embassies from entering the embassy sector without a male guardian. The women are not happy about it (IMRA, 9/6). ISRAEL WON'T ROOT OUT ROCKET CREWS "IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi objects to large-scale action in Gaza because of the difficulty of operating on two fronts without massive drafting of the reserves. The sources said Israel's position might change if a large number of casualties resulted from the Qassam fire." "= the IDF could act now before the Palestinians (Muslim Arabs) succeed in murdering a lot of Israeli civilians but that would require inconveniencing Israelis who would have to be called up to do reserve duty during the holiday season. So instead of taking the initiative -- with the advantages associated with taking the initiative -- it is better to give the Palestinians the opportunity to murder many Israeli civilians first (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 9/6). Another Israeli problem is that its government is anti-Zionist and pro-Arab. CEDE LAND, GET WAR The Israel Beiteinu Party cites the wars after Israel evacuated from Lebanon and Gaza (Arutz-7, 9/6). Withdrawal encourages imperialists. THE ARITHMETIC OF TERRORISM (more) The IDF thinks Gaza has hundreds or even thousands of rocket-launchers. On Wednesday, September 5, an IDF raid captured 11 of them (Arutz-7, 9/6). If there were 1,100, it would take more than 100 days to capture them all. But in 100 days, the Muslims would acquire more, perhaps 1,100. Therefore, small-scale IDF raids are inadequate to stop terrorists from firing thousands more. A major invasion, search, and permanent patrols, which Israelis want done, would be adequate to make Israel safe. That is what an army is for. The government, however, seeking to appease the US and probably to undermine Zionism, resists demands to invade. After an invasion, it couldn't pretend that it can make peace and certainly not by means of territorial concession. It takes two parties to make peace. When one party is a fanatical imperialist, peace is impossible, regardless of what is signed, which Muslim Arabs disregard. PEACE NOW'S DUPLICITY In a 2002 interview by Haaretz, a leader of Peace Now, Tsali Reshef, admitted, "Our idea was to talk to the public in a language it was ready to listen to and not try to foist on it ideas it was not ready to accept." "If we had written in the officer's letter of 1978 that in order to obtain peace, we will have to return all the territories and go back to the 1967 borders and divide Jerusalem and recognize the human aspect of the refugee problem, very few people would have gone along with us." He admitted it was manipulative. Dr. Aaron Lerner retrieved that interview in order to warn us against the blandishments of Far Left leaders such as Chaim Ramon (IMRA, 9/6). The corrupted and leftist Israeli leaders have issued false threats against the Arabs and false assurances to the Jews for decades. While losing public confidence, the Left has been tightening its hold by undemocratic means. PRISONER VISITATION Israel allows the Red Cross to visit terrorist prisoners. Hamas and Hizbullah deny such visits to Israeli captives. Although the government asserts that withholding visits to its prisoners might get the Arabs to relent, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled, "The State of Israel is a democracy that respects civil rights... Compassion and humanism are rooted in our national character... Human dignity even of our enemy is precious to us." (IMRA, 9/6). Such righteousness forfeits the dignity of the Israeli captives. For Jews, the Court has demonstrated lack of compassion. It is not compassionate but disloyal HAARETZ EDITOR STANDS BY "APARTHEID" ACCUSATION Danny Rubinstein upheld his accusation of Israel being an apartheid state. He said that this is a common opinion at Haaretz. Critics remarked that this supports efforts to boycott Israel and "Haaretz seems no longer to be a newspaper, but perhaps an ideological rag-sheet" that has taken up the Arab side (Arutz-7, 9/5). ISRAEL'S CRIMINAL LEADERSHIP PM Olmert could be indicted for about five different instances of corruption. Pres. Peres is a corrupt serial killer. Defense Min. Barak had ordered his troops into an ambush. Min. Chaim Ramon forced some sex on a woman. Why are they leaders, instead of laborers, of their country (Barry Chamish, 9/9)? BUILDING IRAN'S NUCLEAR PLANT A Russian company in collusion with German companies seem to have circumvented German law. In any case, German apparatus got shipped by the Russian company to Iran's nuclear plant. The German government purports to be concerned. (IMRA, 9/6). Is that government sincere? WHAT ISLAM HOLDS ON TREATMENT OF OTHER FAITHS As with related religions, Islamic teachings are ambiguous. Unlike them, the Koran is not arranged chronologically and has many self-contradictions. Islam tries to resolve them on the principle that a later ruling on a subject abrogates the earlier one. Resolution is not simple. A controversial discipline has arisen to sort out the meanings. Muslim scholars debate the various interpretations. Islam treated other faiths in stages from self-defense to offense to extermination or domination (David Bukay, MEF News, 9/6). His is a learned disquisition. RESISTING OTHERS' ARREST "In the Shomron (Samaria) terrorist capital Jenin on Thursday morning, Israeli forces apprehended a wanted Islamic Jihad terrorist. He was captured with a Kalachnikov rifle, two grenades and a combat vest on his person. Over 30 explosive devices and other ammunition were found in his car. The Israeli forces were attacked by a mob of Arabs during the course of the arrest. The mob hurled two explosive devices at the Israelis, none of whom were hurt" (Arutz-7, 9/7). Trying to kill Israelis and keep them from arresting a terrorist, the mob threw bombs. This confirms my opinion of them as a terrorist people, not innocent civilians wanting peace. I think the troops should have shot down the mob. A couple of such instances, and arrests could proceed unhindered. YOU THINK ANOTHER HOLOCAUST ISN'T COMING? The signs are there. Ex-President Carter lies about Israeli history and exaggerates Jewish power" Actually, they are too weak to delegitimize their defamers. Jews are attacked by Muslims in the West, whose governments do little about it. The great powers corrupt Israeli leaders, who already hate their own religion. The government neutralizes the people, as it goes about favoring the Muslims and depriving the Jewish people of its patrimony and strategic borders needed for self-defense. The US strives to secure sovereignty over the core of the Jewish homeland for Muslims seeking to wipe out the Jews. With a poor excuse, the US arms those Arabs even while insincerely professing an unfounded expectation that those Muslims will cease jihad, their primary policy. First the government of Israel kept Jews away from their holiest site, the Temple Mount, just as had the Turks and British! Then it let the Muslims destroy Jewish religious and historical artifacts on it, while the Muslims claimed that the Jews never had religious and historical artifacts on it. Now the Muslims are destroying part of the Second Temple that they claim didn't exist. After they overrun Israel, you can expect them to pursue Jews in the rest of the world. This is like the build-up to the Holocaust and WWII. The Nazi regime restricted a once vigorous Roman Catholic establishment to religious worship without social commentary, not schools, newspapers, and certainly not its political party. Thousands of priests were purged. The Vatican did not protest audibly. Now, the Muslims are repressing Christians of all sects, as they have been doing for centuries, but worse, now. Again, there is little audible Christian protest. In destroying the Temple Mount, the Muslims are destroying a site sacred to Christianity. Little audible Christian protest. Neither do American Jewish organizations, except for ZOA, protest much. The world's focus is on destroying Israel in the name of making peace with the Muslims who don't make peace. The Vatican has been promised control over Jerusalem. Its interest in such an acquisition at a price of millions of innocent lives makes a mockery of the continual Papal appeals for peace. It thinks possession would be a triumph rather than a disgrace. Meanwhile, it is losing the loyalty of the European masses and also is near to losing the lives of its faithful there, as Muslims invade as immigrants and multiply at the expense of European social welfare systems. EUROPEANS SLOW TO CATCH ON W. Europeans are in a pacifist mode. Afflicted with excessive and one-way multi-culturalism, Germans only now, with their capture of more terrorist plotters, agree that Muslims within Europe pose a danger to their country. They still oppose the wars against Islamist in Afghanistan and neutralizing Iran's a-bombs. It doesn't occur to them to root out the source of the menace against them. PROSECUTING OLMERT An Israeli official judged that the Attorney General should prosecute or at least investigate PM Olmert for some of his cases of corruption. By the time prosecutors get around to it, and his sordid record is publicized, if ever, he will have kept power long enough to give away strategic territory to Israel's enemies and set Israel on the diplomatic and military path to extinction. He would take the secret tunnel to the airport and enjoy his dubious millions abroad. Everybody in Israel knows that he not only is corrupt but also incompetent. He shares major responsibility for Israel's poor showing in the Lebanon War and its failure to win it. Nevertheless, the politicians are waiting for the Winograd Commission investigation report on his wartime conduct, before voting no-confidence in him. They have been procrastinating, and the Supreme Court added a delay. By the time his sorry record will be publicized, he will have kept power long enough to give the strategic territory to Israel's enemies, etc.. This Commission, which he formed under terms favorable to himself, a suspect, is suspect. He gave it a charter that excluded recommending his removal for incompetence. His appointees are not likely to exceed their mandate, nor, in a burst of patriotism, long-forgotten in favor of political parasitism, recommend his removal. Therefore, waiting for the Commission report is a subterfuge for the Members of Knesset to hold onto their offices longer. "DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS" OR VILE PROPAGANDISTS? Darkness now travels at the speed of light. The Internet has eroded publishers' gateways (already lax in university presses) to public attention. As a result, any claim 0critical of Israel or of the Jewish people sweeps around the world, accepted by the usual suspects. Thus Professors Mearsheimer and Walt, whose new book reiterates most of the rant of their paper, are hailed by some as "distinguished scholars" who confirm the power of the Jewish lobby to support an undeserving Israel. Scholarship, however, is based on standards. Those professors fail to meet these standards. They didn't interview principals they condemn nor cite sources that contradict them. Instead of citing academically satisfactory evidence, they merely assert their case. Their work is full of substantive errors. If the ADL wanted to sue them for libel, I think it would have an easy time of it. In ignorance, they derided an ethnic group (mine). We call that prejudice. Too bad they aren't real patriots, exposing some of the powerful foreign lobbies that strive against the American interest. A good start would be to define the American (not the State Dept. or oil companies') interest. If they did, they'd have to admit it's like Israel's. SUPREME COURT RULES FOR SETTLERS What a mess! An Israeli company built a neighborhood in Matityahu. The company went bankrupt before it quite finished. People couldn't readily get into their paid apartments, to get the job finished. Then Peace Now sued for demolition, after having discovered that a small part of the neighborhood was built on land owned by the Arab village of Bil'in. The Court ruled that it does not make sense to tear down a whole neighborhood, or whole high rises, for the small part of the land to which it did not have title. Just compensate the Arabs. The Court's motive is not clear (IMRA, 9/6). JEWS LOST Barry Chamish recently explained that it would take a vigorous and well-organized resistance to stop governmental expulsion of Jewry from Judea-Samaria. Those Jews may think that their large numbers would give them enough strength, but in the test run in Gaza and northern Samaria, the government demonstrated brutal force and picked them off. It moves too fast for them. The religious majority of IDF officers don't even arrest police for brutality. Besides, the government has infiltrated the settler's Yesha Council. Thus the settlers cannot surprise the government. Moreover, the Council gets the settlers to resist in ineffectual and tiring ways. This, too, Mr. Chamish pointed out. The Jewish people, unfortunately, paid no heed, and did not overturn the Yesha Council. He probably put the settlers off by suggesting some radical and imaginative means. Heaven forbid they should do something illegal, when they are trying to save their country from fascism and their people from genocide! The ZOA (IMRA, (9/8) protested to PM Olmert the Waqf re-destruction of the Second Temple. His police protect the barbaric demolition from Israeli archeologists who otherwise could learn much about Jewish history. They think that the destruction is deliberate. So do I, and Olmert is complicit in it. I wonder whether ZOA realizes that, and their protest is more pressure than appeal. HAMAS & FATAH NOT ISLAMIC! Each has produced a video accusing the other of defiling Islam and even of being infidels (IMRA, 9/5 from Palestinian Media Watch). We thought that both of those organizations were dedicated to Islam. If they are, what does that say about Islam? If they are not, will their people tolerate them? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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THERE SOON WILL NOT BE A SINGLE CHRISTIAN IN BIRTHPLACE OF CHRIST
Posted by Maria Sliwa, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Aaron Klein and appeared September 24, 2007 in
World Net Daily |
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Muslim Intimidation Could Make Land of Jesus Barren in 15 Years The once vibrant Christian communities of Bethlehem and Nazareth, with roots in the "land of Jesus" going back to first century Israel, are rapidly declining in the face of a systematic campaign of persecution conducted by the same Muslim terrorists intent on driving the Jews into the sea. Beatings, sham legal proceedings, property seizures, dismissal and replacement of elected Christian leaders, accusations of selling property to Jews and intimidation by gunmen with links to the government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have so reduced Christian populations in the cities of Jesus' birth and boyhood one community leader predicts all Christians will be gone within 15 years. In Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans -- to a Jew!" author and WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein chronicles his meetings and interviews with leaders of terror groups and Islamist organizations long accused of intimidation and violence against Mideast Christians. 'No more Christians in Bethlehem' For part of one chapter, Klein travels to Bethlehem to meet with the city's Christians and with its terrorist leaders. Bethlehem consisted of upwards of 80 percent Christians when Israel was founded in 1948, but since the Palestinian Authority took over in 1995 the Christian population has declined to about 23 percent with a large majority of Muslims. The 23 percent Christian statistic is considered generous since it includes the satellite towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala. Some estimates place Bethlehem's actual Christian population as low as 12 percent, with hundreds of Christians emigrating per year. In Schmoozing, Klein first talks with Bethlehem-area Christian leaders and residents, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, who said they face an atmosphere of regular hostility and intimidation by Muslims. They said Palestinian armed groups stir tension by holding militant demonstrations and marches in the streets. They spokes of instances in which Christian shopkeepers' stores were recently ransacked and Christian homes attacked. The Christian leaders said one of the most significant problems facing Christians in Bethlehem is the rampant confiscation of land by Muslim gangs. "There are many cases where Christians have their land stolen by the [Muslim] mafia," said Samir Qumsiyeh, a Bethlehem Christian leader and owner of the Beit Sahour-based private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station. Qumsiyeh was one of the few Christians who spoke openly in Schmoozing. "It is a regular phenomenon in Bethlehem. They go to a poor Christian person with a forged power of attorney document, then they say we have papers proving you're living on our land. If you confront them, many times the Christian is beaten. You can't do anything about it. The Christian loses and he runs away," Qumsiyeh said. One Christian Bethlehem resident told Klein her friend recently fled Bethlehem after being accused by Muslims of selling property to Jews, a crime punishable by death in some Palestinian cities. The resident said a good deal of the intimidation comes from gunmen associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization. A February Jerusalem Post article cited the case of Faud and Georgette Lama, Christian residents of Bethlehem who said their land was stolen by local Muslims and when they tried to do something about it, Faud was beaten by gunmen. Klein confronted those gunmen, including Abu Philestine, the Bethlehem chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's so-called "military wing," and Eiman Abu Eita, Fatah's main representative in the Bethlehem satellite town of Beit Sahour. Abu Eita previously served as Brigades chief in Beit Sahour. On the day of Klein's meeting with Abu Philestine, Raad Abiat, a senior Brigades terrorists in Bethlehem, was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces after he shot at troops during an anti-terror raid. Klein and national radio host Rusty Humphries were slated to meet Abiat that day. After Abiat was killed, several news media outlets reported Bethlehem's Christians, in solidarity with the Brigades, closed down all schools, shops and institutions and declared a day of mourning and of anger toward Israel. "Actually, what really happened was the Brigades and other Palestinian law enforcers went up and down the streets and demanded all the Christian stores, restaurants, and schools close. Intimidating terrorists with guns ensured Christian institutions complied," writes Klein in Schmoozing. Klein asked Bethlehem Brigades chief Abu Philestine about the practice of enforcing Muslim closures. "We have our rules in Bethlehem and one of them is shops must be closed if one of our heroes is killed by the Zionists. We don't enforce anything. All the people here are on our side," Abu Philestine claimed. The terrorists claimed it was Israel that drove out Bethlehem's Christians by building a "wall" in 2002 that "encircles" the city. But Israel did not build a wall that encircles Bethlehem. It built a fence only where the Bethlehem area interfaces with Jerusalem. A tiny segment of the barrier facing a major Israeli roadway is a concrete wall, which Israel says is meant to prevent gunmen from shooting at Israeli motorists. The barrier was built after repeated terror attacks launched from Bethlehem. The vast majority of Bethlehem's Christian emigration occurred between 1995 and 2001, before Israel's barrier was constructed. Israel controlled Bethlehem until 1995, when it signed the territory over to the PA as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Reports of Christian intimidation by Muslims immediately began to surface after the PA gained control. Then-PA President Yasser Arafat unilaterally fired the city's Christian politicians and replaced them with Muslims. He appointed a Muslim governor, Muhammed Rashad A-Jabar, and deposed of Bethlehem's city council, which had nine Christians and two Muslims, reducing the number of Christians councilors to a 50-50 split. Arafat also converted a Greek Orthodox monastery next to the Church of Nativity into his official Bethlehem residence. The Nativity church is believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus. Fatah's Eiman Abu Eita, confronted by Klein, claimed Bethlehem's Christians were making up stories about persecution. "Most of those Christians who left Bethlehem gave the impression of persecution just as an excuse to justify why they left Bethlehem," he said. But Qumsiyeh and other Christian leaders said if current trends in Bethlehem continue, there may be no Christians left in the city in 15 years. He said he appealed to U.S. Christian leaders to help initiate housing projects and find ways to fortify and strengthen Bethlehem's Christian population, but that little assistance was offered. "The way things are, soon there will not be a single Christian living in the land of Jesus," he said. Muslims shout at Jesus' home: 'Islam will dominate the world' In Schmoozing, Klein bring readers to a large militant march by Islamist groups down the main streets of Nazareth, highlighting for some there the plight of Christians in the ancient city where Muslims have become a majority and members of the dwindling Christian population say they suffer regular intimidation. Nazareth, considered one of the holiest cities for Christians, is described in the New Testament as the childhood home of Jesus. It contains multiple important shrines and churches, including the famous Church of the Basilica of the Annunciation, the site at which many Christians believe the Virgin Mary was visited by the Archangel Gabriel and told that she had been selected as the mother of Jesus. The Islamic Movement, the main Muslim political party in Nazareth, held the January 2007 rally down Nazareth's main thoroughfare brandishing their party's green flag. Young Muslim men in battle gear marched and beat drums as a man on loudspeaker repeatedly exclaimed in Arabic, "Allah is great." Hundreds of activists strutted screaming Islamist epithets, including "Islam is the only truth" and "Islam shall rule all." In Schmoozing Klein interviews Christians who, like Bethlehem's Christians, speak of attacks against Christian-owned shops and told stories of Christian women being raped by Muslim men. They noted several instances of interreligious violence and Muslim riots they said began when Muslims attacked Christian worshipers. The Muslims claimed Christians started the violence. Also Muslims hold weekly loud prayer services outside the Church of the Annunciation at a site local Muslims want to build a massive mosque many local Christians charge is meant to overshadow the church. Israeli security officials say the majority of anti-Christian violence in Nazareth goes unreported because local Christians are too afraid to report crimes. One Christian resident said violence and intimidation tend to increase around the time of local elections. The Islamic parties, once in the minority, are now one seat away from dominating Nazareth's city council. "During the last elections, Muslims on the streets were openly threatening the Christians. They tried to stop some of the Christian cars from voting," stated Saleem, a Christian Nazareth resident. In October 2000, the Arab Christian mayor of Nazareth, Ramiz Jaraisy, was reportedly beaten by members of the opposing Islamist party. Nazareth's Christian population, at times the majority during the city's long history, is now at about 37 percent, according to the Israeli Bureau of Statistics, which notes a regular downward trend. Regarding the alleged persecution, Klein confronts Nazareth's Muslim leaders, including Ahmed Zohbi, a member of Nazareth's municipal council and the leader of an umbrella group consisting of the city's Islamic parties. In the same chapter, Klein brings readers into the heart of the underreported story of Christian persecution in the Middle East, talking to the antagonists and victims of other conflict locations, including:
The issue of Christian persecution in the Middle East is just one topic broached in Klein's Schmoozing with Terorrists. Among the highlights of Schmoozing with Terrorists:
Why schmooze with the professed enemies of Western civilization? States Klein: "In the midst of America's war on terror, in the midst of our grand showdown with Islamofascism, with our boys and girls deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world to defend liberty, it is crucial for all of us to understand the adversary we are up against and how some of our policies and personalities are emboldening the terrorists to think they are winning." Klein explains he believes America is in trouble. While the U.S. has made enormous advances in the war on terror the past few years, it is encouraging terrorists to attack, and people don't even know it, he professes. "If the American approach to identifying, understanding, and dealing with terrorism is not re-examined in the very near future, if we don't immediately begin to understand how the terrorists think and respond to our policies, we face a devastating reality, with global jihad beating down our doorstep before we even realize what happened," states Klein. Contact Maria Sliwa at msliwa@msliwa.com |
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ABU MAZEN: OLMERT AGREED TO MAKE JERUSALEM ARAB CAPITAL
Posted by Hillel Fendel, September 30, 2007. |
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The chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice last week -- and told her that Prime Minister Olmert agrees, finally, to turn eastern Jerusalem into the capital of a future state of Palestine. So reports the PA newspaper Al Hayat Al Jadeeda, quoting an unnamed "senior Palestinian source." Abbas reportedly told Rice that Olmert had agreed to the demand in an Olmert-Abbas meeting a couple of days before. Another Olmert-Abbas meeting is planned for next week, the paper reports. Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman reports on another PA media article. The Palestinian Press claims that Iran has given the order to Hamas and Islamic Jihad to reduce Kassam rocket attacks against Israel during the month of Ramadan, in order to reduce the suffering of Arab citizens in Gaza during this period. Hamas chief-in-exile Khaled Mashaal reportedly told Iran that though Hamas agrees to hold fire, Islamic Jihad does not. Meanwhile, plans continue for U.S. President George Bush's international Middle East summit, scheduled for this November in Washington. Secretary Rice announced Sunday night that Syria and Lebanon will also be invited to take part, though they will have to commit themselves to help find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is not happy with the summit. "Without advance preparations and without an objective," he said, "I don't see what can come of it, and I don't see any reason to convene the summit." High-level meetings of this nature are often accompanied by Arab violence and terrorism, and some fear that such violence this time will only intensify if the summit does not produce results favorable to the Arab side. This was written by Hillel Fendel and appeared in Arutz Sheva
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AUSCHWITZ 'HOLIDAY' SNAPS UNCOVERED
Posted by Kae, September 30, 2007. |
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Staff writers
THE US Holocaust Museum has released a series of rare photographs showing how senior SS officers and Nazi officials relaxed at the Auschwitz concentration camp while the gas chambers and crematories worked above capacity towards the end of World War II.
The photos, taken between May and December 1944, shows guards and officials relaxing at events including a Christmas gathering and a sing-a-long, the Associated Press reported. Many of the pictures were taken as the gas chambers and crematories were operating above capacity as the Nazis tried to eliminate Jews in Europe as the war neared its end. The photo was taken in 1944 in Solahütte, a recreation home located near Auschwitz for the SS team in charge of running the concentration camp. Another shows the auxiliaries callously feigning tears once their bowls are empty. The German camp in Poland was liberated by the Soviets on January 27, 1945. The photographs were fron an album owned by Karl Hoecker, the adjutant to the camp commandant. The pictures show a sing-a-long with an accordion player and about 70 SS men, including Josef Mengele, the camp doctor notorious for his bizarre and cruel medical experiments. Mengele was joined by other infamous camp leaders, including Josef Kramer and Rudolf Hess. The eight photos of Mengele were the first authenticated pictures of Mengele at Auschwitz, the US Holocaust Museum said.
Also among the images are SS guards and Nazi officials on hunting trips, a group singing cheerily to the accompaniment of an accordionist, Hoecker lighting the camp's Christmas tree, and female SS auxiliaries eating blueberries.
"It's hard to fathom the kind of people who ran these camps and one always struggles to understand who they were and how they saw themselves," museum director Sara Bloomfield said. "These unique photographs vividly illustrate the contented world they enjoyed while overseeing a world of unimaginable suffering. They offer an important perspective on the psychology of those perpetrating genocide." The museum obtained the photos this year from a retired US army intelligence officer who found the album in an apartment while stationed in Germany in 1946. The album provides a stark contrast to the only other known collection of photographs taken at Auschwitz. The so-called Auschwitz Album is a compilation of pictures taken by SS photographers in the spring of 1944 and discovered by a survivor in another camp. Those images show the arrival of Hungarian Jews, who at the time made up the last remaining sizable Jewish community in Europe. There are no plans to exhibit the Hoecker album photos but they can be seen online at the museum's website: www.ushmm.org. (Then click on small pix of people on deckchairs.)
Contact Kae at kew1@dbmail.com |
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MYTHMAKERS ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST
Posted by Barry Rubin, September 30, 2007. |
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People don't often threaten to murder me face to face. But in the spring of 2007, Alexis Debat, director of the terrorism program at the Nixon Center and consultant to ABC News, did so. Precisely why is not clear to me even now, but it seemed to be part of a pattern of bizarre instability that he emanated. I had never met anyone who struck me as a more obvious fabulist. Yet after thirty years of studying the Middle East it was not surprising to meet people like that. The region is full of them, even at the highest political and intellectual levels, and they are by no means absent from the field of studying that area in the West. I met Debat at the insistence of Robert Leiken, a former Central American expert who reinvented himself quickly as an expert on immigration and then on Islam, also at the Nixon Center. It was in the period before Leiken decided that the Muslim Brotherhood was a moderate democratic group which should be engaged by U.S. policy. You have to meet Debat, he insisted, and it was clear that this guy was his guru and a great influence on him. At the lunch, Debat went on and on about his inside links with terrorism and its key figures, providing lots of details. Of course, no one could verify these details, which meant one was given free reign to make them up. I applied the old Arab proverb: "How do you know it is a lie? Because it is so big." His claims were just too good to be true. And his bragging about having worked with French intelligence only added to my suspicions, since that organization is known for its tendency to, shall we say, get a little too enthusiastic in claiming fabulous inside information. Perhaps I made my feelings a little too clear, for as we walked from the restaurant, Debat insisted on going along with me to the subway. And there on the corner of Q Street, he said: "I am a great admirer of your work. Some day I might have the great honor of killing you." "What did you say?" I asked in astonishment. He was a bit flustered but did not deny what he said. I asked him if he was threatening me, but he just smiled to let me know that his message had been conveyed. I did not take this seriously as a real threat that he was going to do anything. Years of dealing with revolutionaries, terrorists, soldiers, and people generally carrying guns and committing violence have taught me to distinguish between real potential killers and big talkers. Yet clearly this was someone to stay away from and who should be given no credibility. It reminded me of an incident thirty years earlier. A fellow had appeared at various Middle East studies meetings saying he was with "army intelligence" and that he had all sorts of internal documents about the decisions of the new revolutionary leadership in Iran. He drew big audiences at such events and was invited by a leading expert on Iran to an elite seminar, where the professor proclaimed that he was a great expert. A bit of research by a group of people including myself discovered that he was an enlisted soldier at a field intelligence unit--without access to high-level political intelligence of the kind he was fabricating. One of my colleagues intervened to stop a major university from hiring him. The individual did get a job at a smaller school. Fabulists, suffering from psychological problems, greed, ambitions, and often with a political agenda, are not uncommon in studying or writing about the Middle East. That is in part due to the region's importance and in part due to the fact that you can apparently get away with anything. The rules of logic don't apply to a region where terrorists are magically transformed into freedom fighters; anti-Americanism is covered up or rationalized away; one thing is said in Arabic or Persian and the opposite in English; conspiracy theories are rife and get credibility even in the highest circles of American intellectuals and publishers; and so on. It is a subject area where completely unqualified people like Leiken and Debat can carry out a major campaign to reverse American policy toward the Muslim Brotherhood and even get U.S. government contracts to do it. In universities in the United States today, many courses on the Middle East are taught just about as they would be at the University of Damascus or Tehran by people who hold those same ideologies. Indeed, the work of the biggest current guru for this school, Edward Said, was in itself a gigantic fraud. And what is more telling than when some of his autobiographical lies were exposed, the attacks were on the scholar who published this information and not on the one who fabricated it? The works of Walt and Mearsheimer have about as much in common with the actual making of U.S. foreign policy as the idea that the American government carried out the September 11 attacks on itself, the sun goes around the earth, or the world is flat. Yasir Arafat, a major league fabulist himself, once told an Arab leader who complained about his fantasies that if he was willing to die for Palestine he was certainly willing to lie for Palestine. Yet there are supposed to be checks against such behavior. Two of the main ones are universities and the media. Yet when large elements in both have gone over to factual fable-making or, more likely, analytical fable-making, who is going to guard against the intrusion of lies, madness, and anti-democratic forces? Nothing says it better than Woody Guthrie's "Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd": "Yes, as through this world I've wanderedBarry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university. His latest book, The Truth about Syria was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in May 2007. Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online at: http://gloria.idc.ac.il/articles/archives/oldindex.html. This article was submitted September 19, 2007. |
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ARCHEOLOGISTS FIND 2ND TEMPLE QUARRY
Posted by Avodah, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Etgar Lefkovits September 23, 2007 for the
Jerusalem Post |
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In a major archeological discovery, an ancient quarry that supplied huge high-quality limestone for the construction of the Temple Mount has been uncovered in Jerusalem, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Sunday. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish youths run through an ancient quarry at an archaeological site in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem. The quarry, according to Israeli archaeologists, provided stones that were used to construct the compound known as the Temple Mount to Jews. The quarry, which is located four km northwest of Jerusalem's Old City, in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, was used two thousand years ago during the construction of the Second Temple, archeologist Yuval Baruch said. "This unique and sensational find is the first Second Temple quarry ever found," he said. According to Baruch, the site, which spans at least five dunams, was uncovered by chance during a "salvage excavation" carried out by the state-run archeological body over the last two months following municipal plans to build an elementary school in the area. Dozens of quarries have previously been uncovered in Jerusalem -- including ones larger than the present find -- but this is the first one that archeologists have found which they believe was used in the construction of the Temple Mount, Baruch said. Archeologists had previously assumed that the quarry which was used to construct the Temple Mount was located within the Old City itself, but the enormous size of the stones discovered at the site -- up to 8 meters long -- as well as coins and fragments of pottery vessels dating back to the first century CE indicated that this was the site used 2,000 years ago in the construction of the Temple Mount walls -- including the Western Wall. "We have never found any monument in Israel with stones of this size except for the Temple Mount walls," Baruch said. During the Second Temple period, the rulers of the city elected to use high quality stone in the construction of national public buildings. The stones selected originated in the hard layers of limestone, referred to in Arabic as malakeh (from the Hebrew word malkhut or royalty), owing to its beauty and quality. The huge stones were likely transported to the Temple Mount area by horses, camels, or slaves, Baruch said, noting that part of an ancient main road to Jerusalem that was used for the immense operation was recently uncovered just 100 meters from the site of the quarry. The use of these enormous stones during the construction is what maintained the stability of the structure over thousands of years, without requiring the use of plaster or cement. The quarrying of each stone block was done in stages, according to Irina Zilberbod, the excavation director. First, deep narrow channels were hewn around all four sides of the block, thereby isolating it from the surrounding bedrock surface. Then, using a hammer, the stonecutters inserted a row of cleaving stakes in the bottom part of the block until a fissure was created and the stone was detached. A 5 kilogram iron tool, which was used by King Herod's workers -- probably Jewish slaves -- and was likely forgotten at the site, was discovered beneath large stones in the middle of the excavations, Baruch said. The site, which was used for no more than 20 years, was abandoned after the Second Temple period, said archeologist Ehud Nesher who also took part in the dig. The area is now surrounded by olive trees planted by Arab villagers, and a sprawling Haredi residential neighborhood. The area of the quarry which has been uncovered is likely only thirty to forty percent of its total size, but archeologists have no immediate plans to excavate the rest of the area because it is private property. The discovery of the site comes as the state-run archeological body is immersed in a bitter controversy over recent Islamic infrastructure work on the Temple Mount itself, which independent Israeli archeologists say has damaged antiquities at the Jerusalem holy site. The work, which was authorized by the Prime Minister's Office, is meant to replace decades-old electrical cables at the ancient compound. The Antiquities Authority, which has been repeatedly censured by the independent group of archeologists for failing to carry out proper archeological supervision on the Temple Mount due to the political sensitivities involved, has repeatedly declined Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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HOW ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS FOR JEWS?
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 30, 2007. |
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In the name of equality, justice, peace and and and...let's take this just one step further...why aren't these same human rights groups balancing their demands, by using the demands, both by our own government, and the cutthroats we brought here from Tunis and call them the leaders of the so called Palestinians, and allow the same standards and rights to Jews in their ancestral homeland in Judea and Samaria. What fair for the goose ... but not for the gander???? Now compare this little saga to the so called Palestinians, who were parading in front of Al Jazera's cameras, who were thrilled to find a "permanent home" in Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and not put into so called refugee camps, as they were by their Arab bros, in every Arab country they found themselves in, after running ... not from Jewish oppression in the war of independence, but from a desire that they're were going to get something for nothing after all the Arab lands around Israel were going to liberated from the Jews and the Holocaust survivors. Ah yes justice is a strange thing and has been twisted by those who have an agenda, and it has little to do with human rights, unless one human is considered more important than another. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/906336.html Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il |
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"PREGNANT" WOMAN HIDES WEAPONS CACHE
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 30, 2007. |
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"We have asserted also on the utmost importance for stopping the Palestinians of invasions and arrests, the last of which was the invasion of the city of Nablus and its refugee camps." -- "Moderate peace partner" Mahmoud Abbas at his joint press conference 20 September 2007 with Secretary Condoleezza Rice. During a search in a civilian home, the forces came upon a pregnant Palestinian woman sitting on a bed. The woman refused to get up, claimed that there was nothing unusual in her home and that she did not feel well. The forces continued the search and uncovered a weapons cache under her bed. Stand by for protests from the various human rights groups that Israeli forces violated the "dignity" of a sick pregnant woman? This is IDF Spokesperson update, September 22, 2007. It is entitled "Summary of IDF activity in the Ein Beit Ilmeh R.C. in Nablus." |
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Prior to the start of the Yom Kipur fast IDF forces completed an operation against the extensive terror infrastructure in the Ein Beit Ilme refugee camp in Nablus. The purpose of the operation was to prevent the execution of terror attacks into the Israeli homefront. The operation began following the receipt of information about the intention of Palestinian terrorist organizations to execute murderous attacks. Nablus is the terror capital of the West Bank. In 2007, 10 bomb making laboratories were found in the area. In 2006, 117 of the 187 potential suicide bombers arrested in Judea and Samaria were from the Nablus area. An IDF soldier, Staff Sergeant Ben-Zion Haneman, was killed, and another soldier was lightly injured during the operation. In a number of incidents, Palestinians opened fire and detonated explosives at IDF soldiers. IDF forces killed two Palestinian gunmen, among them the gunman who was responsible for the killing of Staff Sergeant Haneman. IDF searches uncovered weapons caches in civilian homes containing hand grenades, assault rifles, means for making explosives, mechanisms used for explosives, army equipment and additional ammunition. IDF sappers detonated the weaponry and explosives material in a controlled fashion. 49 wanted Palestinians among them Hamas and PFLP militants were arrested during the operation and taken for questioning by security forces. Among the militants arrested, was Nihad Rashid Hasan Shakirat, a senior wanted militant, head of the Hamas terror organization in the Ein Beit Ilmeh R.C. Shakirat, 34, was hiding inside a civilian home at the time of his arrest until the residents of the house, concerned by the presence on behalf of the IDF, forced Shakirat to exit the building. Shakirat, 23, revealed during questioning that he had given an explosive suicide belt to Mahed Ashur, a resident of Nablus who worked in Tel Aviv. Yesterday, IDF forces arrested Ashur who directed the forces to a weapons cache, which contained bomb making materials. During his questioning Ashur admitted to receiving a suicide belt from Shakirat which he transferred to Tel Aviv in order to execute a suicide bombing against Israeli civilians. The belt was later found by Border Police sappers in a civilian home in southern Tel Aviv and detonated in a controlled fashion. During a search in a civilian home, the forces came upon a pregnant Palestinian woman sitting on a bed. The woman refused to get up, claimed that there was nothing unusual in her home and that she did not feel well. The forces continued the search and uncovered a weapons cache under her bed. The Forces also arrested the senior wanted Palestinian militant Ahmed Yusuf Iah Aa-Az, 36, one of the senior leaders of the Hamas terror organization in the Ein Beit Ilmeh R.C.. In a different incident, the forces arrested a Hamas terror operative, who was dressed at the time as a woman in order to disguise himself while the IDF forces searched for him. IDF forces also arrested Haled Nuri, Yusuf Nadi and Mustafa Nuri, members of the Hamas terror organization who admitted during their investigation that they intended to execute terrorist attacks. Mustafa Nuri also admitted his intention to commit a suicide bombing. Their terrorist cell acquired weaponry for the execution of the attacks from the leaders of the Hamas infrastructure in the Nablus region. Hamis Valid Hamis Mari, 28, a senior PFLP operative was also arrested as part of the activity. The IDF operation successfully prevented terror attacks on Israeli civilians. The IDF will continue to operate against the terror organizations in order to ensure the security and safety of the citizens of Israel. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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MIDDLE EAST VOLCANO
Posted by Koira, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Charles Krauthammer and it appeared September 21,
2007 in the
Washington Post
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092001955.html Contact him by email at letters@charleskrauthammer.com |
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On Sept. 6, something important happened in northern Syria. Problem is, no one knows exactly what. Except for those few who were involved, and they're not saying. We do know that Israel carried out an airstrike. How do we know it was important? Because in Israel, where leaking is an art form, even the best-informed don't have a clue. They tell me they have never seen a better-kept secret. Which suggests that whatever happened near Dayr az Zawr was no accidental intrusion into Syrian airspace, no dry run for an attack on Iran, no strike on some conventional target such as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base or a weapons shipment on its way to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Circumstantial evidence points to this being an attack on some nuclear facility provided by North Korea. Three days earlier, a freighter flying the North Korean flag docked in the Syrian port city of Tartus with a shipment of "cement." Long way to go for cement. Within days, a top State Department official warned that "there may have been contact between Syria and some secret suppliers for nuclear equipment." Three days later, the six-party meeting on dismantling North Korea's nuclear facilities scheduled for Sept. 19 was suddenly postponed, officially by China, almost certainly at the behest of North Korea. Apart from the usual suspects -- Syria, Iran, Libya and Russia -- only two countries registered strong protests to the Israeli strike: Turkey and North Korea. Turkey we can understand. Its military may have permitted Israel an overflight corridor without ever having told the Islamist civilian government. But North Korea? What business is this of North Korea's? Unless it was a North Korean facility being hit. Which raises alarms for many reasons. First, it would undermine the whole North Korean disarmament process. Pyongyang might be selling its stuff to other rogue states or perhaps just temporarily hiding it abroad while permitting ostentatious inspections back home. Second, there are ominous implications for the Middle East. Syria has long had chemical weapons -- on Monday, Jane's Defence Weekly reported on an accident that killed dozens of Syrians and Iranians loading a nerve-gas warhead onto a Syrian missile -- but Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Syria. Tensions are already extremely high because of Iran's headlong rush to go nuclear. In fending off sanctions and possible military action, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen a radically aggressive campaign to assemble, deploy, flaunt and partially activate Iran's proxies in the Arab Middle East: (1) Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages across the border from the Gaza Strip. Its intention is to invite an Israeli reaction, preferably a bloody and telegenic ground assault. Why is Iran doing this? Because it has its eye on a single prize: the bomb. It needs a bit more time, knowing that once it goes nuclear, it becomes the regional superpower and Persian Gulf hegemon. Iran's assets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are poised and ready. Ahmadinejad's message is this: If anyone dares attack our nuclear facilities, we will fully activate our proxies, unleashing unrestrained destruction on Israel, moderate Arabs, Iraq and U.S. interests -- in addition to the usual, such as mining the Strait of Hormuz and causing an acute oil crisis and worldwide recession. This is an extremely high-stakes game. The time window is narrow. In probably less than two years, Ahmadinejad will have the bomb. The world is not quite ready to acquiesce. The new president of France has declared a nuclear Iran " unacceptable." The French foreign minister warned that "it is necessary to prepare for the worst" -- and "the worst, it's war, sir." Which makes it all the more urgent that powerful sanctions be slapped on the Iranian regime. Sanctions will not stop Ahmadinejad. But there are others in the Iranian elite who might stop him and the nuclear program before the volcano explodes. These rival elites may be radical, but they are not suicidal. And they believe, with reason, that whatever damage Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic folly may inflict upon the region and the world, on Crusader and Jew, on infidel and believer, the one certain result of such an eruption is Iran's Islamic republic buried under the ash. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com |
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THE JEWISH TSUNAMI
Posted by Naomi Ragen, September 30, 2007. |
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Friends, In the days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Judgement, threats hang heavy over the heads of all of us in the Land of Israel. Crippled by the worst, and some would argue, most corrupt government in her history, we now face a show-down with our enemies, and are being pushed into a position of weakness and suicidal bad decisions by our "friends." The November Mideast Conference may well turn out to be the politcal equivalent of Iran's nuclear bomb. As we doze, the tsunami of the Jewish world is gearing up on the horizon, rolling in slowly for the kill. Secretly, the most unpopular Israeli Prime Minister in history, Ehud Olmert, is drawing up a wideranging and unprecedented list of surrenders to the PLO in time to please Condoleeza Rice. If he goes forward, we will see thousands of Gush Katifs, thousands of Jewish refugees, synagogues bulldozed, schools destroyed and strong, vibrant communities uprooted into unemployment and homelessness. We will see the strengthened and legitimized terrorist organization
founded by Yasir Arafat, and now headed by his right hand man, Mahmoud
Abbas, on one side, armed to the teeth, and Hamas on the other. We
will see Jerusalem divided, our holy places put into the hands of
international agencies. And the only information we have about this
comes from the PLO's own news agency, which was handed a secret Hebrew
document revealing the principles of the "understanding" our
government is now in the process of completing with the PLO. This
information is deliberately being kept from the Israeli public and the
American public. Nadia Matar, who heads Women in Green, the brave little group of mostly English-speaking immigrants who have been up in arms, and unlike most Israelis, fully awake since Oslo, held a small protest in Paris Square near the Prime Minister's residence as Olmert and Rice had dinner. When it was over, and Nadia was walking back to her car, eyewitnesses report that she was surrounded by police, handcuffed, and driven in a police van to jail. She was released early today, without charges. Mr. Olmert, is this how public disagreement with the government's fire sale of Jewish sovereignty is going to be handled? It's sickening. I don't have any answers about what can or should be done. I'm standing on the beach, watching the tiny ripples begin to roll in, wondering how in G-d's name it came to this, and what in G-d's name will happen. And this Yom Kippur I will be praying for G-d's intervention to thwart the terrible coming storm. Please join me. Naomi Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. |
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RETORT TO SAUDI-SANDAL-LICKER DANNY RUBENSTEIN
Posted by Paul Lademain, September 30, 2007. |
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Your resident screwball reporter (Rubenstein) who mouthed off against Israel by wrongheadedly describing his nation--the only nation on earth that would tolerate this foolishly contrarian Jew-- as an "apartheid" state is a "Jane Fonda Jew" who prattles sedition in order to suck up to the Saudis (whom he fears) so they will allow him to keep his comforts. Well, we have this to say about that: Israel won't be an "apartheid state" once it kicks out the invading arabs and sends them packing back to their Egyptian and Sudanese homelands, from whence these ugly invaders came. Hopefully, when the ugly Arab invaders are kicked out, they will drag along with them their Jewish protector, the idiot-King of the Jane Fonda Jews: Shimon Peres--the masochist nutbag who hates his adopted homeland for to please his dearest dead friend, bloody Yasser Arafat. Viva to the Patriots of Israel from the Secular Christians for Zion. We say: Restore Jewish Palestine from the ocean to the sea, the way Israel was originally intended to be. Contact Paul Lademain at lademain@verizon.net |
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CHIEF ISRAELI NEGOTIATOR FAVORS DIVISION OF JERUSALEM, INCLUDING OLD CITY
Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, September 30, 2007. |
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In response to a concerned letter of inquiry from Jerusalem Municipal Council Member Nir Barkat, Vice Prime Minister Chaim Ramon wrote, "The Jewish neighborhoods [of Jerusalem] will be recognized as Israeli and under Israeli sovereignty. Accordingly, the Arab neighborhoods will be recognized as Palestinian. Passages between the Israeli neighborhoods will be open and secure -- accordingly the same will be true for the Palestinian neighborhoods." Regarding the "holy sites" in the capital, Ramon wrote only that there would be an undefined "special sovereignty." Inside the Old City, the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter "will remain under Israeli rule forever," the vice-premier wrote. Sources in the Prime Minister's Office confirmed that Ramon fully represents the government in negotiations with the PA, but said that the opinions he expressed in his letter were his own and "do not obligate the Prime Minister." In reaction to the publication of the letter to Barkat, Knesset Member David Rotem of Yisrael Beiteinu, a member of the governing coalition, said, "Minister Ramon's plan will enhance his prestige in the Left, but will dissolve the government." Rotem made the comment to the Yediot Acharonot newspaper on Tuesday. Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai of the Shas party expressed strong opposition to the Ramon plan, as well, saying Jerusalem is "not a bargaining chip." Last week, responding to then-unconfirmed plans by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to divide Jerusalem, Yishai declared, "Unequivocally, Shas will not sit in a government that creates a Palestinian state on the Green Line and within Jerusalem municipal territory." Defense Minister Ehud Barak, of the Labor party, reserved comment on the Ramon letter. Minister of Pensioner Affairs, Rafi Eitan of the Gil Pensioners party, said that the Ramon plan for Jerusalem will not garner a government majority, in any case. Without speaking for his fellow party members, as the faction was formed strictly to promote pensioners' interests, Eitan said that he would oppose the Vice Prime Minister's ideas on Jerusalem. Even some Knesset members representing Ramon's own faction, Kadima, expressed concern over the positions espoused by the government's chief negotiator. Both MK Ze'ev Elkin and MK Otniel Schneller claimed that the idea of dividing sovereignty in Jerusalem is antithetical to the basic platform of the Kadima party. MK Tzvi Hendel of the National Union party, who was expelled from his home in the Gush Katif town of Netzer Hazani, slammed the selection of Ramon as chief negotiator: "There is no greater shame than the fact that a convicted criminal, who lacks morals and who promoted the evacuation of Gush Katif -- which lead to the current disasters -- is now conducting, on behalf of Olmert, insane negotiations for the division of Jerusalem." Hendel called for the toppling of the government by the Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu parties.
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz writes for Arutz Sheva. This article appeared
September 19, 2007.
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THE CONQUEST OF EUROPE
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 30, 2007. |
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Paul Belien, author of The Conquest of Europe has a Law degree (specialisations in Social Security Law and European Law) and a doctorate in International Studies. He is author of numerous articles, essays and books, including, most recently, A Throne in Brussels |
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The Conquest of Europe
The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch Newspaper DeVolkskrant that young Europeans, who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will not exist twenty years from now. While sitting on a terrace in Berlin during the interview, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said, "We are watching the world of yesterday." Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate. "I am too old," he said. qHowever, he urged young people to get out and "move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable." Many Germans and Dutch, apparently, are not waiting for Broder's advice. The number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already surpassed the number of immigrants moving in. One does not have to be prophetic to predict, like Henryk Broder, that Europe is becoming Islamic. Just consider the demographics. - The number of Muslims in Contemporary Europe is estimated to be 50 million. Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose Islamization. "The dominant ethos," he told De Volkskrant, "is perfectly voiced by the... author with whom I recently debated. She said that it is sometimes better to let yourself be raped than to risk serious injuries while resisting. She said it is sometimes better to avoid fighting than run the risk of death." In a recent Op-Ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard the Dutch (gay and self-declared "humanist") author Oscar Van Den Boogaard refers to Broder's interview. Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the Islamization of Europe is like "a process of mourning." He is overwhelmed by a "feeling of sadness." "I am not a Warrior," he says, "but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it." Consider that in all of Europe no one under the age of 65 has picked up arms in defense of their country. That task has been borne by the United States since Hitler surrendered in 1945. As Tom Bethell wrote in this month's American Spectator: "Just at the most basic level of demography the secular-humanist option is not working." But there is more to it than the fact that non-religious people tend not to have as many children as religious people, because many of them prefer to "enjoy" freedom rather than renounce it for the sake of children. Secularists, it seems to me, are also less keen on fighting. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, this life is the only thing they have to lose. Hence they will rather accept submission than fight. Like the German feminist Broder referred to, they prefer to be raped than to resist. "If faith collapses, civilization goes with it," says Bethell. That is the real cause of the closing of civilization in Europe. Islamization is simply the consequence. The very word Islam means "submission" and the secularists have submitted already. Many Europeans have already become Muslims, though they do not realize it or do not want to admit it. Some of the people I meet in the U. S. are particularly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. They are correct when they fear that anti-Semitism is also on the rise among non-immigrant Europeans. The latter hate people with a fighting spirit. Contemporary Anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit. This is why they have come to hate Israel and America so much, and the small band of European "Islamophobes" who dare to talk about what they see happening around them. West Europeans have to choose between submission (Islam) or death. I fear, like Broder, that they have chosen submission -- just like in former days when they preferred to be Red rather than dead. Europeans apparently never read John Stuart Mill: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war, is worse." "A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il |
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MORNING IN AMERICA
Posted by Michael Travis, September 30, 2007. |
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From the photographer, Dean Shaddock: This was captured as I collected my things from airport security (Detroit Metro Concourse A). I think of it as something like a Rorschach test. Is an elderly Catholic nun being frisked by a Muslim security agent the celebration of blind justice? Or is it simply an admission of absurdity? Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com |
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"DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION" FALLACY; ASSESSING HAMAS; HAMAS "NAVY"; "RABBI" LERNER BASHES ISRAEL
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2007. |
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HAMAS VIOLATES ANOTHER NORM OF DECENCY Hamas refuses to let the International Red Cross visit its Israeli prisoner (IMRA, 9/6). Hamas lacks common decency. BRITAIN DEFEATED IN IRAQ? Turning Basra over to the Iraqi police, the British garrison withdrew its last troops to the airport. From there, it supposedly would sally forth when needed. The Islamists claim to have driven the British out. The British claim it was a strategic withdrawal (Robert H. Reid, NY Sun, 9/4, p.6). The reporter doesn't tell us what is what, just who says what. I figure it this way: when the British left, the Islamist militias that it should have crushed were still strong and are contending for control over the city. It is difficult to imagine that the national police would be able to stop them. It smells to me like a British defeat. TERRORISTS DEFEATED IN LEBANON The Lebanese Army killed and captured the last of the Islamist rebels in a Palestinian Arab town. It declared that town under Lebanese control and its rebellion an unfortunate diversion from the real enemy, Israel. It claims to have defeated terrorism (IMRA, 9/3). No, it defeated a small group of foreign terrorists, but cooperates with Hizbullah, a major terrorist organization. Previously, the Palestinian Arab refugee camps, actually now towns, were off-limits to the Lebanese government. This allowed a state-within-a-state, a prescription for just such attempts to take over the sovereign government. Will the Lebanese Army enter the other Palestinian Arab towns in Lebanon? I doubt it. ANTI-ZIONIST U.S. PRESSURE ON ISRAEL Ever since Olmert became Prime Minister, the US has been pressuring him Olmert to loosen Israel's hold on Judea-Samaria. He is trying to (IMRA, 9/3). Every other country thumbs its nose at the US or at least at Pres. Bush. Israel bends its knees. The fix is in. UNDERLYING FALLACY OF "DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION" People suppose Syria will attack Israel, unless there is a diplomatic solution. They don't understand. There cannot be a diplomatic solution for some conflicts. A diplomatic solution is possible if the two parties could agree on what would end their conflict and if they would abide by those conditions. The Muslims do not believe in abiding by terms and their goal is not solution but religious conquest. That fanaticism does not recognize the enemy's right to independence. UNQUESTIONING PUBLICS The leaders of both the US and Israel keep asserting that the Palestinian Arabs should have a state comprising Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. The only proviso, insincere because it has been stated since 1993 without any enforcement, is that the Muslims first dismantle terrorism. No prominent person dissents. None ask why the beleaguered Jewish people should give up strategic territory to a fanatical enemy bent on genocide against it. CONVERTS TO TERRORISM The story is continuing about three men in Germany who were about to commit a major terrorist rampage. Two of them were converts. Have you noticed that converts have taken part in terrorism? What sort of people convert to extremist Islam? In the US, Muslim chaplains convert violent felons to Islam. It gives religious sanction to the felons' proclivity for violence. CHAMISH'S VINDICATION Barry Chamish makes outlandish claims. Each time he comes up with another conspiracy, he is mocked for his attempt to set the record straight and permit justice to be done. After his evidence circulates, however, other people come forward with additional evidence. There is too much evidence to deny the main thesis. His claims get upheld. The Labor Party had 4,500 Yemenite Jewish children kidnapped and sold for experimentation in America. Shimon Peres had tens of thousands of Sephardim knowingly given such excessive, experimental doses of radiation, that 6,000 died immediately and thousands of others have been sick all their lives. Chamish also pulled together already known and new evidence that Labor was complicit in the Holocaust. Such anti-Jews as Peres now are complicit with the Arabs and ruining the good Jews of the Territories. HOW DIPLOMACY WORKS Being unpopular, Olmert and Abbas (and Bush) need another peace agreement, to save face. They may agree, but their people won't let them actually make concessions. Even though the agreement would fail, it would leave Israel in a worse bargaining position. Why? It makes concessions in principle that the Arabs refuse to meet. When negotiations resume, world diplomats then suppose that bargaining should start with Israel's last negotiating position. The Arabs, who usually refuse to make any concessions, find that the more stubborn they are, the more the rest of the world presses Israel to make deeper concessions. What an incentive to hold out for more! For example, once some foolish Israeli premier (Rabin) offered to secede from the Golan Heights, everybody came to expect that that was the only basis for an agreement with Syria. Syria did not have to offer to take less. Why does Israel "let itself be out-maneuvered in this fashion time after time?" (Hillel Halkin, NY Sun, 9/4, Op.-Ed..) It's not just naivete. It's not just ideology. It's also that a thoroughly corrupt Israeli Establishment is doing foreign bidding to break Israel down in stages. If Mr. Halkin read Barry Chamish's books, he would understand. If Halkin had a broader view, he would demand that Israel not make any concessions to the aggressors and not give up sovereign territory (the Golan) to any enemy that previously and repeatedly used that territory for commencing the aggression. Halkin does make good points about Israel's poor way of negotiating. This is one of the few articles he didn't end with suggesting major concessions, himself. ASSESSMENT OF HAMAS' STRENGTH The latest IDF review of Hamas' strength in Judea-Samasria finds it equal to that of Fatah. Hamas was going to mount a coup, but the IDF kept it from uniting. For now, Hamas is infiltrating into the P.A. police forces. (So if Abbas were to ask them to help Fatah, they would demur.) Remember, that Hamas defeated Abbas' forces in Gaza, despite being outnumbered 4:1. All the more reason that the IDF opposes the US plan to raise five battalions, when the real problem is lack of motivation to fight Hamas. The IDF thinks it can help give them a motive by easing restrictions on them, so they can foresee a better life if not dominated by Hamas. Otherwise, Abbas is likely to be toppled this year (IMRA, 9/4). Then would there be pressure on Israel to make concessions? Probably. It's not a rational procedure but an anti-Zionist one. EXAGGERATING ISRAELI INFLUENCE ON U.S. STANDING Anti-Zionists claim that US support for Israel turns the Arabs away from the US. The claim is false. In the past, when US hostility towards Israel was more open and direct (as contrasted with its short-term support given in combination with long-term undermining), the Arab states nevertheless sided with the Soviets. It was when Egypt (and Syria) let itself be used as a base for the Soviets against the US, that the US started to support Israel, to keep those US enemies in check. Israel also was fighting against the PLO, which otherwise S. Arabia feared. "The claim has been made that if the United States forced the Israelis out of the West Bank and Gaza, then it would receive credit and peace would follow. There are three problems with that theory. First, the Israelis did not occupy these areas prior to 1967 and there was no peace. Second, groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah have said that a withdrawal would not end the state of war with Israel. And therefore, third, the withdrawal would create friction with Israel without any clear payoff from the Arabs." If the US ceased all support for Israel, would al-Qaeda stop fighting the US? No, al-Qaeda fights the US for supporting rival Muslim regimes. Israel is secondary. Same for Iran. Iran is concerned with US support for the Kurds and for the states around Iran. Israel is secondary (IMRA, 9/4 from Strategic Forecasting). WHAT EXPLAINS MUSLIM POVERTY IN JUDEA-SAMARIA? The NY Times published two letters about this, on 9/7. One noted the poverty of the Arabs, despite their receiving more foreign aid per capita than any other group. The people don't get their share; the officials steal it. The only time the people's standard of living improved was when Israel controlled their areas and built an infrastructure (and provided much employment). The other letter noted the poverty of the Arabs and the relative prosperity of Jewish towns in Judea-Samaria. That letter implied that the prosperity of the latter produced the poverty of the former. It implied that severe criticism, without fulfilling its obligation to show evidence for it. There is no evidence. There is no logical connection. What could the writer have been thinking? ECONOMIC RESPONSES TO GAZA ROCKETS? Some Israelis suggest cutting off electricity to Gaza when terrorists fire rockets at Israel, or cutting it off for good, or cutting everything off. But Israeli utilities are vulnerable, too (Arutz-7, 9/5). I think frequent shortages would encourage Muslim evacuation without inducing foreign intervention to save a million lives. HAMAS' "NAVY" Recently Hamas in Gaza announced the formation of a "Naval Unit", despite the fact that they have no Navy. Russia is desperately looking for a naval port in the Meditteranean, to challenge American control of the seas, among other reasons. Syria has an older port used by the Soviets years ago and, no doubt, will upgrade to today's standards for the new Russia in the Syrian cities of Tartus and Latakia. A Russian port in Syria is vulnerable to any Syrian-Israeli war, as it is part of the Syrian military infrastructure. A port in Gaza is less vulnerable as everyone will know it belongs to Russia. Of course, Russian troops, missiles and tanks would be stationed there "to protect the port". And, of course, Hamas terrorist infrastructure would be built up adjoining the Russia port, to shield Hamas from Israeli attack. Russia has already established a sea presence in Lebanon, using Russian Chechen Muslims, calling them engineers but, in fact, establishing a deeper working relationship with the Muslim Arab Palestinian "Jihadists". Obviously, it would be in America's interest to have Israel immediately bomb the coast of Gaza (as part of the war on terror and Al Qaeda infiltration into Gaza), to establish that area as an American target -- before the Russians build a port there. They can then pay the Israelis to retake the Gaza Strip -- before the Russians establish a sea presence, using Gaza as another port -- in addition to the one in Syria. If the Israelis just retake Gaza, world pressure could make them give it up again. If Israel bombs Gaza -- with the permission of America and so that everyone knows that Gaza is an American target -- then the Israelis will be thanked for "doing America's job on the ground", which saves American lives as well. Putin's Russia has always wanted a strong presence in the Mediterranean Sea which will cause America enormous problems, especially since Putin seems to be returning to his KGB Cold War days with some modifications. No doubt, Putin would also like to return to the previous Soviet position with Egypt before American aid pushed them out of favor. The Port of Alexandria could start receiving "friendly" visits for Russian shipping, especially when Mubarak inevitably loses control to the Muslim Brotherhood. In brief, between an incompetent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Administration of President George W. Bush, with too low a vision of its crucial importance, the Mediterranean Sea could become home to a Russian fleet. The big question is: Will America be able to act fast enough? (Verbatim from Winston Mideast Analysis, 8/ DRAMATIC ECONOMICS A friend asked how a conservative US government could inject funds into the market, to provide the credit that the failing mortgage market has crimped. He also wonders how there can be such things as a liberal economics and a conservative economics, when economics is a science. He finds economics boring, but I see its dramatic clash of interests and its effect upon our lives. Although my friend has a good understanding of events, he doesn't seem to realize how much our underlying economy has changed. Economics is a disciplined study, an art but not a science. It is open to differing opinion. Economic policy makers may have different goals. Their goals and therefore their means follow their political philosophy. Adam Smith's capitalism envisaged competition that kept all businesses on their toes and government off their toes. Competition was supposed to be drawn to profitable industries and level off the profits, turning some companies bankrupt. Businesses don't like that position. They engage in lobbying for the government to ward off competition, assume major risks, and provide subsidy. They may pay lip service to "rugged individualism," but they don't want it rugged for themselves. That is what "capitalism," is these days. Supposedly conservative politicians favor populist giveaways, and supposedly liberal politicians favor corporate subsidy. Our tax revenues are their tool. As a result, an industry may get bailed out of its folly or subsidized into rigidity. When the government insured bank loans to foreign countries, some years ago, banks lent indiscriminately and countries borrowed indiscriminately. Foreign governments hoped their foreign debtors would forgive most of their debt. Pres. Bush stuck to true conservative policy, neither subsidizing nor over-regulating lenders. He is letting industry shake itself out. Our economy is big enough now to weather the losses by greedy corporations. He is having a federal agency steady the market by providing guarantees so poor homeowners can refinance their mortgages advantageously. He also is asking for plainer language and disclosure on mortgage forms, so poor risks don't over-borrow. Don't let Congress, as it seems intent on doing, tax the NY City financial industry, already losing out to London and Hong Kong thanks to class action suits and the Sarbanes-Oxley regulation, ostensibly against fraud, but actually introducing high costs of compliance and of uncertainty! The attacks on industries by, for example, former NY State Controller Elliot Spitzer, punished whole companies -- employees and shareholders -- for the alleged crimes of a few. He often didn't have a case, but the companies didn't want to spend millions litigating. Cheated customers got little out of it and get little from class action suits. The lawyers make out like the bandits they are. "RABBI" LERNER BASHES ISRAEL Ordained in secret, "Rabbi" Michael Lerner has been suggesting many perversions of Judaism into the service of the Palestinian Arab enemies of Israel. His recent article on Zionism was quoted in a newsgroup on 9/5. He wrote that Jews did not return to Palestine in order to oppress or represent colonialism or cultural imperialism, but were arrogant about the people already there and having their own "cultural and historical rights." Modern Zionism brought suffering to the Arabs, consequently "forced to live as refugees" "in the land that once belonged to their parents" or to endure "systematic destruction of" houses and violations of rights and to be blamed as a whole for the terrorism by a few. They are second-class citizens in E. Jerusalem. Rebuttal. Israel does not blame all the Palestinian Arabs for terrorism, doesn't Mr. Lerner know? Israel pretends, as does the anti-Zionist establishment, that only a few are involved in it. I do blame the people as a whole. Why not, they support it as a whole? They are a collective society. Tens of thousands are armed terrorists, and those are just men of an age for it! Tens of thousands of others are engaged in terrorist propaganda and education. In general, they are engaged in jihad to the neglect of ordinary economic and political pursuits. The Arabs in Jerusalem overwhelmingly are not second-class citizens of Israel, for they are not citizens at all. Why should they be, though Israel allows them to naturalize? They are an enemy people annexed into Israel after they and their foreign allies attacked Israel. They enjoy continued residency and the right to travel within Israel, Israeli welfare and medical benefits, and civil rights denied to Arabs living under the P.A.. Jerusalem Arabs do not want to live under the P.A. There is little destruction of Arabs' houses, though thousands were built illegally, sometimes with foreign subsidy as a form of ethnic cleansing that blocks Jewish building, or were built on stolen land. The term "systematic" is typical of Arab propaganda, making Israel seem firmly anti-Arab. The government of Israel refrains from demolition. It is anti-Jewish, as the settlers are finding out. The country did not belong to the Arabs' parents. It was under Turkish and British rule for centuries, after the Arabs took it away from the Jews. Zionism corrected that historical injustice. Those Arabs don't have "historical rights," the Jews do. As for cultural rights, Israel allows them. It's defamation to deny it. Modern Zionism did not harm the Arabs. It brought them prosperity. Masses of Arabs immigrated, hoping to share in the gain! Three-fourths of Arab families in Israel are descended from relatively recent immigrants. There were very few Arabs (and only some Jews) left, when the modern Zionists came in. On the other hand, the Arabs did great harm to the Jews, killing thousands for nothing. I think Lerner injected too many errors to justify his writing on the subject. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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MORALITY POLICE' DETAINS RAMADAN FAST-BREAKERS IN WEST BANK
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 30, 2007. |
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This is from the September 27, 2007 |
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New "morality police" has begun detaining Palestinians who eat or drink in public during the fasting month of Ramadan, a first in the West Bank where Muslim custom was always widely observed, but never before imposed. The 12-member squad with special red badges appears to be an attempt by PA President Mahmoud Abbas's West Bank government to challenge the claim of rival Hamas, the ruler of Gaza, to a monopoly on religious righteousness. Islamic custom demands that believers fast and refrain from self-indulgence between sunrise and sunset during Ramadan, which this year began Sept. 13. Across the Muslim world, the fast is largely observed, though in some countries compliance is voluntary and in others, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, it's strictly enforced. New "morality police" has begun detaining Palestinians who eat or drink in public during the fasting month of Ramadan, a first in the West Bank where Muslim custom was always widely observed, but never before imposed. The 12-member squad with special red badges appears to be an attempt by PA President Mahmoud Abbas's West Bank government to challenge the claim of rival Hamas, the ruler of Gaza, to a monopoly on religious righteousness. Islamic custom demands that believers fast and refrain from self-indulgence between sunrise and sunset during Ramadan, which this year began Sept. 13. Across the Muslim world, the fast is largely observed, though in some countries compliance is voluntary and in others, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, it's strictly enforced. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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WILL ISRAEL'S CABINET MINISTER YULI TAMIR START A WAR WITH EGYPT?; HEBREW UNIVERSITY'S TOKYO ROSE
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 30, 2007. |
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I know this is really going to upset the Israeli Minister of Education. But the New York Times reported September 20, 2007 that there are people in Egypt opposed to female "circumcision," meaning female genital mutilation. In Egypt the procedure is done under filthy conditions and sometimes results in the death of young girls (it is done to them when they are 13 years old). The Times reports: "A nationwide campaign to stop the practice has become one of the most powerful social movements in Egypt in decades, uniting an unlikely alliance of government forces, official religious leaders and street-level activists. Though Egypt's Health Ministry ordered an end to the practice in 1996, it allowed exceptions in cases of emergency, a loophole critics describe as so wide that it effectively rendered the ban meaningless. But now the government is trying to force a comprehensive ban." The NY Times article gets more graphic from there, but I will spare you the details. Now why will this news upset Israel's Minister of Education, Yuli Tamir, better known for introducing school programs in Arab schools that teach that Israel's very existence is a "Naqba" or catastrophe? Well, as reported here and on the Arutz7 blog a while back,
(see You realize what this means? While Israel's relations with Egypt are not very good, once Tamir starts denouncing the Egyptians who criticize and oppose female genital mutilation, this will enrage Egypt and could even trigger a new all-out Middle East war!! True, Egypt got very angry, diplomatically-speaking, when Israeli comedian Eli Yatzpen made fun of President Mubarak on TV, but that is nothing! Egypt might attack Israel with missiles to force Tamir's removal if Israelis do not fire the educational airhead themselves!! JEW CONSPIRACIES AT HUFFINGTON
It's apparently the season for revivals of the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion or variations thereof. This is the time worn paranoia that the Jews, while a miniscule fraction of the world's population, nonetheless run it. The unspoken (and unexamined) implication is that the non-Jewish remainder of the human race is too stupid or too pathetic to thwart these designs. Obviously center stage in this conspiracy pageant for the moment is occupied by Walt and Mearsheimer's new book The Israel Lobby, which is about the Hebrew puppeteers who pull the strings that make Bush and Cheney jump, and who also shape the media culture that persuades them. (Too bad someone forgot to tell the Hollywood Jews to make a film about Islamo-fascism or one supporting the neo-cons' adventure in Iraq). But the impressive pervasiveness of this mind-set throughout the "liberal" political spectrum may be better judged by a column that appeared in Huffington Post by former FBI agent, former Republican and now Jew sleuth, Coleen Rowley. Ms. Rowley's article is delicately titled "Never Doubt That a Small Group of Thoughtful, Neo-Cons Can Destroy The World." Her thesis is Jew-conspiracy boilerplate: The right wing ruling Likud Party in Israel wanted a war with innocent, fragile and harmless Iraq. Therefore Likud's amen corner in America went to work on the Bushies (and the media) to make it happen. Citing aleftwing blog authority, Rowley lists the top twelve neo-cons in America -- or "dirty dozen" -- including Wolfowitz, Feith, Kristol, Perle, Bolton, Podhoretz, Kagan and Ledeen. I have to interject a personal disclosure here: I did not make the top twelve. But I did make the "second tier" which includes Joe Lieberman, Charles Krauthammer, John Podhoretz, Jackie Mason, Ron Silver, Ted Koppel and Ken Pollack. To explain the list she approvingly quotes from the blogger who provided it: "Neo-cons are conservative Jewish journalists and politicians linked to the right-wing Israeli Likud who support United States corporate, political, cultural and military imperialism with the use of pre-emptive World War if necessary ... to rid themselves of the Muslim Menace." In other words, the Great Satan and the Little Satan are out to persecute Muslims world-wide -- and that's what the war on terror is really about. And the Little Satan is really the force behind it. To be fair to Miss Rowley, she makes a half-hearted attempt to qualify the extreme Jewophobia reflected in the list. According to Rowley it is "mostly" Jews who are the root of all evil. But "mostly" doesn't really do justice to the design of the list: Jackie Mason but not Dennis Miller; Ron Silver but not Jon Voight; Ted Koppel (Ted Koppel?!) but not Sean Hannity, David Horowitz but not Christopher Hitchens or Victor Davis Hanson; and there's Ken Pollack, a supporter of the surge in Iraq, but not his co-author Michael O'Hanlon, who qualifies only as his "buddy." If this selectivity is not anti-Semitism, what is? And then there's the theory -- Jews are responsible for the war in Iraq. In fact, the Likud government was opposed to the war with Iraq, since its main concern was Iran and Iran's proxy army Hizbollah situated on Israel's northern border. Rowley's principal concern in writing the article, of course, is to protect Iran from any Neo-con pressures that would reign in its genodical, jihadist ambitions. According to Rowley -- and this is the imminent threat -- the Neo-Con's are revving up a new aggression: "They've given the ticket this time to first-string and first rate warmonger Michael Ledeen with his Iranian Time-Bomb book set to hit the airwaves and newsstands conveniently on the eve of 9/11." How does Huffington Post come to print this ignorant and toxic garbage? It does so because it believes it. Of course if a patriotic Jew were to point out that Rowley and Huffington are merely parroting the propaganda of the Islamo-fascists themselves, there would be howls of outrage from progressives everywhere. How dare you question their loyalties in this war? David Horowitz is the author of numerous books including an autobiography, Radical Son, which has been described as "the first great autobiography of his generation." It chronicles his odyssey from radical activism in the '60s to his current position as the head of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and who one journalist has called "the left's most articulate nemesis." His book, The Art of Political War was described by White House political strategist Karl Rove as "The perfect guide to winning on the political battlefield." Left Illusions is an anthology of 40 years of his writings. His latest books are The Professors, which documents the debasement of the academic curriculum by tenured leftists, The Shadow Party, which describes the radical left's control of the Democratic Party's electoral machine and Indoctrination U., which is an in-depth look at how indoctrination has taken the place of education in today's college classrooms. 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. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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ED KOCH'S INTERACTION WITH AN ISRAELI HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY GROUP
Posted by Koira, September 30, 2007. |
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I had some interesting correspondence with an Israeli human rights advocacy group, which I would like to share with you. My letter read as follows: I read with interest an Associated Press report in which you were quoted in response to the Israeli government's threat "to hit the services that supply the Gaza Strip from the State of Israel," a reference to electricity, fuel and water provided to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip by Israel. Your comment was, 'Deliberately targeting civilians, in Gaza or Sderot, is neither legal nor moral.' I received a response from Sari Bashi, Director of Gisha. She wrote, "It is a pleasure to hear from you. I grew up in New Jersey, and my mother, a New York resident, has always been one of your biggest fans. She always told me how she identified with your directness and your love for New York -- two characteristics that she shares. Thank you for your interest. I will address your question, and I would also like to refer you to some documents that provide more detail, if you are interested, especially a position paper Gisha has issued, Disengaged Occupiers: The Legal Status of Gaza, which is available at www.gisha.org." The position paper that Ms. Bashi referred to can be found at:
The correspondence relates to Israel's potential responses to the missile attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza. In its basic covenant, the Hamas government in Gaza reiterated that it is at war with Israel and will not prevent attacks upon Israel initiated by any group residing in Gaza. The Israeli government, now engaged in peace talks with the government of Abbas on the West Bank, is reluctant to use military force to enter Gaza to stop the shelling of its citizens. Instead, the Israeli government is considering using other means, e.g., the cutting off of electricity and water that it now provides the Hamas government and residents of Gaza. The advocacy group takes the position that to thus retaliate would be illegal, notwithstanding, she wrote, that "the Qassan rockets on Sderot violate international law, and they must stop." So, how does Israel stop them? Those rockets have injured and killed Israeli citizens. Most recently, they fell on an Israeli schoolyard that fortunately was empty of children at the time. It would truly be an Alice In Wonderland world if Israeli citizens were deprived of the protection of their government from missiles fired against them. The United Nations charter specifically affirms that every country has the right to defend itself. The conduct of Hamas is so outrageous that even the European Union, no friend of Israel, has labeled it a terrorist organization and refuses to do business with it. That includes France, first under then President Chirac and currently under President Sarkozy. But it was interesting for me that my correspondence is with a woman who writes, "I grew up in New Jersey, and my mother, a New York resident, has always been one of your biggest fans." We live in a small, and sometimes, bizarre world. The New York Times reported on September 8th, "Because the Hamas charter calls for Israel's destruction and Hamas is classified by Israel, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist group, Israel, along with much of the world, is squeezing Gaza, allowing only goods classified as humanitarian or essential to enter and no exports at all to leave. So an already faltering economy is collapsing." The Times did not, so far as I know, raise the issue of illegality. Because I would like to accommodate Ms. Bashi, knowing that her mother is a New York resident, let me suggest a compromise: Israel should provide water and electricity to Gaza at breakfast time for an hour at most each day, and then shut down the services for the balance of the day. If the missiles continue for a week, Israel should stop providing the services altogether. * * * The Democrats may lose the next presidential election because of their fear of confronting the radical left political organization, MoveOn.org. A majority of voters -- whether they support getting out of Iraq immediately, as I do, or a host of alternatives offered by Republicans and Democrats, including staying on indefinitely, as we have done in South Korea, Japan and Germany for more than fifty years -- are fair minded and do not approve of the insulting, libelous language, "General Betray Us," used by MoveOn.org in its recent New York Times advertisement referring to General Petraeus. Moreover, they do not approve of the refusal of all of the Democratic presidential candidates, save one, Joe Biden, to denounce MoveOn.org for that foolish and provocative statement. MoveOn.org is seeking to confuse voters with a new ad directed at President Bush using the phrase, "Betrayal of trust." The effort clearly is to degrade the meaning of the word betrayal. President Bush, by sticking to his position on remaining in Iraq, surely has betrayed no one. It has always been his position, before and after the last election, to remain on in Iraq. So MoveOn.org's tactic to lessen the damage of its first ad and the language just won't wash. Also, the wink and nod by some of the Democratic presidential candidates conveying their assent to the proposition that when they are elected President, they will provide amnesty to all illegal immigrants that was rejected by a substantial majority of Americans will injure the Democratic Party's chances of winning. The potential voters won an unprecedented victory in defeating the recent legislation over the objections of President Bush and Senators Kennedy and McCain. The recent statement of presidential candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich, "There are no illegal human beings," referring to the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, was ridiculous. Indeed, there are illegal immigrants, and every country tries to protect its borders from unlawful efforts to cross them. The Congress could easily deal with the problems we are facing because of illegal immigration. It could double or triple the number of legal immigrants from one million per year to two or three million. It could authorize a special workforce for the agricultural needs of the country, allowing current illegal aliens in the country to join that force, knowing at the end of two or three years, they must leave the country. First and foremost, it could enforce our existing laws and actually seek to criminally prosecute employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Any problem that our country faces, including providing universal health care, ending our casualties and costs incurred in the Iraq War we are waging alone, educating our children and fixing Social Security, can be addressed adequately and responsibly, if partisanship were tossed over the side and replaced by statesmanship and a desire to help the nation, instead of enhancing the political futures of particular elected representatives. "Throw the rascals out," should become the rallying cry of all voters without regard to party affiliation. * * * According to The New York Times, the governor of the Russian province of Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Lenin, has set aside a day, "to boost the birthrate by giving couples the day off to have sex." In the US, the leading capitalist state in the world, we should go the Russians one better and give our workers two days off for that noble purpose. * * * The war in Iraq is clearly coming to an end. Once the American public voted in the last election to turn majority control over to the Democrats, it became clear that President Bush and the Republicans can no longer prevent our withdrawal from Iraq. While the Democrats do not have the 60 votes in the Senate to stop a filibuster preventing their legislation from being voted on, and they cannot overcome a veto, the Democrats can enact legislation providing that military appropriations for Iraq can only be expended to provide protection to our soldiers in place and on their way out of the country. The President cannot veto the appropriations bill, if he knows that the Democrats will keep sending him the same funding bill. I am sure that technicians in the Congressional Budget Office can put together an appropriate restrictive resolution. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com |
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JIHAD´S FELLOW TRAVELERS
Posted by Kae, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by the Radical Islam Team and was published September 17, 2007 on
Omedia Blinded by anti-Americanism and electoral opportunism the left is flirting with Jihad and repeating the same mistake they made with Stalin |
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A Banned Demonstration The Socialist mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans banned a demonstration in Brussels on 9/11 under the slogan of "Stop the Islamization of Europe.". This was the same Socialist mayor who had authorized a demonstration in Brussels two days earlier by a group calling itself "United for Truth" an amalgam of Islamic and left wing conspiracy theorists who called for examining 9/11 to prove that it was part of a Bush Administration plot in the first place. Not surprisingly Thielemans was sustained by his fellow European Socialists. Heading the list of congratulations was MEP Martin Schulz of Germany the leader of the European Parliament Socialist Group. He followed Thielemans policy of branding the demonstration as racist "Like you, we are convinced that the people behind this demonstration want above all to stigmatise a community for dark racist and xenophobic reasons as is proven by the readiness to lump Islam together with fundamentalist terrorism." Schulz praised Brussels for refusing "to abandon its boulevards to those who propagate hatred and racism." The organizers appealed the ban to the Council of State, Belgium's Administrative Court. The Council of State however chose to uphold the ban. The reasoning went as follows: the organizers could not prove that their interests are harmed by the mayor's decision not to allow them to demonstrate on 9/11 they could chose another day. The impropriety of the date of the planned demo was the crucial element in the argument made before the court by the mayor's lawyer. Anyone who dared to suggest that the 9/11 terror attacks have anything to do with Islamism was ipso facto a racist, a xenophobe, a criminal.. As the Wall Street Journal commented on the affair [September 3], the point of the demonstration "preventing Islam becoming a dominant political force in Europe" was controversial but this was a test of protected free speech The Arab-European League (AEL), an anti-Semitic Islamist organization of Belgian immigrants led by Lebanese-born Dyab Abu Jahjah threatened a counter demonstration but following the ban it called upon its followers to abstain from demonstrating. By the way this was the same organization that had successfully appealed a similar ban before the Council of State in 2002 on a demonstration in Antwerp. In the demonstration the AEL shouted slogans supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and burned an effigy of a Hassidic Jew. The appellants were relying on this precedent before the Council of State but were rejected. In the end the organization attempted to stage the demonstration without a permit and this led to the arrest of the leaders of the right wing Flemish Interest Party and charges of police brutality. Perhaps belatedly Franco Frattini the EU Commissioner of Justice opined that the demonstration should have been allowed in the name of free speech. The mayor's action once again underscored the cooperation between the European left and Muslim elements. Brussels is 20% Muslim and 10 of the 17 Socialist municipal council members are Muslims. The Roots of the Alliance From the aforesaid, it can be gleaned that Socialist-Moslem cooperation in Europe results from fears over rioting fears that pervade the European establishment and could be witnessed for example in the cartoon affair when the Danish newspaper published a less than flattering cartoon of Mohammed. Then both governments and newspapers scurried to disassociate themselves from the cartoons fearing domestic violence and retaliation by Muslim countries abroad. The second reason that is misguided but sincere is European guilt over its colonialist and racist past. Antiracism has attained the status of a secular religion in Europe. We must also take account of electoral self interest due to the fact that Muslim immigrants tend to vote for parties of the left and given their increasing numbers constitute a serious electoral prize. Given the fact that in Europe parties of the extreme left can make it into parliament, thanks either to proportional representation or because of single member districts with a heavy Moslem population the mainline parties of the left have to ward off competition by extreme left parties. One striking example was the victory by George Galloway of the "respect party" over his Labor Party opponent Oona King in a heavily Muslim district. Galloway banked on his support for Saddam Hussein and his fiery anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric to secure the victory. The alliance between the hard left and Muslim organizations are fueled by a common anti-Americanism and it appears that for the first time since the demise of the Soviet Union the orphaned hard left has found a powerful ally. Romano Prodi's coalition in Italy nearly collapsed because the Communist Refoundation Party (representing those Italian Communists who refused to join the post-Communist wave when the old PCI became the Democratic Party of the Left) refused to vote money for the war in Afghanistan advocating an Afghan peace conference with the participation of the Taliban. [The Economist February 8, 2007]. Joshua Kurlantzick the foreign editor of the new Republic highlighted the 2003 conference in Beirut hosted by the Hezbollah that gathered together anti-globalization movements of the hard left anti-capitalist organizations and militant Muslims. [Joshua Kurlantzick, "The Left and the Islamists" in Commentary. New York: Dec 2004]. While the most famous case involves the former French communist theorist Roger Garaudy who became a Holocaust denier, some members of the left have made the ultimate act of personal identification and commitment by converting to Islam. A bemused Jonah Goldberg found himself at the Oxford Union debating the point of whether it was worthwhile for America to of been born with two members of the British left messers Harwood and Piddock who had both embraced Islam. Goldberg writes: And in Europe, Islamism appears to be this season's radical chic. Olivier Roy writes of Europe's radicalized Muslim youth: 'They are 'born-again Muslims.' It's here that they are Islamicized... Their dispute with the world isn't imported from the Middle East: It is truly modern, aimed against American imperialism, capitalism, etc. In other words, they occupy the same space that the proletarian left had thirty years ago, that Action Directe had twenty years ago... They exist in a militant reality abandoned by the extreme left, where the young live only to destroy the system ..." [National Review, Vol. 59, May 28, 2007]. There appears to be an intellectual symbiosis between the extreme left and the Islamists according to Goldberg with the Islamists including the Hamas borrowing some of the left's crackpot conspiracy theories ", I learned from the Islamic party's website that Gordon Brown, Tony Blair's successor as British prime minister, attended the "Super Masonic One World Government Bilderberger Conference held at Baden-Baden" in 1991. I bet he got a great tote bag." [Ibid.] A Shared Satan Anti-Americanism as a common thread allows leftist organizations to reconcile their ideological positions with those of the Islamists despite the obvious contradictions. Nick Cohen a writer for the British Guardian and a prominent critic of the left-Islamist alliance explored the contortions of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. This venerable organization of the left has advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament and during the 50s achieved a position of influence in the Labor Party. At a recent conference the organization hosted Iran's Ambassador to Britain. How asked Cohen could the organization tarnish itself by inviting the representative of a repressive regime and further the representative of a state which is on the road towards achieving nuclear status? Cohen provides his own answer: " Betrayal has defined the liberal left since Iraq because anti-Americans find their comrades in the Kurdish socialist movement or the Iraqi Communist Party or Arab liberal parties an embarrassment and cannot stick by them or even acknowledge their existence. Given that record, I guess it was inevitable that CND, whose governing council is stuffed with people who call themselves "socialists", "workers" and "communists", would take the next step and betray the Iranian left." Advocates of the left-Islamic alliance have no patience with their critics on the left who they dismiss as B-52 socialists an allusion to their refusal to be swept up in the anti-American current. Jacob Middleton writing in the hard left Socialist Review [June 2006] imputes that charges of a contradiction between affiliation with the left and the Muslim faith were in itself a form of racism. Dave Crouch writing in the same journal [December 2003] ingeniously invoked the precedent of Soviet Russia under Vladimir Lenin and its enlightened policy towards Islam. Lenin as opposed to the brutish Stalin realized that a distinction has to be drawn between the Russian Orthodox Church that had been a pillar of czarist repression and the Muslim religion that had been a victim the Bolsheviks under Lenin granted the Muslims religious freedom and the rights to propagate their religion in the schools. Even the Muslim religious Sharia courts were tolerated with the exception of amputating hands and stoning and only when the parties were not satisfied could they appeal to a secular courts but most issues were successfully resolved by the Moslem courts. If this wonderful alliance unraveled it was the fault of Stalin: The assault on Islam marked the beginning of a sharp break with the socialist policies of October 1917. As the Soviet Union launched a programme of forced industrialisation, Muslim national and religious leaders were physically eliminated and Islam was driven underground. The dream of religious freedom was buried in the Great Terror of the 1930s. Socialist Review stands in a tradition that totally rejects the Stalinist approach to Islam. But in the early years of the revolution the Bolsheviks were successful at winning Muslims to fight for socialism. We can learn from and be inspired by their achievements. Just as the Soviet Union's prestige was at its zenith following the second world war because of its military successes the radical left tends to identify with military successes against what it views as its enemy. At another Hezbollah Solidarity conference this one in November 2006 John Rees a former editor of the journal International Socialism opined that Hezbollah was not a terrorist organization. "It is better to think of it as an AFL-CIO with guns,"[Andrew Higgins, "Anti-Americans on the March", Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2006]. Voices of Sanity To be fair not all members of the radical left have succumbed to the Islamists temptation. Professor Fred Halliday a professor of international relations at the London school of economics rejects the historical revisionism and the adulation organizations like the Hezbollah. The Islamists cannot be considered allies of the left: For while it is true that Islamism in its diverse political and violent guises is indeed opposed to the US, to remain there omits a deeper, crucial point: that, long before the Muslim Brotherhood, the jihadis and other Islamic militants were attacking "imperialism", they were attacking and killing the left -- and acting across Asia and Africa as the accomplices of the west. Halliday reminds the left that it was the Moorish troops serving under Generalissimo Franco will help them crush the Spanish Republic and impose a right-wing dictatorship [Fred Halliday, "The Left and the Jihad"]. This historical truth has not prevented the current Spanish government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero whose own grandfather had been executed by the Franco regime to suggest a dialogue of civilizations and make overtures to Islam and even be photographed with a kaffiyeh during the Lebanon war. A more serious attempt to rally persons affiliated by the left against the alliance between the left and Islam is the London-based Euston Manifesto Group. This organization derives its name because its principles were formulated in a pub near the Euston tube station. The Manifesto itself is worth reading in its entirety but for brevity's sake we will include only some of the relevant passages. In a broad sense the framers of the manifesto believe that the left is compromising itself by a lying with Islam just as it had sustained itself by its a critical evaluation of the Soviet Union. Below are key passages from the Manifesto: 6) Opposing anti-Americanism. We reject without qualification the anti-Americanism now infecting so much left-liberal (and some conservative) thinking. This is not a case of seeing the US as a model society. We are aware of its problems and failings. But these are shared in some degree with all of the developed world. The United States of America is a great country and nation. It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its peoples have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions. That US foreign policy has often opposed progressive movements and governments and supported regressive and authoritarian ones does not justify generalized prejudice against either the country or its people. 7) For a two-state solution. We recognize the right of both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution. There can be no reasonable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that subordinates or eliminates the legitimate rights and interests of one of the sides to the dispute. 8) Against racism. For liberals and the Left, anti-racism is axiomatic. We oppose every form of racist prejudice and behaviour: the anti-immigrant racism of the far Right; tribal and inter-ethnic racism; racism against people from Muslim countries and those descended from them, particularly under cover of the War on Terror. The recent resurgence of another, very old form of racism, anti-Semitism, is not yet properly acknowledged in left and liberal circles. Some exploit the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people under occupation by Israel, and conceal prejudice against the Jewish people behind the formula of "anti-Zionism". We oppose this type of racism too, as should go without saying. 9) United against terror. We are opposed to all forms of terrorism. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a crime under international law and all recognized codes of warfare, and it cannot be justified by the argument that it is done in a cause that is just. Terrorism inspired by Islamist ideology is widespread today. It threatens democratic values and the lives and freedoms of people in many countries. This does not justify prejudice against Muslims, who are its main victims, and amongst whom are to be found some of its most courageous opponents. But, like all terrorism, it is a menace that has to be fought, and not excused... Vandalism against synagogues and Jewish graveyards and attacks on Jews themselves are on the increase in Europe. "Anti-Zionism" has now developed to a point where supposed organizations of the Left are willing to entertain openly anti-Semitic speakers and to form alliances with anti-Semitic groups. Amongst educated and affluent people are to be found individuals unembarrassed to claim that the Iraq war was fought on behalf of Jewish interests, or to make other "polite" and subtle allusions to the harmful effect of Jewish influence in international or national politics -- remarks of a kind that for more than fifty years after the Holocaust no one would have been able to make without publicly disgracing themselves. We stand against all variants of such bigotry. Many signatories of the manifesto are Jewish and they are in the sense reliving previous epochs of the socialist movements that witnessed the marriage of convenience between the political left and anti-Semitism. The German socialist August Bebel once referred to anti-Semitism as "the Socialism of Fools". The current leftist fascination with Islamic fundamentalist movements and even terror organizations demonstrates that the fools will always be with us. Contact Kae at kew1@dbmail.com |
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HOMEGROWN CAMPUS JIHADIST?
Posted by Robert Spencer, September 30, 2007. |
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Houssein Zorkot, a third-year medical student at Wayne State University in Michigan, was arrested on September 8 at Hemlock Park in Detroit. He was wearing camouflage makeup, black clothes, and carrying an AK-47 assault rifle; he reportedly had to be tasered by police when he was arrested. His website features photographs of the Ayatollah Khomeini and a great deal of pro-Hizballah material. Most ominously, on the day he was arrested he uploaded onto his site an image that included a photo of a soldier holding a rifle, with the caption, "The Start of My Personal Jihad (in the US)." Underneath in Arabic was Qur'an 9:20: "Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in Allah's way are of much greater worth in Allah's sight. These are they who are triumphant." The Arabic for "striven...in Allah's way" is jahadoo fi sabil Allah, which in Islamic theology refers in particular to jihad as warfare. The start of Zorkot's personal jihad will have to wait; he is being held on $1 million dollar bond. But his case carries some troubling implications. According to Michigan's WLNS, police say that on his website Zorkot claims to be a member of Hizballah. If that claim is true, was his abortive personal jihad in Hemlock Park ordered by Hizballah leadership? If so, and if Zorkot had succeeded in murdering anyone in the park, his attack would have been the first known strike by Hizballah on U.S. soil. Even though unsuccessful, Zorkot's attack, if it was a Hizballah project, would signal an end to the terror group's policy of not staging attacks in America because the reaction to such an attack would hinder the group's freedom of action here. Last April, Thomas Fuentes, special agent in charge of the FBI's International Operations, explained that Hizballah wants to "maintain a low profile by engaging in criminal activity [but] not direct attacks...They've not been enthusiastic about doing it on US soil because of the attention and reaction that would occur." But if Zorkot went to Hemlock Park on Hizballah orders, those days are over -- and Americans can brace themselves for more Hizballah operations here. It may be, of course, that even if Zorkot really is a Hizballah member, he was not acting on orders from the organization, but was freelancing when he took his AK-47 to Hemlock Park. Police and FBI officials have not given any indication as to whether or not Zorkot was on their radar screen before the incident last week, or whether or not they knew him to be affiliated with Hizballah -- if indeed he is. And a third possibility is that Zorkot is, contrary to his claim, not a Hizballah member at all. These possibilities are no less ominous than the first, for they would place Zorkot among the growing list of Muslims with no known connections to any terrorist group who suddenly go on a murderous rampage. Some of these recent incidents include Naveed Afzal Haq's July 28, 2006 shootings at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. After forcing his way into the building, Haq announced, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel," and then began firing, killing one woman and injuring five more. Two months earlier, a twenty-two-year-old Iranian student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV onto the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, deliberately trying to kill people and succeeding in injuring nine. After the incident, he seemed singularly pleased with himself, smiling and waving to crowds after a court appearance on Monday, at which he explained that he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah." Officials here again dismissed the possibility of terrorism, even after Taheri-azar wrote a series of letters to the UNC campus newspaper detailing the Qur'anic justification for warfare against unbelievers, and explaining why he believed his attacks were justified from an Islamic perspective. Neither Haq nor Taheri-azar were members of any terror group. They had never done anything to come to the attention of law enforcement officials before. Law enforcement attention, meanwhile, has been focused almost exclusively on known members of terror groups, with scant attention given to the ideology of Islamic supremacism and jihad that can inspire any lone individual to wage jihad on his own. Taheri-azar's painstakingly detailed arguments demonstrate that the Qur'an's exhortations to warfare can still be lethal whenever taken seriously by Muslims. Muslims who profess to reject jihad violence should have no problem combating, in cooperation with non-Muslim authorities, the ideology that fuels it. Yet FBI Director Robert Mueller recently revealed, according to journalist Bill Gertz, that "the FBI has no counterideology response other than its 'outreach' to Muslim-American communities so they 'understand the FBI' and address 'the radicalization issue.'" Gertz noted that "Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also said nothing is being done domestically to battle Islamist extremist ideas." This is a battle that must be fought. Whether or not Houssein Zorkot proves to be among their ranks, it is highly likely that there will be more freelance jihadists. The American Muslim advocacy establishment, for all its anti-terror protestations, have not, even now six years after 9/11, instituted comprehensive and transparent programs in American mosques to teach against the jihad ideology. Such programs will not end the possibility of freelance jihadists, but at least it would be a beginning, and a most welcome show of good faith from some organizations whose commitment to anti-terror efforts has come under increasing suspicion. The fact that this beginning has not been made by Muslim groups in the U.S., or called for by government and law enforcement, is yet another manifestation of the pitfalls of ignoring the ideological dimensions of Islamic jihad terrorism. As freelance incidents grow in number, American officials will find the luxury of ignoring the jihad ideology ever more costly. Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Religion of Peace?. This appeared September 17, 2007 in Front Page Magazine
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A LOOK AT THE HAMAS (MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD) GOVERNMENT
Posted by Koira, September 30, 2007. |
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"A Look at the Hamas (Muslim Brotherhood) Government"
Today's Washington Post carries a fascinating look (BELOW) at
the way Hamas,
The two trends that have made Islamist governments both accepted and
disliked are clearly on display. The first thing the Hamas government seems
to have done is get rid of the perpetual insecurity, crime and endemic
corruption. This is a pattern repeated from Afghanistan to Somalia, and one
that is often at the top of the list of priorities of civilian populations.
These actions, as they did elsewhere, buy an enormous amount of goodwill
among the general public, and is a facet that is usually sorely lacking in
U.S.-led efforts to win hearts and minds.
The second trend is the imposition of Islamist behavior. The article notes
that
"Hamas's New Order Exacts Toll On Gazans"
GAZA CITY -- For years, the seaside Flower of the Cities resort was that rare place in the Gaza Strip where the dress code did not rule out bikinis. Now, with some of its cinder-block cabanas turned into prayer rooms, the beach club shows how Hamas is consolidating its hold here three months after seizing power. Bushy beards* and black head-to-toe cloaks for women have become common at the club, which the armed Islamic movement torched in June after routing the secular Fatah party on the streets. The facility has been rebranded the al-Aqsa Resort, with a new logo featuring the revered mosque complex in Jerusalem next to a beach umbrella. Hamas followers collect the $2.50 entrance fee.
Like the party it supported, the bikini crowd has disappeared, leaving the trash-flecked beach and murky swimming pool to Bassem al-Khodori and a half-dozen other Hamas supporters, who now have jobs at the resort. "Before," said Khodori, 32, a cafeteria worker, "only the others were allowed." Facing money shortages, a shrinking private sector and growing political resistance, Hamas leaders are increasingly imposing harsh interpretations of Islamic law and using brute force to bolster their isolated administration, which remains illegitimate in the view of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and his U.S.-backed government in the West Bank. Reconciliation between the two largest Palestinian parties -- now running parallel governments in what had been envisioned as the two territories of a Palestinian state with a single government -- appears as distant as when Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led power-sharing government after the fighting in June. Many of Gaza's almost 1.5 million residents, who celebrated Israel's withdrawal two years ago only to fall into civil war soon after, have seen their lives improve in some ways and suffer in others as the result of the political split within the Palestinian Authority and Hamas's brand of rule here. While Hamas has imposed order on Gaza's lawless streets, gunmen from its Executive Force, a 5,000-member paramilitary unit, have employed repressive tactics against Fatah supporters and local journalists. International aid is again funding Palestinian government salaries, helping revive parts of Gaza's economy. But the closure of the cargo crossings from Israel for all but emergency aid is depriving Gaza's small manufacturers of raw materials. An estimated 85 percent of the territory's manufacturing sector has been shut down since June and more than 35,000 workers have been laid off, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs "We blame Hamas, the reason for all of this," said Hamdi Badr, 49, who two months ago shut down the clothing factory his family has owned since 1969. "But we don't really know what to do." The steel shutters of storefront factories along Badr's street are closed, and the only sign of life is dogs sniffing through pyramids of trash. Abbas's government in the West Bank has cut off municipal funds that Gaza once used for garbage collection. Badr flipped on fluorescent lights over rows of empty sewing machines, ceiling fans suddenly stirring the musty air. He employed 50 people when he closed his doors, and earned $4,000 a month. Now the people and profits are gone. "It's always the citizens, people like me and the ones who worked here, who pay for these political disputes," he said. Gaza's streets have taken on an increasingly Islamic cast in recent months. The improved everyday security has brought people back to the markets, beaches and parks, many of them women wearing for the first time the full black gown, gloves and face covering favored by the most conservative Muslims. Gunmen from the Executive Force are posted along the main avenues and at intersections. In Friday sermons, imams appointed by the Hamas-run administration accuse Abbas of collaborating with Israel and the Bush administration. The Hamas administration, led by deposed prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, is funding itself through utility, licensing and other taxes. Abbas has urged Gazans not to pay those bills to deprive Hamas of the money. The taxes are generating enough to pay some of the roughly 30,000 government employees Abbas cut from the payroll because they were hired under the Hamas-led government. Many work for the Executive Force, now the main security branch in Gaza. "We, for the first time, are operating a real security and justice system here," said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas hard-liner whose influence has grown since the June takeover. "Under the Fatah security forces, it was, A to Z, deeply corrupt." Zahar, a surgeon who served as foreign minister in Hamas's first government, said the movement is unrepentant about routing Fatah in Gaza. He favors "military trials" for the former Fatah security officials who once persecuted Hamas followers in the strip, calling them "American-Israeli collaborators." The Hamas-run television channel has popularized that characterization. One children's cartoon it aired recently depicted Fatah gunmen as mice, throwing dollars in the air, shooting children with U.S.-made weapons, unveiling Muslim women and firing at mosques before the Hamas "lion" comes to the rescue. Zahar said Abbas's appointed government is "illegitimate," calling illegal the president's decision to withhold some funds from Gaza and his recent decree effectively banning Hamas from future elections. The Islamic movement, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel and the Bush administration, defeated Fatah in January 2006 parliamentary elections. "How will he impose any of this in Gaza?" Zahar said. "He's a man that has lost all his credibility." After Friday prayers in recent weeks, Fatah supporters have marched through Gaza's streets in protest against the Hamas administration. "Shia! Shia!" the demonstrators shouted, an insulting reference to the Sunni Muslim movement's inflexible Islamic character and financial support from the Shiite government of Iran. Their numbers have swelled into the thousands, and Hamas's patience appears exhausted. The Palestinian Scholars League, an Islamic council dominated by Hamas clerics, issued a fatwa early this month prohibiting outdoor prayer. The decree came days after members of the Executive Force beat and detained dozens of demonstrators, some of whom had tossed homemade noise grenades and stones at Hamas security compounds. "All the mosques are controlled now by Hamas, so we said we would not pray in them but only outside," said Mohammed Yassin, 19, a Fatah supporter who works in a barbershop. After he threw a noise grenade at Hamas forces one Friday last month, Yassin recalled, he ran away and hid near his house. But he said his neighbors told the Hamas men where he was hiding, and he was beaten with sticks and rifle butts. After being treated in the hospital, he was taken to jail. "They told me, 'If you go to any more demonstrations, you are going to pay,' " Yassin said. On the bulletin board in the Health Ministry's lobby hangs another recent fatwa, this one declaring that a partial strike by medical staff at Shifa Hospital runs counter to Islamic teachings. For weeks, doctors at Gaza's largest hospital have been working only three hours each morning, leaving in limbo scores of patients needing post-surgery checkups, medications, examinations or signed permission to leave Gaza for treatment in Israel. Abbas has urged the doctors to stay off the job. The dispute stems from the recent firing of the hospital's director and its longtime public relations officer because, the doctors say, they supported Fatah. "They told me that if I stayed a bullet might enter my head," said Jumah al-Saqa, 49, the former spokesman, who was removed from his office by Hamas gunmen last month after two decades in the post. "They want Hamas in all those jobs." But Bassem Naim, the Hamas health minister, said the argument is about which government -- the one in Gaza or the one in the West Bank -- has the right to appoint senior ministry officials. He said the decision to strike was made as medicine shortages loom and "hundreds of patients" are being prevented from continuing regular treatments in Israel. "It is a political strike, but it has nothing to do with whether one man is Fatah and one man is Hamas," Naim said. "This situation is dangerous, though, especially since the strike is supported by the government" in the West Bank. Just before 11 a.m. one recent morning, scores of men, women and children waited outside numbered rooms, bloody bandages lashed around fingers, makeshift slings on tiny arms, X-rays clutched in old hands. The doctors left minutes later, leaving Thamam al-Bes outside Room 23 with no one to conduct her follow-up exam after last month's open-heart surgery. "I'm waiting for a doctor, and now there are none," said Bes, 54, who had traveled from her home in a refugee camp in central Gaza. "We just live in gloom and disease." [Editor's Note: I think the Muslim Arabs irrational but I
don't think they are forcing "bushy beards" on them -- although they
could be trying to corner the market on circus bearded ladies,
couldn't they?]
Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com
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BOLTON: ATTACK IRAN, 'REMOVE' ITS LEADER
Posted by Jerusalem Post Staff, September 30, 2007. |
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Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Tory delegates in Britain Sunday that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.
Bolton said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-back" from the West. "I don't think the use of military force is an attractive option, but I would tell you I don't know what the alternative is. "Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities." He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the "source of the problem", Ahmadinejad. "If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back," he said. Bolton said that the fact that only partial intelligence about Iran's nuclear activity existed should not be used as an excuse not to act. "Intelligence can be wrong in more than one direction... Responding after they (nuclear devices) are used is unacceptable." Bolton also said the UN was "fundamentally irrelevant". The former envoy criticized Britain's "softly softly" approach to Iran's imprisonment of 15 British sailors in April. They were released after Ahmadinejad announced he was making a "gift" to the British people. "They [Iran] got no response from the UK or the US. If you were the Iranian leader, what conclusion do you draw?" |
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ISRAEL ATTACK HAS IRAN IN PANIC MODE
Posted by Kenneth R Timmerman, September 30, 2007. |
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This appeared September 18, 2007 in Newsmax.com
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Israel's air strike on Syria has Iran and other Arab states "in a panic," Israeli government sources tell NewsMax. On Sept. 6, Israeli aircraft attacked a site in Syria believed to be a nuclear-related facility containing material delivered by North Korea. In a story for the Sunday Times of London, reporter Uzi Mahnaimi revealed that Israeli jets were directed to the site 50 miles from the Iraqi border by a commando team using lasers beams to pinpoint the location. Mahnaimi is the son of an Israeli general, and is very well connected. According to Mahnaimi, the Syrians are contemplating their next move. All I can say is the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak," said Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa. Israel also has been keeping most details of the raid a secret, but the government is pleased by the effect of the attack. "This has restored to an extent some of the deterrence that we lost last year during the second Lebanon war," a senior Israeli government official tells NewsMax. Iran, whose president says Israel should be wiped off the map, adopted a war footing after the attack. On Sunday it vowed that if it is attacked by the U.S., 500 to 600 Shahab-3 missiles would be ready to launch on Israel. The Iranians announced Tuesday morning that they were blocking Gmail and Google access to Internet users inside Iran. Kenneth R. Timmerman was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with John Bolton for his work on Iran. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum: 2005). Contact him at timmerman.road@verizon.net |
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FROM A CHRISTIAN PRO-ISRAEL ADVOCATE: WHAT WE CAN DO
Posted by Vera, September 30, 2007. |
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I'm a Christian pro-Israel advocate who started observing Sabboth and the 7 biblical feasts 3 months ago in Christian solidarity with Israel. This is my first post and relates to pro-Israel advocacy. Often the issues facing Israel seem insurmountable. Generally, marching with placards seems the significant contribution. Sans, it seems daunting. However, I've come to the conclusion that if I can sit and read an e-mail, I am one click away from signing a pro-Israel petition where it counts! So whether it's placard in hand, donations to pro-Israel sites, prayers, etc. Here's another great opportunity to "bless Israel". Please join us. Love never fails, love never quits! (that's from a Christian scripture written by Jews!) Thank you and Shalom!
Message from maozisrael.org We are extending this request to you because it will take an effort from all of us to battle the evil that is emerging. You may have heard about the ..anti-Semitic..harangue masquerading as a "scholarly, factual, informational" website, http://www.jewwatch.com. ..on the Google search engine..if you try to look up the word "Jew," this horrible website is among the first three results to pop up. Google will remove this website when they receive a petition with 500,000 requests... so let's make it 1,000,000! The current total signatures is over 320,000, but there is still a long way to go! This is where you can help. Make your voice be heard and do something to stand with the nation of Israel. |
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CONFRONTING THE SAUDI LOBBY
Posted by UCI, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Dr. Charles Jacobs, and was published Sep 21, 2007 by The David Project. |
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The Walt and Mearsheimer book accusing Israel and its allies of dominating American foreign policy is out. Three developments so far: First, the reviews aren't good. The New York Times, for example, derided the book as a "prosecutorial brief." On the other hand, academics who like the book will assign it for their courses, doing long-term damage to the minds of American students. Second, thanks to a slip of banana peel proportions, which was caught by CAMERA's brilliant analyst, Alex Safian, it's clear the dynamic duo doesn't believe a major part of their own thesis. While the book says Israel pressured the U.S. into war with Iraq, Mearsheimer instead curiously told an interviewer the truth: When it learned the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq, Israel argued that the Iranian situation was more dangerous and should be addressed first. So Mearsheimer knows his book is wrong. Israel did not push for, much less author, the Iraq war. Third, and probably most important, Walt and Mearsheimer's obsessive focus on Israel is causing critics from the right and the left to look carefully at the 800 pound gorilla of American Middle East policy, Saudi Arabia. With billions to burn, Saudi's impact on the rest of the planet is well understood. Madrassas, Islamic "universities," preachers and imams by the score have, among other things, moved Islam profoundly toward xenophobic and violent Wahhabi ideology. Yet most of the U.S. government carefully averts its eyes. Why? Because Saudi Arabia buys influence and former American officials peddle it. These include former ambassadors to Saudi and Gulf states like James Akins, Edward Walker and John West, former CIA station chiefs and analysts like Raymond Close, and former congressmen like Paul Findley. They're all on the Saudi payroll -- either directly through business deals or indirectly through Saudi support for their think tanks and foundations. In a masterful Wall Street Journal piece, Jeff Robbins, Mintz Levin lawyer and -- full disclosure -- attorney for the David Project, recounts how after Sept. 11, 2001, as president of the Boston chapter of the World Affairs Council, he was persuaded by a defense contractor to arrange a forum for Boston influentials to hear the Saudis expound on their enlightened, tolerant country. Multiply this by every major city and media market, factor in the PR firms and lobbyists, the defense contractors, the public officials and academics -- Saudi recently gave Georgetown and Harvard $20 million each -- and you begin to get the sense of the scale and dollars behind the Saudi lobby. We're looking at tens if not hundreds of millions in the U.S. alone. But, Robbins noted, to Israel's critics, there is "nothing wrong" in any of this. Walt and Mearsheimer deny being anti-Semites. Yet, Robbins went on, since they are "content with foreign oil money being used to advance a pro-Arab position on the Middle East, but devote themselves to criticizing American Jews for lobbying their public officials in support of the Jewish state, one may legitimately wonder what phrase would apply." 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!" |
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FATAH AND HAMAS WORK TOGETHER; THE RAMADAN EXCUSE; IMMORALITY OF CNN MORAL EQUIVALENCY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2007. |
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These were submitted September 20, 2007 |
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INSTEAD OF BUILDING A P.A. ARMY The US liaison with the P.A., Gen. Dayton, suggests arming and training five Muslim battalions in Judea-Samaria, to fight Hamas. Dr. Aaron Lerner asks, why set up a whole army? Instead, start with one town. Give it the security forces it needs. Their mandate: dismantle the terrorist infrastructure there and provide security for all. If they fail, there isn't a whole army to contend with. If they succeed, expand the experiment to another town (IMRA, 8/30). COMPROMISE? Israel's Foreign Min. Livni said she would not compromise so as to let the P.A. become a terrorist state. Dr. Aaron Lerner said the way not to allow it to become a terrorist state is not to allow it to become a state (IMRA, 8/30). Actually, she and Israel's other leaders are doing much to promote terrorist statehood. They make concessions preparing the way for statehood without requiring that the P.A. dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and indoctrination first, to show good faith. Israel releases, pays, trains, and arms terrorists, doesn't propagandize against them nor assert Jewish claims. It disarms, uproots, and deracinates Jews. Abbas, on whom they count to crush terrorism, praises it and makes demands of Israel that strengthen it in the name of strengthening him against Hamas. But he already lost Gaza to Hamas, and is in process of losing Judea-Samaria to it. US liaison Gen. Dayton, who armed the Fatah men who lost Gaza (not that Fatah is much better than Hamas), has an odd notion of anti-terrorism. He has the P.A. army hire the terrorists, and then, poof, they are officially laundered, not terrorist. He must be either naïve or seeking Israel's destruction. Since he made the same mistake before, I think he is both but mostly the latter. DISPROOF OF RELIANCE UPON FATAH Fatah and Hamas have been carrying out joint military operations against Israel. Top Fatah men told WorldNetDaily that they and Hamas formed a new organization to pursue this war (Barry Chamish, 8/30). Facts like those don't deter Olmert and Dayton. When folly is their everyday policy, then Chamish's evidence that they are working for people who want Israel destroyed makes sense. Those in the media and leadership positions who go along with the daily folly don't make sense or don't want us to make sense of it. They distract us with the Fatah-Hamas rivalry over who will lead the jihad. INSECURITY FENCES After spending hundreds of millions on a security fence that they were advised would not work, and the Muslims are overcoming, Israeli leaders want to build another. This one would separate Egypt from Israel (Barry Chamish, 8/30). ISRAELI HIDEOUTS A secret bunker for Israeli leaders to hide in during the next war, and a secret road to the airport for their evacuation, cost $250 million. Meanwhile, the government asked people in at least one city to turn in their gas masks for an upgrade. After they did, they found out that there would be no upgrade (Barry Chamish, 8/30). While Olmert returns Israel to "Auschwitz borders," he turns the country into an Auschwitz gas chamber? RUSSIAN CONFLICT OF INTEREST This summer, Syria prepared for an attack by Israel that Russia advised it Israel was preparing. That helped secure the sale of Russian arms to Syria! The IDF thinks that, after informing Russia that it had discovered the deception, Russia stopped alarming Syria. Syria's tension subsided (IMRA, 8/30). Some Arabs try to learn the lessons of past wars. A key lesson for them about the 1967 war should be Russian instigation of it. That was the war in which Syria lost the Golan. Russia was manipulating the Arabs. Syria ought to have learned not to trust Russian intelligence. It lacks conscience. MUSLIM NEWS The Organization of Islamic Conference denounced publication in Sweden of a cartoon of Muhammad, which the OIC called blasphemous and insulting, without explaining why. It urged its people to remain calm but demanded an apology from, and punishment for, the Swedes responsible. The Swedish newspaper stood on freedom of the press, but the OIC said that doesn't mean it should be insulting. Meanwhile, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood opposed a ban on "female mutilation," it called Islamic (IMRA, 8/31). Muslims used to claim the practice was regional and don't blame the religion. I would eschew cartoons of their founder but not of their intolerant ideology. They should be told that that have a right to criticize the cartoonist, but a free country does not punish disapproved opinion. They tend to exploit feigned insult in order to get infidels to knuckle under to them. THE RAMADAN EXCUSE, AGAIN The P.A. asked Israel to remove many roadblocks during Ramadan. The Israeli commander said he would remove them until there is a terrorist attack. Dr. Aaron Lerner remarked that there always is a terrorist attack, after Israel lets down its guard, to be considerate or to please the US (IMRA, 8/31). Islamists put their deadly cause ahead of Western notions of integrity and decency. Ramadan and the sacredness of mosques are an excuse for Western leaders, in the name of sensitivity, to pull their punches against terrorism. The US learned this the hard way, when it refrained from fighting during Ramadan or from shooting at gunmen in mosques. The Muslims were under no such compunction or illusion. They fought during Ramadan and from mosques. PEACE THROUGH CONQUEST After falsely accusing Israel of crimes against Palestinian Arabs, who do commit most of those crimes, against Israel and against each other, a representative of Iran stated the conditions necessary for a durable peace in the Mideast. The conditions involved the destruction of a Jewish state (IMRA, 8/31). Some peace! Muslims make other wars in the Mideast, wars having nothing to do with Israel. ARGUMENT AGAINST BANNING THE KORAN Daniel Pipes makes a case against a banning the Koran. He bases it on freedom of religion, on bans by intolerant faiths centuries ago, and on differentiating Islamists from other Muslims. He contends that a general ban equates inspirational with objectionable passages, reformers with extremists, and friends with foes, ignoring the possibility of positive change. His solution is to ban only Islamist interpretations of the Koran, ban Islamism, and ban Islamists (NY Sun, 8/29, p.7). I think this is just a start. If a positive change comes, the ban could be rescinded. Meanwhile, why should we suffer murderous subversion, because theoretically some day the subversion might reform itself? I think that the differentiations he makes are specious. The objectionable passages, the ones calling for intolerance, hatred, and war, are key operating principles of the religion. The Muslims would not let them be purged. Muslims easily are radicalized, because of those passages, and in any case most want to take over our society and repress us. Very few are reformers. THE IMMORALITY OF CCN MORAL EQUIVALENCY Another reviewer noticed additional CNN defamation of Judaism and Christianity, by equating them morally to Islam. The program quotes a religious Jew, Christian, and Muslim, each making a statement about the importance of the Land of Israel to his faith. Then Ms. Amanmpour commented, "They say 'God is the answer.' But their battle to save the world has caused anger, division, and fear." This equates the two earlier faiths, which nobody need fear, to Islam, which makes war for the Land. To justify that perspective, she has a lengthy segment on Jewish terrorism, of which there is so little that she had to turn back 27 years to find an example. Further skewing her presentation, she quotes Prof. Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter, embattled for the numerous errors (and that's putting a good face on it) in their discredited books and papers, and not so advising the audience. She stereotypes Jews by references to Jews and money, among other ways. She does not mention arguments about Israel being a US ally, its upholding of Arabs' human rights (it doesn't uphold patriotic Jews' human rights), and its right to defend itself (Heather Robinson, NY Sun, 8/29, Op.-Ed.). ISLAMISTS ABOVE CRITICISM? When Human Rights Watch (HRW) finally condemned as war crimes Hizbullah's having fired thousands of rockets into Israeli towns for no military purpose, the government of Lebanon couldn't take it. It denounced Human Rights Watch for bias. It demanded that HRW denounce Israel (as if HRW had not been one-sidedly and wrongfully denouncing Israel for months). It claimed that Israel committed more offenses (Hassan M. Fattah, NY Times,8/31, A10). The Muslims base their notion of ethics on: (1) The side that inflicts more casualties must be wrong, whereas it means its military is better; and (2) Self-defense against jihad is unethical. Notice, the title of this brief is about "Islamists," but this paragraph refers to "Muslims." In Israel's earlier wars, before there were Islamists, there were just Muslims. They also specialized in bombing cities. They still denounce Israeli self-defense, too. ISRAELI CHEATS WORLD ZIONIST ORGANIZATION (WZO) Danny Rubinstein of Haaretz' editorial board was sent by the WZO to address a UN peace conference, really set up to bash Israel. He betrayed WZO by calling Israel an apartheid state (IMRA, 9/1). He went under false pretenses. Most major Jewish organizations are run by leftist subversives. ANTISEMITISM IS A FORM OF HUCKSTERISM People used to believe what they read, because they saw it in print. Then advertisers learned to lure the unwary by touting a product "as advertised on TV." A new form of hucksterism exploits the Internet. People accept the non-academic propaganda they find at their computers. Some of it is antisemitic. Certain Internet writers turn all the news of the day into accusations against Israel or the Jewish people. On the newsgroup, Soc.Culture.Israel, one of them twisted an accidental Israeli killing of some Arab children playing with rocket launchers into the accusation that Jews don't care about children. Note the prejudicial assumption that what Israel does, all Jews endorse. The IDF explained that from a distance, the children looked like adults moving to retrieve the rockets for terrorists. The IDF fired at them, hoping to catch some terrorists as well as launchers. The resulting deaths of children were accidental. The IDF expressed sorrow over it. It explained that if it had known, it would have refrained from firing. Israel cares about children. Paid by terrorists to retrieve rockets, Arab children are part of the terrorist infrastructure. I would fire at them, rather than let them enable the terrorists to launch more rockets. There should be no immunity for abettors of terrorism. Internet critics of Israel fail to ask, first, how much do the terrorists care about their people's children. They endanger those children first by paying them for participation in terrorism, second by encouraging them to become suicide bombers, and third by fighting from civilian areas, thereby drawing Israeli return-fire down upon them. Israel's critics omit the relevant facts. Those righteously indignant critics also fail to ask how much do the terrorists care about Israeli children. The terrorists launch rockets at Israeli cities that are not a legitimate military target but filled with civilians, including children. PLO terrorists have raided schools and shot helpless children. They fire upon civilians cars bearing families with children. An Arab sniper even shot a baby in the head. Incidentally, the US gave the PLO training in being snipers! In taking the side of terrorism, Israel's critic on Soc.Culture.Israel himself shows unconcern for children. REINFORCING ABBAS The Preventive Security forces defeated in Gaza mostly fled to Judea-Samaria. There they reinforce Abbas' forces. Considering that they fled without much fight, what do you estimate Abbas' chance is of holding Judea-Samaria? WHO DICTATES TO WHOM? Working with US Ambassador Kurtzer, Israel will designate each settlement's construction line. The goal is to restrict their growth. "Construction line" was not defined. (They would be curbed even within their municipal boundaries.) Within 30 days, the government also will submit to Amb. Kurtzer a list of unauthorized outposts to be dismantled. No definition of "unauthorized" was stated, although most outposts have some written authorization. They will give Amb. Kurtzer a list of roadblocks to be dismantled. The government reiterated to the US its dedication to the principle of the "two-state solution for peace." It did not explain how that would solve jihad. It remains committed to the Road Map. (It did not complain that the Road Map does not have concrete requirements to end terrorism.) The government still approves of US reform of P.A. security forces "to fight terrorism." (IMRA, 9/2.) It did not admit that those terrorists forces fight Israel, not terrorism. Obviously, the US is dictating to Israel. How can Professors Mearsheimer and Walt and Jimmie Carter think otherwise? Blind prejudice and bigotry.. ISRAEL LETS MUSLIMS DESTROY TEMPLE REMNANTS Israel is letting the Muslims dig an electrical cable trench on the Temple Mount such that they deliberately destroy the carved stones of the Second Temple. "The Wakf has denied that any Jewish artifacts have been discovered during the dig, but new photos of work on the Mount belie the claim, clearly showing what is likely to be an ancient piece of carved wall. The wall in question is from the outer wall of the Temple itself, as opposed to the Western Wall, which is a remnant of the retaining wall around the larger Temple platform." "This is an extraordinarily serious offense," Richman states. "A corrupt, spiritually bankrupt government is allowing Judaism's holiest site to be trashed because of political agreements to officially hand over the Temple Mount to the Palestinian Authority. Jews in Israel and abroad are asleep, and have not awoken to the importance of the Temple in Judaism or the desecration of this holy site being performed daily by the Wakf." Police don't allow archeologists to inspect the site. PM Olmert approved the dig. He is an accomplice (Arutz-7, 9/3). The government of Israel is led by what should be termed "anti-Jews." ISLAM ON KIDNAPPING OF CIVILIANS With only a little hedging, the sheikhs of the authoritative Al Azhar U. in Cairo declared that Islam forbids kidnapping civilians and holding them hostage, unless they were actively aiding the enemy in wartime. They demanded that people judge Islam by its teaching, not by how its adherents behave (IMRA, 9/2). But they all agree on certain barbarous principles. ANTI-JEWISH NOTION OF LEGALITY, FOR SETTLEMENTS Peace Now is trying to uproot all the Jews from Judea-Samaria. It contends that some of the outlying Jewish neighborhoods there are "illegal." Actually, many were started with government authorization and subsidies. Peace Now is misleading people and giving the government a poor excuse. "No community or outlying neighborhood in Yesha is considered completely authorized until it has the final signature of the Defense Minister," Wallerstein said. "Therefore, these 100-plus outlying neighborhoods are technically and formally not yet 100% legal. But in fact, in 98% of the cases, all they need is that signature. If it turns out that in some of the locations, we were tricked and the sale [of Arabs' land] was fictitious, or incomplete, or whatever, we are willing to talk about moving them a few hundred meters..." "In the Arab sector, however, the situation is the opposite. A ministerial committee recently decided that for every Bedouin or Arab outpost or town that is not recognized as such -- meaning it is illegal -- a committee will be set up to see how it can become authorized and legal." (Arutz-7, 9/3.) Double standard against the Jews. The government withholds the final signature from Jewish communities and then cites the lack of signature as "unauthorized." ONE-WAY OFFERS PM Olmert is striving to reach a sacrificial agreement-in-principle with the Arabs (as dictated by the State Dept.). Israel always feels bound by agreements and promises, even when, as in this case, those are neither treaties nor contracts. By contrast, the Muslim Arabs do not feel bound by treaties and contracts, much less mere declarations. The rest of the world would pressure Israel over what it has declared, even though the Arabs are unlikely to live up to their agreement (Arutz-7, 9/3). The Muslim Arabs violated all their agreements with Israel. Many people in Israel object to Olmert's plans. Few realize that the Establishment is in complicity with the State Dept. and Muslims against Israel. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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HAGAR THE EGYPTIAN, NOT THE ARAB
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, September 30, 2007. |
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My wife, Elisabeth, amazes me for many reasons. Not long ago, however, she raised a question that I had thought about before, but this time she truly shoved it onto the front burner of my brain... We'll return to this shortly. During the 19th century, European scholars of the Middle East--German Jews in particular--were prone to paint a picture of a tolerant Muslim world which treated non-Muslims admirably. While it is true that live Christians and Jews could be a better source of revenue for Muslims via special taxes than dead ones (and forget about non-"Peoples of the Book"--they converted or were killed), and there was no Holocaust per se of Jews under Muslim domination, it is also true that dhimmi populations never knew what the morrow would bring. Massacres, forced conversions, subjugation, and so forth were no strangers in the realm of Islam; a reading of Middle Eastern Jewish scholars such as Albert Memmi and Bat Ye'or is a must on this subject, as is newer work edited and/or authored by Andrew Bostom. It seems that the whitewash--which still continues--was largely done to contrast an allegedly tolerant Arab/Muslim East--where Jews are commonly known as kilab yahud," Jew dogs," and killers of prophets--to a historically intolerant Christian West, complete with its inquisitions, crusades, blood libels, forced ghettoization, forced conversions, massacres, Holocaust, and branding of the Jew as the deicide/G_d-killing, people. So, what does this all have to do with Abraham's wife, Sarah's, servant, Hagar? Firstly, keep in mind that we know of Abraham, in general, and of this story, in particular, comes via the Hebrew Bible. That is our one and only original source. We have good corroborative evidence from contemporary, non-Hebraic sources that Asiatic Semitic Habiru /'Apiru were on the move, causing headaches for Canaanites, Egyptian Pharaohs, and so forth about three and a half to four millennia ago. We also know that around that time Semitic "Shepherd Kings" (the 15th Dynasty) conquered Egypt...probably kin to the Hebrews. One of the names mentioned in Hyksos records was Yacub...Jacob. The Biblical story of the Hebrew patriarch, Jacob (later Israel), gaining permission to enter the Nile Valley most likely occurred during this time. And he was the grandson of the original Hebrew patriarch, Abraham. Yes, you say, but others will claim that Muslims have their own version as well. True, but, keep the following in mind... When Muhammad, the Arabian Prophet of Islam, fled Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E. (the Hijrah), the mixed population of Jews and pagans welcomed him. Medina had been developed centuries earlier as a thriving date palm oasis by Jews fleeing the Roman assault (the banu-Qurayzah and banu-al-Nadir tribes, etc). Muhammad learned much from the Jews. He listened to their prayers, their Biblical stories, and so forth.. And while the actual timing of his decision on the direction of prayer may never be known, during his long sojourn with the Jews of Medina, his followers were instructed to pray towards Jerusalem. Early prominent Arab historians such as Jalaluddin came right out and stated that this was done primarily as an attempt to win support among the influential Jewish tribes (the "People of the Book") for Muhammad's religio-politcal claims. It is from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to Heaven on his winged horse. A mosque, the Dome of the Rock, would later be erected on this Jewish holy site after the Arab imperial conquest of the land in the 7th century C.E. There is no doubt among objective scholars that Jews had an enormous impact on both Muhammad and the religion that he founded. Hebraic Biblical stories are prominent in the Koran, and the holy sites for Muslims in Jerusalem (i.e. the mosques erected on the Temple Mount of the Jews) are now deemed "holy" precisely because of the critical years Muhammad spent after the Hijrah with the Jews. The Temple Mount, Biblical stories of Abraham, and such had no prior meaning to pagan Arabs. While there was some early Christian influence as well, intense scholarship has shown that the Holy Law (Halakha) and Holy Scriptures of the Jews had a tremendous influence on the Koran, Islamic Holy Law (Shari'a), and so forth. Muhammad's "Jerusalem connection" was most likely not established until after his extended stay with his Jewish hosts. This was no mere coincidence...Muslim religious beliefs regarding Muhammad's alleged conversations with the Angel Gabriel, etc,. notwithstanding. And, as with Jerusalem, so with Islam's subsequent supplanting of the Hebraic son of Abraham, Isaac, with the allegedly "Arab" son of Hagar, Ishmael. When the Jews refused to recognize Muhammad as the Seal of the Prophets, he turned on them with a vengeance. Before long, with the exception of Yemen, there were virtually no Jews left on the Arabian Peninsula. And the direction of prayer was changed away from Jerusalem and towards the Kaaba in Mecca instead. Okay...Now we're ready to deal with the notion that Arabs are the Jews cousins since they're allegedly descendants of Abraham's son with Hagar the Egyptian servant of Sarah. Ramses II ruled Egypt in the 13th century B.C.E., after the native Egyptian reconquest of the land from the Semitic Hyksos. No doubt the latters' allies fell into disfavor at this time as well...as seen in the story in the Biblical Book of Exodus. In one Egyptian relief, Ramses is depicted holding up three conquered peoples...a black African (probably Nubian), Asiatic Semite, and another probably East Asiatic type. Ramses looks quite different from all of the conquered types, as do other depicted Egyptians as well. Now, the Bible states that Ishmael is the son of an Egyptian woman. While it is true that Semitic culture entered into Egypt (some documents were written in Hieroglyphics in both Egyptian and presumably a Hyksos Semitic language), it's an extremely far stretch to say that Hagar and Ishmael were thus Arabs. It seems that just like some Jews wanted to contrast Western Christian and Eastern Muslim treatment of their brethren to make a point a bit earlier, that later--to try to ease the strife between Jewish and Arab nationalisms--others quite possibly (if not probably) stretched the identity of Hagar from Egyptian to Arab as well. While Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula traveled to Egypt and elsewhere, the bulk of Semites coming into Egypt were not of that origin--regardless of wishful thinking by the espousers of the Winckler-Caetani Theory...which, among others, makes Babylonians, Canaanites, Assyrians, and Hebrews Arabs as well. Abraham (son of a Babylonian Chaldean Semite), surfacing in history when he did, coincidental with the Semitic Hyksos conquest of Egypt, Hagar was most likely a non-Semitic or Semitic Egyptian. She was not likely Arab--so neither was Ishmael. When the Jews made reference to Arabs--in the few places where they did--they were not shy to call them that. So, for example, Geshem the Arab appears in Nehemiah 2:19 and 6:1-6 as one of the three leaders opposing the Jews rebuilding the Temple after their return from Babylonian exile. If Hagar was an Arab, the Jews would have no reason not to say so. After the Arab imperial conquest of Egypt and much of the region some twenty -four centuries later, with the spread of Islam via its Arab Prophet, it was beyond convenient for Arabs to write themselves into the original Hebraic story--claiming that Jews and Christians corrupted the original version. My point is not to argue particular religious beliefs. That's between people and G_d. But when important claims are made to usurp those of others, the facts indeed need to be revealed. Gerald A. Honigman, a Florida educator, has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in both the print media and on websites. Contact him at honigman6@msn.com or go to his website: http://geraldahonigman.com/blog.php |
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RETORT TO AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Posted by Paul Lademain, September 30, 2007. |
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Amnesty lies like a sack when it comes to Israel. Why are you people so afraid of the Saudis? Why aren't you putting the same pressure on the Saudis, who are, after all, the major exporter of terrorism, mayhem, maiming, discrimination, and fascism. Why aren't you marching in the Sudan? Why aren't you protecting the hapless victims of Islamic terrorism in Algeria? Are you taking funds, gifts, or any emoluments from the oil states or their myriad front companies? Or are you so in love with the money that you don't dare ask? We believe you are are an dishonest bunch, and we wouldn't be surprised if amongst your number are a goodly amount of what we call "self-abusing, self-loathing Jews." We call them Jane Fonda Jews because, like her, they are willing to go to absurd extremes--even treason and lies--in order to "make a point while making points for oneself." When Baptists jingoists like Jimmy Carter, a long-time recipient of Saudi largesse, can spew the sort of lies about Jews that he tells his enraptured Arab hosts, and you people don't call him on it, you reveal your own intellectual dishonesty. It's one thing to be a Jew and to regret the existence of Israel (we would like an in-depth analysis of this Jew's neurosis about being a Jew and an opportunity to question him or her as to whether s/he believes hating Israel will purchase something called "assimiliation" for him or herself from and by those who would otherwise take joy in bullying Jews ...) and its quite another thing to spew the sort of despicable lies such as those told by such incorrigibles as Neve Gordon or Finkelstein (the prof who was recently booted from his podium.) And how many of you people honestly believe that Yasser Arafat, who was born in Cairo and educated in Egypt, could simply declare himself a "Palestinian" by fiat? We want to know how much money Jimmy Carter took from the UAE and the Saudis for to thank him for helping Yasser Arafat transform himself from an Egyptian into what you people refer to as "Palestinian." And what, pray tell, happened to the hundreds of thousands Jewish refugees who were driven out of their homelands by the Arabs? Why aren't your big bleeding hearts going "bumpty-bump" over them? In short, what's really going on with you people? We are the NON-evangelical Christians for Zion. We stand by the Patriots of Israel who are struggling to throw off the yoke of Saudi tyranny. Contact Paul Lademain at lademain@verizon.net |
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WE JEWS MUST STRUGGLE FOR OUR LAND
Posted by Lee Caplan, September 30, 2007. |
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This essay was submitted September 18, 2007. As a nation, the Jewish people never are at a lack of what to pray for. With Yom Kippur fast approaching, this year is no different. We have much to pray for. Come this November, Olmert is planning to sign away Yehuda and Shomron to Abbas so that an Arab terrorist state may be established on Israeli soil. This "agreement" will include the relinquishment of Israeli sovereignty over Har Habayit to a special administrative authority established to organize access of both people to holy places in the Old City of Jerusalem. The exact date of this November "peace conference" set to take place in Washington has not yet been designated. Somehow, it would not be surprising if it fell out on November 9th and 10th, the anniversary of Krystal-Nacht. Everyday, when you think the news out of Israel can't get any worse, the current leadership never hesitates to prove us wrong, and bring us to a new low. It's enough to make us all feel utterly despondent and burdened under a relentless yoke of despair. But we can't afford to feel that way. Nor should we. Ultimately, our fate is in G-d's hands -- not in the hands of Olmert, Rice, Bush or Abbas. We are not powerless. Our power lies within our tefillot and within our determination to take action against the wholesale abandonment of our Land on the part of a faithless government that negates our rights to Eretz Yisrael. And so, our answer must be that if they want to hand over our land to our enemies, we will remain loyal to Eretz Yisrael. If they want to destroy, we will build. If they want to expel, we will expand. If they want to deny our Jewish and Zionist principles and embrace a philosophy of appeasement and capitulation to an enemy committed to our annihilation, then we will renew the Zionist -Jewish pioneering spirit, and remain firm in insisting that all of Eretz Yisrael is ours. ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, the third day of Chol HaMoed Sukkot, the action committees of Efrat, Land of Israel Faithful and the Eitam families will B"H settle Givat HaEitam (the 8th hill of Efrat). This will coincide with the settling of 5 other sites; 2 in Yehuda, 2 in the Shomron, and one in Binyamin on the very same day. Whoever relinquishes parts of Eretz Yisrael to the enemy brings corruption, disaster, ruin and death upon the people. In order to save the State, we must struggle now for every inch of Eretz Yisrael. We are asking you, our fellow Jews in America, to be active participants and join with us in the struggle to redeem our land. Your donations towards this effort are crucial in enabling us to establish five new communities. Your U.S. tax deductable donation can be made out to the CENTRAL FUND OF ISRAEL. *** Please earmark checks, EITAM, and mail to
This news item comes from http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25282, an Arab news agency. |
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Ma'an Exclusive --
Bethlehem -- Ma'an Exclusive -- Ma'an News Agency has received from an Israeli source exclusive copy, written in Hebrew, of the points which are being crystallized as a declaration of principles between Israel and the PLO before the autumn summit, expected to be held in November in Washington. The following is an exact translation of the 1 page document: "The Israeli leadership and the PLO leadership must immediately get involved in an operation which once completed will lead to the establishment of two states -- Israel and Palestine. Relying on a basic declaration of principles and understandings as follows: 1. Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank within an greed period of time. Gradual withdrawal and evacuation of Israeli settlements. Each evacuated area will be turned over to the Palestinian Authority where law and order will prevail. And law and order will be established in Gaza as part of the process which will enable Israel to see the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as one political entity. This agreement which is based on the 8 principles must be reached before the US-sponsored autumn peace summit. It will then be proposed and documented as international resolutions, the statement read. Immediately after the international summit and simultaneously with ongoing negotiations to reach a detailed agreement, Israel will start to withdraw its forces and evacuate settlements from territories in the West Bank. Completion of the stages of evacuation will be done in tandem with the completion of the negotiations, the statement added. However, the PLO's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat denied that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have drafted any agreement on final settlement issues. He said that the appointed teams of both sides are to draft the agreement.
Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com
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UK: MUSLIM DENTIST 'TOLD PATIENT TO WEAR A HEADSCARF OR GO ELSEWHERE'
Posted by Robert Spencer, September 30, 2007. |
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How calls for tolerance of Muslim practices quickly edge over into assertions of Islamic supremacism. By Steve Doughty and Jaya Narain for the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in): A muslim dentist made a woman wear Islamic dress as the price of accepting her as an NHS patient, it is alleged. Omer Butt is said to have told the patient that unless she wore a headscarf she would have to find another practice. Later this month, Mr Butt will appear before a General Dental Council professional misconduct hearing, which has the power to strike him off. It is claimed that the 31-year-old dentist asked to speak to the woman in private after she turned up for an appointment at his clinic in Bury. According to the charges, he questioned her on whether she was a Muslim and told her that if he was to treat her she would have to wear Islamic dress. He is also said to have read out a number of religious rules to her. He then told his nurse to give the patient her own headscarf to wear, the accusation says. It is not known whether the woman was a Muslim. The charges to be heard by the General Dental Council say that Mr Butt undermined public confidence in his profession by discriminating against a patient and failed to act in her best interests. Sho nuf. But he was certainly acting in his own best interests, and those of Islam, as he perceived them. Robert Spencer hosts the Jihad Watch website. This is
archived September 18, 2007 at
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THE ISLAMIST HEAD FAKE
Posted by Avodah, September 30, 2007. |
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This was an Opinion piece September 28, 2007 from Investors Business Daily:
(http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid= 1501&status=article&id=275871309181046). |
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Homeland Security: When dealing with Muslim leaders, Washington should borrow a page from Ronald Reagan's Soviet playbook: Trust, but verify. Many aim to deceive us, court evidence shows. It's now believed that several leaders of the Muslim establishment in America last decade conspired to infiltrate the U.S. political system, change Middle East policy and gradually Islamize America. At the same time, they hatched a plot to fund overseas terrorists. Of course, they couldn't do this out in the open. So they set up benign-sounding nonprofits and charities to "camouflage" their traitorous activities, say U.S. prosecutors who cite wiretap transcripts and other documents uncovered in a criminal probe of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in America. During a secret meeting at a Philadelphia hotel, the charity's president and other prominent Muslim leaders were recorded allegedly plotting ways to disguise payments to Hamas terrorists as charity. "I swear by Allah that war is deception," said Shukri Abu-Baker, now on trial in the federal terror-funding case. "We are fighting our enemy with a kind heart. ... Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you're leaving while you're walking that way. Deceive your enemy." Another participant at the Hamas summit was the founder of the Council on American Islamic-Relations, or CAIR, the largest Muslim civil-rights group in the country and an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-funding case. Adding to Abu-Baker's point, Omar Ahmad compared the deception needed to fool the infidels with the head fake in basketball. "He makes a player believe that he is doing this while he does something else," Ahmad said. "I agree with you. ... Politics is a completion of war." The Islamist head fake has worked all too well over the past decade. Blind acceptance and validation of Muslim leaders with questionable loyalties hardly missed a beat in Washington even after 9/11. Many were invited to the White House and Congress. The head of the FBI spoke at their conferences, calling them "mainstream" and "moderate." Many naive officials still confer legitimacy on them. But what Muslim leaders tell us and what they tell Muslim audiences are often two entirely different things. The deception is astonishing. They've really played us for suckers. Here are just a few examples: Sami Al-Arian: The popular and respected Muslim activist was a White House guest of both presidents Clinton and Bush. He assured his hosts he was both peace-loving and patriotic. "I am a very moderate Muslim person," he said. "I also condemn violence in all its forms." All the while, Al-Arian was secretly running a U.S. beachhead for Palestinian terrorists. In a speech at a Cleveland mosque, he once thundered: "Let's damn America, let's damn Israel, let's damn their allies until death." He's now a convicted terrorist. Abdurahman Alamoudi: This pillar of the Muslim community also went from the White House to the Big House. But not before developing the Pentagon's Muslim chaplain corps, and acting as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department. He, too, strongly denounced terror. "We are against all forms of terrorism," he claimed. "Our religion is against terrorism." Privately, however, he raised major funds for al-Qaida and was caught on tape grumbling that Osama bin Laden hadn't killed enough Americans in the U.S. embassy bombings. Also, at a Muslim conference, he was recorded saying the following: "Muslims sooner or later will be the moral leadership of America. It depends on me and you. Either we do it now or we do it after a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country. And I think if we are outside this country, we can say, 'Oh, Allah, destroy America.' But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it." Ali Al-Timimi: A noted imam and native Washingtonian, he also put on a moderate face in public while secretly plotting against us. The internationally known Muslim scholar had government clearance -- even worked with a former White House chief of staff -- and was invited to speak on Islam to the U.S. military. Publicly, the imam denounced Islamic violence. "My position against terrorism and Muslim-inspired violence against innocent people is well known by Muslims," he said. But privately, a darker picture emerged. Five days after the 9/11 attacks, he called them "legitimate" and rallied young Muslim men at his mosque to carry out more "holy war" and "violent jihad." Al-Timimi even cheered the Columbia space shuttle disaster, calling it a "good omen" for Muslims because it was a blow to their "greatest enemy." He also said the U.S. "should be destroyed." This high-profile moderate is also now behind bars, for soliciting terror and treason. What other Muslim leaders are betraying our trust? Who else is "camouflaging" their radical beliefs and agenda with smiles and soft rhetoric? To reach out to the Muslim community, we must deal with its leaders. But based on their proven track record of dissembling, we can no longer go on blindly trusting them. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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WE NEED MORE THAN CONNELLY'S "DIPLOMATIC SURGE"
Posted by David Meir-Levi, September 30, 2007. |
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Joel Connelly's "Diplomatic Surge Needed" (Palo Alto Daily News, 9.18.07) makes one-half of a good point. As Churchill said: "Jaw Jaw" is better than "War War". But Connelly omits the facts that are the basis for the indispensible correllary to Churchill's adage: talking is better, but only up to a point. Connelly's reference to the Marshall Plan neglects to mention that the plan worked only because it was implemented AFTER the Axis powers had already been thoroughly defeated, both Germany and Italy agreed to unconditional surrender, and both replaced their fascist governments with democratic ones which promptly outlawed Fascism and Nazism and energetically supported the USA in suppressing the post-war vestiges of Nazi terrorism (vestiges which were active until the early 50's in Europe). The same is true of his reference to General MacArthur and Japan. The West's economic aid today to Arab countries which actively and enthusiastically espouse Islamic religious fascism as an uncompromising way of life has consistently been used by these totalitarian Arab governments to implement that religious fascism, and to underwrite more and better terror attacks against us and our allies, just as that Islamic fascism demands. Quite the opposite of the Marshall plan, our aid to some Arab countries simply enables more Arab terrorism. While Western countries have dithered over the past two years about what course to take with Iran, and the UN imposed innumerable deadlines (all of which have been ignored) on Akhmedi-Nejad's WMD progress, Iranian nuclear scientists (with assistance from Russia and North Korea) have gained the time they need to create the weapons that may change the balance of power and make Iran an existential threat to the USA and its allies in the Middle East (Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Iraq, Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Israel) and in Europe. Certainly diplomacy is needed; but when the diplomacy fails, or when the diplomacy is transparently exploited by our self-declared Islamic adversaries to gain time in order to better implement their aggression, what do we do to defuse their threats of nuclear war in the Middle East? David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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DEMOCRACY WITHOUT ISLAM
Posted by Michael Devolin, September 30, 2007. |
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In her book Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali* writes, "Shouldn't the places where Allah was worshipped and His laws obeyed have been at peace and wealthy, and the unbelievers' countries ignorant, poor, and at war." This is a point of truth Islam's apologists will not touch with a ten foot pole. Of course, in their feverish imposture and denigration of the West, of Israel and her Jews, these apologists haven't scheduled for such bulldozing knowledge. They have failed to comprehend that the West's foreseeable rejection of Islam is not only a consequence of Islam's predictable terrorism and violence, but also our instinctual habit of preservation: We have by now noticed that the average Muslim is not integrating into our culture but only insofar as is necessary for him to exploit the compassionate infrastructures that welcome him into our reasonable world. We have by now become anxious about the intelligible possibility that our beloved Western freedoms and religious liberties will soon be transmogrified and extirpated by Islam's malefic, exponential and insular presence within our borders. Samuel P. Huntington posits to his trembling students that, "The decline of the West is still in the slow first phase, but at some point it might speed up dramatically." Well, aside from a burning desire to tell Mr. Huntington that he can kiss my Irish-Canadian ass, I am also keen to inform him that the West is not finished. Not yet. Not by a long shot. Western intelligence agencies are well aware of Islam's bludgeoning of our "system" and our accommodative culture. Many of Islam's proponents, whether terrorists or apologists (is there a difference?) are well aware of our cognizance of their exploitation and hatred of our non-Islamic democracy and its Judeo-Christian social appendages, such as "Welfare" and "Immigration". They simply believe (but for entirely different reasons) as Samuel P. Huntington and all his lemming-minded, broken-hearted friends believe-- that the West is on a journey into extinction. In his provocative book America Alone, Mark Steyn warns the West that our contest with Islam is merely a matter of demographics. He rightly warns that Muslim families are reproducing at higher percentages than non-Muslim families. Oriana Fallaci's controversial statement that Muslims "breed like rats" is, as one would expect from such a brave soul, based on statistical truth. It is by now evident to all who have been following the blood trail of Mohammedanism that this religion and its adherents have envisioned for themselves (whether non-Muslims like it or not) a world ruled by a caliphal Islam. Democracy is not palatable to Islam's angry clerics unless of course it is a democracy actualized by a majority Muslim electorate. Ajai Sahni related to this pernicious strategy when he wrote of the Muslim populations of Junagadh and Hyderbad, that they believed "they have a natural constituency." Daniel Pipes' high-flying accolades for the "democracy" now being fabricated by the pro-Islamic voters in Turkey is yet another of his sciolistic and ludicrously odd constructs of a democracy that will never exist save in the mind of sycophantic fools like himself. Simply put, a democracy created by a Muslim electorate-as exampled by Hamas' election victory in Gaza-is not a democracy at all but rather the end of democracy and the beginning of a terrorist state. As Huntington so rightly put it, "In Islam, Caesar is God." * Ayaan Hirsi is an ex-Muslim under Muslim threat of death.
Rejecting an imposed marriage, she moved to Holland, where she quickly
became well known and well respected and was elected as a deputy to
the Dutch Parliament. In the last few years, she has been in America
with police protection paid by Holland. She has noow reportedly been
forced to leave the U.S. Reliapundit Michael Devolin is a Noachide and lives in Canada.
Contact him at devolin@reach.net
This was published September 12, 2007 in Magic City Morning Star
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VICTIM OF BRUTAL ARRESTS & BEATINGS OF SETTLERS AT HOMESH
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 30, 2007. |
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I have written before that the dictatorial leadership of Israel has turned the Police and IDF into thugs, not unlike the worst days of the KGB or the East German Stasi. This then is the Government of Israel under the brutal leadership of Prime Minister Olmert and his confederates. Beating prisoners illegally arrested have shown that Israel and the World sees a Police Riot growing daily, reminiscent of Jew-hating Cossacks attacking with no mercy. Meantime, the Hebrew Leftist Media stays silent as does the Global Media. The thugs that attack Jews are not worthy to call themselves Jews, are not upstanding Israelis, not professional Police and they share that ignoble distraction with the leaders of Israel who have no Jewish identity of which to be proud. They are simply "dead men walking". So, tell us, Olmert, will the Jews who defy your wisdom be hung on posts lining the road to Jerusalem by your thuggish Police? The Romans used up whole forests to hang Jews on the way to Jerusalem. Tell us, Olmert, will you continue to release those Muslim Arab Palestinians captured, tried and convicted for acts of Terrorism, including belonging to and participation with Terrorist organizations, while also arresting, jailing and beating Jews who protest Government decisions? Tell us, Olmert, will you continue to keep incarcerated the honest Jews, including young teens, who were jailed only for protesting your evictions of good Jews who were content to pioneer and settle the barren hills of Judea, Samaria and Gaza? Dear Readers, Please read the following translation by Chaya Witkin of eyewitness accounts of one victim protester out of many. We recently sent out the story about Nadia Matar who was targeted by Police thugs and received the same treatment by Olmert's Police. Jews fled Europe to escape vicious Secret Police in various countries, only to find that this hideous virus of oppression came with them in the form of Leftist "Erev Rav" using the same methods. Chaya Witkin writes, "I can't even imagine trying to comment on this... except that at least there's an honest judge somewhere." |
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Witness of Yedidia Weinberger -- 7 Tishrei 5768, September 19, 2007 Basically, the few people were near/in Homesh (which had no signs that it was a "Closed Military Zone") and "abducted" by Israeli Border Police who tried to take their back-packs away from them with no success, put [them]into Ariel's (Yes, in the Shomron) prison where they were demanded to identify themselves, which they refused. Also the police wanted fingerprints and to take photos which they also refused, and got beat up a few times by the police (3 or 4 policemen forced the writer of that article onto the floor while an investigator watched and they started beating him up (he gives 2 names of those who hit him: Gil Deshe and Tzvi Gelder), translation of rest of this first article: "...they 'roaded' my head with their knees and their shoes", they bent my hand backwards, the border guard choked me and in the end succeeded to photograph me with the border guard choking me and my hand being pulled down backwards. It is important that the public know that the police in Israel infringes on the law and beats people in secret. They have no real right to prevent people from dwelling in Eretz Yisrael and return to the homes they lived in before the expulsion." 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@gwinston.interaccess.com |
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TEKIAH! TEKIAH!
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, September 30, 2007. |
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This was submitted September 16, 2007 |
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The Shofar blows, ushering in Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year! TEKIAH! TEKIAH! WAKE UP! WAKE UP! Why isn't the continuing contemptible barrage of missile attacks from Gaza on Sderot and neighboring Negev enclaves reported more prominently in the Western press or television? Would such reports diminish, in the minds of startled news attentive audiences, the likelihood of presumably 'successful' 'land for peace' negotiations between so-called moderate Palestinians and Israeli leaders, suggesting the lawless militant fanatics have no intention of adhering to any agreements that might materialize? Would such reports redirect the sympathies of a consequently informed public toward the plight of the Jewish State, altering some viewpoints, suggesting maybe it's not such a good idea to let fanatics also annex any part of the so-called West Bank to a so-called Palestinian State, allowing them more room to operate? On the other hand, U.S. President G.W. Bush needs a feather in his cap, as does his Secretary of State Condi Rice, both V.I.P. members of a Middle East 'peace at any cost to Israel' Quartet, both condemned vociferously domestically and worldwide for perceived incompetence. Forget for a moment predictable realistic consequences of any 'land for peace' deals. Wouldn't it be 'nice' if Prime Minister Ehud Omert, ignoring the obvious immutable intentions of Islamic terrorists, accommodated the needs of his two 'special' friends by selling out the nation he was elected to steward, giving so-called Palestinian Arabs 'the farm', giving much of the credit to the Quartet, more importantly providing sweet music for both Bush and Condi, who would no doubt take the lion's share of that credit? Ceding most of Judea, Samaria, even the eastern sector of Jerusalem to the Quartet's main man, former Arafat understudy and current unrepentant Holocaust revisionist, Mahmoud Abbas, presumably representing the Palestinian people, would make them jump for joy. So what if a feigned promise of peace, scrawled into any covenant worth less than the paper it would be written on, never materializes! Kudos allotted for such a perceived breakthrough would be enormous, great indeed for legacies! Hmmm! We truly need a wake-up call! Jews especially must obey the sound of their Rosh Hashana Shofar, TEKIAH! TEKIAH! Know the jihadist cadre of Hamas and kindred spirits won't buy into any peace plan, and neither Abbas nor the 'string' Quartet, more aptly named for stringing along Israel, would stop them from effectively waging war on Israel. These terrorists, obsessed with annihilating all of Israel, would for one just keep firing Iranian and Syrian supplied Qassam missiles and even more potent Kyatusha missiles at Sderot and other venues, maybe one day at Haifa and Tel Aviv. Indeed, none of a now even tinier State of Israel would be safe from these Muslim fanatics, their spindly talons affixed to ever more sophisticated missile launchers using ever more powerful missiles. Alas, none of this is or will be reported adequately by the Western media, mostly owned by corporations that won't ruffle the robes of Arab Sheiks, their spindly talons affixed to faucets controlling the very fossil fuel that keeps industrial economies humming. Better jihadists launch missiles at Israel than have them focus their fury say on The House of Saud and other 'upstanding' Jew hating bejeweled multi-billionaires. Right! Israel is a most convenient scapegoat thus distraction when it comes to redirecting the focus of wrathful Islamic fanatics, moderate Muslims, as well as an uninformed Western public who still believe the shlamazel state is an occupier of poor Palestinian waifs. Never mind the inconvenient fact territories secured by Israel in a victorious defensive war in 1967 against belligerent Arabs, by world precedent, belong to the victor. Never mind the inconvenient fact that intrepid Israeli soldiers, acting as protectors of civil Jews and Arabs, must patrol those territories lest Hamas once again whacks the authority of Fatah, like it did in Gaza, then attacks Jewish Israeli citizens as well as subjects Arab residents to misogynist sharia law as well as outlaws many secular establishments. If Western media outlets refuse to adequately report the daily criminal missile launchings from Gaza by Islamic fanatics, thus expose the face of Islam that could if allowed very well further metastasize, then Israeli and Diaspora Jewish organizations must step in, buy ads, buy commercial time, and inform audiences about these horrific events. Staunch supporters of just causes, Jews and non-Jews alike, must help the beleaguered Jewish citizens of Sderot and neighboring enclaves, trying to make a go of it in the parched Negev, as alas it does appear that no government officials, no so-called official human rights groups, no journalists representing official news outlets, nor today's mostly uniformed public will! TEKIAH! TEKIAH! 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 |
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ARABS GET AWAY WITH MURDER; WAQF DESTROYS JEWISH ANTIQUITIES; NYTIMESOMITS KEY POINT
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2007. |
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These were submitted September 19, 2007. |
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INJUSTICE GOVERNS THE LAND Five Arabs who worked in Haifa were convicted of kidnapping, torturing, murdering, and then sodomizing a Jewish boy there. They confessed and re-enacted the crime. Two of them were convicted of raping and murdering a Jewish woman. In 1985, they were sentenced to 27 years, to make sure they paid for their crime and were not released soon for good behavior in prison. The defendants' lawyer was leftist, Avigdor Feldman. Other clients of his were Mordecai Vanunu and Marcus Klinberg, each of whom committed nuclear espionage, Tali Fahima, convicted of helping her Arab boyfriend plot terrorism, and Teddy Katz, who fabricated a tale of a Tantura massacre by Israel. Mr. Feldman argued that the confessions were coerced. The court denied it. Two Meretz Cabinet members denounced the use of confessions, and Feldman obtained a new trial. During it, the defendants were free. They were convicted again, partly because of their contradictions and lies, the judges said. Feldman appealed to the Supreme Court, but it unanimously upheld the verdict. Some Israeli leftist groups agitate against the verdict. There was a movement to reduce the sentence. Pres. Peres says he would do so. That means imminent release (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/29). That is what I predicted Peres would do, release more terrorists. Why do leftist or far-leftist groups agitate in behalf of enemies of the state? Do they find the accused innocent and not enemies? Then why don't they agitate in behalf of brutalized and framed right-wing Jews? I think it is because the latter are defenders of the state and the former hate their own people. Why do certain radical attorneys gravitate to such cases? Because everybody has a right to a trial? That is a rationalization. Why volunteer, instead of letting a court to appoint a lawyer or the defendants hire another? I think it is that they favor the defendants' vicious and unpatriotic cause or hate their own without reckoning the consequences of victory by the defendants' cause. NEW WORLD ORDER Not only was Peres educated by the Jesuits, so was King Carlos of Spain. When the Vatican called for foreign troops to occupy the territories and Jerusalem, to separate (actually protect) the terrorists from the IDF, those Jesuit-trained officials joined in, and the West has been preparing for it. The EU is in an alliance with the Arabs. I think all that is part of what Bush Sr. meant by "new world order." (Barry Chamish, Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism And the Holocaust. AUTHORS FIT OWN DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM Reviewing book reviews, as I do, risks copying reviewers' bias. I try to avoid their bias by omitting claims not based on quotations or cogent explanation. Undeterred by academic refutation, Professors Mearsheimer and Walt have expanded their paper into a book. They toned down the language, but kept their errors, omissions, self-contradictions, and defamation. They define antisemitism as stereotyping Jews with suspicion, to deny them the right to advocate their positions. They cast former Gov. Howard Dean as a supporter of Israel, partly because "Dean's wife is Jewish and his children were raised Jewish as well." That's stereotyping. They quote Judaism out of context that Jews should stand apart, suspecting them of being disloyal. They quote an Arab's complaint that US negotiators, being Jewish, represented Israel. Those megotiators, Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, only too faithfully help the State Dept. against Israel. They still claim that pro-Israeli Jews manipulate the media to favor Israel. If only! Although they cite some of the many Members of Congress who criticized Israel, they also claim that the Israel lobby bars Members from criticizing Israel. Antisemitism? Waning in W. Europe, they write, but we know that attacks on Jews increase. They cite statistics, but ignore the flight of French Jewry. They blame European Muslim attacks on Israeli mistreatment of the P.A., which is to say, they blame the victims of antisemitism for it. (What mistreatment!) The head of Hizbullah gleefully anticipated genocide against the Jews, but the book treats him favorably. It excuses his rocket attacks on Israeli towns as not an attempt to kill Jews but a diversion from his kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. Although he preached "death to America" and lauded "martyrdom," the book denies that the US could support Israel for morally correct policy reasons. S. Arabia wants peace with Israel, the book mistakenly states. (Saudi terms would get Israel destroyed.) Likewise, wanting détente, Teheran does not threaten Israel's survival (which it declares it does and is building the means therefor), but Israel prevents its reconciliation with Iran. Nonsense! They claim that the Arabs never wanted to destroy Israel. Didn't the authors hear or read Arab leaders boasting, during the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973, that they would exterminate the Jews? They claim that the Israel lobby is bad for Israel as well as for the US. Didn't know they cared about Israel. They blame the lobby for Israel's lack of peace and for terrorism against the US. Haven't those scapegoaters heard of jihad? What's wrong with American universities that professors call for appeasement at Israel's expense and not to defeat Islamists who threaten us? (Ira Stoll, NY Sun, 8/29, p.1). And they claim to be patriots? ISRAEL THANKS THE P.A. POLICE An Israeli officer drove by mistake into Jenin. P.A. police escorted him to an IDF pickup. Muslim youths burned his car and would have lynched him, if the police had permitted. At a peace conference, the government of Israel thanked the P.A. police for saving him (NY Times, 8/29, A3). Need more barricades! Israel shouldn't have to thank the P.A. police for doing what their agreement with Israel stipulates, but their people are barbaric. While their regime is negotiating peace (really negotiatig what would enable the Muslims to conquer Israel), their people try to lynch Israelis. The Muslim people don't want peace. If Sec. Rice and Pres. Bush were honest and decent about it, they would acknowledge that. SENSITIVITY OR ISRAELI ANTISEMITISM The Muslim Waqf has been digging illegally on the Temple Mount for years. It simply rejects Israeli sovereignty. It is turning the whole Mount into a series of giant mosques. Its digging destroys Jewish artifacts. The Israeli government allows this. It rationalizes allowing such illegality as being "sensitive." Why not be "sensitive" to the Muslim encroachment on its sovereignty, to Judaism, and to the historical record (that would bolster Jewish claims to the Mount)? The Waqf has dug a trench several feet deep, cutting into artifacts from the Second and even First Temple periods of thousands of years ago, including a wall of the Second Temple! The government Antiquities Authority stands by there, as if supervising. He's merely lending his presence to the destruction. A Druze Israeli policeman tried to stop the bulldozer. The driver assaulted him. The police chief came to calm the officer, not to arrest the illegal diggers and assailants (Arutz-7, 8/29, IMRA, 8/31). The government falsely arrests Jews for attacking police, but not Muslims who actually attack them. The government is in collusion with the Muslims and the US against the Jews. UNITY AMONG NON-JEWS The anti-Israel former Sec. of State James Baker (who said, "F... the Jews,") is on the board of the Peres Peace Center, and Peres (who said he's not a Jew but an Israeli) is on the board of the Baker Institute (Barry Chamish, Shabtai Tzvi). ANOTHER LOST PROPAGANDA OPPORTUNITY When they catch youngsters committing terrorism, the IDF "regrets" that terrorists use children to attack Israeli civilians and soldiers (IMRA, 8/30). Regret? It should condemn jihad as endangering children on both sides. THE OTHER MEANS OF WAR IN IRAQ Jihad in Iraq relies as much upon winning popular support as upon defeating enemy forces. In fact, its minor attacks don't harm its enemy so much physically as to demoralize him. The Islamists exploit opportunities deftly and continually. They even take credit as having prompted Coalition progress in nation-building for Iraq. They use multi-media means for multiple audiences, giving an impression of being everywhere. They use propaganda to intimidate members of the Coalition. They ride on the Western media to get their message across, and on the Arabic media, which they know the Western media will repeat. How does the Coalition wage propaganda? Poorly. Propaganda, not to mention information, is not part of its strategy. It interprets US law as forbidding use of the Internet against the enemy, whereas the enemy gives kits to radical youths who make instant and cheap responses to events. The US spends many times as much, but is less effective or is counter-productive. US messages are too general and unrelated to Iraqis' lives, and are not tailored to each audience. Many of our messages are in English, which, if Arabic stations pick up, they deliberately mistranslate! The West uses terms that are politically correct in the West but insult Iraqis. It really does not analyze the situation. The US takes days to respond to enemy claims, by which time it is too late. Too many rival agencies are involved, each with a cumbersome approval process. There should be one coordinator and guidelines, the way TV stations are able to report breaking news. There should be evaluation for competence of people hired or assigned. The government awards contracts to lowball bidders who then skimp on resources in order to make a profit. It evaluates its work based on how much is disseminated, rather than on how effective it is. One enemy tactic uses force to generate propaganda. They launch an attack in anticipation of a large counter-attack, during which bystanders may be killed. Then they condemn the Coalition (or, in the P.A., they condemn Israel) for killing innocent people (unfortunate, but used by anti-war Americans to condemn the US war effort). They also attack to distract attention from Coalition progress in making alliance with Sunni tribes and to draw attention during US elections, as if the war were getting worse (Andrew Garfield, MEF News, 8/29). Mr. Garfield's analysis offers the opportunity for non-partisan cooperation for victory. Instead, the Administration struggles on against new troops that its ineffective propaganda lets be developed against us. The Democrats just quit. Why does the Coalition ignore propaganda? It didn't understand modern war and the jihadist enemy. It took years to learn the benefit militarily of troops helping locals. NY TIMES OMITS THE KEY POINT A Times news brief mentioned that an Israeli attack on rocket-launchers in Gaza killed three children there (8/30). It did not explain that Muslim parents don't keep their children away from combatants, and that terrorists pay children to fetch the remote-controlled launchers, while the terrorists hide in safety. If it explained that, readers might understand the perfidy of jihad and might sympathize both with Israeli forces and with US forces in Iraq. Readers might realize that peace cannot be made with fanatics who will stoop to any deceit, in battle or in negotiations. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LEBANON UPRISING? The Lebanese Army has just about defeated the foreign Islamists who rose up against it from a Palestinian Arab town. The surprise was the rebels' sudden appearance, military proficiency, and ample supplies, such that they held off the Army for some time. Are other groups awaiting a signal to rise? (IMRA, 8/29.) Actually, Syria did not leave the Lebanese Army well equipped. Nevertheless, this battle is ominous, not that the Lebanese Army is well-intentioned, itself. WAR AGAINST ISRAEL BY HOAX The Muslim Arabs keep fabricating atrocities against Israel, and the media keeps disseminating them uncritically. This is a form of warfare against Israel. Jihadists use the phony stories as propaganda against Israel and to motivate their own people to riot or to attack Jews. One such hoax is the Al-Dura story of an unharmed boy whose fake death was clumsily staged by the P.A. and broadcast by French TV, among others. A media watcher challenged the TV station, and independent investigations proved many flaws in the hoax, such that the alleged killing by Israeli troops was impossible. The TV station sued the monitor for slander, as a means of silencing him. A French court ignored all the evidence and rendered a verdict of guilty, on the basis of a letter from former Pres. Chirac extolling the station's competency, but not discussing the issue at hand. The monitor appealed. New trial starting. The case is important to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people (IMRA, 9/29). Israel is not responding to this case nor to the type of campaign against it. Will the Muslims ever get fed up with their leaders lying to rile them up? NO ISLAMIST TERRORISTS TOO EVIL FOR ISRAEL? Now Abbas has asked Israel to release the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP terrorists exiled for having captured the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. PM Olmert is mulling it over (IMRA, 8/29). They fled from the IDF to the Church for sanctuary, but held the occupants captive. They fired on the IDF, invoking return-fire that gives Israel bad public relations. (Why not bad public relations for the Muslims?) The beat some monks, stole or destroyed their religious artifacts and everything of monetary value, used the altar as a bathroom, and ate swinishly while getting word out that they were suffering deprivation and needed more food to be sent in, which it was. If Israel's ruling circle were patriotic, it would reject the exiles' return out of hand. Nor can it pretend that releasing terrorist rivals of Abbas "strengthens" him so that he may eradicate terrorism. Everything he does strengthens terrorism, such as getting hundreds of terrorists released and back into commission. DEMOCRACY AS A COVER FOR APPEASEMENT EU intelligence services held a closed meeting with Hamas. The EU claims it can't ignore Hamas, and Hamas was elected democratically (IMRA, 8/29). How can a non-democratic society hold a democratic election between two terrorist groups? Why were there in the running no representative of the supposed majority that wants peace? In any case, Hamas, busy arresting opposition members and closing critical newspapers, is not running a democratic government, and is engaging in terrorism. The EU has a poor excuse for dealing with Hamas, that it was elected democratically. I think that a greater factor is Europe's Mediterranean alliance with the Arabs, hostile to Israel. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH (HRW) GETS IT HALF RIGHT During the Lebanon War a year ago, HRW excused Hizbullah war crimes and falsely accused Israel of war crimes. That made Israel look bad in wartime, when it mattered. HRW bias came in for much criticism. Now that the war is a memory, it has finished a review of Hizbullah action. It asserts that international law gives Hizbullah no right to launch rockets against Israeli cities in retaliation for Israel's "indiscriminate" bombing of Lebanese towns. Lebanon rejected the report (IMRA, 8/29). There goes HRW again, defaming Israel! Besides, Hizbullah launched rockets against Israeli towns first. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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CAN THERE REALLY BE PEACE?
Posted by Batya Medad, September 30, 2007. |
| This is archived at http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2007/09/can-there-really-be-peace.html |
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Better question:
Taking a look at World History, we can see that "peace" has only been achieved after a war in which one side wins and wins big. The other surrenders and is willing to make peace. They're pragmatists. They have no choice. The victorious side makes it clear that they'll hit even harder if the losers "try anything." We, Israel, had that very chance in 1967. We were supposed to declare ourselves the victors and warn the Arabs that if they resumed the terrorism which had plagued the first nineteen years of the State of Israel, then they're cities would be destroyed, and they'd be refugees in one of the three countries which had attacked Israel, Syria, Egypt or Jordan. We were supposed to have immediately begun settling our Historic Homeland. Actually, that's how Jordan's King Hussein understood it. He fought the terrorists, and he didn't join Egypt and Syria in the Yom Kippur War. We had PEACE IN OUR HANDS, and then we gave the Key to Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount, to the Arabs, and we lost our chance for Peace. But then G-d was merciful, and in 1973, on Yom Kippur, the Arabs attacked again. A miracle happened, an even bigger miracle than in 1967, because we weren't prepared, not militarily, not psychologically, not spiritually. World Jewry weren't praying for us an entire month before the war began. It wasn't 1967, when the Arab leaders declared that they were going to drive us into the sea. It was a regular Yom Kippur, and then suddenly bus drivers were called up, emergency. And then there was a siren, early afternoon, all over the country. Everyone went into emergency, war mode. Radios were turned on, and the men, reserve solders, listened for their codes to be broadcast, and suddenly, most of the male population, those in their twenties, thirties and early forties, of Israel were in their military uniforms and traveling to their bases, instead of wearing their white shirts and sitting in synagogue. They prayed and they fought, and G-d gave us a great miracle. We crossed the canal and defeated the Egyptians, and we entered Syria and defeated them, too. But again, it was rejected by Israel. We had PEACE IN OUR HANDS. The same Israeli leadership which shot at Jews on the Altalena and handed over their fellow Jews to the British rejected True Peace. The Israeli Government, cheered on by the Israeli media and "intellectuals," think that they can "buy peace" for Land. The ordinary Israeli knows that something is wrong, but they have been trained to obey orders. Do you remember the hue and cry just over two years ago, when Israeli solders were faced with the orders to exile, transfer innocent Jews from their homes? They were told by the great moralists: Obey orders! Follow the Laws legally and democratically passed in the Knesset! Do you remember the hue and cry just a few weeks ago, when Israeli soldiers were ordered to throw Jewish families out of their home in Hebron? They were told by the great moralists: Obey orders! Follow the Laws legally and democratically passed in the Knesset! Those moralists would have told Yehuda HaMaccabee to be a "good Greek." What's so moral about that? Their are times when we must follow our conscience and look for the moral compass inside of us. There are times we must take risks or we won't survive. Avraham took his son to sacrifice, and Yitzchak lived. And we descend from them. It is now just after Rosh Hashannah, and Yom Kippur is less than a week away. We must obey G-d's Laws and G-d's morality. Remember, because Avraham did so, Yitzchak survived and we exist today. Gmar Chatimah Tovah Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il |
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ISRAELIS 'BLEW APART SYRIAN NUCLEAR CACHE'
Posted by David Meir-Levi, September 30, 2007. |
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It looks like the axis of evil just got bigger, and closer.
There can now be no doubt that Iran and North Korea are working furiously to gain nuclear WMD capabilities, and deploy at least some of them in Syria.
Iran has already told us what it will do once it has achieved the ability to launch nuclear bombs: wipe israel off the map, create a world without america.
Does anyone doubt what Syria will do, especially when one considers that Syria is Iran's puppet/proxy?
On Sept 6, Israel successfully pulled off another Osiraq (aka Osiraq 2) by destroying the nuclear facilities in eastern Syria.
But, as was the case with Iraq after Osiraq 1 (june, 1981), that successful Israeli air strike bought time (ten years), but did not solve the problem. Saddam simply started all over again. Even after he was defeated in Gulf-War-1, he continued his efforts, starving his own people and diverting billions of dollars from the Oil-for-Food program in order to fund his quest for WMDs.
Same now. Iran will work with North Korea and Syria to re-start, re-develop, re-arm, re-deploy and ultimately re-launch WMDs. Syrians already tried to arm a SCUD with a warhead loaded with Sarin gas (butterfingers -- some poor Syrian technician dropped the warhead and the whole place blew up and 15 people died). I wonder what they planned to do with that missile.
The real challenge now is to not just buy time, but to solve the problem.
Perhaps you should have a talk with Mr. Akhmedi-Nejad when he very conveniently visits Columbia university on Monday. Just the two of you...heart to heart...you could then look in to his eyes, the way you looked in to Mr. Putin's 2 years ago.
Maybe if you took him aside and spoke softly to him, while briefly showing him whatever big stick you may have in your arsenal, maybe he would reconsider his desire to create a world without America.
Perhaps if you remind him that now, thanks to the September 6 Israeli air-strike in Syria (Osiraq 2) it is clear that:
a. American planes can fly over all of Iran with complete impunity, since Israel shares its jamming technology with the USA; and that means that the Russian technology that was supposed to be unjammable can be jammed and hence the Iranian anti-aircraft arsenal, a gift from Russia, is jammable.
b.American bunker-buster bombs do indeed bust bunkers -- even bunkers buried 30 meters below ground under concrete armour...so now Iran's deep and heavily concrete-armoured WMD facilities are vulnerable (just as Syrian ones were when Israel bombed them with American bunker-buster bombs).
c. Akhmedi-Nejad himself is on very thin ice in Teheran, now that "a" and "b" are widely known. So his political opponents and the growing number of disaffected Iranian youth and 30-somethings are feeling more and more that he is leading Iran into a confrontation which can end only with massive Iranian defeat and carnage. No Mahdi, No hidden Imam, no Islamo-fascist glorious victory for "Islam uber Alles"...only a set-back for Iran...a set-back to the stone age. And all those young Iranians want to live to see some future, and perhaps a better future for themselves and their children, even if it is a future that must be shared with an infidel America.
any plans?
This is from The Sunday Times (UK)
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Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem. The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say. They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north. Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. A senior American source said the administration sought proof of nuclear-related activities before giving the attack its blessing. Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials. Syrian officials flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last week, reinforcing the view that the two nations were coordinating their response. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2512380.e\
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed],___
David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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THE SECRETIVE SYRIAN-NORTH KOREAN ALLIANCE
Posted by Koira, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Alex Kogan and was published September 18, 2007 in
the Jerusalem Post
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Global media speculation centering on a North Korean-flagged freighter that docked in the Syrian port of Tartus three days before the alleged September 6 IAF strike on Syrian territory has focused the world's attention on the mysterious port. In fact, published sources demonstrate the centrality of Tartus to a prolonged history of secretive military cooperation between the two countries. Two Web sites list the Al-Hamad freighter as having docked at Tartus on September 3, flying North Korean colors. A third Web site, run by the Egyptian Transportation Ministry, says the Al-Hamad docked in the Nile Delta one month earlier and later passed by the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli. The Al-Hamad is believed to be a 42-year-old, 1,700-ton general-purpose freighter. Its cargo on the fateful voyage was listed as cement. The origin of the freighter, according to one report, has been removed from Web sites that track shipping movements. According to Russian sources, the London-based Almashad Alsiasi publication and the AXIS Global Research and Analysis Web site, Tartus is one of the bases where Syrian Scud missile launchers (Transporter-Elevator-Launcher vehicles) are stationed. Most of the launchers were brought to the port from North Korea or built using North Korean blueprints and parts. The process reportedly began in 1991. That March, using the $2 billion that it received from America for participation in the First Gulf War, Syria contracted for the delivery of more than 150 Scud-C missiles and 20 launchers from North Korea, for an estimated $500 million. Western intelligence officials said the sale received prior approval from Saudi Arabia, Steve Emerson of The Wall Street Journal reported that summer. The equipment was to be shipped to the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia aboard foreign vessels. The first such delivery took place in May 1991, according to reported comments by David Ivri, the former director-general of Israel's Defense Ministry. Carried aboard a Yugoslavian freighter, the missiles were delivered to Tartus, as reported by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times. The North Korean ship Mupo reportedly returned home without delivering its cargo of missiles and assembly equipment for Syria -- but the cargo did get there in the end. The Mupo was said by US defense officials to be carrying eight launchers and additional missiles, part of the Syrian order for 150 Scud-C's, the Washington Times reported. The ship followed a circuitous route in an effort to avoid Israeli interception, and its cargo was transferred to another freighter at Gibraltar. In June 1991, the Washington Times reported, a large shipment of North Korean Scud-C missiles arrived in Cyprus and was transferred to smaller vessels for transshipment to Latakia and Tartus. Next, in March 1992, 24 Scud-C missiles, along with missile-production and assembly equipment, were delivered to Tartus aboard the North Korean freighter Tae Hung Ho. The manufacturing equipment was destined for missile factories in the Syrian cities of Hama and Aleppo, the Nuclear Threat Initiative Web site reported. Later, according to the same Web site and other sources, Tartus became a secondary conduit for military cargoes, as most subsequent shipments were made by air, sometimes through Iran. By 1996, according to the AXIS Global Research and Analysis Web site, the Tartus base had several dozen mid-range Scud-B missiles, able to strike up to 300 kilometers away. In 2000, several reports suggested (including from the Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control and the Nuclear Threat Initiative Web site) that the North Korean firm Chon-gchon-gang had delivered 50 Scud-D (No-Dong) missiles to Syria via Tartus, and some of them were installed at the local base. Other sources said Syria had also acquired seven new launchers. At the end of September 2000 and in the middle of 2001, some of these missiles were modernized and test-fired in the Aleppo area. Syria's acquisition of Scud-D missiles was seen as significant because it would allow Damascus to strike targets throughout Israel from launchers positioned deep inside its territory and less easily detected by Israel. According to Russian sources, the Wisconsin Project and Munich Focus (in November 2005), the Scud-D may have had problems with its guidance system, later reportedly addressed. Reports on the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin and Nuclear Threat Initiative Web sites also noted that Syria had begun assembling Scud-C missiles at a factory built by North Korea. These reports indicated that Syria was capable of producing some but not all of the components needed to construct the projectiles. Several of the 26 launchers were reportedly adapted for Scuds with chemical warheads. It is unknown how many of them are stationed in Tartus. In June 2002, US and Israeli officials said Syria was mass producing a longer-range version of its Scud C missile, with possible assistance from North Korea and Iran, Jane's Defence Weekly reported. Unconfirmed reports suggested that North Korean scientists were working at several Scud launch sites, including at the Tartus base. On May 19, 2004, US officials confirmed that a train crash in North Korea had caused the death of approximately a dozen Syrian technicians. The Syrians were accompanying a train car full of missiles and missile components being moved from a facility near the Chinese border to a North Korean port. From there, they were to have been shipped to Tartus or Latakia; the cargo was destroyed in the subsequent explosion. The officials said there was no evidence of chemical or biological weapons in the shipment. Then the Russians reportedly entered the picture. Several Western experts (in particular the AXIS Global Research and Analysis Web site) reported that in November 2004, two ships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet, acting in the framework of a joint exercise with NATO on the "prevention of WMD distribution," arrived for a "routine check" at Tartus. They were allegedly carrying parts and blueprints needed for the Syrian Scud upgrade program. From there, some of the parts were supposedly transported to the Aleppo production site and some, with the help of Russian technicians, were mounted on Scuds at the Tartus missile base. Some Russian sources claimed these were new guidance systems. On March 9, 2005, yet another Russian Black Sea Fleet landing vessel, the Azov, left for Syria, carrying machinery for "rebuilding of the moorage" at the Tartus technical base and "new equipment to replace obsolete items at the base's storage facilities." When the ship arrived at the Syrian port, several meetings "between local authorities and officers of the Russian Navy" took place, Russian media reported. Less than two months later, Damascus conducted various missile-firings: The Syrians launched one Scud-B missile with a range of 300 kilometers, and two Scud-D missiles with a range of 700 kilometers. The missiles were reportedly designed to deliver airburst chemical weapons. Some Syrian opposition sources have said that additional equipment for the missile program arrived on board the Azov. So too, reportedly, did a group of Russian specialists to oversee test launches of new Scuds. |
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COME TO AMERICA'S TRUTH FORUM SYMPOSIUM IN DETROIT MICHIGAN OCTOBER 26TH.
Posted by Jeffrey Epstein, September 30, 2007. |
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Friends:
It's becoming more difficult to achieve our goal of disseminating the truth to the American people and we need your help. America's Truth Forum has scheduled it's third in a series of terrorism symposiums for October 26th-28th in Detroit, Michigan. That's right -- the Dearborn area. Once again, we've assembled a panel of our nation's leading experts on counter-terrorism and radical Islam -- knowledgeable and credible authorities that have much to say about the threat we all face. This very "REAL" threat clearly overshadows that which was posed by the Third Reich. In support of this contention, one must only consider Hitler's ability to mobilize scores of sophisticated, politically-neutral Germans against a non-enemy -- innocent citizens. One could only imagine what terrorist organizations might achieve with the support of their radicalized religious leadership. The grim reality of having to fend off thousands, perhaps millions, of hate-inspired suicidal zealots is chilling at best. Make no mistake; it's the very security and well-being of your children and grandchildren that is clearly at risk. Our citizenry can no longer afford to apathetically remain on the sidelines awaiting news of the a detonation. Please help us continue in this battle to confront our enemies in earnest. Fundraising efforts have been successful and we're appreciative of all contributions. We are so very close to attaining the funds needed to satisfy the costs of this event. However, our financial coffers are still short the funds necessary and we are appealing to you for your help. No donation is too small and because we are now a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization every contribution is tax deductible. If you care about the future of this great country and value our initiative, please contribute today. We desperately need your support to make the Detroit symposium a success. After all, we're fighting, not only for our loved ones, but for your loved ones too. To help us help America and support this most righteous cause. Please either visit our site at http://www.americastruthforum.com/donations.htm and contribute via the PayPal link or forward your donation to: America's Truth Forum
Respectfully,
Jeffrey Epstein is president, America's Truth Forum. Visit their website at www.americanstruthforum.com or contact the Forum at staff@americastruthforum.com |
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SAMSON BLINDED: A MACHIAVELLIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT
Posted by www.samsonblinded.org, September 30, 2007. |
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 SAMSON BLINDED
Obadiah Shoher is a pen name for veteran politician. Obadiah lived in the USSR, and sufficiently hated socialism to emigrate. It was quite a disappointment to find that Israeli socialism is in many respects worse.Obadiah contends that socialism, combined with quasi-liberal leftism -- the infamous political correctness -- spells Israeli destruction, as it has destroyed other societies before.Shoher despises Israeli ostriches who keep their heads in sand preferring not to see the uncomfortable questions: changing demography of the ostensibly Jewish state, accumulation of nuclear weapons by hostile regimes, radicalization of Islamic societies, and the economic dead end of maintaining Israeli military capability regardless of paper treaties. You are welcome to download free electronic copy of Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict under these conditions: - the copy cannot be altered, except by adding review comments; If you do not find it troublesome to pay for the paper copy, please buy it for $9.54. Paper copy is more convenient to read, and you can lend it to others. We do not make money on book sales, but media reviews and public awareness still depend on the number of copies sold, not downloaded. If you are using Windows XP, you could make on-screen reading more comfortable by turning Clear Type feature on. here. Receive pdf file by email. The easiest option. Just send us empty email, and receive the file. We do not store your address. Recommended -- MS Word zipped, size 292Kb. Save the file to your hard drive, then unzip it to read. The book is available in English and in Hebrew. |
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These two reviews are from www.Amazon.com 1. C.T. Hunter, Gainesville, FL.
Shoher presents a compelling argument for strengthening Israel's position in the world through firm and decisive action. While I am sure that there are relatively few people who will agree with everything he suggests, he does do an excellent job of reasoning out his arguments and provides citations and references for all of his claims. Many parts of this book come off as extreme or racist, but I think that it is good to get these ideas out in the open and actually consider them as possibilities for action that could be taken by Israel. Five stars for this one because I'm glad that someone has the will to take these "extreme" ideas and put them to paper as well thought out propositions. This debate has been going on for a long time, and one way or another, action needs to be taken.. and this book will surely help people reason out what that action should be. Among the main premises of the book is that Jews should start viewing and treating Islamic states as their enemies. This means that otherwise drastic seeming actions could be carried out and that Israel shouldn't feel bad about hurting or disabling Arabs. Shoher proposes taking land by force and then expelling its inhabitants as well as responding to terrorist attacks by blanket reprisals against cities and governments. Many very interesting ideas are presented here, including the selling of Israeli mercenaries to foreign powers and bribing imams to teach more liberal ideals in order to compete with Saudi Arabia's promotion of jihad. Also, ideas to promote conflicts between Muslim states are discussed as well as other ways to trick and fool the Muslim world into forgetting their common enemy and focusing on others. One thing that turned me off about this book personally, was Shoher's rather European-like cynical view of America and its reasons for doing things. Claiming that the West basically ignores the accumulation of WMDs by Muslim states doesn't really hold up under recent world events. America chose Iraq arbitrarily? I think not. And it really isn't fair to compare the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to proposed takeovers of Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, whereas America has no interest in claiming lands of the Middle East as their own and will not displace civilians with their own settlers. But this book isn't about America, and I can understand Shoher's misunderstanding of the goals and values of that great nation. Shoher argues compellingly that the political game in Israel has resulted in a country that cannot act forcefully one way or another. When one political party acts, another is quick to follow and reverse that action. Shoher believes that Israel must have a debate and decide on what their course will be, isolationism or aggressiveness towards their neighbors. When it is decided, commit to that decision. Basically, stick with a plan and don't vacillate. Fight for a clear objective and don't loose sight of that goal. Weigh the costs and the benefits of actions, and when a path is chosen, don't waver. "Conflicts between states cannot be solved by palliatives but require the credible threat of force." 2. Martina Sprague (Utah)
Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the mandate of a Jewish Israel with borders that expand into Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, this book is well worth reading. Of particular interest are the many possible solutions the author proposes for establishing Israel as a respected country in the region, and for bringing an end to the terrorist attacks. I found the suggestions regarding the need for a strong economy particularly insightful. Although some of the author's military ideas may seem a bit inhumane--for example, opinions will most certainly differ regarding the idea that civilians are fair game because they vote for the government and pay taxes that help support the war effort--as the author states, "war is not a competition in moral values" but should be pragmatic and swift in order to maintain popular support and prevent even greater future civilian casualties. The author's proposals are bold; however, it is questionable whether the consistent use of military force without regard for diplomacy and civilian lives can have a lasting positive effect. The author provides further interesting insights through the statement that Israelis provoked the war by trying to impose European ideas on an indigenous culture. In light of the Holocaust, however, it is unfortunate that some of the ideas presented in this book seem a bit Nazi-like. For example, the statement that women should not be drafted into combat because "girls should learn to be mothers," is almost verbatim Hitler's idea and does not befit a society that advocates democratic ideals. Another example is the Jews' desire to maintain a separate identity, "to live in an ethnically homogenous state without anyone else." This clannish behavior, for lack of a better word, might be at the heart of the suffering that Jews have had to endure for much of their history. On the other hand, the author does recognize that democracy and liberalism are difficult to come by in societies that do not share similar cultural values. A minor weakness of the book is the references to the Torah and what it dictates. Since virtually all religious people believe that their religion alone has value, religious references intended to justify a behavior tend to lead to dead ends and normally cannot be used successfully in logic argumentation. These references are also the cause of some confusion, since the author paradoxically states that it is "better to admit honestly that the historical parts of the Torah are not factual." The author deserves credit, however, for the analytical rather than emotional approach to the difficulties that Israel faces in the Middle East. The author sheds light on the complexity of many points, such as what constitutes Jewishness: Ethnic traits or religious standards? To whom should the state of Israel belong? The answers to these questions are not immediately apparent and need to undergo a great deal of analytical scrutiny. I would recommend this provocative study to anyone with an interest in conflict resolution and political world issues. Contact Samson Blinded organization at nospam@samsonblinded.org |
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THE FORD FOUNDATION FINANCES SEDITION IN ISRAEL
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 30, 2007. |
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2291
See web page for links and photos
28 Elul 5767, 11 September 07 02:40 by "Back to Sanity" -- Arutz 7 Analysts(IsraelNN.com)
Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Company, was one of the worst modern anti-Semites in history. His hatred is summed up here: Nineteen-nineteen was when Ford purchased the Dearborn Independent, a local newspaper/pamphlet that was published weekly. By nineteen twenty the Dearborn was almost three hundred thousand dollars in the red. To regain interest in the newspaper, Ford decided to publish "educational" pieces. The newspaper started to carry excerpts from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a document of dubious origins. "The Protocols" were actually first published in nineteen hundred and five by the secret police of czarist Russia. The document was used to take attention away from a failing government and try to turn the focus on the Jews through gross propaganda. Ritualistic killing of Christian babies to use in rituals and a plot to overthrow the "Christian rule" present in the world were just a couple of the ideals presented by "The Protocols" which was supposedly authored by learned elders of the Jewish nation. Henry Ford proceeded to publish ninety-one successive articles citing "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Ford later condensed the "Protocols" and added some of his own viewpoints to produce the notorious work, "The International Jew". "The International Jew" was received with mixed reactions. He was particularly fond of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He was unabashedly pro-Hitler and pro-Nazi. That being the case, perhaps it is not so surprising that the main source of financing for leftist sedition and for groups seeking to undermine Israel's determination to resist and survive is the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation has long been financing anti-Zionist groups of leftist Jews and Israelis, tiny groups that would be invisible without the Ford megabucks being poured into them. These are groups who would otherwise be unable to get their membership lists up into three digits or to attract any bona fide Jewish support. The Ford Foundation was taken over a few years back in a leftist coup, and ever since its funds have been used to finance the Far Left. See this expose. Ford steps in where even George Soros fears to tread. Among other things, Ford currently funds the pro-terror jihadis in the Council for American Islamic Relations. It pumps oodles of dollars into PLO advocacy groups. It has never met an anti-American far-leftist it does not wish to finance. The main Jewish anti-Zionist leftist recipient of Ford Foundation wampus is the "New Israel Fund," a group devoted to promoting the political agenda of Tikkun Magazine. Ford just handed it a cool $20 million, on top of lots of previous funding. Without Ford, the New Israel Fund could not afford a felafel. Some of New Israel Fund's activities are harmless political correctness wackiness. They fund Jewish homosexual groups, Jewish "pluralism" groups, Israeli environmental groups, feminist groups, and so on. They also fund just about every communist front group in Israel, starting with the pro-terror Machsom Watch. The New Israel Fund was in the news a few days ago when it leapt at the opportunity to sponsor an event in the UK with Haaretz ultra-Israel-hater Danny Rubinstein, so that he could spout his encephelophobic theory about how Israel is an apartheid regime. But that is only the tip of its seditious iceberg. NGO-Monitor has a detailed report on New Israel Fund. The New Israel Fund people are up to their kafiyas in bed with Azmi Bishara, the treasonous Israeli Knesset Member wanted for espionage. About 10 years back, the New Israel Fund managed to hornswaggle the Smithsonian Institute into letting IT organize festivities to mark Israel.s 50th anniversary as an independent state. And who do you think the NIF decided should represent Israel? None other than Azmi Bashara, of course!! Just a typical sabra, kova tembel and all, eating felafel and sunflower seeds!! Of course Bashara is as representative of Israel as the NIF is of US Jewry. The New Israel Fund in fact planned to invite several others to stage one of those familiar Jewish-Arab unity events in which Jewish leftists join Arab fascists in calling for Israel to be destroyed. At the time, the valiant Americans for a Safe Israel had a word in the ear of the Smithsonian, which -- once it discovered who and what the New Israel Fund actually was -- cancelled the taxpayer-funded jihad. The Tikkunies of the New Israel Fund then threw a tantrum and screamed about "McCarthyism" and suppression of free speech. The New Israel Fund reportedly is covering the legal costs for arch-murderer Marwan Barghouti. It is so anti-Israel that the UN endorses it. It funnels its funds into microscopic Israeli communist front organizations and "peace groups." The "New Israel" that it seeks to erect is in fact Palestine. Its agenda differs little from that of Israel's own communist party. Among the major beneficiaries of NIF grants are the Arab Association for Human Rights, Hamoked, I'lam, Adalah, Ittijah, the Ahali Center for Community Development, the Arab Association of Human Rights, and Mossawa. Each is essentially an anti-Israel propaganda organization. It turns out Bash-Israel propaganda for a variety of international organizations, and is an apologist for the Hamas. It funds many Arab anti-Israel propaganda groups. Most democratic countries (including the US) regulate the funding of domestic political groups by those outside the country. How much more so should Israel crack down on these anti-Israel kibitzers, especially when those outsiders doing the funding are seeking to harm that country and fund Israeli sedition. Henry Ford recieved the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, presented by Karl Kapp, German consul-general of Cleveland (left), and Fritz Hailer, German consul of Detroit (right). 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. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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AL-DURAH HOAX; HEBBULLAH BACK IN BIZ; CNN HATCHET JOB; BARADEI'S PRIZE; OLMERT'S DUBIOUS REASSURANCE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2007. |
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These were submitted September 18, 2007. |
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OLMERT DESPERATE TO KEEP POWER An internal Kadima document was leaked. In it, the Party worried that it had not achieved economic, social, or security gains. To regain public confidence, it might agree to agree to a lopsided prisoner exchange with the P.A., of a couple of hundred terrorists, including some from Hamas, for the kidnapped Israeli soldier. It would present this as having kept its word to recover him. Such a deal would be submission to terrorism and encourage more kidnapping (IMRA, 8/26). Olmert is coming up with silly reasons for releases, such as "for Ramadan." Ramadan is a Muslim fighting period. In that holy period, the Muslims wage their jihad of intolerance more intensely; Olmert wages his dhimmi-like submission to US dictates more insanely. OLMERT ABANDONING ISRAEL Olmert's new excuse for not clearing out Gaza terrorists, who launch rockets at Israelis, is that he doesn't want Israel to be tied down in a two front war. So he ties Israel down on two fronts by doing nothing, while the enemy builds its forces up and the Gazans fire upon Israel. Gaza was not really a front, but Olmert's inaction is letting them build up a front there (IMRA, 9/17). FRENCH COURT LIED French TV edited a tape of the faked al-Dura killing such as to make the Israeli soldiers seem to have murdered an Arab boy. A Frenchman exposed the hoax, but was sued for libel by the TV station. The station, however, sat on the tape and did not release it, just the edited fraction of it. He lost the case because, among other things, the judges said that he relied on only one source, and that the Israeli Army never supported his contention. In fact, the Israeli Army does support his contention, though not officially. The IDF has commented about the case at length, finding the same flaws and misleading contentions in the edited version as did the defendant. So have independent investigators. The IDF, which also had sought the tape, just went into length about it again, as it demanded that the station let it examine the full, raw tape (IMRA, 9/17). This is like the Dreyfus Affair, in which a French court tried to protect the reputation of a French institution that committed a tort. If the court were fair, it would have taken into consideration the other investigations and the IDF findings, and would have subpoenaed the tape. It prefers that Israel be slandered and that the Arab slanderers be permitted to stage atrocities for propaganda. No wonder Europeans think ill of Israel and I think ill of Europeans! WHAT IS HAPPENING IN JORDAN? One report is that poverty is increasing, as Jordanians outspend their incomes and are cashing in their real estate assets, to live on. The middle class is shrinking (IMRA, 8/27). Another report is that the country is planning nuclear power plants and to become an exporter of cheap energy. (I understand that it is not so cheap, all costs considered.) This kind of report makes it seem as if the government is planning to boost the economy. Which is the true picture? OUTPOSTS The settlers are negotiating with the government which outposts to dismantle and which to move onto state land, ahead of court orders (IMRA, 8/27). The settler argument was that it either bought its land or was settled on state-owned land under jurisdiction of the State of Israel. Peace Now claimed that most of the outposts were on land owned privately by Arabs. What I surmise from this news brief is that Peace Now was right to a large extent, and the settler movement wrong to a large extent, about who owns which land. That is disappointing. However, I still believe that the Jewish people are entitled to the province and for security must have it. I think that the Arabs must get out. HIZBULLAH'S POSITION Defense Min. Barak said that Hizbullah has at least 40% more rockets than at the start of the last war. Although placed further north of Israel, they still can reach it (IMRA, 8/27). Does anybody believe his government's claim that its conduct of that war improved Israeli security after it? EGYPT WILL BE MORE SECURE, FROM WHAT? The Pentagon announced military sales to Egypt, including 125 upgraded Abrams tanks. "This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that has been and continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East." "[Dr. Aaron Lerner -- IMRA: The 'sale' uses U.S. grant money that Egypt applies to its ongoing program to prepare to invade an unnamed country immediately East of them (one hint -- it starts with 'I' and is not Italy) rather than invest in improving Egypt.]" (8/27.) Egypt is unfriendly, unstable, unthreatened by external enemies, and unsettling in Gaza. Therefore, this US gift promotes jihad against Israel. IS PERES AN AGENT OF THE POPE? Peres was schooled by the Jesuits. He keeps meeting with Vatican officials and their Spanish allies, and has promised most of Jerusalem's holy places to the Vatican (Documented in Shabtai, Tzvi, Labor Zionism, And The Holocaust). His own policies are as anti-Zionist as the Pope's. It isn't commonly recognized how much diplomacy the Vatican actively engages in. Remember the Vatican's "rat line" on which Nazis escaped Allied jurisdiction, after WWII? CNN UP TO OLD TRICKS Christiane Amanpour narrated and helped write a program about religion in Israel that defamed Christianity and Judaism. She equated zealots in the three faiths, although only Islam endorses and widely implements murderous attacks on others. She equated allegedly "illegal" Jewish "settlements" in Judea-Samaria with terrorism, though only terrorism is aggressive and murderous. She cites their illegality one-sidedly, though many scholars find them legal. She misquotes Pres. Reagan as calling them illegal, though he called them legal. Although many Members of Congress who oppose aid to Israel get re-elected, she quotes Jimmy Carter's claim that they cannot. (It's an old, antisemitic canard, that the Jews control government.) Their pressure is so strong, she lied, that they got Pres. Bush. Sr. to back down on loan guarantees to Israel. Actually, Israel backed down by making concessions. The program ignored the powerful Arab lobby. She lied again, in attributing the start of the struggle for Jerusalem to post-1967 war bulldozing of an Arab neighborhood (whose rubbish blocked access to the Jewish holy places). She distorted ordinary city planning into ethnic oppression. No, it began when Muslims invaded the Old City in the 1948 war, destroyed the synagogues, expelled the Jews, and restricted Christian access. According to CAMERA, "There was a noticeably gentler and more cordial tone toward Muslim extremists, in contrast to the often snide and hectoring tone displayed toward pro-Israel Americans and Israeli settlers." "'Amanpour included two apolitical segments with appealing devout Muslim women,' CAMERA wrote, 'who talked about why they wear a head covering and how Islam enriches their lives. No such apolitical segment about devout Jews appeared in 'God's Jewish Warriors.'" She used the term, "Jewish warriors" five times as much as "Muslim warriors," though the Muslims constantly attack the Jews (Arutz-7, 8/28). CNN did a hatchet job on Israel. WHAT IS ISRAEL DOING TO OUR HOMELAND? The IDF wanted to build a new training base in the Negev. Citizens objected. It would be "...about ten kilometers south of Ramat Hovav, perceived to be a dangerous location. Toxic smells carried by the wind, as well as the seemingly-constant threat of explosions and chemical leaks, plague the area, which is largely populated by Bedouins." (Arutz-7, 8/28). Welfare policy and failure to enforce the ban on polygamy make that now largely hostile Bedouin population explode. They steal public land in the Negev, and get human rights groups to pity them when the government tries to recover it. NOBEL PRIZE FOR A NUCLEAR PROLIFERATOR Muhammad El Baradei, head of the UNO's International Atomic Energy Agency received the Nobel Peace Prize for opposing nuclear proliferation. Actually, he helped proliferate. He asserted that Iraq had no nuclear arms program. Before the Iraq war, he held inconclusive inspections that gave Saddam time, while PM Sharon warned that large convoys were transporting something suspicious from Iraq to Syria. After invasion, a US inspector found four silos from which such convoys were furnished. Shortly after the war started, El Baradei "...announced that since the invasion, equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear bombs had disappeared from Iraq. ...in the aftermath of the US-led invasion, entire buildings related to Saddam's nuclear weapons programs had been dismantled without any record being made of their contents. High precision 'dual use' items such as milling machines, electron beam welders, and high strength aluminum all turned up missing." He said, "The disappearance of such equipment and materials may be of proliferation significance What El Baradei does try strenuously and repeatedly to do, while Iran defiantly enriches uranium, is get Israel under his jurisdiction, preparatory to eliminating its nuclear defense. He criticized US military aid to Israel as likely to start a Mideast arms race (which the aid is meant to help Israel catch up in). For four years and against the UNO Charter, he thwarted US attempts to bring Iran before the Security Council, for its nuclear violations. That gave Iran time to master the technology. He condemned a Congressional report that found Iran's work military. He opposes not only a military strike against Iran but economic sanctions. They would only radicalize the regime, he contends. (It is radical!) His current ploy is to parlay some minor, useless Iranian concessions on inspections, such as to inspect a plant not to be completed for two years, to hold off a third round of sanctions (IMRA, 8/28 from Caroline Glick). LABEL THAT LIES Min. Lieberman, head of the Israeli Beiteinu Party, calls his Party right-wing. But he proposes letting sovereign Egyptian and Jordanian troops into Gaza and Judea-Samaria, to maintain security. That is not a right-wing approach but an anti-Zionist one. Israeli commentators should dispute his label (IMRA, 8/27). The left-wing approach is dangerous. Dangerous, because it would let enemy troops near Israeli population centers and would put them into position both to invade Israel and to help terrorists make war on Israel. WHAT DID THE P.A. DO WITH FOREIGN AID The P.A. received almost $7 billion in foreign subsidy. What did it do with the money? Instead of making progress, it made its economy deteriorate. Muslim mobs destroyed the Erez industrial zone between Gaza and Israel, where many Arabs had worked for years (IMRA, 8/27.) They also vandalized into disuse greenhouses that departing Israelis turned over to them in Gaza. They squandered the subsidy on graft and war. They see business as something to extort, not to support. HOW NOT TO DETER TERRORISM For alleged (but non-existent) good will, Israel releases terrorists who tried but failed to kill someone. It also gives them light sentences (IMRA, 8/28). OLMERT ADVANCES P.A. STATEHOOD PM Olmert discussed final status issues with Abbas but still claimed he would require the P.A. to eradicate terrorism, as per Oslo (IMRA, 8/28). Oslo stipulates that terrorism be dismantled before final status negotiations. Israeli officials continued to approve of that formula. The Road Map calls for it, too, but without means of enforcement. PM Olmert contradicts the Oslo requirement. He is approving what the Arabs want, without requiring anything of them. That kind of appeasement is dangerous, because it never finally forces the Muslims to live up to their agreement to end their warfare. They never have to show they can be relied upon to do the right thing or that they really want peace. As for Olmert's reassuring us that Israel won't actually grant statehood before the P.A. complies with the anti-terrorist stipulation, don't believe him. He is doing what Sharon did about the Gaza withdrawal, getting everything ready and then disregarding the reassurance. Sharon deceived his people. He and Olmert are enemies of the 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 |
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RECKONING WITH SYRIA
Posted by Daily Alert, September 30, 2007. |
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This was written by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who
serves as the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
It appeared in the New York Sun
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Recent reports that the regime in Damascus has been developing its nuclear facilities with the assistance of North Korea are only the latest manifestations of Syria's increasing belligerent stance. Despite attempts to "embrace" the regime in Damascus by some in Congress, under the misguided notion that Syria will moderate its behavior in return, that regime remains actively engaged in dangerous and destructive policies that threaten America, our allies, and our interests in the region. Make no mistake. Syria poses a growing threat that must be confronted. Damascus remains a stalwart supporter for terrorist organizations and activities throughout the region, from Beirut to Baghdad and Jerusalem, and the fact that Syria remains a hub for Hezbollah and Hamas and a gateway for jihadists to infiltrate Iraq. For example, during last summer's war in Lebanon, Hezbollah reportedly received Russian-made anti-tank missiles from Syria and used them to disable several Israeli tanks. Additionally, Syria has relentlessly pursued a destabilizing conventional and unconventional military buildup, contributing to regional instability. It has reportedly purchased numerous and varied missiles, and seeks short and long-range ballistic missiles as well. As a means to bolster these efforts, in 2005 Iran and Syria declared that they had formed a mutual self-defense pact to confront the "threats" now facing them. In May of this year, it was reported that Syria was providing Iran with 50 short-range gun and missile air defense systems that it purchased from Russia earlier this year. However, this level of cooperation is by no means confined to conventional military assistance. A year ago, in July, it was reported that Iranian "observers" were present at North Korea's missile launches, raising further troubling questions regarding the continued proliferation of missile expertise from North Korea to other rogue regimes. Reports of cooperation with North Korea on nuclear capabilities development should come as no surprise. Syria has reportedly attempted to build a second nuclear facility, and refuses to sign an international protocol allowing inspections of its nuclear facilities on short notice. In 2005, it was reported that the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission had procured components and expertise from European Union members through front companies that could be used for the production of nuclear weapons. Additionally, over the last 30 years, Syria has developed ballistic missiles and has reportedly even conducted research and development on biological weapons. Syria has one of the largest ballistic missile inventories in the Middle East, comprised of several hundred short-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. Syria also reportedly has several thousand tactical munitions, including rockets and artillery shells which could carry deadly unconventional agents. Reports also indicate that Syria has built thirty large underground bunkers that would enable it to launch numerous Scud missiles -- possibly tipped with chemical warheads -- against Israel with impunity. Given its past history, possible unconventional Syrian weapons transfers to Islamist terrorists are an ever-present danger. America cannot vacillate in the face of Syria's ominous behavior. She and its allies must act promptly and effectively to neutralize the Syrian menace and target Syria's wherewithal to continue such destructive polices. Syria's economy, which remains controlled by the state and reliant on its petroleum resources, is particularly vulnerable to actions aimed at targeting its ability to threaten America, our allies and interests. Domestic oil production represents half of Syria's income and most of its exports. Despite minimal economic reforms, the public sector employs most Syrians, subsidies for domestic goods are rampant, and corruption is endemic. As a means to address the Syrian threat and capitalize on its vulnerabilities, I have introduced the Syria Accountability and Liberation Act. This legislation requires the immediate imposition of all possible American sanctions and requires that they remain in place until Syria ceases its support for terrorism, unconventional weapons development, and other destructive policies. It mandates a number of additional sanctions to curtail Syria's proliferation efforts and imposes new sanctions on entities that invest or conduct business in Syria's energy sector. Without foreign capital and development, Syria will be deprived of the energy profits it desperately needs to buy weapons and sponsor terrorist activities. In short, it seeks to ensure Syria will finally face its day of reckoning. We missed a golden opportunity a decade ago to prevent an escalation of the Iranian threat. Let us heed this lesson and take the necessary steps now to increase the pressure on Damascus to compel Syria to cease its policies and activities that threaten America and global security. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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JEWS ARE AGAIN SCAPEGOATED
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 30, 2007. |
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This is called "Scapegoats yet again" and was written by Victor Davis
Hanson, a nationally syndicated columnist and a classicist and
historian at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of A
War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the
Peloponnesian War. It was published September 15, 2007 in the
Washington Times
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Who recently said: "These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War I. Why? Only to build Israel." Some holdover Nazi? Hardly. It was former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey, a NATO ally. He went on to claim that the Jews -- whom he refers to as "bacteria" -- controlled China, India and Japan, and ran the United States. Who alleged: "The Arabs who were involved in September 11 [2001] cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs." A conspiracy nut? Actually, it was former Democratic U.S. Sen. James Abourezk of South Dakota. He denounced Israel on a Hezbollah-owned television station, adding: "I marveled at the Hezbollah resistance to Israel... It was a marvel of organization, of courage and bravery." And finally, who claimed at a U.N.-sponsored conference that democratic Israel was "much worse" than the former apartheid South Africa and that it "undermines the international community's reaction to global warming"? A radical environmentalist wacko? Again, no. It was Clare Short, a member of the British Parliament and Tony Blair's international development secretary. A new virulent strain of the old anti-Semitism is spreading worldwide. This hate -- of a magnitude not seen in more than 70 years -- is not just espoused by Iran's loony president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or radical jihadists. The latest anti-Semitism is also now mouthed by world leaders and sophisticated politicians and academics. Their loathing often masquerades as "anti-Zionism" or "legitimate" criticism of Israel. But the venom exclusively reserved for the Jewish state betrays existential hatred. Israel is always lambasted for entering homes in the West Bank to look for Hamas terrorists and using too much force. But last week the world snoozed when the Lebanese army bombarded and then crushed the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, which harbored Islamic terrorists. The world has long objected to Jewish settlers buying up land in the West Bank. Yet Hezbollah, flush with Iranian money, is now purchasing large tracts in southern Lebanon for military purposes and purging them of non-Shi'ites. Here at home, "neoconservative" has become synonymous with a supposed Jewish cabal of Washington insiders who hijacked U.S. policy to take us to war for Israel's interest. That our State Department is at the mercy of a Jewish lobby is the theme of a recent high-profile book by professors at Harvard University and the University of Chicago. Yet when the United States bombed European and Christian Serbia to help Balkan Muslims, few critics claimed American Muslims had unduly swayed President Clinton. And charges of improper ethnic influence are rarely used to explain the billions in American aid given to nondemocratic Egypt, Jordan or the Palestinians -- or the Saudi oil money that pours into U.S. universities. The world likewise displays such a double standard. It seems to care little about the principle of so-called occupied land -- whether in Cyprus or Tibet -- unless Israel is the accused. Mass murdering in Cambodia, the Congo, Rwanda and Darfur has earned far fewer United Nations' resolutions of condemnation than supposed atrocities committed by Israel. A number of British academics are sponsoring a boycott of Israeli scholars but leave alone those from autocratic Iran, China and Cuba. There are various explanations for the new anti-Semitism. For many abroad, attacking Jews and Israel is an indirect way of damning its main ally, the United States -- by implying Americans are not entirely evil, just hoodwinked by those sneaky and far more evil Jews. At home, there are obvious pragmatic considerations. Some Americans may find it makes more sense to damn a few million Israelis without oil than it does to offend Israel's adversaries in the Middle East, who number in the hundreds of millions and control nearly half the world's petroleum reserves. Cowardice explains a lot. Libeling Israel won't earn someone a fatwa or a death sentence in the manner comparable criticism of Islam might. There are no Jewish suicide bombers in London, Madrid or Bali. This new face of anti-Semitism is so insidious because it is so well disguised, advanced by self-proclaimed diplomats and academics -- and now embraced by the supposedly sophisticated left on university campuses. When national, collective or personal aspirations are not met, it is far easier to blame someone or something rather than to look within for the source of the failure and frustration. More recently, someone must be blamed for getting terrorists (with oil and its profits behind them) mad at us. That someone is -- no surprise -- once again Jews. 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. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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ISLAMOPEDIA -- TO BE A "GOOD" MUSLIM
Posted by American 1627, September 30, 2007. |
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REFERENCES: 'Palestinian' child abuse -- Evil 'Joy' - Glorifying mass murder -- 'Blessing' Hitler -- Mourning the wicked - Australia -- Muslim land -- Jihad on all Buddhists -- Spain -- Muslim land - Europe -- Muslim land -- Arabs DON'T care about 'Palestinians' -- 72 virgins -- Loyalty -- 'Pallywood' -- (use of) Ambulances for terror - (use of) Women for terror -- Human Shields -- Middle east background - September 11 terror plot on London -- Myth on: 'Terrorists are desperate' -- Beheadings -- Jewish refugges (from Arab countries) vs Arab refugees -- Arab cruel play with Arab "Palestinians" -- Ilan Halimi [an example of monsterous wild prolonged torture motivated by hate only] -- Muslims attacking Jews in France -- Ahmadinejad ' Islamic Hitler' -- Cutting -- 'Honor killing' -- Jews & Christians as "Apes & Pigs"? -- Non Muslims as "Cows" -- 'No Non Muslim is innocent' -- Islamic Slavery -- Rape Jihad -- Sex slaves -- Drugs -- Hezbollah's Intl. Criminal Network -- "Convert or Die!" -- Early history -- 'Palestinians' drink blood -- 'Palestinian' Animalism -- Early terrorism -- Muslims & WW2 - The Islamic Genocide -- "Moderates"? -- World domination & Caliphate - 'Ummah' -- 'Palestinians' in Lebanon -- Jordan -- Black September - Syrian Crimes -- Oppressing women -- Oppressing Christians -- Dhimmitude - status of minorities in 'Arab Muslim world' -- Lobbies -- Excuses - Victimhood -- Global conflicts To use live links to References, go to:
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Contact American 1627 at american1627@yahoo.com. This was published September 16, 2007 |
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"REALISM" VS REALITY; ARABIZING ISRAELI CITIES; PERES CONTRA PERES; ARAB SOCIETY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2007. |
| This was submitted September 16, 2007. |
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ISRAELIS' LEGAL PROBLEMS Israelis who respond to Arab terrorism find themselves further victimized by "open" police files, that for keep them from jobs requiring security clearance and cost them legal expenses. There is a movement to close those files (IMRA, 8/24). Israel should require speedy trials, as the US does. My professor used to say, "Justice delayed is justice denied. Israel does this on purpose. FOREIGN POLICY "REALISM" VS. REALITY For years, people denied the growth of Islamism and its threat to civilization. Then came the 9/11 attack. Most Americans came down to earth and supported the government's proposal to fight against Islamism. Two groups did not. Radical leftists such as Susan Sontag and Michael Moore claimed that the US economic domination of poor people deserved this comeuppance. (Is Moore that anti-American? Did he think that the 9/11 innocents deserved to be murdered?) Former National Security Advisors Brzezinski and Scowcroft, James Baker and associates, some academicians, and CIA analysts in the foreign policy school called "realism" claimed that US support for Israel motivated the attackers. True, Islamism is based on inexhaustible envy (and malice) towards the US. Osama declared intent to conquer the world for Islam. That is the motive. Financed by George Soros, leftists indulging in fantasy turned the Democratic Party against the war. (They were bolstered by wartime blunders, not that there aren't usually such blunders, but Americans have less patience than ever.) Most liberals believe that the US should recognize the terrorist organizations and countries, negotiate with them, and sacrifice Israel to them. They think that Iran would be more responsible when it gets nuclear weapons, despite Iran's clear declarations of irresponsible intent. (That would risk our collective survival!) Pres. Bush has adopted his critics' approach of negotiating rather than extending the war to Iran, although negotiations cannot halt Iran's religious drive to conquer. He also demands that Israel relinquish territory. Once our champion against terrorism, he is training terrorists in the P.A. and insisting that Israel reduce defenses against terrorism. The trained terrorists cooperate with Hamas. The Olmert regime may yield to Bush's demands. Then Iranian-backed forces would come adjacent to Israeli cities, with foreseeable consequences. Gripped by fantasy, Olmert is expanding the role of the UNO, which has the effect of expanding the scope of terrorism (IMRA, 8/24 from Caroline Glick). ISRAEL REDUCES SHORTAGES IN GAZA Electricity and other services periodically falter in Gaza. The Infrastructure Min. of Israel said, "We recently went to fix a line that supplies electricity to Gaza, and in exchange, one of our Electric Company workers who went to repair it was shot by snipers from Gaza. With the Prime Minister's consent and approval, I am in the midst of paving a new electric line from Netivot to Gaza. It's a joke; we're the only country that gets rocketed and then supplies them electricity." The EU suspects that Hamas spends subsidies it gets for electricity on its own purposes, not on electricity. Hence it suspended the subsidies (Arutz-7, 8/23). IN GAZA, FATAH PROTESTS AGAINST HAMAS Thousands of Fatah men marched against Hamas oppression of Fatah. Some of them threw rocks at Hamas men and committed vandalism. Hamas troops beat some, arrested briefly some journalists, and fired at some (IMRA, 8/24). The international media still refers to Israeli "occupation," not Hamas oppression. HOW ISRAEL DEALS WITH TERRORISM The Education Ministry will spend considerably, turning the bomb shelters under the schools of Sderot into classrooms. Siderot has fallen under almost daily rocket attack from Gaza for years. Newer rockets are more accurate and more explosive. Residents are angry that the government does not let the Army root out the terrorists in the first place (Arutz-7, 8/24). OLMERT CLAIMS NETANYAHU'S CREDIT Current figures on employment and economic growth in Israel continue a five-year high. PM Olmert credited the current figures to his policies (Arutz-7, 8/24). Netanyahu's reforms started the trend. With further reform would come more economic growth. I think, however, that if Olmert pushes territorial concessions, businessmen would fear to invest in a country about to be conquered. ARABIZATION OF ISRAELI CITIES Following Lod, Ramle, Acre, and Jaffa), Haifa is being Arabized. Hundreds of hostile Arabs have moved into a Haifa neighborhood, making taunts, threats, and some physical abuse against Jews. All but the poorest Jews have left. Some of the Arabs from eastern Jerusalem (Arutz-7, 8/24). No government protection! Muslim non-citizens should not be allowed to move elsewhere in Israel. IMMIGRATION POLICY DEBATE In the September issues of Commentary, author and readers debate US immigration policy. I recommend it. Here are what I think are the salient points. As in solving any problem, first identify the problem and the goals, then analyze and propose the means. There is no consensus over problem, goals, and means. Most Americans disapprove of illegal immigration. What should be the goal of US immigration policy? Is it the good of would-be immigrants? I think it should be the good of the country. We organized this country for our own good, and have the right to preserve what we like about it. Immigration is high and practically uncontrolled. Half of it is illegal. The illegals know that most of them won't get caught because many states and cities won't turn them over to immigration authorities, and eventually the next wave of supposed immigration reform will confer amnesty on them. In the distant past, unskilled, uneducated immigrants found a place in the labor market. We have lost much of our industry and automated most unskilled labor. Bringing in high-school dropouts costs our society more for the social services we did not have in earlier generations, than it pays. Immigrants have become more burden than benefit. They are the source of most of the poverty and much of the lack of medical care that national politicians decry (without perceiving the connection with immigration but act as if it were the result of some wrongdoing by our society.) This is especially true now that aliens can communicate more with their home countries and multi-culturalism has reduced pressure here to assimilate. Do immigrants fill jobs native Americans won't, or do they accept sub-standard pay and conditions that, in their absence, would have to be raised? Mass-immigration in this era of communications, transportation, and weaponry "overwhelms our ability to screen out subversives and creates large host communities for our enemies to use as cover." Potential enemies besides radical Muslims will exploit these new opportunities. In wartime, we usually don't permit enemy aliens to immigrate. Why do so, now? Our immigration policy should reduce immigration, perhaps only to vitally needed people, and emphasize assimilation into American society. Family reunification should extend only to the nuclear family, if at all. There is some question whether children born here of illegal aliens, not to mention children of legal aliens, should be considered US citizens, not deportable. Author Yuval Levin suggests barring legal aliens from welfare type benefits. (That would require a Constitutional amendment.) We need to become more law-abiding, ourselves, and to have national identification that is tamper-proof. ISRAEL BOOSTING MISSILE DEFENSES The enemy is training to rain missiles upon Israel. Therefore Israel is boosting its anti-missile umbrella for multiple levels of the atmosphere (IMRA, 8/24). SUPPOSE THE SIX-DAY WAR TOOK LONGER Fairly compelling admissions and other evidence have been compiled that the Soviets' duplicitous goading of the Arabs to make war on Israel and to provoke Israel to seem to be the aggressor, was to be the prelude to a Soviet attack on Israel. The attack would destroy Israeli nuclear weapons facilities and then help the Arabs conquer the country. Instead, Israel moved so swiftly to a decisive victory that it was admired and the world realized that the Arabs were the aggressors (IMRA, 8/24). THREE WAYS OF REPORTING SAME INCIDENT The PLO news agency reported that Israeli forces fired at civilians' houses in Gaza, killing two people. The Maan independent news agency reported that the DFLP announced that the pair were its members, killed mounting a guerilla operation against the Erev crossing into Israel. The PLO news agency tried to distort an act of defense into a war crime. The IDF reported that the operation was part of a continuous effort to infiltrate into Israel. The current group was heavily armed and had a sophisticated device to help them get through, and opened fire first (IMRA, 8/25). Perhaps the US and Israel should try to weaken Abbas, rather than strengthen him by weakening Israel. UNO CONTINUES UNIFIL IN LEBANON The long UNO resolution mentioned all sorts of justification. As IMRA noted, it did not mention Syrian arms smuggling to Hizbullah (IMRA, 8/25). PERES QUOTED AGAINST PERES Years ago, Shimon Peres warned against letting the Palestinian Arabs rule themselves. They would build up forces and attack Israel. He was right. Then why has he adopted the policy he had warned against? (IMRA, 8/26.) He embezzles millions from the phony peace process and he hates Jewish independence. THE PROBLEM WITH ARAB SOCIETY The Arab countries' problems are all the fault of foreign plots? If it weren't for those foreign plots, their governments tell the people, life would be pretty good for them. Some of the Arabs know better. NO WONDER PEOPLE DON'T CATCH ON! Despite the continued failure of appeasement, appeasers continue pursuing another failure. I finally figured out why. The purpose of modern education is not knowledge and the ability to learn from it. It's vocational training, ethnic diversity, and integration. THE DOWNSIDE OF PUBLIC BIDDING The Bush administration was criticized for letting out contracts for work in Iraq without public bidding. Now it awards contracts to the low bidder. The bid may deliberately be too low. Then the winner cuts costs to make ends meet. The purchaser must allow bids only by qualified companies. In setting qualifications, however, the purchaser can bias them towards favored vendors. My father experienced that. He wanted to bid on the sale of spark plugs to the US government, decades ago. His produce met the usual government specifications. One time, however, the government changed the specifications, to require a strength thousands of times what was needed and which only one company could do, by means of a proprietary formula. In other words, the government stacked the selection procedure. WHEN AMERICANS REALIZE ISRAEL IS A DICTATORSHIP... Much American support for Israel is on the grounds of it being a democracy, the only one around there. But it is not a democracy. The country's anti-Jewish leadership is making a series of actions that strengthen the country's enemies against it and that weaken Jewish solidarity and heritage. The people don't like that, but don't know how to dispose of parties whose leaders are bribed, blackmailed, or coerced by anti-Zionist foreign groups. PRISONER EXCHANGE Hamas is demanding a 1000:1 exchange of prisoners, with 500 Arabs to be released before the one Israeli. Do they think one Israeli is worth 1000 Muslims? Notice that Israel doesn't even make propaganda out of that, by way of getting a better deal. Since Arab break pacts, shouldn't they release their prisoner first? INSECURITY FENCE In order for the so-called security fence to fulfill its purpose, Israel must control the land on the other side of it. Otherwise terrorists can climb over it. They did that recently, using a ladder! (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/26.) The IDF said a "sophisticated device" was used. A ladder? Funny! MOUNTING THREAT FROM GAZA MERELY OBSERVED Hamas is having difficulty gaining legitimacy, running the government, and controlling checkpoints. It is not having difficulty smuggling in more weapons, thanks to Egypt. Egypt has noticeably reduced its curbs on that smuggling (never severe, anyway). Hamas attacks on Israel have increased. The organization's leaders ordered its military planners to make an attack that inflicts mass casualties on Israelis. Israel's security agencies warn about this, but the Olmert regime merely waits for the attack. Its philosophy: if the previous attack is minor, ignore enemy plans for a major attack; or, if the previous mass attack failed, it doesn't count as a threat that must swiftly be eradicated (IMRA, 8/26). The Olmert regime is appeasing enemies and hostile forces. I think it is part of the attempt to dismantle the Jewish state. Its actions, like Peres' over the past couple of decades, are consistent, time-after-time, with this interpretation. EGYPT'S SUPPORT FOR HAMAS Israel's Public Security Min. Dichter said that Egypt has never kept its two-year-old agreement to be responsible for blocking the flow of arms into Gaza. It had the ability to comply. Instead, it recently reduced its already inadequate effort. That must be policy. One should conclude that Egypt wants the arms to strengthen Hamas, he said. (So long as Hamas doesn't threaten Egypt.) IMRA challenges the government of Israel to change its policy, accordingly (IMRA, 8/27). Egypt made the agreement in order to get Israeli forces away from the border, so it could let arms into Gaza and undermine Israel. Israel should acknowledge the failure of the agreement and arms embargo. It would have to take back border control. And it must mount a major attack to destroy that arms buildup and Hamas' trained forces, before those forces mount a major attack at a time and place of their own choosing. The new policy would amount to a repudiation of current policy of pretending that Egypt is a stabilizing force and no enemy, and that agreements can be made with the Muslims and honored by them. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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WHAT THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD MEANS FOR THE U.S.
Posted by Bryna Berch, September 30, 2007. |
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Memo lays bare group's plans to destroy U.S. from within This was written by Rod Dreher and it appeared September 9, 2007 in
the Dallas News
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September 9, 2007
"Our strategy is this," President Bush said last month. "We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America." He was talking about jihadists, of course. And Mr. Bush is behind the curve. The president apparently missed the smoking-gun 1991 document his own Justice Department introduced into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas. The FBI captured it in a raid on a Muslim suspect's home in Virginia. This "explanatory memorandum," as it's titled, outlines the "strategic goal" for the North American operation of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). Here's the key paragraph: The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack. The entire 18-page platform outlines a plan for the long haul. It prescribes the Muslim Brotherhood's comprehensive plan to set down roots in civil society. It begins by both founding and taking control of American Muslim organizations, for the sake of unifying and educating the U.S. Muslim community -- this to prepare it for the establishment of a global Islamic state governed by sharia. It sounds like a conspiracy theory out of a bad Hollywood movie -- but it's real. Husain Haqqani, head of Boston University's Center for International Relations and a former Islamic radical, confirms that the Brotherhood "has run most significant Muslim organizations in the U.S." as part of the plan outlined in the strategy paper. The HLF trial is exposing for the first time how the international Muslim Brotherhood -- whose Palestinian division is Hamas -- operates as a self-conscious revolutionary vanguard in the United States. The court documents indicate that many leading Muslim-American organizations -- including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim American Society -- are an integral part of the Brotherhood's efforts to wage jihad against America by nonviolent means. The Muslim Brotherhood is an affiliation of at least 70 Islamist organizations around the world, all tracing their heritage to the original cell, founded in Egypt in 1928. Its credo: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Sayyid Qutb, hanged by the Egyptian government in 1966 as a revolutionary, remains its ideological godfather. His best-known work, Milestones, calls for Muslims to wage violent holy war until Islamic law governs the entire world. According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation, establishing the Brotherhood in the United States has been a 40-year project that has worked mostly underground -- even beneath the notice of many Muslims. Richard Clarke, the former top U.S. national security official, told the Senate in 2003 that the Muslim Brotherhood is the common thread linking terrorist fundraising schemes in the United States -- which likely explains why so many mainstream American Muslim organizations were named by the feds as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the HLF trial. Is this just alarmist paranoia? Not at all. This matters because high-profile organizations with roots explicitly in the Muslim Brotherhood have successfully established themselves in a paramount position to define Islam in America according to a radical politicized model. And they've done so without the American public having the slightest idea about their real agenda. Indeed, the Bush administration is unwittingly helping the Islamist cause by including their leaders in public events, thus conferring them legitimacy. On Labor Day weekend, the same Department of Justice that's presenting evidence of the ISNA's involvement with radical Islam at the Dallas trial sponsored a booth at -- wait for it -- ISNA's national convention in suburban Chicago. Look, no rational person believes America is going to exchange the Constitution for a caliphate. Rational people aren't the point. As the London subway bombings showed, even a tiny cell of committed radicals can kill a lot of people. Mustafa Saied, an American Muslim who left the Brotherhood, told the Tribune that he worried about the radicalism the Brotherhood inculcated in its membership here. "With the extreme element," he said, "you never know when that ticking time bomb will go off." As long as they commit no crimes, CAIR, ISNA and the other Brotherhood-related groups have the right to advocate for their beliefs. But they don't have the right to escape critical scrutiny, and they deserve informed opposition. Courageous Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy are sounding the alarm about radical Islam's stealth takeover of U.S. Muslim institutions. Why are the news media ignoring this? Fear of being called Islamophobic? This has got to stop. Six years after 9/11, we're still asleep. Islamic radicals have declared war on us -- and some are fighting here in what looks like a fifth column. Read their strategy document. It's there in black and white, for those with eyes to see. |
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NORMALIZING EVIL. FREE SPEECH MAY BE FREE, BUT IT IS NOT WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES
Posted by Phyllis Chesler, September 30, 2007. |
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[Editor's note: The photo of Shiri Negari is from the Michelle Malkin website
These are two essays by Phyllis Chesler. The first is called "Normalizing Evil" and is about Amadinejad's invitation to Columbia. The second essay is about another aspect -- the passive politeness of the audience listening to him.] |
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NORMALIZING EVIL Columbia University's President Bollinger accomplished three things by allowing Iran's President Amadinejad a platform. Bollinger modeled the normalization of "dialogue" with our era's Hitler; he gained for himself a world platform in which he indulged his ego (and tried to appease his donor base) by saying many of the "right" things; and he exposed the West's weakest spot, namely our willingness to engage in fruitless and endless debate with evil instead of defeating it on the battlefield. Last night, on the O'Reilly Factor, Medea Benjamin, of Code Pink, kept urging America to talk to Iran and Hezbollah, rather than "fight" with them militarily. (I am not sure if she includes al-Qaeda here as well). Two days ago, eleven Israeli intellectuals signed and delivered a petition to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert demanding that he start "talking" to Hamas, which, like Iran, is devoted to the extermination of the Jewish state. Yet, I agree with William Buckley who, forty five years ago, when he opposed Communist leader Gus Hall's appearance on campus, asked: What would the doomed Anne Frank have to talk with Hitler about? Like Hitler, Amadinejad must be totally defeated and eliminated. We are only talking to ourselves, making ourselves feel "better," superior perhaps, when we "talk" to tyrants using fine words only. We are essentially delaying taking necessary action against Iran whether that action includes arresting and trying Amadinejad as a war criminal; vigorously supporting the millions of Iranians who wish to vote him and the other mullahs out of office; sending black ops into Iran over and over again to do the equivalent of what Israel did on September 6th in Syria; launching an all-out war against Iran, which, together with Saudi Arabia, comprise the largest state sponsors of terrorism in the world. What Bollinger accomplished is this: Iran (and every other terrorist nation-state) now knows that the Americans will keep talking--even after their heads have been cut off. Although I "agree" with many of Bollinger's points in which he challenged and exposed Amadinejad, Bollinger has exposed and endangered America and the West even further. FREE SPEECH MAY BE FREE, BUT IT IS NOT WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES Terrorists do not terrify me, but the passivity of their potential victims does -- as does their glazed-over glamorization of fascist and totalitarian leaders. That Columbia University has again invited Mr. Amadinejad to lecture does not surprise me; that so many "good" people have not grasped the inevitability of such an invitation deeply saddens me. I have been writing about the Stalinization and Islamification of the Western academic world and its betrayal of the truth, the Jews, America, and women since 2002. I discussed it in my books "The New Anti-Semitism" and in "The Death of Feminism," as well as in approximately one hundred articles between 2003 and 2007. For my views, which I proudly stand by, I have been slandered as a "racist neo-conservative." (Yes, even Orwell would weep). Academic freedom, free speech, and the First Amendment have all been used to justify and explain why hate speech against Israel, Jews, and America must be protected on American campuses. Other views are not welcome and lead to non-invitations, dis-invitations, or at best, to workplace environments on campus that are exceedingly hostile in which the minority-view speaker is jeered, booed, blamed for the heavy security their views seem to require, and often hustled out early for their own safety. This happened to me at Barnard in 2003 and I have written about it here. It happened to me again at Columbia when I spoke at a very large conference in 2004. Palestinian activists rose up to interrupt and denounce me as I spoke and Jewish Left activists picketed the conference outside. If my memory serves me correctly, they were allowed to hand out their leaflets right on Broadway and 116th Street. Perhaps my saddest moment at Columbia concerns a graduate student conference at School for International and Public Affairs (where Amadinejad spoke yesterday) which took place in 2004. Only 15 people came to hear four to five heavy-duty speakers who had been invited to discuss the demonized stench that the word "Jew" and "Israel" now evokes on Ivy League American campuses. The boycott of our speeches by Columbia graduate students was absolutely stunning. Well, there was one more sad event for me connected with Barnard. My own group (of which I am a founding member) The Veteran Feminists of America, hosted a plenary panel about the future of women, world-wide, at Barnard last year. They refused to allow me to speak about Islamic gender Apartheid. When I asked to do so, I was told that several women of color had already been invited and that no doubt they would cover all the relevant issues that affected Third World women. Of course, they did not do so. One woman of color, a woman I rather like, instead railed against the host feminist organization because most of its members were "white." Otherwise, the august panelists did not stray from their politically correct concerns about racism which trumped all and any concerns they might have had about gender. No amount of dispassionate (or passionate) arguments have been able to sway the politically correct Western faculties and administrators who believe that hate speech deserves all the trappings and protection of both free speech and distinguished university platforms and presses. The most heinous recent titles have all been published by once prestigious presses. The University of California Press publishes Norman Finkelstein's "Big Lies"; Oxford University Press publishes Tariq Ramada's glorified, subtle disinformation campaign, also known as his "taqquia; Farrar, Strauss, Giroux has just published the Walt-Mearsheimer diatribe. In fact, in a curious coincidence, FSG has taken a full-page ad in the New York Times (and based on all the reportage about what Moveon.Org paid for their traitorous full page ad in the NY Times to defame the honorable General Petraeus) we all now know that FSG might have paid anywhere from $67,000-$167,000 for this ad. But maybe they paid a lot less. One very small, bright sign: Sunday's New York Times Book Review actually published a sober and negative review of the Walt-Mearsheimer tract by a long-time Times insider, Leslie H. Gelb, who reviewed the book on the issues. He found it seriously flawed. He noted that the Arab oil lobby is even more powerful than the Israel lobby -- in my view, on campuses, and in the media even more so; that American military aid to Egypt, a country which is not an American ally in the same way that Israel is, is almost as great; and that American foreign policy supports Saudi Arabia far more than it supports Israel. Perhaps this review explains the full-page ad. Nevertheless, the Walt-Mearsheimer book has already landed on the New York Times Bestseller lists. I wonder whether the Saudi lobby, which might have accounted for all the sales of Jimmy "Apartheid" Carter's most recent book, might not be funding this as well. This is a season of Big Lies, doctored photography and fake documentary footage, of brainwashed professors and arrogant, thin-skinned Western Leftists and Islamists both of whom either slander or sue you when you expose their lies. Let me paraphrase the late, great Winston Churchill who once said: "A lie can travel all around the world before the truth has a chance to get up and put its pants on."
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D., is an emerita professor of psychology and
women's studies and the author of 13 books including Woman's
Inhumanity to Woman and The New Anti-Semitism. Her forthcoming book is
titled The Islamization of America. She may be reached through her
website: www.phyllis-chesler.com.
This appeared in FamilySecurityMatters.org
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COLUMBIA'S CHOICE -- AND OURS
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, September 30, 2007. |
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Dear friends, They are extremely confused about the issue, including the idiots at the head of Columbia University!!! The invitation to speak in Columbia University was NOT, repeat, NOT a question of freedom of speech, or the First Amendment. Ahmadinajad can speak wherever and whatever he wants and the media will certainly cover him. The issue is who Columbia University chooses to invite to speak within its compound. Nothing less, nothing more!!! Your Truth Provider, Yuval. PS. In his opening remarks Columbia University President Bollinger spoke to Ahnedinejad: "...you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator...When you have come to a place like this, this makes you, quite simply, ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated..." If this is what he thinks of him, why did he invite him to Columbia? And one more question: Would Bollinger, in the name of "free speech," invite President Bush to speak in the University? I, for one, do not believe he would.
This was written by Caroline Glick and is entitled
"Columbia's choice -- and ours". It appeared September 24, 2007 in the
Jerusalem Post
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Columbia University disgraced itself this week beyond repair. Defending his decision to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his campus, Columbia's President Lee Bollinger said he would confront the Iranian leader with a series of "sharp challenges" to his "alleged" support for terrorism, genocide, Holocaust denial, involvement in killing American servicemen and women in Iraq and human rights abuses during his speech on Monday. John Coatsworth, the Dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, expanded on Bollinger's theme of the school's limitless devotion to debate saying, "If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak, he would have plenty of platforms from which to speak in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him." With these blithe little embraces of public debate, Columbia's leaders have destroyed their once august institution of higher learning. Columbia was rightly condemned from all quarters for its decision to host Ahmadinejad. The hypocrisy of the university which justified its invitation to Ahmadinejad in the name of free speech and then barred protesters who wished to exercise their right of free speech by opposing Ahmadinejad's presence at Columbia from entering the campus has properly been pointed out. So too, the irony of Columbia's decision to roll out the welcome mat for a man who has in recent months closed 15 universities, imprisoned some 3,000 students, hundreds of professors and banned books he claims advance "infidel" values, has been duly noted. Moreover, Iran's position as the most active state sponsor of international terrorism, its role in directing the war in Iraq, and Ahmadinejad's own suspected role in the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran and the subsequent illegal internment and torture of 51 American hostages held for 444 days has also been reasonably noted by critics of the university's move.
IRAN'S PERSECUTION of homosexuals and its oppression of women -- both intensified since Ahmadinejad took office two years ago -- have been rightly contrasted with Bollinger's decision in 2005 to maintain Columbia's policy of banning the military's ROTC officer training program from the campus due to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuality. Some critics of Columbia's decision have placed the university's invitation to Ahmadinejad in the context of the university's longstanding and well-documented animus toward America and toward the State of Israel. This is the same university, they note, that gives tenure to professors who harass pro-American and pro-Israel students who dare to question their classroom rantings. This is the same university that refuses to host people who hold conservative views on issues like immigration. Finally, opponents of Ahmadinejad's invitation to speak on campus have condemned Bollinger for providing a prestigious platform to a leader who denies the Nazi Holocaust, pledges to carry out a new Holocaust of Jewry, and is seeking the means to carry out this genocide by developing nuclear weapons. For these actions, Columbia's critics argue, Ahmadinejad should have been denied a platform at Columbia.
WHILE ALL of these criticisms are accurate, many of the actions and hypocrisies they highlight are not unique to Columbia. Indeed, they describe the standard operating procedures in effect on most major American campuses today. Many major universities have given tenure to anti-American and anti-Zionist professors. Many major universities proscribe debate in classrooms and attempt to bar conservative speakers from their campuses. Many major universities in the US bar ROTC from their campuses and yet act as apologists for regimes like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt that outlaw homosexuality and treat women like chattel. And many major universities give platforms to speakers who represent racist, homophobic, misogynistic, anti-American and anti-Semitic regimes. Just last year Harvard University invited former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami to address its students and faculty. To date, with some justification, supporters of Columbia have dismissed or set aside these criticisms of the university as partisan criticism in legitimate policy debates. In their view, Columbia, like other universities, has a perfect right to advance a far-Left world view. It is the job of the university's critics, including alumni and students, to seek to influence the school's behavior by selective contributions or by inviting conservative speakers to give lectures on campus. Both Columbia's detractors and defenders basically agreed that Columbia's position and criticism of its position are part and parcel of the workings of a functioning institution and of a functioning democratic society. But Columbia's decision to host Ahmadinejad on campus was not of a piece with its previous moves. The problem with the decision was not that it exposed Bollinger and his colleagues as hypocrites. Nor was the principle issue their obvious left-wing political bias. Whether or not Ahmadinejad, who denies the Nazi Holocaust and is gunning for a new one has a right to express his views is similarly not the main issue raised by their move.
THE PROBLEM with Columbia's action, the reason that there can be no moral justification for the university's decision, is because by inviting Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia has made the pros and cons of genocide a legitimate subject for debate. By asking Ahmadinejad challenging questions, Bollinger has reduced the right of the Jewish people to live to a question of preferences. No doubt, Bollinger prefers to see the Jewish people remain alive. But this is beside the point. The point is that by debating the issue with Ahmadinejad, Bollinger just put the right of the Jewish people to exist on the table. Here it is important to note Ahmadinejad's uniqueness. It is true that in supporting the annihilation of Israel, Ahmadinejad is no different from his terrorist underlings Hassan Nasrallah, Khaled Mashaal and Farouk Kaddoumi. Moreover, Ahmadinejad's desire to wipe the largest concentration of Jews on earth off the map simply because it is Jewish is shared by all of his colleagues in the Iranian regime and most intellectuals and religious leaders in the Arab world. But still there is a difference between Ahmadinejad and all the others. Through his words and his deeds, Ahmadinejad has become the symbol and the leader of the growing international movement which supports and engages in activities to advance the destruction of the Jewish people. Through his words and his deeds, Ahmadinejad has become the poster boy for genocide. As a result, what was said yesterday at Columbia is of no consequence whatsoever. What matters is that by inviting Ahmadinejad to its campus, Columbia University announced that supporting or opposing the genocide of the Jews is a legitimate topic for discussion. In so doing, as an institution Columbia has taken itself beyond the pale of legitimate discourse. As an institution, Columbia has embraced depravity by renouncing the intrinsic sanctity of human life.
COLUMBIA'S supporters who have defended it over the years through mounting criticism, cannot look at Ahmadinejad's visit to campus as simply another policy dispute without themselves legitimizing the school's belief that genocide is a reasonable subject for debate. They cannot defend the school without themselves rejecting the basic principle of Western civilization -- that human beings have an intrinsic right to live. Given this, it is incumbent on all those affiliated with Columbia who adhere to this basic principle to distance ourselves from the university. As an alumna of Columbia College, class of 1991, it is with great distress that I say it is time to disassociate with the school. This does not simply mean cutting off donations. It means understanding that the problem with Ahmadinejad had nothing to do with legitimate policy debates. It means recognizing and openly stating that by placing genocide on the debating table, Columbia ceased to be an institution that can be said to represent our values. It means stating publicly that we will not send our children to the school. It means stating openly that Columbia has abandoned the moral underpinning of civilization and has descended into the depths of evil. It means stating openly that Columbia is a depraved institution.
I DO NOT ENVY Columbia's students today. They worked very hard to get accepted to the school. They no doubt never wanted to be placed in the middle of all this. But they are in the middle and they too have a choice to make. Will they demand the resignations of Bollinger, Coatsworth and Professor Richard Bulliet who engineered Ahmadinejad's visit or will they sit back and allow these men to get away with making the value of human life a debating topic? Will they rise up in indignation and disgust, or will they, through inaction say that these men, and the immorality they ascribe to remain authority figures for them? Will they say that there are some things worth fighting for and that fighting the views these men advance is more important than the tainted degrees they confer? The times in which we live are difficult times. They demand an accounting from all of us. Do we uphold our humanity and defend life or do we sink into an easy silence as life's sanctity is called into question by well-heeled, smooth-talking servants of evil who hide their depravity by speaking eloquently of freedom of speech? Columbia University has made its choice. Now it is our turn to choose. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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AL-DURA HOAX UNRAVELLING
Posted by Aramy, September 30, 2007. |
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French judge orders television network to screen withheld footage of killing of young Palestinian boy in Gaza in 2000 This first article below was written by Yaakov Lappin and is
entitled "Al-Dura footage to air". It was published in Ynet
News See also
"Israel officially denies responsibility for death of al-Dura in 2000"
and "IDF Demands Uncut Version of Controversial Al-Dura Tape"
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A French judge has ordered the France 2 television network to screen in court previously withheld footage of the shooting of Muhammad al-Dura, the Palestinian boy shot dead in his father's arms in Netzarim in 2000 during a battle between Palestinian gunmen and IDF soldiers. The army was blamed around the world for the boy's fatal shooting although an IDF investigation in January 2001 into the incident failed to find conclusive evidence as to whether it was an IDF or Palestinian bullet that killed the child. The screening has been tentatively set for November 14, Ynet News has learned, though it is not yet clear whether members of the public will be allowed to view the film. Wednesday's landmark ruling is set to reignite the explosive debate surrounding the footage. After the images of the young boy's death were first aired seven years ago, the video ignited widespread rage across the Muslim world, and several failed suicide bombers cited the incident as their motivation to carry out a terrorist attack. Since then, sources in Israel and a number of independent analysts have maintained that Palestinian forces were likely responsible for the killing, and a German documentary aired in 2002 suggested that a Palestinian bullet was the cause of al-Dura's death. Recently, the IDF submitted a formal request to have the footage made available for analysis. Phillipe Karsenty, head of the French media watchdog Media Ratings, is behind the legal petition calling on France 2 to release the raw footage from that day. 'I hope that this will end smear campaign' Speaking to Ynet News, Karsenty said the ruling was "a first step towards a final victory which will lead French authorities to admit they broadcast a huge, anti-Semitic lie, used to justify the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. "This film has been seen all over the Arab world. Schools carry the name of al-Dura, and children are taught that Israelis kill for no reason. So while you cannot resurrect people who died because of this lie, you can avoid more people dying," Karesenty said. The media analyst added, however, that "judges and myself will not change this story," and called on French President Nicholas Sarkozy to order a full-scale investigation into the footage. "France 2 is owned by the French state, which is headed by Sarkozy. He has the power to ask for those images, and have them scrutinized by experts around the world. I now call on Sarkozy to ask for the footage... it's time for French president to tell the truth," Karsenty declared. Charles Enderlin, Jerusalem bureau chief of France 2, provided rolling commentary on the footage back in 2000. "Here Jamal and his son Muhammad are the targets of gunshots that have come from the Israeli position... A new burst of gunfire, Muhammad is dead and his father seriously wounded," he said during a broadcast of the footage. Reacting to Wednesday's court ruling Enderlin told Ynet News he welcomed the decision. "I am very happy about this decision. From the start, our position has been that we will not release raw footage except through a judicial process. We will not release the footage to militants or private individuals," he said. "I'm very happy that it will be seen in court. I hope that this is the end of a smear campaign which has gone on for seven years, and which has been difficult for me and my family," he added. "People have accused us of staging an event which is an absolute lie. I am very happy at last to have the possibility (to show it)," Enderlin said. Raw footage 'contains clear hoaxes' At the center of the court battle are several minutes of footage shot by Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahma. During testimony before the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in 2000, Rahma said: "I spent about 27 minutes photographing the incident which took place for 45 minutes... I can confirm that the child was intentionally and in cold blood shot dead, and his father injured, by the Israeli army." According to Karsenty, however, the cameraman's sole purpose is to further Palestinian propaganda causes. "This guy told an American newspaper that he chose to be a journalist so to serve the Palestinian cause," Karsenty said. According to Professor Richard Landes, who told Ynet News he had seen the full raw footage, the film contains damning evidence of faked scenes staged for the purpose of making Israel look bad. Landes has become heavily involved in the battle to make the film available, and produced a film, "Pallywood," based on the shooting. He has expressed concern that France 2 will attempt to tamper with the original footage, and cut out embarrassing scenes, resulting in a screening of an edited version of the film. "I saw the tapes three times with Enderlin in Jerusalem," Landes told Ynet News. "One scene in particular stands out, in which a guy grabs his leg as if he's been shot, but blood cannot be seen. He starts to limp really seriously. He is picked up by young kids and taken to an ambulance. He looks around and sees no one is looking, and then walks away without a limp," Landes said. Describing the court ruling as "spectacular," Landes said he hoped it would draw attention to what he described as "an industry" of anti-Israel media propaganda. "The western media, instead of saying this isn't journalism, says, what can I use?" Landes said. He added that another scene in the withheld footage shows a Palestinian child with makeup made to resemble a gunshot injury in the head running into a crowd of Palestinians, who proceed to rush the uninjured child into an ambulance. "Yes, terrible damage has been done," Landes said, adding, however, that the world has become "much more receptive" to acknowledging hoaxes "like Kfar Qanna and Gaza beach." "This can also potentially play a critical role in Muslim world, by providing a weapon to Muslims who realize that the global jihad is a catastrophe for them," Landes added. "If this image is proven fake, it will be a blow against the jihad," he said. "IDF demands uncut al-Dura tape" by Caroline Glick. The IDF has abandoned its official silence in a seven-year-old case that has been characterized as a "blood libel" against the IDF and the State of Israel.
On September 10, the deputy commander of the IDF's Spokesman's Office, Col. Shlomi Am-Shalom, submitted a letter to the France 2 television network's permanent correspondent in Israel, Charles Enderlin, regarding Enderlin's story from September 30, 2000, in which he televised 55 seconds of edited footage from the Netzarim junction in the central Gaza Strip purporting to show IDF forces shooting and killing 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura. After its exclusive broadcast that day, France 2 offered the edited film free of charge to all media outlets. The footage, and the story of the purported IDF killing of al-Dura, was quickly rebroadcast around the world. Within days, al-Dura became a symbol of the Palestinian war against Israel. His name has been repeatedly invoked by terrorists and their supporters as a justification for killing Israelis, Jews and their Western supporters. In his letter, Am-Shalom asked for the entire unedited 27-minute film that was shot by France 2's Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu-Rahma that day, as well as the footage filmed by Abu-Rahma on October 1, 2000. Am-Shalom requested that the broadcast-quality films be sent to his office no later than September 15. France 2 has yet to hand over the requested film. The IDF's move came against the backdrop of French media watchdog Philippe Karsenty's legal battle with France 2 regarding the network's coverage of the al-Dura affair. Last year, France 2 and Enderlin sued Karsenty, who runs the Internet media watchdog Web site Media Ratings, for defamation for a letter he sent out in 2004 accusing France 2 of staging the al-Dura story. Karsenty also called for the resignations of Enderlin and of France 2's news director, Arlette Chabot, for their roles in promulgating the alleged hoax. In October 2006 a French court decided in favor of France 2 and Enderlin, and against Karsenty. The court acknowledged that Karsenty had submitted significant evidence indicating that the event had been staged. Still, in ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the judges said Karsenty's accusations lacked credibility because, they claimed incorrectly, he had based his accusations on a single source. The court also stressed that "no Israeli authority, neither the army -- which is nonetheless most affected, nor the Justice [Ministry] has ever accorded the slightest credit to [Karsenty's] allegations" regarding the authenticity of the France 2 report. In his letter to Enderlin, Am-Shalom disputes the judges' assertion. "It is my duty to note," he wrote, "[that their claim] does not correspond to repeated attempts made by the IDF to receive the filmed materials, and with the conclusions of the IDF's committee of inquiry [into the purported shooting] that were widely publicized in the international and French media." Am-Shalom discussed at length the findings of the IDF's probe into the incident. That inquiry was ordered by then-OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yom Tov Samia. Citing Samia, Am-Shalom wrote, "The general has made clear that from an analysis of all the data from the scene, including the location of the IDF position, the trajectory of the bullets, the location of the father [Jamal al-Dura] and the son behind an obstacle, the cadence of the bullet fire, the angle at which the bullets penetrated the wall behind the father and his son, and the hours of the events, we can rule out with the greatest certainty the possibility that the gunfire that apparently harmed the boy and his father was fired by IDF soldiers, who were at the time located only inside their fixed position [at the junction]." Am-Shalom further notes that "Gen. Samia emphasized to me that all his attempts to receive the filmed material for the purpose of his inquiry were rejected." The IDF is in urgent need of the footage, Am-Shalom said, because "it has been asked to comment on the ruling [against Karsenty] from October 19, 2006, on this issue, which is scheduled to be discussed in a French appellate court on September 19." "Since we are cognizant of the fact that there have been attempts to stage media events, and since doubt has been raised along these lines regarding the story under discussion, we asked to receive the aforementioned materials in order to conclude this episode and to get to the truth," Am-Shalom said. In the past, the IDF shied away from taking a strong public position on the al-Dura affair. At the time of the incident, then-chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz and then-prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak did not openly support Samia's inquiry or its findings. As late as June 23, 2006, then-IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Miri Regev told Haaretz, "I cannot determine whether the IDF is or is not responsible for the killing of al-Dura." In the aftermath of Karsenty's civil trial last year, the IDF came under considerable criticism both in Israel and from Jewish groups abroad for its silence on the issue. While the IDF maintained official silence, independent probes by various foreign media organizations and Internet activists over the past several years have called the veracity of the France 2 report into serious question. Those investigations demonstrated that purported IDF "attacks" against Palestinian civilians were being openly staged by Palestinian cameramen and locals at the Netzarim junction throughout the day of the alleged shooting of al-Dura. Am-Shalom sent copies of his letter to Samia, incoming IDF Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel, the France 2 representative in Israel, the president of the network in France, and Philippe Karsenty.
Contact Aramy at aramy964@gmail.com
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NEW PRO-ISRAEL WEBSITE: LIGHT UNTO NATIONS
Posted by Fred Taub, September 30, 2007. |
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Isaiah 42:6: "I, G-d, have called you in righteousness. I took you by the hand and kept you; I made you into a covenant for the people, a light unto the nations." Such is the State of Israel. A covenant of G-d and a Light Unto Nations. Not only is Israel the only democracy in the Middle East, but a nation that creates light for the world by creating new technologies to make the world a better place to live, be it agricultural developments that help feed the world, medical advances that save lives and improve quality of life, or a host of other technologies we take for granted every day. Yes, Israel is the Light Unto Nations G-d has declared it to be. Our mission is to help you tell people about the great accomplishments Israel has brought to the world. Each week we will have a new poster for your school or campus. Join us as we tell the world about the Light Unto Nations Israel is, and in the process, become a light unto others. Let me introduce Light Unto Nations (www.LightUntoNations.org), a new concept in pro-Israel websites. Light Unto Nations features PDF flyers for students to post, each highlighting a different technology. A new flyer will be posted each week, and you can receive it via fax to your campus or via signing up for our mailing list. Each poster is designed for easy reading and presentation of technologies Israel has brought to the world to make the world a better place to live. Groups can add their names to the bottom of the flyers for posting at their school, thus becoming a Light Unto Nations themselves. Join Light Unto Nations by visiting us at www.LightUntoNations.org Fred Taub is President of Light unto Nations. Contact him at lun@lightuntonations.org |
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WILL THE MADNESS BE STOPPED?
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 12, 2007. |
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This was written by Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis) (Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava), Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730, INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il, Website: http://www.imra.org.il. |
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"The principle of the bus: not to argue now about what the end of the
journey will be, but to invite aboard everyone who is ready to travel to the
next stop"
A deadly combination of ideologues driven by their blind faith that withdrawal to the '67 line will yield utopian peace and shallow politicians now threatens the future of the Jewish State. With "the ends justify the means" as the guiding principle of operation Chaim Ramon has been busy preparing the groundwork to lock Israel into a declaration of principles according to which additional withdrawals will be carried out even before final status talks with the Palestinians are completed. Barring the fantasy world of the withdrawal ideologues, this same declaration of principles -- if implemented -- would create a tinderbox environment in Jerusalem as Jews and Arabs clash over presence and effective control in the most hotly disputed areas assigned to an amorphous rule while other unresolved issues papered over by intentionally vague language stoke the flames -- all of this taking place with Israel in increasingly less defendable borders. Ramon doesn't care because these problems aren't relevant to him. After all, if and when there is a clash over areas beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem not explicitly handed over to the Arabs under the deal, the solution is obvious: retreat to the '67 line and -- abracadabra -- utopian peace. It doesn't really matter if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert really buys into the "withdrawal religion" or is just going through the motions to keep key media personalities and the criminal justice system at bay. The results are the same. Can this madness be stopped? It would appear that the politicians now inside the ruling coalition cannot be relied upon to bolt the Government before the damage is done. Olmert may opt to commit Israel to the agreement in various international forums before even putting it up to a Cabinet vote. And let's not forget the precedent setting Supreme Court ruling that a prime minister can remove ministers just to stack a vote in his favor. What about the "street"? The failed struggle over the retreat from the Gaza Strip -- and in particular the complete and total breakdown of democratic fair play (the retreat was implemented even though PM Sharon won by a landslide on a campaign explicitly rejecting retreat and was then roundly defeated when he put his retreat proposal to a vote of the Likud rank and file) serves to discourage many who in the past filled the public squares. On the other hand, Israeli public opinion remains leery and pessimistic regarding the efficacy of the kind of deal Olmert has been cooking. So it is a hard task. But not an impossible one. Barring unforeseen Palestinian moves that stop the retreat juggernaut, the challenge remains in the Israeli court. This Jewish New Year it is my fervent hope and prayer that the leadership opposing this madness has the will and the cunning to meet this very critical challenge. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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SECURITY FORCES THWART PLANNED HOLIDAY SUICIDE BOMBING IN BE'ER SHEVA
Posted by Barbara Sommer, September 12, 2007. |
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This is called "Security forces thwart planned holiday suicide
bombing in Be'er Sheva." It was written By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent
and appeared today in Haaretz
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Security forces last week thwarted a planned suicide bombing that was to take place in Be'er Sheva in the coming days, according to information made public Wednesday. A Palestinian terrorist from the Gaza Strip, armed with an explosives belt, was able to infiltrate Israel through the border with Egypt. He was captured by Border Police troops in the area, and handed over to the Shin Bet security service for questioning. The terrorist, who is the son of a Rafah Hamas militant, told investigators that he was dispatched by the Popular Resistance Committees in order to strike a bustling area in Be'er Sheva. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired four Qassam rockets at the western Negev on Wednesday morning, a day after a similar attack on an Israel Defense Forces base left 69 soldiers wounded. The rockets struck open areas near Kibbutz Nir Am and the Erez Crossing. There were no injuries and no significant damage in the attacks, although the rockets did cause several brush fires. One soldier was critically wounded in the early morning strike on the Zikkim basic training base for non-combat personnel, which is located near the Gaza Strip. Four others were seriously hurt, and another 10 were moderately wounded. The remainder were lightly hurt, many of them suffering mainly from shock. Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees took responsibility for the attack, while Hamas, which controls the Strip, the rocket strike as a "victory from God." Hours after the pre-dawn salvo, Israel Air Force aircraft struck open areas of northern Gaza, Army Radio reported. Palestinian sources said that at least four Gazans were hurt in the air strike, two of them hospitalized. A second Qassam struck an area of the western Negev later in the morning, causing damage but no injuries. Late Tuesday evening, Palestinian militants fired two more Qassam rockets at the western Negev. A short while later, Palestinian witnesses said the IDF targeted a Qassam rocket launcher in the northern Gaza Strip. No one was injured, the witnesses said. Contact Barbara Sommer by email at sommer_1_98@worldnet.at.net |
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HOW WE DO IT HERE
Posted by Judy Lash Balint, September 12, 2007. |
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Signs of Rosh Hashana in Jerusalem: In the run up to the beginning of this Jewish New Year, piles of branches lay strewn all over the streets of Jerusalem -- city workers are zealously pruning trees and bushes in advance of Rosh Hashana when the laws of Shmittah take effect. Without getting into an arcane description of the Shmittah laws that is way beyond the scope of Jerusalem Diaries, suffice it to say that observance of the Shmittah year is confined to Jews living in or visiting Israel, and is one of the very tangible ways that life for Israelis and Diaspora Jews diverges, at least once every seven years. Every seven years, the Torah tells us, the land must rest and we are prohibited from working the land-that means, according to the rabbinic sages, no plowing, sewing, pruning, harvesting or fruit picking. In fact, the produce that grows this year has the status of kedushah-holiness, and must be handled in a respectful manner. Home gardens too, even including the planter boxes on my balcony, must be allowed to rest, so my geraniums have just had their last cut-back for a year. Despite the pressure of pre-Rosh Hashanah preparations, a capacity crowd showed up a few days ago to listen to an hour-long presentation in English on the Shmittah laws by the entertaining and erudite Rabbi David Marcus. Sponsored by the Council of Young Israel Rabbis in Israel, the talk expanded on an informative 32-page booklet penned by Rabbi Marcus that outlines how to shop, garden and eat out halachically during the coming Jewish year. The other unusual feature of this coming Rosh Hashana is the added day tacked on by Shabbat falling right after the 2-day festival. While observant Jews in the Diaspora are accustomed to 3-day yomtovs that occur every once in a while, we Israelis who observe only one day at the beginning and end of most festivals (reason enough to make aliya) find the whole thing a little challenging. Anyone venturing into the shuk or even a local supermarket this week could be forgiven for thinking that a famine was imminent. Shoppers laden with huge nylon bags of every kind of produce, fish, meat and bread, may be seen staggering under the weight of their purchases, secure in the knowledge that they have sufficient provisions for three days when stores are closed. Certain foods are traditional to eat on Rosh Hashana, and the markets are full of the most beautiful pomegranates; succulent dates and crisp apples. All the produce is local-pomegranate trees grow everywhere, even in private gardens; dates are from the Jordan Valley and apples from the Golan. For some, the three-day Jerusalem shutdown of entertainment and shopping is a little much. One of my more secular neighbors informed me she's running off to a hotel in Tel Aviv for the duration. Tel Aviv's beaches are generally packed on every holyday. Other secular Israelis, however, are intrigued by the pre-Rosh Hashana traditions, and join 3 a.m. tours of the Selichot services at Jerusalem synagogues in the old neighborhoods. It's mostly the Sephardic congregations that host the melodic recitation of penitential prayers in the month before Yom Kippur. Newspaper polls report that only 47 percent of Israelis plan on attending synagogue services to pray during Rosh Hashana, but hotels all over the country report 95 percent occupancy rates. A uniquely Israeli tradition is the haramat cosit -- literally, lifting of the glass, in honor of the New Year. Government ministries, corporations and municipal offices all host toasts where wine and good cheer flow. The fleet of diplomatic vehicles double-parked outside the official presidential residence yesterday was an indication that President Shimon Peres was hosting the diplomatic corps for the traditional New Year bash. No doubt, the foreign emissaries were discussing the tensions of the day, which included the attack on an Israeli army base that wounded 69 soldiers and Israel's alleged stealth strike into Syrian territory last week. But for the long-suffering residents of Sderot and the communities of the western Negev, the days leading up to Rosh Hashana just bring more of the same-an unceasing barrage of Kassam attacks and a devastating sense of helplessness as politicians debate how to react to the latest escalation. And just in case we were lacking for entertainment here in the Holy Land, rumors have it that Madonna and an entourage of slightly lesser known performers will be arriving to spend her second Rosh Hashana in Tel Aviv. The tabloids report that the blond Kabbalist wannabe plans to cast her sins into the Mediterranean Sea again this year. So as we sign off for a few days of introspection and stocktaking, we wish Jerusalem Diaries readers and their families a year of health, fulfillment and success. Judy Lash Balint is author of "Jerusalem Diaries II: What's Really Happening in Israel" (Xulon Press). For more information call US toll-free at 1-866-909-BOOK (2665) or visit her website: www.jerusalemdiaries.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: THERE IT IS!
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 12, 2007. |
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Olmert and company exposed with their intentions out front for all to see. We are not to "play into the hands of Hamas" by going into Gaza, you see. As an official of the government has now explained: "We are in a very complicated diplomatic climate. If we go into Gaza in a large-scale operation, the November summit will definitely be canceled." One might ask, first, why? If we are purportedly making peace with Abbas in Judea and Samaria, why can't we fight Hamas in Gaza? What sort of conference is this that would not permit us the self-defense that any nation has a right to? We are to be bound and trapped by that conference. More importantly, what sort of government would cooperate with this? What sort of government do we have, that makes movement towards an illusory peace with a terrorist entity that would push us into an indefensible position more important than action that protects Israelis from injury and death??? This last, of course, is rhetorical. The answer is obvious. A corrupt and immoral government that should be dispensed with forthwith. ~~~~~~~~~~ Last night was going to be my last posting and yet I could not let this pass, so obscene is it. As Rosh Hashana does approach, all other commentary will have to follow the holiday. In the meantime, I hold on to that gratitude I spoke of yesterday. Maybe there will be a response from inside the government at this, finally. Maybe the people of Israel will decide they've had enough. If you are not only angry, but also want to act constructively with regard to what's happening, let me hear from you. Shana Tova. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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SECRET ISRAELI WAR ON THE JEWS; WHAT THE P.A. ARABS WANT; LEGAL
SYSTEM FACILITATES TERRORISM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 12, 2007. |
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SECRET ISRAELI WAR ON THE JEWS Some Israeli soldiers and settlers have been murdered in a pattern and under circumstances that suggest the Israeli government is behind the killings. The killings are part of a campaign to weaken resistance to expulsion of Jews and to discourage Jewish settlers from staying. One of the patterns is for a second attack on a member of a family already suffering from a first attack. One loss can be withstood, but a second is most demoralizing. The attackers may be Arabs, but they were trained by the CIA with Peres' support, and they must have been tipped off by the Israeli secret service in order to have known the exact whereabouts of settler leaders (Barry Chamish, Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism, & the Holocaust, p.9). The US Consulate, Peace Now, and P.A. VIPs have been spying on the settlers, too. They may be behind it. When Arafat accused Israel of doing it, I laughed. Maybe he was partly right. WHAT TRAINING THE PLO ACCOMPLISHES A terrorist given amnesty, Abu Yousef, is suspected of killing Benjamin Kahane, head of an Israeli nationalist group. "Mr. Yousuf said his American trainings were instrumental in attacks on Israelis. 'All the methods and techniques that we studied in these trainings, we applied them against the Israelis.'" "'We sniped at Israeli settlers and soldiers. We broke into settlements and Israeli army bases and posts. We collected information on the movements of soldiers and settlers. We collected information about the best timing to infiltrate our bombers inside Israel. We used weapons and we produced explosives, and of course the trainings we received from the Americans and the Europeans were a great help to the resistance.'" "'In the intelligence part, we learned collection of information regarding suspected persons, how to follow suspected guys, how to infiltrate organizations and penetrate cells of groups that we were working on and how to prevent attacks and to steal in places,' he said." "'On the military level, we received trainings on the use of weapons, all kind of weapons and explosives. We received sniping trainings, work of special units especially as part as what they call the fight against terror. We learned how to put siege, how to break into places where our enemies closed themselves in, how to oppress protest movements, demonstrations...'" (IMRA, 8/22.) Remember, too, that Israel gave PLO leaders a V.I.P. right to travel throughout Israel and the Territories, and that they and members of the US consulate and of Peace Now were caught conducting reconnaissance in the Territories. FUMBLING The State Dept. groomed Muhammad Dahlan of Gaza for the top leadership role in the P.A.. It reckoned he would keep a firm grip on power, and therefore could fulfill deals. Put to the test in Gaza, he failed totally. His people put up almost no resistance to Hamas. Some "strongman!" Now the State Dept. has turned to favor Salam Fayyad, caretaker Prime Minister, to succeed Abbas as President (IMRA, 8/23). Before Fayyad, it was Abbas, who works more with Hamas against Israel than against Hamas and for peace. Before Abbas, there was Arafat, until he proved too obdurate to make another deal and made too plain to keep pretending otherwise that he was more interested in jihad. In Iraq, the State Dept. kept Chalabi, a competent, honest, secular, Shiite from assuming power after Saddam, because he was the Pentagon's favorite. The US started out with its own, apparently incompetent regent, Paul Bremer. Then it attempted to guide the Iraqis to its own choices, while telling Americans that Iraq was self-governing. US pressure resulted in Islamists taking power or holding the balance of power. Now the military effort is succeeding, but the political effort is not. For that we can thank the State Dept., which subverted Bush's war effort. The bungling State Dept. has its own agenda. It should stop meddling in other countries' governance. WHAT DO THE PALESTINIAN ARABS WANT? After having spoken to a handful of P.A. officials, US officials echo the jihadists' main complaint and propose their notion of boundaries. These conditions, for now, are parts of Jerusalem for a P.A. capital, most of Judea-Samaria plus some Israeli Arab cities in exchange for Israel keeping its large settlement blocs in Judea-Samaria. (As if the Judea-Samaria line were anything more than an armistice line.) Polls of the P.A. residents, however, attribute most of their concerns to lack of physical and economic security. Only about 3% consider the Israeli presence a significant problem. Most reject the proposed borders. They want the whole of Judea-Samaria and of Jerusalem. Granting sovereignty on the basis of conditions the people do not approve would leave grievances leading to more war, with the power of sovereignty and the retained terrorist infrastructure and military to prosecute it more effectively. Some peace deal! It's really an anti-Zionist deal. ISRAEL EXPERIMENTS WITH GAS FROM OCEAN FLOOR Israel is developing a way to utilize fuel gas from the ocean floor (Arutz-7, 8/23). THE LEGAL SYSTEM FACILITATES TERRORISM Dealing with terrorism as in civilian criminal court divulges valuable intelligence in court. The prosecution must release the names of unindicted co-conspirators. That informed Osama bin Laden, before 9/11, that his identity was known to US authorities. Incidental testimony about a cell phone tipped off terrorists that the phone they were using was monitored; they discarded it. To avoid alerting major terrorists, authorities do not prosecute some lesser ones. The law restricts how long suspected criminals and witnesses may be held. Restrictions on civilian courts hamper prosecution more than in military courts. During WWII, German saboteurs landed on Long Island, not in uniform and carrying weapons openly. They were not entitled to POW status. They were tried in a military court and except for the one who cooperated, were executed. The Supreme Court held that US citizenship, which one claimed to have, was not relevant. Despite all the attacks on the US, only three dozen terrorists were convicted in criminal court, and court resources were strained, what with all the appeals and motions. Since court proceedings may reveal sources of intelligence, some foreign countries are reluctant to share intelligence with the US. It is inappropriate to apply the rules of ordinary criminal cases to national security cases. "...the rules that apply to routine criminals who pursue finite goals are skewed, and properly so, to assure that only the highest level of proof will result in a conviction. But those rules do not protect a society that must gather information about, and at least incapacitate, people who have cosmic goals that they are intent on achieving by cataclysmic means." "The director of an organization purporting to protect constitutional rights has announced that his goal is to unleash a flood of lawyers on Guantanamo so as to paralyze interrogation of detainees. Perhaps it bears mention that one unintended outcome of a Supreme Court ruling exercising jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees may be that, in the future, capture of terrorism suspects will be forgone in favor of killing them. Or they may be put in the custody of other countries like Egypt or Pakistan that are famously not squeamish in their approach to interrogation -- a practice, known as rendition, followed during the Clinton administration." We need a new system for terrorist war (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/23 from Michael B. Mukasey). Bush is criticized for rendition, but I don't recall Clinton being criticized for it. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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OLMERT'S PLAN TO DESTROY ISRAEL
Posted by Batya Medad, September 11, 2007. |
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News here is filled with news of the agreement Olmert is making with the terrorists. He plans on signing it before the country has any say about it, before the people know what's in it. Olmert hopes that he'll accomplish a fait accomplis and will bulldoze it through the Israeli Government. Israel would not be a viable country if Olmert's agreement is activated. It's that simple. Olmert must be stopped. Olmert wants to destroy Jewish towns, homes, schools and businesses. Olmert wants to also give land which has been in Israel's possession since 1948 to the terrorists. Olmert is conducting himself as a dictator, not as a leader of a democratically elected government. Olmert must be stopped! Batya Medad, Shiloh
Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il |
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9/11 AMNESIA
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 11, 2007. |
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This was written by
Alan W. Dowd, a senior fellow at Sagamore Institute for Policy
Research.
It appeared today in Front Page Magazine
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If it is hard for Americans to forget September 11, it seems just as hard for Americans to remember that terrible Tuesday. After all, Americans have short memories and short attention spans. As Henry Ford put it, "We want to live in the present." We look ahead and move ahead, always bustling, multitasking, racing forward, pursuing happiness. Even when America was still young, we suffered from this self-inflicted amnesia. "Everyone is in motion," Tocqueville observed in the 1830s. We were then -- and remain today -- "so confused, so excited, so active." To be sure, looking forward is preferable to the alternative. Forward-looking societies like America exude optimism and energy and vitality. Backward-looking peoples, on the other hand, often convey the impression that their best days are past, that tomorrow is something to fear, that they are unable to move beyond -- let alone rectify -- old grievances and wrongs. But there are times and there are events that must not be forgotten. There are moments and memories from which we should not distract or detach ourselves. September 11 is such a moment. Yet with each anniversary that peacefully passes, it becomes easier to forget -- or perhaps better said, to not remember. We must guard against that subtle and sinister temptation. Perhaps reviewing the facts may serve as an antidote to the amnesia. Thousands of our countrymen were murdered that day:
Our country was maimed:
Our countrymen are still dying and still suffering:
In the midst of this bad news, we must remember that our countrymen fought back, even on that day. Forty-five people were killed aboard Flight 93, when its passengers mounted an effort to wrest control of the plane. By circumstance, their plane was doomed to play a part in history on September 11, 2001. But by choice, by their collective will, they would actually change history and spare their country yet another bloody, psychological trauma. It pays to recall, as United 93 director Paul Greengrass cogently observes, "They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world." They wrestled with all the emotions we came to know in the days and months that followed their sacrifice -- confusion and disbelief, shock and anger, desperation and despair, fear and terror. Like us, they argued about what to do and what not to do, about risks and dangers. They considered other options. They prayed and cried and finally came to grips with the mission before them, the only option left -- to fight the enemy, no matter the consequences. This war did not begin on 9/11. In fact, it was being waged against an oblivious America as far back as the 1970s -- in Tehran and Beirut, at Khobar Towers, in Kenya and Tanzania, in Yemen and, yes, in Manhattan. The World Trade Center bombing of 1993 was one of many warning shots. Today, this war continues "over there." In fact, many of our defenders call the war on terror America's "away game." They understand that in the cold calculus of war, it is better for them to fight and die on foreign shores than for American citizens to die on our own. As of this writing, 4,174 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan; another 29,000 have been wounded. And the war that began long before 9/11 goes on. Like the Cold War, it will be measured in decades. One of the most quoted litanies in the bible, the poetic third chapter of Ecclesiastes, reminds us that there is "a time for war." This is one of those times. Some will be offended by that notion; others distressed; still others disgusted that someone in the 21st century would cling to such a dark view of mankind. My only defense is history, paved as it is with the good intentions of good men who tried to outlaw war or wish it away or contain it to some other place or replace it with sanctions and litigation. Our country remains in the crosshairs of a ruthless, remorseless foe. By the unmerited grace of God, or by good fortune on our part or poor preparation on the enemy's, or by the righteous wrath of the US armed forces, or some combination of these, we have dodged what we all feared in those days and weeks after the attacks on Manhattan and Washington -- a debilitating series of 9/11s. In fact, polls taken immediately after the attacks show that 80 percent of us were bracing for more. In September 2002, The Washington Post reported that US officials were worried about "low-level...but deadly attacks" against the United States. The military's counterstrokes in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Philippines and Timbuktu and Somalia and Djibouti and uncounted other places have disrupted these attacks. Yet we have not dissuaded the enemy from trying to maim and murder us. In fact, just two months ago, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff concluded, grimly, "The intent to attack us remains as strong as it was on September 10, 2001." Consider what we know the jihadists have attempted to date: They tried to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 in December 2001. In 2002, they planned to ram an airliner into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. That same year, Jose Padilla, plotted to use a radiological bomb against apartment buildings. In 2003, bin Laden's men planned to carry out 9/11-style attacks along the East Coast. They plotted to disperse hydrogen-cyanide gas in the subways of New York City. The jihadists hatched a plan to blow up jet-fuel tanks and a fuel pipeline at John F. Kennedy International Airport. They were planning an assault on the US Army base at Ft. Dix in New Jersey, when the FBI nabbed them. And these are just the stateside plots. In short, our enemies cannot be talked down or reasoned with or deterred. They can only be defeated. As Abu Musab Zarqawi howled before the US Air Force sent him to wherever mass-murderers go when justice catches up with them, "We fight today in Iraq, and tomorrow in the land of the two Holy Places, and after there the West." Ayman Zawahiri has added, "The mujahedeen must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq." We should mark and measure their words. After all, their leader once vowed to deploy "fast moving light forces that work under complete secrecy...to initiate a guerrilla warfare" against the "American enemy." He explained that their "efforts should be concentrated on destroying, fighting and killing the enemy until, by the Grace of Allah, it is completely defeated." Five years later, on September 11, 2001, we found out just how serious Osama bin Laden was. Sources: "9/11 by the numbers," New York Magazine, September 5, 2002; CDC, "Deaths in World Trade Center terrorist attacks -- New York City, 2001," September 11, 2002; Anthony DePalma, "Study links rescuers' lung ailment to Trade Center collapse," New York Times, May 8, 2007; "Sept. 11: For the record," USAToday, September 10, 2002; Susan Schmidt and Dana Priest, "US fears low-level al Qaeda attacks," Washington Post, September 9, 2002; Press Release from Rep. Carolyn Maloney, "9/11 Sick and Injured Seek Help from President and Congress," February 1, 2005; Laurie Garrett, "Full effects of WTC pollution may never be known," Newsday, May 3, 2005; Maria Newman, "Many 9/11 workers have lung issues, report says," NY Times, September 5, 2006; Deroy Murdock, "Not Soon Enough," National Review Online, April 20, 2006; CNN, "White House lists 10 foiled attacks," February 15, 2006. 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. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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A BYZANTINE BATTLE OVER POVERTY DATA
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 11, 2007. |
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With so many other atrocities and outrages going on, it will be understandable if you did not notice the battle in Israel over poverty statistics. The battle is between the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, run by Prof. Shlomo Yitzhaki, and the other governmental offices, mainly the National Insurance Institute (Israel's Social Security). Shlomo Yitzhaki is a distinguished and decent economist. He is a bit to the left for my tastes, but I have great admiration and respect for him. (I have debated him in the past, and while we have some disagreements, I consider him a fine human and an accomplished scholar.) The battle between Yitzhaki and the bureaucrats has to do with the concept of poverty and its measurement. It sounds like a minor technical irrelevance, but it ain't. Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics is state of the art and professional. It and Yitzhaki are trying to get the government to start defining poverty in a meaningful manner. "Poverty" in Israel is defined in an absurd and meaningless manner, in a way that does not measure poverty. It is based on how many people earn less than 45% of the median reported wage. But this means that if every Israeli family struck oil like Jed Clampett, the poverty statistics would still show that 20% of Israelis as impoverished. The problem is that the government's definition of poor has nothing to do with actual hardship or actual level of consumption. It just measures how many people report earnings less than the average. Hold on to your streimel -- because half of Israelis will ALWAYS earn less than the average (actually, always less than the median) no matter what. And lots of Israelis who report very low incomes are actually earning more but not reporting it. The poverty statistics lump students, retired people, people not inside Israel, people not in the labor force, people working for cash payments, and others in the group identified as "poor." There are "poor" people in Israel with three cars, Jacuzzis, and swimming pools. Of course, there are also actual poor people, we just do not know much about them from the poverty statistics. Yitzhaki and his team want to trash the ridiculous governmental definition and adopt an actual measurement of poverty, based on real consumption and hardship, not based on people's hurt self-esteem because others earn more than them. But they cannot do this because the pointy headed bureaucrats in the National Insurance Institute refuse to release the income and consumption data for Israeli families needed to create new measures of poverty. They are a state secret, unlike most of Olmert's military moves. The Central Bureau of Statistics wants to go to court to force the other Israeli governmental offices to release the economic data. You with me. One Israeli government office needs to litigate to get basic data from another office that should be freely available to all citizens. Meanwhile, the same pointy headed bureaucrats and their allied "poverty lobby" have a new billboard and commercial PR campaign in Israel, screaming about "a million hungry Israelis." Telling Israelis that a sixth of the population does not have enough food. In other words, lying. Put aside how we will be feeling late in the day on Yom Kippur in a few days, and let's ignore the anorexic middle class girls with the eating disorders. There is no hunger in Israel. How do we know? Because hunger and malnutrition are visible when they exist. Israel has state-of-the-art mortality statistics, thanks again to the Central Bureau of Statistics. We know how many people in Israel die of malnutrition and the answer is none. (Well, aside from a few anorexic girls.) No swollen bellies, no other easily recognizable signs of hunger and malnutrition. In other words, the poverty lobby is lying. There is an old joke that the only place Israelis really do not have bread to eat is in the Chinese restaurants. But the political demagogues are so wedded to posturing on behalf of the poor and hungry that they are committed to stamping out honest measurement of poverty and hardship. 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. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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WAR, PSYCHOLOGY AND TIME
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 11, 2007. |
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This should shake your grey matter a tad... This a Stratfor report written by George Friedman. |
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There are moments in history when everything comes together. Today is the sixth anniversary of the al Qaeda attack against the United States. This is the week Gen. David Petraeus is reporting to Congress on the status of the war in Iraq. It also is the week Osama bin Laden made one of his rare video appearances. The world will not change this week, but the convergence of these strands makes it necessary to pause and take stock. To do this, we must begin at the beginning. We do not mean Sept. 11, 2001, but the moment when bin Laden decided to stage the attack -- and the reasoning behind it. By understanding his motives, we can begin to measure his success. His motive was not, we believe, simply to kill Americans. That was a means to an end. Rather, as we and others have said before, it was to seize what he saw as a rare opportunity to begin the process of recreating a vast Islamic empire. The rare opportunity was the fall of the Soviet Union. Until then, the Islamic world had been divided between Soviet and American spheres of influence. Indeed, the border of the Soviet Union ran through the Islamic world. The Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union created a tense paralysis in that world, with movement and change being measured in decades and inches. Suddenly, everything that was once certain became uncertain. One half of the power equation was gone, and the other half, the United States, was at a loss as to what it meant. Bin Laden looked at the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and saw a historical opening. His problem was that contrary to what has been discussed about terrorist organizations, they cannot create an empire. What they can do is seize a nation-state and utilize its power to begin shaping an empire. Bin Laden had Afghanistan, but he understood that its location and intrinsic power were insufficient for his needs. He could not hope to recreate the Islamic empire from Kabul or Kandahar. For bin Laden's strategy to work, he had to topple an important Muslim state and replace it with a true Islamist regime. There were several that would have done, but we suspect his eye was on Egypt. When Egypt moves, the Islamic world trembles. But that is a guess. A number of other regimes would have served the purpose. In bin Laden's analysis, the strength of these regimes also was their weakness. They were all dependent on the United States for their survival. This fit in with bin Laden's broader analysis. The reason for Muslim weakness was that the Christian world -- the Crusaders, as he referred to them -- had imposed a series of regimes on Muslims and thereby divided and controlled them. Until these puppet regimes were overthrown, Muslims would be helpless in the face of Christians, in particular the current leading Christian power, the United States. The root problem, as bin Laden saw it, was psychological. Muslims suffered from a psychology of defeat. They expected to be weaker than Christians and so they were. In spite of the defeat of the atheist Soviets in Afghanistan and the collapse of their regime, Muslims still did not understand two things -- that the Christians were inherently weak and corrupt, and that the United States was simply another Crusader nation and their enemy. The 9/11 attack, as well as earlier attacks, was designed to do two things. First, by striking targets that were well-known among the Muslim masses, the attack was meant to demonstrate that the United States could be attacked and badly hurt. Second, it was designed to get a U.S. reaction -- and this is what bin Laden saw as the beauty of his plan: If Washington reacted by doing nothing effective, then he could argue that the United States was profoundly weak and indecisive. This would increase contempt for the United States. If, on the other hand, the United States staged a series of campaigns in the Islamic world, he would be able to say that this demonstrated that the United States was the true Crusader state and the enemy of Muslims everywhere. Bin Laden was looking for an intemperate move -- either the continued impotent responses to al Qaeda attacks in the 1990s or a drastic assault against Islam. Either one would have done. For the American side, 9/11 did exactly what it was intended to do: generate terror. In our view, this was a wholly rational feeling. Anyone who was not frightened of what was coming next was out of touch with reality. Indeed, we are always amused when encountering friends who feel the United States vastly exaggerated the implications of four simultaneous plane hijacks that resulted in the world's worst terrorist attack and cost thousands of lives and billions in damage. Yet, six years on, the overwhelming and reasonable fear on the night of Sept. 11 has been erased and replaced by a strange sense that it was all an overreaction. Al Qaeda was a global -- but sparse -- network. That meant that it could be anywhere and everywhere, and that searching for it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But there was something else that disoriented the United States even more. Whether due to disruption by U.S. efforts or a lack of follow-on plans, al Qaeda never attacked the United States again after 9/11. Had it periodically attacked the United States, the ongoing sense of crisis would not have dissipated. But no attack has occurred, and over the years, actions and policies that appeared reasonable and proportionate in 2001 began to appear paranoid and excessive. A sense began to develop that the United States had overreacted to 9/11, or even that the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse for oppressive behavior. Regardless of whether he was a one-trick pony or he did intend, but failed, to stage follow-on attacks, the lack of strikes since 9/11 has turned out to be less damaging to bin Laden than to the Bush administration. Years of vigilance without an indisputable attack have led to a slow but systematic meltdown in the American consensus that was forged white hot on Sept. 11. On that day, it was generally conceded that defeating al Qaeda took precedence over all other considerations. It was agreed that this would be an extended covert war in which the use of any number of aggressive and unpleasant means would be necessary. It was believed that the next attack could come at any moment, and that preventing it was paramount. Time reshapes our memory and displaces our fears from ourselves to others. For many, the fevered response to 9/11 is no longer "our" response, but "their" response, the response of the administration -- or more precisely, the overreaction of the administration that used 9/11 as an excuse to wage an unnecessary global war. The fears of that day are viewed as irrational and the responsibility of others. Regardless of whether it was intentional, the failure of al Qaeda to mount another successful attack against the United States in six years has made it appear that the reaction to 9/11 was overblown. The Bush administration, however, felt it could not decline combat. It surged into the Islamic world, adopting one of the strategies bin Laden hoped it would. There were many reasons for this, but part of it was psychological. Bin Laden wanted to show that the United States was weak. Bush wanted to demonstrate that the United States was strong. The secretary of defense at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, used the term "shock and awe." That was precisely the sense the United States wanted to deliver to the Islamic world. It wanted to call bin Laden's bet -- and raise it. That was more than four years ago. The sense of shock and awe, if it was ever there, is long gone. Rather than showing the Islamic world the overwhelming power of the United States, the United States is now engaged in a debate over whether there is some hope for its strategy. No one is arguing that the war has been a slam dunk. Whatever the complex reasons for invading Iraq, and we have addressed those in detail, time has completely undermined the psychological dimension of the strategy. Four years into the war, no one is shocked and no one is awed. The same, it should be added, is true about Afghanistan. Time has hammered the Bush administration in two ways. In the first instance -- and this might actually be the result of the administration's success in stopping al Qaeda -- there has been no further attack against the United States. The justification for the administration's measures to combat al Qaeda, therefore, is wearing thin. For many, a state of emergency without any action simply does not work after six years. It is not because al Qaeda and others aren't out there. It is because time wears down the imagination, until the threat becomes a phantom. Time also has worn down the Bush administration's war in Iraq. The Islamic world is not impressed. The American public doesn't see the point or the end. What was supposed to be a stunning demonstration of American power has been a demonstration of the limits of that power. The paradox is this: There has been no follow-on attack against the United States. The United States did dislodge Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, and while the war goes badly, the casualties are a small fraction of those lost in Vietnam. Most important, bin Laden's dream is gone. No Muslim state has been overthrown and replaced with a regime that bin Laden would find worthy. He has been marginalized by both the United States and by his rival Shiite radicals, who have picked up the mantle that he dropped. His own jihadist movement is no longer under his effective control. Bin Laden has been as badly battered by time as Bush. Unable to achieve any of his political goals, unable to mount another attack, he reminds us of Che Guevara after his death in Bolivia. He is a symbol of rebellion for a generation that does not intend to rebel and that carefully ignores his massive failures. Yet, in the end, Guevara and bin Laden could have become important only if their revolutions had succeeded. There is much talk and much enthusiasm. There is no revolution. Therefore, what time has done to bin Laden's hopes is interesting, but in the end, as a geopolitical force, he has not counted beyond his image since Sept. 11, 2001. The effect on the United States is much more profound. The war, both in Iraq and against al Qaeda, has worn the United States down over time. The psychology of fear has been replaced by a psychology of cynicism. The psychology of confidence in war has been replaced by a psychology of helplessness. Exhaustion pervades all. That is the single most important outcome of the war. What happens to bin Laden is, in the end, about as important as what happened to Guevara. Legends will be made of it -- not history. But when the world's leading power falls into the psychological abyss brought about by time and war, the entire world is changed by it. Every country rethinks its position and its actions. Everything changes. That is what is important about the Petraeus report. He will ask for more time. Congress will give it to him. The president will take it. Time, however, has its price not only in war but also psychologically. And if the request for time leads to more failure and the American psychology is further battered, then that is simply more time that other powers, great and small, will have to take advantage of the situation. The United States has psychologically begun tearing itself apart over both the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. Whatever your view of that, it is a fact -- a serious geopolitical fact. The Petraeus report will not address that. It is out of the general's area of responsibility. But the pressing issue is this: If the United States continues the war and if it maintains its vigilance against attacks, how does the evolution of the American psyche play out? Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il |
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AN OFFER WE MUST REFUSE
Posted by Phyllis Chesler, September 11, 2007. |
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Written in memory and in mourning and in self-defense...there is another piece posted on the recent bin Laden tape on my website blog. Just press the top blog button on www.phyllis-chesler.com
Phyllis
Here he is again, Big Brother holding forth, bearing poisoned gifts, giving the infidels a chance--both to convert and to see our own Stalinized image reflected back to us in its Islamist form. This guy could get a professorship at any allegedly distinguished American university. (Have the Middle East Studies Institutes or anthropology departments at Berkeley, Santa Cruz, or Columbia already approached him?) He certainly has the rap down cold. Capitalism is evil, the war in Iraq is about corporate profits not about terrorism, America is an oppressor and terrorist nation-state, our presumed loss of prestige is our own fault and known to all. My God, he even quotes Noam Chomsky and echoes countless ideologues who remain bitter about America's failure to wrestle global warming right down to the ground. I do not know if bin Laden taped this first video long ago or whether it was filmed recently. Others have pointed out that the video "freezes" twice, precisely when he refers to recent current events. What I do know is that he is one smooth and dangerous liar--but then, so were Hitler and Stalin. Like his totalitarian predecessors, bin Laden is also a mass murderer. His contribution to death is not entirely unique but his mass production of a self-replenishing cadre of suicide killers might be. It is impossible--and perhaps unnecessary--for me to focus on all the lies, brazen hypocrisy, and reversals of truth in which he engages and which so aptly characterize the cultural front in this fourth World War. I will revisit only a few of his hilarious--and deadly--points. According to Big Brother Laden (who is, in reality, the seventeenth child of fifty seven and formerly known as the "son of the slave woman"): The West must forsake democracy which he seems to equate with capitalism and embrace Islam; only if we submit or surrender to Allah will we know true freedom and be able to abolish class oppression and war undertaken for profits. (Where have we heard that before?) He then offers the West a deal: If we convert to Islam, we will only be taxed at 2 1/2 percent of our incomes and, what's more, will finally be able to get into heaven which we cannot do in our current Judao-Christian or atheist state. Not bad--40 acres and a mule and a guaranteed place in the life to come. What is this human devil not telling us? That Islam has a long and exceptionally cruel imperialist history of its own, that it oppresses fellow-Muslims and ex-Muslims in ways that are barbaric (think about indigenous Islamic gender apartheid, the Iran-Iraq war, the hot religious war between Shia and Sunni Muslims; also think Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin for starters). Islam has in the past, and still continues today to treat non-Muslims in ways that are terrible and getting worse. The liar insists that Jews are better protected under Islam than we have been in the Christian West--and he then goes on to "teach" Christians that the Quran upholds the "chastity and purity" of Maryan/Mary, the mother of Jesus, a prophet whom, like Abraham, was supposedly supplanted by the more evolved prophet Mohammed. Here is where he turns feudal himself. He contrasts the "magnificent Quran's" view of Mary as honorable "in contrast to the fabrications of the Jews against her." Say what? And, even as he seeks to divide Jews and Christians (some protector he would be), he denounces both "the rabbis" and the "monks" for having "altered the words of Allah...and sold them for a paltry price." Does he not know that Judaism and Christianity preceded Islam? Osama: Go tell it to the Marines! And our country has done just that. May they prevail on behalf of liberty and justice for all and in the merit of those who were killed and wounded both on 9/11 six years ago, and in all the Islamist attacks upon Jews, Israelis and Americans that have been going on for lo these many years. Contact Phyllis Chesler at her website: www.phyllis-chesler.com |
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THE STATE OF ISRAEL IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, September 11, 2007. |
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Comprehending the need for a Jewish homeland, culturally fulfilling while providing sanctuary under catastrophic circumstances, requires context. Historical persecution, climaxing in The Holocaust, where Nazis starved, tortured, and massacred six million Jews, paints a background of two millennium proportions that no person possessing an iota of humanity can ignore, thus dispute the purpose of the State of Israel. One in fact might note, The League of Nations, on 07/24/1922, prior to this horrific genocide, did approve an erstwhile British Mandate incorporating language of the Balfour Declaration, further approved by a joint resolution of the United States Congress not a member of that organization, officially establishing the concept of a Jewish homeland. The 'historical connection of the Jewish people to Palestine' was recognized in the Mandate, calling upon the mandatory power to 'secure establishment of the Jewish National Home' with 'an appropriate Jewish agency.' The World Zionist Organization indeed crafted that agency in 1929. Jewish immigration was to be facilitated, while ensuring the 'rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.' Retrospectively, in March 1921, British colonial secretary Winston Churchill had organized a high-level conference in Cairo Egypt to deliberate on Middle Eastern policy. Despite this Jewish historical connection to all of Palestine, as stated in the body of the Mandate, later affirmed and endorsed at the League of Nations, the British dared to subdivide the region of Palestine, within that same Mandate, along the Jordan River. The Brits capitulated to Arab pressure, attributed to wartime pledges, at the expense of a Jewish population by allowing the much larger eastern portion, indeed four times as large, to maintain a separate Arab identity and administration, thus the artificial state of Transjordan was to be born, bereft of historical connection. Indeed, the Jewish homeland was so diminished in area, for purely political purposes, that today Israel's size is dwarfed 500 fold by surrounding mostly hostile Muslim Middle Eastern neighbors. Amazingly, the tiny state of Israel now thrives, albeit under constant attack since its inception in 1948, as a first world technologically advanced democracy. More amazingly, however, why did it take so many years subsequent to the League of Nations' declaration for the Jewish homeland to become a reality? Would a timelier implementation of that Mandate have saved countless Jewish lives, affording Jews sanctuary when Hitler and his crew of savages perpetrated crimes beyond human comprehension? Furthermore, why are so many radical Arabs opposed to Israel's very existence, so many more presumably moderate Arabs and supporters grudgingly willing to accept that existence if the Jewish homeland cedes territories justifiably secured in a 1967 defensive war, yet neither group willing to acknowledge the fact that British politicos already sliced 80 per cent from territory with a historical Jewish connection when subdividing Palestine, creating another Arab state, sucking up to Arab Muslims, indeed metaphorically resembling in their greed the very porcine creatures they refuse to ingest? The problem with many Israelis and supporters today exists in their naive willingness, cerebrally tranquilized by the flimsiest of rhetoric hinting at truly unenforceable notions of peace, to yield to those who manipulate history, maximizing the case for Arab whiners espousing the so-called Palestinian agenda, minimizing or totally ignoring historical fact that if analyzed logically would more than suggest the Jewish homeland was shamefully shrunk from the get go. Let the politically motivated creation of yesteryear called Jordan absorb poor Palestinian waifs, egad many still considered refugees after almost sixty years, into what should have been part of Israel if fairness dominated the human psyche, perhaps even allotting a bit of territory for them to hoist a so-called Palestinian flag. Enough is enough! 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 |
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PRISONS PULLING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN BOOKS FROM LIBRARIES SO AS TO BAR PRISONER
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 11, 2007. |
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This was written by Robert Spencer and is from Jihad watch
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Prisons pulling Jewish and Christian books from libraries so as to bar prisoner access to jihadist books This is a premier example of how we suffer from not be able to define properly the nature of the conflict. We are afraid to affirm the value of our own civilization. We are afraid to say that Christianity is a religion of peace and Islam isn't, and so have to make these outlandish gestures to appease the god of multiculturalism and relativism. "Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries," by Laurie Goodstein for the New York Times Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups. Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, in a federal prison camp in upstate New York, filed a class-action lawsuit last month claiming the bureau's actions violate their rights to the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, "discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize." Ms. Billingsley said, "We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts." But prison chaplains, and groups that minister to prisoners, say that an administration that put stock in religion-based approaches to social problems has effectively blocked prisoners' access to religious and spiritual materials -- in the name of preventing terrorism. "It's swatting a fly with a sledgehammer," said Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian group. "There's no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism."... Yep. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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BACK TO A FUTURE THAT NEVER EXISTED
Posted by Koira, September 11, 2007. |
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This is Jinsa Report #697, which was published August 28, 2007. It
is archived at
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He is a columnist for a large, liberal paper, and so rarely gives the President credit for strategic thinking. When he wrote positively this week about the Administration's plan to contain Iran, it was worthy of note. Unfortunately, what he wrote was, "The cornerstone is a political-military alliance with the dominant Sunni Arab powers -- especially Saudi Arabia. The hardware will be new arms sales to Israel, Egypt and the Saudis. The software will be a refurbished Israeli-Palestinian peace process." Approvingly he called it "back to the future." Sigh. Perhaps he didn't notice that Israel is not a Sunni Arab power. Perhaps he didn't notice that a "refurbished Israeli-Palestinian peace process" would require that the Palestinians establish a modus vivendi among themselves in order to adopt a negotiating posture toward Israel. Or perhaps he did. But never mind Israel for the moment, and the inappropriateness of demanding that Israel pay for Iran's containment in the currency of another useless and dangerous agreement with the Palestinians. More important, this columnist appears not to have noticed that Saudi Arabia is heavily funding al Qaeda in Iraq as it kills American soldiers and is funding Wahhabi-Salafist jihad elsewhere including in the United States. It is those al Qaeda operatives in Iraq that the Sunni tribal leaders have been turning against in droves, providing some measure of hope for Iraq, but causing al Qaeda to denounce the Saudi move to re-establish relations with the Iraqi government. It is Wahhabi-Salafist jihadis that the New York Police Department was concerned about in their report on homegrown American terror. (See JINSA Report # 696) Look for more instability in Saudi Arabia and more trouble from Saudi Arabia. Is this REALLY where we want to put JDAMS or other cutting edge weapons expected to be included in the new arms sales packages? Sunni jihad has arisen in Syria as well -- funded by Saudi Arabia in an attempt to overthrow the Alawite (a Shiite sect) Assad minority regime that has been allied with the hated Persian Shiites? Not clear, but not impossible. Ditto long-range Saudi support for Fatah al Islam currently wrecking Lebanon -- not clear, but not impossible. Egypt is no bargain either. Although Mubarak has belatedly come to understand that chaos in Gaza is trouble for his regime and is talking seriously to Israel and the U.S. about controls on Hamas, the long term in repressed and repressive Egypt is troubling. America, then, is resting its hopes of "containing" Iran on very weak reeds. It seems too, that this correspondent is hoping that pressure on Israel will cause an alignment of Arab states to do what the America wants done in the region, regardless of the capabilities and interests of those same Arab states. That would be back to a future that never really existed. Reality dictates that the U.S. push Saudi Arabia to stop funding and supporting Sunni jihad as step one in the containment of Iran. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com |
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JUDGMENTS AGAINST IRAN
Posted by Koira, September 11, 2007. |
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This was written by Joseph A. Klein, author of
Global Deception: The UN's Stealth Assault on America's
Freedom.
This appeared in Front Page Magazine
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The Iranian regime has come under withering attack within the last few days in the Middle East and the United States -- but neither originated with Israel, the Bush Administration, Senator Lieberman or any of the other so-called war-mongers whom the Leftist appeasers of Islamic terrorism insist are pushing some sort of neo-conservative, Israeli-inspired war of aggression against Iran. The first condemnation was a warning about the true intentions of Iran and its ally Syria. The author was Faisal Al-Sheikh Muhammad, a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood -- no friend of the United States or Israel: [1] "Soul-mates Ahmadinejad and Bashar are playing for time, and [taking] preventive steps to preserve the status quo in Iraq and Lebanon. Everything we hear about meetings between Iranian and U.S. representatives over the situation in Iraq is nothing but another diplomatic game [played] by Iran, contemptible but ever brilliant at fraud and deception...Ahmadinejad wants to buy time in order to obtain nuclear weapons and to force the world to face this as a fait accompli...They are deviously and malevolently aspiring to destroy this region, with which they feel neither affinity nor kinship." Here we have a fellow Muslim lifting the veil that Iran and its apologists have used to cover up the truth. Iran has no interest in any genuine negotiations about Iraq, where they are supplying munitions to kill our troops, or about their nuclear aspirations. Syria is little more than Iran's help-mate in facilitating the spread of terror, with its own ambitions to liquidate any democratic rumblings in Lebanon. The second condemnation of Iran came from a Federal District Court decision this past Friday, which finally brought some sense of justice to the families of the 241 US service members killed in the 1983 suicide bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut. A previous court ruling in 2003 had held that Iran provided financial and logistical help to the terrorist group Hezbollah, which carried out this lethal attack resulting in the largest number of American deaths from a terrorist attack until 9/11. In last Friday's ruling, Judge Royce C. Lamberth re-affirmed this finding and ruled that Iran must pay the families $2.65 billion in compensation for the suffering that resulted from the "heinous" attack that Iran had helped wrought. He summed it up this way: "The Court hopes that this extremely sizeable judgment will serve to aid in the healing process for these plaintiffs, and simultaneously sound an alarm to the defendants that their unlawful attacks on our citizens will not be tolerated." It is time to put to good use the Iranian funds blocked in US banks after the Islamic revolution took its nasty turn. Iran's response to the ruling was totally predictable. It denied any responsibility for the attack and claimed that the ruling was aimed at plundering Iranian assets. Tehran's spokesman said that they would follow up the case through its representative at the United Nations. That's an interesting twist since our Marines had been deployed in Lebanon in 1982 as part of an earlier UN-sponsored multinational peacekeeping force. But Iran is likely to find a sympathetic audience at the United Nations for its self-serving propaganda. Indeed, leave it to the United Nations to provide as many platforms as possible for Iran's leaders to spew their venom. Following up on Iran's election as vice-chairman of the UN's Disarmament Commission, the latest farce is Iran's selection for a leading position on the committee, headed by Libya, which will plan the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance. Cuba and Pakistan are also joining this party. The planners will surely find a way to outdo the 2001 UN conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa, where anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric was the order of the day. Iran's delegate, Seyed Mohammad Kazem Sajjadpour, said in his remarks to the planning committee in late August that attention must be given to "new forms of racism" after 9/11, "under the pretext of so-called war against terror." He was referring to the Islamists' charge of racism and Islamophobia against the Western press for defaming Islam as prone to violence. He of course made no mention of the frequent violent acts of Islamic terrorists, which Iran continues to deny in the face of indisputable evidence of its own participation. So whom does Iran blame for "the new forms of racism" that it claims are directed against Muslims and their 'peaceful' religion? It is all the doing of Israel and its Zionist partners in the West, of course. Instead of being expelled or at least suspended for threatening a member state with extinction, Iran will be helping to plan another UN-sponsored hate-fest to justify its threats. Unless we put a stop to this madness, American taxpayers will end up subsidizing it via our contributions to the United Nations' regular budget that will be used to fund the conference preparations. Iran is using its platform at the United Nations to divert attention from its own violation of UN Security Council resolutions concerning its nuclear build-up and to forestall harsher sanctions. At the same time, it is giving the appearance of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency by agreeing to answer some of its questions, but in reality Iran is continuing to pursue its uranium enrichment program full steam ahead. This is more of Iran's game of fraud and deception. If the Security Council balks at adopting any meaningful sanctions this fall, our best counter-strategy is to ratchet up the economic pressure on any countries and companies doing business with Iran by following through on the Bush Administration's plan to label Iran's Revolutionary Guards as terrorists. As exiled Iranian Ali Reza Jafar Zadeh (who first exposed Iran's secret nuclear program in August 1992) told reporters last month, the Revolutionary Guards are like a mafia, running things under the rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's spiritual leaders. They are using cover companies to get around the current UN sanctions against the country's nuclear program, which are full of loopholes. It is time for the United States and its allies to use our economic clout to put the Iranian mafia out of business -- permanently. Real economic sanctions worked in Libya. They apparently have had a positive effect in moving North Korea toward negotiating dismantlement of its nuclear program and agreeing to full international inspections. They can also work against Iran's regime. If we do not relent and we make sure that those continuing to do business with these thugs will suffer significant economic consequences of their own, Iran's tyranny will crumble under the weight of popular revolt against the oppressive conditions its rulers have caused. [1] The Middle East Media Research Institute, Special Dispatch-Syria/Iran September 7, 2007, No. 1707 (excerpt from Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Website) Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com |
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ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, CARTER?
Posted by Paul Lademain, September 11, 2007. |
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"Rocket Wounds Dozens Of Israeli Troops In Israel."
Mr. Carter--you, who thrives on Saudi largesse--are you happy now that your arab sponsors have rocketed innocent Israelis? Would you welcome the same attack on Americans? If Mexico decided to reclaim Texas, would you applaud? You presumably thrill when your arab cousins murder Israelis. Have you conveniently forgotten that of all the states in the Middle East, Israel is the only true US ally? Why aren't you preaching your peace sermons to the Saudis? They used the same terrorist tactics to conquer the oil rich Arabian Peninsula. Are you afraid of the oiles? Or is it that you, like the Saudis, hate Jews. Or might it something else" Like, for instance, your religion? (You say you're a Baptist, no?) Or could it be that your inner coward thinks siding with terrorists will save your own neck? Curious minds want to know when your NGOs first began accepting spiffs and speakers' fees, book contracts and jet trips, gifts and contributions from the oily Arabs? Viva Israel from the NON-evangelical, Secular Christians for Zion! We say: Restore Jewish Palestine from the ocean to the sea, the way Israel was originally intended to be. . Contact Paul Lademain @lademain@verizon.net |
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FROM ISRAEL: GRATITUDE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 11, 2007. |
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On this, the last posting before Rosh Hashana, I want to begin with the positive, and keep that positive in mind throughout. Isi Leibler, who is chair of the Diaspora-Israel Relations Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and very clear-eyed regarding all we face, has written an upbeat essay, "Toward a year of renewal." Says Leibler: "There is no denying that 5767 was another awful year. But as we usher in the new year on Wednesday evening, let us restrain our masochistic inclinations and -- without detracting from the very real threats confronting us -- end the prevailing atmosphere of gloom and doom... Let it be so in the year ahead. Amen and amen. ~~~~~~~~~~ In the wee hours of last night, a Kassam rocket was launched that landed in the Zikim military base just north of Gaza; 67 soldiers who were scheduled to complete basic training just hours later were wounded when their unfortified tent took a direct hit. One soldier lost his leg. Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the attack. Hamas called it "a victory from God." ~~~~~~~~~~ In spite of this attack, the government still has not declared intention to launch a major operation in Gaza. Among the reasons given are the ones we've heard before: there is still tension in the north and the holidays are coming. And then there was this one: "It would be problematic to carry out a major operation now of all times, as a reaction to the attack on IDF soldiers -- after all, there were civilians wounded in the past as well. We should not create a situation where it appears that the army is only defending its soldiers." But from many officials, inside and outside the government, there is great anger at this holding back. Said Eli Yishai, head of Shas, which is in the coalition: "The hourglass has long since run out, a red line has been crossed,...This is not the time for empty gestures -- and this is not the time to attend an international conference." From MK Zevulun Orlev (NU-NRP): "Instead of embracing Abbas and freeing murderers, the government should be fulfilling its duty to defend the citizens of the State of Israel and ordering a ground operation in Gaza...we must not sit back and wait for the next tragedy to strike." ~~~~~~~~~~ Our excuse for a foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, in meeting with the foreign minister of France today, explained that "We need to use other means, not only military ones, in the Gaza Strip. But we need to say the truth, that other means will not stop the Kassams." Now, if you understand this, you are a lot more savvy than I. ~~~~~~~~~~ The last day of the counter-terrorism conference in Herzliya was today, and many there spoke about the need to act in Gaza. Said Uzi Landau, a former minister of internal security, who resigned from Sharon's government over the "disengagement": "We were promised that once we leave Gaza, if any more rockets came our way, Gaza would shake, and the world would understand." ~~~~~~~~~~ Ma'an, a Palestinian news agency, is reporting that Olmert and Abbas have agreed on principles to bring to the conference. Allegedly the document, which hasn't been signed, includes Jerusalem as the capital of two states, withdrawal from the West Bank and dismantling of settlements. As much as I don't trust Olmert and realize we have to stay alert for all possibilities, I also note that there are a lot of stories flying from the Palestinian side that are generated to put additional pressure on us and create a certain atmosphere. There is no confirmation of this Ma'an report. Our government says that "no agreement or draft has been written, and when one will exist it would be brought to the government for approval." Israel Radio yesterday, reported that the meeting between Olmert and Abbas was tense because Olmert refused to draw up, ahead of the conference, a detailed timeframe for the resolution of the conflict. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to an (unnamed) IDF officer, most of the roadblocks in Judea and Samaria have already been dismantled, with the ones that remain critical for security. Most dismantled months ago and this is the first we hear about it? Most dismantled and the Palestinians complaining about how they have no freedom of movement? Most dismantled and IDF officials are routinely cited as saying the checkpoints must not come down? Is this so? Is anything what it seems to be? Israel Radio cited this officer as saying that those Al Aksa terrorists who had been granted "amnesty" are still being monitored. Many, he said, have ceased their terrorist activities, even if most of them have not actually surrendered their weapons. Now, the deal was that they were required to surrender their weapons, and we're watching them and see that they haven't and we don't protest? And has it occurred to this officer -- or his superiors -- that perhaps they may have temporarily ceased their terror activity precisely because they know they're being watched? This same officer also noted that the PA is not targeting Hamas terrorists in Judea and Samaria, as Israel has asked them to do. Instead, they are going after things like camps and charities affiliated with Hamas, giving the impression that they are doing something. ~~~~~~~~~~ I have now picked up three different versions of what Israel was doing in Syria and have no confirmation on any. It seems rather likely at this point that we're not looking at a fluke or a routine sortie to take photos. This may have been a major military operation, and, if so, one that increases our deterrence in a definitive way. Perhaps more to follow. ~~~~~~~~~~ Perhaps in the weeks ahead those who have their heads on straight will have had enough of Olmert and Livni and Ramon. Perhaps the government's reluctance to take necessary action in Gaza in the face of injury to our people, coupled with its dangerous eagerness to participate in a conference that will seek to push us to the '67 lines, will bring people to act at last. The comments by Yishai about our not attending the conference are encouraging, as is a statement by him I read about not staying in the government if there are withdrawals planned. We need Yishai to pull his party out of the coalition and Avigdor Lieberman, his. At a minimum. Perhaps it is coming at long last. We must pray for this with all of our hearts, and work towards this with all of our beings. "There was never a period in Jewish history when we did not face adversaries. Yet we always triumphed." Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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DELTA TAKING ON CNN
Posted by Delta Vines, September 11, 2007. |
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After reading, and re-reading the repeated reports quoting Christiane Anampour's CNN report regarding the supposed bombing and sending of ground troops into Syria, I grew annoyed. When I heard the threats from Russia and North Korea, I grew concerned about this woman's power to start conflicts when there isn't one. SO, I first called the White House. Then I called the State Dept. Then, the Dept of Defense. Then, I called CNN. My conversation was polite, but firm. Basically, I said, "I would really hope to have some good, concrete journalism from your website and news reports. However, Ms. Amanpour's reporting is yellow journalism at best. She uses words like "someone said", and "sources in the US", without any concrete proof. Syria has denied anything other than a flyover near Turkey, and the dumping of fuel by Israeli airships is what happened. Ms. Amanpour's report is strongly, and falsely, baiting countries who hate Israel into a conflict -- perhaps a war. Unfortunately, this can very realisitically insite more anti-US hatred worldwide since she connected it as an action the US is supportive of. That, in turn, can lead to more attacks against US citizen abroad and at home. There are no craters, or bombing evidence, not even singed ground. There were no ground troops sent in. Even Syria as said as much. There was a recognisance mission at best. What you have reported is irresponsible. I will no longer watch Ms. Amanpour's reports, or read them on your website. Use responsible reporting, please." I asked the lady I spoke with to give her editors my phone number and name. Then I called the Jewish consulate in the Midwest and spoke with Bill Schwarz there. He officially had no comment. Unofficially he confirmed there are no voices speaking in Washington or Israel. If you acknowledge them at all, they gain a life of their own. How long before Christians are accused of something outrageous? I pray someone will speak up for me as I have for Israel. Prayerfully,
Contact Delta Vines at delta_vines@sbcglobal.net |
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POWERFUL BREAKTHROUGH ON CAPITOL HILL
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 11, 2007. |
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This was written by Brigette Gabriel of American Congress for Truth, P.O. Box 6884, Virginia Beach, VA 23456. Contact her by email at member@americancongressfortruth.org or visit the website: http://www.americancongressfortruth.org Brigitte is a Lebanese Christian who is now active in making people understand the dangers of islamism. Members of Congress Listen in Stunned Silence to Brigitte Gabriel's Message; Pledge to Work With Us to Fight Islamofascism Members of Congress Listen in Stunned Silence to Brigitte Gabriel's Message; Pledge to Work With Us to Fight Islamofascism |
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Being on Capitol Hill yesterday was a remarkable experience. As Stephanie, my assistant, and I pulled into the Capitol under heavy security, we looked around in utter amazement as heavily armed SWAT teams with their fully loaded M16s stood with hands on triggers ready to fire, covering the Capitol and its surrounding streets. You would expect to see this in Israel -- but not in the United States. It is a chilling sign of the times we live in and a harsh reminder that we are at war with Islamofascists who are bent on killing us. My presentation on Capitol Hill was one of the most important presentations I have ever given. The room filled quickly after the 9-11 ceremony on the steps of the Capitol. I began speaking at 7:30 PM. You could hear a pin drop as Members of Congress sat there stunned, listening to the details I was sharing. There were no journalists, no cameras, and no CSPAN. With the doors shut I let the truth fly. I was more candid than I have ever been in any public presentation. I knew I had only one chance to drive the point home to these influential representatives who head up and sit on committees making decisions about our country that impact our safety and our future. I spoke as if my life hung in the balance. By the time I was done speaking and finished another hour answering questions, I was standing in the company of brothers and sisters who share the same concerns for the welfare of our nation, our children and our grandchildren. It was obvious my message was like a breath of fresh air. Our representatives hear from CAIR, Moveon.org and similar organizations, but as many of them told me, there is no one, there is no other organization on the Hill with the message I brought to them on your behalf. One Congressman told me he's been trying, since 1987, to convey the kind of information I covered, but, in his words, "I have never come close to the level of success you achieve." To hear the message I delivered and to know there are all of you in their districts with these concerns energized these representatives more than ever to do the job they were sent to Congress to do. The members who attended were so moved and so motivated that they want to organize a major meeting to have me present to the entire body of Congress, House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats. They are going to reach out to their colleagues who were not at yesterday's briefing and urge them to get involved as well. Yesterday's presentation was the beginning of a partnership between ACT and our elected officials -- those who are interested and are listening. They welcomed us to bring issues to their attention, to become more involved in writing bills and resolutions to protect our country and its citizens. This was the beginning of many meetings to come. We are no longer working on the outside and hoping they hear us. We are working with them, hand in hand on the inside. One of the highlights of last night was meeting Congressman Steve Pearce of New Mexico (http://pearce.house.gov) who introduced the John Doe bill which we helped pass. He sends every one of you his thanks and appreciation for the calls and emails you made to Congress to help pass his bill. I thanked him for being a vigilant and courageous representative protecting the American people. I promised him and everyone in the room, that we at ACT and ACT for America will work with them and support them in writing and presenting bills that will protect our country and our freedoms. As I reflect on the success of our meeting I am convinced we can tackle not one issue, but many issues. We are now organizing the same type of meeting on the Senate side. Senators could not attend yesterday's presentation because of congressional protocol. This is why General Petraeus today is repeating his same speech to the Senate. Please write and thank Congressman McCotter (http://mccotter.house.gov) and Congressman Saxton (http://www.house.gov/saxton) for facilitating this meeting and organizing it. These two people are some of our nation's best and brightest serving our country and "we the people." I especially want to thank you, our members, for standing with me and supporting our team financially. You are the ones who made it possible for us to mail copies of my book BECAUSE THEY HATE to every elected official in our government. It was this effort that opened their eyes. Many members yesterday said that my book is sitting on their night stand or sitting on their desks. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for playing your part in making our efforts possible. I will be emailing you the list of names of the attendees at yesterday's briefing and the committees they serve on so you may write them and thank them for attending. Thanking them is as important as your calls urging them to attend. They told me they hear from people on many issues -- taxes, immigration, health care -- but NOT on national security. Our elected officials need to hear from you. To continue supporting our efforts and enabling us to do the important work we do please make a financial contribution today. Click here to donate. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Brigitte Gabriel Editor's Note: See also
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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KASSAM ROCKETS AN ACT OF WAR.OLMERT COMMITS TO A GIVEAWAY WITHOUT THE PEOPLES' APPROVAL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 11, 2007. |
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is wholly to blame for a Kassam Rocket launched from the new Global Muslim Arab Hamas Terror Base in Gaza. That Kassam hit the Zikkim IDF base near Ashkelon less than a mile north of the Gaza Strip. Flying shrapnel injured 69 sleeping Israeli soldiers, 12 severely. One is in critical condition. These soldiers are 18 and 19 year old soldiers, nearing the end of a basic training course during the first year of their national army service. The reason Olmert and his collaborators are to blame is because they knowingly restrained the IDF from attacking Gaza in force in retaliation for the thousands of Kassam Rockets launched against civilians in southern Israel, killing 12 including 5 children, wounding many others. As before, the IDF was ordered by Olmert to shell useless targets to insure no Muslim casualties -- but, the leave the pretense that he did something. While Olmert and his collaborators remain alive behind thick concrete walls, soldiers and civilians have been under constant rocket strikes. Clearly, Olmert his Cabinet and his Knesset allies are totally culpable because, in deference to Bush, Rice, Baker and the pro-Arab U.S. State Department, they are mandated to virtually silence the Israeli forces. Bush and Rice ordered "restraint", as they have done all along, to appease Saudi Arabia and Abu Mazen's Fatah. Olmert is even now planning to release another 100 Palestinian prisoner release as a "gift" to the Muslims for Ramadan as well as giving away the key points of Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights to include all the areas of Jerusalem that were occupied by Jordan for 19 years from 1948 to 1967, whose soldiers were shooting at civilians across the 'no man's land' that divided Jerusalem. Olmert has NOT stopped the desecration of the Temple Mount by the Muslim Wakf as they dig up and throw away all signs of the ancient Jewish Temples. Olmert and his collaborators are also considering the "Arab Refugee" issue. (Imagine! Three to Five million descendants of the 480,000 refugees from 1948 coming into Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, screaming to enter all of Israel.) Olmert is planning to draft another "Declaration of Principles" with Palestinians ahead of the November International Peace Summit forced on the willing Israeli Administration by the Bush Administration and the so-called Quartet (U.S. State Department, U.N., E.U. and Russia). Olmert has said that this newest "DOP" will be presented to the Knesset "BEFORE BEING IMPLEMENTED". That means that Israel can sign this commitment with international powers accepting this commitment as law BEFORE THE KNESSET OR THE ISRAELI PEOPLE CAN VOTE ON WHATEVER OLMERT COMMITS TO SURRENDER!!?? Olmert has promised NOT to give his Cabinet or the Knesset or the Israeli people the opportunity to approve or reject the "Declaration of Principles" before Olmert sticks Israel with the grave commitment to surrender their country, their sovereignty, their safety and their loved ones. The Bush Administration is "urging Olmert to use 'restraint' in thinking about possible response or retaliation to prevent the Global Terror Base now under Hamas control from attacking Israel. One becomes a co-conspirator to murder if he helps the perpetrator(s) to commit the crime, of murder, in any way. Olmert cannot now claim that ignorance excuses him if the hundreds, even thousands of Kassam Rockets that were launched from Gaza against Israeli towns -- without retribution. Remember that, before Gush Katif/Gaza was ethnically cleansed and all the 10,000 Jewish men, women and children were driven from their homes, farms, factories, schools, yeshivas, businesses and cemeteries, the 21 communities in Gush Katif were considered "endangered" by the Muslim Arab Terrorists inside the Arab cities if the Gaza Strip and outside of Gaza. Before those 10,000 Jews were evicted and evacuated, along with the soldiers present, the then PM Ariel Sharon and his 'aide' Olmert pressed the Knesset to vote legislation declaring the 44 communities OUTSIDE of Gaza would become "endangered" from the "expected" increased Arab Muslim Terror attacks from Gaza. So, Olmert can't claim ignorance. He is guilty, with 'prima facie' evidence of initiating an active firing zone in Gaza for Muslim Arab Palestinians (and their aides from Egypt, Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia). This was forecast by many writers and experts, including us. When the attacks continue on a daily basis, engaged in 'de facto' collaboration with the Terrorists by restraining the IDF (Israel Defense Force) from wiping out their attackers. If ever there was a man and his gang who deserved a trial by a People's Court and is found guilty and given a capital punishment for crimes against the Jewish nation of Israel, it is this bunch of treasonous conspirators. It is time for every Jew to pray for an end to the hideously corrupt and weak regime of this band of traitors. Let them be impaired and put next to their former leader, Arik Sharon, to experience a living death before Hashem takes their last breath. Let no Jew touch these contaminated people, lest they too become cursed. As for Bush, Rice, Baker and all the nations who have and are now conspiring against the Jewish people, let them suffer those plagues that decimate men, their families, even their nations for the evils they are doing. If ever a people had the right, even the responsibility to rise up and depose their treasonous government, that time is now. It's time to bring Olmert and his Kadima party to justice for malfeasance, misfeasance and engaging in crimes against the Jews in Israel. Olmert has restrained the IDF from conducting their mandated duty to protect the nation. Thus, 'de facto' and 'de jure', Olmert has joined the goals of Hamas and Fatah to kill Jews. This man must be brought to justice. ### Full Report from "THE ISRAEL PROJECT" Marcus Sheff Credit was taken jointly by the Al-Quds Brigade of Palestinian
Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror organization, which receives funding,
training and direction from Iran -- and the Popular Resistance
Committees, a group composed of ex-Hamas and Fatah members. PIJ
presented the attack on their website as a "gift" to the Palestinian
people for Ramadan (1)
"We knew that in these hours we could harm as many soldiers as
possible," a spokesman for the group told the Israeli media. [2] A
spokesman for Hamas, which has been in full control of the Gaza Strip
since June, said after the strike that "we consider this a victory
from God."[3]
A spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, Mark Regev, told the
BBC "We pulled out of the Gaza Strip two years ago, we took down all
of the settlements, we pulled out all our military personnel, we ended
the military occupation and these extremists who are shooting rockets
really have no positive agenda. It's just nihilism."[4]
The attack comes a little more than two years since Israel
completely withdrew its military forces and some 9000 civilians from
the Gaza Strip in August, 2005 in a sacrifice for peace. Since then,
nearly 2,000 Qassams have been launched against Israeli communities in
the surrounding areas, killing a dozen people and injuring hundreds
more.
The Zikim base, which sits just south of Ashkelon, was previously
hit by a Qassam on December 5, 2005, injuring five soldiers. The
soldiers injured in Tuesday's attack were due to leave the base on
home-leave the following day for the Jewish New Year holiday Rosh
Hashana.
Footnotes
[1] "The 'Dawn of Victory': A gift for the month of Ramadan," Al
Quds Brigades website, Sept. 11, 2007,
[2] "Jihad spokesman: The Zikim base was a prime target," Ynet,
Yediot Ahronot,
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3448317,00.html
[3] "Hamas spokesman praises rocket attack on Israeli army base," The
Associated Press, Sept. 11, 2007,
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411384358&pagename=
JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[4] "Rockets injure dozens in Israel," The BBC, Sept. 11, 2007,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6988463.stm
The Israel Project is an international non-profit organization
devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while
promoting security, freedom and peace. It provides journalists,
leaders and opinion-makers accurate information about Israel. The
Israel Project is not related to any government or government agency.
Board of Advisors: Senator Evan Bayh (IN), Senator Saxby Chambliss
(GA), Senator Norm Coleman (MN), Senator Ben Nelson (NE), Senator
Arlen Specter (PA), Senator Ron Wyden (OR), Congressman Rob Andrews
(NJ), Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (NV), Congressman Tom Davis (VA),
Congressman Eliot Engel (NY), Congressman Frank Pallone (NJ),
Congressman Jon Porter (NV), Congressman Jim Saxton (NJ), Congressman
Brad Sherman (CA), Congressman Joe Wilson (SC), Actor and Director Ron
Silver 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@gwinston.interaccess.com |
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ISRAEL'S LOBBY AS SCAPEGOAT
Posted by Daily Alert, September 11, 2007. |
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This is a book review by Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times Staff writer. |
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The authors of a new book see the Jewish state as the archenemy About a year ago, two distinguished scholars of American foreign policy ignited a rhetorical firestorm with a long article published in, of all places, the London Review of Books. Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and John J. Mearsheimer, a political science professor and codirector of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, argued that an all-powerful domestic lobby -- indifferent to real American interests -- has maneuvered, cajoled and threatened successive U.S. governments into an uncritical and unwholesome support of Israel. That support, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, has undermined U.S. interests in the Middle East, subverted American values and dangerously destabilized large parts of the Muslim world. Now they have expanded and heavily footnoted their argument in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. As delineated by Mearsheimer and Walt, the Israel lobby consists of Jewish organizations (notably the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League), of American Jews generally, Christian Zionists, neoconservatives and of influential journalists and columnists at major U.S. news organizations. Together, Mersheimer and Walt allege, they not only conspire to advance Israeli interests heedless of their impact on the United States but also to stifle any substantive domestic discussion of the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem. (The authors assail the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post for employing only pro-Israel columnists.) It's interesting that the authors chose to first float their arguments in the London Review rather than, say, in Foreign Affairs or some other American journal. While I subscribe to the review -- and, in fact, have been invited several times to contribute to it -- it's a melancholy fact that, in recent years, like so much of the European intellectual press, it has become objectively anti-Semitic in its treatment of Israel. And while it's true that the authors have had several invitations to speak about their book in the United States withdrawn, it's also true that this volume arrives under the imprint of what is arguably America's most prestigious publishing house. Odd that the all-powerful Israel lobby let that happen. To get a flavor of the professors' argument, here's how they described the lobby's operations inside the U.S. Congress: "Another source of the Lobby's power is its use of pro-Israel congressional staffers. As Morris Amitay, a former head of [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], once admitted, 'there are a lot of guys at the working level up here' -- on Capitol Hill -- 'who happen to be Jewish, who are willing... to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness. ... These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators. ..." The quotation from an AIPAC staff member is an ingenious twist on the old dual-loyalty argument, but at the end of the day, you've still got sour old wine in new skins. Anyone familiar with the tortured history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have a hard time recognizing the history Mearsheimer and Walt rehearse. Every hoary old Israeli atrocity tale is trotted out, and the long story of Palestinian terrorism is rendered entirely as a reaction to Israeli oppression. The failure of every peace negotiation is attributed to Israeli deviousness under the shield of the American Israel lobby. There is nothing here of Palestinian corruption, division and duplicity or even of this unhappy people's inability to provide a reliable secular partner with whom peace can be negotiated. At times, the authors simply contradict themselves, asserting -- rather remarkably -- at one point that the United States has nothing to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran and, at another, that the dangerous prospect of a nuke-equipped Tehran is the Israel lobby's fault. Similarly, they write, Al Qaeda would hammer its swords into ploughshares and Osama bin Laden would lay down with the lamb if only the United States would come out from under Israel's thrall and create by coercion a Palestinian state. Baloney. If -- as was long ago proposed -- the Jewish state had been established in Uganda, the Twin Towers still would be rubble. Perhaps most malicious of all, Mearsheimer and Walt go to great lengths in the book to make what they clearly believe is the most immediate case in point -- which is their assertion that the Israel lobby, acting at the Likud's behest, drove the United States into attacking Saddam Hussein. Thus, readers are treated to an explication on the religious affiliations of various Bush administration officials that reads like it was inspired by the Nuremberg Laws. The fact of the matter is, however, that the figure most responsible for pushing the attack on Iraq -- Vice President Dick Cheney -- is not Jewish, nor even ideologically neoconservative. He is a card-carrying member of the petroleum industry elite, however, and names like Halliburton and ExxonMobil never seem to make their way onto these pages. The United States attacked Iraq because the American public -- panicked and disconsolate over the Sept. 11 atrocities -- was misled by the administration's bad and manipulated intelligence into thinking that Hussein was preparing another attack with weapons of mass destruction. To grasp the underlying malice running through The Israel Lobby, it's helpful to consider the domestic precipice on which the United States now teeters. The Bush administration's Iraq debacle has made it all but inevitable that the early years of the next presidency will be marked by a vicious debate over what went wrong in the Middle East, a controversy -- typical of this unhappy period in our history -- in which the parties won't even agree on what it is that's being fought over. The left will demand to know how the country was tricked into war with Saddam Hussein. We had a taste of how that inquiry might go this week, when the loony fringe of MoveOn.org published ads denouncing Army Gen. David Petraeus, the able and honorable U.S. commander in Iraq, for "betrayal." The right is already honing its own who-lost-Iraq rhetoric. You can sample that in neoconservative patriarch Norman Podhoretz's new book -- "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism" -- in which he describes the war's critics as a "domestic insurgency" with a "life-and-death stake" in making sure America is defeated. In other words, to be against the war is to enlist in a Fifth Column. New Yorker editor David Remnick was the first to note that Mearsheimer and Walt have subtly pushed Israel's American admirers and supporters into this rhetorical cesspool. (You'd never guess from the Mearsheimer-Walt analysis that many people in this country support Israel precisely because they admire it as a brave, dynamic and democratic society.) In a comment published this month, Remnick shrewdly observed that the Mearsheimer and Walt book "is a phenomenon of its moment. The duplicitous and manipulative arguments for invading Iraq put forward by the Bush Administration, the general inability of the press to upend those duplicities, the triumphalist illusions, the miserable performance of the military strategists, the arrogance of the Pentagon, the stifling of dissent within the military and the government, the moral disaster of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, the rise of an intractable civil war, and now an incapacity to deal with the singular winner of the war, Iran -- all of this has left Americans furious and demanding explanations. Mearsheimer and Walt provide one: the Israel lobby." In fact, if you accept the analysis put forward in this book, it's impossible not to conclude that the United States was, in fact, tricked into a disastrous war in Iraq by a domestic Fifth Column and that the ranks of that subversive formation are filled with Jews, their friends and willing dupes. Mearsheimer and Walt go to great pains to proclaim their disinterested benevolence toward all and to attach the word "realist" to their argument. The only adjective that comes to this reader's mind is "sinister." The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org |
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SECULARISM VS RELIGION & THE IDF; WHO BELONGS IN THE ISRAELI ARMY?; WHAT THE ANTI-ZIONISTS MISSED
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 11, 2007. |
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SECULARISM VS. RELIGION & THE IDF Israelis' ancient forebears ran a religious country in which Judaism struggled for survival against rival faiths. Their descendants run a peculiar stew of a country in which secularists struggle to repress Judaism but are tolerant of rival faiths, one of which wants to commit genocide against the Jews. The tensions over this received much publicity some years ago, but little or no progress was made to resolve the problem. The fear is that it wouldn't be resolved constructively. This struggle took an ominous turn early in modern Israel's statehood. The country was founded largely by far leftist socialists, who were secularist. Its basis as a Jewish state with insignificant non-Jewish populations gave Judaism a certain pride of place and not full separation of religion from government. Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews formed political parties, which received governmental subsidies, in return for approving coalition government policies. The religious Jews continued the traditional European Jewish custom of subsidizing religious study. Religious Jews felt that studying Torah and prayer were major contributions to national security. Secular Jews disagreed. The hostility of secular Jewry, mixed in with their statist, almost Stalinist mentality, manifested itself in crimes against fellow Jews who were religious and whom the secular Jews looked down upon with the same sense of superiority that Germany Jewry looked down upon Polish Jewry as culturally backward. (A pox on German culture!) When Jews fled Arab countries to young Israel, their religion was repressed and they were impressed into the ruling Labor Party. The best known effect of this assault was the delinquency and scholastic failure of a generation or two of Moroccan Jews in Israel. One can imagine the suspicion of the intolerant secular Jewry that this engendered in those remaining religious. Demographic changes made the problem more obvious. Religious Jewry multiplied fast, while secular Jewry barely held its own. A large gentile population was brought into the country, perhaps to counterbalance the Orthodox increase, and is treated with respect, although those Christians were antisemites and the Muslims are in a growing state of war with Israel. But the far leftist secularists, now antisemitic and sympathizing with the Muslim enemy, still are at war with Judaism and Jewish nationalism. They falsely blame Judaism for the assassination of PM Rabin. They have been destroying the model communities built by the religious and nationalist Jews in the Territories. A few years ago, the government started to reduce subsidies to religious schools and other institutions, although those schools maintained standards of discipline and education whereas state schools did not. Secularists resented subsidizing the religious, although socialism is a philosophy of freeloading! Most young officers are Orthodox, but few Ultra-Orthodox serve in the IDF, despite having proved to be the most desirable troops. Secularists resent religious draft exemption, without understanding its necessity. The IDF is a place of sexual license and harassment. Secularists embarrass religious Jews, somewhat as they did to the Moroccan immigrants. To solve the problem, secularists need to regain loyalty to their Jewish people, clean up the Army, and allow more religious freedom for Ultra-Orthodox regiments. That a tall order for people convinced the other guy is wrong. WHO BELONGS IN THE ISRAELI ARMY? Who should join the IDF? Hillel Halkin made these comments, among others: Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews are ideologically anti-Zionist, but accept having to obey the law. The Arabs are not subject to the draft, and although few might commit treason, all would be suspected. The ultra-Orthodox reject military service because they think that secular institution might corrupt their youth's faith and morals. They take exemptions for religious study. Being physically unfit, they wouldn't make good soldiers, anyway. The rest of the country serves but resents those two groups, especially the fellow Jews, for not serving. Since those two groups constitute a rising proportion of the population, the country needs their military service and commercial production more than their Torah study. The government has proposed voluntary national service for the Arabs and involuntary national service for the ultra-Orthodox Jews, both with veterans' benefits. Halkin recommends making that service compulsory, so that those two groups integrate more into the country (NY Sun, 8/21, Op.-Ed.). There are a couple of ultra-Orthodox units in the Army, and they are among the best. Didn't Halkin know that? How does Halkin think the military would treat ultra-Orthodox troops? It treats religious ones with hostility, because it is the government that is anti-Zionist. There is a licentious sexual ethos in the IDF, and officers abuse their rank to abuse the women. Let Halkin propose reform of the IDF to make it more suitable for people of upstanding character. The Arabs do not accept Israeli law. Masses of them steal land, build illegally, immigrate illegally, evade taxes, and threaten to riot against law enforcement. The police are afraid of them or are held back. Considering their increasing radicalization, one may worry that enough would commit treason to destroy Israel. As in Iraq and in Lebanon, their ethnic loyalty trumps national loyalty. Muslim parades, preachers, and politicians in Israel make that clear. Resentment against the ultra-Orthodox is stirred up by anti-religious secularists, who nevertheless do not object to secular youths' growing draft exemptions. The Army does not presently need the two under-represented sectors, but will. I agree that the Jews should be brought into a military, but a military made suitable for decent people, which shamefully it is not. I agree that the Arabs should not be drafted but should have to serve several years in some national service. I think they would riot to evade it. The issue should be forced to a conclusion, de-naturalizing and deporting those who refuse. ISLAMISTS REPEAT LONG DISCREDITED LIE A Hamas website refers to the fire at al-Aqsa mosque 38 years ago as having been set by a Zionist, and Israel as having shut off the water, the better for the fire to burn. Actually, the fire was set by a foreign Christian, as recorded by historian Martin Gilbert (IMRA, 8/22). I remember the incident that way, too. Israel takes great care of non-Jewish religious places. It is tolerant of other religions, whose goodwill it seeks. The last thing it would want is to harden Muslim and other gentile attitudes towards it, by giving it cause for complaint. Therefore, it makes many accommodations for them, and certainly would not hamper fire fighting. If it had, there would have been a terrible row, and we all would know of Israel's guilt. Hamas is repeating a refuted Islamic lie, to rouse its people against innocent Israel. Having to resort to lies impugns its case! WHAT MY ANTI-ZIONIST COLLEAGUES MISSED "Yesterday, in the north of Gaza, Israel targeted a team loading a Kassam rocket. Following this operation, two children were killed. They were seen going into the field right after a rocket had been launched -- they had been sent, as is routinely done by the terrorists, to retrieve the launcher and were killed by an exploding shell." The team was from Hamas. "The response of Abbas was to call Israel's actions 'a massacre which cannot be justified. This escalation...'" Thus Abbas was defending Hamas aggression and attacking Israeli defense (IMRA, 8/22 from Arlene Kushner). Abbas is anti-Israel more than anti-Hamas. It makes no sense to aid his forces. An anti-Zionist using one of my Internet outlets described the incident in a scathing denunciation of Israel for killing children, as if it were deliberate. He should scathingly denounce the Hamas terrorists for exploiting children, as does Fatah. The terrorists send children to Israeli defenses, to see what the IDF will do, how fast it reacts, or to spy on the IDF if not stopped. The anti-Zionist denunciation of Israel encourages more Islamist exploitation of children, because besides the military help, the children provide a propaganda benefit. The Muslims haven't the kind of compassion for children that the anti-Zionist writer expects us to have. Have the anti-Zionists compassion? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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QAEDA PENETRATING GAZA VIA CLANS
Posted by Koira, September 11, 2007. |
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This appeared yesterday in Yahoo News
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Herzliya, Israel (AFP) -- The Al-Qaeda network is gaining a foothold in the Gaza Strip through powerful family clans in the Palestinian territory, an Israeli expert in Islamist movements said on Sunday.
Reuven Paz cited the Doghmush clan which includes the leader of the Army of Islam, the extremist group that held BBC journalist Alan Johnston hostage for 114 days and which also took part in the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June last year. He was speaking during a conference on "The Global Impact of Terrorism," organised by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and held in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya. Paz referred to an interview published in June on the Internet site "The Echoes of Jihad" in which Mumtaz Doghmush said "he accepts the strategy of Al-Qaeda" and that he is trying to use "this strategy against Israel." The Palestinian extremist "uses Osama bin Laden as a symbol," he added. "There are in Gaza other big families, active in smuggling, drug and arms trafficking, that Al-Qaeda is going to use. This will add to the chaos," Paz told AFP. He said the Islamist Hamas movement, which seized control of Gaza in mid-June, is trying to prevent Al-Qaeda from penetrating the clans, but that "these families, mainly in the southern part of Gaza, near the Egyptian borders... are powerful enough to resist the Hamas influence." Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com |
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UNHOLY ALLIANCE IN ISRAEL
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 10, 2007. |
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Until the inmates are put into their cells, nothing can be expected to change the direction these fools have taken the nation. Sad, Bad, Mad mad world...! This is by Joseph Farah, founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist. His latest book is "Stop The Presses: The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution. He also edits the online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business. |
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You've heard the term "unholy alliance." I think it was invented to describe those parties conspiring to transfer the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the permanent care and custody of the very Islamic fanatics who claim no Jewish Temple ever stood on the site. Who comprises this unholy alliance? Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israeli President Shimon Peres, most of the rest of the Israeli political elite and the sworn enemies of the Jewish state, those who would finish the work of Adolph Hitler if they ever got the chance. That is the amazing story within the story of a drama unfolding at the most explosive piece of real estate in the world. While the Muslim zealots who administer the Temple Mount continue to excavate the site without a thought or care as to the integrity of the most sacred ground in Judaism, not to mention an archaeological treasure trove, the Israeli political elite is secretly working out a "final solution" for what they consider a troublesome, burdensome stone in their shoe. Why would Jewish leaders give away to their archenemies the holiest site in Judaism? It's an ugly little story, but one you should understand -- because it's about to become center stage in the theater of world affairs. Olmert, Peres and the inner sanctum of the Israeli political elite fear the Temple Mount. They always have. In fact, ever since Israel captured the site in June 1967, fools like Olmert and Peres have been skulking about trying to figure out a way to rid themselves and their country of it. Why do they fear it? Because they know if it remains in the possession of the Jewish people long enough, the Jewish people will obey their G-d and rebuild the Temple. This would be unthinkable to the Israeli political elite. They believe the Israeli government is the one, true G-d of the Israeli people. The Israeli political elite does not recognize the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They do not recognize the G-d who gave the Jewish people the land deed for their nation. They do not recognize the G-d who promised the Jewish people would be restored to the land. And they do not recognize the G-d who restored them to the land after 1,800 years in exile. The Israeli political elite believe they are wiser than that G-d. So, they want to remove the temptation of the superstitious Jewish people to rebuild their silly old Temple by handing over the foundation to people who want to destroy all Jews. Does this make sense? It does if you are a member of the Israeli political elite. Trust me. Olmert and Peres and the rest of those unprincipled cowards and wolves in sheep's clothing have sold out their own people. They are now bed partners with the Islamo-fascist fanatics they have entrusted with the holiest site in all Judaism, not to mention Western Civilization's richest archaeological treasure. Let me make a little prediction: No matter how hard Olmert and Peres work in conjunction with the Muslims to destroy the Temple Mount, it will never come to pass. In fact, I will predict that their actions will lead to a rising chorus among Jews in Israel and around the world to rebuild the Temple. Olmert has tried to perform his dastardly betrayal behind closed doors. He has made a secret of his negotiations to turn over the Temple Mount. He has ignored requests from eminent archaeologists to stop the unsupervised, unnecessary excavation abomination taking place now at the Temple Mount. He thinks he can just make it all go away -- quietly. I'm predicting he can't. It really doesn't matter what Olmert does. Olmert is a political pipsqueak, at most a historical footnote in the history of the Jewish people. He couldn't give away the Temple Mount if he tried -- because it's not his to give. It belongs to G-d, as most observant and biblically astute Christians and Jews comprehend. Has Olmert ever read the Bible? Does he have no fear of G-d? Does he think his nation's history is based on fairy tales? Who does he think he is? Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il |
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IT TOOK A LOT OF WORK TO MAKE THE GERMAN MEDIA REPORT THE FULL TRUTH
Posted by Sacha Stawski, September 10, 2007. |
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It took a lot of work to make the German media report the full truth about the attack and to admit that this was not just any stabbing, but a stabbing motivated purely by anti-Semitic hatred!!! This is from Associated Press and it appeared yesterday in Haaretz (www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=902882). It is entitled "Police: Anti-Semitic insult preceded Frankfurt rabbi stabbing". |
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An anti-Semitic insult preceded the stabbing of a rabbi in Frankfurt that has drawn expressions of outrage and concern from local officials and Jewish groups, police said Monday. Witnesses reported the attacker first spoke to the rabbi in an unfamiliar language as he walked down the street in the German city's Westend neighborhood Friday evening, police spokesman Manfred Feist said. Then, the man said in German "I'll kill you, you (expletive) Jew," before stabbing him and fleeing. The rabbi, 42-year-old Zalman Gurevitch from the Chabad Lubavitch organization, was recovering Monday in a hospital as prosecutors announced they increased the reward for information leading to the arrest of his attacker to 4,000 (US$5,400) from 2,000 (US$2,700). Police were searching intensively for the attacker, who was accompanied by two women, Feist said. The women were being sought as witnesses, not as suspects, Feist said. The attack has brought expressions of concern and condemnation from local politicians and from Jewish groups. Gurevitch, who police said was recovering after emergency surgery, was visited in a hospital by Volker Bouffier, interior minister for the state of Hesse. Local Social Democratic party leader Andrea Ypsilanti said the stabbing was an attack on the peaceful coexistence of religions and was directed against religious tolerance. The European Jewish Congress said it was shocked and urged police to find the attacker. The current atmosphere of increased hate crime in Germany leads us to believe that anti-Semitism could be a factor, EJC president Moshe Kantor was quoted as saying in the statement. Contact Sacha Stawski at sstawski@honestly-concerned.org |
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OLMERT'S OFFERING TO ALLAH
Posted by Delta Vines, September 10, 2007. |
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Olmert, Olmert, Olmert...I shake my head in amazement at the gall of his charity toward Arabs! This is especially hard when he appearts to have no charity toward Israel, the country he was elected to serve. Equally astonishing is his suggestion to give the Palestinians (sic) a gift for Ramadan. Ramadan, a "holiday" of hate, uprisings, and jihad to the minds of most who know it. It's a holiday of fasting to the moon god of the Sinai, "allah". This is a "celebration" that is opposite of the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur (repentance and submitting to G-d's judgement). It's Feast of Trumpets, and it's Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), as the scriptures say in the Book of Leviticus. What is this gift Olmert is offering? None other than the release of more Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails -- that's what! It's an out and out offering, in honor of Ramadan, and confirmed by Saeb Erekat, Arafat's old advisor. So, where are Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, and Gilad Shalit? Granted, Goldwasser and Regev were kidnapped when Hezbollah came into northern Israel last summer (before the war). That leaves Shalit. How many hundreds of prisoners is Olmert willing to release and NOT demand the release of Shalit? That is why this is seen as an offering. It's an offering the Palestinians (sic) and other Arabs will be rejoicing in by calling out "allah akbar!" (allah is greater). Who will they be saying allah is greater than? They will be saying he is greater than the Lord G-d, the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Here is G-d's answer to that, btw:
Contact Delta Vines on her website.This essay is archived at
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THE EDUCATED TERRORIST
Posted by Phyllis Chesler, September 10, 2007. |
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What more is there to say? Here's something. Tarek Heggy is a prominent Egyptian intellectual and dissident. Nonie Darwish, my friend and also an amazing truth-teller, has just introduced us. Recently, according to Heggy, he had lunch with a former Crown Prince of Jordan and a dozen other Egyptians, "none of us without a Ph.D from a world class university." Nevertheless, Heggy, a businessman, a leading liberal political thinker, and the author of fourteen books, was the only one who believed that 9/11 had indeed been perpetrated by Al Qaeda against America. All the others still believed that America either attacked herself or, like so much else (blizzards, earthquakes, poisoned well-water), that the Zionists did it. I first wrote about this dispiriting, unyielding phenomenon in 2002 and I published it in 2003 in "The New Anti-Semitism." Since then, nothing has changed. Actually, everything has changed--but for the worse. Education--especially advanced education--in both the West and in the Islamic East does not seem to challenge or triumph over vulgar prejudice and really Big Lies. Nobel Laureates (Saramago for one) believe that Israel is essentially evil and the cause of world suffering--but so does the Ford Foundation which continues, post-Durban, to fund those who continue to engage in such rank racism including John Mearsheimer and Joan Wallach Scott, both of whom will share their anti-Israel views at Columbia. Of course, their panel is being touted in grand Orwellian style as a shining example of free speech and academic freedoms which are otherwise under siege but, with the help of Ford and Columbia, will be briefly freed. They share Osama bin Laden's views which he recently shared with the world on videotape, live from No-Man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Most of what he said consisted of Big Lies--but they are distressingly indistinguishable from what is taught on most western campuses today. Only the West has engaged in Holocausts he says. Agonizingly true but also not exactly true. Let me remind Osama that Mohammed himself ordered the genocidal extermination of the Jewish tribes of northern Arabia and thus set the pattern for such subsequent pogroms of both Jews and Christians and of other dhimmi populations. Ethnic Arab Muslims are genocidally slaughtering black African Muslims in Darfur; they are also enslaving them. The only humanitarian aid to reach these poor people comes from Jews and Christians and from America. Arab and Muslim nations and leaders are not settling this matter and are not sending food or medical supplies to their "brothers." My point here: Osama is educated and wealthy. So were the maniacs who flew planes into American buildings on 9/11. So are my colleague, Tarek Heggy's Egyptian intellectuals. So are all their American counterparts who firmly believe that the tragedy on 9/11 was either caused by America and/or Israel or that America deserved it because, like Israel, we are essentially, existentially, evil. Leading European and American intellectuals believe that America is a terrorist nation-state and that Osama is a freedom fighter. These are very dangerous delusions which have only begun to gather steam. May a miracle avert all the coming disasters. Contact Phyllis Chesler at her website: www.phyllis-chesler.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: DOSE OF REALISM
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 10, 2007. |
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This Wednesday evening begins Rosh Hashana. And so there will be a hiatus in these postings. To all I wish a year of peace and fulfillment. For Israel I pray for leaders with the wisdom to understand their responsibility to protect the land and the people, and to treat our heritage with reverence. This year begins a Shmita or Sabbatical year here in Israel, which entails a sense of increased holiness concerning the land and its produce, and requires a series of stipulations in its observance. ~~~~~~~~~~ Barry Rubin's latest column, "Influence in the Mideast," is an eye-opener that provides important information and perspective. Iran held a meeting of Palestinians recently, he tells us. Hamas was there, of course, and Islamic Jihad. But also Farouk Kaddoumi. Who is Farouk Kaddoumi? A big man in Fatah and the PLO. Never accepted Oslo. I've been writing about him recently with regard to his control of the Fatah Central Committee. "What was Kaddoumi doing in Teheran? Well, he has long been an ally of Syria which is Teheran's closest ally. But there is something else going on here which is of historic importance and which shows the difference between reality and what is said in the Western media or governments. Not Egypt, not Saudi Arabia, but Iran is now the mediator between Hamas and Fatah." (emphasis added) "...Perhaps you thought the United States is now Fatah's sponsor and good buddy. Well, Fatah is an equal-opportunity embezzler. " Yea, says Rubin, keep talking to Fatah, but "a strong dose of cynicism and some tough bargaining is needed." The problem is that Americans keep thinking that Middle Easterners will act like Americans: "The White House strategy is: We'll be good to moderates so they'll work with us against the bad guys." "But the American method is up against the Iranian method. Iran employs the appeal of intoxicating revolutionary rhetoric, a seductive use of Islam...a cathartic orgy of hatred, an appeal to macho heroism, money into one's pocket...direct provision of social services to supporters...". "Policy must be tough, cynical, and involve equal trade-offs, rather than proofs of good will or flattery designed to win friends...flattering Mahmoud Abbas, showering money and arms on Fatah, and thinking one can turn the West Bank into a showcase of economic progress isn't going to work. Nor will persuading the Arab world that America and Europe care about the Palestinians, want to give them a state, and don't like Israel. "A reasonable strategy requires showing how unprofitable it is to be an enemy...It means not having to apologize but getting those who ignore your interests to apologize to you. It requires taking into account regional realities rather than sentimentalizing them into morality plays. It includes not expecting to solve neatly problems which have no solution." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188392574992&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull ~~~~~~~~~~ To confirm Rubin's description of Fatah as double-dealing, we have this news as well: Abbas is due to go to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia tomorrow, where he will tell King Abdullah that he still backs the unity government -- the power sharing deal between Hamas and Fatah brokered in Mecca last February -- as a way out of current tensions in the Palestinian areas. All he requires is that Hamas return to the situation before they took over Gaza (something Hamas has already partially offered to do). This according to a statement made yesterday by the Palestinian ambassador to Riyadh, Jamal al-Shobaki (which hasn't show up broadly in liberal media that is pushing the image of Fatah as a peace partner). This is the same Abbas, of course, who is supposed to be working on a peace deal with Israel. He is playing both sides at the same time. I keep praying his hand will be fully exposed, as he joins forces with Hamas again, before Olmert is committed to something disastrous. ~~~~~~~~~~ And, indeed, Olmert and Abbas met today to advance that "peace process." This time they were joined by PM Fayyad. At the end of the meeting they put out a bland joint statement: "Both leaders wish to contribute to the success of the upcoming international conference." With regard to a document spelling out "principles" or final issues, it's clear that nothing was accomplished. Even before today's meeting, Olmert's spokesperson warned that there should be only modest expectations about what was likely to be accomplished, and in recent days there has also been a proviso that all issues may not be resolved before the conference. It indeed seems that, in spite of Olmert's eagerness to give away a great deal, what he offers falls short of what Abbas is demanding, which is just about everything. One Israeli official explained that "What we are seeing is a difference of approaches. We want to focus on the steps the Palestinians need to take to be able to govern, which will be a step toward statehood. They want to talk about the state, and jump over all the issues pertaining to governing." This makes it difficult to draft a document to take to the conference, for sure. But, more, this is a huge and critical issue. What sort of seriousness is there on the Palestinian side if they want a "state" before they are prepared to govern? And what does this say about US policy, if there is scant attention paid to the Palestinian ability to govern, as the "process" is hurried along? And what does it say about us, that we would be involved in a "negotiation" that is so one-sided? Unless Abbas WANTS peace with enough to make some concessions to get it, it is all pointless. Olmert and Abbas said (saying is easy) that they are both committed to the two-state solution and will appoint teams to further the process. ~~~~~~~~~~ As to the "good will" gestures that Israel is constantly being asked to make, there was discussion, of course. There is, first, the question of more prisoners to be released for Ramadan. There had been talk of 100 to be released and it had at one point been expected that Olmert would announce this at today's meeting. But he did not. What he did, in essence, was agree to take the request for prisoner release under advisement -- he would bring the request to the Cabinet. There was no mention of a specific number of prisoners. Then, naturally, there was the perennial request for "easing the restrictions" on the movement of the Palestinians, otherwise known as taking down checkpoints. To this Olmert responded that the Ministry of Defense was working on a plan. Perhaps he was alluding to Barak's plan for mobile checkpoints, ostensibly to be put into use some time in the future. But the fact is that the IDF and the Shin Bet are both adamantly opposed to removing roadblocks, which save Israeli lives. Please note here: The IDF and Shin Bet are making the saving of Israeli lives the priority. Olmert is putting concessions to the PA (and to the US) first. Finally, Fayyad made a request for aid to Palestinian prisoners (aid?), so that they might be provided with food, drink and cigarettes. This is stomach-turning. Clearly we feed people who are in our prisoners. What Fayyad is alluding to is a little something extra, I am assuming to compensate for what the PA is not in an economic position to provide, as it once did. Does it tear your heart out, as it does mine, that these people who are in prison for maliced acts against us, have to do without "extras"? I will not look kindly upon this if Olmert, who has at this point just said he would consider the request, ultimately honors it. ~~~~~~~~~~ Several members of the Cabinet have expressed opposition to releasing more prisoners to strengthen Abbas, and some six have already indicated they will vote against it. Said Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beitenu), "It's the Palestinians' turn to make goodwill gestures." He further suggested prisoners not even be permitted visits from their families until the Red Cross is allowed to see Shalit. Eli Yishai, head of Shas, indicated his party's disapproval of this gesture, and Shaul Mofaz spoke about the instability of the PA. MK Gideon Sa'ar (Likud -- not a minister) also commented that, "the ease with which [Olmert] releases terrorists hinders Israel's war on terror and may put our citizens' security in jeopardy. No other country battling cruel terror against its citizens would be so hasty in releasing terrorists." ~~~~~~~~~~ MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) today expressed concern over the continuing meetings between Olmert and Abbas, observing that, "The government will give everything, while endangering the state, and will not receive a thing." Steinitz is particularly concerned about the fact that Olmert, who once pledged himself to a united Jerusalem, is now ready to divide the city, which would bring an Iranian presence into our very heart. He maintains that Olmert is making all of these concessions because "he is willing to do everything" to stay in power. As painful as it is to confront what this indicates regarding the morals (or total lack thereof) of our prime minister, Steinitz has it right. He says that Olmert is courting the left with his actions, in the expectation that they will support him. And guess what? Barak has just announced that even though he had originally said he was going to pull out of the coalition, he sees that Olmert is working towards a "peace process," so Labor will stay in the government. ~~~~~~~~~~ What I'd like to know is what Steinitz, and others like him who understand the realities here, are doing to stop Olmert before it's too late. I don't accept that nothing can be done. In particular I note here that members of Olmert's coalition who really know better have a particular responsibility to the situation. If Lieberman pulled Yisrael Beitenu and Yishai pulled Shas from the coalition, it would collapse. Included here as well are former members of Likud -- Shaul Mofaz prime among them -- who bolted to Kadima with Sharon and should now come to their senses and leave. All of these people have a great deal to answer for, as they allow the madness of Olmert's government to persist. ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday I alluded to a report about a daring IDF capture of a Hamas leader in Gaza who was connected to Shalit's kidnapping. The IDF had denied the report. Today I read that Public Security Minister Dichter has said that this person we didn't capture could supply information and might be a bargaining chip for getting Shalit. OK. There are surely solid reasons for the denial. But the report as I read it -- with entry into Hamas territory of our soldiers dressed as Hamas soldiers grabbing this guy, after his car had to stop because "an old man with a cane" happened to collapse in front of it -- was inspiring. This is good for Israeli deterrence, projecting the sort of courage, careful planning and derring-do for which the IDF was long known: You fool with us and, rest assured, we'll catch up with you. May we make good use of this man we didn't capture. If he exists and turns out to be valuable. ~~~~~~~~~~ It does seem that the incident with Syria will not lead to war, whatever bellicose statements may be coming from Syria. There are some analysts who are drawing a parallel between this incident and the possible capture of the Hamas official, described above: Without commenting on anything publicly, we let it be known that they should be on their guard because we were able to slip into their air space and out again. Don't know. Too much is obscure. And the fact that EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana has told Al Hayat that Olmert assures him IDF forces on the Golan will now be reduced makes this less likely. Turkey is still not happy, still waiting for a response from Israel about the fuel tanks allegedly dropped by us at the Turkish border. But Turkey is not going to go to war with us. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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FORMER U.S. DIPLOMAT/PALESTINIAN LOBBYIST TESTIFIES FOR HAMAS
Posted by Michael Travis, September 10, 2007. | ||
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This was written by Debbie Schlussel and it appeared on her website:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ | ||
If you are one of the American taxpayers who paid Edward Abington's salary for many years as a diplomat (including U.S. Consul in Jerusalem), this story should interest you.
And if you are one of the many easily-duped pro-Israel Americans who give money to AIPAC-the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee--this story should also interest you.
Abingdon, a high-priced Palestinian lobbyist testified for the defense at the ongoing HAMAS-money laundering Holy Land Foundation trial in Texas. Surprise, surprise--he testified against Israel and denounced its intelligence info, which is among the world's best. Carl in Jerusalem has the complete, detailed, must-read story. I've followed Abingdon's career because--not in Carl's story--I watched as AIPAC (the pro-Israel lobby) lobbied together with Abingdon for a Palestinian State. And, at one point, Abingdon was the designated lobbyist for BOTH Palestinians AND AIPAC on the Palestinian State issue. For those of us who warned against this and criticized this questionable move, we now know that--sadly--we were right. And your contributions to AIPAC (if you gave) were a contribution to the terrorists' best buddy. Yes, those who come from the State Department often support (and aid and abet) HAMAS. And those who claim to be pro-Israel and against terrorism help HAMAS, too.
Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com
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THE 'ISRAEL LOBBY' MYTH
Posted by Michael Travis, September 10, 2007. |
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This was written by George P. Shutz, secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. This is excerpted from his introduction to The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control by Abraham Foxman (Palgrave Macmillan). |
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Israel is a free, democratic, open, and relentlessly self-analytical place. To hear harsh criticism of Israel's policies and leaders, listen to the Israelis. So questioning Israel for its actions is legitimate, but lies are something else. Throughout human history, they have been used not only to vilify but to establish a basis for cruel and inhuman acts. The catalog of lies about Jews is long and astonishingly crude, matched only by the suffering that has followed their promulgation. Defaming the Jews by disputing their rightful place among the peoples of the world has been a long-running, well-documented, and disgraceful series of episodes across history. Again and again a time has come when legitimate criticism slips across an invisible line into what might be called the "badlands," a place where those who should be regarded as worthy adversaries in debate are turned into scapegoats, targets, all-purpose objects of blame. In America, we protect all speech, even the most hurtful lies. We allow a virtual free-for-all by which laws are adopted, enforced, and interpreted. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent yearly to influence this process; thousands of groups vie for influence. Among these are Jewish groups that have come under renewed criticism for being part of an all-powerful "Israel lobby," most notably in a book published this week by Profs. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. Jewish groups are influential. They also largely agree that the United States should support Israel. But the notion that they have anything like a uniform agenda and that U.S. policy in Israel and the Middle East is the result of this influence is simply wrong. One choice. Some critics seem overly impressed with the way of thinking that says to itself, "Since there is a huge Arab Islamic world out there with all the oil, and it is opposed to this tiny little Israel with no natural resources, then realistically the United States has to be on the Arab side and against Israel on every issue, and since this isn't the case, there must be some underhanded Jewish plot at work." This is a conspiracy theory, pure and simple. Another tried and true method for damaging the well-being and security of the Jewish people and the State of Israel is a dangerously false analogy. Witness former President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine -- Peace Not Apartheid. Here the association on the one hand is between Israel's existentially threatened position and the measures it has taken to protect its population from terrorist attacks, driven by an ideology bent on the complete eradication of the State of Israel, and, on the other, the racist oppression of South Africa's black population by the white Boer regime. The tendency of mind that lies behind such repulsive analogies remains and is reinforced by the former president's views, spread across his book, which come down on the anti-Israel side of every case. These false analogies stir up and lend legitimacy to more widely based movements that take the same dangerous direction. Anyone who thinks that Jewish groups constitute a homogeneous "lobby" ought to spend some time dealing with them. For example, my decision to open a dialogue with Yasser Arafat after he met certain conditions evoked a wide spectrum of responses from the government of Israel, its political parties, and American Jewish groups who weighed in on one side or the other. Other examples in which the United States rejected Israel's view of an issue, or the view of the American Jewish community, include the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and President Reagan's decision to go to the cemetery at Bitburg, Germany. The United States supports Israel not because of favoritism based on political pressure or influence but because the American people, and their leaders, say that supporting Israel is politically sound and morally just. We are a great nation. Mostly, we make good decisions. We are not babes in the woods. We act in our own interests. And when we mistakenly conclude from time to time -- as we will -- that an action or policy is in America's interest, we must take responsibility for the mistake. So, on every level, those who blame Israel and its Jewish supporters for U.S. policies they do not support are wrong. They are wrong because, to begin with, support for Israel is in our best interests. They are also wrong because Israel and its supporters have the right to try to influence U.S. policy. And they are wrong because the U.S. government is responsible for the policies it adopts, not any other state or any of the myriad lobbies and groups that battle daily -- sometimes with lies -- to win America's support. Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com |
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SPEAKING ABOUT GOOD-WILL GESTURES
Posted by Asher Eder, September 10, 2007. |
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It seems our government under the lead of Mr Olmert Acting as Prime Minister considers to release more Palestinian prisoners as gesture of good-will (whatever that may be) on occasion of Ramadan. May I suggest that our government acts at least once also in the interest of Israel -- and suggests to our peace-loving Palestinian neighbors to allow Jewish prayers on Har haBaith [Temple Mount} and in Sichem / Nablus at Joseph's Tomb at least during our holidays of Rosh haShannah, Yom haKippur; and Succoth; and on top, release at least one of our prisoners -- as a good-will gesture from their side. This is an excellent Pro-Israel Information Resource
Contact Dr. Asher Eder at avrason@netvision.net.il |
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OSAMA'S CHALLENGE
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 10, 2007. |
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This was written by Robert Spencer and it appeared today in Front
Page Magazine
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Religion of Peace?. |
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Most analysts take this as pious window-dressing and focus on what they believe to be the more substantive points of his message: his comments on the war in Iraq, his critique of capitalism, the similarity of much of what he says to Democratic Party talking points, and the like. But in fact the invitation to Islam is the heart, and the most revealing aspect, of bin Laden's entire statement. The chief reason for this, of course, is because in traditional Islamic law, the invitation to Islam must precede an attack on non-Muslims. The Islamic prophet Muhammad makes this clear, directing Muslims to issue this invitation first, and if the unbelievers refuse, to invite them to enter the Islamic social order as second-class dhimmis, and if they refuse both, to go to war with them: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Is, then, a major attack imminent? There are numerous indications of that -- suggesting that one of the primary audiences, at least for this part of Osama's message, is the Islamic world. If such an attack comes, Osama has by means of this videotape attempted to forestall criticism by Muslims, and has laid claim to Islamic legitimacy for Al-Qaeda's actions. But there is also a still wider significance to Osama's invitation to Islam. He offers in this videotape a cultural critique of the Judeo-Christian West. This critique doesn't focus on the exportation of its immoral pop culture, which some think is the primary, if not sole, grievance of the Islamic world against the West; Osama doesn't mention that at all here. Rather, he concentrates on its religion: "You believe with absolute certainty that you believe in Allah, and you are full of conviction of this belief, so much that you have written this belief of yours on your dollar. But the truth is that you are mistaken in this belief of yours." Why? He lists two reasons: "you associate others with Him in your beliefs and separate state from religion." Both of these criticisms focus on Christianity: Islam regards the divinity of Christ as an unacceptable and polytheistic association of a partner with God, and rejects the sacred/secular distinction that is ultimately derived from Christ's directive to "render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." (Matthew 22:21). Bin Laden charges the West with "manifest polytheism," criticizing its making laws "in contradiction to [Allah's] Law and methodology." This is an integral part of his invitation to Islam: since Islam is a political and social system as well as a religious faith, to accept it is not merely to change one's religious affiliation: it would fundamentally alter the nature of Western society. The call to implement Islamic Sharia law in its fullness as an antidote to the ills of society is resonating throughout the Islamic world, with severe challenges to relatively secular regimes being mounted recently in Malaysia, Turkey, and Pakistan. Jihadists base their appeal in the Islamic world on the purity of their Islam, and on the proposition that obedience to Allah brings worldly success, as Osama says: "And our holding firm to this magnificent Book is the secret of our strength and winning of the war against you despite the fewness of our numbers and materiel." Six years after 9/11, and a year and a half after Donald Rumsfeld observed that "we need to find ways to win the ideological battle as well," the jihadists' ideological challenge is not being answered adequately. Osama's challenge to Christianity and advocacy of Sharia is an opportunity for Western leaders to stress the aspects of Judeo-Christian civilization that Sharia law denies: notably the equality of dignity of men and women and the freedom of conscience. But no Western leader will do this, because it would contradict the multiculturalist dogma that no civilization or culture has any virtues that any others do not possess. The centrality of the jihadists' cultural challenge to the West, and Western unwillingness to respond to this challenge, is a chief theme of my book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, but it is getting little attention elsewhere; even conservative media figures are hesitant to discuss the cultural conflict. The ideological challenge that the jihadists are making to the West remains the single most misunderstood aspect of the war on terror. As Osama invites us once again to accept Islam, probably very few Americans would be able to articulate why they wouldn't want to accept the invitation, and yet talk of Sharia and how it contradicts basic Western understandings of human rights remain taboo. As Al-Qaeda attempts to follow up on Osama's invitation, and Europe becomes increasingly riven by strife between Muslims and non-Muslims, it will become clearer why we ignore this aspect of the jihadist challenge at our own peril. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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HOW TO STOP IRAN?
Posted by Elan Journo, September 10, 2007. |
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As Iran continues to expand its nuclear development program, and moves ever closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, many agree that something must be done. But what? Bush's disastrous foreign policy--especially the Iraq fiasco--has led many to conclude that diplomatic "engagement" is our best hope for stopping Iran's nuclear program. But while Bush's policy is a failure, engagement is not the solution. Bush's "moralistic" approach, we're told, entails denouncing nations as evil, refusing negotiations, and isolating and punishing hostile regimes. That, many believe, is how we landed in the catastrophe of Iraq. And now Bush's moral denunciations of Teheran have supposedly escalated the nuclear standoff, while his policy of pressuring and isolating Iran by limiting its use of foreign banks has made Iran more defiant. That is why, diplomatists claim, Iran responded to the latest American-backed U.N. sanctions by ramping up production of nuclear material. Military conflict, they warn, and an Iraq-like debacle, loom. But engagement can supposedly end the Iranian threat bloodlessly, because it discards inflexible moral dogmas. Just as Iran has shown it will meet "confrontation with confrontation," proponents write in the New York Times, so Iran will "respond to what it perceives as flexibility with pragmatism." Iran's recent release of 15 British hostages, we are told, was achieved precisely because Britain engaged in nonjudgmental, patient diplomacy. Putting aside our moral qualms about talking with monsters would free us to negotiate a deal whereby Iran stops its nuclear program in exchange for Western carrots. This scheme presumes that Iran, like us, seeks peace and prosperity and that no one--not even the mullahs--would put their moral ideals before a steady flow of loot. But in the three decades since its Islamic revolution, Iran has dedicated itself to spreading its moral ideal--Islamic totalitarianism--by force of arms. Teheran spends millions every year, not to pursue prosperity for its tyrannized citizens, but to finance terrorism and to build a nuclear arsenal to wield against enemies of Allah. It is Iran's commitment to the goal of subjugating infidels, not a quest for peace, that motivated its backing of the Hezbollah-Hamas war against Israel and its support for insurgents who slaughter American troops in Iraq. Would diplomatic "incentives" encourage Iran to mitigate its ideology? No, they would only intensify its hostility. Negotiations buy Iran time; a settlement would provide loot to fund its nuclear program. Above all, diplomacy grants Iran moral legitimacy as a civilized regime: its hostile goals--"death to America"--and its murder of our citizens are made to seem reasonable differences of opinion. Such appeasement confirms the perverse notion that Allah's warriors, materially weaker but morally self-righteous, can succeed in bringing down the mighty infidel West. The real lesson of the recent hostage incident is how readily Western nations will grovel to appease Iran's blatant aggression. The amoral policy of engagement fails for the same reason that Bush's policy fails: both reject the need of morality in foreign policy. Iran is intransigent--but precisely because Bush's policy merely pays lip service to rational moral principles. What has been the administration's response to Iran's nuclear quest, to its funding of terrorists and Iraqi insurgents, to its hostilities stretching back to the 1979 invasion of our embassy? Did it morally judge Iran as an enemy regime waging war on America and fight to defend U.S. lives by militarily crushing Iran? No. After 9/11, Washington cordially invited Iran into an anti-terrorism coalition; later, Bush denounced Iran as part of an "axis of evil"; now, he embraces diplomatic talks. To the extent that his administration does momentarily recognize Iran's evil, its response has been ludicrous: to thwart Iran's nuclear program, U.S. diplomats scrounged for votes at the U.N. to pass toothless sanctions, and tried to put financial "pressure" on Iran (e.g., by preventing it from trading oil in dollars), an absurdly futile scheme (Iran now trades in euros). Moreover, when Bush has gone to war, it was not to crush an evil enemy, but to bring it "democracy." Bush's messianic crusade in the Middle East is a selfless war of sacrifice to needy Afghanis and Iraqis--not a war to uphold the moral goal of safeguarding the lives of Americans. Bush's self-effacing, immoral foreign policy--like the appeasing gambit of engagement--licenses Iran to pursue its hostile goals with impunity. The rational alternative to both of these self-destructive approaches is a policy committed to American self-defense, on principle. It is a policy that morally judges Iran--and that ruthlessly renders Iran non-threatening by military force. That does not mean a selfless, Iraq-like crusade to bring Iranians the vote. It means upholding the moral right of Americans to live in freedom by destroying Teheran's Islamic totalitarian regime. Nothing less will do. Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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PARDONED PA TERROR SUSPECTS TO GET PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 10, 2007. | |
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This was written by Ali Waked and it appeared yesterday in Ynet
News
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3447814,00.html. | |
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The United Nations and the Palestinian Authority are launching a placement project to provide professional training for Palestinian terror suspects recently pardoned by Israel, Ynet has learned. In a document sent Sunday by Palestinian Interior Minister Abed al-Razaq al-Yahiya to regional governors in the West Bank, he instructs them to establish groups to work with teams of professionals from the UNDP (United Nations Development Program). The UNDP is developing the program in conjunction with the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR). A team of experts is set to meet with each suspect individually as well as with their family members. After the evaluation, an individualized training program will be designed for each suspect. The aim is to reintegrate the suspects in society and bring them back to normative civilian life, even though a large number of the suspects are members of the PA's various security forces. 'New life' Initial funding for the program will be provided by the European Union, with other organizations expected to contribute to the effort at a later date. "I hope this project means that we will finally be able to be family men and professionals and provide for our families with dignity," one Palestinian terror suspect told Ynet. Another Palestinian terror suspect said he hoped the amnesty agreement would not be a temporary one. "I hope this marks a new beginning of a new life, and I hope the agreement will be accompanied by a serious diplomatic process that will affect the remaining wanted Palestinians and the Palestinian people in general," he said. PA officials said they hoped the 200 terror suspects currently excluded from the deal would soon be added to it. Israel's reluctance to do so would hinder the Authority's security-related plans in the West Bank, they said. "There cannot be a situation in which one person is pardoned while his fellow cell member continues to be hunted," a Palestinian security official told Ynet. "Those who have been pardoned feel very uncomfortable and sympathize with their friends, but I hope this issue will be resolved soon." Editor's Note: This was a comment by a reader of the original article:
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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UNFAIR CHARGE VS. ISRAELI LOBBY
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 10, 2007. |
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This was written by Steve Huntley and it appeared September 7, 2007 in
the Chicago Sun Times
http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/546130,CST-EDT-hunt07.article. Contact him at shuntley@suntimes.com |
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It's no secret that the Israeli lobby has a record of success. A number of strongly motivated organizations advocate for Israel, a cause that enjoys the favorable sentiment as well as financial support of American Jews and others. The Israel lobby functions no differently from NARAL, AARP or countless other lobbying groups that exercise the First Amendment guarantee of the right to petition government. Yet, no other interest group is so frequently singled out for harsh scrutiny, as if somehow laboring on Israel's behalf turns out to be working against America's best interests. The latest manifestation of this attitude comes in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard, that is an elaboration on an essay published in the London Review of Books last year. Mearsheimer and Walt concede Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold War but argue that our continued support is detrimental to U.S. standing in the Middle East and helps "inspire a generation of anti-American extremists." That's their world view. Forget the dynamics of radical Islamism, Arab resentment of the West and other complexities of international affairs. Just change U.S. policy toward Israel and the world will be a happier place for America. Two intellectuals at two of our best universities have reduced international relations to that. (For the record, their book describes the Sun-Times as one of the prominent newspapers in America that "regularly runs editorials that read as if they were written by the Israeli prime minister's office." I wrote most of the editorials on Israeli-Palestinian issues.) The two go to lengths to try to rebut any suggestion of anti-Semitism in their criticism oft the center of the Camp David effort and wrote the highly praised The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. But discrediting Camp David is central to advancing Israelphobia. The record is clear that in a breath-taking gamble, Israel was willing to push the envelope in offering the Palestinians the best deal they're ever likely to get, but Yasser Arafat couldn't abandon terrorism for a Palestinian state. That was a historically pivotal event that demonstrated to any reasonable person the clear peace aspirations of Israel. Reading this book reminded me of something that happened in the months leading up to the Iraq war. In 2003 Mearsheimer was one of nearly 1,000 American academics signing a letter suggesting Israel would exploit the U.S. invasion to expel millions of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- and maybe also Arab Israelis from Israel itself! It was a preposterous notion then and looks even more ridiculous today. Granted, the letter was adapted from one issued by some Israeli academics -- proof of the adage about the ivory tower being out of touch with society. But the view embraced by Mearsheimer displayed a profound misunderstanding and ignorance not only of Israeli society but also of the moral culture of American Jews. The notion that 5 million Jews in Israel would carry out ethnic cleansing of more than 4 million Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, and that Americans Jews would sanction it staggers the imagination. To believe that requires a bias against Israel so deep seated that it defies reality. Whether it spills over into anti-Semitism, I'll leave for you to judge. 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. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il |
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AMNESTY VIOLATED; MUSLIMS OPPRESS JEWISH "SETTLERS"; BUSH CONFERS TOO MUCH WITH EUROPE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 10, 2007. |
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ISRAEL HELPS P.A., AGAIN Disease infects P.A. livestock in Judea-Samaria. It is not expected to spread to Israel. Nevertheless, Israel is shipping vaccine to the P.A. (IMRA, 8/22). Should Israel do that? The people of the P.A. want to conquer Israel. Many of them want to slaughter the Jews, as they said they did even before the rise of Islamism. Why help them, when they may be starving themselves out? Some people think the mission of the Jews is to help the Arabs, and that Israel does not. This is another of the many ways by which Israel attempts to help them. Why can't the anti-Zionists be big enough to acknowledge that? Does the major media not report this, or do anti-Zionists know about it but lie? AMNESTY VIOLATED The amnesty had been running only a few weeks, when all the amnestied Fatah men cast off their agreement, after Israel arrested some of them. The Fatah men said they no longer would honor it. Dr. Aaron Lerner noted that they had not honored it yet. That is, half of them did not disarm (IMRA, 8/21). Others signed the pledge to disavow terrorism, and then reaffirmed the vow to commit terrorism. Eventually, the IDF stated that it had caught the two men at a checkpoint, involved in terrorist activity which terminates their amnesty." Nevertheless, the UN still calls for Israel to strengthen Abbas, meaning lower its guard against terrorism, as by removing such checkpoints. The US general who trains Fatah men didn't admit that his program multiplied terrorism. To the contrary, he wants Israel to confer amnesty upon more terrorists (Arutz-7, 8/23). In other words, he doesn't mind terrorism. Does Bush? Israel should make the Fatah violation known. It would be good public relations to expose the cheating in which jihadists engage and the futility of trying to make peace with them. Israel has two handicaps in pursuing good public relations: (1) It is not adept at it; and (2) It sticks to its ideology of giving land to the Arabs, regardless of how foolish that proves. It simply is anti-Zionist. DEMOCRATS ADMIT SURGE WORKS, BUT WANTS OUT! The Iraqi government still fails to take proper action, but its military is improving and the US surge is working. Two leading Democrats in the US Senate, Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton, acknowledge that security is better in Baghdad and some other areas. She (illogically) still wants to evacuate. Sen. McCain warned that a US pullout would enable Al Qaeda and Iran to make a full-scale war there (John Hanna, NY Sun, 8/21, p.6). McCain is right. The casualties there, perhaps a hundred a week, that Democrats call a terrible civil war, could rise a hundred-fold. Suppose Bush said we need troops for Basra, where Britain lost! HOW TO DEAL WITH FOREIGN DISCRIMINATION? S. Arabia forbids non-Muslim visitors from bringing in their own religious articles. Daniel Pipes wants discrimination ended. He does not approve of measures against all Muslims, because non-Saudi Muslims are not responsible for what S. Arabia does. He recommends barring the Saudi airline from landing in the West. He realizes that S. Arabia might retaliate against Western airlines, but then it would be cut off from much of its trade (8/21). Would Westerners who do business with S. Arabia accept that situation? Suppose most Muslim countries restrict churches, whereas no Christian country bans mosques. A fair retaliation would be to ban mosques until churches are permitted in Muslim countries. That would violate our Constitution, which permits freedom of religion, within limits. Better to bar Islamists as enemies. REMEMBERING ANOTHER PIPES SOLUTION Daniel Pipes opposes jihad, but that does not mean he has Jewish feelings of solidarity with Israel. Sometimes his views about Israel break through. When the Israeli government was determined, against popular opinion, the law, the purpose of Zionism, and resistance from Jews in the Territories to withdraw from the Territories, Mr. Pipes offered the government advice. He suggested they withhold military protection from the Jews there. Leave them to the merciless jihadists, he suggested. They would not try to stay, only to be shot. (The government has reduced their protection and hindered their self-defense.) Barry Chamish described the Gaza evacuation plan, and predicted it would surprise and crush resistance. He was right (Last Days of Israel, p.20, 24). ALLOWING MUSLIMS TO OPPRESS JEWISH "SETTLERS" Accompanied by dozens of TV crews, about a hundred Ramallah Arabs and Israeli leftists set a pipeline afire and destroyed about 4,500 vines and agricultural equipment in the Jewish communities of Nachliel and Vinya. Although warned in advance, the IDF arrived after the damage was done and merely chased the vandals away, saying police would investigate (IMRA, 8/22, Arutz-7, 8/23). (The hundred were caught red-handed. An investigation later would not identify a hundred nor prove their guilt. That's the general idea. The police rarely arrest Arabs and Israeli leftists for arson and vandalism. They do arrest Jews for defending themselves from it, even for firing warning shots. If the government were rational, it would arm the settlers heavily. Once or twice they would shoot down the raiders. The raids would stop. Since the government is anti-Zionist, it coddles the vandals and harasses the Jewish victims. P.S.: Residents filmed the vandals, and turned the film over to police. The police then did arrest some of the people recognizable. Among them were participants in the weekly joint leftist-foreign-Arab attacks with slingshots and rocks against Israeli troops guarding the security fence (Arutz-7, 9/3). "STRENGTHENING" ONE SIDE WEAKENS THE OTHER The US wants Israel to "strengthen" the Abbas regime by releasing terrorists and speeding their travel along roadways. The US wants Israel to "strengthen" the Lebanon regime by withdrawing from a part of the Golan that Hizbullah claims. Each of those supposed measures of strengthening Arab regimes would weaken Israeli defenses and get more Israelis killed. Withdrawing from part of the Golan would build the precedent for asking Israel for land. That may be its true purpose, long a State Dept. goal. Abbas is weak as a leader. Lebanon is kept weak, because UNIFIL blocks Israel from destroying Hizbullah. The US should stop supporting doomed leaders who do more harm than good. That is, Abbas is a terrorist and Lebanon's Siniora is part of the jihad against Israel. Let the US strengthen its ally, Israel, instead, and let it do for Hizbullah. MEDIA BIAS A U.S. Senator condemned Fox News for conservative bias. Someone else accused it of omitting statements opposing a US attack on Iran's nuclear plants. In the news briefs, neither substantiated his claim. The Senator called upon the media not to follow the government's lead on war policy. I would call upon the media to present facts, opinions from more than one side, and to substantiate claims. It should neither oppose nor support the government because it is the government. Let it keep editorializing separate from reporting. The Senator seems to have forgotten something. Until fairly recently, CNN was the main channel for foreign news. It was notoriously biased in favor of the Arabs and against Israel. We used to lament its examples. Into that vacuum for objective news was born the foreign reporting of Fox. Fox took away much of CNN's audience. Faced with that competition, CNN noticeably but reduced it bias in reporting. Competition proved healthy. The Senator should be as concerned about liberal bias as he is about conservative bias. Or is he biased? BUSH CONFERS TOO MUCH WITH EUROPEANS One of Barry Chamish's investigative skills is to follow world leaders' itineraries until their plotting becomes apparent. The leaders of the Vatican, US, Spain, Israel, the P.A., and Norway meet very often. Considering that they all, including the corrupted Israelis, make demands only of Israel, obviously they are plotting to divide Israel for the benefit of the Arabs and the Vatican. Who says Bush doesn't work closely with the Europeans! Too close, to suit me. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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JERUSALEM CANAL WHERE JEWS HID FROM ROMAN LEGIONS FOUND
Posted by Avodah, September 9, 2007. |
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This was written by Gil Ronen and it appeared in Arutz-Sheva
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(IsraelNN.com) The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Sunday that it found the site which served as a backdrop for a famous scene in one of the great tragedies of Jewish history: the Great Rebellion against Rome which culminated in the destruction of the Temple. The Authority has uncovered a 70 meter long section of Jerusalem's main drainage duct. It was inside this drainage duct that Jerusalem's Jewish inhabitants hid from the Roman invaders when they sacked Jerusalem, according to historian (and Jewish turncoat) Josephus Flavius. Jerusalem was conquered by Roman general Titus Flavius in the year 70 CE, after a prolonged siege. Unable to breach the city's defenses, the Roman armies dug a trench around the city's walls, and built another wall around that trench. Anyone caught attempting to flee the city was be captured and crucified. Tens of thousands of crucified bodies encircled Jerusalem by the end of the siege. Throughout the siege, many of the Jewish warriors' family members hid out in a drainage canal that carried rainwater from the Temple Mount to the Pool of Shiloach (Siloam, or Silwan). This is the duct that has been exposed by archaeologists. When the city fell, some of the Jews hiding in the duct managed to escape through its southern section. Liberty or Death By the summer of 70, the Romans had breached Jerusalem's walls, ransacking and burning nearly the entire city. Contemporary historian Tacitus notes that those who were besieged in Jerusalem numbered more than six hundred thousand, and that men and women alike and Jews of all ages engaged in armed resistance, preferring death to a life that involved expulsion from their country. Dig directors Professors Roni Reich of Haifa University and Eli Shukrun of the Antiquities Authority said that over the past 1,937 years, the valley which Jerusalem's main road was in, and the famous canal beneath it, was covered by a ten meter deep layer of sediment. Only after digging through this dirt were the ancient ruins exposed. The canal, they told reporters Sunday, is made of hewn rock and pavement stones. It is three meters high and one meter wide in parts, and walking through it is easy. Pottery, parts of clay vessels and coins from the Second Temple period were discovered in it.The northern segment of the canal, which has yet to be uncovered, apparently reaches the Kotel area.
It should be noted that while Josephus' accounts are the most detailed source for information regarding the Great Rebellion, the degree of their historical accuracy is a matter of dispute.
Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com
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IDF KIDNAPS HAMAS LEADER RESPONSIBLE FOR KIDNAPPING OF THREE ISRAELI SOLDIERS!
Posted by Resa Kirkland, September 9, 2007. |
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GO IDF GO! About damned time! Palestinians report Israeli troops disguised as members of Hamas' security force kidnapped Muhawesh al-Kadi, senior member of group's military wing in Rafah. Sources say man involved in abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. This was written by Ali Waked and it was published yesterday in Israel News. |
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A group of undercover Israeli soldiers disguised as Arabs on Friday kidnapped a senior Hamas member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, near the Rafah crossing in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians sources told Hamas' website. Palestinian sources told Ynet Armed Hamas security forces beat protestors and journalists in bid to head off attempts by Fatah supporters to gather and pray together The sources said that the undercover soldiers entered the Gaza Strip, and carried out their operation near the Rafah Crossing. According to the sources, the undercover soldiers were disguised as grocers riding a donkey-pulled wagon. Sources said they disguised force even chatted with locals near the crossing. According to the report, the undercover soldiers approached a plot of land belonging to Muhawesh al-Kadi, a senior Hamas official who acts as spokesman of the organization's special security forces in Rafah. Al-Kadi was working his land when the disguised force approached and kidnapped him. The Palestinian sources reported that the operation went quickly and smoothly. The undercover force left Rafah with al-Kadi, and brought him to Israel. According to the report, the operation was carried out about 2 kilometers from the security fence, in an area where a large number of Hamas gunmen are stationed. Hamas officials confirmed that this was one of the Israelis' most daring acts and that troops disguised as Arabs had not entered so deep into the Strip for a long time. At first, Hamas officials believed that al-Kadi was kidnapped by Fatah members on the backdrop of Friday's clashes in the Strip, and ruled out the possibility that it was an Israeli operation due to the distance from the fence and the boosted presence of Hamas gunmen in the area. Hamas even considered launching an attack on Fatah members, but an inquiry in the area revealed that the man was kidnapped by an Israeli force that left toward Kerem Shalom, where it was guarded by two helicopters. The IDF's Spokesperson's Office did not respond to the report. Resa LaRu Kirkland is Columnist/Writer/Speaker/Military Historian/The Anti-Feminist! Visit her website at http://www.warchick.com Contact her at resalart@gmail.com |
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TROUBLE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 9, 2007. |
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It's difficult to know where to begin. In my last report I indicated that matters had cooled just slightly with regard to Syria and our alleged invasion of their airspace. But now that seems to not be the case after all. Yesterday, the Syrian Vice President, Farouk al-Shara, while in Italy, provided an interview for La Republica, in which he indicated that "the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming." Today there have been unconfirmed rumors of a partial mobilization of reserves in Syria, which, if true, may or may not be connected to the incident with the planes. Meanwhile, Turkey is making inquiries of Israel with regard to fuel tanks dropped at its border with Syria. These, presumably, would be what the Syrians referred to as "munitions," but the tanks bear no Israeli identity. And while there has been inquiry, there has been no formal protest by Turkey. And so, this all gets curiouser and curiouser. No information is forthcoming from the government, which refuses to acknowledge or deny that Israeli planes were in Syrian airspace. The only breach in the silence was from Israeli Minister Ghaleb Majadle, minister of culture and sports, who told an Arab newspaper in Nazareth on Friday that Israeli planes enter Syrian all space all of the time and this would not start a war. (He was then advised to refrain from further comment.) Did Israel do something risky? Was this something routine that the Syrians are using to foment tensions or justify attack? Have no answers. ~~~~~~~~~~ As to what hit the news at the end of last week regarding the offer made by Ramon to Fayyad: It makes no sense with regard to the rights and the security of Israel, and is nothing short of obscene. On every issue except "return of refugees" -- which no government here could accede to -- the government seems to be caving. Remember that famous (or infamous) letter given by Bush to Sharon before the "disengagement"? Sharon kept insisting that Bush was guaranteeing our right to retain major settlement blocs. There were those of us who didn't believe it. We were correct. The push from the US is to get us to accede to a plan that pushes us back to the Green Line. And so, because the government is making a bid to retain 3% -- 8% of the land beyond the Green Line, where some major settlements are (with other major settlements projected to be dismantled), the government -- according to what Ramon proposed -- would also offer land WITHIN the Green Line to the Palestinians to compensate. As if we have no right to anything beyond the Green Line. The Green Line was a temporary armistice line never intended to be permanent. In fact, the armistice agreement signed with Jordan in 1949 specifically says that the armistice line is not to prejudice subsequent talks on final borders. Additionally, Resolution 242 in 1967 indicated that there should be withdrawal from lands taken, but not from ALL lands taken. The understanding was that we had a right to secure borders and that the Green Line (which Abba Eban called the "Auschwitz Border") was not a secure border for us. World opinion not withstanding, Judea and Samaria is NOT Palestinian land. It is land that has no legally defined ownership -- unclaimed land from the period of the Mandate. And, it should be noted, Israel's claim to this land -- because of the Mandate and because it was taken by Israel in a defensive war -- is stronger than the Palestinian claim. And yet, our government is playing along. The US wants to make the so-called "moderate" Arab states happy, and this is what is being demanded. ~~~~~~~~~~ With this, it should be noted (for the millionth time, and I'll note it for the billionth time if necessary) that the Palestinians don't have their act together. They are a terrorist entity without a civil infrastructure. Thus, even if (and I don't buy that "if") the Palestinians were entitled to a state, they wouldn't be entitled to it now. No government in its right mind accedes power to a terrorist entity at its border that is sworn to destroy it. I'm speaking about Fatah here. Their charter calls for Israel's destruction. This is without considering Hamas strength in Judea and Samaria -- with its 80,000 guns and plans to take over. And yet our government, which is NOT in its right mind, is offering the PA territory and ultimately establishment of what would be a terrorist state. There is a very dangerous game being played here. Olmert and company are alluding to this offer as only a "political horizon" -- offered in order to motivate the Palestinians to moderate and get their act together. Ostensibly, unless the PA came through on its part of the deal, we would have no obligations. Sounds good, but it is not realistic. It has been shown again and again that the world cuts the Palestinians slack. Once we commit to something, we would be pushed into giving it, even if Fatah didn't get its act together. Take a look at the Oslo process if you doubt this: Arafat never came through on any commitment and we kept doing more and more. We are being warned by some very savvy analysts that we're going to be walking into a serious trap when we attend that conference. Olmert and Ramon have already shown they themselves don't take seriously the need for the PA to deliver before receiving anything from us. Ramon has offered that "good faith" gesture. He says as soon as a deal is signed -- BEFORE the PA has delivered on anything -- we'll turn over three Arab neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem to them. Does it get any crazier? To divide Jerusalem and put terrorists in charge of part of our city? To give it to a weak/terrorist-affiliated Abbas, who might be co-opted by Hamas? ~~~~~~~~~~ On this subject, I provide a link to an article "We've been warned," by Elyakim Haetzni, an attorney and former MK living in Kiryat Arba. It needs to be read.
~~~~~~~~~~ There is a major anti-terrorism conference in Herzliya at present. Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, in remarks at the conference opening last night, said: "Now is not the time to discuss a permanent agreement with the Palestinians. After the [Hamas takeover] in Gaza, it's inappropriate to talk of a permanent agreement. The basic precondition for talks on a permanent agreement is a partner in these talks whom we know is solidly grounded. "There isn't a chance to have a comprehensive permanent agreement under the existing conditions and anyone who thinks it's the way to go needs to open their eyes and stop dreaming." When asked about what steps he thinks should be taken to strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, he responded that "we don't need to think about how to mold them. We need to think of how to mold ourselves." Well, mazel tov! Dichter told the Post that the PA is surviving in Judea and Samaria because of IDF actions there. If the PA turns a blind eye to terrorist activities, he concluded, they could lose Judea and Samaria as they lost Gaza. But, at the end of the day, Dichter is part of Kadima, and so, in spite of the clear-eyed vision he has on much of this issue, he slips at the end. When asked about Olmert-Abbas talks, which continue in spite of all he has described, he explained: "What is happening now is not a final status agreement but rather a temporary agreement. It is conditioned on processes that need to be carried out in the West Bank." And I'm saying not to buy this: A so-called "temporary agreement" spells trouble. Once we commit, we'll be seen as tied into certain arrangements. ~~~~~~~~~~ And here's the trap: According to the Post, "PA Prime Minister Fayyad has just made a statement that the conference in November must produce an 'explicit agreement on the establishment of a Palestinian state,' as well as a binding timetable and international guarantees for the completion of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. " Get us to agree to certain things, tie us to a "binding" timetable (binding = binding on us, not dependent on PA actions), and get international commitments so that there is plenty of pressure on us to follow through. ~~~~~~~~~~ Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa in Italy (most certainly for the same conference that brought the Syrian Vice President there) has, according to YNet, made a statement regarding the peace negotiations and the November conference. Everything can be on the table, he says, but the evacuation by Israel of the settlements must come first, i.e., before negotiations on the other issues in November. If this is accurate, then it occurs to me that it creates what may be the necessary stumbling block. Even Olmert's government cannot evacuate the settlements by November. This has happened before: Israel offers concessions that are enormous, but they turn out to not be enough for the Arabs, who want it all. And, expecting to get it all, they get nothing. ~~~~~~~~~~ Abbas is due here in Jerusalem tomorrow to meet with Olmert again. Abbas associates say he will raise the issues of Jerusalem, refugees and borders. Olmert's spokeswoman said the "political horizon" would be discussed, along with economic and security issues. This is comes ahead of a planned visit by Condoleezza Rice, who is due here next week. At the end of September the Quartet is to meet in Washington with members of the Arab League. ~~~~~~~~~~ Reports surfaced last week from Palestinian sources that members of the IDF working inside Gaza and disguised as Arabs captured Muhawesh al-Kadi, a senior Hamas terrorist directly involved with the Shalit kidnapping. Reportedly, they were then picked up by an IDF helicopter. The IDF has denied the story. ~~~~~~~~~~ Last Thursday, the IDF and Shin Bet caught terrorists trying to smuggle a car bomb and several suicide bombers into Israel at the Kissufim crossing in central Gaza. Security forces intercepted the car, and blew it up, killing the seven terrorists who were inside. Today, a Palestinian youth was caught at the Beit Iba checkpoint, near Nablus (Shechem), with three pipe bombs that were going to be used in a terror attack in Tel Aviv. Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet (Israeli Security) is reporting that terror groups in Judea and Samaria are increasing their attempts to carry out terror attacks. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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IN REMEMBRANCE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 9, 2007. |
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As I was writing an article Friday entitled: "ISRAEL NEEDS A CHANGE OF VENUE", I had to go into the dark storage places of my mind, with respect to the world's nations treatment of us Jews. I also started to probe my actual files about the pure horror we experienced down through the ages. It is difficult to lead a sane life when, in a second, I find myself holding a child's soft hand as we go into the gas chambers. While forgetting maintains sanity, I often drift into the reality of what nations, their people and the Church did to us. I will never forget, nor forgive -- praying daily that G-d will deliver retribution across the face of this planet for what they have done to us. I have not forgotten what those of us who are UN-Jews have done against their own people. Regrettably, the political leaders of Israel have assigned Israeli Police and soldiers when massive force is necessary to drive Jews out of their own legal homes. You saw this happening on International TV as Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert used massive force to drive the Jews of Gush Katif/Gaza from their homes, farms, factories and synagogues. For this evil, Sharon has started his own journey to an agonizing hell for all eternity. Hopefully, Olmert and his collaborators will follow soon. Few of the promises of re-settlement were kept by this Israeli Government. The years have gone by and still the Government of Olmert has kept those Jews wandering -- without homes, without jobs, without their farms. Now, as we and other writers had predicted, Gaza has become a fire base for Muslim Arab Palestinian terrorists. Europe had produced more than its share of Jew-hating monsters whose creativity for torture matched or exceeded what the world calls "the Devil". Most came out of the Church themselves driven by small devils of their worship for a Jewish man whom they never knew or understood. The Church adopted a Jew for their deity but, hated both the Jew and the G-d that did not choose them for His Covenant. I have often wondered if Christians or Muslims really believed that, if they showed up at their respective Heavens with the head of a Jew they killed, they would be allowed in? In the coming Inquisition of judgement, driven by Bush, Rice, Baker, no doubt, the Church, exercising its considerable influence and power will be hovering like a terrible specter, demanding its lion's share of Jerusalem. One recalls not only the teachings of murder and torture but, the ongoing conspiracy of the Church to assisting German mass murderers escaping to places like Argentina, Uruguay with the Red Cross dancing attendance by supplying visas and passports to the most hideous war criminals the world has ever known. Regrettably, there are not enough pages to cover the world's pursuit of Jews who dared to bring the world a single G-d who displaced the pagan priest cults and their doctrine of human sacrifice. While the nations may forgive themselves and plant grass over the bones of their grisly endeavor, nothing will forgive them. From the continent of Europe to the legislative chambers of England and America (Parliament and Congress), all had a bloody hand in a massacre that has marked this planet Earth as a place of murder and the attempted extinction of a whole people because of their religion. That message has reached the furthermost reaches of our universe beyond the stars, beyond the galaxies. Earth has become known as a killer planet. To bring it within the scope of human grasp, think of a bunker in Auschwitz which could contain up to 800 Jews. The steel doors were slammed shut and the Germans dropped Zyklon B Gas pellets into the chambers. For 20 minutes the Jews choked and clawed the walls in a frenzy as they died with blood flowing out of every orifice. This was the German people exercising their Christian-driven hatred. The corpses were then moved onto the Krupp Cremation ovens. Forget? Forgive? There is none and I await with impatience for retribution against the nations who spilled Jewish blood. 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@gwinston.interaccess.com |
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ACCEPTING THE LIES OF POST-ZIONIST REVISIONISTS
Posted by Israel Academia Monitor, September 9, 2007. |
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This was written by Herbert London and it appeared August 29, 2007
in the Jewish Press
Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of "Decade of Denial" (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). |
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The revisionists are still hard at work in their attempts to recast the history of Israel's birth. Without fanfare the Israeli Education Ministry has approved a textbook for Arab third graders in Israel that concedes the war that gave birth to Israel was a form of ethnic cleansing. Textbooks for Israeli children make no such claim. But Israel's revisionists maintain "new evidence" warrants a reconsideration of the past. Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian at Haifa University, argues Israel was born with lands forcibly seized from Arab inhabitants, which he describes as ethnic cleansing. What Pappe overlooks is that the UN partition of Palestine created two states, one Arab-Tranjordan and one Jewish-Israel. Jews had a history of living in the region for millennia. In fact as early as 1853 there were more Jews living in Jerusalem than Arabs. When the Arab armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq declared war against the nascent state of Israel, the Mufti of Jerusalem and other Arab leaders told the residents of Palestine to leave as a precondition for war. The understanding was these people would return when the Jewish state was defeated. Of course, that didn't happen. While Pappe contends Israel comprises 90 percent of Palestine "surrounded by electric fences and visible and invisible walls," he overlooks the fact that the Palestinian Authority controls the West Bank, Hamas controls Gaza and the nation of Jordan is intact as an Arab haven. This tiny sliver of land called Israel has been transmogrified into the presumptive enemy of more than two-dozen Arab states. It is as if the entire East Coast of the United States were to declare war on New Jersey. Moreover, the Palestinian claim of a right to return is yet another example of historical revisionism designed to redress the supposed wrongs of the past through the outright destruction of Israel. As any analyst of the region knows, approving of Arab historical claims leads ineluctably to the demographic overhauling of Israel as a Jewish state. That an Israeli professor makes these assertions is not surprising. Israeli universities suffer from the same left-wing contagion one finds in American institutions of higher education. It is also the case that Israel permits, indeed encourages, open debate. Where in the Arab world is this possible? Presumably an elusive yet truthful account of Israel and the Palestinian territory can be the anchor on which a negotiated peace may rely. But progagandists in Israel and the Palestinian side have something else in mind: an incensed Arab population that relies on resentment as the basis for the adjudication of issues. Perhaps that explains why -- sixty years after the UN declaration forming the state of Israel -- Arab states refuse to recognize the Jewish nation. It explains why Arafat and his successors have refused to negotiate in good faith calling for what in essence is a Palestinian state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. In May 1948, survivors of Hitler's concentration camps and Jews who had lived in Palestine% for generations joined together to herald the dawning of a new era. But their vision of peace was eroded by Arab resentment. It is always possible to rewrite history based on new interpretations of the past. A snippet of evidence can alter perspectives and truth is an elusive muse. There is, of course, some justification for the claim some Arabs were victims, but there must be a moment when resentment is converted into realism, when the demons in the collective Arab soul are purged, when Israel is accepted as a state and hostility is converted into stability. But none of this can occur as long as propagandists roil the waves of history and provide ammunition for the warriors of a new final solution. Contact Israel Academia Monitor at email@israel-academia-monitor.com |
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WORSE IS INFINITELY BETTER
Posted by Boris Celser, September 9, 2007. |
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These are comments I made in response to Sarah Honig's article, which
is printed below. Her column appeared September 6, 2007 in the
Jerusalem Post
Mockingbirds imitate almost precisely the notes of other birds. The latter are vultures and birds of pray -- some Jews, Arabs, UN, EU, or the USA. The role of the Israeli leadership is to imitate their call for destruction, as if by doing so they could look like them and be spared. In his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program, Shimon Peres's beloved Karl Marx said: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". The Israeli government and courts apply it to the hilt. The Israeli Arabs have enormous needs, including the destruction of Israel. Their ability to make improvements of their own is nil, because the State does it for them. Why collect taxes if one can have the enemy providing free fish, as opposed to teaching them how to fish? The megalomaniac Peres will use his powers to grant pardons to go even further than Marx. Peres acknowledges the terrorists' needs to kill Jews, as well as their ability to do so. Hence they must go free. The TM is typical. Mockingbird after mockingbird acted as the couple in the story of Anne of Green Gables: the couple was mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of a boy, yet decided to keep her. No Temple to be found? Let's keep the mosques and the hell with the destruction going on. Can the IDF wake up and kill the mockingbirds? More importantly, should they do so? Well, the US had its civil war, and is a superpower. So were the Soviets after getting rid of the Czar. The British hanged a few kings and did well. The French guillotined a few kings and are a strong nation, in spite of being French. Had Israel not been destroyed 2,000 years ago, it would not have been democratic throughout. The time has come to do what it needs to be done. 60 years is to long for a pseudo-democracy to remain so unscathed. It is too dangerous to wait for it to collapse from the inside. Note to Sarah's parole officer: the opinions here are all mine, and I trust it is not a crime if she agrees with me, is it? |
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Deep inside -- even if our incorrigibly liberal souls prohibit us from admitting it -- most of us know the score. We know that Israel's own Arab population identifies with this country's genocidal foes, and that given a smidgen of an opportunity, it would avidly join forces with them to destroy us. Exceptional moderates may marginally exist but they're few, decreasing in number and beset by radicals all around them -- by whom they are routinely intimidated, who continually brainwash their children and who customarily practice the worse-is-better maxim to the max. Examples abound. The most innocuous revolve around the reluctance of Arab local authorities to collect municipal taxes. Indulgent officials thereby automatically garner instant popularity. No one likes the revenuer and, when wrapped in a nationalistic/Islamic ideology, this antipathy becomes irresistible. The notion of not paying what the "Zionist system" requires -- and then demanding that reviled Jewish taxpayers foot the bills for Arab tax dodgers -- makes sense to those who preach incessantly that Israel is illegitimate, that its very existence is an injustice, that its birth was a nakba, a catastrophe Arabs brazenly equate with the Holocaust (in which they quite enthusiastically collaborated under the leadership of their still-revered then-head honcho Haj Amin el-Husseini. He spent WWII as Hitler's personal guest in Berlin, making sure no Jew escaped extermination). Not playing along and not paying is low-key rebellion. Not only don't some citizens contribute to the system, but they additionally practice inconspicuous sabotage by squeezing all they can out of it. Any incremental debilitation of the abhorred Zionists counts, no matter how ostensibly small. The upshot is that Israeli Arabs cut off their noses to spite their faces. Without their own income, Arab municipalities are bound to fail. Going broke and then expecting the government to bail them out is their calculated policy. But inter alia, schools get into a shoddy state, sewage and garbage aren't disposed of properly, sanitation is appalling, city employees are unpaid and the Jew next door -- though taxed to his eyeballs -- is eyed resentfully (despite the fact that the ultra-luxurious villas that fill Arab localities would make the Jewish population green with envy). Lavish indoors and sumptuous private spaces contrast with squalid outdoors and derelict public spaces in Israel's Arab sector. The very Arab politicians who deliberately prevent progress inevitably seize upon self-inflicted dilapidation as evidence of discrimination. In the worse-is-infinitely-better tradition, the more they convince their electorate that they're wronged, the more votes Arab candidates rake in. The greater the instability, the more profit they reap -- both in real and propaganda terms. HENCE, AT the outset of each new school-year, we're treated to a rerun of an annual pageant. Each September the Arab sector threatens to keep schools shut to protest alleged inequity. Each September it's incumbent upon Jews to consider themselves blameworthy. The Hebrew media sympathetically resonate and amplify Arab misinformation. This cant has concomitantly become the trendy patter among some Jewish political parties, fishing for Arab votes in devil-may-care disregard of the terrifying bottom-line consequences. Short-term benefit outweighs long-term responsibility. Even our children are taught to feel guilty. Political correctness ad absurdum is imposed on public-school curricula. A few years ago, when my daughter started another high-school term, her history teacher waxed melodramatic about the "poor Arab children who cannot begin their studies today." She then had each pupil expound on what he/she wishes his/her Arab counterparts. The chorus of honeyed cliches appeared unanimous; the kids sensed what their teacher expected. My daughter, however, was thrown unceremoniously out of class because she dared heretically wish Israeli-Arabs "exactly what they wish me." When these same Arab teen-counterparts rioted in October 2000, pulling Jewish drivers from their vehicles and viciously beating them, my daughter's principal gathered his impressionable charges and launched into a long speech justifying Arab wrath as prejudice-spawned. His clueless audience had little option but to take his words at face value. Such is the merciless left-wing indoctrination to which our largely helpless society is unremittingly subjected. Arabs, even if more affluent than ourselves, are regarded as the underdogs we oppress by just daring to breathe here. We owe them -- a priori, without examination or critical thought. That's why President Shimon Peres averted the ritual school closure by blithely promising beefed-up education budgets to the very Arab mayors who single-mindedly neglect their schools. That's also why he reduced the sentences of 14-year-old Danny Katz's five murderers (two of whom also raped and murdered 19-year-old Daphna Carmon). So what if their convictions were upheld in numerous appeals, a retrial and exhaustive Supreme Court reviews? This is no trifling detail. It's the very Supreme Court which unfailingly sides with Arab litigants like Adel Ka'adan, who insisted on relocating to Jewish National Fund land purchased specifically for Jewish settlement with donations made for over a century by often-penniless idealistic Jews the world over. Ka'adan's campaign was vehemently supported by the head of the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch, Raed Sallah, who seditiously provokes violence and sponsors the devastation of Jewish antiquities on the Temple Mount. But Ka'adan spoke softly, only claiming his "due," like the Arab school administrators. He fooled lots of people, though in November 2000, in an interview with California's prestigious Salon.com Web site, he called Israel a "Nazi country" with an "apartheid system... a racist militaristic country that takes away people's rights." He garnished his pronouncements with what the correspondent described as "an anti-Semitic diatribe against Jews who plague the world 'like a cancer.'" Malignancy must be excised, but neither our president nor justices nor teachers allow such bothersome incidentals to interfere with their uber-enlightened agenda of Jewish culpability. Contact Boris Celser at celser@telusplanet.net |
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SAUDI INTELLECTUALS PREPPED TO TEACH US HOW LOVABLE THE SAUDIS REALLY ARE
Posted by Ali Alyami, September 9, 2007. |
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At the heart of the deadly threat to Israel, the Middle East and the world are the Saudi money, oil and Saudi extremist religous institutions which are concieved, nurtutred and paid for by petrodollars that could be used to invest in human development, tolerant institutions and public particpation in the decison-making processes. All enlightend, democratic and visionary people who care about the Middle East and the world should work and support each other to transform Saudi Arabia before it's too late. The Saudis are embarking on a huge project (see below) to blame the Jews and Israel and people like me for distorting their tarnished image. No one could do more distruction to the House of Saud than itself. Rligious fatwas to kill the infidels, jews and christians, suicide bombers and religous incitments against non-Muslims must be stoped and Saudi Arabia is the place to start. This is called "Saudi intellectuals move to confront smear campaign"
It comes from P.K. Abdul Ghafour of Arab News
Thanks,
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JEDDAH, 9 September 2007 -- Seventy-three researchers from the Arab world, the United States, Europe, Russia and Japan are working to publish books under a Saudi-financed international project aimed at removing misconceptions about Islam and the Kingdom. "The project will be launched shortly with the publication of eight books," said Mohammed ibn Saud Al-Bishr, head of the scientific team for the project. He said the project was initiated by a group of Saudi intellectuals to confront smear campaigns against Islam and Saudi Arabia. "Most of the writings and talks about Saudi Arabia and Islam are not based on facts and lacked objectivity and integrity," he said. He said the books would be launched in Riyadh, London and Paris in order to achieve maximum publicity. It will be accompanied by seminars attended by Saudi and foreign intellectuals and academics. The eight books are: "Address to the West: Views from Saudi Arabia"; "Saudis and Terrorism: A Global View"; "Social Reform: the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia"; "Women in Saudi Arabia"; "Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) Presents His Brother Christ to Humanity"; "Saudi Political System: A Legal View"; "Saudi Arabia in the Eyes of a Diplomat's Wife"; and "Hundred Questions about the Kingdom". Crown Prince Sultan recently donated SR5.6 million to the project that aims at removing stereotypes among Westerners about sensitive religious issues like the wearing of the hijab. There have been strident campaigns against Islam and Saudi Arabia following the 9/11 attacks. "We have a team of 73 researchers working on the project, coming from all over the world. We will definitely be able to make a big impact on Western public opinion," said Al-Bishr. He said the project was also aimed at presenting Saudi Arabia's viewpoints on various contemporary issues and highlight its moderate foreign and domestic policies. "It will definitely give convincing answers in order to correct political and religious misunderstanding," he said. The issue of Women in Saudi Arabia needed special focus as the Western media gave a wrong impression about status of women in the Kingdom. Some have gone to the extent of saying that Islam is an obstacle for the progress of women in the Islamic world in general and Saudi Arabia in particular. "In the backdrop of these smear campaigns, our book tries to clarify the true position of women in Saudi Arabia by presenting the views of Saudi women," Al-Bishr said. The project, he said, aims at promoting constructive dialogue with the West and clarify some obscure points. All the phases of the project will be completed by next summer, he pointed out. Contact Ali Alyami at ali@cdhr.info |
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THE JEWS WHOM THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT REFUSES
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), September 9, 2007. |
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This comes from Arutz Sheva
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Instead of helping these modest and proud Jews who are looking for our traditions and who ALL UNDERGO ORTHODOX CONVERTION, and in front of whom the ANTI-RELIGIOUS so-called "Jewish Agency" PUTS ALL SORTS OF OBSTACLES (contrary, for example, to what happened to the Ethiopian Falashmura X-tian missionaries, helped to move to Isreal by the hundreds in spite of the protests by Ethiopian Jews) just as it tries to obstruct even the immigration of American Jews by stopping all cooperation with Nefesh B'Nefesh (those who come are apparently not the kind they like at the Sochnuth, for whom being Jewish is just bagels, lox and cream cheese and a Jewish grandfather from father's side!) after Nefesh B'Nefesh helped coming back to Israel on Aliyah over TEN THOUSAND JEWS in the last five years... ...Instead, with their perverted logic, the so-called "Jewish
Agency" and the Israeli Government keep on looking all over hunt for
1/30 Jews among the unemployed blond-blue eyed antisemites of
Central-Eastern Europe, and give a posthumous victory to Hitler, is"u,
by accepting, with a perverse logic, the Nuremberg Laws (or even
worse, since they allow to immigrate -- A CASE I KNOW PERSONALLY -- even
someone whose ex-husband's grandfather was Jewish ) INSTEAD OF JEWISH
LAW (those born of a Jewish MOTHER or who converted ACCORDING TO
JEWISH LAW, THAT IS ACCEPTING ALL OF THE MITSWOTH) to define who is
Jewish and has the automatic right to come back home to Erets
Israel... They prefer to import 1/2 million fully gentile Russian,
Ukrainian, Lithuanians and various Cossacks, whose NON JEWISH children
hang around with large crosses on their necks, drink rivers of vodka,
behave in the most UN-JEWISH and whorish of ways, and further corrupt
our youth already spoiled by the Israeli Governments' non Jewish and
anti-Torah ideologies, and even found NEO-NAZI GROUPS...
Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. |
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ISLAM: "OUR FOLLOWERS 'MUST LIVE IN PEACE UNTIL STRONG ENOUGH TO WAGE JIHAD'"
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 9, 2007. |
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To read between the reality lines;
Justice Muhammad Taqi Usmani says:
"Our followers 'must live in peace until strong enough to wage jihad'" A Trojan Horse... In this way all Muslims are sleeper cells.
Then the LEFT needs to wake up now, and better read the writing on the wall ... The millions of Muslims anywhere are not really immigrants then, but an advance party of colonizers. It is then not very possible, that this explains all the "peaceful" Muslims, they are just lying and waiting like the Quran says to do... ?? This is what Islam (Muslims) call a Hudna... Reminds one of a favorite Bob Dylan lyric: "They smile at your face but behind your back they hiss." For news on how this ties in with the sermon -- see this:
Statements like this from Islamic top scholars, fly in the face of common sense -- REGARDLESS of your faith -- and should not be acceptable to anyone with even half a brain.
Remember!
This is from
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"Our followers 'must live in peace until strong enough to wage jihad'" "His views explode the myth that the creed of offensive, expansionist jihad represents a distortion of traditional Islamic thinking." Let's hope. More on yesterday's story about Deobandi control of almost half of the mosques in the United Kingdom, by Andrew Norfolk for the Times Online: One of the world's most respected Deobandi scholars believes that aggressive military jihad should be waged by Muslims "to establish the supremacy of Islam" worldwide. Justice Muhammad Taqi Usmani argues that Muslims should live peacefully in countries such as Britain, where they have the freedom to practise Islam, only until they gain enough power to engage in battle. His views explode the myth that the creed of offensive, expansionist jihad represents a distortion of traditional Islamic thinking. Mr Usmani, 64, sat for 20 years as a Sharia judge in Pakistan's Supreme Court. He is an adviser to several global financial institutions and a regular visitor to Britain. Polite and softly spoken, he revealed to The Times a detailed knowledge of world events and his words, for the most part, were balanced and considered. He agreed that it was wrong to suggest that the entire nonMuslim world was intent on destroying Islam. Yet this is a man who, in his published work, argues the case for Muslims to wage an expansionist war against nonMuslim lands. Mr Usmani's justification for aggressive military jihad as a means of establishing global Islamic supremacy is revealed at the climax of his book, Islam and Modernism. The work is a polemic against Islamic modernists who seek to convert the entire Koran into "a poetic and metaphorical book" because, he says, they have been bewitched by Western culture and ideology. Just one of many pro-jihad books one may find on the shelves of London bookstores. The final chapter delivers a rebuke to those who believe that only defensive jihad (fighting to defend a Muslim land that is under attack or occupation) is permissible in Islam. He refutes the suggestion that jihad is unlawful against a nonMuslim state that freely permits the preaching of Islam. For Mr Usmani, "the question is whether aggressive battle is by itself commendable or not". "If it is, why should the Muslims stop simply because territorial expansion in these days is regarded as bad? And if it is not commendable, but deplorable, why did Islam not stop it in the past?" He answers his own question thus: "Even in those days ... aggressive jihads were waged ... because it was truly commendable for establishing the grandeur of the religion of Allah." These words are not the product of a radical extremist. They come from the pen of one of the most acclaimed scholars in the Deobandi tradition. A new twist on an old excuse: Mr Usmani told The Times that Islam and Modernism was an English translation of his original Urdu book, "which at times gives a connotation different from the original". Posted by Marisol at September 8, 2007 6:31 AM Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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BOLTON: "SYRIA...MIGHT BE 'SAFE HAVENS'" FOR N. KOREA'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT"
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 9, 2007. |
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"We know that both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on
ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear
matters is not far-fetched. Whether and to what extent Iran, Syria or others
might be "safe havens" for North Korea's nuclear weapons development, or may
have already participated with or benefited from it, must be made clear. "
This is called "Axis Of Evil." and it was written by John R.
Bolton. It appeared August 31, 2007 in The Wall Street Journal Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the U.N. and Abroad," forthcoming this fall from Simon & Schuster. He is Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN. Pyongyang's Upper Hand Thanks to feckless diplomacy, Kim Jong Il may preserve his nuclear program. |
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The Six-Party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program have now descended into a miasma of "working groups," one of which, on U.S.-North Korea bilateral issues, will meet this weekend in Geneva. It is worth paying attention to the outcome of this gathering. North Korea wants to be taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and, as soon as possible, to enjoy full diplomatic relations with Washington. Pyongyang may well succeed, as many in the U.S. State Department seem more eager to grant full recognition to the Pyongyang dictatorship in North Korea than to the democracy in Taiwan. This would be a profound mistake on our part. Nearly 200 days have passed since Feb. 13, when the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program produced an "agreement" to eliminate that program. Despite encomiums about the virtues of diplomacy, little real progress has been made in eliminating Pyongyang's program. Negotiations in July ended without agreement on a timetable, despite repeated State Department assurances since February that the North would be held to strict deadlines. The Yongbyon reactor is shuttered, but that reactor was not frequently operational in the recent past, and may well be at the end of, or even beyond, its useful life. The return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to Yongbyon provides North Korea with a new patina of respectability, despite the near certainty that significant nuclear activity is happening anywhere but Yongbyon. In fact, the key change is that economic assistance is once again subsidizing and reinforcing Kim Jong Il's hold on power. Heavy fuel oil, food and other "humanitarian" assistance from South Korea, and substantial unpublicized aid from China are all flowing North. Cheeky Pyongyang is once again demanding that the outside world supply it with light-water nuclear reactors. The second North-South Summit in Pyongyang, postponed until October--closer to South Korea's presidential elections-- will provide renewed legitimacy to the North Korean dictatorship, and may bolster the political chances of South Korean advocates of appeasement, in turn providing Kim Jong Il even more breathing room. Kim is once again besting the U.S. in accomplishing his two central strategic objectives: staying in power and preserving his nuclear-weapons program. The working groups currently underway do nothing to achieve the proper ends of U.S. foreign policy. A few weeks ago in Shenyang, China, the "denuclearization" working group met without visible progress, even on permanently dismantling Yongbyon. There is still simply no evidence that Pyongyang has made a decision to abandon its long-held strategic objective to have a credible nuclear-weapons capability. This inconvenient fact should make it impossible for the State Department to concede on other issues, even if it were inclined to do so. Creative minds are therefore working on ways to explain that any forthcoming North Korean declaration of its nuclear capabilities is "full and complete," thus eliminating the remaining troubling obstacles to full normalization of relations. Consider a possible North Korean "declaration," perhaps drafted with State's coaching, which would say something like this: "We manufactured two nuclear devices, one of which we detonated last October. We detonated the other earlier, but you didn't recognize it as a nuclear explosion. We currently have no nuclear devices. Our plutonium reprocessing efforts were not very successful, which explains why we only had two devices, neither of which produced large yields. We ultimately disposed of our limited remaining plutonium to others, and we have no idea where it now is. We currently have no plutonium. On uranium enrichment, we purchased some UF6 and a small number of centrifuges for a test cascade from A.Q. Khan, but we could not progress due to inadequate funds. Accordingly, we long ago sold all but a small amount of the UF6 and the centrifuges to third-parties. We will produce what little we have at Yongbyon shortly. That's it. Are we done now?" Many will fall for this pretense of "full disclosure," especially those needing a diplomatic "success" to justify long years of faith in the Six-Party Talks. The alternative is to reject any North Korean declaration without full and timely verification. IAEA inspections alone are not enough. Its capacities are limited. Indeed, much of the IAEA's work is accomplished on the basis of intelligence provided by governments. Precisely because our knowledge of the North's nuclear program is incomplete, we need an intrusive, indeed invasive, verification mechanism before having any confidence that North Korea's nuclear program is in fact being dismantled. We need smart and extensive verification activities inside North Korea, including no-notice inspections, a full range of sensors and sampling, unrestricted interviews and document reviews. If the North rejects effective verification, that is yet another basis to repudiate the Feb. 13 quicksand deal. We need to know, among other things, precisely how many nuclear weapons the North has manufactured, how and where it manufactured them, how many it now has, and how much reprocessed plutonium remains available for weaponization. If any devices, fissile material or nuclear manufacturing equipment have left North Korea, we need to learn the specifics. We need to understand the full extent of its uranium enrichment program, and if weapons-grade enriched uranium was produced, where it is and how much there is of it. We also need to know specifically if North Korea possesses any enriched uranium metal or any weapons- or missile warhead-design information. President Bush has stressed that we must also deal with Pyongyang's biological, chemical and ballistic missile programs. We must address these programs, especially the missiles, soon. Failure to make explicit the important connection between weapons and delivery systems will certainly come back to haunt us, and we are on the verge of allowing this point to slip away entirely. Finally, we need to learn the details of North Korean nuclear cooperation with other countries. We know that both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched. Whether and to what extent Iran, Syria or others might be "safe havens" for North Korea's nuclear weapons development, or may have already participated with or benefited from it, must be made clear. For our own safety's sake, and that of allies like Japan and South Korea, there can be no compromises on these points.
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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SALAH CALLS ON ARABS TO DEPLOY 'DEMOGRAPHIC WEAPON'
Posted by Lemkin, September 9, 2007. |
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Babies or Bullets -- a certain reviled rabbi warned about this decades ago. |
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(IsraelNN.com) Ra'ed Salah, the Islamist preacher who has several times called for Israel's destruction, told 60,000 Arab supporters in Um el-Faham on Friday that Jerusalem would soon be "liberated" from Israel -- and that Israeli Arabs should use their growing demographic power to do something about Israel's control of the city. Salah urged his audience to "take action" to remove the Israelis from Jerusalem. "Are you satisfied that for forty years Jerusalem has been under occupation, while you are 20% of the population of this country? You are the infantry that must defend the Al-Aqsa mosque. The dangers to Al Aqsa will not disappear until the occupation ends," he said. Contact Lemkin at lemkin@gmail.com |
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SABBATICAL
Posted by David Frankfurter, September 9, 2007. |
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Dear Friends,
No, the title of this letter doesn't signal an intention to convert the sometimes long breaks between my letters into a year off. Rather, a reminder that this Wednesday night is Rosh Hashanah -- and the start of a sabbatical year. The seventh year in a cycle; a great equaliser when we remember that all we have is by the grace of G-d, and we "return" it to him, allowing fields to lie fallow, making the produce available for all to take -- rich or poor, and forgiving debts owed to us. With the re-emergence of the Jewish state, the sabbatical year is being progressively reinstated. A remarkable testament to the Jewish scholars who studied and kept alive the complex laws for centuries, believing that one day the prophesies would be fulfilled, with our people returning to their ancestral land. How ridiculous it must have seemed. Even the derisory Roman name "Palaestina" had stuck to the Holy Land. As if it was more likely that the extinct Philistine enemies of Israel would return than the Jews. As I prepared our small garden for the sabbatical year -- cutting and pruning in extra measure so that the plants won't grow too wild in the coming year -- I thought how lucky I was to be able to practice this ancient custom, and to be part of the fulfilment of prophesy. Wishing all my family and friends "Shana tova". May you be inscribed and sealed for a year of happiness, health and prosperity. A year of peace for all. David David Frankfurter is a business consultant, corporate executive
and writer who frequently comments on the Middle East.
To subscribe to his 'Letter from Israel', email him at
david.frankfurter@iname.com. Or go to
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THE NEW PALESTINE POST
Posted by Fern Sidman, September 8, 2007. |
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Once upon a time ago, we lived in a world where we were taught that the media was an instrument to disseminate news. To report the facts, check and re-check sources assiduously and maintain lofty levels of fairness, accuracy, objectivity and integrity. So much for utopian concepts and fairytales. One need only to look to The New York Times, the paper that boasts that it only runs "all the news that's fit to print", to get a better idea of a paradigm of journalistic opportunism, fueled by a left wing, liberal, vehemently secular political agenda that is embraced by the elitist community of academics and intellectuals. The views espoused in this "paper of record" are regarded by those who have assumed positions in the "politically correct" world as the only serious opinions that shape current political discourse. The New York Times does not stand alone as the mouthpiece of "politically correct" and disingenuous reporting. It is but a concept. There are many New York Times' ominously circulating on this planet. The Israeli version of such press is what is considered the "premiere" newspaper of the country, Haaretz (The Land). For decades it has promulgated a vociferously extreme left wing, Marxist-Leninist agenda, echoing the policies of Israel's Labor party. Despite this flagrant and brazen display of partisan politics, it was still considered a paper that embodied support for the country that it represented. Not so anymore. Enter Danny Rubinstein, a member of Haaretz's editorial board, a prominent columnist and Arab affairs editor. Rubinstein has now crossed the line from being a critic of Israeli policy to a staunch enemy of the state. Last week in Brussels, Belgium, Mr. Rubinstein took the podium at a United Nations sponsored conference on Palestinian rights and sanctimoniously declared to the world that "Israel is an apartheid state with different status for different communities".. He also stated that, "Hamas won the election of the international community and Israel cannot ignore that." He added that Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel each had "a different status," according to a summary of his speech by a United Nations web site. To get some idea of the atmosphere in which Rubinstein made these comments, it is imperative to understand why this conference was convened. This conference entitled, "International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestine Peace" is in actuality a platform for anti-Israel rhetoric by the United Nations Committee for Palestinian Rights. This committee was established by the UN General Assembly in 1975, the very same day that the world body adopted the infamous "Zionism is Racism" resolution. According to a JTA report, seven members of the European Parliament published a letter to the International Herald Tribune saying that, "despite the neutrally sounding title of its conference," it "has a proven record of anti-Israel bias, spreading propaganda that presents only the Palestinian narrative, including the delegitimization of Israel -- a UN member state." Susanna Kokkonen, political director of the European Coalition for Israel, which represents five Christian organizations and works closely with members of the European Parliament who advocate Israeli interests, said the two-day conference last week had "an atmosphere that was thick with hate towards Israel." "I was most shocked to hear an editor from Haaretz condemn Israel in a way that was worse than the Arab speakers," Kokonnen said. Among the haters of Israel who shared the podium were a virtual sea of Palestinian activists along with a delegation from Neturei Karta, who attendees welcomed with an ovation for their vehement opposition to Israel's existence and who participated in a highly publicized gathering of Holocaust deniers in Iran. Rubinstein's views were shared by British parliament member Clare Short, who reportedly said apartheid in Israel was worse than in South Africa. "Israel doesn't want a two-state solution, and the E.U. is allowing the state of apartheid to continue". Short told the attendees that "we have to start sanctions against Israel." Other speakers called for boycotts of Israel and observers said that during one workshop, Richard Kuper, spokesman for the London-based European Jews for a Just Peace, argued that Israel supporters emphasize the conflict in Darfur to direct attention away from Israel's human rights violations. Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva based UN Watch said, "It's disturbing that a leading Israeli journalist is participating with a Soviet-era enterprise whose sole aim is to assault Israel morally, legally and financially. But that he would full throatedly join the jackals and call Israel 'an apartheid state' is an outrage." Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Schwammenthal told the JTA he was so shocked by what he heard that he later confirmed the comment with Rubinstein. "I asked him if he really thought Israel was in a state of apartheid and he answered 'yes'" Schwammenthal said. Rubinstein's remarks prompted the British Zionist Federation, a 10,000 member pro-Israel body to cancel his scheduled appearance at the Federation's conference, "Israel at 60," which was held in London. The Federation's chairman, Andrew Balcombe said that "by using the word apartheid in a UN conference held at the European Parliament, Danny Rubinstein encourages the demonization of Israel and the Jewish people. I believe he was naive to attend the UN conference. Indeed his own newspaper Haaretz head earlier reported that Israeli and EU lawmakers had attacked the UN meeting for having a completely one-sided, anti-Israeli agenda." Not so, according to Rubinstein. "People do use the word apartheid in my circles. My newspaper increasingly uses that word. This is nothing new", Rubinstein told a crowd of 100 who attended a speech he gave at the New North London Synagogue. The talk at the London synagogue was organized by the left wing organization, New Israel Fund who claims to reject the use of the apartheid label but stress the need to defend "free speech." Rubinstein told the audience at the London synagogue that, "I only started using the word apartheid recently after reading Jimmy Carter's book, 'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid', though I didn't like the book." Rubinstein defiantly proclaimed to his listeners that "I am not apologizing for what I said. I have a professional responsibility to say what I think, and I won't change what I say or what I think depending on the place." Audience members said Rubinstein could not fathom why he should modify his positions for an audience abroad -- even one that includes anti-Zionists. Rubinstein's remarks do indeed reflect the editorial shift of Israel's "premiere" newspaper, Haaretz. By referring to Israel as an apartheid state, a bold and audacious lie and distortion of the facts, Rubinstein has served as the chief facilitator in the transformation of Haaretz from a paper that prides itself on direct confrontation with Israeli policies to one that is bent on its destruction. Rubinstein's vituperative has brought unbridled joy to the hearts of those in Baghdad, Teheran, Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, Riyadh and all over the world that hate Israel and have sworn her total eradication. One may wonder if Rubinstein is being paid off by lucrative sums of money from the Saudis, but alas, Rubinstein is an ideologue, not a mercenary. He doesn't need to be bribed to destroy Israel; he will be more than glad to offer his diatribes free of charge. And of his paper, Haaretz? It can now go about the process of changing its name from "The Land", meaning the land of Israel to the Palestine Post. Rubinstein's hateful and fraudulent labels of apartheid have permanently removed Haaretz from the Israeli political scene for all time. I'm sure Rubinstein and company from this newspaper can find other, more friendly accommodations in Gaza City Contact Fern Sidman at AriellaH@aol.com |
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HOMESH PROTESTERS SURVIVE THREE EVICTIONS IN TWO DAYS
Posted by Avodah, September 8, 2007. |
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This was a news item at Arutz Sheva
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(IsraelNN.com) Dozens of people who had spent Shabbat at Homesh were escorted off the grounds of the area about a half hour after the end of the holy day. That makes three -- clearly unsuccessful -- attempts by soldiers and police to clear the area of Jews within a 36 hour period. Many of those set to be evicted yet again managed to run into the hills to hide out 00 after which they will likely return to the Homesh site. "We are more stubborn than them, and those who were forced to leave have promised to return," a spokesman for Homesh First said. Forces attempted to remove the current residents of the hilltop right before Shabbat, but only managed to evict seven -- who had been planning to leave anyway and appreciated the ride back to Kedumim, residents said. Earlier Friday, a family, including three small children, were arrested in Homesh and removed. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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FORMER U.S. SEN. JAMES ABOUREZK ON HIZBULLAH TV
Posted by David Meir-Levi, September 7, 2007. |
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Here's a real eye-opener. From the former US Senator James Abourezk on al-Manar Hezbollah TV on August 30, 2007: Israel runs the US foreign policy.
Does it strike anyone as odd that a former US Senator would knowlingly and willingly spout almost every modern Arab anti-USA and anti-Israel propaganda lie, on TV? This below is from MEMRI (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. David Meir-Levi
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Special Dispatch -- U.S. and the Middle East September 7, 2007 No. 1708 Former U.S. Sen. James Abourezk on Hizbullah TV: The Arabs Involved in 9/11 Were Cooperating with the Zionists; People in America Don't Really Look at it That Deeply -- They Accept What the Government and the Press Are Saying To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
The following are excerpts from an interview with former U.S. senator James Abourezk (D-SD), which aired on Al-Manar TV on August 30, 2007. To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1551.htm. 'Yes, I Watch Al-Manar... in America' Interviewer: 'Mr. Abourezk, welcome to Al-Manar TV.' James Abourezk: 'Thank you very much.' Interviewer: 'It's good to have you.' James Abourezk: 'Yes, I watch Al-Manar on one of the cable channels in America.' Interviewer: 'Good, that's excellent. Especially [considering] the fact that Al-Manar TV was banned in the U.S. Does that really show something which is like shooting the freedom of expression?' James Abourezk: 'Well, freedom of expression is free for those whom the government likes. If they don't like them, freedom of expression goes out the window, apparently.' [...] James Abourezk: '...You heard in the press.' Interviewer: 'Now look what's happened in the case of Dr. Norman Finkelstein. It's something which is, you know...' James Abourezk: 'It's disastrous, disastrous. They've...' Interviewer: 'What happened to him?' Alan Dershowitz -- 'A Real Snake' James Abourezk: 'He lost his tenure bid. So he therefore is going to have to go somewhere else, and find a job teaching.' Interviewer: 'Why?' James Abourezk: 'Well, because they shot down his tenure. Even though his department was all for it, and the department heads were all for it, the president of that university shot it down.' Interviewer: 'It's just because he was not an advocate of Israel?' James Abourezk: 'No, because the lobby put pressure on him -- specifically, Alan Dershowitz. He's a real snake, I have to say that.' [...] Interviewer: 'You also called Hizbullah and Hamas 'resistance fighters." James Abourezk: 'They are.' Interviewer: 'While the U.S. administration brands them as 'terrorist organizations'...' James Abourezk: 'That was done at the request of Israel. That name was done at the request of Israel -- that the United States calls them terrorist organizations.' 'The Original Terrorists [in the Middle East] Were Headed by [Menahem] Begin' Interviewer: 'On the other hand, you also declared that the original terrorist groups in the Middle East were the Jewish terrorist groups. What is this based on?' James Abourezk: 'It's based on fact. In fact, the original terrorists were headed by Begin, who was the head of the Irgun, and by Shamir, another prime minister, who was the head of... one of the three members of the Stern gang's leadership. I used to know Natan Yellin-Mor, by the way, one of the three leaders of the Stern gang, and he became a peacenik. He wanted peace in the Middle East, and he would...' Interviewer: 'Stern being one of the gangs of... Israeli gangs...' James Abourezk: 'One of the terrorist groups, vicious terrorist groups. Natan Yellin-Mor became... He was one of the heads of the Stern gang. They had a three-part head, and he was one of them. But he became a peacenik. He wanted peace between the Arabs and the Israelis, and so they boycotted him, the Israelis. When he would come to Washington, nobody would talk to him. So he used to come to me, and I would make appointments for him.' Interviewer: 'But what made him change his mind?' James Abourezk: 'I don't really know. I think he saw the folly in what was going on. But you know... I mean... Look, anybody who knows anything about the history of Israel knows that Israel, by force of arms, stole all the territory in Palestine. There's no question about it. There's a new historian, Ilan Pappé, an Israeli historian, who's written an excellent book called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Yes, it's an excellent book, and it's history, and it's true history. But it tells how they had a plan to go in and kill and terrorize the Palestinians, to make them empty out Palestine, so they could take it over. That was a very vicious thing they did, and the more vicious thing is that now they call the Palestinians 'terrorists." Interviewer: 'Who are homeess in their own land...' James Abourezk: 'Absolutely, yes.' Interviewer: 'Here I need to ask you something, which is growing and escalating in the Western world, and particularly in the U.S., which is this immense wave of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment, lumping all Arabs together as 'terrorists.' This was clearly manifested in movies and TV series, like 24. Why? Why now? Is it just after 9/11?' 'The Arabs Who Were Involved in 9/11 Cooperated With the Zionists' James Abourezk: 'No, it's after the Soviet Union collapsed. The Zionists were looking around for another enemy to have, because to them the Soviet Union was an enemy because they wouldn't allow Jewish emigration. So they used that as an organizing tool, basically, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no more organizing about the Soviet Union. So they looked around, and they said: Well, the Muslims. Let's find the Arabs and the Muslims, and make them the boogeyman. And that's what they did.' Interviewer: 'But why did this sentiment of hatred increase after 9/11?' James Abourezk: 'Well, because the Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs. It's a racist sort of thing, really racist -- you know, picking out these 19 or 20 terrorists -- they were terrorists -- and saying all the Arabs are like them. So, you know, people in America don't really look at it that deeply, and they accept what the government and the press are saying.' [...] 'Israel... Wanted Syria Weakened Somehow, and to be Made an Enemy of the United States -- So They Got Their People in Congress to Pass the [Syria Accountability] Act' Interviewer: 'Since we are here now in Damascus, the capital of Syria -- how did you face this Syria Accountability Act, which most think is unfair? But as a former senator -- where does the injustice here, particularly in this act, lie?' James Abourezk: 'Well, the injustice is that because Israel... I'm telling you, Israel is behind this move, because they wanted Syria weakened somehow, and to be made an enemy of the United States, so they got their people in Congress to pass the act. You see, the members of Congress are afraid to vote against anything the lobby wants. So, this is something the lobby wants...' Interviewer: 'So who is controlling who?' James Abourezk: 'The lobby is controlling the Congress.' Interviewer: 'But you said that the U.S. is not in need of Israel, but rather, Israel needs the U.S.' James Abourezk: 'Yes, that's right. But how they...' Interviewer: 'It's very paradoxical.' James Abourezk: 'Well, how they fulfill that need is by pressuring Congress to support Israel. The chief objective of the Israeli lobby is to keep the American taxpayers' money flowing to Israel. That's the chief objective. They stop anybody who criticizes Israel, so that may stop the money from flowing. That's why they attack people who attack Israel.'[...] 'I... Marveled at the Hizbullah Resistance to Israel... It Was a Marvel of Organization, of Courage and Bravery' Interviewer: 'Sir, in 2001, you came all the way from the U.S. to Lebanon to congratulate Lebanon, the Lebanese, and the resistance for the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. Now what do you say during this time, which is in remembrance a year of the Israeli aggression against Lebanon and the earthshaking victory of the resistance, supported by the people of Lebanon. What do you say to them?' James Abourezk: 'That was quite an extraordinary thing, I thought. I actually marveled at the Hizbullah resistance to Israel, how they did it. It was a marvel of organization, of courage and bravery. I thought it was quite something.' Interviewer: 'Do you think it's only the courage and organization that made them do this?' James Abourezk: 'Yes, absolutely. They were highly organized, the resistance, and they were very brave. They didn't turn and run, like some Arabs armies have done. They were defeated because of that. But this is something new for the Arab world. I said at the time: The Lebanese army should ask Hizbullah to come and organize it, to train them, you know. And all the Arab armies should have the Hizbullah come and do that.' David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com |
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SILENCE IN THE FACE OF CONTINUED TEMPLE MOUNT DESTRUCTION
Posted by Avodah, September 7, 2007. |
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This was written by Hillel Fendel and it is archived at
http://webmail.aol.com/30128/aol/en-us/suite.aspx?app=mail |
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(IsraelNN.com) As an Arab bulldozer continues to dig away at the current Temple Mount floor, evidence is mounting that actual walls from the Second Temple are being destroyed. The world is silent, while Prime Minister Olmert continues talks with the Palestinian Authority regarding future sovereignty over the holy area. The actual digging, under the auspices of the Moslem Waqf [religious trust to which Israel has assigned responsibility for the Temple Mount -- ed.], has been ongoing for several weeks. Only over the past 8-10 days, however, has attention been paid to the dangers of the barely supervised works. The Waqf claims that the purpose of the 400-meter-long, 1.5-meter deep trench is to replace electric cables in the area. Discarding a Temple Wall, Piece by Piece For the Jews, however, the trench represents more than just better lighting. Under the current floor of the Temple Mount compound lie the remains of the Second Holy Temple, largely untouched since it was destroyed by the Romans nearly 1,950 years ago. For pieces of one of the Temple courtyard office walls to be unceremoniously bulldozed up and discarded -- as archaeologists such as Drs. Eilat Mazar and Gavriel Barkai believe has happened -- is all but traumatic for Jews who have been praying for centuries to see the Temple rebuilt. A week ago, Temple expert Dr. Gavriel Barkai told Arutz-7 that according to his, and others', calculations, the route of the trench passes precisely through the spot where one or more of the office walls stood the day of the Roman destruction. "Some man-worked stones have been found in the trench," Barkai said at a press conference last week, "as well as remnants of a wall that, according to all our estimations, are from a structure in one of the outer courtyards in the Holy Temple." Shortly afterwards, Dr. Mazar examined a photo of the trench, clearly showing a chopped-up carved stone. Mazar said the damaged stone displays elements of the Second Temple era, and might well be part of the Jewish Temple. She says she needs to view it up close; but the Waqf does not allow her to do so. Waqf Stops TV Crew In fact, the Waqf is so protective of the dig and its finds that it has tried to stop all photographing of the area. Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute reported that his camera was confiscated before he was allowed to visit the site this week, and WND's Aaron Klein and an InfoLive.TV camera crew were prevented from taking pictures of the dig on Thursday. Waqf guards backed up by the Israeli police stopped Klein and InfoLive.TV from approaching open sections of the trench, and told Klein he could only film closed areas. Sections of the massive trench were being closed up with dirt before archeologists were able to inspect the site. Footage of the Klein-InfoLive team being barred from filming can be
seen at
Olmert's Role Israel's Antiquities Authority, apparently by order of Prime Minister Olmert, has not demanded an end to the construction work, and has stationed only one employee there to "supervise." The construction is underway while reports abound of a deal between Olmert and PA leader Abbas regarding a future handover of eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, to the PA. It appears that only archaeologists and Temple activists in Jerusalem are incensed. "If Israel was building a shopping mall," said Rabbi Richman, "and they found what might be an ancient Buddhist structure, the government would stop the construction and have archaeologists go over the area with a fine tooth comb." "But here," he continued, speaking with WND, "the holiest site in Judaism is being damaged, a Temple wall was found, and Israel is actively blocking experts from inspecting the site while allowing the destruction to continue." Richman charged the Waqf with "trying to erase Jewish vestiges from the Temple Mount," in keeping with the claim by many Moslems that the Temple never actually existed. "This is an extraordinarily serious offense," Richman told Arutz-7. "A corrupt, spiritually bankrupt government is allowing Judaism's holiest site to be trashed... Jews in Israel and abroad are asleep, and have not awakened to the importance of the Temple in Judaism or the desecration of this holy site being performed daily by the Waqf." Islamic Connection to Jerusalem -- Weak Former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Moshe Sasson, an expert on Islamic affairs, summed up for Arutz-7 the exact nature of Islam's connection to Jerusalem: "The Caliph Abd El-Malik, when he moved his center of power from Damascus to Jerusalem, sought to build up the importance of Jerusalem as an Islamic center, and built the mosques there. The Al Aksa mosque was built 621 years after Mohammed's death. Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran (it is mentioned 667 times in the Bible), and the Al Aksa mosque is mentioned only once -- and even that is not a reference to the mosque of today. In verse 1 of chapter 17, the Koran states that Allah transported Mohammed from Mecca to Al-Aksa; but this cannot be referring to the mosque in Jerusalem, because when Mohammed was alive, there were no mosques there. Rather, it refers to the 'end' (aktsa, in Arabic) of the sky." ADDENDUM from Lee Caplan We need at least 100,000 signers to make an impact regarding the Temple Mount. Please vote today and forward this message to everyone on your list. According to high-level sources within the Israeli government, Israel is being pressured to cede control of the Temple Mount to the Palestinians in an effort to reach a lasting peace agreement with the ever-insatiable, always unreliable PLO. In talks with Mahmoud Abbas, a plan was presented to the PLO in preparation for the Middle East Peace Summit to be hosted by the U.S. (in conjunction with the U.N., EU, Russia and the Arab League) in Washington, DC, this fall, a plan that would relinquish control of the holiest site to all Judaism to the Muslims. Other sites near the Mount would be controlled by a consortium of Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Western Wall, the remaining relic of the last Temple, would remain under Israeli control. They are being pressured by the EU, the UN, Arab League and the U.S. to do this. SHOULD THE TEMPLE MOUNT BE TURNED OVER TO THE PLO? VOTE YOUR OPINION NOW! Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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ISLAMISTS TRY TURNING ANTI-RACISM CONFERENCE INTO AN "ISLAMOPHOBIA" JAMBOREE
Posted by KAE, September 7, 2007. |
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This comes from the National Secular Society website:
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The UN is being pressured to "come up with solutions" to the alleged rise of "Islamophobia" by the Muslim bloc representatives. The platform for this is a UN conference on racism which is being planned for 2009. At a preliminary hearing in Geneva last week, representatives of the 56-nation Organisation for Islamic Conference (OIC) demanded that Islam should be high on the agenda -- working on the assumption that "Islamophobia" is the same as, or a form of, racism. According to a released statement, Pakistan's representative to the U.N., Masood Khan, declared at a meeting of the planning body, or "prepcom bureau" that: "The world since 2001 has not remained static and witnessed new forms of racism and racial discrimination." Speaking on behalf of the OIC, Khan told the meeting that "there has been a stark rise in hate crimes, discrimination, racial profiling and intolerance against Muslims in many countries." He also called for the 2009 gathering to focus on "the continued plight of Palestinian people and non-recognition of their inalienable right to self-determination." This suggests that if the planning body has its way, the review conference may echo a major theme of the 2001 Durban meeting. Critics of that meeting, including the U.S. government, said the Durban conference was tarnished by a strong anti-Israel bias, as some participants there had tried to revive the U.N.'s earlier "Zionism equals racism" position. Iran's delegate, Seyed Mohammad Kazem Sajjadpour, referred in his speech Monday to "new forms of racism" after 9/11, "under the pretext of so-called war against terror." The envoy for another prepcom bureau member, Egypt, speaking on behalf of the African nations, raised concerns including "the Israeli occupation of Palestine" and the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons caricaturing Mohammed, "which deeply hurt over a billion Muslims around the world." The 2009 meeting is currently being called the "Durban review conference." Critics have labeled it "Durban II" -- not a reference to the venue, which has yet to be decided, but because they predict a repeat of some of the controversies that prompted a walk-out by the U.S. delegation in 2001. The Hudson Institute's "Eye on the U.N." project, which is observing the process in Geneva, described it last week as the U.N.'s "latest anti-Jewish and anti-American extravaganza." U.N.-watchers' concerns have been reinforced by the appointment of Libya to chair the prepcom bureau, and the inclusion among its 20 members of countries such as Cuba, Iran and Pakistan. The countries were elected by the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body, which has itself been criticized by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others for anti-Israel bias. Contact KAE at kew1@dbmail.com |
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EUROID FLATTERY
Posted by Paul Lademain, September 7, 2007. |
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Euroids will continue to flatter compliant Jane Fonda Jews until they can get all of Israel to shuffle off to its death. (When that happens, Euroids will then quite predictably proceed to revile and attack those very same Jews who thought hating Israel would purchase their "assimilation." And why not? Who would want to host people who cannot even be loyal to their own country? The worst of Israel's "psychophants" occupy Israel's Supreme Court--they are eager to prostrate their own nation in order to "earn" Euroid flattery, but not smart enough to protect and restore Israel's sovereign rights. Jews in positions of political power in Israel seemingly do not know how to protect their own rights and interests because they are so busy rescuing their enemies. These Jews and their cohorts fail to understand that nations who do not protect their own interests and who beg for peace in the face of insults and aggression instead of fighting to protect themselves against such insults are targeted as prey in the political jungle. Look at how the United Nations abandoned the Sudan and ignored Islamic butchery in Algeria. The United Nations is owned by the oily Arabs. Jane Fonda Jews are destined for ridicule (which they earn) and extinction at the hands of such ugly Baptists as Jimmy Carter and cohorts--the latter know how to make a Jane Fonda Jew feel so guilty that s/he will commit suicide to prove s/he is a "Good Jew." Carter should be "outed" as lobbyist for Saudi Arabia. Solution: get rid of the Jane Fonda Jews--nobody wants a person so disloyal that s/he would be willing, for the sake of peace, to accept guilt for crimes committed against the world by the ugly Islamics. Viva to the Patriots of Israel who a battling to free themselves from Saudi tyranny. We are the Secular Christians for Zion and we say: Restore Jewish Palestine from the ocean to the sea the way israel was originally intended to be. If we can say this, so should Israel! Contact Paul Lademain at lademain@verizon.net |
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WHO WAS LAX ON 9/11? ISRAEL'S ECONOMY; ISRAEL'S SECRET WAR ON THE JEWS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 7, 2007. |
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LEST IT OFFEND MUSLIMS Britain is said to have stopped teaching about the Holocaust, lest it offend Holocaust-denying Muslims. The Holocaust is factual, but Holocaust-denying Muslims are not. It is part of history, and Britain was an indirect accomplice of Germany. Taught about it, future generations might learn what not to do. History should not be censored, cocooning people in ignorance. With the Muslims, it is more than ignorance. Their leaders deny the Holocaust for propaganda. In a jihad against the Jews, they don't want knowledge of the Holocaust to engender sympathy for the Jews, who largely were dispossessed from their homeland by the Muslims. One lesson from the Holocaust is to reject ethnic defamation. Although the Nazis were evil defamers, the Muslims admire them, both for their racism (Nazi antisemitism being based on false racial theory), and for fascism. Therefore, dropping the Holocaust from the curriculum facilitates that jihad. Another jihad is against Western society in both Christian and secular aspects. This reluctance to "offend" Muslims gets carried too far by Westerners. Muslims exploit it. It is part of the one-way "multi-culturalism," whereby non-Muslims restrain themselves but do not restrain Muslims in the same manner. For example, Muslim Holocaust-denying would not be stopped. Muslims claim that everything not Islamic offends them. By contrast, Judaism holds that it must set an example and that non-Jews who follows basic ethical principles are good people. I don't speak for Christianity, but everyone knows that Christian sects do not seek to ban others. Islam, by contrast, considers itself so superior to other faiths that it is entitled to humiliate some and murder the followers of others. The Muslim claim of being offended plays on our notion of tolerance in order to put over Islamic intolerance. We've been too tolerant of Islam. It is making war on us and trying to dominate us in our own countries. We should expel it. BLAME FOR LETTING 9/11 HAPPEN The CIA has detailed some of its errors in failing to prevent 9/11. That is healthy. Unhealthy is the reluctance of others to own up to their errors or for the media to condemn them. For example, the State Dept. causes some of our biggest fiascos. It let Islamists into the country without checking. Some states issue the illegal aliens driver licenses, and some states and cities do not turn illegal aliens over to the Immigration authorities for deportation. It wasn't just the CIA's fault. REHEARSAL FOR FAKE RABIN ASSASSINATION? A prominent rabbi brought his son to hear Rabin speak. Suddenly, a secret serviceman beat, arrested, and beat the rabbi allegedly for being about to commit violence against Rabin. The rabbi later was advised that he was lucky to have emerged alive from his encounter that that secret serviceman. The secret police have the problem with violence. The charges were dropped, because the rabbi was highly reputed and well known for non-violence. That same secret serviceman commanded the security detail at Rabin's final public rally, where another patsy was found for an attack on Rabin. Just another of the extraordinary number of coincidences at the assassination (Barry Chamish, Last Days Of Israel, p.6). BRITAIN USES KORAN TO TEACH CIVICS Hoping to integrate Muslim youth into British society, Britain consulted Islamic scholars and devised a civics curriculum based on the Koran. Teachers ask the youths what would Muhammad have done. Some Muslim leaders complained that the course singled them out (NY Times, 8/21, A3). Western governments consult Islamic scholars at their own peril. They don't know which ones are Islamists, whom they tend to consult. It's dangerous to draw lessons from a holy book written in primitive times, and advocating violent intolerance, not mellowed by time and reformation. The Muslims should admit that they otherwise don't integrate well, and this is well meant. After all the Islamist terrorism against Britain, they have no moral right to claim discrimination. ISRAEL'S ECONOMY Israel's economy was stagnant for 20 years. In 2002, the government couldn't pay all its public employees, who constituted one-third of the labor force. It couldn't entice bond purchases even with interest rates of 12%. Thousands of people and major companies went bankrupt. Unemployment passed 10.7%! Finance Min. Netanyahu then cut taxes, social security, unemployment benefits, and other government spending. He privatized and reformed business, eliminating conflicts of interest and monopoly in the banking system, and instituting accountability, so they stopped restricting loans to unreliable cronies. Results: 300,000 new jobs, unemployment down to 7.5%, increased average pay and national savings, surplus in balance of payments, booming financial markets. There remains an oligarchy and excessive government control causing high consumer prices. Politicians are tempted to cast off restraint (Daniel Doron, NY Sun, 8/20, Op.-Ed.). Those are Bush style reforms. Not mentioned is Netanyahu's cut in defense spending, which adversely affected the Lebanon war. Why didn't Netanyahu reform the economy earlier, when he was Prime Minister? ISRAEL'S SECRET WAR ON THE JEWS Some of the clauses of Oslo or promises accompanying it were kept secret. One of them pledged to use any means necessary to get the Jews out of Gaza, Judea, and Samaria, including violence. Hillel Halkin was among the journalists shown the secret clauses, but he did not publish the most shocking ones, the ones of greatest journalistic interest, writes Barry Chamish (Last Days of Israel). Israelis like to claim that they have a "vibrant media" and a democracy. If that were true, the media would inform the people about government betrayals of them, and the people would throw the rascals out. ISRAELI MEDIA TAKES A POLITICAL ROLE "The Haaretz newspaper, in its coverage of the Hevron eviction, observed that the movement to resettle Homesh (in northern Samaria, from which the government expelled the Jews, in accordance with the secret pledge) has scored a victory against the government, but gloats at having neutralized it by refraining from giving press coverage to the return." (Arutz-7, 9/ The media should cover newsworthy events, not deny coverage in order to kill stories. The media shares the same leftist ideology as the leftist government, and manipulates coverage in behalf of that ideology and government. Hardly democratic, certainly not independent. POOR BUS SCHEDULE IN JUDEA-SAMARIA The bus company and the government have been bogged down in negotiations over who should pay to bullet-proof their buses. As a result, there aren't enough buses available to meet the schedule. Buses may come an hour late (Arutz-7, 8/22). Is the government negotiating in good faith? We can't defend against everything, everywhere, all the time. The answer is to root out the Islamists everywhere, once, and be done with it. MUSLIMS FROM INDIA LAUD ISRAEL The Muslim Indian delegation found Israel different from its preconceptions. They found that Israel treats Muslims with respect, even allowing Muslim courts to handle domestic matters. On the other hand, the delegation came under rocket attack from Gaza Muslims. The leader said that Arab Muslim leaders should tell their followers to stop suicide attacks as contrary to Islam, and to negotiate rather than fight. He recommended that Pakistan recognize Israel (Arutz-7, 8/22). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE ANTI-ISRAEL LOBBY
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 7, 2007. |
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This was written by Jeff Robbins and it is archived at
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A crop of Israel's critics -- most prominently Jimmy Carter and now Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" -- have managed something of a feat: They express no concerns about the massive pro-Arab effort, funded in significant measure by foreign oil money, taking American Jews to task for participating in the American political process; meanwhile, they inoculate themselves against charges of anti-Jewish bias by pre-emptively predicting that "the Jewish lobby" will accuse them of it. Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer, in particular, have been heralded by Israel's critics for their "courage" in attacking American Jews, who have allegedly "strangled" criticism of Israel. Their case seems one part laughable, and one part eyebrow-raising. An anecdote from my own experience with the anti-Israel lobby may shed some light on the absurdity of the Walt-Mearsheimer offensive. Not long after Sept. 11, 2001, I received a call from a major defense contractor asking for a favor. I was serving as president of the Boston chapter of the World Affairs Council, a national organization that debates foreign policy, and the defense contractor was one of the Council's principal sponsors. The Saudi Arabian government was sponsoring a national public relations campaign to cultivate American public opinion, and was sending Saudi emissaries around the country to make the case that Saudi Arabia was a tolerant, moderate nation worthy of American support. Would the Council organize a forum of Boston's community leaders so that the Saudis could make their case? While this was patently no more than a Saudi lobbying effort, we organized the forum, and it was well-attended by precisely the slice of Boston's political and corporate elite that the Saudis and their defense contractor benefactor had hoped for. The Saudis maintained that their Kingdom should be regarded as a promoter of Middle East peace, and that the abundant evidence that Saudi Arabia was in fact promoting a virulent brand of extremist Islam should be discounted. Saudi Arabia paid for the trip of its emissaries to Boston, for the Washington, D.C.-based public relations and lobbying company which organized the trip, and for the Boston public relations and lobbying company that handled the Boston part of the visit. And it drew upon the resources and relationships of the defense contractor, which sells hundreds of millions of dollars of military equipment to Saudi Arabia, to support and orchestrate its public relations effort. The billions in petrodollars Arab states spend in the U.S. for defense, construction, engineering and consulting contracts position them nicely to win friends in high places, and friends are what they have. That is true all over the world, is true in this country, and has been true for quite some time. As U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull noted 60 years ago, "The oil of Saudi Arabia constitutes one of the world's great prizes." His successor, Edward Stettinius, opposed the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East, stating "It would seriously prejudice our ability to afford protection to American interests, economic and commercial ... throughout the area." The Saudis and their allies have not been shy about supplementing their considerable leverage in the U.S. by targeting expenditures to affect the debate over Middle East policy by funding think tanks, Middle East studies programs, advocacy groups, community centers and other institutions. To take one obvious example, just last year Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal donated $20 million each to Harvard and Georgetown Universities for programs in Islamic studies. Prince Alwaleed, chairman of a Riyadh-based conglomerate, is the fellow whose $10 million donation to the Twin Towers Fund following the Sept. 11 attacks was rejected by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after the Saudi Prince suggested that the U.S. "re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinians." Georgetown and Harvard had no apparent qualms about accepting Prince Alwaleed's money. The director of Georgetown's newly-renamed Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center rejected any suggestion that the Saudi magnate was attempting to use Saudi oil wealth to influence American policy in the Middle East. "There is nothing wrong with [Prince Alwaleed] expressing his opinion on American foreign policy," he said. "Clearly, it was done in a constructive way." In other words, for those who accept the Arab line on the Israel-Arab conflict -- namely, that it is the product of Israeli intransigence in some form or another -- the increasing proliferation of Middle East-funded enterprises all across the country aimed at advancing the Arab view of the conflict constitute "nothing wrong." Nor are those hewing to the anti-Israel line troubled by the way in which the massive Islamic bloc of nations, by dint both of their number and their economic leverage over the rest of the world, are able to guarantee an incessantly anti-Israel agenda at the United Nations and other international fora. Although the aggressive deployment of petrodollars and oil-based influence from foreign sources aimed at advancing a pro-Arab line constitutes "nothing wrong" as far as Israel's critics are concerned, a new political fashion holds that there is something very wrong indeed about American Jews and other American backers of Israel expressing their support for Israel, and urging their political leaders to join them in that support. Our major newspapers and networks, with correspondents in Israel able to take advantage of an Israeli political system that is a free-for-all and an astonishingly vibrant and self-critical Israeli press, report daily on every twist and turn of the conflict and are very frequently critical of Israel. As for American campuses, most objective observers would have little difficulty concluding that far from being criticism-free, they are in fact dominated by critics of Israel. Clearly, as strangleholds on criticism go, whatever stranglehold the pro-Israel community has on debate in the U.S. is a very loose one indeed. If the charge that American Jews are able to stifle criticism of Israel is simply silly, the leveling of the charge that there is something nefarious about Jews urging support for the Jewish state raises questions about whether Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer have descended into a certain ugliness. And the tactic of trying to neutralize those questions by loudly predicting that they will be asked, however clever a tactic it may be, does not neutralize them. It is apparently the authors' position that, even in the face of the overwhelming leverage of an Arab world swimming in petrodollars, with a lock on the U.N. and an unlimited ability to pay for pro-Arab public relations, American Jews are obliged to stay silent. In essence, Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer have repackaged the "the-Jews-run-the-country" stuff which has long been the bread and butter of anti-Semites. Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer deny that they are anti-Semitic, and that is certainly good news. But where they are apparently content with foreign oil money being used to advance a pro-Arab position on the Middle East, but devote themselves to criticizing American Jews for lobbying their public officials in support of the Jewish state, one may legitimately wonder what phrase would apply. Surely, one's denial that he is anti-Semitic, while welcome, is hardly dispositive; after all, the marked increase in anti-Semitism around the world is well-documented, and yet one rarely hears anyone actually announce that they are anti-Semitic, or that their views are anti-Semitic. But if anti-Semitism is too harsh a term, and if the word "bigoted" is also taken off the table, perhaps one can be forgiven for concluding that "anti-Jewish bias" fits the bill here. After all, where there is nothing wrong with foreign money from Arab countries advancing a pro-Arab agenda in Messrs. Walt's and Mearsheimer's world -- but there is something very wrong with American citizens who are Jewish exercising their civic right to speak out on behalf of Israel and taking issue with the pro-Arab agenda -- even the most vehement disclaimers of any bias against Jews lack a certain credibility. The potency of the Middle East-funded anti-Israel lobby around the world and in the U.S. is difficult to ignore. Yet, Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer and others who adhere to an anti-Israel line ignore it. In and of itself, this is not surprising. When at the same time they portray American Jews' efforts to make the case for Israel as morally suspect, however, they open themselves up to reasonable charges of something far more troublesome than mere hypocrisy, and that is anti-Jewish bias, by whatever name. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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STUPID LEADERSHIP IMPERILS MANKIND!
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, September 7, 2007. |
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Iranian president Mahmoud AhMADinejad, supported by Iran's supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, clamps down on dissidents, defies the West despite economic sanctions and rhetorical bluster, keeps those nuclear centrifuges spinning, enforces misogynistic sharia law, all the while coping with soaring inflation, a disgruntled underclass, a corrupt wealthy class, thus a growing undercurrent of resentment; surviving as the per barrel price of oil remains historically stratospheric topping $60, the essential thread holding his shredding raw material economy tenuously together. The egomaniacal crazed bearded buffoonish dictator, much like kindred spirit Adolph Hitler, despises Jews, yearns to wipe their homeland off the map, and will do whatever it takes to stay in power. Meanwhile, the industrialized energy dependent West as well as East, bizarrely insuring economic sanctions amplified by rhetorical bluster do not succeed, do nothing substantial to bring down the price of oil, thus in effect remain addicted extorted customers fortifying AhMADinejad's position of authority, even more so than Khamenei and a cadre of protective Revolutionary Guards, themselves profiting from those extorted oil revenues, themselves morphing into the aforementioned wealthy class with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. What could be more stupid? The outer industrial world finances nuclear emerging Iraq, paying inflated oil prices, propping up the perilous regime's economy with petrodollars, in effect sabotaging the very economic sanctions that are supposed to topple those twelfth Imam possessed maniacs, awaiting the day when their ever yearned for Shiite Islamic superhero swoops down into their Persian cuckoo's nest, ridding the tainted planet of the despised infidel, so the Shiite loons consequently in charge can live happily ever after in the misogynistic Allahland of their delusional dreams. Might such addled minds wish to set off a nuke or two in the process, no doubt with Tel Aviv in the crosshairs, smoothing the landing strip for their Shiite superhero, robes thus flowing through a radiation drenched sky? Stupidity has no monopoly. The 'war on terror' Bush Administration plans to buttress the arsenal of its favorite Middle East Muslim ally Saudi Arabia, perhaps the planet's foremost financier of Sunni terrorist organizations, with billions of petrodollars worth of state of the black art weaponry, presumably enabling that Sunni Muslim Arab regime to defend itself against the petrodollar financed Shiite Iranian Persians, just as likely however to divert some of those technologically sophisticated weapons to say Sunni insurgents in Iraq so they might be utilized to maim and murder Bush's intrepid American troops, the very one's fighting those insurgents skewered by Bush's 'war on terror' rhetoric. Hmmm! That's right, indirectly arm your enemies so they might kill the very troops you send overseas to kill them. Might a U.S. Congressperson or two aggressively delineate this causal relationship to the American media; might a network or two, perhaps a publisher or two, inform their viewers and readers of this potentially catastrophic folly; and might a million person protest or two evolve before the irrational act is committed? How indeed can the oil-rich House of Saud, underwriters of worldwide Wahhabi madrassas, known for intense undergraduate and graduate courses in homicide/suicide martyrdom, ever be trusted to do the right thing? Might even Franz Kafka's spirit reel if tuned in to such surreal behavior by this unraveling planet's major superpower? Then again, might one cynically suggest the adjective oil-rich, describing the operative characteristic of those predatory sanctimonious Saudis, has a bit to do with this otherwise unexplainable U.S. policy decision, no doubt as truly tragic as it is stupid? Stupidity has no bounds. How might Israel's elected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Kadima Party demonstrate incredulous restraint, observing the daily barrage of deadly Qassam rockets launched from Gaza into Sderot by Islamic murderers, no doubt encouraged by or indeed manned by militants belonging to Hamas, a rogue government if there ever was one, ever threatening the lives of precious Jewish citizens, including preschoolers yet to experience the world? Such restraint in the Arab world connotes weakness thus is seductive to Jew/Israel despising savages, encouraging them to continue reprehensible criminal behavior that no sane nation would tolerate for even one nanosecond. Who cares what an outer world, including anti-Semitic human rights groups, little concerned for the safety of Jews weighed against the convenience of Arabs, thinks? The IDF should forthwith deploy into Hamas controlled Gaza, creating a sufficiently wide buffer zone, indeed encompassing the whole of that dysfunctional enclave if necessary, so no missiles could reach Israeli territory. In the process, all criminal elements attacking Israeli citizens should be captured or put to sleep. Period! This justifiable response to in-your-face terrorism is a no-brainer Olmert! Indirect policies collectively punishing an entire population such as partially ceasing the flows of water or electricity are surely less effective, not carrying the heft of a military response, not likely to inspire impoverished Arabs to overthrow Hamas. Yet, restraining Israel's intrepid military forces remains the operative policy, feeding the minds of Arab fanatics with the very perceptions of weakness that will only strengthen their resolve to continue tormenting Jewish citizens. There you have it! Stupid leadership mocks the innate abilities of evolving presumably civilized nations to deal with blatant threats at the dawning of this third recorded millennium. What will it take to inject some intelligence into elected heads of states, perhaps catastrophes dwarfing those of the preceding millennium? Human technology, especially pertaining to weaponry, advances and disseminates at an alarming pace, yet presumably rational elected folks cannot seem to cope with this immense challenge, allowing and even abetting morally bereft lunatics in acquiring and distributing such weaponry to their proxies with virtual impunity, thus threatening existence as we know it. If Iranian Shiite jihadists or their proxies get the bomb, if Wahhabi nurtured Sunni terrorists get the bomb, if nuclear warheads fall into the spindly talons of Islamic criminals intent on launching missiles first into Israel then who knows where else, it is likely that 'a hard rain's a-gonna fall' and collective mankind will bemoan the fact nothing was done to prevent it. If ever worthy leaders in the mold of Winston Churchill were needed, it is now! Tomorrow, alas, may be too late. 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 |
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CAIR'S DIRTY TRICKS AGAINST ME
Posted by Daniel Pipes, September 7, 2007. |
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This article appeared today in FrontPageMagazine.com
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID= 278243F2-B793-4E3B-B1FE-8456C7AE040B |
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, North America's foremost Islamist group, bills itself as a "civil rights organization," suggesting it maintains high standards of decency and morality. But, as I personally can attest, it fails abysmally to do so. Its seven-year-long campaign against me has included misappropriation, misrepresentation, misquotation, defamation, and inaccuracy, prompting one writer recently to compare its propaganda with that of Nazi Germany. Consider several dirty-trick episodes: DanielPipes.com: On December 15, 2000, simultaneous with the debut of my website, www.DanielPipes.org, John Michael Janney registered the domain www.DanielPipes.com. Janney was both a member of CAIR and an employee at InfoCom Corporation in Richardson, Texas (a firm subsequently shuttered by the U.S. government and its owners found guilty of illegal transactions with Hamas, Libya, and Syria). Shortly thereafter, his rogue "com" website automatically redirected visitors to a page on CAIR's site defaming me. After I threatened a lawsuit, Janney failed to renew www.DanielPipes.com and I took hold of it in early 2002. Cybercast News Service article: A cub reporter from CNSNews.com attended a talk I gave on July 24, 2003, at the Young America Foundation conference in Washington. She mangled what I'd said in a report the next day, ascribing to me terms I never use ("militaristic Islam," "Palestine"), sentiments I do not espouse (that Middle Easterners are reluctant to "go the Christian way"), and policy recommendations I vehemently reject ("We should be saying to the state of Israel to integrate [the Palestinian refugees] and let them become citizens"). Worst of all, she stated that "Pipes added that he doesn't perceive the Islamic people as divided into two groups: the radical terrorists and those who are not." In fact, I said that I don't perceive Islamists dividing into two groups but see them all as totalitarians. Using this faulty report, CAIR "action alert" number 390, dated July 27, trumpeted the headline "Daniel Pipes Compares 'Islamic People' to 'Nazis'." I pointed out to the CNSNews.com editors the mistakes their reporter had made. They listened to a tape of my talk, acknowledged their journalist's errors, and retracted her article, pulling it from the website and sending letters, both electronic and paper, to CAIR to inform it of this action. CAIR, however, refused to acknowledge the retraction, and its calumny against me remains on its website to this day. Shi'ite endorsement: On August 20, 2003, a group calling itself "American Muslims of the Shia tradition" sent me a letter endorsing President Bush's nominating me to the U.S. Institute of Peace board, which I promptly posted. Leading the charge against my nomination, CAIR pressured the signatories to withdraw their endorsement, which some did. CAIR then accused me, in its "American Muslim News Briefs," dated September 15, of having "misrepresented" their support. In response, the Shi'ites favoring my nomination issued a second statement exposing CAIR's methods: "On August 20, 2003, a group of Shia organizations endorsed Mr. Pipes. However, on September 13, 2003, few members of this group withdrew their endorsement stating that they had no knowledge of that endorsement. Also, they alleged that Mr. Pipes misrepresented the issue by listing their names as the endorsees. That was not so. He acted in good faith on the statement that was made available to him. We regret this action on their part." In short, the Shi'ites accused CAIR, not me, of misrepresentation. Edward Kennedy letter: In a letter to the Boston Herald on August 29, 2003, Sen. Edward Kennedy explained his opposition to my USIP nomination earlier that month. He also praised me, writing that "Pipes is a serious scholar, and I would support him for another post." In its distribution of this letter (American Muslim News Briefs, August 30, 2003), CAIR reprinted Kennedy's letter, omitting the above sentence. Hijabs: Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR's "national communications director," stated in January 2007 that I think "that if a woman wants to wear a headscarf, it's the beginning of the end of Western civilization." It's witty but it's wrong; I oppose the wearing of niqabs and burqas but accept hijabs as a matter of self-expression. Giuliani campaign: As PipeLineNews.org showed in its article, "CAIR Continues Its Campaign of Deceit against Daniel Pipes," when the news came out in August 2007 of my connection to Rudy Giuliani's campaign for the presidency, CAIR sent out an attack piece, "Muslim-Basher Joins Giuliani Campaign," that thrice twisted my words. For example, CAIR quoted me telling the American Jewish Congress in late 2002: I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews. Ah, but as with the Kennedy letter, watch out for those slippery ellipses. Here is the full quote: I worry very much, from the Jewish point of view, that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims, because they are so much led by an Islamist leadership, that this will present true dangers to American Jews. "Because they are so much led by an Islamist leadership" -- i.e., I worry about American Muslims because they are led by CAIR and other groups with an extremist agenda. Mysteriously, that phrase dropped out. My statement takes on a different meaning with it back in. As PipeLineNews.org puts it, "CAIR has once again proven itself to be comprised of dissimulators, engaging in a well-established pattern of half truths and misrepresentations that would make any of the Third Reich's propagandists proud." Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers). Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers). |
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FROM ISRAEL: SYRIA AND GAZA
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 7, 2007. |
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There was heightened tension in the north yesterday, as Syria claimed that Israeli planes had entered Syrian airspace, breaking the sound barrier and "dropping ammunition" in desert areas; there was no claim that Israel used ammunition; Syria said that its planes "confronted" the IDF planes. Israel had no comment, but there was a feeling that with this incident, whatever it entailed, we were being brought closer to war. Today Syria is saying that this won't bring war and that the planes had probably come to take photos. (In which case they wouldn't have been breaking sound barriers, would they have?) So things are still tense, but not to the degree that was the case yesterday. ~~~~~~~~~~ The IDF has announced that it has everything in place and is ready for a major operation into Gaza; the forces have practiced. But at present there's no decision on the part of the Security Cabinet or Olmert to go ahead. Haaretz says that Chief of Staff Ashkenazi is opposed to going ahead because of tensions along the border with Syria. A major operation in Gaza would require calling up reserves, and the holiday season is before us. According to this article, senior military sources said "Israel's position might change if a large number of casualties resulted from the Kassam fire." The response to this by Aaron Lerner of IMRA seems a harsh indictment but is on the mark: "The IDF could act now before the Palestinians succeed in murdering a lot of Israeli civilians but that would require inconveniencing Israelis who would have to be called up to do reserve duty during the holiday season. So instead of taking the initiative -- with the advantages associated with taking the initiative -- it is better to give the Palestinians the opportunity to murder many Israeli civilians first." We've seen this before. Jews have to die before a major action takes place: it provides a sort of "rationale" for attacking. The major action is coming -- even Barak says so now. The question is when. Waiting brings with it several risks. A pre-emptive action would not only potentially save lives, it would stop the development and smuggling of increasingly sophisticated weaponry. The longer we wait the greater their capacity to hit targets inside of Israel, and tougher the battle will be when it comes. ~~~~~~~~~~ Haim Ramon. He was convicted recently of sexual impropriety, but not "moral turpitude.' Sorry I cannot explain precisely what this means, but being exonerated of "moral turpitude" permitted him to rejoin the government after his conviction. And what do you know? Olmert, our fine upstanding prime minister, appointed him as vice premier. Not only that, he made the point of saying he did so because Ramon was his friend, and now the world knows that Ehud Olmert doesn't forget his friends. Maybe not, but Olmert forgets a lot of other things, like how to protect our nation. All of this is by way of a very angry introduction to news about what Ramon -- who clearly was appointed as Olmert's flunky -- has apparently now done. According to YNet, Ramon has met with PA Prime Minister Fayyad to hammer out principles to be brought to that Bush-inspired international conference in November. It is said that he is offering: "an Israeli withdrawal from nearly all of the West Bank, including the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, as part of a final peace deal...the border between Israel and the future Palestinian state [would] roughly follow the route of the separation fence leaving major Israeli settlement blocs and between 3 and 8 percent of the West Bank in Israel's hands. "This means that Ariel and Maale Adumin [would] stay within Israeli area, while settlements like Karnei Shomron, Beit El, Ofra, the haredi of town Tel Zion and many other communities [would] be evacuated and their territory handed over to the Palestinians. (Parts of Gush Etzion would be turned over.) "In return, Israel would cede the same amount of land [as that retained for settlement past the Green Line] inside Israel to the Palestinians." What is more, there might be a corridor between Gaza and Judea and Samaria. "East Jerusalem [would] be divided among the two states and holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City [would] be under the control of the various religions and no national flags will be flown. "The agreement [would]...require both sides to immediately implement stage A of the...road map: The Palestinians will disarm all armed groups in their territory, while Israel will withdraw its forces from the Palestinian towns and evacuate all illegal outposts." What is more, according to YNet, "In his talks with the Palestinians, Ramon pledged that immediately after the agreement is signed, Israel would hand over to the Palestinian three eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods, as [a] goodwill gesture." Perhaps this most of all -- the suggestion of immediately compromising of Jerusalem -- makes my blood boil. A goodwill gesture??!! ~~~~~~~~~~ As I've said before, it's a long way from this sort of talk to a "done deal," and I continue to believe that deal will never come about. Palestinian Information Minister Riad Malki has denied that Ramon has even met with Fayyad or any other official. You see, the agreement doesn't permit any "refugees" into Israel and so is something the Palestinians cannot sign off on and get support for among the people. And if there were even the remotest insistence on compliance, it would kill the deal because the Palestinians are never going to disarm armed groups in Judea and Samaria. Didn't we just learn that Hamas has 80,000 hidden weapons there?? But this is dangerous none-the-less. And sickening. That someone purporting to represent Israel should SUGGEST turning area over to the Palestinians when there are 80,000 weapons hidden by our enemies defies comprehension. Even someone who believes in principle that someday there should be a Palestinian state should know better. The lawyers reading this will forgive me, because I may be using the term improperly from a legal perspective, but for me, this represents morale turpitude of the worst sort. I see the hand of Bush and Rice here, big time. I will follow this closely and make further analytical comments after Shabbat. ~~~~~~~~~~ As Rosh Hashana approaches, I would like to share with you a link to a site for a non-profit organization called Standing Together, which provides morale support to our soldiers. You can arrange through them to send a Shana Tova card to a soldier at: http://stogether.org/cards.html or learn more about the organization at www.stogether.org. As I've demonstrated with stories in the past, they represent some of Israel's very finest. And letting Israel's soldiers know you care helps them keep their moral strong. Pass this information along, please. They are delighted to hear from people outside of Israel. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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HARDLINE TAKEOVER OF BRITISH MOSQUES
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 7, 2007. |
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Just what is Gordon Brown doing for Britain? How naive, or rather willfully ignorant can a nation be? Does Gordon Brown know anything about this homegrown Islamic weed... Islamistan is finally taking over Their Homeland Britain?
This was written by Andrew Norfolk and is archived at
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Almost half of Britain's mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to "shed blood" for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found. Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain's 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times. The Times investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain's mosques and its policy of enouraging the recruitment of more "home-grown" preachers. Mr ul Haq, 36, was educated and trained at an Islamic seminary in Britain and is part of a new generation of British imams who share a similar radical agenda. He heaps scorn on any Muslims who say they are "proud to be British" and argues that friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes "a mockery of Allah's religion". Seventeen of Britain's 26 Islamic seminaries are run by Deobandis and they produce 80 per cent of home-trained Muslim clerics. Many had their studies funded by local education authority grants. The sect, which has significant representation on the Muslim Council of Britain, is at its strongest in the towns and cities of the Midlands and northern England. Figures supplied to The Times by the Lancashire Council of Mosques reveal that 59 of the 75 mosques in five towns -- Blackburn, Bolton, Preston, Oldham and Burnley -- are Deobandi-run. It is not suggested that all British Muslims who worship at Deobandi mosques subscribe to the isolationist message preached by Mr ul Haq, and he himself suggests Muslims should only "shed blood" overseas. But while some Deobandi preachers have a more cohesive approach to interfaith relations, Islamic theologians say that such bridge-building efforts do not represent mainstream Deobandi thinking in Britain. The Times has gained access to numerous talks and sermons delivered in recent years by Mr ul Haq and other graduates of Britain's most influential Deobandi seminary near Bury, Greater Manchester. Intended for a Muslim-only audience, they reveal a deep-rooted hatred of Western society, admiration for the Taleban and a passionate zeal for martyrdom "in the way of Allah". The seminary outlaws art, television, music and chess, demands "entire concealment" for women and views football as "a cancer that has infected our youth". Mahmood Chandia, a Bury graduate who is now a university lecturer, claims in one sermon that music is a way in which Jews spread "the Satanic web" to corrupt young Muslims. "Nearly every university in England has a department which is called the music department, and in others, where the Satanic influence is more, they call it the Royal College of Music," he says. Another former Bury student, Bradford-based Sheikh Ahmed Ali, hails the 9/11 attacks on America because they acted as a wake-up call to young Muslims. This, he says, taught them that they will "never be accepted" in Britain and has led them to "return to Islam: sisters are wearing hijab ... the lion is waking up". Mr ul Haq, the most high-profile of the new generation of Deobandis, runs an Islamic academy in Leicester and is the former imam at the Birmingham Central Mosque. Revered by many young Muslims, he draws on his extensive knowledge of the Koran and the life and sayings of the prophet Muhammed to justify his hostility to the kuffar, or non-Muslims. One sermon warns believers to protect their faith by distancing themselves from the "evil influence" of their non-Muslim British neighbours. "We are in a very dangerous position here. We live amongst the kuffar, we work with them, we associate with them, we mix with them and we begin to pick up their habits." In another talk, delivered a few weeks before 9/11, he praises Muslims who have gained martyrdom in battle and laments that today "no one dare utter the J word". "The J word has become taboo ... The J word is jihad in the way of Allah." The Times has made repeated attempts to get Mr ul Haq to comment on the content of his sermons. However, he declined to respond. A commentator on religious radicalism in Pakistan, where Deobandis wield significant political influence, told The Times that "blind ignorance" on the part of the Government in Britain had allowed the Deobandis to become the dominant voice of Islam in Britain's mosques. Khaled Ahmed said: "The UK has been ruined by the puritanism of the Deobandis. You've allowed the takeover of the mosques. You can't run multiculturalism like that, because that's a way of destroying yourself. In Britain, the Deobandi message has become even more extreme than it is in Pakistan. It's mind-boggling." In some mosques the sect has wrested control from followers of the more moderate majority, the Barelwi movement. A spokesman for the Department for Communities said: "We have a detailed strategy to ensure imams properly represent and connect with mainstream moderate opinion and promote shared values like tolerance and respect for the rule of law. We have never said the challenge from extremism is simply restricted to those coming from overseas."
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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A LETTER TO SHABAK-MOSSAD-POLICE-BORDER GUARDS & OFFICERS OF THE IDF
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 6, 2007. |
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Once all of you were respected and admired as competent professionals -- until the politicians found you were valuable as front men for their political ambitions. Top leaders were appointed, not for their competency but for their PC (Political Correctness) and willingness to obey orders. Your hard-won reputations spiraled down. Slowly, the politicians turned you into an obedient and hostile force against your own people. Who would have thought the people who loved and admired you would learn to fear you. Not all of you became like the Stasi, KGB or other fearsome Secret Services but, enough of you were willing to take orders -- even to infiltrate and subvert the once honored pioneering settlers and defenders of our country. Slowly, the ranks of your organizations were filled with thugs who were perfectly willing to set up roadside traps to knock off outspoken citizens who objected to their Land being used as poker chips in a high stakes game meant to enrich certain politicians and you all stood by and watched the subversion of the nation. Would Eli Cohen admire your slide into a hell usually seen in the Soviet Union, East Germany, Romania, etc.? You and the old boys of the IDF Politically Correct in the officers corps rise fast in the ranks. You watched Ehud Barak have medals pasted to his uniform so he would be ready to be elevated in politics when he left the army. Tell me, did you admire his IDF run out of Lebanon in the middle of the night? Do you admire his recent decision to withdraw troops from the Golan Heights so he could complete his plan to turn the Golan over to Syria through an agreed attack which Israeli forces are supposed to lose? The Police and the Yatom (special forces for evicting Israeli citizens) are getting ready to drive more Jews from their Land and, no doubt, your superiors are in on the planning. What will you do in the years that follow, knowing you assisted in the saturation missile attack against Judea and Samaria from Syria, from Hezb'Allah, from Iran? I wonder how the "Judenrat" and Kapos who escaped their bosses in Nazi Germany think through the nightmares of their treachery. Will you have the same nightmares as the years go by? You stand by as Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak cut a deal with President Bush and Secretary of State Rice to sell out your own country to Arab Muslims who will kill you and all Jews when given the chance. Clearly, your training will allow you to ignore a hit on your parents, brothers, friends because you no longer fight for your country. You are assigned to accept corrupt politicians who need your services and obedience. "I was only following orders"..isn't that what you will say? I know your bosses will move up the political ladder but, you get nothing for the dirty work. But, not to worry. Olmert, Peres and Barak will come out of the mess rich and famous. If a few thousand Jews have to pay the price, well, isn't that what's supposed to happen? You can stand by and watch it all happen. I cannot help but wonder how all the dead soldiers and agents who gave their lives to protect the Jewish nation would feel about your new political doctrine? You have a choice. Life is full of choices. Ask Carmi Gillon. Clearly, he has made his choice. You might get an answer from Arik Sharon but, he doesn't talk any more. You could ask Peres but he would only lie, as always. Ask Barak how he plans to surrender the Golan Heights? Ask Bibi Netanyahu if he is already a bought man and if he plans to carry Oslo forward. Shucks! I wonder who you and the Jewish people can trust? 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@gwinston.interaccess.com |
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CREDIT FOR MAKING WAR POSSIBLE; EU ACCUSED OF COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 6, 2007. |
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HIZBULLAH CAUGHT IN SELF-CONTRADICTION Background: Most Lebanese don't want war, which destroys their property. They resent Hizbullah's dragging them into one a year ago. To avoid their ire, Hizbullah head Sheikh Nasrallah poses to them as a nationalist defending the country from Israel. He poses before his followers as a jihadist whose religious quest is supra-national. Iran is rebuilding Lebanon to restore its reputation. News: Iranian TV censored an interview with its proxy, Hizbullah head Nasrallah. Nasrallah had said, "We are ready to be torn apart, spliced into tiny pieces, so that Iran will remain exalted." "I am a lowly soldier of the Imam Khameni. Hizbullah youths acted on behalf of the Imam Khomeini." His admission of being a proxy for Iran discredits him in Lebanon and discredits the European diplomacy that encourages Hizbullah to disarm and stick to Lebanese politics. As a stooge of Iran, why should Hizbullah have any role in Lebanese politics? France already designates Hizbullah as terrorist, but the EU does not. Now what excuse has the E.U.? (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 8/20, p.6.) We Westerners must learn that jihadists are not nationalists. That is one reason for denying sovereignty to the ruling terrorists in the P.A., whoever they be. CREDIT FOR LETTING COMBUSTIBLES ACCUMULATE? In its first year since the Lebanon War, UNIFIL has "been able to maintain calm between Hizbullah and Israel. In Jerusalem, where PM Olmert is politically weakened, this achievement qualifies as a success." However, "...the calm on the border is 'reversible,' while the decision of if and when to start a war (is) in Hizbullah's hands." UNIFIL's mission should be to disarm Hizbullah (Op. Cit.), so it cannot start a war. This would be the blow to Iran's plans that Olmert and Foreign Min. Livni missed the opportunity to deliver. Disarming it would require a war. Not to UNIFIL's taste. The West would rather pretend it is keeping peace, until war starts, than secure peace at great effort. Mr. Avni's stated that the decision when to start a war is Hizbullah's! Obviously, UNIFIL does not prevent war. Therefore, neither it nor Israel, which invited it, was successful, since UNIFIL did not prevent Hizbullah from rearming, retraining, and re-fortifying, so that soon it can resume war, as jihadists are wont to do. IDF STOCKPILES LOW So says the new Israeli Defense Min. Barak. He said it is the result of budget cuts over the last several years (IMRA, 8/21). Netanyahu set most budgets! "DRYING OUT" THE SETTLEMENTS? The Army suggests giving settlements the funds to hire private guards, instead of using troops that rotate out too often. Meanwhile, many guards are leaving for more reliable employment, leaving their settlements defenseless (IMRA, 8/21). Is this a way of getting more settlers killed, so that they have to leave without compensation and without the embarrassing protests seen in Gaza? The Army is suspiciously non-protective of settlers, already. ISRAEL NEEDS TO WIN WAR ON ENEMY TERRITORY Defense Min. Barak said the Army needs two more divisions. He added, "The next war needs to be decided in enemy territory, with minimal damage to the home front." Dr. Aaron Lerner wonders whether Israel will be able to circumvent the defensive shield of rockets that Russia is sending Syria (IMRA, 8/21.) Ironic, what Barak says. He was the one who, as Prime Minister, had the IDF literally run out of Lebanon, abandoning bases, heavy weapons, and its Lebanese military ally. Had he not done that, Hizbullah would not have been able to launch missiles at Israel, starting last year's war and becoming ready to renew war. Were he a patriot, he would have built up the South Lebanon Army and expanded it into a Free Lebanon. As Prime Minister, he offered almost all of Yesha and the Jewish holy site in Jerusalem and Hebron to the PLO. That would enable the enemy, ranged alongside Israel's cities, to fight the next war in Israeli territory. Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza allows the enemy to fire rockets into some of Israel's cities. A general in the first Lebanon war, Barak ordered a unit of religious Jews into a Syrian ambush. Peres undermined the war effort lest a Likud Prime Minister get credit for victory. Sharon discredited the regime by letting the Phalange massacre prisoners. No, these leftists are not patriotic. E.U. ACCUSED OF "COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT" Hamas proposed to tax fuel revenue. At that, the E.U. suspended payments for Gaza fuel, lest it help finance Hamas. The main Israeli supplier ceased furnishing fuel. Egypt continued supplying some. Contradicting itself, the news brief stated that Israel continued supplying some, too. Hamas denied planning a fuel tax and called the E.U. action "collective punishment." (Arutz-7, 8/21). Ironic that after critics have accused Israel of collective punishment, they now stand accused of it! Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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NOW I AM A RACIST APE
Posted by KAE, September 6, 2007. |
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This was written by Carol Gould and is archived at
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London -- Reports tonight that Germany has foiled a massive terror plot emphasise that the perpetrators have expressed a 'profound hatred of Americans.' Now, this is an interesting piece of phrasing. The have not said they 'hate America.' They have not said they 'hate American foreign policy' or 'American support for the Zionist entity.' They hate Americans. This piece of news would not have resonated so much with me had I not had a disturbing few weeks trying to live a quiet life in central London, where I have resided for thirty-two years. Recently I went into a well-known coffee chain in Edgware Road near Marble Arch. As I waited to be served I noticed the café was crowded but that I was the only female customer. Men in various permutations of Middle Eastern garb, including several in full head-to-toe keffiyah and robe, stared at me. When I sat down and opened my bottle of apple juice I noticed it was fizzing. I called the server over and told her that the juice had fermented. 'No -- English' she said, throwing her arms up in despair. Another server came over and asked me what the problem seemed to be. I told her the juice had fermented and that they needed to check their fridge. She looked at the other woman and they shrugged. I have to confess I have a short fuse about non-English people populating what seems to be 99 % of every job in London and the Home Counties. I am spoilt because in recent years I have been to the USA several times and marvel at the stupendous service provided by young college students and other Americans who possess perfect English and are obliging beyond anyone's expectations. So, I became exasperated and said 'Is there no-one working here who speaks English? This is Paddington -- this is still a London neighbourhood.' A well-dressed man came over and said 'I speak English.' I thought he was going to intervene on my behalf but instead came out with this astonishing observation: 'You are a racist! You are a racist ape! Look at you -- you are an ape!' I was dumbfounded. I came to London thirty-two years ago to soak up the culture of Dr Johnson and Chaucer and Milton, and in the autumn of my life am called an ape by a man from, well, perhaps Egypt, perhaps Palestine, perhaps Saudi Arabia.. Shocked, I glared at him, but he had to finish things off: 'You want them to speak Hebrew, don't you?' I got up from my seat and went over to him and at the top of my voice said I would be proud to speak Hebrew if I could, it being the language of the Torah and of an ancient culture going back six-thousand years. He then embarked on a tirade at me about the 'five million Indians' slaughtered in genocide in America. Meanwhile, the men in the café were in various states of laughter at me, and exhibiting great admiration for him. Believe it or not, the server had in the meantime brought me a fresh juice which I calmly drank with my very un-Hebrew ham and cheese sandwich, and then I left. I wandered over to the flower shop and found myself commiserating with what seemed to be two Englishwomen who lived in a permanent state of fear in a neighbourhood they had called their own for generations. They told me I must have been mad going into that shop, as 'all the establishments in Edgware Road are off-limits to us now.' They told me there was one small café that was safe for a
western woman. (I had a private giggle about this, considering how
appallingly rudely I had been treated by the cockney publican in The
Green Man Pub in Edgware Road. I can't win.)
For those of you who think I invite these mishaps, be assured that wherever I go in Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC, Vermont and other American destinations I seem to attract names like 'sugar pie' and 'doll face' from servers, bus drivers, train conductors and others in service to the public, so as the saying goes, it can't be me. In the context of the aforementioned arrests in Germany of a terror cell of men (two German-born converts to Islam) who 'profoundly hate Americans' the hatred the man in the café had in his eyes towards me was palpable. This is not some sort of paranoia; some of the other men in the café looked as if they would be glad to do me in or watch him do the deed. Moving on to this past weekend, I went to a little bakery and café in Abbey Road to ask for a refund for some very, very stale rolls my friend had bought the night before. She had held a splendid dinner party with some very illustrious guests and I had stayed overnight at her beautiful home. I was on a high from the civilised and enlightened conversation of the dinner party the night before, but was brought down to a new low when the bakery proprietor, whom I understand to be Iranian, glowered at me and literally refused to talk to me. I musthave stood there for an eternity until I was able to tell him my story of the stale rolls. He walked away and did not answer. It was as if I did not exist, or was too inferior a being to be given the time of day. Finally, in a totally foul manner -- as if I was a piece of human garbage -- he snarled at me that I should have known the night before when I bought my friend the rolls that they would be stale and he said he could not buy the story anyway, as I had returned only one roll. I asked him how much chicken wings were with a view to a swap instead of a refund. He refused to talk to me. I stood there for awhile wondering what to do and he gave me 50p. My blood boiled. Again, when my buttons are pressed these days in a country where men used to tip their hats and call me 'madam' I turned around and told him that in the USA a regular customer would receive a refund and even a complimentary item to take home. He shouted, in front of a café full of customers, 'GET OUT OF MY SHOP ! NOW! GO BACK TO AMERICA!' Well, that is red rag to a bull; though I fully intend very soon to go back to America I resent a most-likely-illegally-working immigrant to Britain telling me to go back home. I thundered at him about my dignity and how proud I am of being an American, etc. etc. but afterwards I felt a right fool. What was I doing justifying myself? I never used to be filled with anger as I am these days. I see a country that had an exceptionally unique way of doing things disintegrating into a morass of multiculturalism that has no place in the land of Shakespeare, Keats, Milton and Chaucer. Much debate has been bubbling this past few weeks about the absence of ethnic and immigrant groups attending the BBC Proms concerts. Indeed, every concert I have attended has been standing-room only 100% white middle class. Having been called an ape and told to go back to the USA by two Mideastern immigrants to Britain, I am looking forward to attending the Last Night of the Proms in the Park this coming Saturday, where I, along with the hundreds of thousands in the annual gathering, racist ape that I may be, will be waving my Union Jack and Stars and Stripes to the tune of 'Land of Hope and Glory.' And I glory in the thought that there is still hope for Great Britain.
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Contact KAE at kew1@dbmail.com
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LIEBERMAN: 'LAND FOR PEACE' WILL LEAD TO CERTAIN FAILURE
Posted by Avodah, September 6, 2007. |
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This was written by Hillel Fendel and appeared in Arutz Sheva
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(IsraelNN.com) Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party have taken the unique step of releasing a "party platform" in between national elections -- in what some see as not only a promotional endeavor, but also a well-timed political ploy. Among the main points of the Yisrael Beiteinu document is that the "principle of 'land for peace' is mistaken and misleading... and will lead to certain failure." "The assumption that the root of Israeli-Arab dispute is territorial," the report continues, "stems from the hope that an era of peace can finally be brought about via Israeli territorial concessions. This conception does not jibe with our accumulated experience, however... as can be seen from the two latest instances in which we ceded territory down to the last grain of sand -- in Lebanon and Gaza. Not only do territorial concessions not bring peace, they actually lead directly to an escalation of terrorism." This mistaken conception, writes Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, the Minister for Strategic Affairs, leads to basic errors in Israel's foreign policy. "Israel must explain its positions on an intellectual level, and not with Messianic slogans such as 'Not one inch.' Israel must explain [for instance] that the anti-Israeli positions led by the leaders of Israel, and which are prevalent in many Western circles as well, are a direct carry-over from classic anti-Semitism." "Israel must explain that the demand for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and the 'right of return' are a camouflage of the attempt by extremist Islam to destroy the State of Israel. It must explain that their demand for self-definition is just a way of prettifying this, and that 'two states for two peoples' does not mean one and a half states for one people [the Arabs] and half a state for the other." Yisrael Beiteinu has long favored an exchange of territory assigning Israeli-Arab population centers to a Palestinian state to solve the Israeli-Arab dispute. The document cites Cyprus and the exchange of populations there as an example: "In the early 70's, the intermingling of Turks and Greeks created constant friction that developed in time into a dispute saturated with blood and suffering. But since 1974, when the two nations were separated, with the Turks being concentrated on one side of the island and the Greeks on the other, life has returned to normal. True, there is no peace agreement, but there is security, stability, and growth. If we, too, would have that -- it would be sufficient." Lieberman repeats the frequently-repeated position that the Arabs' dispute with Israel is not the main expression of Islam's struggle against the West. What should be done about the incessant firing of Kassam rockets at Sderot and the western Negev? Lieberman has an answer: Israel should "hit" Rimal, a wealthy neighborhood in Gaza, every time Sderot is rocketed, "at least to the same extent that Sderot is hit." He also implies that Israel should stop supplying electricity, water, fuel, port services and other resources to Gaza. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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ISRAELI PROSECUTION ACCUSED OF POLITICAL BIAS
Posted by A.M. Cytryn, September 6, 2007. |
| This comes from the Israel Justice website http://www.israeljustice.com/news2.asp?key=83 |
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BEERSHEBA, Israel -- An Israel defense attorney has accused the state of political bias in the prosecution of a Jewish teenager convicted of assaulting a Palestinian stone-thrower. Defense attorney Yarom HaLevi said the prosecution discriminated against Shimshon Cytryn when it indicted him on charges of attempted murder of Hilal Ziad Mujaida in June 2005. On June 3, Cytryn, 20, was acquitted of the attempted murder charge, but convicted of aggravated assault, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years. "The defendant was charged with attempted murder, and I, as a jurist, consider that this was not done by mistake on the part of the person responsible for the indictment," HaLevi said. "My opinion is that the person who wrote the indictment was influenced by his own political leanings." Both Cytryn and Mujaida, 23, were said to have been involved in a melee between Jews and Arabs along the Gaza coast weeks before the expulsion of 16,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank in August 2005. Cytryn was prosecuted on the basis of a video that showed him hurling an object toward Mujaida, who had been lying injured. "This Arab didn't go to the grocery store and was attacked as he carried his groceries in his right hand and his violin in his left hand, but he is seen throwing rocks in every direction," HaLevi said. "And although I had the photograph of him [Mujaida] throwing stones, I didn't use it because it wasn't relevant in the earlier stages of the trial." Mujaida, who was not brought to testify, asserted that an Israeli soldier struck him with an M-16 assault rifle during the rock-throwing battle. According to video shootage shown in court, the object hurled by Cytryn did not strike Mujaida. "A young Arab is shown throwing rocks at Israelis, soldiers and youths, and he is held by soldiers and released to freedom like a wounded bird," Halevi told the Beersheba District Court on Sept. 4. "No one puts him on trial. But the Israeli youth is tried for throwing stones and convicted of aggravated assault. So what's happening here? The Arab youth also threw stones, so what's the difference? But someone, somewhere, decided that the Arab youth is better. And my colleague speaks about racism." In the pre-sentencing hearing, prosecutor Yariv Zeri argued that Cytryn was a violent racist who attacked Mujaida because he was an Arab. Zeri, who called for a stiff sentence, said Cytryn's attack was unrelated to the expulsion of Jewish residents from the Gaza Strip. "We must treat this as a regular case of violence, and relate to the defendant as a violent criminal and not as an ideological fighter for justice, and not as someone who joined the mass opposition to the Disengagement [expulsion]," Zeri said. "There was a small group of hoodlums and vandals, led by the defendant, whose only goal was to injure Arabs. We are speaking about a violent racist act which portryas a dangerous person who must be distanced from society." Judge Hannah Slutky questioned the prosecutor's contention that Cytryn was a mere racist. The judge also said the prosecutor misrepresented a psychologist's report that Cytryn refused to express regret for hurling an object toward Mujaida. "Would you have him [Cytryn] throw stones at our own soldiers?" Slutky asked. Sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 16. Contact A.M. Cytryn at amcytryn@netvision.net.il |
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PROF. PLAUT ON FREEDOM OF PRESS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 6, 2007. |
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I had this exchange with Prof. Steven Plaut: Shulman: A theme of yours is to uphold freedom of speech from those who would repress it. You specialize in identifying universities whose liberal arts departments won't hire nationalists or conservatives. You agitate against SLAPP suits, designed to chill free speech. A great, early American patriot said he didn't agree with someone but would give his life fighting for that person's right to express his opinion. How far would you go? Would you publicize, from time-to-time, the censorship imposed by Israeli government control of most of the Israeli broadcast media. First it denied radio licenses to right-wingers, and then it shut down Arutz-7 radio. Likud was in power more than once, but did not free up that control over licensing. The public, which thinks of Likud as Right wing should be reminded of that fact, too. You know that MK Pines tried to get Steimatzky not to stock the books of Barry Chamish, whose views you dismiss, but the point is not whether you like his views but censorship. Steimatzky is said not to carry the books, even new books with new information, of all five authors about the Rabin assassination, authors having a similar thesis. Would you rebuke Steimatzky (after checking the situation) for not letting readers decide for themselves what they would like to read? Steimatzky has an excuse which is like that of Israeli prosecutors who drop cases against government abusers of civil liberties "for lack of public interest." I think that the real reason is that exposing and punishing those crimes is against their private interest. Plaut: Yes I sometimes write about censorship in Israel. But I do not consider Pines expressing his opinion that Steinmetzky should not carry Chamish to be censorship and I agree with Pines on this. I also agree with Pines opinion that Chamish is a lying libelous mentally ill nut. (Such is the level of Plaut's discourse. Pines has proposed some of the most authoritarian measures, so one could question his fitness.) No self-respecting book store should carry Chamish's ranting nonsense, esp now that Chamish is up to his ears in bed with Neo-Nazi web sites. Steinmetzky is not obligated to carry anything. When they make their decision of what not to carry and what to carry that is their democratic right. I strongly oppose Israel government owned and run TV and radio stations (and not just in Israel). The only proper role for government in electronic media is assigning frequencies (in effect creating property rights to frequencies), preferably assigned via auction. Shulman: I didn't think you would fall back on the media's excuse for censorship that it is their right not to carry some story or book (and it isn't just Chamish's story any more but there were five authors), when the issue was: (1) Should they decide to shut out a market because they don't like its view, and where does that censorship end; and (2) Is it proper that there be pressure from legislators and others on them. It is pressure, because they formerly did carry Chamish's books and have nothing to say against them. Yielding to pressure is not the same as exercising a democratic right but is having one's rights oppressed. Plaut: Sorry but it is not an excuse. There is no obligation by anyone to help Chamish distribute his "books". He is free to hold and express any opinion he wants, at least the non-libelous ones (although almost all his rants are libelous), but there is no obligation under a democracy to let you enter my living room or yard to express your opinion. Steimetzky is not obligated to carry ANY book or author, and as a side note they do not carry my book either. Yes of course they have the right not to carry a book because they do not like its views, which is why they do not carry Holocaust Deniers and hopefully do not carry Ilan Pappe. As I say, there is no entitlement to be carried by Steimetzky. Legislators have the right to express private opinions about books, which is what Pines did. Had he proposed a LAW that prohibited Chamish selling his trash -- THAT would have been censorship. Exerting pressure and lobbying for things is perfectly legitimate. Chamish is free to sell his "books" in a hundred other ways. Shulman: (At this point, I stopped pursuing the debate, but have further comment.) Prof. Plaut asserts rights that I do not dispute, but does not answer points I make. There are five authors writing about the Rabin assassination from the point of view of government conspiracy and cover-up, they are skilled and investigators, and they enjoy popularity and sales. Steimetzky carried their books until Establishment figures protested. Therefore, it hardly seems like a free market decision but censorship of a serious point of view that the reading public wants to read and judge for itself. Plaut does not care that the public will not get that opportunity, he doesn't like Chamish's point of view. If I recall, MK Pines, part of the governing coalition, did put pressure on the bookseller. One should bear in mind that in Israel, much more so than in the US, government power is pervasive, the establishment practices solidarity, and it is difficult for private entrepreneurs to resists its demands. That makes censorship possible in less formal ways. Let us not pretend it doesn't exist. I read most of Chamish's books, in which he cites some of the other Rabin case authors. Chamish has a broad view, full of background. Much of the evidence has withstood criticism. I've read Plaut's long article of rebuttal, covering only a portion of Chamish's evidence. I think he missed the point of much of what he denied, and replied with weak rationalizations, that would sound good only to newspaper readers unfamiliar with the mountain of evidence. Plaut claims that because Chamish has had some dubious opinions before, he discredits the Right's attempt to stop Oslo. I think that is a poor excuse. First, Plaut devotes much of his effort to discrediting Chamish, which therefore acts to make his prediction come true. Second, there isn't much effort to discredit Oslo and similar leftist attempts. Chamish has helped raise suspicion about the leftist politicians, a great service to the Jewish people. For someone who purports to be concerned about Israeli appeasement of the Arabs, Plaut writes very little about it, mostly about unqualified, extremist professors. Plaut acts as if there are no conspiracies. Nevertheless, there have been proven cases of government dirty tricks against the religious Right, frame-ups, brutality, all sorts of fascistic and antisemitic tactics and tremendous corruption leaving them open to blackmail by foreign government or their own extremists. Having committed all those types of crimes, why not as a dirty trick, a fake Rabin assassination that someone exploited to get Rabin out of the way, when Rabin was turning against Oslo? Some of the leading figures at first admitted key points that prove Chamish's case, then changed them to conform to the government theory of the murder. Or they knew what they wouldn't have known, if there were no conspiracy. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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SCIENTOLOGY LITERATURE TO BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS IN KIRYAT SHMONA
Posted by Ellen Horowitz, September 6, 2007. |
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An Education Ministry superintendent has pushed for Scientology literature
to be taught in schools in Kiryat Shmona. This is from Haaretz
Ellen Horowitz lives in the Golan Heights, Israel with her husband and six children. She is a painter and columnist for Israelnationalnews.com. email: ellen@bezeqint.net |
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DARFURIAN ISRAELIS
Posted by David Frankfurter, September 6, 2007. |
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Dear Friends, In this day and age, almost no matter where you live, it is hard to take pride in government. Here in Israel there's lots to brag about. Technological leadership, thriving economy, the warmth of our society, the way our youngsters defend their fellow citizens against attack in a never ending terror war ... but sadly, our elected leaders are not usually part of the positive images. So when they get caught doing something right, it's a noteworthy surprise. A story in today's Ha'aretz is one of those surprises. Interior Minister, Meir Sheetrit, announced that hundreds of Darfur refugees will be granted citizenship of Israel. Estimates are that around 2,000 African refugees have found asylum in Israel, but the issue is not without its problems. With their pursuers having shifted whole new populations into the Sudanese homes and villages, they will have nowhere to go even after the fighting is over. It is clear that the 2.5 million who have been displaced cannot be absorbed by tiny Israel. It is also difficult to differentiate between economic opportunists and genuine refugees -- not to mention the security risk associated with potential infiltrators from an enemy state said to harbour Al-Qaida. To date, the Israeli Muslim community has not come forward, and so those who are in Israel do not have a local community into which they easily integrate. On the other hand, the Jewish state, which was rose out of the ashes of the Holocaust and became a haven for hundreds of thousands of Jews chased out of Arab countries and has a collective memory of exile to Rome and Babylon, dhimmitude in Arabia, the Spanish Inquisition, and European pogroms, cannot stand idly by. Darfur is a world responsibility, and one in which it would be reasonable to expect the Arab and African nations to take a lead. Arab states, as yet have shown no inclination to reign in the racist Arab Muslims who are engaged in rape, pillage and plunder of the most barbaric dimensions. Nor have they shown the slightest inclination to protect the persecuted black Muslims. It is worse. In a most repulsive story, Egyptian border guards murdered Sudanese refugees trying to cross the border, seeking refuge in Israel. A physical "tug-of-war" with Israeli border guards over one of the refugees ended in an Egyptian "victory" after they pointed their guns at the Israelis. The poor refugee "prize" was simply dragged back over the border and clubbed to death. Nor have African nations offered succour to their Muslim and animist coreligionists. And the Western world has been equally unwilling to offer haven. As we approach the Rosh Hashanna new year, we and the Sudanese refugees can only hope that the example set by Israel, absorbing a number so large in terms of its relative population, and granting the protection and benefits of citizenship to the stateless, will be part of fulfillment of the words of the prophet Isiah "The law will go out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Press your government to take heed and act. David David Frankfurter is a business consultant, corporate executive and writer who frequently comments on the Middle East. To subscribe to his 'Letter from Israel', email him at david.frankfurter@iname.com. Or go to http://www.livejournal.com/users/dfrankfurter/ |
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KARESENTY APPEAL IN FRANCE -- SIGN THE PETITION TO RELEASE AL DURAH TAPES
Posted by Ellen Horowitz, September 5, 2007. |
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The October 2000 image of Mohammed Al Dura, crouched behind his father, and
allegedly the victim of Israeli bullets, became a symbol of the Palestinian
uprising and an icon of "martyrdom". Serious controversy with regards to
the authenticity of the event and its broadcasting by France 2 Public
Television became the subject of a defamation trial...
On September 12, 2007, PhilippeKarsenty's appeal will finally be heard. Richard Landes of http://theaugeanstables.com and http://seconddraft.org has urged us to sign the following petition: Sign the Petition: FRANCE2: RELEASE THE SECRET TAPES! Breaking News -- Richard Landes ~7:24 am Please sign the petition and send it to everyone. Philippe Karsenty¹s appeal trial is coming up and this petition is part of an effort to pressure France2 and the Justice system. TEXT OF PETITION: To Patrick de Carolis, France2 Television France2: Release the Secret Muhammad al Durah Tapes! People around the world who depend on the media for reliability, accuracy, and transparency in reporting, demand that France2 release the unedited video tapes ("rushes") that its Palestinian cameraman, Talal abu Rahmah, sent them on September 30 and October 1, 2000 from Gaza. On September 30, 2000, your Middle East correspondent Charles Enderlin, broadcast a story about Muhammad al-Durah, a 12-year old Palestinian boy. Using the footage and the testimony from his cameraman, Talal abu Rahmah, Enderlin reported that Israeli soldiers had targeted and killed the boy. That allegation of deliberate murder spread instantaneously around the world. Extensive doubts have emerged about almost every claim of this explosive report, and they raise serious questions about both the journalistic integrity of the cameraman and the professional judgment of his employer, your correspondent Charles Enderlin. As a result, the raw footage France2 received from Talal abu Rahmah represent key evidence in this crucial case. But instead of releasing the tapes, your institution has responded to criticism of your correspondent¹s broadcast by suing French citizens for defamation and keeping the tapes secret for nearly seven years now. If France2 reports the news responsibly and uses reliable cameramen, you have nothing to hide. Show the tapes and let the public judge. Whatever political or religious beliefs we hold, whatever we now think about what happened on September 30, 2000, we, the undersigned, believe that all the victims and all of their loved ones  on both sides of the terrible war for which Muhammad al-Durah's image served as the icon  deserve that this evidence at last be shown. We, the undersigned, respectfully, but firmly, request that France2 release all the tapes for September 30 and October 1, 2000 for public inspection immediately. Sincerely,
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Ellen Horowitz lives in the Golan Heights, Israel with her husband and six children. She is a painter and columnist for Israelnationalnews.com. email: ellen@bezeqint.net |
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH'S (HRW) DAMAGE CAN'T BE UNDONE
Posted by Gerald Steinberg, September 5, 2007. |
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This appeared in the Jerusalem Post
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188392544861&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull |
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During last year's conflict with Hizbullah, Human Rights Watch led the condemnation and political campaign against Israel, repeatedly using terms such as "indiscriminate attacks" and "war crimes," based on allegations that were unverifiable or false, and largely absolving Hizbullah. This NGO superpower issued more statements and reports than any other group. One year later, HRW and Ken Roth, who heads this powerful organization, are still trying to answer critics, and to this end, they have published a 128-page report claiming to discover the details of the conflict. While it is heavily padded and repetitious -- few people are apparently expected to read more than the summary and recommendations -- the report tacitly acknowledges that the widely publicized claims made by HRW officials, including Roth, were wrong. How did HRW make such fundamental errors during the war? Why were they so quick to condemn Israel without knowing the facts? Why did officials ignore Hizbullah attacks and obvious violations of the moral principles HRW claims to promote? And which officials are responsible for HRW's role in the demonization of Israel? HRW'S REPORT, entitled "Civilians under Assault: Hezbollah's Rocket Attacks on Israel in the 2006 War" contrasts sharply with the political bombardment during the war. The major weapon at that time was a 49-page glossy booklet entitled "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks against Civilians in Lebanon," including an apparently staged cover photo with numbered coffins, and accompanied by a public relations campaign. This and other publications simply repeated the claims of "eyewitnesses" probably linked to Hizbullah, who declared that no rockets were being fired from any area in Lebanon that was hit by Israeli counterattacks. Similarly, in columns and interviews, HRW "Emergencies Director" Peter Bouckaert condemned Israel's explanation of its attacks following Hizbullah missile attacks as "a convenient excuse." Now Bouckaert's words are forgotten as the "excuse" has been verified by HRW's "expert researchers." And while the role of Syria and Iran in supplying Hizbullah with thousands of rockets escaped HRW officials last year, they have now discovered this Middle Eastern fact of life. Better late than never, but the damage from HRW's assault cannot be undone. For anyone with rudimentary knowledge of the events, this publication is banal, including the belated acknowledgement that Hizbullah "repeatedly bombarded cities, towns and villages without any apparent effort to distinguish between civilians and military objectives." As a result, "Hizbullah... violated fundamental provisions against deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians." Seventy pages of this report (most of the "meat") describe Hizbullah's arsenal, and the impact of the attacks against Haifa, Acre, Safed and numerous other parts of Northern Israel. The report also includes the bellicose statements made by Hassan Nasrallah and other officials, mentioning 89 "war time communiqués" declaring the goal of killing Israelis. Too bad that during the war, HRW researchers were apparently too busy with their anti-Israel campaigning to notice them. AS IN most HRW publications, the report includes a section with pseudo-legal jargon making the obvious case that Hizbullah (while never referred to as a terrorist group) is bound by the rules of war. This is a welcome change from HRW's previous and morally absurd position, which exempted Palestinian terrorists and "non-state actors." However, the claim that the laws of war do not include discussions of aggression is nonsensical and insulting to anyone with common sense or knowledge of the UN Charter. But in this way, Roth and HRW were able avoid assigning moral responsibility to Hizbullah for this war, or recognizing Israel's "humanitarian right" to self-defense. While HRW, and Ken Roth in particular, are used to making the accusations, issuing reports, determining international law according to their political preferences and calling for "independent investigations," the evidence from these reports highlights the need to investigate HRW. With an annual budget of over $40 million, a disproportionate part of which is spent targeting Israel, the damage from its highly biased approach and lack of credibility is too serious to ignore. HRW HAS played a major role in the exploitation of human rights norms in the pursuit of partisan and personal agendas, including the demonization of Israel. The anti-Israel campaign and false allegations during last year's war followed HRW's standard pattern that included participation in the NGO Forum at the 2001 Durban conference, which declared Israel to be an "apartheid state," the 2004 "Razing Rafah" publication, and accusations of "war crimes" in Jenin. "Reports" that attempt to minimize criticism resulting from earlier anti-Israel activities are also part of the standard operating procedure -- as seen in HRW's belated one-time publication on Palestinian suicide bombings. These also need to be examined by an independent commission. When Ken Roth speaks at the Hebrew University on September 6 (under the presumptuous title: "The 2006 Israel-Hizbullah War: The Real Reason Civilians Died"), he should also be confronted with HRW's biases and lack of credibility. The damage resulting from the political attacks on Israel, and from the continued exploitation of human rights, is too great to be ignored. Gerald M. Steinberg is editor of NGO Monitor and director of the Program on Conflict Management at Bar-Ilan University. |
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WE HAVE BEEN WARNED
Posted by Women In Green, September 5, 2007. |
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Dear Friends, The following article, by former Knesset Member Attorney Elyakim Haetzni, is the most important analysis with regard to Israeli survival as a Jewish State which you will read in these fateful times. Read it carefully and send a copy to President Bush, your senators and congressmen before the 'sacrificial international peace conference" (or, as some Israeli analysts call it: "the liquidation ceremony") planned to be held in Washington, DC, in November. This conference is planned for the express purpose of establishing a terrorist Palestinian State on Jewish land. We will update you in the next few days as to what is being planned to fight this abomination. With blessings and love for Israel, Ruth and Nadia Matar
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Some day we'll recall these tranquil months of headlines devoted to road accidents and minor scandals; the headlines of a society free from existential cares -- as a fool's paradise whose fools turned a blind eye to the erupting volcano threatening to bury us all. There was another summer like this one preceding Yom Kippur in '73, but this time the surprise attack is being readied from within, and the calamity will be diplomatic. I'm referring to the ritual sacrifice that the Bush administration is preparing for us this November that goes by the name of a "peace conference." The role of the sacrificial lamb will be filled by Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, hundreds of Jewish communities, and hundreds of thousands of Jews that will become refugees in their own land; all this on the backdrop of national, societal, and diplomatic collapse. The kindling and the fire for the sacrifice will be brought by Shimon Peres and his perpetual partner in crime, Terje Larsen. Serving them are Haim Ramon, Ehud Olmert, and Abu Mazen. Spurring them on are two evil and ambitious women who, like the most destructive tornadoes, are called by cute nicknames: Tzippi and Condi. On the tombstone the gravediggers will engrave the words "The Diplomatic Horizon" (for the Palestinians) and/or "Principles for the Final Status Agreement" and/or "Framework Agreement for the Establishment of a Palestinian State." The conference will deal with "core issues", that is to say it will uproot the core and the heart of our hold on our land: Jerusalem, borders, refugees, destruction of the settlements. Discussions on these matters are being held continually and urgently to the end of bringing the sacrificial lamb to Washington on time, already bound and readied for slaughter. There are those who are working to ensure that the sacrificial feast will be well attended -- from Morocco in the West to the Gulf States in the East. Israel's enemies have waited 40 years for this moment when Israel will be forced to regurgitate all that she swallowed during the Six Day War. Their eyes will finally merit to see the ceremony of subjugation whereby the Jews will return to the Arabs their lost honor and resume their proper places. To our enemies' good fortune, manning the helm of Israel's ship of state is a man supremely appropriate to the task of self-administering this coup de grace to the Jews -- a man dogged by failures and accusations of corruption, whose personal attributes embody all that is weak, rotten, spoilt, and foundering among the Jews in their land at this hour ... At this "peace" conference, the enemies of Israel from the East and from the West will dictate the decree that Olmert and his friends are writing now in absolute secret together with the Americans and the Arabs while the Israeli public, including the national camp and the settlers, twiddle their thumbs. It's comforting to tell ourselves soothing tales such as how Olmert is weak and Abu Mazen is even weaker, and that both of them lack the standing and support among their people to undertake such far-reaching diplomatic initiatives. There are no lack of such rationalizing yarns. Whoever calms themselves in this way doesn't understand the nature and quality of the liquidation ceremony that's being prepared for us. This ceremony doesn't require any strength, in fact it doesn't require anything at all except for a declaratory statement, ink on paper, the most feeble exhalation of breath, an effort that even a dying man could make without difficulty. However, a declaration like this is enough to bring about, in the words of Shimon Peres, "the concluding chapter of the conflict with the Palestinians," and, in actual truth, the concluding chapter of Israel's independence. After this, Israel will be a state in name only. In reality Israel will become a protectorate of the United Nations, whose foreign policy and security are given into the hands of the Quartet, and whose security, that is to say our lives, are entrusted to international forces in the North, center, and South of the country. At the sacrificial peace conference in Washington, Israel will likely obligate itself to establish a Palestinian state on its ancestral inheritance. The capitol of the new state will be Jerusalem, and not even one Jew will be allowed to live within its boundaries. It doesn't matter that the conference will not determine on which street in Jerusalem and over which hill or through which valley the border will pass. It is of no significance that the conference won't decide how many Arab "refugees" we'll be forced to swallow. What will be determined, irrevocably and eternally, this coming year or next year at the latest, is Palestinian sovereignty as a diplomatic, international, fact; with finality. The rest truly isn't important. So too when they signed the Oslo Accords with only the "Declaration of Principles." In its wake, as thunder follows lightning, we were hit by the "interim agreement" with all its details that demanded actualization: areas A, B, and C, the Palestinian "police", inserting a terror state infrastructure from Tunis into our borders, and all the rest of the insane arrangements that buried 1,500 Jews in their land and prepared the state for its final act of self-immolation in the guise of a Palestinian state that will turn life in this land into a living hell -- an irrevocable living hell. It's not important that the governmental apparatuses of the Palestinian state will be weak or even non-existent. It doesn't matter whether a prime minister or the head of some terrorist faction will rule. It's not important if this state has no economy and will live on the handouts that Israel, the Europeans, and the Americans pay to the gangsters as protection money for a modicum of quiet. The world contains a number of such non-functional states. Somalia, for example, is ruled by gangs of tribal thieves and thugs, but that doesn't in the least detract from Somalian sovereignty and from the land remaining the land of Somalia according to international law. Herzl had a vision of a Jewish state arising with international legal recognition. Now this vision has been turned on its head, and a foreign entity is achieving international recognition as sovereign over the Land of Israel. And who is promoting this travesty? The Jews themselves. What is the irredeemable, eternal meaning of Palestinian sovereignty? When Israel liberated Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in the Six Day War, she didn't conquer land that belonged to any sovereign power. Neither Jordan in Judea and Samaria nor Egypt in Gaza had any sovereign rights in those territories. Both had invaded those territories in 1948 in order to frustrate the League of Nations decision of November 29, 1947 recognizing Israel. Egypt never claimed sovereignty over Gaza and established military rule there from the beginning. Jordan, in contravention of international law, attempted to establish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, but renounced this aspiration on its own initiative in 1988. Only because of this vacuum in sovereignty was Israel authorized to utilize state lands to settle Jews in Yesha or to settle the lands in any way. Had there been a legal sovereign before Israel's takeover of those territories, the Hague Convention would have forbidden Israel from making fundamental changes to the status quo, including the utilization of state lands. International law views the conquering military administration as custodian over the occupied territories until they are returned to the original sovereign in a future peace agreement. Until then, the conquered lands are held in trust by the occupying power. In the same way, the conqueror is forbidden from excavating antiquities located in occupied territories. They too are held in trust for the conquered power that will eventually regain sovereignty. Therefore, coins from the Great Revolt or the Bar Kochba Revolt, bearing images of the Holy Temple and other Jewish symbols, will belong to the Palestinians the moment they became sovereign over Judea and Samaria; Israel will be obligated to give up all the Jewish antiquities that she's excavated since '67. All this we will bring upon ourselves the moment a Jewish hand signs an agreement granting Palestinian sovereignty over the Land of Israel. For the Palestinians to win eternal sovereignty over our homeland, it doesn't matter that Abu Mazen today happens to be weak, or if the day after signing an agreement he resumes his alliance with Hamas, or that he resigns, or is assassinated. From the moment that Palestine is declared a state, what is done can never be undone. The Palestinians, of course, will instigate terror and wars. The IDF might conquer Shechem over and over again, but will always be forced to leave and return the land to the Palestinian sovereign. This is because the land has become Palestinian land according to international law from the moment that Palestinian sovereignty is officially recognized. Just so was Berlin conquered and destroyed and divided, but in the end returned to Germany as its capitol. Just so the Nazis came and went, but Germany remained. I've already described how this scenario is viewed under international law. The giants in the field, professors Stone, Rostow, and Schwabel, have proven how the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine, granted by the League of Nations to Britain over the Land of Israel, are in force in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza until this day. According to the Mandate, the area of the Land of Israel is allocated under international law as the national homeland of the Jewish nation 'in recognition of the historic right of the Jewish people to reestablish their national home in Palestine' (including, of course, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza). Why are the provisions of the Mandate in force to this day despite the fact that the League of Nations has passed from the world and been replaced by the United Nations, and despite the fact that England is no longer here? The professors have explained that although a part of the lands of the Mandate have become the internationally recognized State of Israel and although another part of the lands of the Mandate east of the Jordan River have become the internationally recognized State of Jordan, a third part of the Mandate lands, that include Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, were left without a recognized sovereign. As long as international law doesn't officially recognize any other sovereignty, they'll continue to be governed by the provisions of the Mandate, which states, inter alia, that state lands are to be used for intensive Jewish settlement, to encourage aliyah, and names the Jewish Agency as a tool to serve those ends. When will these Mandate provisions cease to apply? When another sovereign will be declared over Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and Jerusalem. In the first stage, Israel abdicated her right to declare her sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and left those lands undefined and ownerless. Now she is moving to the next stage, the stage of the historic terminus of Jewish rights over the Land of Israel, the stage of voluntary relinquishment of sovereignty and of transferring her rights to an alien power. In all the years of our exile and persecution, there was not found among the Jewish people any authority willing to sever the people from its beloved land. We had to return and persevere here for 120 years, undergoing difficult and bitter trials, in order to establish a state authorized under international law to give the Land of Israel a decree of divorce in the name of the Jewish People, now and forever. Intensifying the heartbreak is the fact that Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are the only remaining territories on the entire earth (excepting the South Pole) which remain ownerless; as if an invisible hand guarded the ancient Jewish home for the Jewish people. And now that people's representative is pushing away this hand in an act of historic betrayal that will resound throughout the generations. Now the more we ground and strengthen our claim that we're the real and legal owners of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and Jerusalem, the more we'll ground and strengthen the newly acquired right of the Palestinians to those lands. After all, who is most authorized to gift and grant ownership over land if not the rightful owner? He and only he can legally effectuate the transfer! When this despicable act will be final, all else will flow from it. Whether the Israeli army drags the Jews out by their hair from their homes on land that has become "Palestine," or whether it will be left to the Palestinian murderers in uniform to do the job by themselves, from the moment land comes under Palestinian sovereignty, that will be the end of all Jewish life there. One can almost hear the destroyers talking, from Ramon to Livni and from Olmert to Peres: Soon the Palestinians will come and sweep away everything with a giant broom, the legal and established cities together with the "illegal" outposts and hilltops. Nothing will remain of the hated settlement enterprise, and together with its disappearance will come the collapse of those that bore it, the religious and national camps that endanger leftist rule. Our rulers are an elite that sprouted from what used to be called "the rule of the proletariat", in whose name they meant to appropriate the state in perpetuity. While the Socialist rationalizations have passed from the world and the elites represent no one but themselves, the socialist heirs still intend to rule in perpetuity. I don't bother to ask, "Where is Netanyahu?" or "Where is the Likud and its Knesset members?" at this fateful hour. Neither am I asking where Lieberman is or what Shas is doing. I'm asking the settlers whose lands will be the first the Palestinian bulldozer overturns: "Where are you?!" "Going up to Homesh"? The return to Homesh isn't taking place in a void. Homesh is not suspended in thin air. This enterprise only makes sense and has purpose as part of a struggle for our continued existence in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and Jerusalem that is now in immediate danger of destruction. We need to gather all the Jews; all those who remain Jews; while there's still time and embark on a struggle to the bitter end in order to prevent at any price taking the one step from which there's no return, the one additional step that will pull the ground from under us and fling us into the abyss of Palestinian sovereignty. Remember, we've been warned! Elyakim HaEtzni Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org |
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CALL IT WAR, MR. PRESIDENT
Posted by Ken Timmerman, September 5, 2007. |
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This appeared today on Front Page Magazine
www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID= 5D77C600-D051-4D23-8999-7714E6AD6F01 |
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The Islamic Republic of Iran has been waging war against America in Iraq from the very first days of U.S. military operations against Saddam Hussein. And yet, until just recently, no one in the U.S. government has been willing to acknowledge this openly. Iran began planning operations to undermine an eventual U.S. invasion of Iraq many months before U.S. military forces arrived in the region in late 2002. As I will reveal in my upcoming book, Shadow Warriors, one aspect of this forward-looking Iranian planning became apparent as U.S. troops were rolling toward Baghdad. Whereas the United States was still relying on a Commando Solo aircraft to beam crude Arabic-language radio programming into Iraq, the Iranians unrolled a whole series of slick, Arabic language television stations that blanketed the entire country with anti-U.S. propaganda. The effect on Iraqi public opinion was devastating. At one point, Iran had 42 radio and TV stations in Arabic beaming into Iraq, whereas the U.S.-led coalition had just one. A new report jointly sponsored by the Weekly Standard and the Institute for the Study of War, released last week, provides extraordinary new details of Iran's propaganda, intelligence, and military offensive against the U.S. presence in Iraq since those early days of the war. Kimberly Kagan has done yeoman's work in pulling together information released in dribs and drabs in recent months by U.S. military spokesmen in Iraq. Here are just a few of the main points she covers in great detail in this dense 32 page report:
This deadly litany of Iranian actions leaves no doubt about the intentions of Iran's leaders. They aim to defeat us in Iraq. It's as simple as that. They have declared war, and intend to continue waging war until we defeat them, or they defeat us. Judging by recent statements from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he and his fellow Revolutionary Guards officers have little doubt who is winning. At a Tehran press conference on Tuesday, the Mighty Midget said that U.S. political influence in Iraq is "collapsing rapidly," and he kindly offered to take our place. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region," he said. "Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation." Over the past nine months, U.S. military leaders in Iraq have gradually started to wake up to the enormity of Iran's offensive operations inside Iraq, and to target Iranian networks. The first major U.S. counter-strike took place last December, when the U.S. arrested a top Revolutionary Guards officer in Baghdad and started to learn of Iran's extensive intelligence and terrorist networks in Iraq during bedside chats with the gentle Iranian. Already then, I noted on this page that "Victory in Iraq cannot come until the United States makes it clear to Iran -- even more than Syria, since the Syrians will take their lead from Tehran -- that we will no longer tolerate their intervention in Iraqi affairs." That remains true today, and our failure to send a tough message to Tehran and utterly smash their networks in Iraq and their support structures in Iran has only encouraged them to step up attacks on U.S. forces. U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has acknowledged that since the U.S. agreed to talk with Iran about Iraq, Iranian operations in Iraq have gone "up and not down." The more we talk, the quicker they shoot. Since the spring, when Sunni tribal leaders started coming over to the coalition and deserting al Qaeda, we have had significant successes against these Iranian terror networts. But they have received little attention in the press -- and for good reason: the State Department has been desperate to hush up Iran's deadly war against America, in the vain hope they can still negotiate an end of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Kimberly Kagan notes that since March 2007, the U.S. has detained, captured, or killed a significant number of Iranian agents and their proxies in Iraq. These included:
Since May, more than a dozen additional "high-value" individuals trained in Iran and used by Iran to run their "secret cells" inside Iraq have been killed or detained. And yet, despite these successes by the U.S. military, the Iranians keep sending more agents, more explosives, and training new Iraqi terrorists. Mr. President, it's time to call this by its name. We are at war. And it's not just the abstract War on Terror. We are at war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Tehran, they know this. And they gloat when we refuse to recognize it and continue to say how eager we are to talk to them. In his talk with conservative bloggers last week, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol argued that President Bush and the Pentagon need to do a better job of selling the war, especially now that our generals in Iraq believe they are on the way to utterly destroying the insurgency. But the first step toward "selling" the war is acknowledging the simple fact that we are at war. With Iran. In his column last Thursday, the Washington Post's David Ignatius revealed that the State Department and Democrats in Congress conspired in the fall of 2004 to block a secret CIA program to defeat Iranian efforts to influence the Iraqi elections. It seems that House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was briefed on the top secret Presidential finding as Minority Leader at the time, was more concerned with defeating President Bush than in defeating Iran. We should not be surprised by this news. As last week's United Press International/Zogby poll showed, the national security glue that used to unite the two parties against foreign threats has been burned away by the Baghdad sun. Despite all the facts now being reported out of Iraq of U.S. military victories, the poll found that 66% of Democrats believed the Iraq war is "lost," as compared to just 9% of Republicans. So now it's official. Republicans are the Party of Victory, and Democrats the Party of Surrender. Mr. President: it's time to stop pandering to the Party of Surrender, unless it's your own rendition you are seeking to negotiate. We are at war, and Americans are not quitters, despite what Nancy Pelosi believes. So let's roll. Kenneth R. Timmerman was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with John Bolton for his work on Iran. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum: 2005). |
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ISRAELI SUPREME COURT BIAS CONFIRMED; NY TIMES MISLEADS RE AMNESTY; HAMAS WINNING
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 5, 2007. |
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ISRAELI SUPREME COURT BIAS CONFIRMED Justice Min. Friedman made a lengthy and careful case that the Supreme Court is biased against the Right and abuses its power to be so. Min. Friedman said that the Court should not have intervened with the government in security matters such as the route of the fence (in which it put Arabs' interests before national security), the law barring "family reunification" of Territorial Arabs with Arabs in Israel, the IDF practice of having Arabs ask wanted neighbors to surrender and come out (which it ended), and the timetable of fortifying buildings within rocket range of Gaza. The judges, he complained, almost all come from the same milieu. (They are a self-perpetuating body; right-wingers need no longer apply). They don't have a realistic view of the country; they are unfamiliar with the Israeli people outside their milieu. He chided prosecutors for bringing very poor, minor cases primarily against right-wing figures. That amount to harassment. Prosecutors drag these cases out for years (Arutz-7, 8/19). The cases serve to keep right-wingers from office. Friedman telegraphs his opposition to the system before reforming it. Therefore, I think he will be the next opposition figure to suffer a sudden heart attack. Not privy to his agenda, I would think he should not take on the Supreme Court and the prosecutors at the same time. The prosecutors work for him. Let him reform their system and them. What would that mean? He should: (1) Drop the special, secretive rules that discriminate against the Jews of Yesha. (2) Clean out biased and corrupt prosecutors. (3) Set standards against political detention and trials, for speedy indictment and trial, release on bail, severity of lawbreaking before prosecuting (they harass settlers for minor actions often imaginary, dismiss such cases already started, and exonerate framed right-wingers and punish those who framed them. (4) End the practice of frivolous appeal against exonerated right-wingers and appeals for higher sentences. (5) Prosecute police who use brutal means. (6) Insist that police maintain strict chain-of-evidence. Then let him broaden, or propose to broaden the appointment of Supreme Court judges and initiate a statute curbing the power that the Court usurped for itself. Then he could try to get the police reformed. He should reopen the Rabin assassination case, but only after increasing his life insurance. BRITAIN IS CENTER OF HAMAS INCITEMENT Although under assault from terrorists, Britain allows its country to be used as a high technical quality base for disseminating Hamas propaganda (Arutz-7, 8/20). EXAMPLE OF ISLAMIST TOTALITARIANISM With deliberation, Hizbullah has produced a children's game of anti-Israel operations that amounts to terrorist training and indoctrination. The game would be marketed not only in Lebanon but also in other Arab countries. Hizbullah explained that the game is not empty of content (like our shooting types) but has a message of anti-Zionist violence (Arutz-7, 8/19). They see innocent Israeli children as future soldiers. They pervert their own children from innocence into soldiers. They are worse than the Communist youth organization and the Hitler youth. Evil is more advanced in technique, these days. When are our own people going to catch on to it? Do they think evil is only in fictional TV monsters? NY TIMES MISLEADS ABOUT AMNESTY Reporter Isabel Kershner described the amnesty plan as follows: "Under the terms of the agreement, the militants (how they won't use the word, "terrorists!") were to hand their weapons over to the official Palestinian security services and sign a pledge to end all violent activity against Israel. In return, they would become employees of the officials services and no longer be hunted by Israel." "The deal was intended to bolster the standing of Mr. Abbas and help restore law and order in the W. Bank." "Mr. Fayyad, who is a strong advocate of disarming the Palestinian (Islamic) militias, said, "The vast majority of the 178" amnestied "had complied with the conditions." Israeli official said last month that if the plan worked well, it could be expanded..." (8/19, p.4.) Integrating terrorists into the regular security forces does not disarm them. The article is misleading. Fayyad claimed most had complied. Israeli sources not cited by the Times reported that half the terrorists refused to sign, some who signed said it was perfunctory for them (Islam does not require them to keep their word to infidels), and the group that signed threatened to return to terrorism if Israel does not accede to their demands (which Israel could not accept without being destroyed by them). Again, the article is misleading. Besides, similar pledges failed before. There never was law and order in Judea-Samaria, after the PLO got autonomy. They don't go by law. At first there was order, but the PLO became extortionist. Then order broke down. Again, a misleading picture is presented. I think that Abbas didn't intend the deal to bolster his standing but to bolster terrorism. He does want to prevail over Hamas, but then to prevail over Israel. ALLEGED PRICE FOR PEACE Rafsanjani, a top leader of Iran, said that Israel couldn't have peace unless it admitted millions of so-called Palestinian Arab refugees (IMRA, 8/19). His regime promotes terrorism and instability. It wants Islamic domination, not peace. We should not believe what he says. Terrorist organization charters and their people's indoctrination indicating that if millions of Muslims were allowed to enter Israel, they would not make peace but foment civil war and likely commit genocide. They certainly would impose their backwardness upon the country. The same lure of peace is raised by Abbas. Therefore, Abbas is is as false about wanting peace as Rafsanjani. If only Sec. Rice could understand that! PALESTINIAN CIVIL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION (PCRA) Israeli special forces infiltrated into Gaza. Two groups of armed Arabs each thought the other group was the Israeli one. They opened fire on each other, wounding three. PCRA wants an investigation into their carelessness. IMRA notes that they were trying to shoot Israelis (IMRA, 8/19). PCRA wants them to be more accurate and fire at Israelis, not at terrorists. A genuine civil rights association would oppose terrorism, which denies rights. HAMAS MOVING TOWARDS POWER IN JUDEA-SAMARIA Fatah is realizing that it has been arresting hundreds of minor Hamas supporters, not the gunmen that want to take over Judea-Samaria (I noted that weeks ago). Hamas has been setting up cells for that takeover. In this preparation, it has been getting some help from members of Fatah (IMRA, 8/19). Fatah is getting arms from the US, ostensibly to help it against Hamas. The last time the US helped Fatah, in Gaza, the arms supplied by the US ended up in Hamas' hands. It appears as if the US and Israel are on the same fool's errand. WHO MUZZLES FREE SPEECH Is it difficult and even bold to criticize Israel? A web site of Far Leftists, Muzzlewatch complains of such difficulties. Actually, governments, academicians, the major media, and Internet sites constantly criticize Israel; fewer praise uphold Israel's policies. Anti-Zionists use frivolous lawsuits to silence pro-Israel writers by charging libel and making them undergo heavy legal expenses. Recently, the writers have been counter-suing and winning. That upholds freedom of press (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/20). EUROPEANS NOT SO ANTI-ISRAEL, AFTER ALL A poll taken of W. Europeans asked which country they think the greatest threat to world peace. The US headed their lists but Israel was last with half a percent. A poll of Americans found the US high but not highest (IMRA, 8/20). Previously, we were told that Israel ranked first. Which is it? I think that categorizing threats as national both over-complicates and over-simplifies the poll. The major threat is not simply nationalism but jihad, though China may yet attack Taiwan. Complicating this is that jihad is not from an individual country but from an ideology that runs certain countries and has organizations allowed to operate in others. A further complication is that still other countries protect jihadist regimes and organizations. Russia and China are the major protectors, but the US protects the Saudi and other Gulf regimes and some P.A. terrorist organizations, such as Fatah and the P.A. police. ISRAEL UNDERCUTS OWN EFFORT TO BOLSTER UNIFIL Israel would like UNIFIL's mandate to include disarming Hizbullah, at least in southern Lebanon. It hampers its own campaign. If it admitted how serious the problem is, then Foreign Min. Livni couldn't keep claiming that her arrangement for UNIFIL patrols is successful (IMRA, 8/20). Likewise, if Israel admitted how evil Fatah were, it couldn't pretend they can make peace. NEW ISRAELI DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY Hitchhiking is popular among Israelis. Attacking Israeli hitchhikers is popular among Arab Muslims. Warnings don't deter the hitchhikers, even in Judea-Samaria. The IDF is installing a technical, partial solution There will be communication devices at the most frequented hitchhiking pick-up spots. Hitchhikers will be able to summon help, the call would be received by the IDF in time to organize immediate apprehension. The call also would set off a signal at the spot so other Israelis could help (IMRA, 8/20). That's the theory. I hope it works. ISLAMIST MENTALITY From Gaza, controlled by Hamas, terrorists fire rockets into Israel almost every day. Israel has been counter-attacking Gaza and capturing terrorists. One of the raids killed members of a rocket crew. Indignant about that comeuppance, Hamas called it a "massacre" and threatened revenge (IMRA, 8/20). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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IS CONDOLEEZZA RICE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GUSH KATIF DEBACLE?
Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), September 5, 2007. |
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HERE'S ANOTHER DEMONSTRATION THAT, TO THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, NOTHING MATTERED EXCEPT PLEASING THE SAUDIS. George W. Junior and his father twice got us bogged down in Iraq to please the Saudis and the oil companies -- to keep Iraqi oil off the markets (Iraqi oil output has never reached the level of 1990 again!), and both the shrub and his elder are good friends and use the services in Middle Eastern Affairs of ARABISTS AND ANTISEMITES -- of which they filled the State Department more than ever -- like James "f... the Jews" Baker & Co. Condisleeza is just another one of those...whose only concern was NOT doing away with Saudi sponsored terrorists like araBfaRt and Hamas, but not to disturb their maneuvers... The Road Map, that is the "world" version of the Saudi Plan for the de-Judaisation and shrinking of Israel, is just one example. Had it been anything else, they would have AT LEAST applied the US Law recognising Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and transferred the US Embassy to Jerusalem as they promised in vain. |
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New Book Reveals Rice's Pressure on Israel
(IsraelNN.com) A new book written by Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Glenn Kessler details the way in which United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took control of US policy in the Middle East, and the techniques Rice used to pressure Israeli leaders to accept her plans for the area. The book is called "The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy," and was released on Tuesday. As an example, Kessler writes that when Israeli troops surrounded Yasser Arafat's Mukata compound in Ramallah, Rice called former Sharon Bureau Chief Dov Weissglass to Washington and told him to call off the siege. Israel was hurting America's ability to gain international support for a war in Iraq, she said. The war "is more important than Arafat," Rice reportedly told Weissglass, warning him that "you're making problems" with President George Bush. According to Kessler, Rice was also largely responsible for then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to expel Jews from Gaza. Rice told Weissglass to make a move that would make the world say "look what Israel did, now the Palestinian have to do something." When Sharon suggested destroying three to five Jewish communities in Gaza, Rice told Weissglass "That's not a breakthrough. If you want a different reality, it has to be all of Gaza." Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. |
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PLEASE CALL THE WHITE HOUSE FOR POLLARD TODAY!
Posted by Justice for Jonathan Pollard, September 5, 2007. |
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COUNT DOWN: 7 DAYS TO ROSH HASHANA |
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It's Wednesday, September 5, 2007 B"H, the 22nd of Ellul. There are 7 days to Rosh HaShana. Please call the White House now! Tell President Bush to free Jonathan Pollard now! Send him home to Israel for Rosh HaShana! Telephone number (Monday to Friday 9AM to 5PM):
Dialing from Israel: Add your long-distance service provider code to the start of the USA number for example: 0121-202-456-1111. (Israeli codes: 001, 012, 013, 014, 018, etc.) Hours for Israeli Calls: White House telephone lines are manned from 4 PM Israel time to Midnight, from Monday to Friday. Be sure to call before candle-lighting on Friday afternoon. [To ensure a faster response, follow the instructions for "Rotary" telephones regardless!] YOUR CALLS PUT POLLARD ON THE MAP! The Pollard Call-In Campaign spear-headed by the National Council of Young Israel last Spring put Pollard on the map in the White House. His name now appears on the list of subjects that all the White House phone operators are given to record the number of calls. Now, with G-d's help and massive participation in the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, let's get Pollard out of there, and home for the High Holidays! Amain! Please call now! Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com |
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I BELIEVE IN DISENGAGEMENT -- DISENGAGEMENT FROM OUR BAD LEADERSHIP
Posted by Zeev Shemer, September 5, 2007. |
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As I watch our children run for shelter from Qassam rockets launched from Gaza into Sderot, and as I watch on TV the laughs of the members of the Islamic Jihad, who with no shame call the rockets they launched "a gift to Israeli children for their first day at school", yes I believe in Disengagement. As I witness the capitulations issued from Olmert and Barak's office, their bent position as our American allies dictate our foreign policy; as I watch the people in Tel Aviv go about their daily activities and feeling maybe just a few minutes of humiliation when they pass by a TV-newscast or a newspaper stand; as I see our people turn into cowards, I believe in Disengagement. I believe it is time to Disengage from the Olmerts and Baraks. Time to disengage from military leaders who are afraid to lead. Time to disengage from leftist sociopaths who after seeing evil in our enemies still believe in humanitarian nonsense. It is time to give power to those who still love our land, to those that would never stand still and watch as our children are being targeted. Today I drove in the Golan and several tanks stopped traffic to cross the road. Our beautiful and brave soldiers; they wear that uniform with pride. When Olmert said, "We are tired of fighting" he meant only himself. Our boys if given the opportunity would place those filthy terrorists right were they belong. Our boys are proud, are strong, they sanctify the name of our God every second they wear that uniform, they are the backbone of the State of Israel. Yes, the spirit of many was broken when they were sent to destroy Jewish homes. Many quit, some took their own lives, and many promised to leave this country as soon as their service was over. Many soldiers and many of our reserves felt the same way after the fiasco in Lebanon. Many more lost their spirit after months and months went by and our three missing soldiers became a non-issue in the daily shenanigans of the corrupt and stench-filled Knesset. I disengage from the appeasers, the humanists, the liberals, the politically blind; I disengage from those who sold their souls to the Americans, the Europeans, the Chinese, and the Russian. I disengage from those that could not care less about our missing soldiers, about Jonathan Pollard, about the town of Sderot, about Homesh, about Hebron about being Jewish, being proud and being free. I disengage from every leftist in Israel and on planet earth. I disengage from every Holocaust denier, Muslim appeaser, from every spineless coward who calls Arab terrorists: militants; from all whose heads are buried in the sand, from those who are too tired of fighting, of thinking, of caring. From them I disengage. Instead I support every soul called a settler and every hilltop youth. Every man, woman and child who still wears that orange arm band, every person who still feels chills down his spine when he sees an Israeli flag, when he hears our anthem, when he hears our rabbis pray, our children sing, our boys enlist, our youth dance, our young mothers push their baby carriages, an Ole touching the Kotel for the first time. To them I pledge my life. Ze'ev Shemer, MSEd.
Ze'ev Shemer grew up in Colombia. He graduated University of Miami and completed a Master's Degree at Barry University. Ze'ev made Aliyah to Israel in 2004 and currently teaches in two Colleges in Israel's north. Contact him at zeev.shemer@yahoo.com |
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STUMBLING TOWARD CATASTROPHE
Posted by Michael Freund, September 5, 2007. |
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While the people of Israel slumber, our extremely unpopular Prime Minister is secretly negotiating away the country. Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities continue unabated, and the Jewish people's holiest site is being vandalized in broad daylight. It is time to bring this madness to an end -- and to rouse the nation before it is too late. This was in yesterday's Jerusalem Post
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Is anyone out there awake? I'm beginning to suspect that the recent end-of-summer heat wave has lulled many of us into a peaceful snooze, so much so that we have become virtually oblivious to some rather important and far-reaching developments. By any standards, the headlines of the past few weeks should have sparked a furious public outcry, accompanied by stormy demonstrations, irate parliamentary debates and massive protests and letter-writing campaigns. But there has been none of that, nary a peep, as the prime minister of the State of Israel secretly negotiates away much of the country and its strategic assets. What has happened to our sense of outrage? In the wake of his meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas last week, reports surfaced that Ehud Olmert had discussed wide-ranging concessions such as dividing Jerusalem, uprooting dozens of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and forgoing Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount. The media even published what was said to be a copy of a two-page document outlining Olmert's willingness to cross the few remaining "red lines" Israel still has in what is clearly a transparent attempt to salvage his increasingly shaky political career. With corruption investigations swirling around him and the final Winograd report on last summer's Lebanon war due out relatively soon, Olmert seems to have concluded that the only way to rescue himself from political oblivion is at the country's expense. THINK ABOUT this for a second. We have a prime minister about as popular as acute inflammatory acne going behind the nation's back, making fateful decisions that will endanger the future of the state and agreeing to establish a Palestinian terrorist entity alongside our country's shrunken borders. And he's doing this not because it is in the nation's interest, but for his own narrow political gain. And yet, it has been greeted by little more than a yawn. Instead, we sit back quietly, go on with our lives and do nothing as our government accelerates its head-long rush toward disaster. Even the ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli towns and villages seem to evoke barely more than passing public interest. On Monday, Islamic Jihad fired over half a dozen Kassams into southern Israel, mockingly describing them as "a gift for the opening of the school year." One of those "gifts" slammed into the courtyard of a day care center for toddlers in Sderot, nearly causing a disaster. This kind of incident should have shocked us to the very core of our being, but the fact is Palestinian rocket attacks have become so common, thanks to the government's lack of response, that they hardly register on our collective conscience any more. AND WHILE we are on the subject of remaining silent, how about the hush that has come over us as we watch the Muslim Wakf rip apart the Temple Mount and bulldoze our nation's priceless religious and cultural heritage? Israel may be sovereign on the Mount, but it is clear from our television screens who runs the show. In defiance of the law, the Wakf has been openly and brazenly digging a trench three foot deep from north to south along the Mount, in the process destroying precious artifacts that may date back to the First Temple period. Our holiest site is being vandalized in broad daylight, while our government and police look on, refusing to step in and halt the destruction. Were an Israeli newspaper to publish a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam, it would invariably elicit a greater outcry than that which has greeted the wanton physical devastation being carried out by Muslims on the Temple Mount. It is as if the people of Israel have gone off to a slumber party, tucking themselves snugly into sleeping bags and wiling away the hours as though we have not a care in the world. But the truth is that everything this nation holds dear is coming under attack. Our freedom, our future, our land and our legacy are all being pummeled and no one seems ready to stand up and do anything about it. IF YOU aren't walking around outraged, then you must not be paying attention. So put down the sports pages, put aside those DVDs and start following the news. We must take to the streets and rouse ourselves from this slumber. Our apathy and indifference are what enable this failed government to continue to stumble toward catastrophe. Today it is Sderot under fire. But don't be surprised when Kfar Saba, Netanya and even Tel Aviv come under attack. The alarm clock is ringing, if only we will hear. Now, more than ever, is the time to get up and put the nightmare of terror, weakness and retreat behind us, once and for all. Michael Freund served as an adviser to former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. |
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STOP THE DICTATORS OF ISRAEL'S NATIONAL SUICIDE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 5, 2007. |
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I have just read former Binyamin Netanyahu's Knesset speech of Tuesday, September 3rd regarding the stated intention of Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to give away Judea and Samaria. His speech is appended at the end of this essay. The Speech was summarized by Hillel Fendel as follows: After you read what the incompetent traitors intend for the Jewish people, you may wonder why Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi has not declared martial law and rounded up a government engaged in treason. Must Jews die again in large numbers while there is a veritable orchestra of Nero's fiddling while the Jews in Israel are burning. Olmert threatens again and again that he will respond with force IF the Arab Muslim Palestinians continue their missile attacks on Israel. In the end Olmert does nothing. Terror never had a better partner as he genuflects like a whipped dog to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her mentor James Baker. We see that he collaborates with Ehud Barak by withdrawing Israeli defensive troops from the Golan Heights border with Syria so Syria's President Bashar Assad can soon attack with high confidence that he will not be opposed by the superior Israeli forces. Are we Jews such pathetic fools to wait as we did for Hitler and thereby die in millions. Why does not the people rise up and take back their country from these temporarily elected scoundrels. National suicide is not a requirement and the laws promulgated by traitors does not have to be accepted as inevitable. Why does not Netanyahu plainly state that when he is next Prime Minister he will consider Olmert's betrayal null and void? Why wait for Olmert and the U.S. State Department to draft a document stating, irrevocably, that with his authority as Prime Minister, he will abandon Judea and Samaria to Mohammed Abbas (also a temporarily elected President of the Palestinian Authority)? This will give the U.S. State Department their "two-state solution" and their creation of the illusion of "peace in the Middle East". Olmert is maneuvering Israel to be caught by his tongue so that the monstrous United Nations, the Jew-hating European Union, the Quartet of Jew-killers will wave Olmert's document in the air, saying we accept this surrender! We not only accept this perfidious document but we will gather all the forces necessary to drive the Jews out of their ancient homeland. This is what is coming this fall as that Sec. Of State Rice arranges the Kangaroo Court International Peace Conference with all of the above in attendance, ready for the kill. It is time, way past time, to dispose of, I mean depose this traitorous government before the planned Genocide and another Diaspora of the few who will be left. Even if we resurrect another Nuremberg at which today's suicidal Israeli government will be tried and, if convicted, be given the proper sentence. If we allow them to succeed, it will make no difference to the dead Jews. Did Hitler's death make up for the millions of Jews he murdered? Did hanging Eichmann make up for the millions he transported into the gas chambers and the Krupp oven crematoriums? Be assured, when the rain of missiles fall on Tel Aviv from Syria, Hezb'Allah, Fatah, Hamas and Iran -- hanging the Israeli enablers will not make up for the lost lives of the dead Jews they arranged to have killed. Better try them now and drive them out of office like the cowering dogs they are, rather than try them later -- after they have organized the killings and then we can make sure they are, indeed, hanged. Never has Israel had such a traitorous government since Herod partnered with the Romans. It's time for the Jewish nation to march on Jerusalem and take it back before it swarms with Jew-hating Muslim Islamists. We can't wait and watch Olmert send in his Praetorian Troops who accept orders to attack their own people. The Jews came back to their ancient Homeland, their inheritance after thousands of years in the Galut. The Jews didn't come back to be ruled by a gaggle of crooked politicians with dictators who hate the Land and their own Jewishness. The rot and corruption is very deep and can only be torn out by the roots to cleanse the Land. It's now a race against the death of the Jewish nation. Olmert, hand-in-hand with Bush, Baker and Rice with Yassir Arafat's comrade Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) are racing to dig Israel's grave. If the people of Israel do not stop them whatever Jews remain after the next slaughter can build another Holocaust Museum and start chanting "Next Year in Jerusalem". ### POSTSCRIPT: KNESSET SPEECH BY BINYAMIN NETANYAHU TUES. SEPT. 4,
2007
Speaking at a special mid-recess Knesset session Tuesday morning, Opposition Leader Binyamin Netanyahu spoke of the dangers of Prime Minister Olmert's intention to give away most of Judea and Samaria in a new diplomatic initiative being negotiated with Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "We keep hearing about an international summit in November in which we will more or less promise to give away more land in another unilateral withdrawal," Netanyahu said. "It wasn't enough that we retreated in Lebanon and Gaza, that now they're planning another one?!" Netanyahu was referring to ongoing negotiations between Olmert and Abbas, known as Abu Mazen. The goal of the talks is to reach an agreement in principle of a withdrawal from nearly all of Judea and Samaria, in exchange for peaceful relations with a Palestinian state to be formed there. "... So they'll say that it's not unilateral, rather now we have a partner," Netanyahu continued. "And who's the partner? Abu Mazen. He's a partner!? Reciprocity is when you get something back in exchange for what you give. But what will we receive? Will we receive the complete nullification of the 'right of return' [to Israel]? We know that we will not. Will we receive sovereignty over Jerusalem? No, we know that [our government] has ceded this. And it keeps on going -- with every Olmert-Abbas meeting, another 100 terrorists are freed, as we heard this morning -- and that's when they meet here; when they meet in the US, it's hundreds of terrorists who go free, and we hear that at the summit they're going to be talking about thousands! ... Not to mention the guns that the PA keeps receiving..." Concessions are Downright Dangerous "This government just gives and gives," Netanyahu railed, "and receives nothing -- and this will place us in dangers much greater than we have known before, as we see in Sderot; the risks in the Galilee continue as well. Our country will end up endangered by rockets from three directions..." "One diplomatic mistake made by government leaders, 1,000 generals cannot fix," Netanyahu said. "Two of our leading politicians [Defense Minister Ehud Barak and PM Olmert] have made terrible mistakes. Barak's hasty retreat from Lebanon brought Katyushas to the Galilee and Olmert's major role in the Disengagement from Gaza brought Kassams to the Negev. We warned in the past about Iran's rockets, and about Hizbullah, and about Hamas, and that Olmert is blind to the dangers, and that we must not let him be in charge of our country -- and then just a few months later, our predictions came true when the war in Lebanon broke out." Where's the Promised Response? "I remind you of the promises made by Olmert and other fellow Disengagement-proponents regarding the strong, powerful military response we would carry out if the terrorists fire at us from Gaza. Nu? Where's the response? ... They themselves [Barak and Olmert] realize there is a problem, and they say they can't withdraw right now [from Judea and Samaria], because then the terrorists will take over and fire at us. This means it won't bring peace, but will rather bring the rockets closer..." "What, then, must we do? We must first of all realize that at present, there is simply no Palestinian partner. The reason why Judea and Samaria does not turn into Hamastan is because we are still there. We must also create conditions that will make it harder for extremist Muslims to recruit youths to their ranks. In addition, we must have joint economic projects with Jordan; as opposed to some people who say that peace will bring prosperity, we know that economic prosperity can create some conditions for peace." No Mandate; New Elections Netanyahu said that Olmert's low standing in the polls means he has no "moral mandate to make such concessions. Everywhere you go, you hear that people know and realize that these concessions are not the solution. The public wants something else. There's only one way to solve this, and that is to have new elections. We say to this duo that has brought us rockets in the Galilee and the Negev, that we don't want rockets in central Israel as well." Foreign Minister Responds Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni responded, filling in for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who was not present. Livni's speech was interrupted countless times by opposition MKs, and in fact, observers noted that she appeared to be tense and hard-pressed to make some of her points. Minister Livni opened by clarifying that "if there is any agreement with the Palestinians, it will be brought to the government for its approval, and then to the Knesset for ratification as well." She said that her government's policies are predicated on two basic principles: "We clearly distinguish between Gaza and Ayosh [an acronym for Judea and Samaria] in the most extreme manner. Gaza is run by terrorists, while the other is led by a moderate democratic government that accepts the two-state solution and is part of the international community... In addition, we clearly distinguish between the understandings we hope to reach and their actual implementation." "It's no secret that I'm in favor of dialogue with those [in the Palestinian Authority] who favor a two-state solution," Minister Livni said. "No, Mr. opposition leader, we do not have the option of freezing the situation and waiting for things to change; it's not good for us or for the pragmatic Palestinians; when there is a window of opportunity, we must take advantage of it and conduct talks, while at the same time preserving our national assets." Livni Threatens Gaza She said the government recognizes the problems, including the Hamas leadership in Gaza, "which means there is no immediate solution on the horizon there -- and if the situation doesn't change, then we will have to take action, regardless of the talks ongoing with Abu Mazen. There will be a price for firing rockets daily at Israel." "There is another problem," she continued, "and that is the gap between the ability to reach agreements -- and I hope this exists -- and the ability to execute them. We are not ignoring this gap, but it has a solution, and that is by setting principles to bridge between the agreements that I hope we will reach and their practical advancement, which can happen only where there is an effective and legitimate government that can carry out its obligations regarding Israel's security." Livni emphasized that a two-state solution means that the "right of return" for Arabs will not be implemented in Israel, but rather in the Palestinian entity: "Israel says yes to two national states -- but this means that Israel will have no share in the solution for refugees; no one can compromise on this... In addition, we cannot allow a terrorist state on our doorstep, and in accordance with the Bush letter to Arik Sharon, every agreement must have security arrangements and safeguards. There will be no unilateral moves; we have no intention of throwing the keys to the other side and letting them deal with it." At this point, Likud MK Gilad Erdan yelled out, "That's exactly what you're doing!" and continued to interrupt until he was thrown out by Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik. 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@gwinston.interaccess.com |
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JORDAN TO SUPPORT CELEBRATING JERUSALEM AS CAPITAL OF ARAB CULTURE
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 4, 2007. |
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Why not tomorrow declare Amman as THE Jewish cultural Capital for 2009 ... since after all.. almost 80% of the Mandate territory of Palestine was given to Arab Jordan...never forget... the entire Mandate document was in fact calling for the establishment of a Jewish national home... But the British decided suddenly it were not applicable to the territory known as Transjordan (today called Jordan)... The result was that Abdullah, an Arab from the Hejaz (now Saudi Arabia), was abruptly installed as the Emir of Transjordan by the British... thereby severing almost 80% of the Mandate land from any possible Jewish Homeland... Churchill disregarded important objections that "since Transjordan had been included by the League of Nations in the territory of [mandated] Palestine, it was not open to Britain unilaterally to separate it from the rest of Palestine..." From the moment of its creation ... Transjordan was closed to all Jewish migration and settlement ... A clear betrayal of the British promise in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and a patent contravention of its Mandatory obligations. Britain continued in its role as Mandatory over the whole of the area of the Mandate from 1922, but Jewish hopes of reconstituting the Jewish National Home were thereafter to be limited within the 23% of Palestine west of the Jordan River, an area that includes what is today called the West Bank and the Gaza Strip... Finally... Who is Jordan a new comer to the corner--- that was suddenly advanced to an Arab kingdom called Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. ... to celebrate an Arab Jerusalem... Who gives them such right ? It's again once more the usual Arab Chutzpah. The news item below is entitled "Jordan to Support Celebrating Jerusalem as Capital of Arab Culture for 2009" and is archived at www.petra.gov.jo/nepras/2007/Sep/04/9000.htm |
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Amman, Sept. 4 (Petra -- Jordan news agency) Jordan expressed its readiness to provide support to the Palestinian National Authority to ensure the success of activities on declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Arab culture for the year 2009. Minister of Culture Adel Tweisi said during a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Ibrahim Al Abrash, that Jordan would provide all facilities to hold the official ceremony on declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Arab culture, should it be impossible to hold the ceremony in Jerusalem due to the Israeli occupation. He added that JD709,000 have been allocated for preparations and cultural activities related to this event. Jordan, Tweisi said, will review during the upcoming Arab culture ministers' conference in Algeria, the activities that should be held to highlight Jerusalem's position on the Arab, Islamic and international levels, its identity and the need to defend it and establish cultural centers in the city. The Palestinian minister stressed keenness to continue coordinating with Jordan on this issue with a view to highlighting the historical position of the city. Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit approved the formation of higher committee, chaired by the culture minister to celebrate Jerusalem as the 'capital of Arab culture' in 2009. The step came in implementation of a decision taken by Arab culture ministers to choose Jerusalem as a capital for Arab culture for the year 2009 during a conference that was held in the Omani capital Muscat last year. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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PERCENTAGE OF POOR CHILDREN UP TO 35.8
Posted by Avodah, September 4, 2007. |
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This was written by Ruth Eglash and it appeared in the Jerusalem
Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1188392531706 &pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull |
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Close to 1.65 million people in Israel lived below the poverty line in 2006 -- a slight rise from the previous year, when the figure stood at 1.63 million -- according to the National Insurance Institute's (NII) annual poverty report, released Tuesday. An estimated 404,000 families -- 1.65 million people and 796,000
children -- lived under the poverty line in 2006.
However, the annual report did note an overall decrease in the country's poverty rate as far as the number of poor families, which saw a drop from 410,700 (20.6 percent) in 2005 to 404,400 (20%) in 2006, and the elderly population, in which poverty fell from 24.4% in 2005 to 21.5% in 2006. "The report shows that we are reaching a point of stability and slight improvement," Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog told The Jerusalem Post after presenting the report with NII Director-General Yigal Ben-Shalom. However, Herzog added that the journey to ultimately eliminating poverty was "only just beginning." "Now we must start a social offensive," he continued. "We must implement a national program for fighting poverty, including lowering unemployment and introducing negative income tax for low-income families."
What was most alarming about this year's report was the continued growth in the number of children living below the poverty line. In 2004, that figure stood at 713,600, or 33.2%, and climbed to 796,100 (35.8%) two years later. In short, one in every three Israeli children is poor. The NII's Ben-Shalom said that if the current trend continued, eventually every second child would be living in poverty.
"We are not talking about numbers here," countered Eran Weintraub, director of humanitarian aid organization Latet, which aims to distribute a million food packages to the country's needy ahead of the High Holy Days next week. "Behind the numbers are real people who live in extreme conditions. We are happy that the state has taken notice of the number of poor and hungry people, but we call on [Prime Minister Ehud Olmert] and the ministers of welfare and social services and finance to set up a committee to immediately battle this problem." Herzog said he believed he had already ensured a slice of the 2008 state budget for the purpose of initiating a national program to fight poverty. Hanan Porat, director of the charity Orot Hessed, which also provides food aid to the poor, said he blamed the government for the current crisis. "We have reached a point where this problem must be dealt with at its roots, at the weakest levels in society," he said. "Charities can only take on this responsibility for so much longer." The report also noted a rise in the number of working poor, or families whose household head is actually employed but who still live below the poverty line. In 2005, that figure was 177,100 families, while in the following year, it rose to 185,500 families.
Yoav Leif, spokesman for the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, accused the government of not doing enough to protect the working person's rights and ensuring that employers followed the law. The growth in financial distress among large families (four or more children) was also noted in the report. According to the figures, 87,300 large families lived below the poverty line in 2005, and that number rose to 96,700 in 2006. While the report noted overall economic growth in the country during 2006, Herzog pointed out that this improvement did not manage to filter down to the economically weaker segments of the population. "There is a clear gap between the top tier and the lower levels," he told the Post. "We need a program of negative income to combat this problem." Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: FOLLY
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 4, 2007. |
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Every time I assume that things are about as foolish as they can get, they become more so. Consider: It was reported yesterday that Israel plans to file a complaint to the UN about the frequent Kassam attacks. Apparently Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman is going to speak to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and ask him to intervene to prevent these attacks. The news release did not explain how Gillerman anticipates that Ban would be able to do this. Remember UNSC Resolution 1701? That was the Olmert government's "diplomatic resolution" to the war in Lebanon last year, proudly supported by our foreign minister in lieu of the strongest possible military action against Hezbollah. The thousands of international troops put in place by this resolution have not impeded Hezbollah from re-building its arsenal. Yet we go to the UN again? ~~~~~~~~~~ And there's more. Last night Foreign Minister Tzipni Livni, speaking about "the peace process" at a Kadima event, explained that negotiations with Abbas would not reduce the Kassams. Said she (emphasis added): "I am a big believer in dialogue between us and the Palestinians. I'm a big believer in dialogue with a group that it is possible to conduct a dialogue with. That group does not control all of the PA territories." How to read this? Abbas may be powerless, may be able to deliver on nothing. But hey! he's the only one in town who will have talks with us, so let's go for it. ~~~~~~~~~~ Here's more on just how powerless Abbas is: The IDF has now determined that there are some 80,000 illegal weapons in the hands of terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Eighty-thousand. After all the talk of Abbas's security forces gathering up weapons or getting people to surrender them. These are being kept in homes or in hidden caches. Defense officials now say Hamas is as strong as Fatah in Judea and Samaria and could pose a genuine threat to Abbas. Good morning everyone! "They have weapons and explosives and, more importantly, they are highly motivated." Right now they are in a "waiting" period, while they work on uniting small cells, with central hubs in Jenin and Nablus. Hamas tried to establish a force in Judea and Samaria like the Executive Force in Gaza, but was stopped by the IDF (and according to al Quds al Arabi in London, on one occasion also by Fatah). And so the Hamas focus turned to infiltrating the PA security forces. The IDF Central Command is convinced that within months Hamas will try to take over PA security forces and institutions. ~~~~~~~~~~ The fear is that when a Hamas coup is attempted, Fatah people will collapse just as they did in Gaza, where they had four times as many men as Hamas. This fear of a Fatah collapse has prompted our defense officials to oppose the Dayton plan for establishing five Fatah battalions in Judea and Samaria and giving them more weapons. "It is not about manpower," one official said, "but about motivating the Fatah forces to want to fight and defend the PA." Well, there's a sense of relief that at least our defense establishment has it right with regard to the Dayton plan. But then there's this, which, unfortunately, in my opinion, qualifies as major foolishness: As an IDF official explains, "The security forces need to feel that they have a reason to fight. They need to feel like they have a better life to look forward to. Otherwise, they will not pose a challenge to Hamas." To this end, the IDF is working with Abbas to find ways to motivate his men. So, for example, we may be easing travel restrictions in the coming weeks. But doing things like allowing them to travel more freely is not likely to motivate Fatah security forces. Not really. Abbas and his cronies are deeply hated by the people, with good reason. They are incredibly corrupt, stealing from the people and blocking opportunities for genuine economic advancement. Additionally, they have failed to establish and maintain a civil society; there is no sense of justice under the law. I wrote recently about how Abbas is afraid to travel to Palestinian cities for fear of assassination. Are his security forces going to give him their best, even putting their lives on the line for him? ~~~~~~~~~~ The IDF doesn't address this, because it's a political and not a military issue, but Olmert and Livni's goal of providing a "political horizon" -- showing what the people can get in the future if they renounce terrorism -- is part of the same rationale. And just as foolish, for several reasons. First, there is no evidence that what most of the Palestinian people want is a "two state solution" with a viable Israel at their border and cessation of all hostilities. What they want, in the main, is our destruction. (Plans for a two-state solution are seen as a stage toward weakening us.) Many in Israel and the West are either ignorant of, or choose to ignore, the fact that the Fatah charter calls for Israel's destruction via violent resistance. Nor do those promoting "peace" deal realistically with the continuing incitement that exists in the PA, especially in textbooks that have taught a generation now to venerate "jihad." They have no intention of surrendering their "terrorist option" in exchange for what we offer. Then there are further problems. No "political horizon" that we would offer meets even the minimal (stage one) demands of the Palestinians -- which include control of Jerusalem and return of the "refugees." And so, whatever we propose seems unfair and grudging to them -- we (the interlopers and occupiers) are seen to be taking too much for ourselves and expecting them to settle for too little. They do not perceive the need for real give and take with mutual concessions. As well, there is this: A Palestinian state that is much like the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority does not offer the people hope for a good life. The same problems would exist -- corruption, lack of a civil society, etc. Very few of the people who push the idea that we should make advance concessions to the Palestinians -- imagining that we can thus motivate them to genuine moderation -- are willing to confront the cold, hard truth: we don't have a negotiating partner and a Palestinian state would be a huge mistake. The Palestinians do not have their act together. We cannot "motivate" them to get it together, we cannot "fix" them from the outside. Then, too, it is extremely unwise to raise expectations prematurely. It is, in fact, dangerous. For the Palestinians will have been given some promise that we will be making certain concessions. They won't genuinely moderate and dismantle terrorist infrastructure. And yet -- losing sight of their responsibility to the situation -- they will begin to feel enormous frustration if what was "promised" in that "political horizon" (say, for example, absolute control of the Temple Mount) is not immediately forthcoming. Frustration will lead to anger. Increasingly they will resort to terrorism to get us to back down. We've seen this before. And most dangerous of all, this: Once we've committed to certain concessions on paper, with the proviso that the Palestinians have to do their part before we can fulfill our promises, we are in a sense committed. The world cuts the Palestinian slack and ultimately we would be expected to move ahead at some level anyway. (Of course, if Hamas successfully co-opts Fatah in Judea and Samaria, the entire scenario likely shifts.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Please see Hillel Halkin's article in the NY Sun, "Summit of Weaklings," which addresses issues I raise here. "The Olmert government," says Halkin, "is walking, with eyes wide open, into a potential diplomatic trap. "...For a country that has been an independent state in the Middle East for 50 years, Israel still acts like a European tourist in an Arab souk [market]. Do that and the local merchants will always fleece you."
~~~~~~~~~~ I mentioned the other day that Abbas has assigned the Jerusalem portfolio to one Adnan Husseini, which certainly indicates that Abbas expects Jerusalem to be on the table in negotiations with Olmert. One of Husseini's first tasks, it has been reported, is to convince Israel to re-open Orient House and other Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem. Orient House -- owned by the prestigious Husseini family to which Adnan belongs -- served as an unofficial PLO mission/headquarters following Oslo; it rings all sorts of bells for many of us because it was used blatantly for meetings that were illegal under Oslo. PM Binyamin Netanyahu had it shut down in 2001. Jerusalem's mayor, Uri Lupolianski, has now voiced his opposition to opening of Orient House, saying that it will harm the legitimacy of Israeli sovereignty in the city. That is Abbas's intention, is it not? ~~~~~~~~~~ Defense Minister Barak is looking into the idea of mobile checkpoints in Judea and Samaria to replace some of the stationary ones. This, he indicates, would provide on-going security while allowing the Palestinians greater mobility. This plan cannot be put into place, however, until a sufficient number of troops are trained to use this new method. ~~~~~~~~~~ Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has approved plans for purchasing sophisticated new equipment for ground, air and navy forces. This equipment will include new Merkava Tanks and sophisticated APCs (armored personnel carriers). The Air Force will acquire F-35 aircraft, a multi-role stealth strike fighter, and the Navy new military boats. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to a website of the armed branch of Hamas, Hamas is insisting on 1,000 prisoners who are serving long sentences, to be released in three stages, in return for Shalit. Israel is said to be objecting both to some of the names and the timing of the releases. ~~~~~~~~~~ It has been discovered that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the barrage of rockets hitting Sderot and the surrounding area. An emergency security situation has been called for the region for a period of 48 hours. There is talk of specifically targeting Islamic Jihad people, and possibly of doing some cut-off of water and electricity into Gaza. The IDF is saying that it is inevitable that a major action will have to be instituted, and now opposition head Binyamin Netanyahu is calling for the same. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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THE ORTHODOX UNION'S FREE JOB BOARD NEEDS YOUR INPUT. PLEASE RESPOND.
Posted by Michael (Srulie) Rosner, September 4, 2007. |
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I am writing to ask for your assistance. With the High Holidays now upon us, we are seeking your cooperation in announcing the Orthodox Unions Free Job Board. This Board which allows one to post their available jobs, search open positions as well as post resumes, is a FREE community service for both the employer and applicant. We need your help to get the word out. As you know, there is a great concern about the unemployment situation, which is considerably higher that we would want it to be, and affects primarily those in white collar positions. The OU has been doing its part to help alleviate this situation through creation of its Job Board, which lists vacant positions in communities across the country and runs successful Job Fairs thereby getting people back to work and producing Shalom Bayit -- domestic tranquility. Do you know that during our most recent Job Fair held on August 29th 40% of those attending the Fair received a job or a second interview? Let's expand this success in your area NOW! SPREAD THE WORD I need your help and your input to help your community grow. The focus of Jewish life across North America and Israel has always been local synagogues, community centers and schools. I am asking these institutions to take the lead in "mining" jobs from local businesses in your area and trying to make the "Shiddach" between those who are looking for a job and those who are seeking to fill their job opportunities. The local Jewish business owner in your own community is the best way to start. If the employer can fill his/her job needs with people in the same community looking for a job, it is a win -- win situation. Can we count on your help? Can you make announcements, post flyers and offer this important service to your community? Can we count on you to be a leader in this important field of humanitarian work and justice? Will you help us in this initiative? Can we help you? Posting available jobs on the OU Job Board is FREE. Posting resumes on the OU Job Board is FREE. Communicating ideas with me is also FREE. Please take advantage of this opportunity and let us work together to face this problem, alleviate the plight of the unemployed, build our communities, and thereby extend our hands to those who need our help. Please contact me for more information at rosnerm@ou.org or post directly at www.ou.org/jobs and follow Employers Post link We are also pleased to announce the OU Job Board for Israel. Now those people who have already made Aliyah or who are planning to make Aliyah can find hundreds of ENGLISH SPEAKING jobs in all fields of expertise. We are posting these jobs with the aim of helping those Anglos better transition themselves to their new life in Israel. Please help us in this important venture so we can continue to grow and make Israel strong and secure. Did you ever wonder who else uses the OU Job Board to fill their positions? I have enclosed a partial list for your perusal. If it's good enough for them, what about you? American Council on Science and Health
Please join us in this important task. Sponsorships are available Thank you Srulie/Michael Rosner
Contact Michael Rosner by email at rosnerm@ou.org |
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GIVING THEM MORE WEAPONS IN SPITE OF THE PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES THAT ENDED ALL IN FAILURE
Posted by Sergio Tessa HaDaR), September 4, 2007. |
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Just a reminder... (in light of today's announcement that 80.000 "legally" given machine-guns have ended-up in terrorists' hands, and the question about how many "illegal" machine guns there are).
The names below are the same even if now holding different offices...
Albert Einstein defined mental illness as "Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results"
READ THE NAMES (updated only to 01/2005), AND THANK THOSE WHO HELPED BURYING THEM!
This is by David Bedein and it appeared in Arutz Sheva
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On December 8th, 1993, then Israel Deputy Foreign Minister Yose Beilin conducted a briefing for the foreign press,in which he said that Israel was going to "experiment" with the idea of providing arms for the PLO, in order that they may "fight terror". This was based on the assumption that the PLO would ratify the declaration of principles for peace -- the D.O.P. -and cancel the PLO covenant. "And if the PL0 would use these guns to murder Israelis instead", a reporter asked. "Then we would see that the experiment did not work", Beilin replied. 12 years later, following more than 1300 Israeli citizens murdered in cold blood, it would seem that the experiment did not work. Yet Clause Five of the 2004 "disengagement plan" of the government of Israel mandates that Israel once again train the Palestinian Security Forces, despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority recently honored 600 members of the Palestinian Security Forces who had died while conducting terrorist attacks against Israel ever since Israel began to supply the Palestinian Security Forces with guns. It is one thing for a government to conduct an experiment, however lethal. You can always give the government the benefit of the doubt, until the experiment could be declared to be a failure. It is quite another thing to proceed with the same lethal experiment, after it has failed. Meanwhile, the PLO remains at war with Israel. The PLO covenant was never cancelled and The"D.O,P." was never ratified. Yet now the implementation of clause five of the "disengagement plan" for Israel to once again supply weapons to the PLO has become a reality. Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, the architect of the Oslo process, confirmed on the Voice of Israel radio newsreel Friday news program that Israel would indeed provide guns to the PLO. In the words of Mr. Peres, The Palestinians "are apparently facing many problems," and "light arms are really needed in order to place law and order and to fight Hamas." Mr. Peres did not relate to the fact that units of the Hamas now serve in the Palestinian security forces, along with fugitives wanted for murder. Yet the Israeli Vice Premier would not agree that the PA's weapons, which in the past were used against Israeli targets, represent any kind of threat against Israel. "Light arms do not pose a threat to Israel. The threat on Israel comes on the one hand from a war with tanks and airplanes and on the other hand from terrorists," Peres went on saying. "It is not the guns that threaten us, but the suicide bombers," he said. Mr. Peres would do well to the reality that the PLO remains in a state of war with the state of Israel. Israeli security sources also report that Israel has recently handed the PA detailed maps of the civilian infrastructure of Katif and Samaria slated for evacuation under the disengagement plan. These maps, which were handed over to the PA in preparation for next Tuesday's planned meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, cover roads, electricity and water networks as well as other infrastructure information. Israeli citizens still live in Katif and in Northern Samaria. These maps can easily be used for the PLO to target Israeli civilians for cold blooded killing. As the Sabbath in Jerusalem was about to come in, I asked the spokesperson of Israel's Vice premier as to whether he would express any statement of regret to the families of the those who were indeed murdered by "light weapons" of the Palestinian Security Forces. She promised an answer from Mr. Peres as soon as possible. In case Mr. Peres needs a reminder, Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA presented a precise list of those who were clearly identified as having been murdered by guns of the Palestinian Security Forces, as it appears on the Foreign Ministry web site. www.mfa.gov.il 1993
October 24 93 Two IDF soldiers, Staff Sgt. (res.) Ehud Rot, age 35, and Sgt. Ilan Levi, age 23, were killed by a HAMAS Iz a-Din al Kassam squad. The two entered a Subaru with Israeli license plates outside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, whose passengers were apparently terrorists disguised as Israelis. Following a brief struggle, the soldiers were shot at close range and killed. Hamas publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. November 7 93 Efraim Ayubi of Kfar Darom, Rabbi Chaim Druckman's personal driver, was shot to death by terrorists near Hebron. HAMAS publicly claimed responsibility for the murder. December 1 93 Shalva Ozana, age 23, and Yitzhak Weinstock, age 19, were shot to death by terrorists from a moving vehicle, while parked on the side of the road to Ramallah because of engine trouble. Weinstock died of his wounds the following morning. Iz a-Din al Kassam claimed responbility for the attack, stating that it was carried out in retaliation for the killing by Israeli forces of Imad Akel, a wanted HAMAS leader in Gaza. December 5 93 David Mashrati, a reserve soldier, was shot and killed by a terrorist attempting to board a bus on route 641 at the Holon junction. The Islamic Jihad Shekaki gorup claimed responsibility for the attack. December 6 93 Mordechai Lapid and his son Shalom Lapid, age 19, were shot to death by terrorists near Hebron. HAMAS publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. December 22 93 Eliahu Levin and Meir Mendelovitch were killed by shots fired at their car from a passing vehicle in the Ramallah area. HAMAS claimed responsibility. December 24 93 Lieut.Col. Meir Mintz, commander of the IDF special forces in the Gaza area, was shot and killed by terrorists in an ambush on his jeep at the T-junction in Gaza. The HAMAS Iz a-Din al Kassam squads publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. February 13 94 Noam Cohen, age 28, member of the General Security Service, was shot and killed in an ambush on his car. Two of his colleagues who were also in the vehicle suffered moderate injuries. HAMAS claimed responsibility for the attack. February 19 94 Zipora Sasson, resident of Ariel and five months pregnant, was killed on the trans-Samaria highway in an ambush by shots fired at her car. The terrorists were members of HAMAS. March 23 94 Victor Lashchiver, employed as a guard at the Income Tax offices in East Jerusalem, was shot and killed near Damascus Gate on his way to work. The Popular Front claimed responsibility for the attack. April 7 94 Yishai Gadassi, age 32 of Kvutzat Yavne, was shot and killed at a hitchhiking post at the Ashdod junction by a member of HAMAS. The terrorist was killed by bystanders at the scene. May 17 94 Rafael Yairi (Klumfenbert), 36, of Kiryat Arba, and Margalit Ruth Shohat, 48, of Ma'ale Levona, were killed when their car was fired upon by by terrorists in a passing car near Beit Haggai, south of Hebron. May 20 94 Staff Sgt. Moshe Bukra, 30, and Cpl. Erez Ben-Baruch, 24, were shot dead by HAMAS terrorists at a roadblock one kilometer south of the Erez checkpoint in the Gaza Strip. July 7 94 Sarit Prigal, 17, was shot to death when terrorists opened fire from a passing car near the entrance to Kiryat Arba. July 19 94 Lt. Guy Ovadia, 23, of Kibbutz Yotvata, was fatally wounded in an ambush near Rafiah. HAMAS took responsibility for the attack, saying it was "a response to the massacre at the Erez checkpoint". July 25 94 Border policeman Sgt.-Maj. Jacques Attias, 24, died of his wounds after being shot by Palestinian policemen during the riots at Erez checkpoint on July 17. August 14 94 Ron Soval, 18, of Lehavim, north of Beersheba, was shot to death in an ambush near Kissufim junction in the Gaza Strip. HAMAS claimed responsibility for the attack. September 4 94 Sgt. Victor Shichman, 24, was killed at the Morag junction in the southern Gaza Strip while on patrol, from shots fired from a vehicle bearing Palestinian license plates. November 19 94 Sgt.-Maj. Gil Dadon, 26, of Bat Yam, was killed at the army post at Netzarim junction by shots fired from a passing car. HAMAS claimed responsibility for the attack. November 27 94 Rabbi Amiran Olami, 34, of Otniel was killed near Beit Hagai 10 kms south of Hebron by shots fired from a passing car. January 6 95 Ofra Felix, 20, of Beit El, a university student, was killed when terrorists opened fire on her car north of Beit El. February 6 95 Yevgeny Gromov, 32, of Ashkelon, a security guard, was killed when terrorists opened fire from a passing car on the Gaza bypass road between Jabalya and Gaza City, as he was escorting a gasoline truck to a Gaza Strip filling station. March 19 95 Nahum Hoss, 32, of Hebron and Yehuda Fartush, 41, of Kiryat Arba, were killed when terrorists fired on an Egged bus near the entrance to Hebron. January 16 96 Sgt. Yaniv Shimel and Major Oz Tibon, both of Jerusalem, were killed when terrorists fired on their car on the Hebron-Jerusalem road. May 14 96 David Boim, 17, a yeshiva high school student in Beit El, was killed when terrorists fired at students at a hitchhiking post at Beil El, near Ramallah. June 9 96 Yaron (26) and Efrat (25) Unger, of Kiryat Arba, were killed when terrorists fired on their car near Beit Shemesh. June 16 96 First-Sgt. Meir Alush, 40, an off-duty policeman, was shot and killed in a toy store in the village of Bidiya. June 26 96 Staff Sgt. (Res.) Asher Berdugo, 22, of Kiryat Bialik; Sgt. Ashraf Shibli, 20, of Shibli; and Cpl. (Res.) Ya'acov Turgeman of Rishon Lezion were killed in an ambush along the Jordan River north of Jericho by terrorists who infiltrated from Jordan. July 26 96 Uri Munk, 53, and his daughter-in-law, Rachel Munk, 24, of Moshav Mevo Betar, were killed in a drive-by shooting attack near Beit Shemesh. 30-year-old Ze'ev Munk, Rachel's husband, was critically wounded and died in the hospital the following week. December 11 96 Etta Tzur, 48, and her son Ephraim, 12, were killed when their car was shot at by terrorists near Surda, west of Beit El. November 19 97 Gabriel Hirschberg, 26, was killed by automatic gunfire in the Old City of Jerusalem. January 6 98 Yael Meivar, 25, died of gunshot wounds sustained in a terrorist attack on December 31, 1997 near the settlement of Alei Zahav in Samaria. August 5 98 Harel Bin-Nun, 18, and Shlomo Liebman, 24, were shot and killed in an ambush by terrorists while on patrol at the Yizhar settlement in Samaria. October 14 98 Itamar Doron, 24, was shot to death near Moshav Ora, outside Jerusalem. October 26 98 Danny Vargas, 29, of Kiryat Arba was shot to death in Hebron. January 13 99 Sergeant Yehoshua Gavriel, 25, of Ashdod, was killed when terrorists opened fire at the Othniel junction near Hebron. August 7 99 The body of an Israeli, shot in the head, was found in a burned vehicle. September 29, 2000 -- Border Police Supt. Yosef Tabeja, 27, of Ramle was shot to death by his Palestinian counterpart on a joint patrol near Kalkilya. October 1, 2000 -- Border Police Cpl. Madhat Yusuf, 19, of Beit Jann, died of gunshot wounds sustained in a gun battle with Palestinians at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. October 2, 2000 -- Wichlav Zalsevsky, 24, of Ashdod, was shot in the head in the village of Masha on the trans-Samaria highway. Sgt. Max Hazan, 20, of Dimona, died of gunshot injuries sustained near Beit Sahur. October 8, 2000 -- The bullet-riddled body of Hillel Lieberman, 36, of Elon Moreh was found at the southern entrance to Nablus. October 19, 2000 -- Rabbi Binyamin Herling, 64, of Kedumim, was killed when Fatah members and Palestinian security forces opened fire on a group of Israeli men, women, and children on a trip at Mount Ebal near Nablus. October 30, 2000 -- Eish-Kodesh Gilmor, 25, of Mevo Modi'in, was shot and killed while on duty as a security guard at the National Insurance Institute's East Jerusalem branch. Another guard was injured. Amos Machlouf, 30, of the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem, was found murdered in a ravine near Beit Jala. November 1, 2000 -- Lt. David-Hen Cohen, 21, of Karmiel and Sgt. Shlomo Adshina, 20, of Kibbutz Ze'elim were killed in a shooting incident in the Al-Hader area, near Bethlehem. November 8, 2000 -- Noa Dahan, 25, of Moshav Mivtahim in the south, was shot to death while driving to her job at the Rafah border crossing in Gaza. November 10, 2000 -- Sgt. Shahar Vekret, 20, of Lod was fatally shot by a Palestinian sniper near Rachel's Tomb at the entrance to Bethlehem. November 11, 2000 -- Sgt. 1st Class Avner Shalom, 28, of Eilat, was killed in a shooting attack at the Gush Katif junction in the Gaza Strip. November 13, 2000 -- Sarah Leisha, 42, of Neveh Tzuf was killed by gunfire from a passing car while travelling near Ofra, north of Ramallah. Cpl. Elad Wallenstein, 18, of Ashkelon, and Cpl. Amit Zanna, 19, of Netanya were killed by gunfire from a car passing the military bus carrying them near Ofra. November 13, 2000 -- Gabi Zaghouri, 36, of Netivot was killed by gunfire directed at the truck he was driving near the Kissufim junction in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. November 18, 2000 -- St.-Sgt. Baruch (Snir) Flum, 21, of Tel-Aviv was shot and killed by a senior Palestinian Preventive Security Service officer who infiltrated the Kfar Darom greenhouses in the Gaza Strip. St.-Sgt. Sharon Shitoubi, 21, of Ramle, wounded in the Palestinan shooting attack in Kfar Darom, died of his wounds on November 20. November 21, 2000 -- Itamar Yefet, 18, of Netzer Hazani died from a gunshot wound to the head by Palestinian sniper fire at the Gush Katif junction. November 23, 2000 -- Sgt. Samar Hussein, 19, of Hurfeish, was killed when Palestinian snipers opened fire at soldiers patrolling the border fence near the Erez crossing. November 24, 2000 -- Maj. Sharon Arameh, 25, of Ashkelon was killed by Palestinian sniper fire in fighting near Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip. November 24, 2000 -- Ariel Jeraffi, 40, of Petah Tikva, a civilian employed by the IDF, was killed by Palestinian fire as he travelled near Otzarin in the West Bank. December 8, 2000 -- Rina Didovsky, 39, a Beit Hagai school teacher on her way to work, and Eliyahu Ben-Ami, 41, of Otniel, the driver of the van, were killed when a car full of gunmen opened fire on the van near Kiryat Arba. December 8, 2000 -- Sgt. Tal Gordon, 19, was killed when gunmen in a passing car opened fire on an Egged bus traveling south from Tiberias to Jerusalem on the Jericho bypass road. December 21, 2000 -- Eliahu Cohen, 29, of Modi'in was shot and killed tonight by Palestinian terrorists waiting in ambush on the road between Givat Ze'ev and Beit Horon. December 31, 2000 -- Binyamin Zeev Kahane, the son of the late right-wing leader Meir Kahane, and his wife, Talia, were killed when Palestinian snipers opened fire while they were driving on the Ramallah bypass road. Five of their children, aged two months to 10 years, were injured. January 14, 2001 -- The bullet-ridden body of Ron Tzalah, 32, of Kfar Yam in Gush Katif, apparently killed on Sunday night (January 14), was found the following morning near the Kfar Yam hothouses. January 17, 2001 -- Ofir Rahum, 16, of Ashkelon, traveled to Jerusalem to meet a young woman with whom he had conducted a relationship over the Internet. She then drove him toward Ramallah. At a prearranged location, another vehicle drove up and three Palestinian gunmen inside shot Rahum more than 15 times. One terrorist drove off with Rahum's body and dumped it, while the others fled in the second vehicle. January 25, 2001 -- Akiva Pashkos, 45, of Jerusalem, was shot dead in a terror attack near the Atarot industrial zone north of Jerusalem. January 29, 2001 -- Arye Hershkowitz, 55, of Ofra, was killed by shots fired from a passing car near the Rama junction north of Jerusalem. February 1, 2001 -- Dr. Shmuel Gillis, 42, of Carmei Tzur, was killed by Palestinian gunmen who fired at his car near the Aroub refugee camp on the Jerusalem-Hebron highway. February 1, 2001 -- Lior Attiah, 23, of Afula was shot to death by terrorists while traveling near Jenin. February 5, 2001 -- St.-Sgt. Rujayah Salameh, 23, was killed by sniper fire near Rafah. February 11, 2001 -- Tzachi Sasson, 35, of Kibbutz Rosh Tzurim in Gush Etzion, was shot and killed by Palestinian gunmen as he drove home from Jerusalem. March 19, 2001 -- Baruch Cohen, 59, of Efrat, was killed by shots fired at his car while driving to work in Jerusalem from his home in the Gush Etzion area. After being hit by bullets, he lost control of the car and collided with an oncoming truck. March 26, 2001 -- Shalhevet Pass, age 10 months, was killed by sniper fire at the entrance to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron. April 2, 2001 -- Sgt. Danny Darai, 20, of Arad, was killed by a Palestinian sniper after completing guard duty at Rachel's Tomb at the entrance to Bethlehem. April 28, 2001 -- Sgt. Shlomo Elmakias, 20, of Netanya, was killed and four women passengers wounded in a drive-by terrorist shooting attack on the Wadi Ara highway in the Galilee. May 1, 2001 -- Assaf Hershkowitz, 30, of Ofra, was killed when his vehicle was fired upon and overturned at a junction between Ofra and Beit El. May 15, 2001 -- Idit Mizrahi, 20, of Rimonim, was fatally shot in a terrorist ambush as she drove with her father and brother on the Alon Highway to attend a family wedding. Terrorists fired 30 bullets, 19 of which hit the family's car. May 18, 2001 -- Lt. Yair Nebenzahl, 22, of Neve Tzuf (Halamish), was killed and his mother seriously wounded, in a Palestinian roadside ambush north of Jerusalem. May 23, 2001 -- Asher Iluz, 33, of Modi'in was killed outside Ariel en route to supervise a road paving in the area, when Palestinian gunmen opened fire in an ambush. May 29, 2001 -- Gilad Zar, 41, of Itamar, was shot dead in a terrorist ambush while driving in the West Bank between Kedumim and Yizhar. The Fatah Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack. May 29, 2001 -- Sara Blaustein, 53, and Esther Alvan, 20, of Efrat, were killed in a drive-by shooting near Neve Daniel in the Gush Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem. The Fatah Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack. May 31, 2001 -- Zvi Shelef, 63, of Mevo Dotan, was killed in a drive-by shooting attack in northern Samaria north of Tulkarem. He was shot in the head and died en route to hospital. June 12, 2001 -- Father Georgios Tsibouktzakis, 34, a Greek Orthodox monk from the St. George Monastery in Wadi Kelt in the Judean desert, was shot and killed while driving on the Jerusalem-Ma'ale Adumim road. June 14, 2001 -- Lt.Col. Yehuda Edri, 45, of Ma'ale Adumim was killed by a Palestinian informant for Israeli intelligence in a shooting attack on the Bethlehem bypass tunnel road connecting the Gush Etzion bloc with Jerusalem. One of his security guards was seriously injured. June 18, 2001 -- Dan Yehuda, 35, of Homesh was killed in a drive-by shooting attack between Homesh and Shavei Shomron, near Nablus. Alex Briskin, 17, was moderately injured. June 18, 2001 -- Doron Zisserman, 38, of Einav, was shot and killed in his car by sniper fire near the entrance to Einav, east of Tulkarem. Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack. June 20, 2001 -- Ilya Krivitz, 62, of Homesh in Samaria was shot and killed at close range in an ambush late Wednesday afternoon in the nearby Palestinian town of Silat a-Dahar. June 28, 2001 -- Ekaterina (Katya) Weintraub, 27, of Ganim in northern Samaria was killed and another woman injured late Thursday afternoon by shots fired at the two-car convoy on the Jenin bypass road. July 2, 2001 -- Aharon Obadyan, 41, of Zichron Ya'akov was shot and killed near Baka a-Sharkia, north of the West Bank city of Tulkarem and close to the 1967 Green Line border, after shopping at the local market. July 2, 2001 -- The body of Yair Har Sinai, 51, of Susiya in the Hebron hills, missing since Monday (July 2) was found early Tuesday morning shot in the head and chest. July 4, 2001 -- Eliahu Na'aman, 32, of Petah Tikva, was shot at point-blank range just inside the Green Line at Sueika, near Tulkarem. July 13, 2001 -- Yehezkel (Hezi) Mualem, 49, father of four from Kiryat Arba, was shot and killed between Kiryat Arba and Hebron while protesting a shooting attack in the area the previous day. July 14, 2001 -- David Cohen, 28, of Betar Illit, died of injuries sustained in a drive-by shooting in Kiryat Arba on July 12. July 26, 2001 -- Ronen Landau, 17, of Givat Ze'ev, was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists while returning home from Jerusalem with his father. August 5, 2001 -- Tehiya Bloomberg, 40, of Karnei Shomron, mother of five and 5 months pregnant, was killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the family vehicle between Alfei Menashe and Karnei Shomron. Three people were seriously wounded, including her husband, Shimon, and daughter, Tzippi, 14. August 6, 2001 -- Yitzhak Snir, 51, of Ra'anana, an Israeli diamond merchant, was shot dead in Amman, in the yard of the building where he kept a flat. His body was found the following morning. August 7, 2001 -- Wael Ghanem, 32, an Arab Israeli resident of Taibeh, was shot and killed by Palestinian assailants on the road near Kalkilya. Police believe he was murdered because of suspected collaboration with Israeli authorities. Zohar Shurgi, 40, of Moshav Yafit in the Jordan Valley, was shot and killed by terrorists while driving home at night on the Trans-Samaria Highway. August 9, 2001 -- Aliza Malka, 17, a boarding student at Kibbutz Merav, was killed by terrorists in a drive-by shooting at the entrance to the kibbutz in the Gilboa region, west of Beit She'an. Three teenage girls who were with her in the car were injured, one seriously. August 25, 2001 -- Sharon, 26, and Yaniv Ben-Shalom, 27, of Ofarim, were killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on their car as they were returning home on the Jerusalem-Modi'in on road Saturday night. Their children, aged one and two, were lightly wounded. Sharon's brother, Doron Sviri, 20, of Jerusalem was fatally wounded and died the following day. August 26, 2001 -- Dov Rosman, 58, of Netanya was killed in a shooting attack shortly before 17:00 on Sunday afternoon near the entrance to the village of Zaita, opposite Kibbutz Magal. Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack. August 27, 2001 -- Meir Lixenberg, 38, of Itamar, father of five, was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists from a roadside ambush while traveling between the communities of Har Bracha and Itamar, south of Nablus. August 29, 2001 -- Oleg Sotnikov, 35, of Ashdod, a truck driver employed by Dor Energy, was killed in a terrorist shooting attack outside the Palestinian village of Kutchin, west of Nablus. August 30, 2001 -- Amos Tajouri, 60, of Modi'in, was shot in the head at point-blank range by a masked gunman in the Arab village of Na'alin, while dining at a restaurant owned by close friends. September 6, 2001 -- Lt. Erez Merhavi, 23, of Moshav Tarum was killed in an ambush shooting near Kibbutz Bahan, east of Hadera, while driving to a wedding. A female officer with him in the car was seriously injured. Fatah-Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack. September 9, 2001 -- Ya'akov Hatzav, 42, of Hamra in the Jordan Valley, the driver, and Sima Franko, 24, of Beit She'an, a kindergarten teacher, were killed in a shooting attack 300 meters south of the Adam Junction in the Jordan Valley. A minibus transporting teachers to the regional school was attacked by Palestinian terrorists. September 11, 2001 -- Border Policemen Sgt. Tzachi David, 19, of Tel-Aviv, and St.-Sgt. Andrei Zledkin, 26, of Carmiel, were killed just after midnight when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the Ivtan Border Police base near Kibbutz Bachan in central Israel. A Fatah group claimed responsibility for the attack. September 12, 2001 -- Ruth Shua'i, 46, of Alfei Menashe, was traveling home around 19:30 p.m. when shots were fired from a passing vehicle near the village of Habla near Kalkilya. She sustained injuries to her head and stomach and died en route to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba. September 15, 2001 -- Meir Weisshaus, 23, of Jerusalem, was fatally shot late Saturday night in a drive-by shooting on the Ramot-French Hill road in northern Jerusalem. September 16, 2001 -- Sgt. David Gordukal, 23, of Upper Nazareth, was killed in the exchange of fire on Saturday night in the south of Ramallah, during which five senior Palestinian terrorists were arrested and a number of Palestinian positions and a Force 17 camp were attacked. September 20, 2001 -- Sarit Amrani, 26, of Nokdim, was killed Thursday morning and her husband Shai was seriously wounded in a shooting attack near Tekoa, south of Bethlehem. The couple's three children who were traveling in the vehicle were not injured. Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack. September 24, 2001 -- Salit Sheetrit, 28, of Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu was killed by gunfire shortly after 6:30 near Shadmot Mehola on the Jordan Valley road. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. October 4, 2001 -- Sgt. Tali Ben-Armon, 19, an off-duty woman soldier from Pardesia, Haim Ben-Ezra, 76, of Givat Hamoreh, and Sergei Freidin, 20, of Afula were killed when a Palestinian terrorist, dressed as an Israeli paratrooper, opened fire on Israeli civilians waiting at the central bus station in Afula. 13 other Israelis were wounded in the attack. Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack. October 5, 2001 -- Hananya Ben-Avraham, 46, of Elad was killed by Palestinian terrorists in a machine gun ambush near Avnei Hefetz in central Israel. October 17, 2001 -- Tourism Minister Rechavam Ze'evy, 75, was assassinated by two shots to the head outside his room at the Jerusalem Hyatt Hotel. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack. October 18, 2001 -- Lior Kaufman, 30, of Ramat Sharon was killed and two injured, one seriously, by shots fired by terrorists at their jeep in the Judean desert, near the March Saba monastery. October 28, 2001 -- St.-Sgt. Yaniv Levy, 22, of Zichron Yaakov was killed by Palestinian terrorists in a drive-by machine-gun ambush near Kibbutz Metzer in northern Israel. The Tanzim wing of Arafat's Fatah faction claimed responsibility for the murder. October 28, 2001 -- Ayala Levy, 39, of Elyachin; Smadar Levy, 23, of Hadera; Lydia Marko, 63, of Givat Ada; and Sima Menahem, 30, of Zichron Yaakov were killed when two Palestinian terrorists, members of the Palestinian police, armed with assault rifles and expanding bullets, opened fire from a vehicle on Israeli pedestrians at a crowded bus-stop in downtown Hadera. About 40 were wounded, three critically. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsiblity for the attack. November 2, 2001 -- St.-Sgt. Raz Mintz, 19, of Kiryat Motzkin was killed by Palestinian gunmen 5:45 P.M. on Friday at an IDF roadblock at near Ofra, north of Ramallah. The Fatah-affiliated Al-Aksa Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack. November 4, 2001 -- Shoshana Ben Ishai, 16, of Betar Illit and Menashe (Meni) Regev, 14, of Jerusalem were killed when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire with a sub-machine gun shortly before 16:00 at a No. 25 Egged bus at the French Hill junction in northern Jerusalem. 45 people were injured in the attack. November 6, 2001 -- Capt. (Res.) Eyal Sela, 39, of Moshav Nir Banim, was shot dead in an ambush by three Palestinian terrorists on the southern Nablus bypass road. November 9, 2001 -- Hadas Abutbul, 39, of Mevo Dotan in northern Samaria was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists on Friday afternoon as she drove from work in nearby Shaked. November 11, 2001 -- Aharon Ussishkin, 50, head of security at Moshav Kfar Hess, east of Netanya, was shot and killed at the entrance to the moshav on Sunday evening, after being summoned to investigate a suspicious person. November 27, 2001 -- Noam Gozovsky, 23, of Moshav Ramat Zvi, and Michal Mor, 25, of Afula were killed when two Palestinian terrorists from the Jenin area opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles on a crowd of people near the central bus station in Afula. Police officers and a reserve soldier confronted them, killing the terrorists in the ensuing firefight. Another 50 people were injured, 10 of them moderately to seriously. Fatah and the Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility. November 29, 2001 -- 1st Sgt. Yaron Pikholtz, 20, of Ramat Gan, was killed and a second soldier was injured in a drive-by shooting incident on the Green Line, near the West Bank village of Baka el-Sharkiya. December 2, 2001 -- Prof. Baruch Singer, 51, of Gedera was killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on his car near the northern Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. December 25, 2001 -- Sgt. Michael Sitbon, 23, of Beit Shemesh, an IDF reserve soldier, was killed, and four other soldiers were injured, in a shooting attack Tuesday morning near the Jordanian border north of Beit She'an. January 14, 2002 -- Sgt. Elad Abu-Gani, 19, of Tiberias, was killed and an officer sustained gunshot wounds in a terrorist ambush near Kuchin, between Nablus and Tulkarm. Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack. January 15, 2002 -- Avraham (Avi) Boaz, 71, of Ma'aleh Adumim, an American citizen, was kidnapped at a PA security checkpoint in Beit Jala. His bullet-riddled body was found in a car in Beit Sahur, in the Bethlehem area. The Fatah's Al-Aksa Brigade claimed responsibility for the murder. January 15, 2002 -- Yoela Chen, 45, of Givat Ze'ev, was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists near the gas station at the entrance to Givat Ze'ev shortly before 20:00. Her aunt who was with her in the car was injured. The Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigade claimed responsibility for the murder. January 16, 2002 -- Shahada Dadis, 30, an Arab resident of Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, was killed in a drive-by terrorist shooting. He was found dead in a car bearing Israeli license plates south of Jenin in the West Bank. January 17, 2002 -- Edward Bakshayev, 48, of Or Akiva; Anatoly Bakshayev, 63, of Or Akiva; Aharon Ben Yisrael-Ellis, 32, of Ra'anana; Dina Binayev, 48, of Ashkelon; Boris Melikhov, 56, of Sderot; and Avi Yazdi, 25, of Hadera were killed and 35 injured, several seriously, when a terrorist burst into a bat mitzva reception in a banquet hall in Hadera shortly before 23:00, opening fire with an M-16 assault rifle. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. January 22, 2002 -- Sarah Hamburger, 79, and Svetlana Sandler, 56, both of Jerusalem, were killed and 40 were injured when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire with an M-16 assault rifle near a bus stop in downtown Jerusalem. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. February 6, 2002 -- Miri Ohana, 45, and her daughter Yael, 11, were murdered in their home when an armed terrorist infiltrated Moshav Hamra, halfway between Jericho and Beit She'an in the Jordan Valley on Wednesday evening, opening fire. IDF reserve soldier, St.-Sgt. Maj.(res.) Moshe Majos Meconen, 33, of Beit She'an, was also killed in the attack. The terrorist, who entered the Ohana home disguised in IDF uniform, was killed by IDF forces. Both Fatah and Hamas claimed responsibility. February 9, 2002 -- Atala Lipobsky, 78, of Ma'ale Ephraim was shot dead on Saturday night while driving on the Trans-Samaria Highway with her son. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the car, apparently from an ambush, between Ariel and the Tapuah Junction. February 10, 2002 -- Lt. Keren Rothstein, 20, of Ashkelon and Cpl. Aya Malachi, 18, of Moshav Ein Habesor were killed in a drive-by terrorist shooting at the entrance to the IDF Southern Command base in Be'er Sheva. Four others were wounded, one critically. One of the terrorists was killed at the scene; the second, wearing an explosives belt, fled in the direction of a nearby school when he was shot and killed by a soldier and police officer. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. February 15, 2002 -- St.-Sgt. Lee Nahman Akunis, 20, of Holon, was shot and killed by gunmen on Friday night at a roadblock north of Ramallah. The Fatah's Al-Aksa Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack. February 18, 2002 -- Ahuva Amergi, 30, of Ganei Tal in Gush Katif was killed and a 60-year old man was injured when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on her car. Maj. Mor Elraz, 25, of Kiryat Ata and St.-Sgt. Amir Mansouri, 21, of Kiryat Arba, who came to their assistance, were killed while trying to intercept the terrorist. The terrorist was killed when the explosives he was carrying were detonated. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. February 19, 2002 -- Lt. Moshe Eini, 21, of Petah Tikva; St.-Sgt. Benny Kikis, 20, of Carmiel; St.-Sgt. Mark Podolsky, 20, of Tel Aviv; St.-Sgt. Erez Turgeman, 20, of Jerusalem; St.-Sgt. Tamir Atsmi, 21, of Kiryat Ono; and St.-Sgt. Michael Oxsman, 21, of Haifa were killed and one wounded in an attack near a roadblock west of Ramallah. Several terrorists opened fire at soldiers at the roadblock, including three off-duty soldiers inside a structure at the roadblock, killing them at point-blank range. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. February 21, 2002 -- Minhal Dragma, 22, of Baka al-Garbiya, was killed when a terrorist opened fire at IDF soldiers at the entrance to Baka al-Sharkiya. February 22, 2002 -- Valery Ahmir, 59, of Beit Shemesh was killed by terrorists in a drive-by shooting on the Atarot-Givat Ze'ev road north of Jerusalem as he returned home from work. Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack. February 25, 2002 -- Avraham Fish, 65, and Aharon Gorov, 46, both of Nokdim, were killed in a terrorist shooting attack between Tekoa and Nokdim, south of Bethlehem. Fish's daughter, 9 months pregnant, was seriously injured but delivered a baby girl. The Fatah al-Aksa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. February 25, 2002 -- Police officer 1st Sgt. Galit Arbiv, 21, of Nesher, died after being fatally shot, when a terrorist opened fire at a bus stop in the Neve Ya'akov residential neighbhorhood in northern Jerusalem. Eight others were injured, two seriously. The Fatah al-Aksa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. February 27, 2002 -- Gad Rejwan, 34, of Jerusalem, was shot and killed early Wednesday morning by one of his Palestinian employees in a factory in the Atarot industrial area, north of Jerusalem. Two Fatah groups issued a joint statement taking responsibility for the murder. February 28, 2002 -- IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Haim Bachar, 20, of Tel Aviv was killed during clashes with Palestinians in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus. IDF forces entered the camp to search for wanted terrorists. March 1, 2002 -- IDF soldier Sgt. Ya'acov Avni, 20, of Kiryat Ata was killed by Palestinian sniper fire in the Jenin refugee camp. March 3, 2002 -- Sgt. Steven Kenigsberg, 19, of Hod Hasharon was killed and 4 soldiers injured when a Palestinian gunman opened fire near the Kissufim crossing in the Gaza Strip. The Islamic Jihad and Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack. March 5, 2002 -- Police officer FSM Salim Barakat, 33, of Yarka; Yosef Habi, 52, of Herzliya; and Eli Dahan, 53, of Lod were killed and over 30 people were wounded in Tel-Aviv when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on two adjacent restaurants shortly after 2:00 a.m. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack. March 5, 2002 -- Devorah Friedman, 45, of Efrat, was killed and her husband injured in shooting attack on the Bethlehem bypass "tunnel road", south of Jerusalem. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack. March 6, 2002 -- Cpl.(res.) Alexander Nastarenko, 37, of Netanya was killed when Palestinian gunmen crossed the border fence and ambushed an army jeep on the patrol road near Kibbutz Nir Oz. March 7, 2002 -- Arik Krogliak of Beit El, Tal Kurtzweil of Bnei Brak, Asher Marcus of Jerusalem, Eran Picard of Jerusalem, and Ariel Zana of Jerusalem, all aged 18, were killed and 23 people were injured, four seriously, when a Palestinian gunman penetrated the pre-military training academy in the Gush Katif settlement of Atzmona. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. March 8, 2002 -- St.-Sgt. Edward Korol, 20, of Ashdod, was killed by a Palestinian sniper in Tulkarem. March 10, 2002 -- St.-Sgt. Kobi Eichelboim, 21, of Givatayim died Sunday afternoon from wounds suffered in the morning when a Palestinian gunman disguised as a worker opened fire at the entrance to Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. March 12, 2002 -- Eyal Lieberman, 42, of Tzoran was killed and another person was wounded in a shooting attack at the Kiryat Sefer checkpoint, east of Modi'in. March 12, 2002 -- Yehudit Cohen, 33, of Shlomi; Ofer Kanarick, 44, of Moshav Betzet; Alexei Kotman, 29, of Kibbutz Beit Hashita; Lynne Livne, 49, and her daughter Atara, 15, of Kibbutz Hanita; and Lt. German Rozhkov, 25, of Kiryat Shmona were killed when two terrorists opened fire from an ambush on Israeli vehicles traveling between Shlomi and Kibbutz Metzuba near the northern border with Lebanon. Seven others were injured. Israeli forces killed the two gunmen, who were dressed in IDF uniforms, and carried out wide-scale searches for additional terrorists. March 13, 2002 -- Lt. Gil Badihi, 21, of Nataf died of injuries suffered Wednesday morning in Ramallah. He was shot in the head by a Palestinian gunman while inside his tank and evacuating infantry personnel. March 17, 2002 -- Noa Auerbach, 18, of Kfar Sava was killed and 16 people were injured when a terrorist opened fire on passersby in the center of Kfar Sava. The gunman was shot and killed by police. March 19, 2002 -- 1st Lt. Tal Zemach, 20, of Kibbutz Hulda, was killed and three soldiers were injured when Palestinian terrorists opened fire on them in the Jordan Valley. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. March 24, 2002 -- Esther Kleiman, 23, of Neve Tzuf, was killed in a shooting attack northwest of Ramallah, while traveling to work in a reinforced Egged bus. March 24, 2002 -- Avi Sabag, 24, of Otniel was killed in a terrorist shooting south of Hebron. March 26, 2002 -- Major Cengiz Soytunc of Turkey and Catherine Berruex of Switzerland, members of the TIPH observer force in Hebron, were killed in an ambush shooting by a Palestinian gunman near Halhul. March 28, 2002 -- Rachel and David Gavish, 50, their son Avraham Gavish, 20, and Rachel's father Yitzhak Kanner, 83, were killed when a terrorist infiltrated the community of Elon Moreh in Samaria, entered their home and opened fire on its inhabitants. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. March 30, 2002 -- Border Policeman Sgt.-Maj. Constantine Danilov, 23, of Or Akiva was shot and killed in Baka al-Garbiyeh, during an exchange of fire with two Palestinians trying to cross into Israel to carry out a suicide attack. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility. April 1, 2002 -- Sgt.-Maj. Ofir Roth, 22, of Gan Yoshiya, an IDF reserve soldier, was killed at a roadblock near Jerusalem's Har Homa neighborhood by a Palestinian sniper firing from Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem. April 5, 2002 -- Sgt. Marom Moshe Fisher, 19, of Moshav Avigdor; Sgt. Ro'i Tal, 21, of Ma'alot; and Sgt. Oded Kornfein, 20, of Kibbutz Ha'on -- were killed in exchanges of fire between IDF troops and Palestinian gunmen in Jenin (Operation Defensive Shield). April 8, 2002 -- St.-Sgt. Matanya Robinson, 21, of Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, and Sgt. Shmuel Weiss, 19, of Kiryat Arba were killed in an ambush by Palestinian gunfire in the Jenin refugee camp (Operation Defensive Shield). April 9, 2002 -- Maj. Assaf Assoulin, 30, of Tel Aviv was killed in an exchange of fire in Nablus. April 12, 2002 -- Border policeman St.-Sgt. David Smirnoff, 22, of Ashdod was killed when a Palestinian gunman opened fire near the Erez crossing, in the Gaza Strip, killing one and injuring another four Israelis. The terrorist killed one and injured three Palestinian workers in the same shooting spree. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. April 20, 2002 -- Border Policeman St.-Sgt. Uriel Bar-Maimon, 21 of Ashkelon was killed in an exchange of fire near the Erez industrial park in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces pursued the Palestinian gunman and killed him. An explosive belt was found on his body. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility. April 22, 2002 -- Sgt. Maj. Nir Krichman, 22 of Hadera, was killed in an exchange of gunfire, when IDF forces entered the village of Asira a-Shamaliya, north of Nablus, to arrest known Hamas terrorists. April 27, 2002 -- Danielle Shefi, 5; Arik Becker, 22; Katrina (Katya) Greenberg, 45; and Ya'acov Katz, 51, all of Adora, were killed when terrorists dressed in IDF uniforms and combat gear cut through the settlement's defensive perimeter fence and entered Adora, west of Hebron. Seven other people were injured, one seriously. The terrorists entered several homes, firing on people in their bedrooms. Both Hamas and the PFLP claimed responsibility for the attack. May 12, 2002 -- Nisan Dolinger, 43, of Pe'at Sadeh in the southern Gaza Strip was shot and killed by a Palestinian laborer. The assailant was apprehended. May 24, 2002 -- Reserve IDF Sgt. 1st Class Oren Tzelnik, 23, of Bat Yam was killed and two soldiers wounded when terrorists opened fire on their APC during a counter-terrorist operation in Tulkarm. May 28, 2002 -- Albert Maloul, 50, of Jerusalem, was killed when shots were fired at the car in which he was traveling south on the Ramallah bypass road. Maloul and his cousin, who was lightly injured, were returning home to Jerusalem from Eli, where they operate the swimming pool. The Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. May 28, 2002 -- Netanel Riachi, 17, of Kochav Ya'akov; Gilad Stiglitz, 14, of Yakir; and Avraham Siton, 17, of Shilo -- three yeshiva high school students -- were killed and two others wounded in Itamar, southeast of Nablus, when a Palestinian gunman infiltrated the community and opened fire on the teenagers playing basketball, before he was shot dead by a security guard. The Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. June 6, 2002 -- Erez Rund, 18, of Ofra died of gunshot wounds to the chest sustained in a shooting attack near Ofra, north of Ramallah, when Palestinian terrorists opened fire from an ambush. June 19, 2002 -- Maj. Shlomi Cohen, 26, of Rehovot and St.-Sgt. Yosef Talbi, 20, of Yehud were killed and four soldiers were wounded Wednesday night in Kalkilya when Palestinian gunmen opened fire while the soldiers were in pursuit of two terrorists inside a building. June 20, 2002 -- Rachel Shabo, 40, and three of her sons -- Neria, 16, Zvika, 12, and Avishai, 5 -- as well as a neighbor, Yosef Twito, 31, who came to their aid, were murdered when a terrorist entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire. Two other children were injured, as well as two soldiers. The terrorist was killed by IDF forces. The PFLP and the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. July 10, 2002 -- IDF officer Capt. Hagai Lev, 24, of Jerusalem, deputy commander of a Givati reconaissance unit, was killed by Palestinian sniper fire while conducting a search for weapons smuggling tunnels in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The Fatah Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the shooting. July 17, 2002 -- Lt. Elad Grenadier, 21, of Haifa was killed and three soldiers were wounded early Wednesday morning in an exchange of fire with the terrorists responsible for the attack in Emmanuel on July 16. July 25, 2002 -- Rabbi Elimelech Shapira, 43, of Peduel, was killed and another civilian injured in a shooting attack near the West Bank community of Alei Zahav, west of Ariel. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. July 26, 2002 -- St.-Sgt. Elazar Lebovitch, 21, of Hebron; Rabbi Yosef Dikstein, 45, of Psagot, his wife Hannah, 42, and their 9-year-old son Shuv'el Zion were killed in a shooting attack south of Hebron. Two other of their children were injured. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. July 30, 2002 -- Shlomo Odesser, 60, and his brother Mordechai, 52, both of Tapuach in Samaria, were shot and killed when their truck came under fire in the West Bank village of Jama'in, near Ariel. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. August 1, 2002 -- The body Shani Ladani, 27, of Moshav Olash, shot and bound, was found west of Tulkarem, near the Green Line, in the industrial zone where he was employed. August 4, 2002 -- Yekutiel Amitai, 34, of Jerusalem, a security guard, and Nizal Awassat, 52, of the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood in East Jerusalem, were killed and 17 were wounded when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire with a pistol near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City. Border policemen exchanged fire with the gunman, killing him. The Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. August 5, 2002 -- Avi Wolanski (29) and his wife Avital (27), of Eli, were killed and one of their children, aged 3, was injured when terrorists opened fire on their car as they were traveling on the Ramallah-Nablus road near Eli in Samaria. The Martyrs of the Palestinian Popular Army, a splinter group associated with Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack. August 10, 2002 -- Yafit Herenstein, 31, of Moshav Mechora in the Jordan Valley, was killed and her husband, Arno, seriously wounded when a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the moshav and opened fire outside their home. The terrorist was killed by soldiers. The Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. August 20, 2002 -- St.-Sgt. Kevin Cohen, 19, of Petah Tikva, was killed by a Palestinian sniper near Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. September 5, 2002 -- Lt. Malik Grifat, 24, of Zarzir was killed and a soldier wounded when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire, from a crowded school, towards an IDF patrol near Nisanit in the northern Gaza Strip. The terrorist was killed. The Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. September 18, 2002 -- The charred body of David Buhbut, 67, of Ma'ale Adumim, shot in the head, was found near el-Azzariya, a Palestinian village near Ma'ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, the victim of a terrorist killing. September 18, 2002 -- Yosef Ajami, 36, of Jerusalem was killed Wednesday afternoon when terrorists opened fire on his car near Mevo Dotan, north of Jenin in the West Bank. The other occupant of the car, a foreign worker, was lightly injured. The Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. September 23, 2002 -- Shlomo Yitzhak Shapira, 48, of Jerusalem was killed and three of his children wounded, one seriously, in a shooting attack Monday evening near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The family, from Jerusalem, had come to Hebron to celebrate the Sukkot festival. September 26, 2002 -- Capt. Harel Marmelstein, 23, of Mevasseret Zion, an IDF officer from the naval commando, was killed while leading a search for wanted terrorists in the West Bank village of Labed near Tulkarem. Senior Hamas terrorist Nisa'at Jaber ambushed the troops, opening fire and killing the commander. Jaber was killed by the soldiers. September 30, 2002 -- St.-Sgt. Ari Weiss, 21, of Ra'anana, was killed and another soldier from the engineering battalion of the Nahal Brigade was wounded when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an army position in the Nablus casbah. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. October 8, 2002 -- Oded Wolk, 51, of Modi'in, who was critically wounded in an ambush shooting south of Hebron, died of his wounds the following day (Oct 9). Three other Israelis were injured in the attack when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on their car. Hamas claimed resopnsibility for the attack. October 29, 2002 -- Three Hermesh residents -- Orna Eshel, 53, Linoy Saroussi and Hadas Turgeman, both 14 -- were killed and two were wounded when a terrorist armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and wearing an explosive belt opened fire, after infiltrating the settlement in northern Samaria. The terrorist was shot dead. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. November 6, 2002 -- Assaf Tzfira, 18, of B'dolah and Amos Sa'ada, 52, of Rafiah Yam were killed when when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire in a hothouse and textile factory at Pe'at Sadeh in the southern Gaza Strip. The terrorist was killed by a security officer. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. November 10, 2002 -- Revital Ohayon, 34, and her two sons, Matan, 5, and Noam, 4, as well as Yitzhak Dori, 44 -- all of Kibbutz Metzer -- and Tirza Damari, 42, of Elyachin, were killed when a terrorist infiltrated the kibbutz, located east of Hadera near the Green Line, and opened fire. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. November 18, 2002 -- Esther Galia, 48, of Kochav Hashahar, was killed in a shooting attack near Rimonim, on the Allon Road, some 15 kilometers northeast of Ramallah. November 22, 2002 -- IDF tracker Sgt.-Maj. Shigdaf (Shai) Garmai, 30, of Lod, was killed when an Israel Defense Forces Givati Brigade patrol near Tel Qateifa, in the Gaza Strip, came under Palestinian gunfire. Hamas claimed responsibility. December 20, 2002 -- Rabbi Yitzhak Arama, 40, of Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif, in the Gaza Strip, was shot and killed on the Kissufim corridor road while driving with his wife and six children to attend a pre-wedding Sabbath celebration in Afula. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. January 12, 2003 -- Eli Biton, 48, of Moshav Gadish was killed and four people wounded when terrorists infiltrated the community and opened fire. Two terrorists were killed by Israeli forces. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. January 17, 2003 -- Netanel Ozeri, 34, was killed when terrorists entered his home, in an outpost north of Kiryat Arba, and opened fire. His 5-year-old daughter and two friends were wounded. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. February 6, 2003 -- 2nd Lt. Amir Ben-Aryeh, 21, of Maccabim, and St.-Sgt. Idan Suzin, 20, of Kiryat Tivon were killed and two more soldiers were wounded in a shooting attack in the area of Nablus. Both gunmen were killed by return fire from IDF troops. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Fatah-Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack. February 11, 2003 -- Maj. Shahar Shmul, 24, of Jerusalem was killed by a Palestinian sniper near the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem while checking a suspicious vehicle. The PFLP and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. February 23, 2003 -- Sgt. Doron Lev, 19, of Holon was shot and killed when a Palestinian sniper opened fire at an army position in the southern Gaza Strip. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the attack. March 7, 2003 -- Rabbi Eli Horowitz, 52, and his wife Dina, 50, of Kiryat Arba, were killed and five wounded Friday night by armed terrorists disguised as Jewish worshippers who infiltrated Kiryat Arba, entered their home and murdered them while they were celebrating the Sabbath. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. March 10, 2003 -- St.-Sgt. Tomer Ron, 20, of Moshav Moledet, was killed and four soldiers were wounded -- one seriously -- in Hebron, on the road between the Cave of the Patriarchs and Kiryat Arba, when Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a foot patrol. Two organizations -- Hamas and Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front-General Command -- claimed responsibility for the attack. March 12, 2003 -- St.-Sgt. Assaf Moshe Fuchs, 21, of Kibbutz Gvat was killed and another soldier wounded Wednesday morning in an exchange of fire with wanted terrorists from the Islamic Jihad in the West Bank village of Saida, near Tulkarm. March 18, 2003 -- Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Ami Cohen, 27, of Netanya was killed and another soldier wounded south of Bethlehem when Palestinians opened fire during a search for wanted terrorists. March 19, 2003 -- Zion Boshirian, 51, of Mevo Dotan was shot and killed while driving in his car between Mevo Dotan and Shaked in northern Samaria. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. April 10, 2003 -- St.-Sgt. Yigal Lifshitz, 20, of Rishon Lezion, and St.-Sgt. Ofer Sharabi, 21, of Givat Shmuel were killed and nine others wounded when Palestinian terrorists opened fire before dawn on their base near Bekaot in the northern Jordan Valley. The PFLP and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. April 15, 2003 -- Lt. Daniel Mandel, 24, of Alon Shvut was killed and another soldier was wounded in an exchange of gunfire during a search for wanted Hamas terrorists in Nablus. April 15, 2003 -- Zachar Rahamin Hanukayev, 39, of Sderot and Ahmed Salah Kara, 20, of Shuafat in northern Jerusalem were killed and four Israelis were wounded when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at the Karni industrial zone crossing in the Gaza Strip. The gunman was killed by security personnel. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. May 11, 2003 -- Zion David, 53, of Givat Ze'ev near Jerusalem, was shot in the head and killed by Palestinian terrorists in a roadside ambush half a kilometer from Ofra, north of Jerusalem. Both Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack. June 8, 2003 -- Sgt. Maj. (Res.) Assaf Abergil, 23, of Eilat; Sgt. Maj. (Res.) Udi Eilat, 38, of Eilat; Sgt. Maj. Boaz Emete, 24, of Beit She'an; and Sgt. Maj. (Res.) Chen Engel, 32, of Ramat Gan were killed and four reserve soldiers were wounded when Palestinian terrorists wearing IDF uniforms opened fire on an IDF outpost near the Erez checkpoint and industrial zone in the Gaza Strip. Three terrorists were killed by IDF soldiers. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad issued a joint statement claiming responsibility for the attack. June 8, 2003 -- St.-Sgt. Matan Gadri, 21, of Moshav Moledet was killed in Hebron while pursuing two Palestinian gunmen who earlier had wounded a Border Policeman on guard at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The two terrorists were killed. June 12, 2003 -- Avner Maimon, 51, of Netanya, was found shot to death in his car near Yabed in northern Samaria. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. June 13, 2003 -- St.-Sgt. Mordechai Sayada, 22, of Tirat Carmel, was shot to death in Jenin by a Palestinian sniper as his jeep patrol passed by. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. June 17, 2003 -- Noam Leibowitz, 7, of Yemin Orde was killed and three members of her family wounded in a shooting attack near the Kibbutz Eyal junction on the Trans-Israel Highway. The terrorist fired from the outskirts of the West Bank city of Kalkilya. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- General Command claimed responsibility for the attack. June 26, 2003 -- Amos (Amit) Mantin, 31, of Hadera, a Bezeq employee, was killed in a shooting attack in the Israeli Arab town of Baka al-Garbiyeh. The shots were fired by a Palestinian teenager, who was apprehended by police. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. June 30, 2003 -- Krastyu Radkov, 46, a construction worker from Bulgaria, was killed in a shooting attack on the Yabed bypass road in northern Samaria, west of Jenin, while driving a truck. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, in opposition to the declared ceasefire. August 8, 2003 -- Third Petty Officer Roi Oren, 20, an Israel Navy commando, was shot in the head and killed in an assault on a Hamas bomb factory in Nablus. August 29, 2003 -- Shalom Har-Melekh, 25, of Homesh was killed in a shooting attack while driving northeast of Ramallah. His wife, Limor, who was seven months pregnant, sustained moderate injuries, and gave birth to a baby girl by Caesarean section. The Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. September 4, 2003 -- St.-Sgt. Gabriel Uziel, 20, of Givat Ze'ev was shot and mortally wounded by a terrorist sniper in Jenin; he died en route to the hospital. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. October 19, 2003 -- St.-Sgt. Erez Idan, 19, of Rishon Lezion, Sgt. Elad Pollack, 19, of Kiryat Motzkin, and Sgt. Roy Yacov Solomon, 21, of Tel Aviv, were killed and another soldier was seriously wounded while on patrol in Ein Yabrud, north of Ramallah, when terrorists fired on them from behind. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. November 18, 2003 -- Two IDF soldiers, Sgt.-Maj. Shlomi Belsky, 23, of Haifa, and St.-Sgt. Shaul Lahav, 20, of Kibbutz Shomrat, were killed by a Palestinian terrorist who opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle, hidden in a prayer rug, at a checkpoint on the tunnel bypass road, linking Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion bloc. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. November 19, 2003 -- Patricia Ter´n Navarrete, 33, of Ecuador was killed and four other tourists, pilgrims from Ecuador, were wounded when a terrorist entered the Israel-Jordan border crossing terminal north of Eilat from the Jordanian side and opened fire. The terrorist was killed by Israeli security guards. November 22, 2003 -- Two Israeli security guards, Ilya Reiger, 58, of Jerusalem, and Samer Fathi Afan, 25, of the Bedouin village Uzeir near Nazareth, were shot dead at a construction site along the route of the security fence near Abu Dis in East Jerusalem. The Jenin Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. January 13, 2004 -- Ro'i Arbel, 29, of Talmon, was killed in a terror shooting ambush near his home in Samaria. Three other passengers of the vehicle were wounded. The Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. February 26, 2004 -- Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Amir Zimmerman, 25, of Kfar Monash was killed and two other soldiers wounded when two Palestinian terrorists opened fire near the Erez Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The terrorists were killed by IDF forces. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. February 27, 2004 -- Eitan Kukoi, 30, and his wife, Rima Novikov Kukoi, 25, were killed in a terrorist shooting attack on the Lahav-Ashkelon road, along the Green Line. The PFLP and the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades both claimed responsibility for the attack. March 19, 2004 -- George Khoury, 20, a Christian Arab and the son of well-known veteran attorney Elias Khoury of Beit Hanina, was shot to death from a vehicle while jogging in the north Jerusalem neighborhood of French Hill. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which claimed responsibility for the attack, later published an apology. April 3, 2004 -- Yaakov (Kobi) Zagha, 40, of Avnei Hefetz was shot dead by a terrorist outside his home, after his daughter Hani, 14, was shot and wounded. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. April 25, 2004 -- Border Policeman Cpl. Yaniv Mashiah, 20, of Jaffa, was killed and three others lightly wounded just an hour after the beginning of Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers when shots were fired at their vehicle near Hebron. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. May 2, 2004 -- Tali Hatuel, 34, and her daughters -- Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and Merav, 2 -- of Katif in the Gaza Strip were killed and another civilian and two soldiers wounded when two Palestinian terrorists fired on an Israeli car at the entrance to the Gaza Strip settlement bloc of Gush Katif. Fatah and Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility for the attack. May 14, 2004 -- St.-Sgt. Rotem Adam, 21, Rishon Lezion and Sgt. Alexei Hayat, 21, of Beer Sheva were killed and two soldiers moderately wounded by Palestinian sniper fire in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. May 29, 2004 -- Maj. Shachar Ben-Yishai, 25, of Menahemia was killed by Palestinian gunfire following a search in the Balata camp near Nablus. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. June 29, 2004 -- Moshe Yohai, 63, of Ashdod, was found shot to death in Beit Rima, a Palestinian Authority-controlled village near Ramallah, where he had apparently gone on business. The Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility. July 4, 2004 -- Victor Kreiderman, 49, of Mevo Dotan, was ambushed and shot to death by Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorists as he and his wife were driving near the village of Yabad. His wife, Emma, was lightly wounded. July 6, 2004 -- Capt. Moran Vardi, 25, of Binyamina, of the Navy Seals commando unit Shayetet 13, was killed, and three others were wounded in an exchange of fire between IDF forces and Palestinian terrorists while attempting to arrest terrorists in Nablus. August 13, 2004 -- Shlomo Miller, 50, of Itamar in Samaria was killed by a Palestinian terrorist who opened fire outside the settlement gate. The The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility. October 19, 2004 -- St.-Sgt. Yair Nisim Turgemann, 22, of Kiryat Arba, was killed at an IDF base near Mevo Dotan in Samaria when Palestinian gunmen opened fire from Palestinian territory west of the community. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. December 22, 2004 -- Salem (Sami) al-Kimlat, 28, a Bedouin from the town of Rahat employed as a security guard at the construction site of the security fence west of Hebron, was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. January 7, 2005 -- St.-Sgt. Yosef (Yossi) Atia, 21, of Petah Tikva, was killed and three fellow off-duty soldiers were wounded when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on their car on the Trans-Samaria Highway. The Fatah al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. |
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ISLAMOFASCISM HAS A 'LOBBY' IN THE US -- 'CAIR'
Posted by American 1627, September 4, 2007. |
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Just like the hypocrites at the infamous hate mongering "association" MSA (Muslim Student Association), who's actions have been proven more against non-Muslims then anything "for" Muslims, so is time to get rid of the "moderate" mask of the monsters at C.A.I.R., or at least call it by it's name. America has had more than enough of these Jihad wolves in "moderate" clothing. No matter how you turn it: Arab lobby, Muslim lobby, Islamic lobby, all the evidence, all of their actions show for a TERROR LOBBY, for a HATE LOBBY.
I didn't know if I should really laugh when I saw an A.N.S.W.R. banner of "against racism" in the background of the photo of the CAIR guy preaching his racism sermon from the hate-mosque, along side the flag of the terror group that acts towards ethnic cleansing Christians (and even Sunni) from Lebanon & towards genocide on another infidel group, the Jews, the 'Islamic Republic of Iran's fascist group: Hezbullah. Maybe filthy rich oiled CAIR should send a few blinded A.N.S.W.R. guys to stay in Gaza -- Hamastan, where treacherous CAIR's loyalty lies at, where the (now really oppressed) Arabs are already crying they want rather the Zionists back, among the tourists attractions, How about another "convert or die"! in front of the gun by the heroes of "palestine"? Or another stunt by Islamic Hamas (conspire or do it alone) to kidnap a non-Muslim westerner and then acting as if THEY "release" him (poor Alan Johnston brainwashed by his kidnappers as well, or Is he that scared to speak)? It should be an eye opener what racism really is, where it is at. Oh, what the heck her';s a sample of Palestinian TV -- Suliman Sutari, speaking before thousands of chanting fanatics. (July 8, 2005): "Annihilate the infidels and the polytheists. They're [God's] enemies and the enemies of the religion. God, count them and kill them to the last one, and don't even leave one." CAIR as in still reeling from the terror charges of the "holy-Terror-Jihad" exposed in FL., the 'holy-land foundation'. CAIR as in finding excuses and twisted complimenting terminology for the butchers that use it's women & children, Hamas, Hezbullah. CAIR as in attending [not the less radical 'Palestinian' group Fatah, but attending] the party from hell: Hamas, which asides from it's clear annihilation campaign, announced it's 'plan' for the 'Islamic Global Caliphat';. CAIR for empowering Islam OVER Americans (their words!). In case (CAIR is) not yet banned, just at least for now, next time when you see ANY of these (so called) "activists", picture you see another Abu Hamza [yea, that guy, that Quran-ic Muslim leader who explains in his Mosque, in Islam a Kafir means that ANY non Muslim is nothing more than a cow, you can do with IT whatever you want to, in his own words: "You see the Islamic rule, if a Kuffar (non-Muslims) goes into a Muslim country. And h';s walking by. H';s like a cow; boy, anybody could take him. That is the Islamic rule and this is the opinion of Islam. It's not my opinion. If you read the books of jihad, you'll see ... A Kuffar is walking by, he walks inside ? you catch him. 'What are you doing here?' Then he's a booty, you can sell him in the market. If Muslims cannot take him, you know, and sell him in the market then you just kill him. It's okay." Any wonder CAIR was outraged in showing the 'Obsession' movie http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/, which brought about the flushing the Quran down the toilet by a PACE University student upset at MSA's blocking the show, after all it exposes both: MSA & CAIR and for what they (really) stand for], in a suit and tie. Or put it this way: If you had the chance to be outraged at the mom & dad who send their kids to the death cult -- mass murder glorification camps, see CAIR as the uncles. _______ Feds name CAIR in plot to fund Hamas.
...on Hamas, CAIR, and the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States...
Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran Madrassah Will Function As Jihad ...
CAIR Executive Director Placed at HAMAS Meeting
What is CAIR?
Getting to know NIhad Awad
CAIR They Go Again!
An Insider's View of the Holy Land Foundation Trial
View From America: Flying imams & Reichstag analogies, Jul 28, 2007
Hamas Goes 'on Trial' in Texas in Case Over Muslim Charity
Doctors of Death
Florida vs. Radical Islam -Articles & Updates: CAIR vs. Christian
Video: Flying imams stunt may have been ...The Flying Imams sounds like a great name for a circus act. ...
'Flying Imams' Case Tests Limits of Religious Tolerance
Pajamas Media: THE FAKING IMAMS -- Pajamas Media Exclusive: Police
Pace University Mind-Crime Update, TMQ2 Phil... has personal experience with the pressure tactics of the Muslim Student Association at Pace University: Hate Crime Arrest for Desecration of ...
Pace University Koran Case -- Email from Defendant, Foehammer ...Man arrested for hate crime for Quran desecration... Movie Screening ?Obsession?: Islamo-Fascism Awareness Day...
Flush the Qur'an (Koran) Video: Hitchens clashes with CAIR?s Ibrahim Hooper over Pace Quran ... In protest of the Pace University student being prosecuted for tossing two Qur'ans ...
Pace's Obsession with Spin [plus on 'Muslim Students Association's hate & antisemitism]
_______________ More background on CAIR: CAIR: 'Moderat'; friends of terror, In reality, CAIR is something quite different. For starters, it's on the wrong side in the war on terrorism. One indication came in October 1998, ...
Anti-CAIR -- Defending America from The Council on American-Islamic ...We will continue to expose CAIR's involvement in supporting Islamist terrorists, terrorist-sponsoring organizations and groups in the United States. http://www.anti-cair-net.org/ Omar M. Ahmad, chairman of the board of the Council on American-Islamic relations, spoke before a packed crowd at the Flamingo Palace banquet hall on Peralta Boulevard, urging Muslims not to shirk their duty of sharing the Islamic faith with those who are "on the wrong side." Muslim institutions, schools and economic power should be strengthened in America, he said. Those who stay in America should be "open to society without melting (into it)," keeping mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam, he said. "If you choose to live here (in America) ... you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam," he said. Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant, he said. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth, he said. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32341 Who Are CAIR's Paymasters?
CAIR, Captive of Conspiracism, Dictates the self-serving pro-Islamist lobby: "America must disengage its Middle ... Islamofascist CAIR Doesn't Like the Term "Islamic Fascist"
CAIR does not defend Islam. CAIR defends Wahhabi Islamofascism, ... And the Wahhabi lobby...
ADL Responds To Open Letter From CAIR; Releases Photo Of Group's Leader Speaking Next To Hezbollah Flag
Global domination Islamofascism CAIR "moderate" Islam War on terror Hamas
Contact American 1627 by email at american1627@yahoo.com
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"ISRAEL LOBBY" REDUX
Posted by Front Page Magazine, September 4, 2007. |
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This was written by Jacob Laksin. Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for FrontPage Magazine. His e-mail is jlaksin@gmail.com It appeared in Front Page Magazine
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It's not every day that a book is discredited by the simple act of its publication. But that's precisely what will happen with the release this week of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, an expanded version of the now-notorious London Review of Books essay by professors-turned-provocateurs John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In the original essay, it may remembered, the authors leveled the sensational charge that Israel's supporters in the United States, when not manipulating American foreign policy to Israel's advantage and wrenching the country into the Iraq war, posed a terrible threat to American democracy. Lurking behind every curtain, the "Israel Lobby" was guilty not only of "silencing skeptics" -- presumably like Mearsheimer and Walt -- but also of stifling debate about Israel in Congress and thereby subverting the "entire process of democratic deliberation." Truly, this was a force to be reckoned with. So, one can't help but wonder: How is it that this all-effecting lobby, with infinite powers of intimidation at its disposal, has nonetheless failed to prevent the publication of a nearly 500-page tome that purports to expose its sinister doings? To those with a less conspiratorial cast of mind than the authors, the answer seems fairly obvious. There is not now nor has there ever been an omnipotent "Israel Lobby." Of course, there are pro-Israel lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). And yes, these groups do influence American foreign policy. In this respect, they are no different than the Saudi lobby, which has bent American policy to the benefit of a famously corrupt and terrorism-sponsoring monarchy, though neither Mearsheimer nor Walt shows any interest in the subject. What AIPAC demonstrably is not is an author and arbitrator of American foreign policy. Indeed, that would be an impossible role to play for an organization whose supporters run the ideological gamut from Howard Dean and Barack Obama to John Bolton and Dick Cheney. To suggest that AIPAC sets foreign policy is thus no more plausible than the authors' initial claim, eerily reminiscent of classic anti-Semitism and noticeably stricken from their new book, that AIPAC is a "de facto agent for a foreign government." But grant the authors this much: Strong, if by no means unwavering, support Israel has for several decades been a feature of American foreign policy. However, unless one is prepared to believe that the nearly 60 percent of Americans, whom polls show sympathize with the Jewish state over her Arab neighbors, are witless pawns of scheming lobbyists, the notion that American foreign policy has been shanghaied into serving Israel first sounds like so much wild-eyed paranoia. An unfriendly observer might even suggest that to the extent that Mearsheimer and Walt are defying a broad American consensus in favor of supporting Israel, it is they who are the real enemies of "democratic deliberation." In a society that rightly values dissent, that would be grossly unfair. It would also be a more accurate reading of political reality than anything you are likely to find in The Israel Lobby. For all the flaws of its argument, the book is not so easily dismissed. As academics in two of the country's more esteemed universities, Mearsheimer and Walt naturally benefit from the prestige of their profession and lend credibility to the consortium of cranks who have long singled out Israel and her supporters as a malign influence on American policymaking. Raving about the "Zionist Occupied Government," David Duke -- a declared fan of The Israel Lobby, as it happens -- could easily be dismissed as a demented bigot. Ex-Congressman Paul Findley and ex-Ambassador Andrew Kilgore, who saw the hand of the "Jewish lobby" behind their career disappointments, could be pegged as embittered politicians with axes to grind. Pat Buchanan, in laying the first Gulf War to the charge of "the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States," could be seen with equal justice as a marginal figure with no significant constituency. In The Israel Lobby, the preoccupations of this political fringe have been culled from the ideological wilderness and repackaged as reputable scholarship. Conspiracy-mongering has gone mainstream. In this sense, Mearsheimer and Walt are merely ambassadors for conventional academic wisdom. Best known for its association with Middle East Studies departments, hysteria about Israel and her supporters (Jewish and otherwise) has become a stock theme in academia. DePaul University's Norman Finkelstein, for instance, has made a dubious career of calumniating "American Jewish elites" for forging a lasting alliance with Israel -- an unforgivable offense for a man who considers early Zionist settlers "racists" and the nation they created an "apartheid" state. Similarly, the dean of academic radicalism, Noam Chomsky, has long reviled both Israel and all those who dare to speak in her defense, even devoting a book, Fateful Triangle, to attacking Israel's supporters. (In the book's foreword, the late Edward Said praised Chomsky for depicting the PLO and Arabs generally as the victims of a "profoundly inhuman, cynical and deliberately cruel" Israel.) More recently, their ranks have been joined by British historian Tony Judt. In 2005, Judt wrote in the Nation that to "say that Israel and its lobbyists have an excessive and disastrous influence on the policies of the world's superpower is a statement of fact," a claim that nicely illustrated Judt's ignorance of both politics and rhetoric. To appreciate how Mearsheimer and Walt conceived their argument in The Israel Lobby, and to get a sense of their scholarly standards, consider this: Their text contains no interviews with members of the "Israel Lobby," the government, or the national media that the lobby is alleged to have in its pocket. Instead, it draws for its substance on, among other secondary sources, the polemics of Norman Finkelstein, Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, and Tony Judt's essay in the Nation. An undergraduate history major would properly be flunked for submitting such a hack job. It says nothing good about the worlds of publishing and academia that Mearsheimer and Walt got a book contract instead. Ultimately, the fact that the "Israel Lobby" is mostly fiction should upset no one more than the authors themselves. At least if there were a group capable of silencing all disagreement, they might have been spared a great deal of embarrassment. It appeared in Front Page Magazine
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THE TERRORISTS' MOTIVATION: ISLAM
Posted by Edwin A. Locke and Alex Epstein, September 4, 2007. |
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It is now six years since September 11, 2001--and since that horrific day we have witnessed numerous additional attacks by Islamic terrorists against the West. In the face of a seemingly never-ending supply of suicidal killers, many still do not understand the motivation of the terrorists. Commentators are eager to offer a bevy of pseudo-explanations--poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.--while ignoring the motivation the terrorists themselves openly proclaim: Islam. The near silence about the true role of Islam in motivating Islamic terrorists has two main causes: multiculturalism and religion. Multiculturalism asserts that all cultures are equal and therefore none may criticize another; intellectuals and politicians are therefore reluctant to declare the obvious superiority of Western culture to Islamic culture. And the strong commitment to religion of many Americans, especially conservatives, makes them reluctant to indict a religion as the cause of a massive evil. But if we are to identify the fundamental cause of the terrorists' actions, we must understand at least two fundamental premises of the religion they kill for. First, Islam, like all religions, rejects reason as a means of gaining knowledge and guiding action; it holds that all important truths are grasped by faith in supernatural beings and sacred texts. The Koran explicitly states that knowledge comes from revelation, not thinking. (Christianity in pure form entails a similar rejection of reason, but it has been heavily diluted and secularized since the Renaissance.) Islam advocates the subordination of every sphere of life to religious dogma, including the legal system, politics, economics, and family life; the word "Islam" means literally: submission. The individual is not supposed to think independently but to selflessly subordinate himself to the dictates of his religion and its theocratic representatives. We have seen this before in the West--it was called the Dark Ages. Second, as with any religion that seeks converts, a derivative tenet of Islam is that it should be imposed by force (you cannot convince someone of the non-rational). The Koran is replete with calls to take up arms in its name: "fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them ... those who reject our signs we shall soon cast into the fire . . . those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads ... as to the deviators, they are the fuel of hell." These ideas easily lead to fanaticism and terrorism. In fact, what is often referred to as the "fanaticism" of many Muslims is explicitly endorsed by their religion. Consider the following characteristics of religious fanatics. The fanatic demands unquestioning obedience to religious dogma--so does Islam. The fanatic cannot be reasoned with, because he rejects reason--so does Islam. The fanatic eagerly embraces any call to impose his dogma by force on those who will not adopt it voluntarily--so does Islam. The terrorists are not "un-Islamic" bandits who have "hijacked a great religion"; they are consistent and serious followers of their religion. It is true that many Muslims who live in the West (like most Christians) reject religious fanaticism and are law-abiding and even loyal citizens, but this is because they have accepted some Western values, including respect for reason, a belief in individual rights, and the need for a separation between church and state. It is only to the extent that they depart from their religion--and from a society that imposes it--that they achieve prosperity, freedom, and peace. Over the last several years, there has been more and more of a call for a "War of Ideas"--an intellectual campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the Arab world that will discourage and discredit Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, the centerpiece of this campaign so far has been to appeal to Muslims with claims that Islam is perfectly consistent with Western ideals, and inconsistent with terrorism. America has, with little success, groveled to so-called moderate Muslim leaders to strongly repudiate terrorism. (Those leaders have focused little energy on damning Islamists, and much on the alleged sins of the U.S. government.) Such a campaign cannot work, since insofar as these "moderates" accept Islam, they cannot convincingly oppose violence in its name. A true "War of Ideas" would be one in which we proclaim loudly and with moral certainty the secular values we stand for: reason, rights, freedom, material prosperity, and personal happiness on this earth. Edwin A. Locke, a professor emeritus of management at the University of Maryland at College Park, is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. Alex Epstein is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writers at media@aynrand.org. |
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THE BATTLE ON ERETZ YISRAEL-THE LAND OF ISRAEL'S IDENTITY
Posted by Nurit Greenger, September 4, 2007. |
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Until the beginning of Zionism, if a Jew left the religion he left his nation. When an American Jew leaves Judaism two generation late they are totally assimilated. Zionism is an exchange for religion, where one can be a Jew; one can continue living as a Jew, a secular Jew but a genuine Jew. The Zionist Movement gave Jews patriotic and nationalism freedom...and national liberty. This was written by Tsafrir Ronen and I translated it from the Hebrew. |
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From the day the Zionist Movement was established, the historical meaning of settling the Land of Israel was the returning of the land to the Nation of Israel but mainly the returning the Hebrew identity to Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel. The pioneers who turned um-Juni to be Degania (the first kibbutz "collective farm" -- established in 1909 by Jews in the areas of the Land of Israel then under Ottoman control), brought back the Hebrew identity. This was a piece of homeland that was conquered. The working brigade -- 35 young people from Gdud Ha'avoda -- that turned "Ein Jalud" to Ein Harod (in the Jezreel Valley) brought the Biblical identity from Gideon times to the Valley. The establishment of Mishmar Ha'emek turned "Abu Shusha" hills to Mishmar Ha'emek hills. The establishment of Rosh Pinna (Rosh Pinna was settled in 1882 by a group of pioneers from Romania) turned "Jauni" to Guy-Oni (valley of strength) to Rosh Pinna. Each settlement returned each remote point in the Land to its Biblical Hebrew identity. The establishment of Elon Moreh (Elon Moreh is an Israeli settlement located in the Samarian Hills of the West Bank northeast of Shechem/Nablus on the slopes of Mount Kabir ridge; Elon Moreh represents the pioneering spirit of rebuilding the Land of Israel after 2000 years of exile. The community overlooks the city of Shechem) renewed the Israel identity of Biblical Elon Moreh. The latest battle on Hebron is not a battle over two, pioneer families who renewed the Jewish life in Hebron. It is a battle on the identity of Hebron. If Jews are living in Hebron then Hebron's identity will be Jewish. If only Arabs will be living in Hebron even her name Hebron will vanish to become el-Khalil (Shrine of the Friend). The Left want Hebron to have Arab identity. The hate for the settlements is their hate for the Land of Israel's identity and their hate for Am Yisrael-the Nation of Israel. This is the entire story. However, it is not only Hebron. The Left does not want to see Jewish identity in Judea and Samaria. Their friends in the media continue calling the heart of the Land of Israel in foreign names that our enemies use i.e. "Palestine" as the androgynous Hadrianus Caesar named it; "West Bank, as King Hussein named it, "territories," "occupation." They will call the Biblical Land in any name possible but will not label it by the one name the gives her back her Jewish identity, Judea and Samaria, because Judea means the Land of the Jews and Eretz Yisrael means it is the Land of Am Yisrael-the Nation of Israel. Like Ire-Land is the Land of the Irish and Eng-Land the Land of the English and Fin-Land the Land of the Finish Israel-Land -- that is the name of Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel -- means the Land of the Israelis. The Identity of the Land is the same as the identity of the Nation residing in it, therefore the Nation of Israel cannot be an occupier of the Land of Israel. If not for the renewal of the settlements in Shiloh, Beit El, Elon Moreh, these names would have remained abstract Biblical names from some legend. The settlements created the renewal of the land's identity and returned to its districts their real names and reclaimed from the Arab occupier the false Arabic identity. Shiloh recreated and renewed the Biblical town of Shiloh. If Judea and Samaria will be abandoned they it will not only be physically abandoned but also suffer identity abandonment. Again, in the world's map the land will no longer be called Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel or Israel but another name. You see, until '67 Judea and Samaria appeared in the world's maps as "The West Bank of the Kingdom of Jordan." The victory against the Jordanian military brought back the Biblical names. If you abandon these places the enemy will not call it by the Hebrew name rather by the false name, Palestine, an artificial name Hadrianus Caesar named it along his ambition to destroy the Jewish identity in Judea after he subdued Bar Kokhba revolt. Hadrianus' curse did not succeed. With the years, the name Palestine was forsaken and forgotten. The Crusaders names the land "The Kingdom of Jerusalem." The Arab occupation did not have a name for the land; she was known as South Syria. For 1300 years the land had no identity and absent of a nation that identified itself with it. No one claimed ownership but our nation. The British, when they halted immigration and settlements understood, what the anti Zionism among us understand too, that settling the land returns the Israeli identity to the land and each settlement that carries a Hebrew name turns to be a mile stone for the Hebrews. The battle is not of tanks or warplanes; today's battle is the most crucial and decisive one, the battle on the identity of the Land. Whether she will have the pagan, false Arabic identity, Hadrianus Caesar falsehood identity, or she will have Biblical Israeli identity, the real name of the Land. This is the entire story. Only the settlements will return the Israeli identity to the Land. The Arabs demand that Olmert transfers the Land free and clear of Jews. As long as there are Jews in Judea, Judea could not be called by its false name Palestine. The only thing that stops the cadre of traitors from transferring our Land to the enemy, already at our gates, is their inability to uproot the settlements that halt the wheels of destruction. The building of tens of hundreds new settlements is our only guarantee that Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel will have Israeli identity. The wish to destroy the settlements is the wish to destroy the identity of the land, the Land of the Nation of Israel -- the Land of Israel. Tsafrir Ronen Note: the fact is that there is already on its way an Arab, terrorist fascist-Nazi in the Land of Israel. This is a fact that was determined fourteen years ago. Today these facts are threatening to annihilate us. 800,000 Arabs live today on land they robbed from the State in the Negev, Ramlah, Lod, Galilee, the Jordan Valley and Jezreel Valley and Temple Mount is being destroyed without interruption. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog:
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YOUNG SUDANESE BEGIN SCHOOL IN SHADOW OF DEPORTATION
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 3, 2007. |
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This was written by Sheera Claire Frenkel and appeared in the Jerusalem Post |
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The last thing 15-year-old Ismail remembers learning in school is basic arithmetic. The Sudanese refugee, who last received regular schooling five years ago in his hometown in Darfur, had since relied on sporadic lessons from aid workers.
So on Sunday, when he was told he would be attending school alongside Israeli teens in Eilat, the first thing he wanted to know was if he could come back tomorrow. "I am very pleased for this opportunity, but concerned that my levels will not be good enough,' said Ismail, who asked not to use his real name to protect his extended family in Sudan. 'I very much want for this to continue, to remain in school in Israel." Ismail's chances of remaining in Israel, however, are very slim. Although Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has allowed 500 Sudanese refugees to pursue asylum status, Ismail arrived after the July 1 cutoff date. He will most likely be deported back to Egypt before the end of the school term, along with 2,400 other African refugees. "In Egypt there was nothing, no hope, no education,' he said. 'We are learning Hebrew. Good words in Hebrew. Why would they send me back?" It is unclear who among the 76 Sudanese children enrolled in school on Sunday will become permanent fixtures in the Israeli school system. "It is very confusing for the refugees. On the one hand, they are being told that many of them will not be allowed to stay. On the other hand, the children are being sent to school to learn Hebrew," said Eytan Schwartz, spokesman for the Committee for the Advancement of Refugees. In the past two years, more than 2,800 African asylumseekers have arrived via the Egyptian border. Half are from Sudan, including 700 from Darfur, the province that has been the hardest hit by years of war. Human rights organization and individual volunteers had cared for the refugees and provided private schooling for some of the children. There was no formal education plan, however, until last month, when Education Minister Yuli Tamir (Labor) announced that 76 Sudanese refugees, ages four and up, would be enrolled in Israeli schools. "It is our duty to provide an education for these students," Tamir said. Elsewhere in Israel, including at Ketziot Prison in the Ramat Hanegev Regional Council, volunteers and staff have been providing a more informal education. Armed with donated textbooks and half-filled notebooks, the dozen teens at Ketziot are being taught basic math and grammar. "We know that none of them are currently approved to stay here, but we felt it was important to do something to educate them while we have the chance,' said Liat, a police woman who asked to give only her first name. 'In Egypt, the only thing they learned was fear." Ismail described the time he tried to go to a school near the refugee camp where his family lived in southern Egypt. He recalled teasing and bullying, and then a long walk home during which a local gang stole his shoes, food and money. "I did not try to go back to school again,' he said. 'Here I will go
to school all the time... for as long as this is possible."
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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FROM ISRAEL: "THOSE OUTPOSTS"
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 3, 2007. |
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The issue of dismantlement of outposts that are being variously termed "unauthorized" and "illegal" has garnered considerable attention at present for several reasons. A ministerial committee on unauthorized outposts is looking into the legality of some 100 outposts and says it hopes to complete its work within three months -- just in time (surprise!) for the Bush-initiated international conference on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This committee is being chaired by Olmert flunky Vice Premier Haim Ramon. Ramon says it is not within the jurisdiction of his committee to decide what gets dismantled, but rather that this should be decided by Olmert and/or Barak. There is talk of Defense Minister Barak giving an order before very long with regard to dismantlement of some 26 outposts. The move to remove outposts is predicated on a promise that was given to the US gov't by the Sharon gov't in 2004. There was a letter from Dov Weisglass, chief Sharon aide, to Condoleezza Rice, who was then National Security Advisor, regarding the removal of unauthorized outposts. But the definition of "unauthorized" was not provided and is far more complicated than most people realize. Do not imagine, please, that there are some settlements that "have permission" to exist, and others that flatly do not. The setting up of settlements is a bureaucratic process that is greatly involved. Multiple authorizations are required -- likely involving (I am providing general examples only here) proof of land ownership, permission from the water authority and agreement from the electrical authority, construction of a road to the site by the proper agency, permission from the housing authority to bring in concrete trucks, etc. etc. All settlements have followed these procedures, and even those that are now deemed thoroughly "legal" went through this process one step at a time. The overwhelming majority of outposts considered to be potentially "unauthorized" have at least some documents and some authorization from agencies within the Israeli government! The decision to label a new settlement as "unauthorized" is as much political as it is legal. This has been explained to me by a top-flight Israeli lawyer. It would be just as possible to determine that the land is legally owned by the Jews involved and that a number of authorizations are already in place, and to thus decide that the settlement should be deemed "kosher" and permitted to proceed, as to say that such and such a piece of paper is not in place and so the venture is "unauthorized." MK Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beitenu), who is also a member of the committee, argues that that body and not either Olmert or Barak should have the final say on what gets evacuated. Reflecting what I've explained here, he said, "You have to understand, it's impossible to establish any outposts without some kinds of state help." Pushing for agreements with the settlers, he insisted, "This is not the time for internal disagreements and struggles. He considers the forced evacuation of up to 7,000 settlers to be "mission impossible" and charges those who are promoting this with seeking to garner political gain. Why is there movement towards dismantlement now? Because the US is pressuring Olmert, who aims to please. The American gov't is declaring itself pleased that at least some attention is being given to the matter. Once the political echelon gives the OK on this some weeks down the road, it is anticipated that action might follow within weeks thereafter. ~~~~~~~~~~ What for me is sickening is this: The army is drawing up final plans, and awaiting orders to proceed. One high level army official said they are anticipating "extreme violence." This is what we need now, right? Jew against Jew again. Thousands of soldiers being trained and dispatched to pull Jews out of their homes, when those Jews don't want to go. I've raised the issue before with regard to Hevron and it applies here as well -- just as it applied to Gush Katif. This is not the job of the army. It demoralizes our troops. The IDF is supposed to defend Jews, not take them on. Yet the IDF, which is being prepared for this, is not being utilized by Olmert as it should be to defend our people (see below). Our prime minister's priorities are shameful. I note here that in most democracies in the world -- or perhaps all other democracies, but I hesitate to be so absolute -- it is illegal to use the army in an action against the civilian population; this sort of action is reserved for police. The reason -- totally aside from concerns about demoralizing troops who need to be strong for defense -- is concern about the possibilities of a coup. The army only defends the nation, nothing else. ~~~~~~~~~~ About the failure of Olmert to use the IDF with strength where it should be used: We are looking at Sderot. School started in this Negev city bordering Gaza yesterday. It started with considerable angst being expressed by parents about the safety of their children being sent to school. Yesterday two Kassam were fired from Gaza. Today, seven Kassams were shot towards Sderot. The children found themselves under fire. One alarm went off while the children were on their way to school and they had to scurry to get to shelters; they began their day in hysterics. One rocket landed near a day care center; 12 toddlers and babies -- some terrified to the point of shock -- had to be evacuated. Now parents, who are furious at not having their children protected, have decided to keep them home. Batya Katar, head of the Sderot Parents Association, said all 2,500 of the town's students would be taken out of school. ~~~~~~~~~~ What should Olmert be doing? Above and beyond anything else, he should be giving the order for the major operation in Gaza that the Southern Command of the IDF has trained for and is itching to do. What sort of head of government allows attack on the nation's civilian population -- on its children!! -- without declaring war? What was done? Well, 200 soldiers were dispatched when school began, to accompany students to school. And attack helicopters hovered all day, while the IDF struck at some launchers. Intoned Olmert: "We will not put up with this attack. The IDF has been instructed to destroy all launchers and target anyone involved in the attacks." Not enough. Olmert even had the nerve to refer to large sums of money spent on fortification of the schools. The reality is that the High Court -- in response to a parents' petition -- had ordered the State to fortify the nine schools in Sderot, but only four have been fortified in total (with lower grades protected). The government has requested and received a 21 day extension to respond to the order. Said Olmert: "This is a government decision and we will not fortify ourselves senseless." Senseless? ~~~~~~~~~~ I would like to return here to the issue of the up-coming international conference and its prospects for forging a Palestinian state. Some rumors have us on the edge establishing that state. However Olmert is attempting to play down expectations. In the course of comments about Sderot, he also said that his meetings with Abbas have been "very interesting and meaningful," but that they were not ready to put anything into writing yet. He wasn't sure if they would be able to draft a document before November, "but we will try." This, of course, flies in the face of the claims, leaked from the Palestinian side, that a deal had already been drafted on paper. Abbas is also indicating that there is no written agreement yet -- or at least no agreement that encompasses all issues. At a press conference yesterday, he said, "We are concerned that November 15 will come -- if this will indeed be the date for this international conference -- without arriving at a specific agreement on all the issues, and that this meeting will be described as a failure." But Abbas -- whose goal is not playing down expectations but rather pushing things along -- carried it one step further: "We need a framework agreement with a timeline for implementation." In his dreams, a timeline for implementation, when he cannot deliver on anything. My take here is that he's in an enormous rush to sign a done deal before he is taken down by Hamas. He has no time. And he's quite worried. ~~~~~~~~~~ To illustrate precisely how "iffy" prospects of an agreement on peace are, I offer the following: An article in Haaretz today indicates that Olmert's attempts to establish an agreement on principles before the conference are generating discontent within Olmert's own Kadima party. "According to party sources, a number of MKs and ministers have raised concern that Olmert is proceeding without sufficient backing inside Kadima, which they warn may pose a threat to the party's future. "Among the Kadima MKs and ministers who have expressed concern, mostly over press reports on developments in the Olmert-Abbas talks, are MK Marina Solodkin, MK David Tal, MK Otniel Schneller, MK Ze'ev Elkin, MK Shaim Hermesh, and Minister of Public Security Avi Dichter." One unnamed Kadima source said, "This could be dynamite inside the party and bring about divisions. This could be just like after the disengagement for Likud. The implication for the Prime Minister leading along a path that does not go through his party can be disastrous. He needs to take into account that there is opposition inside Kadima. We are not Meretz [a very left wing party]." In addition to this, Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beitenu), who is part of the coalition, has expressed his party's objections to the talks. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to a Palestinian news agency, PA (Fatah) Preventive Security officers in Judea and Samaria say they have abducted members of Hamas who have confessed that they have a revolutionary plan: "The leaders of Hamas want to transfer the 'Black Power' experience from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank." I.e., they want to take over PA areas of Judea and Samaria. It is not for nothing that Abbas feels he has no time to spare. Meanwhile, Hamas has denied this (of course), saying they Fatah tortured their men to extract these false confessions. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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AN APPALLING SERMON AT ST PAUL'S
Posted by Simon McIlwaine, September 14, 2007. |
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Dear all
I walked out of St Paul's yesterday during the most disgraceful sermon which I have ever heard in my life. In 44 years of Churchmanship, I have never done this before, despite sitting through sermons which have raised an eyebrow in the past. I usually seek to see the good in people,esp. if they are our clergy, and if the rest of what the preacher is saying is Biblical and good. The sermon yesterday was an extreme-left wing diatribe delivered by a South African, one Fr Michael Lapsley, on the theme of" remembrance". It might as well have been written by Michael Moore. Lapsley was the so-called "Chaplain" to the ANC in exile. Within 5 minutes of his sermon, Fr Lapsley proclaimed: "Let the British people apologise to the Iraqi nation for this totally illegal, immoral and unjust war against their people". He then went on to insult the integrity of our Coalition servicemen by saying (I paraphrase): "When they are being brutalised by their participation in an unjust and unpopular war, US Servicemen come back, not as heroes, but bringing their violent memories and stress with them, and this is leading to an upsurge in domestic violence, drug addiction and alcoholism". The implication was that US forces (and not just some undisciplined elements of the sort you get in any Army, war bringing out the best in most and the worst in a few) are inflicting the" brutality" they allegedly inflicted on the Iraqis on their families and neighbourhoods. So US troops ( AND, it was hinted, our own) were effectively insulted as wife-beaters, drug addicts and alcoholics, whose only hope of redemption, it seemed, was to confess their role to Fr Lapsley as aggressors in an "unjust" and "totally illegal" war. Lapsley proceeded to attack Lady Thatcher, whom he could not bring himself to name and simply described as " a certain political leader" for wanting to hold a service at St Paul's to celebrate "what she saw as victory in the Falkland-Malvinas war." He implied that the war to liberate the Falklands (or as he seemed to prefer, "Las Malvinas") should not have been fought, "for those on both sides who lost their lives should be commemorated in this Cathedral". Lapsley then went on to insult the victims of terrorism on 9/11 and 7/7 (which terrorism I never heard him define as Islamicist terrorism) by saying: "The West needs to examine and accept its own share of responsibility for the problem of terrorism". He depicted Umkhonto we Sizwe as "heroic freedom fighters", whose only fault seemed to be that they were "more complex" than their "heroic stereotypes" (my own personal view is that neither the National Party Government nor the ANC had anything to be proud of, and the armed wing of the ANC probably had as much blood on their hands). So, not a cheep about necklacing, car bombs, such as that at Amanzimtoti or Church Street, forcing black shoppers to drink bleach for not complying with the boycott, managing to killl even more black innocent citizens than the SA security forces.. Oh no. His only "criticism" of a leading "Freedom Fighting hero" was one that came from said "hero" himself: "I am more complex than the hero you portray me as." The final straw for me was when he said: "THis year, the British people have been commemorating the end of the Slave Trade. Let us hope that in 200 years time the Church will apologise for refusing to honour same-gender marriages". He went on to portray the Church's opposition to gay wedding ceremonies as reactionary and narrow-minded. Now, I can honestly say that I am not remotely bigoted on this,having good gay friends, but to depict opposition to gay marriage as Unchristian and motivated by irrationality and hatred and on a shameful moral par with support for slavery was the last straw. As he continued in this vitriolic vein in which he attacked (the fairly gentle and courteously explained) Anglican doctrine opposing the blessing of same-sex relationships, I got up and stalked out of St Paul's, absolutely seething and without staying for Communion. It was an absolutely disgraceful diatribe and a desecration of the House of the Lord. I cannot imagine that the last Dean, V Rev. Dr John Moses, would have allowed such a " sermon" in our National Cathedral. I therefore can no longer commend St. Paul's Cathedral to our supporters as a place to worship. Our friends in Central London who want to attend a proper Anglican service, with the Book of Common Prayer, instead of leaden new liturgies, and real preaching, will have a warm welcome at St Michael's Cornhill, the Rector of which is our esteemed Patron, Rev Dr Peter Mullen. St Michael's website is here:
Here is another Church, this time in the West End of London, which has been recommended to AFI: http://www.stgilesonline.org/ St Giles offers traditional Anglican BCP Services and has been recommended by one of Anglican Friends of Israel's staunchest supporters and friends. With blessings,
UPDATE September 5, 2007 St Paul's position, I gather, is that no-one else has complained about Lapsley's sermon. Here is the address to which my Anglican friends may complain:
Here is my own letter of complaint: "Dear Sir Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk |
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DECONSTRUCTING APARTHEID ACCUSATIONS AGAINST ISRAEL: Interview with Gideon Shimoni
Posted by JCPA, September 3, 2007. |
Deconstructing the False Equation "The term 'apartheid' originated in South Africa to describe a policy that institutionalized separation and differential status of racially defined groups in order to maintain the White minority's domination of South Africa's non-white majority. Those who attack Israel as a so-called 'apartheid' state, give that term a meaning so broad that it is deprived of its original significance. This enables them to label as apartheid any controversial policy or action of Israel rather than comprehending it in the context of conflict situations and legitimate security needs." Professor (Emeritus) Gideon Shimoni is a former head of the Hebrew University's Institute of Contemporary Jewry, and held the Shlomo Argov Chair in Israel-Diaspora Relations. One of his books deals with the Jewish community in apartheid South Africa. "A foundational element of the false equation is the disingenuous transforming of the term 'apartheid' from the description of a singular historical phenomenon in a particular time and place -- South Africa from about 1948 to 1994 -- into a generic concept. This deceptive device functions much like use of the term 'holocaust' to describe any and all human disasters. It obscures apartheid's constitutive core, racism, as well as its actual historical context, South Africa. "Unfortunately, also some Israeli journalists, who are otherwise legitimately critical of certain policies, throw the word in loosely, generally as a warning as to what could become the reality if the areas under occupation remain permanently so without granting the vote to their Palestinian residents. Such loose usage of the term 'apartheid' thus provides a great service to those who are unconscionably hostile to Israel and use the apartheid charge to delegitimize her very existence. "Former American President Jimmy Carter is one of those who use the word apartheid in an over-generic sense. In his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid Carter in fact admits that he is not claiming that Israel practices apartheid but only that what is happening in the West Bank looks like it. Yet he chose to give the book a title that trumpets the stigmatic apartheid code-word. This attests to prejudice. As Alan Dershowitz commented, 'Sometimes you can tell a book by its cover.' "In deconstructing and refuting the application of the term apartheid to Israel one has primarily to address the criticism that comes from persons who constitute the liberal-minded public, many of whom are probably na?ve, misinformed and misguided. There is a vast range of such people who are neither anti-Semites nor inveterately hostile to Israel." The Historical Context Shimoni stresses that the historical context of the Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle East is fundamentally different from that of apartheid South Africa. "The contextual essence of the Palestine/Israel syndrome was not colonialism but rather a clash of nationalisms. In sharp contrast, the genesis of South African society was patently colonialist, in the definitive sense of involving colonization in the imperialist interests of external states, initially the Netherlands, later Britain. "The role of nationalism in the further development of South African society was relatively limited, functioning primarily for mobilization of White Afrikaner ethnicity against British imperial control. The essence of the South African syndrome was thus never a clash of nationalisms, but rather the near absolute domination exercised by a racially defined minority (the Whites) over a racially defined majority of the population, which was denied the franchise and equal civic rights. "By the same token, if one compares the historical experience of South Africa and Israel, the question is whether the valid paradigm is that of conflict over equal, as opposed to unequal, human rights in a common society and polity, or rather over which national collective's self-determination should have precedence in a particular disputed territory? "The answer is: the first paradigm is ontologically constitutive of the South African case, the second of the Israel case. In South Africa the essence of the struggle was for a shared civic society and for individual equality, whereas, the Israel-Arab conflict was and remains in essence a struggle between two nationalist aspirations for self-determination in the same territory. Hence the prospect for optimal resolution of the conflict diverges: in the first case, marriage and sharing, in the second, divorce and dividing. Both require negotiation. Accordingly, the main obstacle to resolution of the Arab-Jewish conflict is rejection of territorial partition; the main obstacle to resolution of the conflict that developed in South Africa was apartheid. "Another basic difference between the two historical contexts is the way in which the struggle of the ANC and the PLO was conducted. In South Africa the blacks started with a tradition of non-violent resistance. They tried in every peaceful way to argue their case, only turning to violence as a last resort, because the other side refused to negotiate. Even when the African National Congress (ANC) turned to violence, its nature was incomparable with the barbarically indiscriminate practice not only of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad but even of the PLO. The ANC always tried not to harm civilians, and most of their attacks were against installations such as electricity pylons. Comparing the Palestinian struggle to that of the ANC is an absolute insult to the latter's historical record." Palestinian Rejectionism "The Palestinians have repeatedly rejected Jewish offers of a negotiated compromise." Shimoni mentions a few examples: "They refused all possibilities that were proposed by segments of the Jewish community in the 1920s and 1930s. This included ideas of cantonization and bi-nationalism. In 1937 the Peel Commission came to the conclusion that the only possible settlement was on the basis of a partition plan. Its work is acknowledged by most historians familiar with the history of the period to have been the most fair-minded approach ever taken to dealing with the tragically unfolding Arab-Jewish conflict. "The Jewish community, notwithstanding pain and internal conflict, basically accepted this approach. The Palestinians rejected it with the support of the entire Arab world. The same happened in 1947 with catastrophic consequences for themselves. Like the Peel Commission, the UN came to the same conceptual conclusion that partition was the only solution. The Jewish side accepted this and the State of Israel was established accordingly. The Palestinian side, supported by all Arab independent states, totally rejected the partition compromise and turned to warfare in order to efface the Jewish state. "In 1967 another round of war was imposed upon Israel. Reacting pre-emptively to a grave existential threat, with astonishing success, Israel found itself in control of the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank up to the Jordan River. After the Six-Day War, eight Arab heads of states met in Khartoum, Sudan and resolved 'no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it." When asked whether he knows of any people other than the Arabs who -- when defeated -- refused to negotiate even to get back land which had been lost in a war of their own choosing Shimoni answers, "I don't know whether there are any." He observes: "Later the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) did undergo a change of mind or strategy which resulted in the Oslo agreements of 1993. In the year 2000 Prime Minister Ehud Barak went further than any other Israeli leader in offering a negotiated compromise, again on the basis of a partition arrangement. Its essence was the acceptance in principle that there would be a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish state. When it came to the crunch, however, Arafat refused to take up this option of negotiated compromise. After that, the PLO turned again to terror and suicide murders." The Moral Excoriation of Apartheid "The international resistance to South Africa's apartheid regime was motivated by many different interests and purposes. Above all, a norm of racial equality that had grown out of the universal post-second world war anti-racialism agenda paved the way for apartheid to be morally adjudged the very epitome of abhorrent racist-grounded violation of the principle of equal human rights and dignity. "From the purely moral point of view, it must be stressed that what became near universally recognized as so abhorrent about apartheid as to justify sanctions and boycotts of South Africa, was not the severe repression of all opposition to the regime, the likes of which could be found abundantly in many other countries plagued by violent internal conflict. Nor was it the ethnic survivalist rationale of White South Africans, because continued exercise of domination is not entirely indefensible as long as there are solid grounds for believing that the only alternative to dominating the Other is to be dominated by the Other. "The utter excoriation of apartheid rested on two indefensible wrongs: firstly, the racist basis of apartheid's enforced inequalities; secondly the adamant refusal of the apartheid regime to accept negotiation as an option for resolving the consequent conflict. Essential moral conditions for such negotiation were not only the willingness of the dominator to end the system of apartheid domination but also the willingness of the dominated Other not to resort to reverse domination. In fact, when these conditions were satisfied, boycotts and sanctions against the South African state rightly ceased. Manifestly, neither of the above-mentioned fundamental wrongs applies in the case of Israel. "The present government of Israel was elected on a platform calling for a mutually negotiated agreement that will satisfy the national requirements and thereby the human right needs of both sides. It is willing to let a Palestinian state come into existence alongside Israel. The Palestinians, however, elected a Hamas government which refuses to negotiate on the basis of mutual recognition and declares that it will wage war until Israel is wholly displaced by a Palestinian State. "Hamas is a movement that bases itself upon a policy that has genocidal potentiality. This should be totally indefensible from the point of view of fair minded liberals. Thus public demonstrations and boycotts should be against Hamas, not against Israel's government." History of the Israel=Apartheid Equation Shimoni analyzes the Israel-apartheid equation in more detail. "It has a long provenance, but before 1973 its use centered on Israel's policy toward South Africa. When Israel joined the international condemnation of apartheid, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was used by its Afrikaner advocates, who truly believed -- with an appalling mix of ignorance and fallacious comprehension of Judaism -- that the teachings of the Bible, the practices that sustained millennial Jewish survival as a separate people, and the renewal of Jewish statehood, all together, constituted admirable models for apartheid theory and practice. "Alternately, when Israel cooperated with the South African government, after about 1973, the Israel=apartheid equation was deployed in the international forum as a propaganda sub-theme of the notorious 'Zionism is Racism' slander. More recently the 'Israel-is-an-apartheid state' mantra has subsumed and largely superseded the defamatory 'Zionism is Racism' slogan. "The foreboding signpost for this new direction was the September 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban. Even the South African government hosts admit that it turned into an unprecedented anti-Semitic hate fest in the course of which the apartheid stigma was viciously stamped upon Israel.[1] The signal significance of what happened in Durban is the spin that turned the human rights cause against itself, disingenuously creating congruence between anti-Semitism and support of human rights. Anti-Semitism postured as anti-racism, and Israel was demonized as South Africa's successor apartheid state!" A Multi-Layered Construct "The presumed Israel=apartheid equation is a multi-layered construct of fundamental ideological positions and analytical paradigms. One of these is the depiction of Israel as a product of colonialism. For the sake of the battle against Israel by its enemies it was vital to purposefully displace the nationalist context of Zionism with the colonialist paradigm. Zionism however never used the methods of the exploitative, historical phenomenon known as colonialism. "The differences between Zionist settlement and definitively known cases of colonialism are of paramount significance. The foremost is that Zionist settlement in Palestine neither emanated from, nor was activated in the interests of, a state outside of Palestine. "Zionists practiced colonization, but not in the context of colonialism. Their praxis was more akin to the parallel fin-de-si?cle immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe to Argentina and to the establishment there of agricultural colonies with the support of philanthropist Baron de Hirsch. From an economic perspective there was also a major difference with colonialism: the Zionist movement characteristically invested in Palestine rather than drawing profit or resources out of it. "In sum, the definitive essence of Zionism was nationalist aspirations, and the essence of the Arab-Jewish conflict is the tragic clash between two self-defined national entities, each aspiring to national self-determination in the same territory. The core question was, and remains: which need and entitlement to national self-fulfillment should have precedence in the disputed land, known as Eretz Israel to the Jews and Filastin to the Arabs. Applying a colonialism paradigm subverts genuine understanding of Zionism and the Arab-Jewish conflict. "Understandably, this depiction was enthusiastically adopted by Arab spokesmen for the cause of Arab resistance to the Zionist program in Palestine. Branding Zionism as colonialism, thereby denying recognition of any Jewish national needs and entitlement to Palestine as the Land of Israel, became a constitutive myth of the Arab discourse against the Jews. "More recently, a broad school of so-called 'post-colonial' theorists -- drawing heavily on Edward Said's polemic against so-called 'Orientalist' discourse -- has sought to depict Zionism and the Jewish state as an entirely colonialist enterprise. The post-colonial paradigm has become a dogmatic ideological tool for automatically valorizing respectively stigmatizing beyond repair the presumed victims and perpetrators of all that is cast under the rubric of colonial or Orientalist discourse." Why the Israel=Apartheid Fallacy Resonates "Israel's governance, like that of most if not all states, undeniably has faults and moral failings and these may include breaches of human rights. But apartheid they are not, because they do not institutionalize human inequality on the grounds of race. Nor does Israel refuse the option of fair negotiation to resolve the conflict which has engulfed it. So why has the Israel=apartheid fallacy enjoyed such resonance? "The answer is that apartheid has become one of the world's most potent defamatory code-words. Hence those who a-priori seek fatally to stigmatize Israel grasp it with alacrity as a weapon in the struggle to end its existence as a Jewish state. In a sense, the Israel=apartheid fallacy can serve as a litmus test for distinguishing between those who are hostile to Israel's very existence and those who are conscientious critics of the policies and actions of Israel's governments and public. "On the whole, caring critics of Israel find it unconscionable to treat Israel as the successor of South Africa's apartheid state, much as they rightly shun the obscene equation of Zionism with Nazism or application of 'Protocols of Zion' conspiracy theory to describe Israel's behavior. However, today the apartheid stigma is all too serviceable for fighting Israel, because it evokes the precedent of powerful external pressure in the form of boycott and sanctions. "The principal faults of many otherwise fair-minded liberal critics of Israel are: firstly, their double-standard moral judgment -- higher standards for Israel than for Arabs -- which in fact is an insult to the Arabs. Secondly, their one-eyed credulousness in favor of Arab ideological discourse and intent as opposed to Jewish cause and intent. This one-sidedness is compounded by their simplistic essentializing. Many left-liberals essentialize Israel facilely by dint only of the segmental Jewish national-religious ideology upheld by the settlers of the occupied areas, Samaria, Judea, and until recently Gaza. Few such critics, if any, are willing equally to essentialize the Palestinians by dint of Hamas' Muslim-nationalist ideology, even after it has gained the votes of a majority of the Palestinian electorate." Ending Occupation Will not End Accusations Shimoni considers that as long as the occupation regime and settlements beyond the borders of pre-Six Day War Israel exist, the Israel=apartheid fallacy will garner international credibility and be deployed increasingly as a weapon against Israel. In his view, effective repudiation of the charge requires recognition of the settler-occupation regime's moral indefensibility and encouragement of the Israeli public's willingness to end it; a willingness indeed demonstrated by the recent painful withdrawal from the Gaza strip. He stresses that even the most ardent and persuasive advocates of Israel's cause, for example Alan Dershowitz, share this view. "Purely legalistic arguments such as that Gaza and the West Bank are disputed territories legitimately held by Israel as a result of failed aggression by the Arabs, carry no more weight than the purely theological claim that God promised all of the Land of Israel to the Jews." Yet, Shimoni says that it is important to recognize that even relinquishment of all of the occupied West Bank, as has already been done in regard to the Gaza Strip, would not dispel the fallacy. "It rests firmly on a multilayered edifice of hostile premises: denial in principle of Jewish nationalist need and entitlement, proscription of the entire Zionist enterprise as loathsome colonialism, and false equation of the Jewish national purposes and symbols of the State of Israel with racism." Shimoni concludes: "In sum, the fallacious Israel=apartheid equation is manifestly a malicious calumny used as a weapon aimed at the de-legitimization of Israel and its dissolution as a state that is Jewish in any meaningful sense. It is particularly insidious because it twists the worthy universal human rights agenda against itself." FootNote [1] See Kenneth Stern, Antisemitism Today, American Jewish Committee, 2006, 23-42. Manfred Gerstenfeld is the interviewer. Professor (Emeritus) Gideon Shimoni is a former head of the Hebrew University's Institute of Contemporary Jewry, and held the Shlomo Argov Chair in Israel-Diaspora Relations. Among his books are The Zionist Ideology, (1995) and Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa, (2003) both published by Brandeis University & University Press of New England. |
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BIBLICAL BEEHIVES UNCOVERED
Posted by Hillel Fendel, September 3, 2007. |
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(IsraelNN.com) Archaeologists digging south of Beit She'an in the Jordan Valley have uncovered, for the first time ever, beehives from the period of Israel's kings. The dig, at Tel Rehov, located between the religious Kibbutzim Sdei Eliyahu and Ein HaNetziv, is being supervised by archaeologist Amichai Mazar of Hebrew University. Mazar is a nephew of the famed archaeologist Binyamin Mazar, whose archaeologist daughter, Dr. Eilat Mazar, is a member of the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities. The tel -- a heap of ancient ruins from different periods, one on top of another -- at Rehov is twice the size of Tel Megiddo, and the excavation team has found there rich destruction layers. Among the finds there were hundreds of restorable vessels, figurines, cult stands and the only beehives ever found in an excavation of an Iron Age site. The discovery of the beehives was made this past summer, and "it is the earliest beehive complex currently known," Prof. Mazar says. "It is dated to the 10th-9th centuries B.C.E." -- around the time of King Solomon. The beehive complex was found to contain three rows of beehives, for a total of 30 in total, and another 70 are believed to have been there as well. Each beehive, 80 centimeters (32 inches) long, is shaped like a cylinder 40 centimeters in diameter, and is made of clay and dried straw. Present-day bee keepers who visited the site estimated that a half-ton of honey could be raised each year from the area that was excavated. The city of Rehov, while not mentioned in the Bible, is listed in Egyptian writings from the times of Pharoah Shishak, mentioned in the Bible during King Solomon's times (Kings I 11,40). The discovery of the beehives may also give new meaning to the frequent Biblical phrase, "Land of milk and honey." It is customary to understand "honey" as referring to that which is produced from dates and figs, but scholars increasingly believe that the Land of Israel was one of bees' honey as well. "This find is unique," Prof. Mazar says, "in that never before have beehives been found in the Ancient East on such a scale. A complex so organized and large has never been found before. We have found clay vessels that were used to raise bees, but never have we found beehives." The beehives have enabled researchers from other disciplines to make exciting finds as well. Dr. Guy Bloch of the Life Sciences Institute in Hebrew University is studying the biological aspects, and has found remnants of bees in the honeycombs removed from the beehives; Dr. Devori Namdar of Weizmann Institute has succeeded in identifying beeswax molecules in the beehive walls; and Prof. Mina Evron of Haifa University is researching the pollen found in the beehives. A sweet new year to all!
Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Israel National News.
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12 SDEROT CHILDREN HOSPITALIZED FOR SHOCK AFTER KASSAM ATTACKS
Posted by Avodah, September 3, 2007. |
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This was written by Hana Levi Julian and Hillel Fendel and it appeared
in Arutz-Sheva
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(IsraelNN.com) Twelve Sderot children were hospitalized at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon Monday morning in the wake of a barrage of seven Kassam rockets fired by Islamic Jihad terrorists in northern Gaza. The missiles had slammed into various parts of the city, including one that scored a direct hit on a house next to a day care center. A staff member at the day care center told Army Radio that the director ran into the room to give warning that an attack was underway. None of the staff heard the Color Red alert system that provides a 20-second window in which to seek shelter from attacks. IDF soldiers raced into the building and carried 15 babies out to safe shelter, despite confident declarations by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a day earlier that all the schools in Sderot were adequately protected against Kassam rockets. The home next to the daycare center was damaged, but no one was physically wounded. Many people were treated for shock, while others worked to assess the damage wrought by the rockets. Some parents rushed to pull their children out of school, but in general, classed continued as usual, with teachers attempting to comfort themselves and their pupils. Tomorrow, however, school may not be held at all, as the Sderot Parents Association says parents will not send their children. "No one in power seems to care less about us," said the secretary of one school. "The politicians build themselves shelters, while our children are like sitting ducks. My 13-year-old son refuses to go to school, and he has to have psychological treatment twice a week -- but no one cares. We practically live inside the shelter, on the ground floor, and my kids can't even take a shower -- does anyone care?" Asked what she would advise the government to do, she said, "They should bomb Gaza from the air! I don't want to have to live in fortified buildings; let the people in Gaza fortify themselves. Nor do I want any soldiers to get killed because of us. An air attack to wipe out all traces of those who have sent us rockets for the last seven years and made our lives unbearable -- that's the solution." Arutz-7 contacted Kadima MK Avigdor Yitzchaki, who was heavily involved in the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in his capacity as Director of former Prime Minister Sharon's Bureau, and asked his opinion on the Sderot/Gaza situation. Yitzchaki refused to comment. Seven Kassams While most parents in Israel were waking their children and having their coffee before rushing off to school and work, three rockets had already slammed into Sderot just before children arrived in their classrooms. All exploded harmlessly in fields on the outskirts of the city and no injuries or damage were reported. The terrorists launched a fourth rocket approximately an hour later, just after the children reached their classrooms. The fifth Kassam rocket followed a half hour after that, landing on a street in the center of town and scattering residents who raced for the closest shelters and prayed that their children were safe in their schools. A few minutes later missile Number 6 scored a direct hit on a home located next to a day care center. The seventh landed in another field, again with no one hurt and no damage was caused -- other than the trauma associated with not knowing when or if the next one will succeed in scoring a direct hit on your home, your family or you. This is a trauma that has destroyed the serenity of Sderot repeatedly for the past seven years. Various Options Alon Davidi, of the Sderot Residents Task Force, told Arutz-7, "We are currently worrying about the rockets that have just hit and dealing with their immediate impact. But later today or tomorrow, we will convene and figure out what we are going to do. It can't be that we take upon ourselves a great responsibility for this city, by living here and sending our children to school, while Olmert and the government don't take a similar share of responsibility for this story. Do they want this city to simply be erased? ... We are considering various options." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted Sunday during a visit to an elementary school in Ramla, "The level of fortification in Sderot is sufficient, according to the professional opinion of Home Front officials." Olmert added that the government would continue to fortify the schools against the Kassam rockets, however, in accordance with an order by the High Court of Justice. "We are [also] building 16 new schools that will be fortified," he promised but gave no timeline for the construction, nor did he say when the government would finish its fortification of the existing school buildings. Residents say bluntly that the Prime Minister's claim is simply untrue, conducting tours for reporters and other interested people of the unprotected buildings and numerous shelters that are almost uninhabitable. The Ministry of Education, at least, acknowledged the dangerous conditions in which children are forced to attend their studies and came up with a different solution: hold classes in bomb shelters this year. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com |
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THE BATTLE FOR LEBANON
Posted by Barry Rubin, September 3, 2007. |
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Lebanon may be beginning one of the most turbulent periods in its all-too-tumultuous history. As the world looks on with apparent indifference, Islamist and Iran-led forces may be on the verge of a new victory over Arab nationalists and just about everyone else. With what can only be called astounding courage, most Lebanese Christian, Druze, and Sunni Muslim politicians have stood up to the Shia Muslim group Hizballah as well as its Iranian and Syrian backers. Hizballah is well-financed from Tehran and Damascus; the government--and even less its constituent elements--receive relatively little international help. Arms pour across the border to Hizballah, as a UN-dispatched force supposed to help stop this flow stands by inactive. True, there is some foreign aid to Lebanon's armed forces, but that army is led by a man, Michael Suleiman, who might be the Syrian-Iranian candidate for president, and many of its soldiers are pro-Hizballah, too. The Syrians buy some politicians, like the former Christian patriot Michel Aoun, and kill others who resist, as happened to former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. The UN has sponsored an investigation into Hariri's killing that points to high-level Syrian involvement. But after two years of inquiry there is no end in sight and many Western politicians along with several governments are eager to "engage" Syria in dialogue. Thus, the Syrians have engaged in systematic terrorism in Lebanon and pretty much gotten away with it so far. When a Syrian-backed Palestinian Islamist group, Fatah al-Islam, raised a revolt against the Lebanese government, the world was sympathetic to Lebanon but was largely content to blame it on shadowy al-Qaida forces acting independently. The same happened regarding terror attacks on the UN forces in Lebanon. Meanwhile, of course, no Hizballah or pro-Syrian politician has been assaulted by the moderates. But even all this is not the most fitting symbol of the "international community's" dereliction of duty in Lebanon. Here's what is: If you stand near the Israel-Lebanon border you will see the blue flag of the UN flying in Lebanese territory. Nearby flutters Hizballah's yellow flag. A number of people have remarked on this fact, yet none seem to have drawn the logical conclusion from it. During the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah, most countries, held back for some days by the United States eagerly demanded that there be a ceasefire. Finally, they got their way. The ceasefire drawn up at the UN mandated a large international armed force in southern Lebanon. Its mission was to keep Hizballah out of the area, ensure control by Lebanon's government, if possible assist in the disarming of Hizballah by government forces, help stop arms smuggling, and prevent fighting between the two countries that share the border. It has failed in all these tasks but the last one, and on even that point who knows how long will that be sustained. What is remarkable here is not just the failure itself but the fact that the world does not seem to be particularly agitated about it. Delegations are still asking the Syrians, pretty please, if they might act to stop the arms' smuggling they are carrying out. And this is so even when Hizballah flaunts its triumph by sticking its flag right in the UN's face. So here's what those two flags mean: almost 200 countries for once went up against Iran and its allies and guess who won? What does this mean for Western credibility? Will it encourage more moderation or more aggression from the radical Islamist side? The answer, unlike those flags, is not blowing in the wind. Being willing to kill people and cause trouble is a weapon so powerful for Hizballah and its friends that the West quails in fear. Now begins the next round of the Lebanese battle: the election of president which begins September 25. The ostensible Syrian-Iranian candidate is Aoun, whose ambition to become president, or at least mistaken hope he can outmaneuver his allies, has blinded him to the consequences of his dangerous bargain. A possible alternative would be Suleiman, who is already being presented by the Syrians as a "compromise" choice to gullible Europeans. The government side will soon have to present its candidate. If the two sides fail to reach agreement Lebanon could soon have two governments and perhaps even one civil war. Or it could have a regime dominated by Hizballah, Iran, and Syria. Why should Lebanese moderates fight a hopeless battle? How many hundreds of thousands would leave the country? How long would it be before a radical regime in Beirut brought on another war with Israel? And what about the consequences elsewhere? Wouldn't Hizballah's triumph inspire a vast increase in radical Islamist forces in every Arab country and a total victory for Hamas--also backed by Tehran and Damascus--over Fatah in the Palestinian civil war? If Syria concludes it can violently strike at Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel with no costs won't this increase its aggressiveness? How about Iran, whose claims that the West is weak and in retreat would be thus confirmed? Those aware of history should be reminded of something by events in Lebanon. In 1936, at an early stage of a different international conflict, a fascist uprising in Spain took place against the elected government there. Western democracies and the League of Nations (the equivalent of the UN today) stayed neutral as Germany and Italy poured in help to the rebels. After three years, the Spanish republic was defeated and dictators in Berlin and Rome took note. The battle that European democrats tried to forestall by passivity was made all the more inevitable. Today, Lebanon is the main battlefront involving radical Islamist forces, Iranian ambitions proof that terrorism works and Western determination doesn't. As such, it is the epicenter of today's most vital issue. Attention--and a lot more than that--must be paid. Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university. His latest book, The Truth about Syria was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in May 2007. Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online at: http://gloria.idc.ac.il/articles/archives/oldindex.html. |
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"MUSLIM OPINION" BE DAMNED: HATRED OF AMERICA IS IRRATIONAL AND UNDESERVED
Posted by Alex Epstein, September 3, 2007. |
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To listen to most of our foreign-policy commentators, the biggest problem facing America today, six years after 9/11, is the fact that many Muslims are mad at us. "Whatever one's views on the [Iraq] war," writes a New York Times columnist, "thoughtful Americans need to consider ... the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world." In response to the Abu Ghraib scandal several years ago, Ted Kennedy lamented, "We have become the most hated nation in the world, as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." Muslim anger over America's support of Israel, we are told, is a major cause of anti-American terrorism. We face, these commentators say, a crisis of "Muslim opinion." We must, they say, win the "hearts and minds" of angry Muslims by heaping public affection on Islam, by shutting down Guantanamo, by being more "evenhanded" between free Israel and the terrorist Palestinian Authority--and certainly by avoiding any new military action in the Muslim world. If we fail to win over "Muslim opinion," we are told, we will drive even more to become terrorists. All of this evades one blatant truth: the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved. Consider the issue of treatment of POWs. Many Muslims are up in arms about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantanamo--many of whom were captured on battlefields trying to kill Americans. Yet these same Muslims are silent about the summary convictions and torture--real torture, with electric drills and vats of acid--that are official policy and daily practice throughout the Middle East. Or consider "Muslim opinion" over the U.S. handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the United States is accused of not being "hard enough" on Israel--a free nation with laws that protect all citizens, Jew and Arab alike--for Israel's supposed mistreatment of Palestinians. Yet "Muslim opinion" reveres the Palestinian Authority, a brutal dictatorship that deprives Palestinians of every basic freedom, keeps them in unspeakable poverty, and routinely tortures and executes peaceful dissenters. So-called Muslim opinion is not the unanimous and just consensus that its seekers pretend. It is the irrational and unjust opinion of the world's worst Muslims: Islamists and their legions of "moderate" supporters and sympathizers. These people oppose us not because of any legitimate grievances against America, but because they are steeped in a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion--one that views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity. They do not seek respect for the rights of the individual (Muslim or non-Muslim), they seek a world in which the rights of all are sacrificed to the dictates of Islam. The proper response to Islamists and their supporters is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them--especially those regimes that support terrorism and fuel the Islamist movement; as for the rest, we must politically ignore them and intellectually discredit them, while proudly arguing for the superiority of Americanism. Such a policy would make us safe, expose Islamic anti-Americanism as irrational and immoral, and embolden the better Muslims to support our ideals and emulate our ways. President Bush, like most politicians and intellectuals, has taken the opposite approach to "Muslim opinion": appeasement. Instead of identifying anti-American Muslims as ideological enemies to be discredited, he has appealed to their sensibilities and met their demands--e.g., sacrificing American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians and mosques. Instead of seeking to crush the Islamists by defeating the causes they fight for--such as Islamic world domination and the destruction of Israel--he has appeased those causes, declaring Islam a "great religion" and rewarding the Palestinian terrorist Jihad with a promised Palestinian state. Instead of destroying terrorist regimes that wage war against the West--including, most notably, Iran--he has sought their "cooperation" and even cast some as coalition partners. Such measures have rewarded our enemy for waging physical and spiritual war against us. Condemn America, they have learned, and American leaders will praise your ideals and meet your demands. Attack America via terrorist proxy, terrorist states and movements have been taught, and America will neither blame you nor destroy you, but redouble its efforts to buy your love. Every attempt to appease "Muslim opinion" preserves, promotes, and emboldens our enemies. Every concession to angry Muslim mobs gives hope to the Islamist cause. Every day we allow terrorist regimes to exist gives their minions time to execute the next Sept. 11. America needs honest leadership with the courage to identify and defeat our enemies--"Muslim opinion" be damned. Alex Epstein is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. |
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SHALOM, JAVIER!
Posted by Michael Freund, September 3, 2007. |
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Following is an article from the Jerusalem Post about Machon Miriam, the Spanish and Portuguese language conversion and return institute run by Shavei Israel in Jerusalem, which caters to Bnei Anousim (people whose Jewish ancestors were forced to convert to Catholicism at the time of the Inquisition) and other seekers from Hispanic countries.
The article tells the fascinating story of various people who found their way back to Judaism and the Jewish people, and will hopefully serve to inspire you as we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
For more information about Machon Miriam, contact spanish@shavei.org.
This appeared August 30, 2007 in the Jerusalem Post
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1188392497136&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull |
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There's nothing extraordinary about the way the students at Machon Miriam's conversion class are engaged in afternoon prayer. Ditto for their modest dress, their humble demeanor and their intense focus on the lesson about Jewish customs their instructor is teaching. Yet Ra'anana Birnbaum, who oversees the Machon Miriam ulpan, insists, "This is a very special, very unusual ulpan." What is special here isn't something you can see. It is, however, something you can hear. What is so unusual about these students is revealed in their native tongues of Spanish and Portuguese. The dozens of people gathered in Machon Miriam's classrooms in Heichal Shlomo, adjacent to Jerusalem's Great Synagogue, have come from Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Palma de Mallorca, Portugal, Spain, Bolivia and Peru. One couple, Birnbaum says, has come from the farthest reaches of the Amazon. Among them are people like Adriana, a Roman Catholic from Colombia who met her Jewish fiancé in London and has moved with him to Israel; and Gisella, the daughter of a Jewish man and Catholic woman who has left Argentina to "find herself" in Jerusalem. Many, many more are like Agison and Jerusa, two Bnei Anusim (descendants of Iberian Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition) from Brazil. Agison first met Jerusa on a bus, making eyes at her "like in a soap opera." And like a mindbending soap opera plot twist, the two happened to share family secrets of converso lineage. Agison's grandparents had come from Portugal and maintained unusual, non-Catholic practices that he would later realize were Jewish customs. Although her father was Catholic, Jerusa's mother steadfastly refused to go to church, part of a set of rules her own mother had established. By the time they met, Agison and Jerusa knew they were Jewish. She wanted to live openly as Jews, but Agison was hesitant. "It took two years of marriage for me to convince him," Jerusa says, as her husband smiles sheepishly. The decision was not a simple one. It was easier said than done. Their town had Jews, but they were secular, and could not teach the couple much. There was no synagogue to provide communal prayer. So they made do as best they could, following the Bible. Literally. Without the benefit of knowledge of Jewish tradition, the couple improvised. For Pessah, they meticulously removed all hametz from their home. They made fresh grape juice, slaughtered sheep and -- without knowing exactly how they were supposed to -- baked their own matzot. They went to the fields to count the omer. On Succot, Agison wanted to gather for himself the four species, but he wasn't sure which species to collect. For a mikve, Jerusa would travel to a secluded beach near Rio de Janeiro. And so it went for them. It took seven years to get their hands on Jewish books in Portuguese. Eventually they learned about various halachot. While still in Brazil, the 30-something couple and their young children underwent conversion through the Conservative movement. They made aliya last year -- not as Agison and Jerusa, but as Eliahu and Rivka. The changes have been extreme. Whereas in Brazil Eliahu owned a successful business selling packing materials, today he works in maintenance. His wife works as a babysitter. "We didn't come here for a more lucrative lifestyle," he says, knowing the suspicion with which Israelis often regard strangers. Instead, they say, they came for experiences like their first traditional Seder, held in their spartan apartment in the Beit Canada absorption center in southeast Jerusalem. And although they are citizens and already recognized by the Interior Ministry as Jews, they are undergoing an Orthodox conversion now because they believe that only it is valid. "We came to seek God," Eliahu says. "And so far, things are working out." Birnbaum, who is translating the narrative, beams with pride for her students. "Here we have a human fabric that knows practically no bounds," she says. THE ULPAN is connected to Shavei Israel, an organization founded by Michael Freund that has become well known in recent years for locating, educating and bringing here thousands of people around the world with previously unlooked-for historic ties to the Jewish people. Freund, who investigated the issue of anusim (who are also known by the derogatory terms marranos and chuetas, or less offensively as conversos) and inspired the Chief Rabbinate to take an interest in it as well, calls the Machon Miriam program "the best revenge against the inquisitors." But Freund and Birnbaum both know that the historical mysteries inherent in the survival of the Bnei Anusim, and the economic hardship prevalent in many countries where they live, make "faking it" an attractive option for those who do not actually have Jewish heritage. Both say they are very careful to weed out impostors. "We are very sensitive to those who may have Jewish roots," Birnbaum says. "At the same time, however, we are very careful not to be exploited by those with illegitimate claims, who merely wish to come to Israel for a better life. "I know these people," she adds. "I'm Latin myself." Although she was born and raised in Jerusalem, she spent several years in Uruguay with her husband, Rabbi Eliahu Birnbaum, who served as chief rabbi of the country. Birnbaum's father also served as chief rabbi of Uruguay for many years. "I can tell after 10-20 minutes whether someone is telling the truth about these things," she says, speaking in the rapid-fire cadence common to many Spanish speakers. "I have been told by one woman who wanted to join our class -- a devout Christian -- that she just wanted to bring her mother and sister to live out the rest of their days in Israel. That's why I understand, as well, the strictness of the Interior Ministry and the Rabbinate. There's no end to the people who apply." At the same time, Birnbaum says, "I see how those who are honest and sincere only become more serious [about the classes] all the time. Listen, this is a difficult process. It's a year of bonding with a community, of coming to class twice a week, seven hours at a time... someone who comes to this ulpan with ulterior motives won't be able to stand it." Moreover, Birnbaum continues, "It doesn't matter to me why a person comes to convert. It doesn't matter to me whether he comes because he has fallen in love with a Jew, or whether he has fallen in love with the Jewish people as a whole. What matters to me is that, as soon as he has made that decision to convert, that he undergoes the process with a sincere desire." GISELLA'S DESIRE, says the shy 22-year-old from Argentina, is to "seek myself, to find an identity." That has been a painful process so far for Gisella, who made aliya in 2003. The child of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, she has been wrestling since an early age with the question, "Who am I?" First, Gisella went to public school. Then she was sent to a private school that taught both Catholic and Jewish children. Feeling part of neither crowd, she hung out with a small group of kids who considered themselves atheists. Eventually, in a bid to "fit in," Gisella started to take lessons in Christianity with the Catholic kids, but they wouldn't speak to her. So, Gisella went back to public school. There, a strange thing happened when the drama class prepared a presentation of the movie Sister Act, in which Whoopi Goldberg impersonates a nun. "My father absolutely refused to allow me to take part in this," Gisella says. "He had never made much of a big deal about his being Jewish, but all of a sudden, the idea of his daughter dressed up as a nun made him very upset." The incident also compelled Gisella to explore what Judaism meant to her. After high school, she came to Israel. Once again, she doesn't quite belong in any particular crowd. "Growing up, I suffered because of my Jewish name," she says. "Now in Israel, I am treated as a non-Jew. When people hear that I am converting, they start testing my knowledge of Judaism. Some people say, 'What, are you looking for more money in Israel?' "I've learned to be inconspicuous about my past. It's easier for me that way." Gisella, however, is finding her way. She has a job in telemarketing and is studying for her psychometric exams. She has a boyfriend ("He's religious," she notes) who is helping her through the conversion process. More than a few times, Gisella thought of going back to Argentina. Her parents, though, encouraged her to stay here. "They know," she says, "that there is something here that I need." THE TRANSITION from Spanish-speaking outsider to Hebrew-speaking Israeli immigrant is a complicated one. The Machon Miriam staff tries to make that transition as smooth as possible. "When someone comes to us," says Birnbaum, "I ask, 'Do you have a community? Do you have an adoptive family?' If not, we provide them with one. We have a network of graduates who support and guide the students on their path to a new life. They have connections to communities, to rabbis, to synagogues. We make sure students find jobs. There's a lot of 'togetherness' here." There is also, she says, a focus on more than just basic knowledge of Bible stories. "My approach is that conversion is a cultural transformation as well as a religious one, so students need to learn about everything -- about society, about history, about culture, about Halacha, about faith and dogma. That's why this is such a broad curriculum. "For example, when they walk down the street, the students see so many different modes of dress, just within the religious community -- many different kinds of kippot, so many different kinds of women's head coverings. There are cultural codes to understand. So we teach them the history of the Jewish people, we teach them Hebrew literature... but we also teach them about these Jewish cultural cues." All these elements, Birnbaum says, add up to success. When the ulpan's graduates stand before the Chief Rabbinate's conversion court judges, she says, "they are so well prepared that 99 percent of them pass their tests. I can count on my hands the number of students who, over the years, haven't passed." The connection does not end there, however. Graduates are welcome, even encouraged, to hold their weddings and bar and bat mitzva celebrations at the ulpan. The organization's social network is mobilized to ensure that new converts aren't simply thrown into their new surroundings. "You have to remember," Birnbaum says, "that the conversion process is difficult even after the conversion itself. You're in a state of euphoria. Your whole life has changed. But everyone sees you as the same person they knew yesterday. Work doesn't just fall from the sky, nor does a spouse, nor do friends. "There's always an emotional let-down after conversion. So we always try to guide them through it, and beyond. Converts need to acclimate to life after the conversion. It may sound very easy to someone who doesn't understand it, but it can be very hard." The current class is Machon Miriam's ninth. Overall, about 500 students have finished the course. The surface, Birnbaum says, has just begun to be scratched. "We have a full class right now, and there are more people waiting to get in. There's never a situation where our classrooms aren't full to bursting." Michael Freund served as an adviser to former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. |
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ESSAY: NO TO 'MAJORITY' TYRANNY
Posted by Moshe Dann, September 3, 2007. |
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This was written by Dov Berkovits
and it appeared today in the Jerusalem Post
The writer is head of 'Bet Av -- Renewal and Creativity in Torah' and former director of the Pardes Institute. He's long been involved in programs for religious and secular Israelis. Berkovits's latest book, She-asani Gever -- Talmudic Discussions in the Eye of a Storm, is scheduled for publication by Yediot Aharonot in the coming months. |
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A recent exchange of letters to the editor in The Jerusalem Post between Moshe Dann (August 13) and Max Singer (August 17) dealt with the issue of IDF soldiers disobeying orders calling on them to participate in removing Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Dann's basic claims were that the purpose of the IDF is to protect the existence of the State of Israel, not to expel Jews from their homes in the Land of Israel, and that the IDF is a citizen's army and its use by a majority against a minority would lead to a demoralization of the army and of society at large. Singer, in rejecting this position, raised serious constitutional issues. He contended that a minority, however idealistic, cannot separate itself from the majority, and that the stability -- and the very existence -- of the Jewish state rested on the axiom that "to keep our country we have to participate in its army and obey its orders." He argued emphatically that "God set rules for us as individuals, but he made us free to make decisions, including the decision not to obey the rules -- subject to His punishment. God may have made rules forbidding a Jewish state to expel Jews from their homes in the land of Israel. (I think any such rule would be subject to military and diplomatic necessity.) But we cannot avoid having a government which may break the rules. When someone who wants to live in a Jewish country thinks the government is breaking God's rules, he or she has to face the unpleasant fact of being implicated in breaking God's rules. The choice is between deciding not to have a Jewish country because its government may or does break God's rules -- although God seems to have told us to have one -- or living with the country's sin, if that is really what it is, until politics can stop the sinning." SINGER'S ARGUMENT, in the best tradition of Western political thought, suffers from a fundamental -- if widely held -- error of perception that has dangerous implications for our future. * First, the democratic tradition has always had a place for the human conscience; it is the last refuge of safety against the always present potential of the tyranny of the majority in democracies. Israel does not have a democratic tradition of hundreds of years, like other Western democracies which have understood the value of citizen dissent. In that context the need for soldiers who believe that eviction of law-abiding Jewish families from their homes is illegal and immoral is as important as the reality of soldiers who refused to participate in operations against Arab civilians in Hebron. Some claim that belief in a divine command as a basis for such action is untenable, while conscientious objection is a sacred value. Though there are Orthodox Jews for whom a divine command, by definition, must be accepted without reason, most religious soldiers have been educated to have a deep religious consciousness that is profoundly linked to idealism -- national, ethical and interpersonal. WE SHOULD be deeply respecting of young men who have volunteered to serve in elite IDF units, unlike many of their generation, who do not follow orders blindly and are willing to pay the price for their actions. * Second, the constitutional issue raises the question of the very essence of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. The legal and political realities of the United States were fashioned on the basis of an enlightened Constitution. At the core of the Constitution is its Bill of Rights. Though the US Supreme Court has shifted in its interpretation of the Constitution over the years, this fundamental document has always been accepted as providing the framework for political struggle. In Israel there is no constitution and no bill of rights. As a result Israel has no binding formulation of national legality and legitimacy that reflects a commonly held statement of the basic values embodied in the existence of the state. In this situation the government, the Knesset and the Supreme Court are permitted to violate fundamental historical realities regarding the very raison d'etre of the Jewish state as long as political machinations and basic cultural attitudes can combine to create "law" as temporary consensus. I BELIEVE the founders of Israel formulated tenets that established the philosophical contours of our state, and set boundaries on the use of political power. One such foundational tenet was the purpose of the establishment of the IDF. Israel was created because of the tragic defenselessness of the Jewish people in the Exile. The IDF was established to protect Jewish homes and synagogues from destruction. Here lies the basic constitutional issue -- does a government in Israel have the right to order the IDF to destroy law-abiding and lawfully created Jewish communities in Israel and exile Jews from their synagogues for "military and diplomatic necessity"? Perhaps it is necessary for the existence of the state to allow for such an eventuality, as Max Singer claims. However, such a decision is clearly a reformulation of part of the historical bedrock on which the Jewish state rose. And if that is the case, where was the national dialogue on this fundamental issue? Who were the major intellectual or spiritual figures that determined the role of the IDF would now be similar to that of armies in liberal democracies and not that fashioned from the unique destiny of Jewish history? Ahmed Tibi and Omri Sharon? PARADOXICALLY, most of the soldiers who find themselves deeply conflicted over orders related to the destruction of communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza were inculcated to view the state as an instrument of God. What is the ultimate value in forcing them to participate in an operation whose goal is the destruction of the communities they were brought up in? Is there no way for an enlightened leadership to find a way to allow them to remain loyal without callously destroying the most valuable of all our possessions -- the ideals and beliefs of our young generation? * Third, and most important, the existence of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state rests foremost on the integrity and unity of the Jewish people. There is no guarantee our "third commonwealth" will not suffer the kinds of terrible inner divisions which could have frightful consequences. We are on the edge of a chasm when, in the name of governmental legitimacy, a citizen's army -- the very army which has succeeded in being the sole remaining accepted symbol of unity -- is used against part of our people. We were playing with fire when the government used the IDF to protect our police in the Amona operation. We were playing with fire when police used planned mayhem against young men and women. We were playing with fire when our government used its secret service to delegitimize (and jail) as criminals idealistic young people as a tactic in a political struggle. WE NEED to restate what this fragile reality called the Jewish state is fashioned of. We all believe in the critical necessity of the democratic process. We all support the need to reevaluate the treatment of Israel's Arab population both as a democratic and as a Jewish value. But one principle needs to be emphasized again and again: If the democratic process, as it is understood today, leads to a further destructive dissolution of the Jewish people in Israel, there is no justification for the existence of the state. In such an absurd reality, Jewish history will find another venue for the realization of its destiny. TODAY, WE are building a future for our people in this land. Let us give ourselves as much time as necessary to learn who we are and what kind of country we want. First and foremost, we need to understand how far we can push each other, to recognize the parameters within which political struggle can legitimately take place. It is my unequivocal view that the use of the IDF to destroy Jewish homes, to uproot lawfully created Jewish communities and to exile scrolls of the Torah from synagogues is outside those limits. |
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TURKEY'S PM ERDOGAN: THE TERM "MODERATE ISLAM" IS UGLY AND OFFENSIVE -- ISLAM IS ISLAM
Posted by Robert Spencer, September 3, 2007. |
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This was posted in Jihad Watch
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Turkey's PM Erdogan: The term "moderate Islam" is ugly and offensive -- Islam is Islam And so in two sentences Erdogan dismisses the concept on which the Western world has placed its hopes of survival and peace. Islam is Islam. Will this be discussed in the Western media? Will American and European analysts publicly take up the question of whether or not Erdogan is right, and what the implications might be if he is? Or will they ignore this and continue to assume in all their analyses that the opposite is true, and to dismiss as "ideologues" or "Islamophobes" those who point out that influential Muslims like Erdogan are saying things like this? Which course do you think they'll choose? Will Western leaders then begin discussing political Islam and its implications openly? Or will they ignore this and continue to pretend that Islam has no inherent or traditional political character, or if it does, it is infinitely malleable anyway, and can be massaged without difficulty into something completely benign? Which course do you think they'll choose? "PM Erdogan: The Term 'Moderate Islam' Is Ugly And Offensive; There Is No Moderate Islam; Islam Is Islam," -- from the MEMRI Blog (thanks to Mackie): Speaking at Kanal D TV's Arena program, PM Erdogan commented on the term "moderate Islam", often used in the West to describe AKP and said, 'These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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TERRORISTS IGNITE 'FIRE BELT'. HAMAS, FATAH JOIN FORCES TO HIT JEWISH STATE
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 3, 2007. |
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This was written by Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau
chief
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JERUSALEM -- Hamas and members of the so-called military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization took responsibility for an attack against the Israeli army yesterday, stating a recently formed new terror group will be used to conduct joint operations against the Jewish state. Top leaders of Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group told WND their organization has recently carried out a series of joint attacks with Hamas against Israeli soldiers operating in the northern West Bank. The leaders said the Brigades and Hamas formed a new organization called the Fire Belt to attack Israel, and that yesterday the new Fire Belt group worked together to lob grenades at Israeli forces operating in the vicinity of the Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The group claimed they completely destroyed an Israeli army jeep in Balata yesterday. The Israeli Defense Forces said grenades were launched but that a jeep was not destroyed. Several witnesses in Balata told WND they saw an army jeep being destroyed. According to Abu Nasser, a leader of the Brigades in Nablus and a self-declared top commander of the Fire Belt group with Hamas, among the militants that attacked the jeep yesterday was a member of the Brigades who is on Israel's official list of amnesty. Prime Minister Olmert in July granted amnesty to 178 Fatah fighters purportedly as a gesture to Abbas and to bolster the Palestinian leader against Hamas. The amnesty was offered on condition the Fatah gunmen refrain from attacks against Israel. The Brigades, Fatah's declared "military wing," took credit along with the Islamic Jihad terror group for every suicide bombing in Israel in 2005 and 2006. Abu Nasser said in a WND interview Fatah militants are "unified" with Hamas and that the two would attack Israel together. "Fatah and Hamas are having diplomatic problems but that doesn't mean we are not unified in the battle against the (Israeli) occupation," he said. "The Fire Belt will carry out many more attacks. We hope this cooperation will bring the two parties [Fatah and Hamas] to respect Palestinian unity and safeguard that unity. Our enemy is not Hamas, it is Israel," said Abu Nasser. Abu Nasser is on a list of 152 Brigades members the PA recently presented to Israel for amnesty consideration as part of further Israeli gestures to bolster Abbas against Hamas. Abu Nasser would not say where the funding for his new Hamas-Fatah terror group originates. Palestinian security officials associated with Abbas said the Fire Belt receives most of its funding from Hamas and from the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The security officials claimed the new group was not coordinated with the Fatah leadership and was working to undermine Abbas. They claimed the Brigades, which took credit for scores of attacks the last few weeks, is committed to halting violence against Israel in line with the amnesty deal. The information on the new Fire Belt group comes as the U.S. recently announced large sums of aid to Fatah and initiated military training programs for West Bank Fatah militias purportedly to back Abbas' group against Hamas and to isolate Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The State Department announced a multimillion dollar program to train Fatah militants in the West Bank. Under an agreement signed this month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad, Fatah's Force 17 officers are slated to take course work and conduct VIP protection exercises under the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Force 17 serve as de facto police units in the West Bank. Many members of Force 17 openly serve in the Brigades. The Fatah training program, which includes courses in the use of weapons, is part of a larger $86.5 million aid package granted to the PA by Congress in April. Rice and other top Bush administration officials have said the U.S. is seeking to back Abbas against Hamas, which in June took control of all Fatah security compounds in the Gaza Strip. But there have been indications Hamas and Fatah are seeking a reconciliation. The London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat last week reported Hamas leadership is considering an initiative proposing it hand back Gaza Strip security compounds seized from Fatah in June to achieve reconciliation with Abbas' group. Also the Iranian Fars news agency last week quoted Palestinian diplomatic sources stating Abbas appointed two senior Fatah officials to hold informal talks with Hamas to affect a reconciliation with the group. Fatah denied the report, but Ahmed Yousef, a top political advisor to Hamas' Gaza leader and deposed prime minister Ismail Haniya, said Abbas indeed allowed some Fatah officials to hold unofficial talks with Hamas. In a move that raised diplomatic eyebrows in Washington and Jerusalem, Fatah earlier this month paid the salaries of almost half the members of rival Hamas' security forces. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad at first claimed the salaries where transferred in error and assured a delegation of visiting House of Representatives members that Fatah had no financial dealings with Hamas. Later, a PA investigation chartered by Fayyad claimed that a bribed PA Finance Ministry official was responsible for the salary transfer to Hamas. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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NEW PRO-ISRAEL WEBSITE: LIGHT UNTO NATIONS
Posted by Boycott Watch, September 2, 2007. |
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Introducing Light Unto Nations (www.LightUntoNations.org), a new concept in pro-Israel websites. Light Unto Nations features PDF flyers for students to post, each highlighting a different technology. A new flyer will be posted each week, and you can receive it via fax to your campus or via signing up for our mailing list. Each poster is designed for easy reading and presentation of technologies Israel has brought to the world to make the world a better place to live. Groups can add their names to the bottom of the flyers for posting at their school, thus becoming a Light Unto Nations themselves. Join Light Unto Nations by visiting us at www.LightUntoNations.org |
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IDIOT KING OF HAARETZ
Posted by Paul Lademain, September 2, 2007. |
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Your resident idiot reporter who mouthed off against Israel by wrongly describing his nation--the only nation on earth that would tolerate this foolishly contrarian Jew-- as an "apartheid" state is a "Jane Fonda Jew" who prattles sedition in order to suck up to the Saudis (whom he fears) so they will allow him to keep his comforts. Israel won't be an "apartheid state" once it kicks out the invading arabs and sends them packing, back to their Egyptian and Sudanese homelands, from when these ugly invaders came. Hopefully, when the ugly Arab invaders are kicked out, they will drag along with them their Jewish protector, the idiot-King of the Jane Fonda Jews: Shimon Peres--the masochist nutbag who hates his adopted homeland for to please his dearest dead friend, bloody Yasser Arafat. Viva to the Patriots of Israel from the Secular Christians for Zion. Contact Paul Lademain @lademain@verizon.net |
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DEMOCRACY WITHOUT CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES IS NOT PROGRESSIVE
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, September 2, 2007. |
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Democratic elections in the Arab world, for the most part expressing the will of religious people and/or people unhappy with their current secular governments, tend to vote into office less secular and in many cases fundamentalist Islamic leaders. We observe such results among so-called Palestinians, Hizbullah's rise to power in Lebanon, the heretofore secular nation of Turkey as it continues to morph into an Islamic state, and democratically elected fundamentalist Shiites pushing misogynistic sharia law on women in unstable Iraq; those outcomes most assuredly are the rule, not the exception. Alas, we observe the following utterance from a typical Iraqi Shiite cleric empowered by democratically elected officials, then wonder what American and coalition forces as well as innocent Iraqis are dying for. 'We don't want to see equality between men and women because according to Islamic law, men should have double of women. This is written in the Quran and according to God.' Indeed, populations weaned on virtually one belief system, intertwining culture and imperatives from that gospel as interpreted in some cases by religious zealots, have little space or tolerance for those of differing mindsets. In effect, democracy alone will not facilitate, in this case, the progress and modernization of Middle Eastern nations within a mostly secular culturally diverse industrial world, the former monolithically adhering to and in fact defined by in many cases intolerant Islamic principles, no doubt some more fundamentalist than others, with the exceptions of the tiny Jewish state of Israel, as well as a few small cosmopolitan highly capitalistic gulf states that actively encourage foreign enterprise. Such religiously monolithic Muslim Middle Eastern nations, even those few boasting freely elected leaders, will not offer the same opportunities to inhabitants practicing other lifestyles, thus cannot easily blend with open socially tolerant societies worldwide. No doubt, if those Islamic nations possessed and enforced constitutions protecting the rights of minority viewpoints, they could more easily adapt to planetary populations, would encourage the immigration of culturally diverse populations, and in fact would be much better off. The Bush Administration did not sufficiently emphasize constitutional protections, much like those woven into the fabric of the United States, when attempting to democratize the Middle East through the election process, a major policy blunder bearing to date dire consequences. This of course does not imply such an initiative would have been successful. Indeed, contemplating that challenge should have dissuaded him from even attempting such a daunting, perhaps impossible task. Don Quixote, in fact, had a better chance of success when flailing at his windmills. The Gaza strip, for one, has morphed into a freely elected yet perilous Hamas controlled bastion of terrorism. No diversity of culture or possibility for secular progress exists when its present elected party's charter especially denigrates Jews, condones their extinction, and of course will not recognize the existence of neighbor Israel. Here is a small exert from that charter exemplifying the Hamas brutal anti-Semitic mindset. 'The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).' If there is ever to be serious peace negotiations with such a presumably sovereign enclave, Hamas' present charter must be trashed then replaced by a constitution bereft of homicidal rancor, recognizing the State of Israel's right to exist, as well as guaranteeing the inalienable rights of all citizens, including their right to religious freedom; in other words Jews, Christians, and in fact all non-Muslims would be welcome to live there albeit the Muslim heritage of the enclave could still dominate. Tolerance of minority rights as well as the rights of females, again, defines that key issue. Would Hamas, for the sake of its mostly impoverished population, be willing to so reinvent itself? When pigs learn to fly! If Bush and his cronies had foresight, they would never have encouraged an election that rival Fatah, defined by Yasser Arafat's more secular but fatally corrupt style of governance was bound to lose. Now that the damage is done, only a purging of Hamas would allow Gaza to begin to participate in and contribute to a progressive technologically advancing industrious industrial world worthy of emerging century twenty-one. Only adoption of the aforementioned constitutional principles would allow it to be truly successful in that endeavor, perhaps encouraging tourists to avail themselves of a fine Mediterranean coastline with three, four, and five star hotels, some perhaps owned and/or managed by Jewish Israelis, catering to a variety of cultures. Impoverished unenlightened nations in fact worldwide, both financially and intellectually bankrupt, have little chance of long term success unless they first craft governmental structures guaranteeing basic inalienable rights to all citizens, males and females, including those with minority perspectives as well as cultural preferences. The United States, a superpower nation demonstrating a predilection to assist in nation building, especially in Iraq, should have placed that initiative at the top of any short list of foreign policy priorities, then contemplated whether at this point in time it would even fly. If Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites are not willing to accept that imperative, which is the case, then a trifurcation of such oil and water cultures now becomes the only sensible stabilizing solution i.e. splitting Iraq into three autonomous nations with a coherent plan to divide all potential oil revenues equitably. Period! Democratic elections alone, guaranteeing majority Shiite rule, surely won't cut it. Amendment one of the United States Constitution, as delineated in that superpower's Bill of Rights, would define a good starting point to begin building any fledgling nation's governmental structure. If the United States, infatuated by an 'idealistic' nature, truly wishes to participate in a constructive exercise dedicated to nation building, especially in the 'oil rich' Middle East among Muslim regimes, that 'benevolent' uncle must first attempt, in the case of the Middle East, to climb a likely insurmountable mountain, persuading Islamic leaders to adopt the following essential constitutional principle: ('Government' is substituted for 'Congress' within Amendment one as stated). 'Government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.' There is a substantive difference between government establishing a religion, hence requiring citizens to adhere to that religion, and a religion that defines the dominant culture of a nation. Israel, for one, which has no written constitution, is no doubt a Jewish state, indeed the Jewish homeland, Judaism indeed does dominate her culture and customs, yet her government allows all citizens to worship as they see fit, as well as exercise all other aforementioned rights. We cannot say the same in regards to the Muslim Middle East, now perhaps including Turkey if freely elected Islamic leaders begin to extinguish the light of secularism which has so dominated that nation since the era of Ataturk. Considering this, observing the obvious, alas, we cannot but conclude acceptance of such constitutionally guaranteed freedoms pertaining to religion as well as speech, the press, a right to peaceful assembly, and petitioning government to air grievances would hardly make headway within the camel's share of all sovereignties now dominating the Muslim Middle East, in fact would today be an absolute non-starter. Logically, we must question why the United States even attempted such a monumental task of nation building, presumably acceptable to the tenets of Western democracies, in dysfunctional Iraq, previously only held together by a ruthless sadistic Sunni Muslim dictator. Might majority Shiite movers and shakers, if elected as leaders, be any different at least in terms of recognizing and insuring minority and female rights? Hardly! You can' t make a silk purse out of today's sow's ear! 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 |
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RICE THOUGHT PALESTINIAN LEADER WEAK
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 2, 2007. |
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This was written by Anne Gearan and it appeared today in the
Washington Post
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WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thought Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a weak disappointment, and she once judged President Bush's signature Mideast peace program unworkable, according to a new biography. Months into her term as secretary of state in 2005, Rice considered Abbas "a nice man but ineffective," and she worried Abbas was unworthy of the investment in trust and money the U.S. had placed in him, the book says. At the time, Bush and Rice were publicly trying to bolster Abbas as the more palatable alternative to the late Yasser Arafat. Despite qualms about Abbas, the administration hoped that Bush's second term might see gains in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy" attributes Rice's judgments on Abbas to interviews with anonymous administration officials, but her reported views closely track those of outside observers at the time. The book, by Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, covers Rice's tenures as the first black woman to hold the titles of national security adviser and secretary of state. It concludes that Rice the diplomat is aided by her clout with Bush, but hindered by decisions she and the president made during his first term in office. Bush's 2003 Mideast peace initiative, called the "road map," envisioned an independent Palestinian state as the culmination of a staged process with benchmarks for both Israel and the Palestinians. The effort largely crumbled within months of its launch, although the Bush administration continues to use it as a guideline and motivator for both sides. As secretary of state, Rice often holds it up as the only peace document agreed to by all the players -- including the Palestinians, Israelis and the United States. The book quotes her, however, as assessing the roadmap plan very harshly in 2003 when she was Bush's national security adviser. "The road map is at best a marginal plan. It doesn't work," the book quotes Rice as telling an Israeli counterpart. The book quotes Bush as calling Abbas predecessor, Yasser Arafat, "a loser" on whom Bush was unwilling to waste political capital. European diplomats, and many in the State Department, viewed Arafat as the only Palestinian leader with the street credibility and acumen to strike a lasting deal for peace. Arafat had walked away from a possible U.S.-sponsored deal in 2000, but there were few or no figures of comparable stature in Palestinian politics when Bush and Rice inherited the portfolio the following year. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shake hands at the end of a joint news conference at Abbas' headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, in this Aug. 2, 2007 file photo. According to a new biography, months into her term as secretary of state in 2005 Rice considered Abbas a weak disappointment, and she once judged President Bush's signature Mideast peace program unworkable. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shake hands at the end of a joint news conference at Abbas' headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, in this Aug. 2, 2007 file photo. According to a new biography, months into her term as secretary of state in 2005 Rice considered Abbas a weak disappointment, and she once judged President Bush's signature Mideast peace program unworkable. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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