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GRAPES RIPEN ON A VINE IN THE JUDEAN MOUNTAINS
Posted by Yehoshua HaLevi, September 29, 2008. |
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Grapes Ripen On A Vine In The Judean Mountains This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images.
Yehoshua Halevi writes:
Secondly, the soft back lighting helps bring out the color and detail of the grapes so that they attain a mouth-watering appeal. I also like this shot better than several others where there is a clear view of the entire cluster. The leaves in the foreground help direct the eye toward the most important part of the image and they add a bit of mystery to the photo as well.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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BRITAIN ARRESTED OVER "RACIALLY INSULTING" DOLL
Posted by Boris Celser, September 29, 2008. |
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This was written Fjordman and it appeared Septenber 21, 2008
in The Brussels Journal
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At the same time as sharia law has gained official recognition as a part of the British legal system and Muslims proudly talk about conquering the Western world, a British woman has been arrested because of a supposedly "racist" doll she kept in her window. In al-Britannia a Muslim man can claim state benefits for children with multiple wives and brag about subduing the country and reducing its traditional inhabitants to second-rate citizens or worse, but you cannot have a "racially insensitive" doll in your own home, at least not if you're white. Meanwhile, an influential government "ethical" adviser suggests that elderly dementia sufferers may have a "duty to die" because they are a financial burden to the state. Remember that this is a country where Abdullah from Pakistan can claim state benefits for all the fourteen children he has with his four wives. Elderly Brits have to die, with or without "encouragement," so that the state can afford to pay for all the Nigerians and Bangladeshis who flood the country. The "welfare state" now simply means that the natives should pay extremely high tax rates in order to fund their own ethnic displacement and eventual eradication. It's called "tolerance and diversity." These incidents may seem unrelated, but they are not. Make no mistake about it: Harassing the natives in order to crush them mentally and destroy any ideas they might harbor about defending their country against foreign colonization is a deliberate strategy on the part of the authorities and the ruling Multiculturalist oligarchy, whether you identify this as the British Labour Party or the European Union (both are correct). Of course, this is about the entire Western world, not just Britain, but Britain is arguably the worst example of all. I am not aware of arrests for "racist" dolls even in Sweden, Belgium or al-Canada, and they are all bad cases of suicidal Multiculturalism. Britain in 2008 is no longer the nation that gave us Shakespeare or Newton; it is the world's largest open-air prison, an enlarged Marxist reeducation camp, a horror story where the authorities wage cultural and demographic warfare against the indigenous people of the country. The only good news is that I sense that native Britons are getting angrier by the day, and will not go quietly into the night. Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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WHAT IS THE TRAGEDY OF ARABIA?
Posted by Mark Silverberg, September 29, 2008. |
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According to recent UN Arab Human Development Reports, written by an independent group of leading Arab scholars and intellectuals, oil has become a curse rather than a blessing for the Arab world. Unlike Japan, Taiwan, Israel, Singapore and many other countries who recognized early on that their scarce resources required them to turn their lack of material resources into technological strengths in order to become competitive in the world economy, the Arabs relied exclusively on the great sea of oil beneath their deserts as a substitute for intellect, creativity and entrepreneurship. It has now cost them their future and saddled the world with a parasitic and pathologically suicidal movement that has proven its capacity to destroy and its incapacity to create anything of substance to human civilization. While it can be argued that the borders of the Arab Middle East are man-made deformities that must be redrawn to take into account the tribal nature of Arab society rather than the strategic interests of the French and the British who created them in the early 20th century, border corrections alone cannot account for, nor will they resolve the sorry state of affairs in the Arab world. While a redefinition of borders would separate Shiites from Sunnis and Kurds from Baluchis, the problems plaguing Arab society in the 21st century cannot be so easily resolved. That is because Arab societies, for the most part, have immersed themselves in a culture of denial. They emphasize struggle, quash competition and reject alternate approaches or ways of thinking. With few exceptions, Arab governments live in a state of internal fear that avoids investigating their failures or acquainting themselves with or opening their societies to the cultures of others. As a result, their societies cannot hand down positive achievements to future generations unless they overcome their secretiveness, their isolation, and especially their compulsive need to blame others for their own failings. Several years ago, Abd Al-Munim Said, head of the Al-Ahram Research Center in Egypt, wrote: "We thought that by the end of the 20th century, the Arab mind would be open enough not to explain everything with a 'conspiracy theory'...The biggest problem with conspiracy theories is that they keep us not only from the truth, but also from confronting our faults and problems. This way of thinking relates any given problem to external elements, and thus does not [lead] to a rational policy to confront the problem." Consequently, in Arab politics today, from Egypt to Riyadh, opponents are neither answered nor rebutted. They are discredited, imprisoned, exiled or murdered and with each disaster, defeat, or tragedy, it is always the Zionists, colonialists, or American imperialist conspiracies that are to blame. For all the oil revenues that have flowed into the wealthier Arab countries, the overall state of the Arab world is appalling. It does not produce one single manufactured product of sufficient quality to sell on world markets. Arab productivity is the lowest in the world. There is not a single Arab university of world-class. The once-great tradition of Arab scientific achievement that flowed from Andalusian Spain has degenerated into a few research programs in the fields of chemical and biological warfare. There is not one country in the Arab world that can truly call itself a democracy. No Arab state genuinely respects human rights. No Arab state hosts a responsible media. No Arab society fully respects the rights of women or minorities, and no Arab government has ever accepted public responsibility for its own shortcomings. Blame has become the opium of the Arabs, and the greatest blame for their failures is that directed at the United States and, of course, Israel. A central Bernard Lewis theme is that Muslims have felt downtrodden since 1683, when the Ottomans failed for the second time to sack Christian Vienna. For 300 years, Prof. Lewis says, Muslims have watched in horror and humiliation as the Christian civilizations of Europe and North America have eclipsed them militarily, economically and culturally. The Arab Muslim world prefers to blame others, to sleepwalk through history as it were, and to cheer when tyrants and terrorists avenge them. They knew that Saddam Hussein was a monster who had killed more Arabs than Israel ever could. They knew he was the worst thing to happen to the Arab world since the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258. But they were (and continue to be) so discouraged that they needed to inflate even "the butcher of Baghdad" into hero status. During the war the Palestinians cheered him on and celebrated his defiance of the American war machine, but, in the end, he failed them as well. While most Arabs understand America's current dilemma in Iraq and fear the expansion of Iranian Shiism and Ahmedinejad' Since external conflict is the lifeblood of Arab dictatorships (be they secular or theocratic), conflict in the Arab world is not seen as a problem that requires a solution. The enemy of the Middle East is not the West so much as modernism and the humiliation that accrues when millions are nursed by fantasies, hypocrisies, and conspiracies to explain away their own failures. Quite simply, any society whose allegiance is to the tribe rather than to the nation, that does not believe in democracy enough to institute it, shuns female intellectual contributions, allows polygamy, insists on patriarchy, institutionalizes religious persecution, ignores family planning, expects endemic corruption, tolerates honor killings, sees no need to vote, and defines knowledge as mastery of the Quran.....is deeply pathological. Instead of responding to demands for democracy, human rights, higher living standards, less corruption and incompetence, reducing illiteracy or improving education and educational standards, Arab rulers blame America for their societies' ills and refocus popular anger against it. That enables them to demand national unity and silence reformers in the face of the supposed American "threat," and by seizing on anti-Americanism as the excuse for Arab failure, they insure that their opponents cannot blame them. Hence Egypt and Saudi Arabia have willingly accepted American weaponry and protection, yet they continue to promote anti-Americanism through their governments' policies and their state-controlled media. In the end, casting the blame for their own misfortunes on the West will not save them from the rising tide of radical Islam in their midst. That is because the histories of these countries are so intertwined and their socio-economic problems so interrelated and severe that none of them will be able to escape the consequences of those failures. "The painful truth," writes columnist Suleiman Al-Hatlan in the daily Al-Watan in Saudi Arabia, "is that the acts of violence and barbarism occurring at present are nothing but the natural consequence of generations of Muslims having been misled and force-fed speeches (filled with) hostility and hatred for others over the course of decades, which deepened the backwardness and the ignorance in the Islamic world." Despite hundreds of billions of dollars in income from oil and massive amounts of Western humanitarian aid, the Arabs have yet to create one single monument to human achievement. Rather, at different times, the Arabs have pointed the finger of blame at colonialists, multinationals, missionaries, communists, liberals, religious and/or ethnic minorities, middle classes and even poor Orientalists. But the blame rests only in themselves. To the best of my recollection, the Arab League has never once convened an Arab summit to discuss the backward state of education in the Arab world and therein lies the problem. The sad truth is that the fantasies portrayed in Arabian Nights have long since become an Arabian nightmare in large measure because (as Victor Davis Hanson writes): "The Arab world has no real consensual governments; statism and tribalism hamper market economics and ensure stagnation. Islamic fundamentalism, the absence of an independent judiciary, and a censored press all do their part to ensure endemic poverty, rampant corruption and rising resentment among an exploding population. For the Arab world, the status quo is no longer sustainable and time is not on its side. The Salafi Jihadists are gaining strength in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories and warn that an apocalyptic Armageddon between the Muslim world and the West is approaching. Whether moderate Muslim intellectuals and Western-educated Muslim technocrats will be able to bring on an Islamic Renaissance before rising radical Islam draws us all into a nuclear confrontation remains to be seen. Their success in doing so is by no means assured. Mark Silverberg is an attorney with a Masters Degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Manitoba, Canada. He has lectured extensively on subjects of counterterrorism, Jihadism, homeland security issues and intelligence matters. This appeared in the Family Security Matters (FSM) website. |
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IRAN'S NEFARIOUS PLANS FOR THE GULF
Posted by Olivier Guitta, September 29, 2008. |
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Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi recently set off a hot controversy. The influential Sunni cleric, a regular on Al-Jazeera, stated that "Shiites are heretics and their danger comes from their attempts to invade Sunni society." Interestingly enough this is far from just a religious debate, because it actually encompasses the fear that Sunni Gulf states feel regarding Shiite Iran's expansion. In the context of a very tensed geopolitical situation in the Gulf, Qaradawi warned: "We should protect Sunni society from the Shiite invasion?. I am only trying to preempt the threat before it gets worse. If we let Shiites penetrate Sunni societies, the outcome won't be praiseworthy. The presence of Shiites in Iraq and Lebanon is the best evidence of instability." This declaration is clearly aimed at Iran's threat to the region. While numerous examples of Iran's strategy of penetration of Gulf societies have surfaced in the past few years, new reports are quite worrisome. Just two weeks ago, Adel al-Assadi, the former Iranian ambassador to the UAE told Gulf News that since 1979 Iran has assembled a force of infiltrators and collaborators who are ready to destabilize the region when needed. Assadi specifically pointed out the danger represented by elements trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who are in a sleeper mode until they are activated by Tehran. Assadi also confirmed that Iran has an undercover presence in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries and has enough manpower to destabilize them. But more than these sleeper cells, one should be worried by the presence of Hezbollah operatives in the area. In fact, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah reported that hundreds of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, who received military training in Iran, have infiltrated the Gulf since January, to "militarize" the Shiite community in these countries. These include Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Their mission is to organize the destabilization of these monarchies and target vital national interests (economic and strategic) and Westerners (embassies and businesses), if the United States and/or Israel decide to conduct a military operation against Iran. Also British sources warned that European intelligence services have located at least 450 Lebanese Shiite fighters who have already visited the Gulf between January and July 2008, often using false passports. Others were able to move directly from Iraq to Kuwait and the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, which is predominantly Shiite. Lebanese immigrants in these countries allegedly confirmed the presence of these agents, and have reported them to the authorities. This information confirms the suspicions of mainly Bahrain regarding the presence of training camps on its territory, funded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. These camps are preparing young Shiite Bahrainis in guerrilla warfare in order to destabilize the small Gulf monarchy. These latest reports reinforce what many analysts have feared all along; that the Iranian regime has made no secret over what its reply to a strike against its nuclear facilities by Israel or the United States is likely to entail. First, by attacking Qatari oil facilities and using its proxy Hezbollah to perpetrate terror attacks around the world. But also, Gulf monarchies worry about guerilla operations at sea using suicide boats that could smash into ships. Backing up these fears are recent reports of beefed up activity of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in international waters. Assadi, the former Iranian ambassador, commenting about Iran's plans said: "The good news is that Arab governments and people have become more alert about Iranian plots against the region after they were exposed in Iraq." Being aware of a threat and being able to confront it are two very different realities. With its well trained Revolutionary Guards, the GCC countries would be no match for Iran. A war in the region would have dramatic human and geopolitical implications. But due to its importance in the energy sector, the economic and financial consequences on an already very shaky world economy would be devastating. Olivier Guitta, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a foreign affairs and counterterrorism consultant, is the founder of the newsletter The Croissant (www.thecroissant.com). |
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INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TRIES TO REMOVE ISRAELIS FROM PEACE PROCESS
Posted by Ralph of Politics1, Politics1, September 29, 2008. |
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This was written by Ryan Jones and it appeared today in Israel Today |
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With Israel's democratic process getting in the way of securing a final status Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, the international community has issued a statement that it hopes will take the troublesome Israeli electorate out of the equation. Responding to Arab pressure to reverse the establishment of the State of Israel, the international community hoisted the land-for-peace process on the Jewish state. But Israel's vibrant democracy has proven to be a wrench in the gears, prone to electing leaders not in tune with the international community's plans when it feels its own security and national interests are being harmed. And the 15-year-old land-for-peace process has done anything but maintain Israel's security and protect its long-term national interests. The results at the ballot box have largely stalled the peace process, and even the purported progress over the past year is likely to be erased when, as polls predict, Israelis elect a right-wing government opposed to recklessly dividing the land in the next general election. It was this trend that the Middle East Quartet comprised of the US, UN, European Union and Russia hoped to obstruct last weekend in what amounted to blatant interference in Israel's democratic process. Quartet leaders meeting in New York at the opening of the UN General Assembly insisted that it is vitally important to the very integrity of the peace process that Israelis be kept in the dark about what their leaders are offering to the Palestinians. In a statement released via the US State Department, the Quartet "noted the significance of this process and the importance of confidentiality in order to preserve its integrity." Referring in the next line to the "irreversibility of the negotiations," the Quartet also took it upon itself to determine that the current formula whereby Israel can test different offers to the Palestinians without actually committing to future concessions will no longer fly. Israel's core position since direct high-level peace talks started in 1993 has been that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. This principle underlined the ill-fated 2000 Camp David talks where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made far-reaching offers to try to entice Yasser Arafat into a peace deal, but insisted that all offers were off the table the moment the summit ended. That position was supported and even echoed by their host, former US President Bill Clinton. But the international community is starting to understand that the Palestinians will settle for nothing less than 100 percent of their demands being met. The only way to achieve that is to make all Israeli offers binding, no matter how tentative, and then stockpile those offers over a period of time until the Palestinians are satisfied. The Quartet's goal appears to be to change the rules of the game, even to the point of denying Israeli voters the ability to participate in the peace process in any meaningful way. With a public kept in the dark and an opposition unable to campaign on a platform of alternative approaches to peace because all past offers are binding, the current leadership is far more likely to remain in power. From Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Tzipi Livni, Israel's recent and current leaders all once strongly opposed the policies they now champion. But of late these leaders have been only too happy to acquiesce to the new anti-democratic rules as they seek to forge a positive legacy as "peacemakers" and win the praise of the international community. Sharon relished in this praise after he forcibly uprooted 8,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip, while his successors have conveniently ignored the fact that accolades quickly reverted to criticism as the Palestinians up the ante. If the international community succeeds in eliminating the last vestiges of electoral pressure and political accountability in Israel, then the convergence of increasing recklessness by the nation's leaders and overbearingness by Western power brokers will be complete. The Land of Israel is today on the verge of being divided, if only the Israelis could be removed from the process. |
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CAIR: NAMES WILL ALWAYS HURT YOU
Posted by Marc Samberg, September 29, 2008. |
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This was written by Steven Emerson, Executive Director
of the Investigative Project on Terrorism
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The Investigative Project on Terrorism is among those who are critical of new guidelines discouraging the use of terms like "Islamist" and "jihad" when discussing terrorism and extremism that were issued earlier this year by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center. While the agencies argue that the words may boost the popularity of terrorists among Muslim radicals, it's a bad idea to hide the motivations behind those who seek to attack the United States, or innocent people around the world. Another weakness was exposed last month, when the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) attacked California Congressman Ed Royce (R-Orange County) for using the term "Islamist terrorism." In an article posted on its website Sept. 10, CAIR engages in the kind of hyperbolic rationalization it routinely accuses others of using against it. The article describes a letter to Royce from 22 religious leaders of various faiths and community activists. The website article quotes Sharaf Mowjood, identified as CAIR-Los Angeles Government Relations Coordinator, claiming that the DHS language is meant to prevent future terrorist attacks. "So if Royce cares about preventing the next terrorist attack, maybe he should follow what the DHS says," Mowjood said. Even by CAIR's standards, Mowjood's comment is inane. Stop calling people names and they'll stop attacking you? That might work on the third-grade playground, but hurt feelings aren't driving Osama bin Laden or those attracted to his cause. When he declared war on the United States in 1998, our nomenclature wasn't mentioned. Rather, he listed a series of grievances that he saw justifying his jihad against America, including the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. He also provided religious justification for his fight: "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.'" (Emphasis added) By the same token, charters for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad draw heavily from religious texts and interpretations. And all three vow to impose Sharia — Islamic law — once they ascend to power. Somehow, it's supposed to be good policy not to discuss that in polite company. In the article, CAIR-Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush says religious motivations behind terrorist attacks shouldn't be considered. "The fact remains, we don't describe extremist Israeli settlers who target Palestinian civilians as 'Jewish terrorists' nor abortion clinic bombers as 'Christian terrorists' — and rightly so. No faith should be falsely associated with the criminal behavior of a few. Not Islam, not Judaism, not Christianity." Such a sensitive man, Hussam Ayloush. He says he doesn't describe Israeli settlers who target Palestinian civilians as "Jewish terrorists." But he does call Israelis "zionazis." In a 2002 email, Ayloush wrote, "Indeed, the zionazis are a bunch of nice people; just like their nazi brethren! It is just that the world keeps making up lies about them! It is so unfair." The bottom line is, once you think your God sanctions the murder of innocents, your terrorism is wed to your faith, no matter what it may be. So while we're on the subject, Baruch Goldstein, who slaughtered 29 Palestinians at prayer before he was killed, was a Jewish terrorist. He was a member of Meir Kahane's Kach party, which President Clinton labeled as terrorist organization in 1995. Would those sending Congressman Royce the letter disagree? Noting Royce's seat as ranking Republican on the House Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the letter suggested he should yield to the DHS guidelines. They are "more effective at isolating extremists and removing the false claim of religiosity they seek to justify their barbaric actions." Meanwhile, the folks at Anti-CAIR report that Ayloush's paranoia hunt continued this week, when he sent a letter to Irvine, Cal. City Council member Steven Choi. The letter accused Choi of slurring CAIR during a recent candidate forum in a manner "tantamount to public defamation." Choi's sin? He called CAIR a "dangerous Islamic organization." In an interview Friday afternoon, Choi said he made his remarks after researching CAIR's history and seeing a number of other public officials express concern about the group. One of the candidates for Irvine's council, Todd Gallinger, is an attorney who has represented CAIR, Choi said. That made CAIR's radicalism relevant at the forum. However, he said CAIR and others are twisting his comments to make it appear he condemned Muslims in general and not the organization. He said he has no intention of responding to CAIR's letter. If a national political organization was founded by members of a secret committee created to help a terrorist group, if their officials admit the need to lie to Americans about their true objectives, does that make them dangerous? California State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore rallied to Choi's defense with a posting of his own in which he details why CAIR's denials about a link to Hamas aren't credible. There is no dispute that CAIR's founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad participated in a secret meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee in 1993. It was called to discuss ways to "derail" the Oslo peace effort. Ahmad, now CAIR's chairman emeritus, actually called the meeting to order (page 10). And, in that meeting, Ahmad and others discuss the need to mislead Americans (page 14): Omar Ahmad: We've always demanded the 1948 territories. I mean, we demanded ... These transcripts have been in the public domain for more than a year. CAIR has yet to answer to them. Instead, its representatives like Ayloush lash out at those who have read them and use them as a basis to draw conclusions about the organization. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is documented to have duck DNA, pasting a tail and whiskers on it won't make it a cat. CAIR can call itself a "prominent Islamic civil rights organization" all it wants, it's still part of the Palestine Committee for the Muslim Brotherhood with major ties to Hamas. Contact Marc Samberg at marcsamberg@yahoo.com |
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SCHOLARS HUNT MISSING PAGES OF ANCIENT BIBLE
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 28, 2008. |
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This was written by Matti Friedman, Associated Press Writer The Crown of Aleppo illustrates the fate of Jews in the last 1000 years. Most recently: "...A turning point in its history came three days after the U.N. passed the 1947 resolution to grant Israel statehood, provoking a Syrian mob to burn down the synagogue... A wish for a strong and safe Israel in the new year.
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JERUSALEM (AP) — A quest is under way on four continents to find the missing pages of one of the world's most important holy texts, the 1,000-year-old Hebrew Bible known as the Crown of Aleppo. Crusaders held it for ransom, fire almost destroyed it and it was reputedly smuggled across Mideast borders hidden in a washing machine. But in 1958, when it finally reached Israel, 196 pages were missing — about 40 percent of the total — and for some Old Testament scholars they have become a kind of holy grail. Researchers representing the manuscript's custodian in Jerusalem now say they have leads on some of the missing pages and are nearer their goal of making the manuscript whole again. The Crown, known in English as the Aleppo Codex, may not be as famous as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But to many scholars it is even more important, because it is considered the definitive edition of the Bible for Jewry worldwide. The key to finding the pages is thought to lie with the insular diaspora of Jews originating in Aleppo, Syria, where the manuscript resided in a synagogue's iron chest for centuries. A turning point in its history came three days after the U.N. passed the 1947 resolution to grant Israel statehood, provoking a Syrian mob to burn down the synagogue. Aleppo's Jews rescued the Codex, but in the ensuing years the 10,000-strong community was uprooted and scattered around the world. Scholars believe that Aleppo Jews still hold many of the missing pages, while others have fallen into the hands of antiquities dealers. Two fragments have already surfaced: a full page in 1982, and a smaller piece last year that had been carried for decades by a Brooklyn man, Sam Sabbagh, as a good-luck charm. Persistent rumors tell of more waiting to be found. When the Codex reached Israel 50 years ago it was presented to Izhak Ben-Zvi, the country's president and a scholar of Jewish communities in the Islamic world. Although the manuscript is housed at the Israel Museum with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Ben-Zvi Institute founded by the late president remains its legal custodian and is behind the new search. Past efforts, including some by Israeli diplomats and Mossad secret service agents, came up against a wall of silence in the Aleppo community. The new search has recruited a small group of Aleppo Jews, better able to win the community's trust, and has yielded information on the whereabouts of specific pieces and on the people who are holding them, said Zvi Zameret, the Ben-Zvi Institute's director. "Only someone who believes that this manuscript is one of the foundation stones of the people of Israel, someone whose goal is not to get rich — only such a person can make progress," he said. He divulged few details lest he compromise the effort. He would say only that the search is being carried out in North, South and Central America, Israel and England, and that success appeared within reach. "If there is a possibility, as the rumors say, that there are not only small fragments but also entire sections, that is extremely exciting," said Adolfo Roitman, the Israel Museum curator in charge of the manuscript. "We're missing entire books — most of the five Books of Moses, except for a few pages, and we have no Book of Esther, no Book of Daniel." He, like most other scholars involved, has met people who know of people who supposedly have pages. But the leads invariably end with people who refuse to talk. Each page is priceless, but money wouldn't be an issue for most Aleppo Jews because anyone trafficking in such holy relics could be banished by the community, Roitman said. Some of the Crown's pages bear an inscription warning that it "may not be sold." Some people might be superstitious about the fragments they hold, or believe they are rightfully the property of Aleppo Jews, not of scholars. Others might simply have no idea of the value of what they own. The Codex, on 491 parchment pages about 12 inches by 10 inches, was transcribed sometime around 930 A.D. by Shlomo Ben Boya'a, a scribe in Tiberias on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. It was edited by a renowned scholar of the time, Aaron Ben-Asher. Its completion marked the end of a centuries-long process that created the final text of the Hebrew Bible. It belonged to a Jewish community in Jerusalem until it was seized by the Crusaders who captured and sacked the city in 1099. Ransomed, it made its way to Cairo, where it was used by the 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who declared it the most accurate copy of the Old Testament. The manuscript doesn't contain passages missing from other versions. Instead, its accuracy is a matter of details like vowel signs and single letters that would only slightly alter pronunciation. But Judaism sanctifies each tiny calligraphic flourish in the Bible as a way of ensuring that communities around the world use precisely the same version of the divine book. That's why the Codex is considered by some to be the most important Jewish text in existence, and why the missing pieces are so coveted. "The bottom line is that the whole process of putting together the text of the Bible ended with the Codex," said Rafael Zer of the Hebrew University Bible Project in Jerusalem, which is using the Codex to create what is meant to be the authoritative text of the Old Testament but can't properly complete it without the missing pages. Not enough has been done to find them, laments Hayim Tawil of New York's Yeshiva University, the author of a forthcoming book on the Crown. "For Jews and for Western civilization this manuscript is equivalent to the Magna Carta," he said. How the Codex reached Aleppo in northern Syria is unclear. Some scholars believe it was brought by a descendant of Maimonides in the late 1300s. There it was guarded as the Jews' most prized possession and talisman. But on Dec. 2, 1947, the mob burned the synagogue. In the ensuing years, Aleppo Jews would describe rushing to snatch pages from the flames. The missing ones have not been seen since, with two exceptions. One page from the Book of Chronicles survived in the New York apartment of an Aleppo woman and was handed over by her relatives in 1982. Another fragment recounting the Exodus story of the 10 plagues survived in the wallet of Sabbagh, another Aleppo exile in New York, who laminated it and kept it as a good luck charm. Last year, following Sabbagh's death, his family brought the fragment to join the rest of the manuscript in Jerusalem. One of the men who rescued pages from the synagogue was Mourad Faham, who sneaked into the building disguised as a Bedouin and found the bulk of the manuscript on the floor, according to his grandson, Jack Dweck. A decade later he strapped the manuscript under his robe and crossed the border into Turkey, Dweck said. From there it was wrapped in towels and, according to most versions of the story, bundled into a washing machine to be shipped to Israel. Dweck, a businessman who lives in New York, home to one of the biggest communities of Aleppo Jews, says he has heard the rumors among his fellow Jews and believes the missing parts exist. "My guess is that there's a bigger piece somewhere else, waiting to be found," he said. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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OBAMA USES LAW ENFORCEMENT TO SILENCE HIS CRITICS
Posted by Avodah, September 28, 2008. |
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Obama's Ministry of Truth "Brown Shirts"
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Most intelligent people would very worried about a political candidate continually trying to intimidate people from speaking their minds. So why isn't anyone worried about Senator Obama? Every time someone says/does something he doesn't like, he doesn't discuss or argue, he tries to shut them up. Look at how hard he worked to silence Governor Palin from the Iran rally this week. But that wasn't the first time. When a group called the American Issues Project launched an ad talking about the Illinois Senator's unexplained links to terrorist Bill Ayers. Senator Obama has responded with his own ad which is fine b ut that's only half the story. He sent a letter to the DOJ asking for an investigation then pressured stations not to run the ad threatening them with letters to their advertisers etc. Radio Host John Batchelor reported that Obama even hired a Richard Nixon style "Plumbers Unit" to keep the Ayers story under wraps. When the woman who survived an abortion made a commercial against the Senator's Abortion position, He attacked her PERSONALLY as a liar. And now we have the incident in Missouri where he is working with supporters in the State police to silence the NRA. When you read the story below, Just think about what he could do
Backlash to Obama officials squelching political speech. Law enforcement threats, intimidation likened to 'police-state tactics,' by Missouri governor. Following legal threats by Missouri state law-enforcement officials supporting Barack Obama against presidential campaign ads that appeared to be false or misleading, Gov. Matt Blunt today likened the intimidation to "police state tac tics." "St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign," said Blunt in a statement released today. "What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment." The statement came after the law enforcement officials pledged to form a "truth squad" to halt ads that, among other things, claimed Obama was not a Christian or that he was not planning to cut taxes on Americans other than the wealthy. "If they're not going to tell the truth, somebody's got to step up and say, 'That's not the truth. This is the truth,'" McCullogh told KMOV-TV in St. Louis. The effort appeared to be part of a move by the Obama campaign to block advertisements to which it objects. The campaign also sent "threatening" letters to several news agencies in Pennsylvania and Ohio demanding they stop airing ads exposing Obama's gun stance, according to the National Rifle Association. "This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson," said Blunt. "I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson's thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election." Blunt concluded: "Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts — not a free society." The NRA's Political Victory Fund also condemned the effort as censorship. "Barack Obama and his campaign are terrified of the truth," said Chris W. Cox, chairman of organization. "Sen. Obama's statements and support for restricting access to firearms, raising taxes on guns and ammunition and voting against the use of firearms for self-defense in the=2 0home are a matter of public record. NRA-PVF will make sure that everyone knows of Obama's abysmal record on guns and hunting." The Obama campaign declined to respond to a WND request for comment. The NRA said Obama sent "cease and desist letters" to news outlets in the two states, "denouncing the ads and demanding their removal from the airwaves." "Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in our nation's history. That's the truth," said Cox. "NRA-PVF has the facts on our side. No amount of running from or lying about his record and then intimidating news outlets in the hope of deceiving American gun owners and hunters is going to work. Those strong arm tactics may work in Chicago, but not in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and not as long as NRA-PVF has anything to say about it." The warnings were from Obama lawyer Robert Bauer, who told station managers that in order to stay in the Federal Communication commission's good graces, they should not air the ads. Josh Marquis, an Oregon prosecutor who serves as a spokesman for the NDAA, said the comments from Missouri don't sound like the McCulloch he knows. "I'm really surprised. I know Bob," Marquis told WND. The KMOV report said the Obama campaign asked members of Missouri's law enforcement to target anyone who "lies" or issues misleading television ads. Formation of the Obama "Truth Squad" was the result, the report said. McCulloch declined to return a call from WND seeking comment. The KMOV report said the campaign was being conducted by McCulloch and another prosecutor, Jennifer Joyce, along with a number of sheriffs throughout the state. "They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year. They also say they plan to respond immediately to any ads and statements that violate Missouri's ethics laws," the report said. "We want to keep this campaign focused on issues," Joyce told the station. "We don't want people to get distracted. Missourians don't want to be distracted by the divisive character attacks." The campaign was assembled to "set the record straight," they said. Officials with the Missouri Sheriff's Association declined to talk about any sheriffs who might be involved in the campaign. At the blog Gateway Pundit, the reaction was immediate. "St. Louis and Missouri Democrat sheriffs and top prosecutors are planning to go after anyone who makes false statements against Obama during his campaign. This is so one-sided I can't even [begin] to describe how wrong this agenda is," writes blogger Jim Hoft. Hoft said Joyce and McCulloch "are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out ''falsely'' against Barack Obama." Missouri blogger Doctor Bulldog commented: "Don't think they will stop with just the local radio and television stations. Oh, no. We bloggers are NEXT on the chopping block! It doesn't matter if it is the truth. It only matters if Obama deems it a lie (i.e. — something that can cause damage to his bid to be president). Basically, NO ONE is free to criticize Obama here in Missouri!!!" In the St. Louis Examiner, a commentary said, "Look, politicians are all about lies. It may be annoying (I find it entertaining)politics, it's inappropriate. They wield too much power to use it to wag their fingers at people who say un-nice things about political hopeful s. Prosecutors and sheriffs are, after all, normally thought of as people with the clout to put their targets behind bars." Marquis told WND politicians keep their right to have a political opinion and express it, but the DA's organization strives hard not to be partisan. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website — http://am-yisrael-blog.blogspot.com/ |
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FROM ISRAEL: ROSH HASHANA
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 28, 2008. |
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Tomorrow night begins the Jewish New Year: Rosh Hashana. It is time of serious contemplation, acknowledgement of our failings, and efforts for improvement — coupled with prayers to the Almighty that we may be dealt with in compassion. First, I want to wish one and all a good new year: A year of health, and joy, of financial security and peace. ~~~~~~~~~~ Additionally, I have these thoughts: Please, one and all: Pray for the well-being and the peace of Israel. This is of special significance this year. Pray as if all of our lives truly depended upon this. For they do. I observe as well that it is incumbent upon all Israel — the nation and the people collectively — to do that serious contemplation. We must understand where we have failed to be what we are meant to be as a people and a nation. We are called upon to be a light unto the nations: This is not possible without deep inner integrity. We are called upon to treasure our sacred heritage and to stand strong for what this entails. But many of us have lost the way — reciting the narrative of an enemy that seeks to destroy us, and imagining that this brings us closer to the image of G-d. Please, G-d, let the coming year be one of Tshuva — return to what we are meant to be — for the people and the nation. May the Almighty keep us safe, and bring the downfall of our enemies. ~~~~~~~~~~ Here's a start on where to improve as a nation: Avi Dichter, Internal Security Minister, who ran in the Kadima primaries, made a statement on that process last night: "...how shocking it was to see the beautiful democratic process called primaries turn into a different event than we wanted to see. "...political corruption? Under no circumstances [will I accept it]. We will uproot political criminality. We will fight corruption and corrupt individuals with all our might and with the force of the law. "The number of polling stations where voting conditions were simply scandalous was too high," he said. "In quite a few polling stations, people who hold official positions in Kadima were walking around and crudely getting involved not in how to vote, but rather, whom to vote for." Kadima is the most corrupt party Israel has ever seen. It is to the good that Dichter identified the problem. But the over-riding question is what is to be done about it. Is Livni's election going to be allowed to stand so that, corruptly selected, she becomes the prime minister if she can put together a coalition? ~~~~~~~~~~ Here's another internal matter that is enormously sensitive. Last week a small pipe bomb was placed outside the home of Professor Ze'ev Sternhell of Hebrew University, who was slightly wounded. It is being said — although I have not yet seen firm evidence on this — that it was done by the extreme right wing here. I make it clear here that I do not endorse such behavior. But the fact is that the situation is far more complicated than mainstream media reports would have you believe. For Sternhell has actually endorsed Palestinian violence against Jews, as long as they live beyond the Green Line. (With thanks to David Bedein for calling this to my attention.) Sternhell wrote in Ha'aretz on May 11, 2001: "... Many in Israel, perhaps even the majority of the voters, do not doubt the legitimacy of the armed resistance in the territories themselves. The Palestinians would be wise to concentrate their struggle against the settlements ... and strictly refrain from firing on Gilo, Nahal Oz or Sderot; it would also be smart to stop planting bombs to the west of the Green Line." And he has maintained this position since. Yet there was never any action taken against him for incitement of our enemies to kill Jews. How beleaguered then do those living beyond the Green Line feel. They must stand not only against our external enemies but also against those of our own people who have — as mentioned above — adopted the narrative of our enemy. Even in many quarters where there is no call for violence against those living in Judea and Samaria, there is an inherent and unreasonable bias against them, which makes short shrift of their rights and their dedication to our heritage. ~~~~~~~~~~ Finally. Have been waiting for this: Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has sent a letter to all government ministers clarifying the fact that the resignation of Olmert forces the resignation of all ministers. From this point until there is a new coalition formed, the ministers are part of a transition government, which is required to exercise restrain "regarding decision-making on non-routine issues requiring immediate attention during this interim period." Now let's see how this is interpreted. Wrote Mazuz: "...when such non-routine issues come up, ministers must conduct preliminary inquiries into the matter with the Attorney General's office, before reaching a decision." ~~~~~~~~~~ Last Friday was the annual "Jerusalem Day" in Iran, held every year since the 1979 revolution on the last Friday of Ramadan. A national day to demonstrate Shiite solidarity with the Palestinians (who are Sunni) and Shiite support of the goal to 'emancipate' Jerusalem from Israel, it drew thousands to Teheran to hear speakers who voiced the hope of breaking "the spirit of the Zionists." A book containing 52 caricatures of the Holocaust was on display. ~~~~~~~~~~ Good news in closing: The United States has transferred to Israel — via a convoy of 12 planes — a new,advanced high-powered X-band radar system that will enormously improve Israel's reaction time to any attempted Iranian missile strike. It is capable of tracking an object the size of a baseball from 4,700 kilometers away (which transcends my comprehension), and will allow us to engage a Shahab-3 ballistic missile six times sooner than is possible with our current radar. The radar, according to Defense News Magazine, will be linked to the US Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS), which receives and processes data transmitted by US Defense Support System satellites. So the US, while not supporting enhancement of our ability to take on Iran, is supporting an increased capacity for us to defend ourselves. The system was accompanied by a US military crew that will be stationed here permanently to lend operational support. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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HELLENISM, 5743
Posted by Herb and Miki Sunshine, September 28, 2008. |
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This was written by Rav Kahane in the Summer of 1985. |
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Midst the thunder of controversy and the cannon of debate, the real roots of the clash over Lebanon, the "occupied" lands, the "rights of the Palestinians, And this struggle is hardly a new one. We already celebrate a precisely similar one that occurred "in those days, in our time." For the struggle of our time that pits Peace Now and the overwhelming majority of liberals and Reform and Conservative leaders and intellectuals from the universities against the policies of the government of Israel is exactly the struggle of some 2500 years ago. It is, once again, the struggle of the Hellenists against the Maccabees, the war of Jews who sought to corrupt authentic Judaism with foreign, gentilized concepts against those Jewish Jews who sought to purify not only the temple but, the people from the swine of impure ideology. Let not the ignorant and the gentilized deceive us and twist the holiday of Hanukkah into something that it is not. The initial battle of the Hashmonaim was not against the Greek but against the Greco-Jew. The first person to be slain by Matityahu was not a gentile but a Jewish Hellenist who prepared to eat the flesh of the pig and to bow to a Greek idol. The Maccabees rose up against the Greeks, to be sure. But that uprising was because they understood the threat to the Jewish spirit and they understood, too, that that spirit was as much threatened — IF NOT MORE SO — by the Hellenist Jews who corrupted, polluted and twisted Judaism into a foreign, gentilized creature. Nothing has changed and one can only stand in awe at the holy spirit that permeated the sages who composed the Hannukah blessing with such preciseness and insight. ".Who performed miracles for our ancestors in those days, IN OUR TIME." What prophetic insight! "In those days, in our time." The rabbinic knowledge that, sadly, the same struggle that took place "in those days" would take place again, in the future, "in our time", in many other times! And so it has, again, today. It is merely coincidence that the same groups and individuals can be found on the same side of every major issue of controversy? Hardly. The question of the liberated lands and no retreat from them; the issue of the removal of Arabs from Israel; the subject of the bombing and destroying of our enemies; the debate over the observance of the Sabbath, intermarriage and sex between Jews and Arabs, the rights of Reform and Conservative rabbis to recognition, the missionaries, the definition of a Jew according to Halacha — are all part of the same thing. And one who does not understand that understands nothing. For the leftists and liberals and their intellectuals and artists and political functionaries are all on the one side of the fence on each and every one of these issues. Because all of the questions are rooted in one: Will the Jewish people and their state be guided by the Divine, sacred rules and view of Torah or the foreign, gentilized ones of the west? Peres and Schindler, Avneri and Brickner, the kibbutzim of Hashomer Hatzair and Anthony Lewis, Peace Now and New Agenda are the Hellenists, the gentilized Jews, of our time. It is against them that the struggle of the Jewish Jews, the Maccabees of 5743, must be directed. The issue is not Lebanon or the "West Bank." It is the soul of the Jew. It is whether the state known as Israel will be. And it is the question: WHAT Will it be? A Jewish state or a state of Jews? A state of Torah or a state of confusion? A Chosen Land of a Chosen People or a Hebrew-speaking land of (and let each Hellenist fill in the foreign nation and culture he admires). The Reform rabbi, the Conservative one, the kibbutz of the Left, the Brickners and Hertzbergs and Feins and Peres' who light their candles are all people who plunge into the mikva, the ritualarium that purifies, holding high in hand the crawling creature of impurity. As the they celebrate the victory of the Maccabees over the Hellenists "in those days", let them look, for a moment, into the mirror and see those of "in our times." The Hannukah they celebrate is one that commemorates them as the villains. Let each of the modern-day Hellenists ask himself: If Matityahu and Judah had lived today, what would they attempt to do to me. Herb Sunshine is a lawyer, qualified to practice in U.S.A. and Israel. He and his wife Miki live in Jerusalem. Contact them by email at sunshine.h@012.net.il |
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THE JEWISH CHARITY: HELPING ARABS
Posted by Seth J. Frantzman, September 27, 2008. |
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The Jewish Charity: Helping Arabs: The chancellor of the Conservative Jewish movement in the U.S recently declared that "The time has come for Israel to imagine a role in the Jewish state not only for Jews, but for non-Jews as well…Zionist theoreticians spoke mainly about Jews and I think that it is time to go beyond that in the name of a Jewish state, and create a role for minorities in the Jewish state." This has become the mantra among almost all well known Jewish charities in the world, from the JDC to the New Israel Fund. For them the most important community in is the Arabs. Leave it to Jews to create a country and then discover that the most important people in that country are a people that already have 22 other countries that they dominate. How did Jews manage to create a national movement and then decide that the most important part of that national movement is not helping the 13 million Jews in the world but making sure the 250 million Arabs and 1.3 billion Muslims feel good about themselves and have enough charity? Increasingly the Jewish charity has gone the way of all western charities: helping the other. It is no surprise that this has happaned, perhaps it is suprising it took so long. The primary concern of Jews, especially Jews living in the West, is to help the other. This idea of 'Tikkun Olam' has taken the form, especially since the Holocaust, of helping non-Jewish minorities throughout the world and making their causes a 'Jewish cause'. The rational for this obsession with 'the other' is usually the idea that 'since Jews suffered as a minority, we have a duty to help minorities.' This mass psychosis primarily affects Jews (Greeks and Armenians living in their diasporas, by contrast, are not infected with this obsession to the same degree). Causes to which Jews have attached themselves, such as the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S or the Sudanese genocide, have had nothing to do with Jews. But it was perhaps inevitable that Jewish charities would finally realize that the Jewish state, , has minorities that need Jewish emotional attention. It has been argued elsewhere that this new 'discovery' of the Arab minority in constitutes the discovery of New Jews, the creation of a Palestinian-Arab-Jew narrative. The basis of most Jewish causes has historically been about creating the idea in people's minds that some minority group is 'like the Jews.' During the Rwandan genocide the Tutsis became the 'Jews'. The Black minority in the U.S were the 'Jews' of the U.S and their discrimination was 'the same' as that suffered by Jews in (even down to the claim that 'since the blacks were slaves' they are 'like' the Jewish slaves of .) The Sudanese genocide activists suddenly discover that there are 'new Jews' in the . The narrative that creates 'Jews' throughout the world is perhaps inevitable since there are no longer any Jewish minorities to defend. The Jews of Europe have become wealthy, assimilated and European. They are now considered 'white'. When, from time to time, they suffer hate crimes they get some attention, but primarily they have become indistinguishable, so far as Jewish causes are concerned, from the rest of the Europeans. Jews used to be interested in the plight of Jews from Arab countries but these Jews no longer exist and the only thing that can be done is to read more books such as 'Last Days of Babylon' and 'The Man in the white searskin suit' and romantisize their lives. So without Jewish minorities to defend in the world and with less and less people in the world who are candidates for being 'the New Jews' it is inevitable that the Arabs of Israel would become the 'New Jews'. It is alarming the degree to which this thinking has penetrated every large Jewish charity. At the JDC headquarters in Jerusalem every other wall is festooned either with pictures of historic JDC operations, pictures of the most blond haired Ashkenazi Jews with some random Ethiopian Jew (the classic 'coexistence photo), or Arabs. The only photos that depict modern 'problems' are the ones dealing with Arabs because besides the 'coexistence' photos the others are merely historic. The message is clear. The new Operation Magic Carpet, the New Russian Jews, the new Concentration Camp survivors that must be saved are the Arabs of Israel. There are the typical photos of the Arab women in their headscarves, since one might mistake photos of Arab men for Moroccan Jews, only photos of Arab women with headscarves convey that 'I am a poor Arab victim, help me' sensation. But the photos in the JDC HQ aren't for outsiders to see, it is for local JDC workers to see and absorb. "The New Jews are the Palestinian Arab minority of , they must be saved and it is our job, as Jews, who suffered as minorities in foreign lands, to save them." New Jewish charities devoted solely to Arabs pop up everyday. This isn't about 'Jews Against Israeli Apartheid' charities or 'Not in Our Name' charities that aid Palestinian nationalism in the , this is about bonifide charities run by Jews for Arabs in . The New Israel Fund and the Children of Abraham Foundation are the best examples. But what is even more surprising is the degree to which main stream Jewish organizations, councils, agencies, synagouges and think-tanks have decided that the "most important" issue facing the Jewish people and is how to help the Israeli Arabs. It began a year ago with a trip by Jewish leaders to to visit only Arab localities such as Umm El Fahm and to address only Arab issues. While one might have expected such bias from Europeans it was shocking to see it from Jews. That was followed by studies and speeches at places such as the Hartmann institute in claiming that must find a 'place' for Arabs in its 'culture'. This is part of the new rhetoric whereby cultural space is not developed by the culture itself but where the 'majority' culture must create the culture of the minority. It is part of the new dialectic of 'dominant' and 'minority' groups where the minority is seen as so pathetic and dependent that his culture must be created by the majority, it must be studied by the majority and in the end its entire ethos and history must be created by the majority. This was already the case in where 90% of the scholarship devoted to Arabs was written by Jews and much of Palestinian history, especially the most extreme-Arab nationalist part of it, was already written by Jews. Now the message was that the Arab needed his special 'space' in society. Who must create the Arab space? Not the Arab, that would be too much to expect, after all he has already created a space for himself in 22 countries, so he does not have the strength to create space for himself in one more. So on September 20th the Jewish Theological Seminary hosted a conference entitled "Why Israeli Arab issues are so important to Israel's future as a Jewish state." The conference was due to the decision by the Gilboa Regional Council of Israel to award the Gilboa Award for Tolerance and Co-Existence to the Inter-Agency Task Force, composed of 80 Diaspora organizations, including the JTS. A foolish gentile might not understand how this came to be. He might ask how it is possible that the most important issue for the one Jewish state was how to make it more Arab when there were already 22 Arab states. But gentiles don't understand Jewish logic. So Arnold Eisen, the chancellor of JTS must explain it to them. He said on September 22nd, 2008: "The time has come for Israel to imagine a role in the Jewish state not only for Jews, but for non-Jews as well... I want a Zionism that does not depend on negation of the Diaspora, that is not messianic, that imagines a place for non-Jews in the Jewish state… Zionist theoreticians spoke mainly about Jews and I think that it is time to go beyond that in the name of a Jewish state, and create a role for minorities in the Jewish state... The more that Israeli Arabs see opportunities and see themselves integrated - not assimilated, not disappearing - in the workplace, in housing, in education, in services, the more they will be able to imagine a Jewish state that is more than just a Nakba ['disaster'] for them... We would just like to help our Israeli brothers get out of the morass." See, the main message of Judaism is not about God or Jews or anything like that. Its 'Tikkun Olam' or 'healing the world.' The main message of has nothing to do with Jews or Zionism, its about Arabs and Arab nationalism and making sure Arabs don't assimilate. Its about making sure that the existence of a Jewish state isn't a 'disaster' for them and in order to make them stop calling the existence of a Jewish state a 'disaster' that state must become Arab. Zionism shouldn't be about creating a Jewish state (which is what the term actually means) but it should be about helping diaspora Jewry become stronger. Zionism shouldn't speak about the Messiah because although this word is integral to Jewish tradition it should be thrown out because it implies that Jews might actually live in the of and that can't make any sense once Zionism is about the Diaspora and is an Arab state. Zionism, in fact, needs to be about making an Arab Nationalist state, or at least a state modeled on , where all the communities are recognized, integrated and coexist. One wonders what level of education a person must have in order to come up with such a complicated logic that reverses everything in it so that the opposite of what should be becomes the norm. We see this in other western narratives where 'peace' has become Nazism and 'justice' has become genocide but one might have expected at least a modicum of logic from the JTS. It is, after all, 'conservative' Judaism. But conservative can also mean liberal. Anything is possible (the more so now that the U.S Treasury Department in the U.S is on a drunken binge to buy every failing company in sight). So the main message of Zionism is Arabism. The most important issue for is Arabs. The most important issue for Arabs is Arabs. Everything is in line. But perhaps Mr. Eisen is just confused. He said in the same speech, after describing his 'Zionism' as being a form of Arab Nationalism that: "I remember in the early days of the conflict my cousin in Afula had her car stoned on her way to work. And I was living in Palo Alto [in California] and no one was stoning my car. I was in a better position to imagine a scenario where Arabs and Jews can live peacefully together." Perhaps he was driving in a different California, perhaps one in space, than everyone else. He couldn't have avoided the fact that in 1992 there were the Los Angelos riots. And what year was there also the First Intifada? 1992. Hmmm. Perhaps Mr. Eisen neglected to notice that a few car windows were also smashed in those riots. So perhaps its time he take his head out of the sand and realize that in his own backyard is a big festering racial problem. How come Jews are the only ones who see the main message of their national movement being to help the other, so that 13 million Jewish people must help 250 million, lest those 250 million and their 22 countries and their religion that has 1.3 billion adherents lose hope and suffer from an inferiority complex. How come the 'most important issue facing Saudi Arabia' isn't its 2 million foreign workers and the 'most important issue facing Egyptian Nationalism' isn't how to empower the Copts and the most important virtue of Islam isn't 'helping the world'? But there are Jews who don't follow the line of reasoning of Eisen. They are called Orthodox which seems a better word for 'conservative Judaism' than conservative Judaism. Because Conservative Judaism today is really Arab Nationalism, sort of like European secularism is really Islam. What a wonderful world. Contact Seth J. Frantzman at sfrantzman@hotmail.com and visit his website: http://journalterraincognita.blogspot.com This article appeared on his website. |
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THE STATE DEPARTMENT OPPOSES ISRAEL'S LEGAL RIGHT TO JUDEA AND SAMARIA; PAY ARABS, NOT JEWS, TO LEAVE
Posted by Ted Belman, September 27, 2008. |
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(1:) The State Department Opposes Israel'S Legal Right To Judea And Samaria Including Jerusalem On the one hand the US has always said that all issues must be solved with negotiations but on the other hand kept confining the limits within which negotiations must proceed. Here's the latest articulation. American Consul Wallace: 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations — no "surprise" proposals from Bush Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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THE GREAT BETRAYAL; THE INDIGENOUS PALESTINIAN VOLK
Posted by Seth J. Frantzman, September 27, 2008. |
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1) The Great Betrayal: With the latest disclosure that Islamic law is being officially enforced by several lower courts in England through the permission for Shariah courts to rule on civil matters from divorce to domestic violence one must question the true history of secularism as it will be written years from now. Those who believe in the secular democratic society have often posited that it is the final form of history, sort of like Communists once believed about their system. But the weakness of the secular system has been revealed, it serves as the backdoor for Islam and every nation in the world afflicted by secularism is slowly going the way of Islam. So what was secularism and why did it fail? 2) The Indigenous Palestinian Volk: The latest fad among those who critique Israel in academia, Israeli, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, is to describe the Palestinian Arab Muslims as the 'indigenous' people of Israel. This is partly explained by the leftist-liberal need for every society to have an 'indigenous' and 'minority' that needs 'justice'. But what is most surprising in Israel is the way in which this academic nonsense reinforces Palestinian nationalism, created a 'blood and soil' mentality among the Palestinians and giving it scholarly pretensions. |
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"The Great Betrayal"
History is seen as a series of turning points. Great events and great changes in history are often traced to relatively minor symbolic actions and events. When the Times of London reported on September 15th, 2008 that "Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases," this was one such minor and symbolic event that symbolizes great changes in the world. The article notes that "The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court. Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims. It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network's headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh." One could see this as merely a practical attempt by the English legal system to come to grips with the fact that 10% of their country no longer recognizes the power of the courts in terms of civil jurisdiction. One could see this as merely being an example of the further Islamization of England. One could see it as evidence that England is no longer a western country but rather a Islamic-Western society. But history will show that in fact this first inroad of the Islamic legal system inot a hiterhto secualr egal system in Europe represented the turning point and the death of secularism. Secularism will be seen by history as a brief extremist experiement by man to rid himself of all those things that attach him to nature, his fellow man and history. We have been coddled and cradled in the secular ideology in our lives to the extent that we do not know that another system is possible. But our short time is but a blip in human history and our legal system and experiment will be seen as a radical departure form human affairs. Secularism always had within it the very seeds of its own destruction. These should have been readily apparent with the collapse of the European democracies and their enslavement to Nazism and Communism. But in fact since Nazism and Communism were both representations of radical secularism it was not immediately apparent that it was secularism that was to blame for this. In fact the rise of Nazism was a precursor to the decline in European bith rates and the end of faith on the European continent. Whereas most Europeans had families, got married and went to church before 1933, after 1945 such things, increasngly among the lower classes, were seen relics of the past. The linear thinking championed by Communism and by Capitalists such as Francis Fukuyama encouraged people to believe that both systems were an end result of human history and that together, one or the other, would herald a final secular age. This view, that human history was inevitably marching towards a secular-democratic society was further embraced by the Neo-conservative movement, a hodge-podge of Leftists and Rightists who saw in the spreading of the dogma of democracy and free markets the future of the world. But rude awakenings were in store for democracy in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon and Egypt where it became apparent that democracy either resulted in the triumph of radicla religious dicatorship or that it would result in it if not for the intervention of the semi-secular thuggish state. But the true genious of secularism, once it overcomes its tendancy towards ethnic-nationalism (Nazism) or extreme socialist experimentation (Communism), is that it tends towards the suicide of mankind. Nations freed from Communism or that become increasingly secular have extreme declines in birth rates. This is evident in recent stories from Chili and Hungary, not to mention other Western European countries. In these places the birthrate doesn't merely drop to a point hwere society reproduced itself but actually drops to a point where for every two people in society only 1 is being born, meaning the decline in the population of a country by half over a few generations. This tendancy towards suicide is part of the secular ethos for man is convinced by secularism that he no longer needs to reproduce because he sees nothing to pass on. If one is secular and has no faith and has no values and no tradition or heritage what is there to pass on to the children. The family name? But that is meaningless for the name only counts so long as it too is wrapped up in some sort of history and heritage. So what does one pass one? Nothing. One secularism conquers the soul of man he becomes the blank slate. Secularism encourages man to live for the now, to practice 'Carpe Diem' or 'sieze the day' in which man does whatever he pleases when he pleases. This mentality, this arrogance of being, is perfectly fine for the here and now but it does not guarantee the passing on of this tradition. Thus a truly secular society can only exist for a few generations in a vacume before it simply disappears because there are no more children. But even with society cutting itself in half every few generations in terms of population this would still allow the secular society to hang on for a hundreds of years, growing increasingly smaller. In some ways this was the fate of the late Roman Empire, a thing that hung on for years and years after it rightfully should have died. But secularism is not like one of those old trees that is the last of its kind in some forest because secularism does not exist in a vacume. Secular democracy also has another side to it. In its love for non-belief and its ever increasing attempt to whipe out the past through self-hatred and critique it increasngly comes to love what it calls 'the other'. It creates a myth about the 'other', a thing that represents all the other people in the world, wahtever is not found traditionally in the host society. It then imports the other and creates what it calls 'diversity' and 'multi-culturalism'. When the culture of the 'other' is in direct opposition to the modern secular society then secularism creates what is called 'moral relativism' in order to understand and appreciate the differences. But the central theme of secularism, after it has overcome those earlier extreme forms of itself, is accomidation. Secular-liberalism loves to accomidate because it hates itself and hates any heritage of itself that remains and so it comes to love whatever is not secular. This interesting trasnformation whereby a country goes from being religious and traditional to being secular and then embracing whatever religion and tradition can be borrowed from other existing cultures that have not been secularized is fascinating. This is accomplished through the same blank slate that secularism produces. Since modern liberal secular man has no love for himself and has no deep affection for seculairsm since his never-ending critique and hatred of his own society brings him to loathe even that tradition he has invented, secularism, he actually comes to embrace those things that formerly dictated his society, except he embraces them not by returning to his own sources but by loving the sources of the other. A blank slate can be written on by anything and the blank slate that is the secular man and woman is immediately written on by whatever tradition comes along. Like a dumb beast or dog that embraces whatever human feeds it the secular man wanders aimlessly until something comes along to place a leash on it and take it home. One can see this phenomenon when they watch western women marry men from any non-wester culture and watch how quickly they enslave themselves to that culture, being apraded around on leashes in the form of headscarves or chadors or whatever cultural clothing the new culture offer them as a prison. Secularism creates such debased and self hating people, so degraded and lacking in humanity, that they readily sell themselves into slavery if given the opportunity. One must look no further than the former Soviety communist countries to see this phenomenon, radicla secularism leads to an entire generation of women selling themselves into sexual slavery around the world. There are few women left in countries such as the Ukraine or Moldova, between the ages of 13 and 33. They are all buried in shallow graves on the Arabian peninsula, the Sinai, or servicing 13 men a day in brothels from Japan to Lisbon. Secularism at its best: as a supplier of prostitutes and flesh to the world. The men left behind give themselves over to the drink and drown themselves in Vodka for they bare witness to an entire society without women. It is the opposite in Australia where there is a derth of men, who have all gone off to work in the Gulf Arab states and elsewhere. Some towns have ten times the number of women as men. Needless to say they have low birth rates, their men don't even want them. Such is the fate of a secular society: women without men. In the wealthy secular countries in Western Europe things are done slightly differently. The great wealth allows for a certain non-chalance. Technology and systems provide ever easier modes of living and man deludes himself that this technology is a success story. But just as it says in Isaiah 44:15 where the prophet speaks of a pagan wood carver who cuts down trees; "Part of it he burns in the fire...of the rest he makes a god-his own carving! He bows down to it, worships it, he prays to it and cries 'save me, for you are my god! They have no wit or judgement." Secualr man does the same. He rases up his secular institutions and his technology and then he says 'I am finished' and he relaxes and says to all the things he has created 'save me' because he believes that they, his gods, can save him. But a secular institution cannot save a man and neither can a blow dryer. A system of government that has no vibrancy, no decency and no human qualities, no tradition, no love of itself cannot save secular man. An academic system that worships critique and worships any person who can come along and pronounce the most extreme indictment of history and can change history and twist it to his own needs offers no protection. Critique is as much a false god as the rest of secular culture. But we bathe in it and wax poetic about how 'democracy is the least terrible of all the bad forms of government.' But when secular man believes this, when he truly hates his democracy but at the same time makes some qualification such as 'it's the lesser of the evils' how can he robustly defend it against those who say "I hate democracy and love dicatorship." One mans 'lesser of two evils' is not stronger than another mans love. One mans hatred of something is much strong than another man's 'lesser of two evils' approach. When two men meet and one man will only eat vegan food and the other eats everything and they must share a meal together everyday how often will they eat meat? When one comes to a fork in a road and there are two men and one man lies all the time and the other man lies every other day who is one more likely to ask for directions? Secular man says "I will ask the man who lies every other day because sometimes he will give me the correct answer." But intelligent man will say "I will ask the liar for he will always provide the wrong answer and I can do the opposite." The fanatic too is smart enough to discern the answer from this question. He too will ask the liar. The liar and the extremist vegetarian and the man of conviction always triumphs over the half hearted man. France lost the Second World War not merely because of its military shortcomings but primarily because it had lost the Will to fight. When one cannot will something to happen he ceasess his ability to make it happen and he relies instead on the man who lies every other day. But life in society cannot be based on getting it right every other day. Because then you have to put back everyday what you did wrong the last day and society no longer accomplishes anything. This is what secularism has become. A band aid society of non-accomplishment full of people who have non-occupations, full of women and men who no longer want children, without faith and heritage and religion and decency and morality and humanity. So in 2003 when the BBC ran a special with Aina Khan, a woman born in Pakistan "with a strong commitment to women's rights" it was no surprise that the BBC then presented a history women's rights where Islam was the only religion to ever grant rights to women. "Sharia (Islamic) law states that after marriage, a woman keeps the money and property she owns. This was a startling concept when Islam introduced it 1400 years ago — until the 19th century, women could not even own property in the UK!" In addition "In Islam, a woman's consent has to be obtained for marriage.... This was a truly liberating right, as it was given at a time when families arranged marriages to align power and fortunes.... English law can be extremely accommodating of Sharia law rights. With the growth in numbers of practicing Muslims in the UK, and more women increasingly proud of their Islamic legal rights, there is an increasing need for UK lawyers who recognize the work that can be done to ensure equality and justice under English law." Unbeknownst to us, Islam, according to the BBC and its 'women's rights attorney,' is actually the legal system which guarantees women the most rights. The Soviet constitution under Stalin also guaranteed people the right to a fair trial. So, why not, anything is possible. Lest people be taken in by the lies of the BBC one should point out that Ms. Khan's claim that "it is a husband's primary duty to financially maintain his wife and children [and to provide an amount] intended to give the wife enough to survive on in the event of divorce or widowhood." In truth Muslim women obtain in Muslim divorce, which only a man can initiate at any time by saying "I divorce thee" three times, only three months worth of maintenance. But no matter, the BBC became a champion of Islamic Shariah law in 2003. In February of 2008 the Archbishop of Canterbury became the next institutional figure to support the imposition of Shariah law in England when he declared that it was "inevitable." In July of 2008 the head of the English Judiciary, chief justice Lord Phillips declared that he too supported the use of Shariah law to settle family and financial matters. But whereas the media and the church may make prognostications it is in the law that changes truly manifest themselves, especially in a usually law abiding Anglo-Saxon society such as the U.K. The revelation that through a loophole in the Arbitration Act of 1996, which allows for arbitration tribunal rulings to be binding in law provided both parties consent to the power of the arbitrator, Shariah courts are able to rule on things from domestic violence to divorce and inheritance. According to the Times the result has been that "in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons. The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts. In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment." So Britian is now a country under Islamic law where a man may beat his wife, rape children, murder women for violating 'family honour' and do all the other things Muslim men do in their own Muslim countries. It is now a country where when a woman is raped if she cannot produce four witnesses to the rape she is considered to have committed 'adultery' if she is married. It is now a country where a woman's testimony in court, along with a non-Muslims, ir worth half that of a Muslim. Beyond the fact that this has shown the true nature of secular liberalism and that it is a turning point in the destruction of western civilization, we must see it as both a call to action and a new border in our world. England is no longer part of our narrative or our dialectic. It should be seen as a collaborator with Islamism, as terrble a collaborator as Vichy France or any of those puppet states of Nazism. It should be considered as if it had enacted Nazi law and it should be duly boycotted. There can be no tolerance for a nation that enacts Islamic law or that tolerates the beating of women in its legal system. England should be considered to be part of the Islamic world, no different than Iran or Egypt, for in truth its legal system now no longer is. The promise of secularism represents a great betrayel for it cannot deliver what it promised mankind. It said to us "be secular, separate church and state, give up religion, give up tradition and heritage and history and faith and famiyl values, and you will be free of the chains of the church and of government and of repressive traditions." But then Secularism betrays us. It comes to us like a thief in the night and it brings back tradition and church and tyranny but it says "oh, now its romanitc and exotic and it's the other and its tolerant-multicultural-diversity." It changes God to Allah and it says "now you should love religion and heritage and culture and values and all those things you once loved, except not it will be called by different names." But we have a right to say no. We have a right to say no to secularism just as we said no to it when it brough us Nazism and Communism. We have a right to stand against it with the same extremism that we displayed towards Nazism and Communism. Does secularism think it has defeated us completely and turned us into sheep. Has it truly enslaved us? Or do we have enough strength left to oppose it and all the things it has let creep through the gate the way Moses opposed the Egyptian? After all when Moses murdered the Egyptian and buried him in the sand it was an act of a slave, but also of a man who had a free mind. Secularism has enslaved us but our minds are free and they are free enough to see this charade of lies that has allowed this most hallowed of legal systems, the English Common Law, to be perverted by Islamic Law. Edward Gibbon said that had Islam won at the battle of Tours that "today it would be taught in the halls of Oxford." That was in 1776, before the era of secularism. But today Islam is taught in the halls of Oxford and a minaret now exists on the campus funded by Saudi Arabia. The call to prayer now issues forth from Oxford. So shall we stand, like a "wall of ice" against it as Charles 'the hammer' Martel stood aganst Islam? Or shall we follow secularism to its early grave, the grave it deserves so much, placing our heads to the stone to be lopped off the way Gandhi instructed to the Jews to do before Hitler?
"The Indigenous Palestinian Volk"
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day and a week before Israel marked its 60th Independence Day, a group of over 100 British Jews including well-known academics, writers, actors and other public figures declared in an open letter printed in the Guardian on April 30th, 2008 that 'We're not celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary'. One might not have expected them to since they are citizens of England but what was most striking was the language used in the letter. One line described the "expulsion of the indigenous [Arab] population." The description of Palestinians as 'indigenous' to Israel has gained a great deal of exposure recently and has become an accepted description of them in Israeli academia and elsewhere. However this terminology and its rise is disturbing for the insinuation that comes with it. In a very interesting article published in INDIGO, magazine of Netherlands Centre for Indigenous Peoples, Jan./Febr. 2000, Eric Krebbers notes in 'The New Right, ecology, pagans and indigenous people' that the right wing in Europe has embraced the concept of 'indigenous' people out of realization that as the indigenous people of Europe this gives them a way to excuse their dislike of foreigners. He wonders how "indigenous peoples themselves look upon the New Rightist embrace?" He notes that in 1998 the American Indian movement leader Russel Means accepted an invitation to speak at a colloquium organized by the Vlaams Blok, a right wing party in Belgium. But the embrace of the concept of the indigenous by the extreme right is not new. It has its origins in the 'Blud und Boden' (blood and soil) thinking and German nationalism that tied the German 'Volk' (nation) to the German land and saw the two as inseparable. Krebbers notes that the "scapegoat for the environmental pollution and the feelings of alienation and uprootedness was the 'homeless Jew'. 'The Germans', according to historian Ludy Dawidowicz, 'were in search of a mysterious wholeness that would restore them to primeval happiness, destroying the hostile milieu of urban industrial civilization.' " According to an article by Robert Moeller in the Journal of Modern History in 2002 after the Second World War Theodor Schieder, a German academic, accepted a chair in modern history at the University of Cologne and "bemoaned the destruction and expulsion of the indigenous German population." The concept of Palestinian being indigenous to the entire lands of Israel and the Palestinian territories is not merely a Palestinian claim, it is increasingly a Jewish one as well. In Sandra Sufian's book Healing the land and the Nation: Malaria and the Zionist Project published in 2007 she discusses the "contested questions of social organization and the effects of land reclamation upon the indigenous Palestinian population." For her this is the accepted term for the Palestinian people and their relationship to the land. The decision to apply the 'indigenous' label to the Palestinians has been in the works since the 1960s when scholars began to present colonial struggles as being between 'indigenous' people and colonial governments, with the former being especially pure and attached to the land and the latter being an interloper. In many places this terminology of the 'indigenous' dealt with marginal peoples who had been pushed aside by waves of European immigrants, such as the Native-Americans or the Aborigines in Australia. But the term 'indigenous' was applied less to states where the indigenous people formed a large percentage of the country. The decision to create an 'indigenous' Palestinian people is directly related to the decision in the 1980s to see the Israel-Palestinian struggle in a colonial light and the decision in the 1990s to see it in light of 'Apartheid'. In an article published in 2004, 'Land settlement in the Negev in international perspective', on the Negev Bedouin professor Alexander Kedar of Haifa University described the Bedouin as the 'indigenous' people of the Negev. In another article in 2005 published with Geremy Forman, who is ironically at Haifa University's Land of Israel Studies, they described the ' Colonialism, Colonization and Land Law in Mandate Palestine' and how the Mandate had 'extinguished indigenous rights' and supported 'Jewish colonization.' Jane Kramer asserted in an article entitled "The Petition," which appeared in the April 2008 issue of The New Yorker, that Israeli archeology ignores the 1,400 years of "Indigenous" Arab life in the Holy Land. The Jewish authors of the 'We're not celebrating' letter are all emphatic that the Palestinians are the only people who can be indigenous to the land of Israel/Palestine. Prof. Haim Bresheeth notes that "Palestinians are NOT indigenous to Israel, but to Palestine." Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead notes that indigenous means those who are "born or produced naturally in a land or region; native to (the soil, region etc)... Clearly the Palestinians who suffered the Nakba and all the years since did have that symbiotic relationship with the territory." Prof. Moshe Machover points to evidence of the Palestinians indigenousness the fact that Zeev Jabotinsky described them as "natives" in 'The Iron Wall' (O Zheleznoi Stene), published in 1923. But when Machover, Rosenhead and Bresheeth are asked about where they are indigenous to, having signed a letter declaring the Palestinians as the indigenous people of the Israel, they have no answer. For Bresheeth the Jews are "indigenous to Manhattan or some place nearby." But this is merely a way of saying the Jews are not indigenous to anything because as everyone knows the indigenous people of Manhatten were the Delaware Indians. Where do people come up with the romantic notion of 'indigenous' people? The concept has changed greatly over time. In the beginning it was associated with 'noble savages' or the 'original' people but today it has morphed into a political concept of people who are not only pure but also have a unique attachment to the land and thus have an inalienable right to it. Their being 'indigenous' is not so much a reflection of their actual history but of the perceived belief that they are the proper and only legitimate inhabitants of the land. The theory is most interesting because it is predicated, in Israel, on the belief that Jews cannot be indigenous to any land, because most scholars would never describe Jews as 'indigenous' to Israel, and one certainly wouldn't describe them as indigenous to anywhere else. Thus the idea of the 'wandering Jew' is encapsulated in the theory of indigenous people because Jews, of all the people in the world, are the only ones who are not 'indigenous' to anything, if one follows the modern logic of what is 'indigenous'. Professors shrug off the term as meaningless. Sufian notes that "I use the term indigenous in the book to refer to those populations that were born and lived in the land of Palestine (i.e. the Arab population and those Jews born in Palestine), not those that immigrated (the majority of Jews belonging to the Zionist movement). This is the distinction that most scholars that I know of who work on Israel/Palestine make." But when one considers the history of the way 'indigenous' has been used as a synonym for 'rightful owners' and thus as an excuse, in Nazi Germany, for the gassing of the 'foreign' Jews one should be shocked to see how Jewish academics have created an indigenous people for Israel, and made sure that those people are not Jews. Thus the Jews who lived in Safed or Jerusalem for hundreds of years are not considered as having been indigenous, but Muslim Bedouin tribes that immigrated into Palestine in the 19th and early 20th century are considered 'indigenous'. In the essay by Gorman and Kedar they even discuss the area around Ceaseria, a town that was refounded in 1878 when Sultan Abdul Hamid settled Bosnian refugees in it. For Gorman and Kedar these Bosnians who arrived in 1878 are 'Palestinians' and thus the 'indigenous' people of Israel. In a recent press conference by B'Tselem and Hamoked Center for the Individual showcased a report entitled 'Seperated entities-Israel divides Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip' The human rights groups describe how Israel is "infringing their [Palestinian] rights and impeding the possibility that the Palestinian people will realize their right to self-determination." Thus Israel is preventing the rise of a nation, a volk, an indigenous volk which is bonded by blood to the soil. At the same time the Israeli organization Zochrot wroks to encourage Palestinians to visit their former villages in Israel and encourage the memory of this 'indigenous' nation. Zochrot is funded by the Mennonite church and their work is supported by the Quaker's American Friends Service Committee while, according to NGO Monitor, B'Tselem is funded by the Ford Foundation, whose founder Henry Ford, was the author of the 'International Jew', an anti-Semitic tractate. HaMoked is funded by the European Commission. There is something strange about the fact that Europeans help fund those who claim the Jews are not indigenous to Israel. There is something even more frightening when that funding comes from the likes of the Ford foundation and the Quakers, a movement whose leader William Penn helped found Pennsylvania on the lands of Native-Americans. The creation of the myth of Palestinian indigenousness is part of a larger motif to create a myth of the wandering Jew. The myth is aided and abetted by Palestinian nationalism and various journals who publish academic work that purport to be about scholarship but in fact are interwoven with a deep and libelous assertion. Furthermore the creation of an 'indigenous' Palestinian people is supported by funding from Europeans and the descendants of Hendy Ford, those very places and people who denied that the Jews were indigenous in the 1930s and described Jews as 'international'. Thus the three components work together; Palestinian nationalism, academics in search of a false indigenous people to romanticize and Europeans, Christians and anti-Semites who see Jews as a foreign element in the world. Contact Seth J. Frantzman at sfrantzman@hotmail.com and visit his website: http://journalterraincognita.blogspot.com This article appeared on his website. |
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EX-MUSLIM REVEALS SECRET GOAL OF ISLAM
Posted by Marc Samberg, September 27, 2008. |
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This was written by Bob Unruh and it appeared
September 23, 2008 in World Net Daily
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Cites behavior of 'moderate,' 'peaceful' members of faith An Egyptian who fled Islam and now lives under that religion's sentence of death says the goal of global jihad simply is the takeover of the world. The man, who now is a pastor in the U.S. and uses the pseudonym Muhammad Kemel, recently was interviewed by Joel Richardson, co-editor of "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out." 
Kemel said Islamic tradition teaches that those who leave Islam should be killed, and Muhammad taught, "Whoever leaves his religion (Islam) kill him." And while the U.S. is not governed by Islam's Shariah religious law, many fundamentalist Muslims do not see Shariah as being limited by national boundaries. Kemel said the truth is that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were the actions of those who were following the Quran closely. "Sadly, I heard some of our American leaders and church pastors state that Islam is a peaceful religion, and what happened on 9/11 was done by fanatic Muslims," Kemel said. "These individuals ignore the fact that the main goal of Islam is to rule the world." He said such instructions are clear in the Quran and Islam's hadiths, or sayings that have been handed down from generation to generation. An Egyptian who fled Islam and now lives under that religion's sentence of death says the goal of global jihad simply is the takeover of the world. The man, who now is a pastor in the U.S. and uses the pseudonym Muhammad Kemel, recently was interviewed by Joel Richardson, co-editor of Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out. Kemel said Islamic tradition teaches that those who leave Islam should be killed, and Muhammad taught, "Whoever leaves his religion (Islam) kill him." And while the U.S. is not governed by Islam's Shariah religious law, many fundamentalist Muslims do not see Shariah as being limited by national boundaries. Kemel said the truth is that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were the actions of those who were following the Quran closely. "Sadly, I heard some of our American leaders and church pastors state that Islam is a peaceful religion, and what happened on 9/11 was done by fanatic Muslims," Kemel said. "These individuals ignore the fact that the main goal of Islam is to rule the world." He said such instructions are clear in the Quran and Islam's hadiths, or sayings that have been handed down from generation to generation. "Muslims all over the world are working hard to achieve [the] goal of submission of the entire world to Islam. They are particularly committed to the indoctrination of youth in madrassas, special Islamic schools, particularly in Pakistan and Indonesia," Kemel said. He said the goal is to have at least 40 million Muslim youths who have memorized the entire Quran. He said the "average peaceful Muslim and moderate western Muslim" are that way "because they have not studied the Quran." "If a Muslim begins to study the Quran, understands the true religion of Islam, and what true Islam requires a true Muslim to do, he will either reject Islam or he will become a Muslim committed to violence," Kemel said. Those who hijacked airplanes on 9/11 and killed thousands "are not extremists from a Quranic viewpoint; only a Western viewpoint," he said. Kemel told Richardson he was born into a prominent Muslim family in Egypt and considered himself dedicated to Islam. He said he discovered his own faith in Jesus Christ simply through reading the Bible. Immediately, he was arrested and held for eight months in solitary confinement in jail. "I was given no bed to sleep on. I slept on the rough cement floor with no cover, no blanket, even through the winter. I was not even supplied with the basic necessities other prisoners were given. ... Soldiers came to the cell door and threatened me with death if I would not renounce my belief in Jesus Christ. The secret police warned my family, who eventually learned that I was in prison, not to help me," he told Richardson. Eventually, he was able to flee Egypt for the U.S., where he's serving a Christian church. Kemel said he senses a massive conflict developing between hard-line Islam and the rest of the world. "It was reported by very trusted missionary sources in Algeria that 170,000 Muslims had the same dream of Jesus and many of them became Christians. ... Thanks to God, sincere Muslims are rebuking the spiritual forces of darkness that are holding them captive, and that held me captive," he said. "In addition, never witnessed in the past, many Muslim converts, despite the threats on their lives, are sharing their testimonies publicly through the media, through books such as 'Why We Left Islam,' YouTube and television. These are among the reasons why millions of Muslims are coming to know the Lord from many Islamic countries and nations." Kemel also said on the leading edge of the Islamic aggression are individuals such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who speaks frequently about the Imam Al-Mahdi, Islam's coming messiah figure. "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying to use this Islamic theology to brainwash Iranian youth, to transform them into jihadists, those willing to kill in the name of Islam. By killing and creating chaos in the world, Ahmadinejad and others that hold this viewpoint believe that the coming of Imam Al-Mahdi can be hastened," Kemel said. "There is a fierce war that is raging between Islam and Christianity in the spiritual realm and this conflict has become more and more evident on the earth," Kemel said. "I believe we will see a dramatic clash between Islam and most of the world sometime in the future, but that the power of Islam will ultimately fail. Jesus Christ and his church will be victorious." Richardson joined fellow Islamic expert Susan Crimp to create "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out." It includes gripping personal accounts of men and women who risked
their lives by abandoning the Quran and talking about it at the risk
of their own lives.
Contact Marc Samberg at marcsamberg@yahoo.com
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CZECHS AND ISRAELIS
Posted by Jaroslav Formanek, September 27, 2008. |
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[This is the letter he wrote the Staff of Think-Israel.] |
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Dear friends, you are doing a nice job, devoid of PC. I would be interested to come in touch with your people with scholarly or cultural background in Izrael or Izraelis around here in Middle Europe. I studied indology in India and Germany — Sanskrit and Tamil. I am right now reading the 2 books by Andrew G. Bostom. I love his kind of people — always ready to educate themselves fully in some new subject. I am interested in your scholarship taking in account that it is not restricted to the universities only. I repair a little castle 55 km south of Prague. It should become a cultural centre. Think of it. We could project our ideas in a place that is not restricted to a simple study curriculum. Do the Izraelis publish lot of books in English? Other languages? How is Yiddish doing? We might involve them. I studied various other languages — I read also in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Norwegian/Danish. I focus now on Turkish and Persian — a nice contrast to the indian couple Sanskrit/Tamil. Of course I am jealous of all the Izraelis with various backgrounds from those countries. Maybe we might think of some smart combination of our interests, using our two "little" countries as starting point for much larger areas. Educating ourselves, educating the others. The educated Czechs are quite fond of Izrael, you know it probably. There is even some saying by Izraelis "the Czechs can understand us". We humiliate also the others with our sense of humor. It is realy too bad. But how to give up our "humor is a faith and way of life" belief? We cannot. Once you tasted what is humor...and every bit of scholarship improves this taste indefinitely...you find many many meanings in every peace of crap, few words etc. It makes you extremely free. If you have some good ideas, contact me. Greetings from
Jaroslav Formanek lives in Czechoslovakia. Contact him at rabelais@email.cz |
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BANANA REPUBLICS AND ISRAEL
Posted by Walter Bingham, September 28, 2008. |
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Talking about 'Banana Republics' or third world countries usually implies nations that are governed by a dictator or at best a group of people who took power after a coup and have no intention to hold democratic elections, whatever the mood of their nation. Dressed in expensive suits, they take part in international conferences, paying lip service to humanitarian aims and objects and then return home having had a good time and reverting to their nepotistic and selfish ways, living in well protected splendour, while their population is mostly poor. Social welfare is practically non existent. Generally well over 90% of the country's wealth is held by a very small percentage of its people. Many such countries are rich in mineral or oil deposits, and the proceeds of sales end up in foreign bank accounts of its leaders or government officials. In some countries these riches are fought over by rival war lords who are able to buy their weapons from the so-called civilised world. Business is business and so-long as the products end up in the 'rich' countries the world feels no urgency to step in to protect the welfare of their exploited population, who even by the standard of such countries live well below the poverty line. Are there any parallels with today's Israel? Well, although Israel's economy is said to be booming, most of her population are dissatisfied with the policies pursued by the government in every field; economic, social and political. In the economic sector it is unemployment that is a major concern. It still stands at about 8.5%, higher than that of the Central African Republic, Bolivia, Morocco, Sri Lanka to mention just a few, which is surprising for technologically advanced Israel. The blight is concentrated in the less skilled and unskilled sectors, affecting to a large extend the Orthodox religious community. According to the CIA World factbook, there is a steep annual rise since 2001 of people in Israel living below the poverty line reaching 21.6% in 2005; higher than Bulgaria Turkey, Egypt, and even Syria. YNET reported that one study comparing inequality between households finds that it stems from the fact that since the mid-1970s Israel's richest 10 percent increased their share of the economic pie at the expense of the bottom 90%. The main factors that contribute to growing inequality are economic forces that work against low-income families and in favour of high earners. Not a significant improvement on the conditions of the poor in third world countries. The field of social welfare in Israel leaves much to be desired. Although there is a health service, the care of the elderly is not what it ought to be in a Jewish country. The daily paper Haaretz states that there are nearly 400,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel, the largest population of survivors anywhere. Their medical and financial needs are growing, as even the youngest of them are now well over 65 and a growing number, almost one-third of these elderly survivors, some in their 90's, are also struggling economically. The most recent report on the subject, a 2005 survey conducted by the Fund for the Welfare of Holocaust Survivors in Israel found that more than 40% of Israel's survivors live below the poverty line. The fact that so many are so poor and have to chose on a daily basis between food or medicine is totally unacceptable. Not a significant improvement on the conditions of the old people in third world countries. A growing number of Israel's Holocaust survivors are seeking professional psychological counselling and support services, according to data released by Amcha, the national centre for psychosocial support of survivors of the Holocaust and the second generation. The political direction of the country is taking an extremely worrying turn and the conduct of our leaders is a cause for great concern among large sectors of our population and Jewish communities abroad. Our leaders too, like those of 'Banana Republics' appear knowledgeable and pay lip service to the wishes and desires of the people, but do exactly that, which serves their own personal purpose. The Prime Minister twists and turns and prepares himself each week anew to withstand the many allegations of his impropriety. His ministers largely ignore the important demands made on their departments, which if complied with would show up their inefficiency and endanger the stability of this corrupt government and by that, their Knesset seats and jobs. Even the leaders of two opposition parties Shas and Israel Beiteinu, who are opposed to land concessions for the Palestinian Arabs and who by their withdrawal from the government could force the fall of Olmert and bring about a general election, even they are more concerned with their own future rather than that of the State of Israel and are wriggling and twisting and changing their statements frequently, so as not to loose their positions and the perks which they brings with it. Here too the reasoning is no different from that of the 'Banana Republic' politicians. As I predicted in my Radio Programme of the 26th August, the population has from January 1st 2008 been deprived of the very effective security guards on our busses and at bus stops, to save 90 million shekels a year, which equates to the paltry sum of 15 shekel per head of population a year and added 800 valuable young men and women to the unemployment figures. The excuse is that there are no more attacks on busses. I cannot understand that logic, when it was no doubt the presence of the guards that discouraged any attempt. At the same time, nuclear underground facilities, are being built at Mr. Olmert's residence as well as tunnels and shelters in the government complex at presumably a cost far in excess of 90 million, designed to protect those, whose task it should be to protect the people. Not an insignificant similarity to the actions of the leaders of "Banana Republics" . Education of our children and students has also been sadly neglected. Literacy in Israel equals that of Venezuela and Paraguay and some nondescript African states. It is indeed difficult to improve results when the class sizes are up to 40 children or more, and the motivation of the teachers is at a very low level. Teachers with university degrees, in whose hands rests the education of the next generation from which our future leaders will emerge and who therefore have one of the most responsible jobs in the country, are being treated like shop assistants and paid accordingly. "Banana Republics" are interested to keep the general population ignorant, so as not to become a serious challenge. It's not quite as bad here, but education is the key to our future and at present levels it looks bleak. In addition there is a brain drain out of Israel which further depletes our capabilities. There are also thousands of young Israelis, who dropped out after their Military service and now reside in Asian countries in hippy-like conditions with all that implies, because they claim that Israel has nothing to offer them. The government's plans to hand over a large part of our country to create another enemy State on our doorstep does not leave us sanguine for a rosy future, but will in addition to security risks never experienced before, create social problems that will bring about poverty levels hardly different from those in "Banana Republics". Contact Walter Bingham by email at walter@israelnationalradio.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: IRAN, THE UN, AND MORE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 27, 2008. |
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According to a story in The Guardian (UK) late this past week, European sources who claimed to have been in touch with Olmert said that Olmert raised the issue of an Israeli strike on Iran with President Bush when he visited here for our 60th celebrations in May. And Bush was opposed. His fears, reportedly, were that there would be repercussions on the US and possibly the ignition of a war. As we would have to fly over Iraqi airspace controlled by the US, it would be difficult for us to accomplish this mission without at least tacit US approval. Olmert's spokesman has since denied this story, which tells us nothing, actually. ~~~~~~~~~~ Whatever the truth of this particular story, I'm picking up multiple reports about European unease about an Israeli strike on Iran as well. There seems a growing resignation of the fact that Iran will go nuclear. ~~~~~~~~~~ Put simply, this is not acceptable from an Israeli perspective. Not when a maniac in Iran is speaking forthrightly about destroying the Jewish State. The prospect, however, should not be of concern only to us: It will impinge upon Europe and upset the balance of power in the Middle East in significant ways. But the irony is that if we move against Iran, it is Israel and only Israel that will take heat internationally. If a military operation is to be avoided, other means of stopping Iran have to be utilized. Face to face diplomacy won't do it, nor will "deals." Serious sanctions of a sort that has not yet been applied must be put into place — foremost here, the blocking of all refined oil into the country, which would cause an internal collapse. Such sanctions will not come from the UN, as Russia has declared unwillingness to support further Security Council sanctions. Action must come — swiftly and decisively — from the US and the EU. ~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Joel Fishman, fellow with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has written a piece in Front Page Magazine called "Seventy Years Since the Munich Agreement," which echoes so much for us today in what we are confronting. Fishman quotes historian Martin Gilbert who wrote that: "Appeasement was rooted in the belief that human nature could not be entirely overwhelmed by evil, that even the most dangerous looking situation could be ameliorated and that the most irascible politician could be placated, if treated with respect." This speaks to the heart of the debate (reflected, literally, in the debate between McCain and Obama) on whether dialogue with Iran would be constructive. It is a reflection of the difference in worldview between the liberal and the conservative: the issue of whether there is consummate evil in the world or whether we are, in our essence, all alike. ~~~~~~~~~~ As to this last, allow me to cite Steven Stalinsky, executive director of MEMRI, writing in National Review, who tells us that in a battle in 636, the commander of the Muslim forces, one Khalid ibn Al-Walid, sent a emissary to the commander of the Persian troops he was soon to confront. His message: "...you should know that I have come to you with an army of men that love death, as you love life." Stalinsky says this account is recited in Muslim sermons, newspapers, and textbooks today. And indeed, those of us who follow the words of our enemies have seen the refrain many times — repeated by leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah: "We will win because, just as our enemies love life, we love death." The recognition that there are people who truly think this way chills to the bone. Especially as we Jews are commanded from the Torah to "choose life." ~~~~~~~~~~ But if this thinking is embraced by leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, how much more so by the leaders of Iran. It is what makes them so terrifying. And I am frightened because I don't see that the world is waking up to this reality. ~~~~~~~~~~ On Thursday night, a "peace" dinner was hosted for Ahmadinejad by a number of religious groups, at the Grand Hyatt in New York City. The title of the evening — "Has Not One God Created Us? The Significance of Religious Contributions to Peace" — reflects that confidence that at heart we are all the same, and the sponsors of the event were all left-wing groups: American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace and the World Council of Churches United Nations Liaison Office. It is my understanding that one "new age" rabbi was also present. These people are more than simply deluded, they do damage when they give credence to Ahmadinejad and enhance his stature. What is heartening is that over 60 different groups rallied against this dinner; their stated mission was to deny the regime in Iran false legitimacy. While there were, of course, Jewish groups such as ZOA and AFSI represented, a good number of those participating were not Jewish. There were, for example, the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and Christian Solidarity International. But also Muslim (and even Iranian) groups such as: Stop Shariah Now and Alliance of Iranian Women. Participating with them was Aryeh Eldad, Israeli Member of Knesset (NU/NRP). ~~~~~~~~~~ Inside, at the dinner, one of the speakers in addition to Ahmadinejad was Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, former Nicaraguan foreign affairs minister, who is now president of the General Assembly of the UN. This is not a complete surprise. After Ahmadinejad gave his speech to the General Assembly, Brockmann had warmly embraced him. David Ben Gurion is famous for having referred to the UN contemptuously as "oom, shmoom" (oom being a short-hand for UN in Hebrew). He doesn't know how right he was. Iran — this is not a typo — may soon be elected for a term on the Security Council, as a seat for an Asian country will open up in January. "Absurd" is what Livni called this prospect. Of course, it's probably no more absurd than the reported decision of Secretary-General Moon to demand that Israel pay $1 billion in damages to Lebanon for the 2006 war. Or the discussion in the Security Council — requested by the Arab League — regarding growth of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. And we've still got Durban II — Heaven help us! — coming down the road. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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TEPERSON'S EYES OF THE BEHOLDER
Posted by Rachel Kapen, September 27, 2008. |
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The book Eyes of the Beholder was written by MACHALnik David 'Migdal' Teperson.
[MACHAL Is the Hebrew acronym for Mitnadvay Chutzutz La'aretz
— Overseas Volunteers.
Migdal means: tower
and alludes to the author's big frame and his 6'6 height.] 
The book in a nutshell is the story of a South-African born Jewish young man who was one of approximately 3,500 young men and women from the world over — countries such as England, France and the Scandinavian countries, Canada and the United States — who came to fight in the War of Independence of 1948-1949. David 'Migdal' Teperson arrived in the country practically on the eve of the Declaration by David ben Gurion of the Independence of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, served during the war in the PALMACH unit of the 9th Jeep Company of the Negev nicknamed 'The Beasts of the Negev' for their wild and daring adventures, and later on he fought in all of Israel's wars of survival. Attaining the rank of Colonel during the years, David Migdal Teperson is now, at age 81, the oldest reservist in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), and this on a pure volunteer basis being that Israelis at this advanced age are long exempted from reserve duty. This little 98-page compelling book replete with photographs is the story of MAHAL and those dedicated volunteers who came to fight in Israel's War of Independence and paid the ultimate price. To keep their memories alive he also established the MACHAL Museum which is a shrine to them and which he tends with the kind of love and passion which made him a Machalnik in the first place. In a year which and world Jewry celebrate Israel's 60th
Anniversary, it is most fitting to remember those volunteers to whom
we owe a debt we could never repay.
Of interest: On the Left of 'Migdal' Teperson is Mota Gur, later to become a Chief of Staff of the IDF. 
Contact Rachel Kapen by email at skapen285466MI@comcast.net |
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A HUGE WAKE THE HECK UP CALL TO JEWS? PROBABLY NOT
Posted by David Nathan, September 27, 2008. |
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Ya'alon uses Ya'ir's point to demonstrate that the Israeli Left's insistence on peace "now" and a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict "now," has placed Israel on a strategic trajectory that has brought it, and will continue to bring it only bloodshed and danger. Israel's enemies in the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria and Iran view Israel's insistence on finding immediate solutions to the threats it faces as a sign that Israeli society is collapsing. As a consequence, every step that Israel has made towards appeasing its neighbors — from recognizing the PLO and bringing Arafat and his legions into Judea, Samaria and Gaza; to retreating from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005; to failing to properly prosecute the Second Lebanon War in 2006; to doing nothing to combat Hamas's regime in Gaza since 2007; to embracing the false paradigm of peace at Annapolis last November — has strengthened their conviction that Israel can and will be destroyed. This was written by Caroline B. Glick and is entitled "A road paved on reality." Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Contact her at caroline@carolineglick.com |
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Listening to the news in Israel these days, it is hard to escape the feeling that the Israeli political discourse has become dangerously irrelevant. Take Iran for example. On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the heads of UN member states, "The dignity, integrity and rights of the European and American people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner." Ahmadinejad then promised that Israel will soon be destroyed — for the benefit of humanity. For these remarks, he received enthusiastic applause from the world leaders assembled at the UN General Assembly. And how has Israel responded? It hasn't done anything in particular. And it has no intention of doing anything in particular. This point was made clear to the public on Wednesday when Israel's new UN Ambassador, Gavriela Shalev gave an interview to Army Radio. While bemoaning Ahmadinejad' Israel's woman at the UN devoted most of her interview to defending the UN. In fact, she said she believes it is her duty not simply to defend Israel to the world body, but to defend the UN to Israelis. As she put it, her job is "correcting the UN's image in the eyes of the people of Israel." Shalev's appointment to the UN was the work of Foreign Minister — and would-be prime minister — Tzipi Livni. And her view of her role as Israel's ambassador is strictly in keeping with what Livni perceives as the job of Israel's top diplomats. They are the world's emissaries to Israel. Livni has spent the better part of the past three years at the Foreign Ministry telling us that the UN is our friend, the Europeans are our friends and that the Americans and Europeans and the UN will take care of Iran for us. The Palestinians are also our friends. As anti-Semitic forces grow throughout the world, Livni has not communicated one single policy for defending Israel abroad that doesn't involve the kindness of strangers. Her response to Ahmadinejad' The one thing the woman who believes that she has the right to lead the country without being elected by anyone thinks that Israel should do in response to Ahmadinejad' Livni's only concrete response to Ahmadinejad' Livni doesn't actually think Iran is Israel's greatest challenge. The Palestinians are. And as far as she is concerned, giving the Palestinians a state by handing over Judea and Samaria (and Jerusalem, although she never says it outright), as quickly as possible is Israel's most urgent task. We need a two-state-solution and we need it NOW, she says. Neither Livni nor her colleagues in Kadima, Labor and Meretz, nor her supporters in the Israeli media ever bother to acknowledge the troublesome, inconvenient fact that the Palestinians don't want a state. They want to destroy our state. This basic fact was made clear — yet again — on Tuesday. Tuesday Livni took time out of her busy schedule of political meetings with Labor, Shas and Meretz leaders with whom she is attempting to build a government without being elected by anyone, to meet with Fatah's chief negotiator Ahmad Qurei. Although Livni refused to tell us what she talked about, she promised that progress was made towards the urgent imperative of forming a Palestinian state. But Qurei was not so enthusiastic. In fact, he was contemptuous of Livni and of the very notion of peaceful coexistence between the Palestinians and Israel. After the negotiating session Qurei told Reuters that if the talks towards an Israeli surrender of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem collapse, the Palestinians will renew their terror war against Israel. In his words, "If the talks reached a dead end, what do we do? Capitulate? Resistance in all its forms is a legitimate right." Just to make sure he understood Qurei properly, the reporter asked whether that meant that the Palestinians would renew their suicide bombing campaign against Israelis. Qurei responded, "All forms of resistance." We have been here of course, a million times before. This is the same threat that Yassir Arafat and his men have made — and implemented — repeatedly since signing the Oslo accord with Israel 15 years ago. They use terror and negotiations in tandem to squeeze Israel into giving away more and more of its land. And it works. When Livni heard about Qurei's remarks, she called him and reportedly told him that they were unacceptable. So he said he was taken out of context. No skin off his back. He knew Livni wouldn't do anything. At the same time that Livni said his remarks were unacceptable, she pledged to continue negotiating Israel's surrender of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem with him for as long as she remains in power. Today Livni and her colleagues in Kadima, Labor, Meretz and Shas are working fervently towards forming a new government that will continue holding irrelevant but dangerous negotiations with the Palestinians and the Syrians and pretending that Iran's nuclear weapons are not going to be used against Israel. They argue that we need the "political stability" that they can provide us in this dangerous time. The Israeli media gives these fantasies their full support. Indeed, anyone who notices that the world is sitting back and allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons or points out that the Palestinians don't want a state is immediately shot down as an alarmist and an extremist. This national discourse — which has been the only one permitted in the country since the advent of the "peace process" with the PLO 15 years ago — is Israel's Achilles heel. Until the general public is set clear on the reality of the world confronting the country, there is no chance that Israel will take the necessary steps to defend itself and ensure that it survives. Understanding this basic fact, former IDF chief of general staff Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon has taken it upon himself to tell the Israeli public the truth about the world we live in. Ya'alon is a rare bird among Israel's pantheon of current luminaries. He is an honest man who lives by his principles, and he doesn't bend them, ever. Last week Ya'alon published a book called The Longer Shorter Road in Hebrew. Ya'alon, whose tour of duty as chief of staff was unceremoniously cut short by former prime minister Ariel Sharon in June 2005 due to his trenchant opposition to Sharon's planned withdrawal of IDF forces and Israeli civilians from the Gaza Strip, has written a book that sets out the facts of life clearly, credibly and passionately. The book's title is derived from a speech that Ya'alon's commander Yoram Ya'ir gave to his officers during the first Lebanon War. Ya'ir explained that short-cuts are not necessarily better than long roads. In fact, it is often better to take the longest route. As Ya'ir put it, "There is a long road that is short and there are short roads that are long." Ya'alon uses Ya'ir's point to demonstrate that the Israeli Left's insistence on peace "now" and a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict "now," has placed Israel on a strategic trajectory that has brought it, and will continue to bring it only bloodshed and danger. Israel's enemies in the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria and Iran view Israel's insistence on finding immediate solutions to the threats it faces as a sign that Israeli society is collapsing. As a consequence, every step that Israel has made towards appeasing its neighbors -from recognizing the PLO and bringing Arafat and his legions into Judea, Samaria and Gaza; to retreating from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005; to failing to properly prosecute the Second Lebanon War in 2006; to doing nothing to combat Hamas's regime in Gaza since 2007; to embracing the false paradigm of peace at Annapolis last November — has strengthened their conviction that Israel can and will be destroyed. Ya'alon also dwells on the moral collapse of Israel's political and media elite and that collapse's adverse impact on the senior command echelons of the IDF. The abandonment of Zionist values and public and private integrity by our politicians and media has cast and kept Israel on a path of self-delusion where the only thing that matters is immediate gratification. Politicians promise the public "hope" based on illusions of peace. Ya'alon's book is part memoir and part polemic. He reminds Israelis of what it is about us that makes us a great people worthy of our land and privileged to defend it. At the same time, he chastises our failed leaders who have tricked the public into following a strategic path that endangers us. His book's greatest contribution is not in providing a set path forward, but in courageously and unrelentingly explaining the reality that surrounds us today and in showing the public how it is that we have arrived in our current predicament. In exposing himself, his values and his beliefs to the public, and juxtaposing his own leadership experience and personal integrity with the corruption and weakness of our political and intellectual leaders, Ya'alon is telling the public in a very clear way that there is an alternative to defeatism and self-delusion, and that he — and we the public — represent that alternative, that "longer shorter road." Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and their colleagues on the Left in the Knesset and the media insist that we not take that longer road to security and peace. In fact, they deny that it even exists. They attempt to convince us that elections are unnecessary by arguing that there is no difference between political parties today because their short cut to defeat is the only path available to us. It must be fervently hoped that Ya'alon will soon enter the political fray. Like the Likud under Binyamin Netanyahu, Ya'alon is proof positive that Livni and her cronies are lying. There are great differences between those that would lead us and the paths they would take. And the only road to safety is the long road that is paved on reality. Contact David Nathan at DAVENATHAN@aol.com |
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WHO'S BLUFFING?
Posted by M.S. Kramer, September 27, 2008. |
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While much of the world's population are preoccupied with the meltdown of financial markets, there is another mega-event hovering in the wings. By now, Americans are aware of their country's reliance on foreign oil, which accounts for approximately 60% of the total used. With China and India's needs expanding at an 8-10% annual clip, the competition for (and cost of) the finite amount of oil produced each year will only increase. If anything were to interrupt the flow of oil for more than a brief period, the resulting financial upheaval would be much more dire than the current Wall St. collapse. Recently, Iranian President Ahmadinejad addressed the United Nations General Assembly as an honored guest. Incredible! Even worse, a dinner was held at which the Iranian leader was a guest of honor, and on the dais sat the new president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. The sponsors of this event were the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, the World Council of Churches, Religions for Peace, and the American Friends Service Committee (a Quaker organization). Before WWII, Adolf Hitler had promoted "Positive Christianity", an attempt to blend Christianity with Nazism, which some German Protestants supported. But that pales in comparison with today's "Christian" leaders honoring a rabid Islamist, one who advocates the destruction of both Christianity and Judaism. Iran is making monkeys out of Western countries, which ever so slowly try to appease Iran as it continues its progress towards creating nuclear weapons. Nothing conciliatory seems to affect the Iranians, who blithely carry on with their enrichment of uranium, whose only utility is in weapons, which they claim not to be developing. It's come to the point where even if the weak sanctions proposed by the West were to be fully implemented, they'd probably be too late. In the meantime, China shows no inclination to impose meaningful sanctions and Germany, Austria, and other countries are doing increasing business with Iran. Even worse, Russia, resuscitated by its prodigious sales of oil and natural gas, is building an anti-Western axis with Iran and junior partner Venezuela. Are Ahmadinejad and other Iranian spokespeople bluffing when they talk about wiping Israel off the face of the map? Can Israel afford to find out, when even its closest ally, America, gives the impression that it's not going to do anything drastic, even as it states that "all options are on the table"? It's conceivable that Israel could be attacked simultaneously by weapons of mass destruction from Iran and its proxies Hizbullah, in Lebanon, and Hamas, in Gaza. By the time Israel could retaliate, incredible damage could be done and Israel's only logical response would be to literally wipe out large numbers of the three aggressors. What will that scenario do to the world's economy, not to mention other moral considerations? So far, Israel has shown a lot of restraint by not freaking out in international forums as well as in more comfortable settings in America and other friendly countries. It's past time for Israel to stop being so reasonable and to start warning the world what its passivity may produce. If Israel continues to rely on others to protect it, the Iranian multi-pronged attack could happen and all hell would break loose. An alternative is that stronger Israeli leaders will emerge who fear the worst if Israel waits too long, and who will force the issue with Iran by taking aggressive action. That scenario will be no better for the world, with lots of bloodshed and economic mayhem. Imagine how high the price of oil will climb if the Middle East is at war and the Strait of Hormuz (which channels 40% of the world's oil) is blocked? A worldwide economic depression is almost a foregone conclusion of that scenario, given the shakiness of the financial world today. It's time for Israel to start menacing Iran, even if it's a bluff. Something has to shake the West out of its lethargy. If America and other countries come to believe that Israel won't gamble any longer on Iran's intentions and will attempt to preempt a nuclear attack, perhaps they'll get serious and force Iran to back down. Presumably there are drastic economic and other sanctions that can accomplish that task. I recently read this statement, made by a prominent American politician: "The world must awake to the threat this man [Ahmadinejad] poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a 'Final Solution' — the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a 'stinking corpse' that is 'on its way to annihilation'. Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman — not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world. Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime's dangerous behavior. Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran's behavior. ...We must start with restrictions on Iran's refined petroleum imports."[NY Sun newspaper, 9/22/08] I hope those words are more than bombast. An American leadership, by either party, which will stand up to Iran is an absolute necessity. How many of us have wondered how the world stood still for Adolf Hitler in the 1930s? Could it really happen again? Let's not forget that though the Jews suffered an incredible six million deaths, more than 70,000,000 died worldwide. There's more at stake with Ahmadinejad and his ilk than the fate of Israelis. (Unlike Nazism, which disappeared as a major force after Hitler's demise, Islamic Jihadism isn't dependent on one particular leader.) Iran may be bluffing about annihilating Israel. Israel might be bluffing if it begins making loud noises about preemptive attacks on Iran. In either case, America and other countries can't afford to see who's bluffing. Someone has to take the bull by the horns and stop Iran in its tracks. And soon! PS. The comments from the NY Sun, which were part of a speech to be given at a Jewish-sponsored rally against Ahmadinejad at the UN, are by Sarah Palin, who was disinvited from attending for murky reasons. Contact M.S. Kramer by email at sjk1@jhu.edu |
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ARMY 'PUNISHES' JEWS FOR LEADERSHIP'S LACK OF RESPONSE
Posted by Lee Caplan, September 26, 2008. |
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This was written by Hillel Fendel and it appeared in Arutz-7. |
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(IsraelNN.com) The leadership of the Jewish community in the Shomron is up in arms at a "punishment" handed down by the IDF Commanding Officer of the Shechem (Nablus) District Regiment. Commander Col. Itzik Barr told the Shomron Jewish leadership, in effect, "Because you didn't condemn the residents of Yitzhar when they entered an Arab village 10 days ago, I will not allow visits to Joseph's Tomb." David HaIvri, aide to Shomron Regional Council head Gershon Mesika, recounted the events and their background: "The holy site of Joseph's Tomb in Shechem is effectively closed to Jews — with two major exceptions. Almost every night, some people — Breslover Hassidim and others — go there on their own, without army permission or protection. In addition, over the past few months, we have been in contact with the army to allow organized visits, protected by the army. Approximately once a month, we have had several busloads go in, three at a time in the middle of the night, with army protection." "Recently," HaIvri said, "we have been in touch with the Regiment Commander, Col. Barr, regarding three upcoming visits: One is for the Lieberman family, which wants to conduct a memorial ceremony for Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, who was brutally murdered before Yom Kippur 2000 by Palestinian terrorists on his way to Joseph's Tomb when he heard it had been destroyed. The second trip would be for the youth of the area, both religious and not religious, for whom we want to organize a special trip on the special penitential days before or immediately after Rosh HaShanah. And the third is — get this: for a rabbi from New York who mistakenly thought that Joseph's Tomb is open to Jews every Thursday, and who therefore made a special three-day trip from New York specifically for the purpose of visiting Joseph's Tomb. He arrived today!" "When we told Col. Barr about the rabbi, he was very impressed that someone would make such a trip, and he said that he would help us out — not with buses, but a small-scale visit with just two or three soldiers guarding." "All of a sudden, however," HaIvri said, "we received a message from the Commander saying that all the visits are off. Why? Because he is punishing us for not having condemned what the residents of Yitzhar did two Sabbaths ago in Asira el-Shamaliya. Near-Tragedy in Yitzhar Early in the morning two Sabbaths ago, on Sept. 13, an Arab terrorist entered the Shomron town of Yitzhar, set fire to a home that was empty at the time, tried to enter another home, and repeatedly stabbed a nine-year-old boy before throwing him from a four-meter-high porch. This, despite the presence of an IDF guard force in the area. Some 30 residents of Yitzhar responded later that day by entering the nearby Arab village of Asira el-Shamaliya, to where the terrorist escaped, and firing in the air, throwing rocks, and smashing windows. Since then, there have been two other Arab attacks against Yitzhar, including setting fire to fields — the eight arson attack against Yitzhar in the past three months. Rosenfeld Speaks Eli Rosenfeld, the Shomron Council's Coordinator of Land Affairs, conducted the contacts with Col. Barr over the past few months regarding the Jewish entry into Joseph's Tomb. "For Col. Barr to say that he is punishing the residents because he doesn't like what the political leadership condemns or doesn't condemn," Rosenfeld told Arutz-7, "is a very grave matter. The leadership chose to concentrate on the army's lack of response to what could have been a major tragedy, and not on the residents' response. Does he think it is his job to educate us? The army's job is to provide security, not to teach the people or their leadership what to say and what to condemn." Asked if he thinks that publicizing the story will not make it harder to smoothe out the differences with the army and facilitate the visits to Joseph's Tomb, Rosenfeld said, "Some stories have to be publicized whether or not it will help our cause. The public must know that this is what is happening." Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com |
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THE IMPACT OF AN OBAMA, OR A MCCAIN, ADMINISTRATION ON ISRAEL'S NATIONAL SECURITY
Posted by Yoram Ettinger, September 26, 2008. |
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Previous OpEds and newsletters are available at http://yoramettinger.newsnet.co.il. Enjoy it, Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova,
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The policy of US presidents, toward Israel, is a derivative of their worldview, and not of their campaign statements and position papers. A worldview shapes presidential attitude toward as a strategic asset or a liability and toward Judea & Samaria and the Golan Heights. A presidential worldview determines the scope of the posture of deterrence in face of Middle East and global threats, which directly impacts Israel's national security. For example, President Nixon was not a friend of the Jewish community and was not of pro-Israeli legislation in the US Senate. In 1968, he received only about 15% of the Jewish vote. However, his worldview recognized Israel's importance to US national security, as was demonstrated in 1970, when Israel rolled back a Syrian invasion of Jordan, preventing a pro-Soviet domino scenario into the Persian Gulf. It was Nixon's worldview which led him to approve critical military shipments to Israel — during the 1973 War — in defiance of the Arab oil embargo and brutal pressure by the Saudi lobby in Washington, and in spite of the Democratic pattern of the Jewish voters. On the other hand, President Clinton displayed an affinity toward Judaism, the Jewish People and the Jewish State. However, his worldview accepted Arafat as a national liberation leader, elevated him to the most frequent guest at the White House, underestimated the threat of Islamic terrorism, unintentionally facilitated its expansion from 1993 (first "Twin Tower" attack) to the 9/11 terrorist tsunami, adding fuel to the fire of Middle East and global turbulence. How would the worldview of Obama, McCain and their advisors shape policy toward Israel? 1. According to McCain, World War 3 between Western democracies and Islamic terror/rogue regimes is already in process. According to Obama, the conflict is with a radical Islamic minority, which could be dealt with through diplomacy, foreign aid, cultural exchanges and a lower military profile. Thus, McCain's world view highlights — while Obama's world view downplays — Israel's role as a strategic ally. McCain recognizes that US-Israel relations have been shaped by shared values, mutual threats and joint interests and not by frequent disagreements over the Arab-Israeli conflict. Obama's worldview would be welcomed by supporters of an Israeli rollback to the 1949 ceasefire lines, including the repartitioning of and the opening of the "Pandora Refugees' Box." On the other hand, McCain's worldview adheres to the assumption that an Israeli retreat would convert the Jewish State from a power of deterrence to a punching bag, from a producer — to a consumer — of national security and from a strategic asset to a strategic burden in the most violent, volatile and treacherous region in the world. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem |
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OBAMA'S 'NOT EXACTLY'S
Posted by Doc Milt Fried, September 26, 2008. |
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Important to think about this. This article appeared May 29, 2008 on the Rense website You can also view it on You Tube
See also
"Obama's 50 lies" on
GOD HELP US IF WE JUST SIT IDLY BY AND LET THIS PERSON BECOME OUR NEXT PRESIDENT. IT WOULD BE SUICIDAL FOR US TO DO NOTHING TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING. PASS THIS ON TO ALL THE ONES YOU VALUE, JUST AS I AM DOING. IT'S TIME THE 'SILENT MAJORITY' TAKE A STAND! GET OUT AND VOTE! PLEASE!! |
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1.) Selma Got Me Born — NOT EXACTLY, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 — Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma was in 1965. ( http://www.google.com/ ) Google ' Obama Selma ' for his full March 4, 2007 speech and articles about its various untruths.) 2.) Father Was A Goat Herder — NOT EXACTLY, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government. 3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter — NOT EXACTLY, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had. 4.) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom — NOT EXACTLY, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades. The current government is pro-American but Odinga wants to overthrow it and establish Muslim Sharia law. Your half-brother, Abongo Obama, is Odinga's follower.. You interrupted your New Hampshire campaigning to speak to Odinga on the phone. Obama's cousin Odinga in Kenya ran for president and tried to get Sharia muslim law in place there. When Odinga lost the elections, his followers have burned Christians' homes and then burned men, women and children alive in a Christian church where they took shelter.. Obama SUPPORTED his cousin before the election process here started. Google Obama and Odinga and see what you get. No one wants to know the truth. 5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian — NOT EXACTLY, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. Not to mention, Christianity wouldn't allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man. 6.) My Name is African Swahili — NOT EXACTLY, your name is Arabic and 'Baraka' (from which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama. Barack Hussein Obama is
not half black. If elected, he would be the first Arab-American
President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50%
Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African
Negro from his father's side. While Barack Hussein Obama's father was
from Kenya, his father's family was mainly Arabs. Barack Hussein
Obama's father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his
father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro).
From, and for more, go to:
7.) I Never Practiced Islam — NOT EXACTLY, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31
years, until your wife made you change, so you could run for
office. 4-3-08 Article "Obama was 'quite religious in islam'"
8.) My School In Indonesia was Christian — NOT EXACTLY, you
were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic
Studies for making faces (check your own book). February 28, 2008.
Kristoff from the New York Times a year ago: Mr. Obama recalled
the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with
a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully
uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama
described the call to prayer as 'one of the prettiest sounds on
Earth at sunset.' This is just one example of what Pamela is
talking about when she says 'Obama's narrative is being altered,
enhanced and manipulated to whitewash troubling facts.'
9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian — NOT EXACTLY, not one teacher says you could speak the language.
10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience — NOT EXACTLY, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn't even
speak the language. What did you learn —how to study the Koran and watch cartoons?
11.) I Am Stronger On Foreign Affairs — NOT EXACTLY, except for Africa(surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been
anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies.
12.) I Blame My Early Drug Use On Ethnic Confusion — NOT EXACTLY,
you were quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of
Kenya and no mention of struggle to identify — your classmates said
you were just fine.
13.) An Ebony Article Moved Me To Run For Office — NOT EXACTLY, Ebony has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn't, and never did, exist.
14.) A Life Magazine Article Changed My outlook on Life — NOT EXACTLY, Life has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn't,
and never did, exist.
15.) I Won't Run On A National Ticket In '08 — NOT EXACTLY, here you are, despite saying, live on TV, that you would not have enough experience
by then, and you are all about having experience first.
16.) Voting 'Present' is Common In Illinois Senate — NOT EXACTLY, they are common for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES.
17.) Oops, I Mis-voted — NOT EXACTLY, only when caught by church groups and Democrats, did you beg to change your mis-vote.
18.) I Was A Professor Of Law — NOT EXACTLY, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.
19.) I Was A Constitutional Lawyer — NOT EXACTLY, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.
20.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill — NOT EXACTLY, you didn't write it, introduce it, change it, or create it.
21.) The Ethics Bill Was Hard To Pass — NOT EXACTLY, it took just 14
days from start to finish.
22.) I Wrote A Tough Nuclear Bill — NOT EXACTLY, your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation — mainly
because of your Nuclear donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod came.
23.) I Have Released My State Records — NOT EXACTLY, as of March, 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing
all the special interests pork hidden within.
24.) I Took On The Asbestos Altgeld Gardens Mess — NOT EXACTLY,
you were part of a large group of people (20) who remedied
Altgeld Gardens. You failed to mention anyone else but yourself in
your books.
25.) My Economics Bill Will Help America — NOT EXACTLY, your 111
economic policies were just combined into a proposal which lost
99-0, and even YOU voted against your own bill.
26.) I Have Been A Bold Leader In Illinois — NOT EXACTLY, even
your own supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your
part.
27.) I Passed 26 Of My Own Bills In One Year — NOT EXACTLY, they were not YOUR bills, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow
Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.
28.) No One on my campaign contacted Canada about NAFTA — NOT EXACTLY, the Candian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.
29.) I Am Tough On Terrorism — NOT EXACTLY, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the
destruction of Israel.
30.) I Want All Votes To Count — NOT EXACTLY, you said let the delegates decide.
31.) I Want Americans To Decide — NOT EXACTLY, you prefer caucuses that limit the vote, confuse the voters, force a public vote, and only operate during small windows of time.
32.) I passed 900 Bills in the State Senate — NOT EXACTLY, you passed 26, most of which (20) you didn't write yourself.
33.) I Believe In Fairness, Not Tactics — NOT EXACTLY, you used tactics to eliminate Alice Palmer from running against you.
34.) I Don't Take PAC Money — NOT EXACTLY, you take loads of it.
35.) I don't Have Lobbysists — NOT EXACTLY, you have over 47 lobbyists, and counting.
36.) My Campaign Had Nothing To Do With The 1984 Ad — NOT EXACTLY,
your own campaign worker made the ad on his
37.) I Have Always Been Against Iraq — NOT EXACTLY, you weren't in
office to vote against it AND you have voted to fund it every
single time.
38.) I Have Always Supported Universal Health Care — NOT EXACTLY,
your plan leaves us all to pay for the 15,000,000 who don't have
to buy it
Contact Dr. Milt Fried by email at docmiltfried@mindspring.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: NOT A DONE DEAL
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 26, 2008. |
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At least not yet: The coalition agreement between Kadima and Labor. According to my information, this is the scenario as it's playing out so far: Barak had criticized Livni in various regards before the primary. But when Livni, uneasy about a Barak-Netanyahu meeting, decided to more actively entice him into a coalition with Kadima, he expressed interest. "A full partnership" was what she was said to be offering. But the terms of understanding still had to be hammered out. Livni knew she wasn't coming from strength because she had won the Kadima primary with such a slim margin, and Barak was enticed in part because he felt there was a great deal he would be able to demand. Negotiations — which included some secret talks between representatives of the parties in addition to the public meetings — went well to a point, but have hit snags. ~~~~~~~~~~ Barak has now told his faction that he was "very far from joining the government" and that he was "not interested in a short-term government that would last only a few months or a collapsing coalition of 60 MKs." And indeed this has been an issue: Not whether Livni can patch together a coalition, but whether it will be stable enough to last for two years. Barak says he will go to elections if he's not convinced she can do this. But Barak says lots of things. He defines a "real partnership" as being "...everything that there was in the national-unity governments of the 1980s except for a rotation at the Prime Minister's Office." It's a solid bet that he's not going to get this, and the question remains as to whether he'll settle for less. His request for a 2.5% increase in the State budget to boost the Defense Ministry budget and increase spending for retirees, university students, and immigrants has been turned down. As was his request to head the negotiating team dealing with Syria. He expressed concern about the need for more work regarding sanctions on Iran — an implied criticism of Livni, as this has fallen within her bailiwick as foreign minister. ~~~~~~~~~~ I should mention here that the Kadima court has rejected an appeal for a temporary injunction that would have invalidated the results of the Kadima primary. This is not a surprise. An October 5 date has been set, however, for a hearing regarding demands for a new primary or a recount because of alleged irregularities, that include such things as more people voting at one polling station than were registered at that station. I am too cynical to feel confident that anything will come of this. But — if the evidence of major irregularities is strong — who knows? ~~~~~~~~~~ The evidence that the PA is not a negotiating partner is close to endless. This is the latest, from Palestinian Media Watch (www.pmw.org.il): "[a] music video currently broadcast on Palestinian Television denies any historical connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem: "Oh [Sons of] Zion, no matter how much you dig and no matter how much you destroy, your imaginary Temple will not come into being." The repeated refrain, "Al-Aksa is ours," is meant to emphasize this statement... And the inciteful fabrication that we are planning on destroying the Al-Aksa mosque is repeated. Clips show Jews wearing kippahs, Israeli police and military, Israeli excavations of Old Jerusalem, the Israeli flag, and the Western Wall. The lyrics accompanying this say, "How you [Al-Aksa] suffer! How you have bled for years! How you scream! How you call out to the millions!" PA TV, which is under the authority of Mahmoud Abbas, ran this on the day we suffered a terrorist attack in Jerusalem this week ~~~~~~~~~~ A matter of serious concern. The Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco has just released a lengthy report on a five year study on textbooks in the US. According to a summary of the report: "It is shocking to discover that history and geography textbooks widely used in America's elementary and secondary classrooms contain some of the very same inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism and the Middle East as those [used] in Iran. Researchers Dr. Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra examined the 28 most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America, — books used by tens of millions of schoolchildren in all 50 states — and found some 500 instances of "errors, inaccuracies and even propaganda" on these matters. "Textbooks include negative stereotypes of Jews, Judaism and Israel. For example, textbooks tend to discredit the ties between Jews and the land of Israel." Most troubling is this situation that Ybarra describes:: "The textbooks tend to be critical of Jews and Israel, disrespectful about Christianity, and rather than represent Islam in an objective way, tend to glorify it. Textbook publishers often defer completely to Muslim groups for their content [on Islam] because they want to be sensitive to Muslim concerns." This story, which first appeared in The Jerusalem Post, can be found on IMRA at:
Please read the entire lengthy piece, which explains more about what is happening, and give thought to what can be done to address this. ~~~~~~~~~~ Shabbat approaches and times is running out. More — especially on Iran and the UN — after Shabbat. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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NATURE GUIDE AND THAI TILLER
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 26, 2008. | ||
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at
freify@netvision.net.il. See this graphic and more of his artwork at
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Thai Tiller
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ROSH HASHANAH 2008 UPDATE: SHAVEI ISRAEL'S AND THE LOST JEWS
Posted by Michael Freund, September 26, 2008. |
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Rosh Hashanah 5769/ September 2008 With the start of the new Jewish year, I am pleased to send you this brief update regarding Shavei Israel's efforts to facilitate the return of "lost Jews" to the Jewish people. As you will see below, our activities have expanded greatly in recent years — we are now active in 9 countries (including Israel) around the world — and we look forward to another year of Jewish outreach, growth and fulfillment: In Poland — Uncovering "Hidden Jews" of the Holocaust 
At the request of Krakow's Chief Rabbi, Shavei Israel dispatched its third rabbinical emissary to in September 2008. We now have rabbis serving several Jewish communities in Poland, where they work to strengthen Jewish life as well as reach out to the thousands of people there who in recent years have uncovered their Jewish roots. These include numerous cases involving the children and grandchildren of Jews who were put up for adoption during the Holocaust, and who are only now learning the truth of their identity. This summer, Shavei Israel brought 22 young Poles who had
recently discovered their Jewish identity for a three-week seminar in
, which included classes on Judaism in Polish and trips around the
country. In 2008, we also assisted several dozen young Poles with
Jewish roots to formally return to the faith of their ancestors.
Shavei Israel hopes to continue helping more of these "hidden Jews"
to come out of the closet and proudly rejoin the Jewish people.
In India — Reaching out to Bnei Menashe, descendants of a lost tribe of Israel Last fall, Shavei Israel brought a group of 230 Bnei Menashe on aliyah, the largest such group ever to come to Israel. Shavei Israel arranged for a private absorption center in Pardes Hanna to host the immigrants during their first six months in the country, guided them through the conversion process with Israel's Chief Rabbinate, and helped them to find permanent housing in the Galilee, Israel's north. 
In August 2008, Shavei Israel achieved a breakthrough when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acceded to our request to bring on aliyah the remaining 7,000 Bnei Menashe still in India. In the wake of subsequent political turmoil, the decision was not brought to the government for formal approval, but Shavei Israel will continue to press for its passage. Shavei Israel operates two educational centers for the Bnei Menashe, where hundreds of students learn Hebrew, Jewish history and tradition, and prepare for life in Israel. Shavei Israel also built and maintains two kosher mikvahs (ritual baths) for the Bnei Menashe's use, the first ever constructed in the region. Shavei Israel operates the first Community Center for Bnei Menashe immigrants. Known as Beit Miriam, the Center hosts daily Hebrew classes and Jewish enrichment courses for children and adults, and is home to a lending library and a play area. This past year, new classes on computers and handicrafts were added as well. Thanks to support from the Natan Foundation, dozens of young Bnei
Menashe men and women in took part in professional training programs
sponsored by Shavei Israel. All of the graduates found work in their
various fields, thereby supporting themselves and their families while
making an important contribution to Israeli society.
Earlier this year, after Israel's Interior Ministry decided to bar Russia's Subbotnik Jews from making aliyah, Shavei Israel filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court demanding that the decision be overturned. The Subbotniks are descendants of Russian peasants who converted to Judaism two centuries ago, and who clung to their new-found faith despite Czarist oppression, Nazi persecution and Communist cruelty. Thousands immigrated until Israel's Interior Ministry inexplicably halted their arrival. Shavei Israel is working to get the restrictions on the Subbotniks lifted so that the remaining 10-15,000 still in the former Soviet Union will be allowed to move to Israel forthwith. 
In Spain, Portugal and Brazil — Lending a Hand to the Bnei Anousim ("Marranos") Shavei Israel currently has three rabbinical emissaries in Spain (Palma da Majorca), Portugal (Oporto) and Brazil (Recife) who conduct outreach work among the Bnei Anousim (i.e. "Marranos") in their local communities. Shavei Israel operates the Machon Miriam Institute for Return and Conversion, Israel's only Spanish and Portuguese language conversion ulpan. This past year, more than 200 students from across Europe, and South America — half of whom are Bnei Anousim — successfully completed the program and underwent conversion by Israel's Chief Rabbinate. 
In August, 20 adult Bnei Anousim from and visited for an
educational seminar organized by Shavei Israel. They toured the
country, experienced Shabbat, and reconnected with their heritage.
Earlier this year, Shavei Israel held a weekend seminar, which was
attended by more than 50 Bnei Anousim leaders.
Shavei Israel continues to assist the descendants of the Jewish community of Kaifeng, China to become reacquainted with their roots. Earlier this year, Shoshana Li, whom Shavei Israel brought on aliyah two years ago, became the first new immigrant from to get married in Israel. Shoshana wed an American immigrant, and the young couple now make their home in the Negev.  If you would like any further information regarding our work, or are interested in helping out, please feel free to contact me. Thanks, and have a happy and healthy New Year,
Michael Freund served as an adviser to former Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu. He is Chairman, Shavei (www.shavei.org). Contact him by email at
michael@shavei.org
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[PALESTINIAN JESUS] STUDY SAYS US TEXTBOOKS MISREPRESENT JEWS AND ISRAEL
Posted by Avodah, September 25, 2008. |
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This is entitled "Study says US textbooks misrepresent Jews and
Israel" and was written by Haviv Rettig. It appeared today in the
Jerusalem Post
For a summary of the study:
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American elementary and high school textbooks contain many "gross misrepresentations" of Judaism, Christianity and Israel, according to a book-length study released this week by the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research.
"It is shocking to discover that history and geography textbooks widely used in America's elementary and secondary classrooms contain some of the very same inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism and the Middle East as those [used] in Iran," the IJCR said in a summary of the findings of the five-year study. In examining the 28 most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America, researchers Dr. Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra found some 500 instances of "errors, inaccuracies and even propaganda" on these issues. Tens of millions of schoolchildren in all 50 states use the textbooks, according to Tobin. Among the "outrageous misrepresentations" the study found was "a denial of the Jewish roots of Jesus," as when the textbook The World relates that "Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus." "Textbooks include negative stereotypes of Jews, Judaism and Israel," the authors write. "For example, textbooks tend to discredit the ties between Jews and the land of Israel." According to Tobin, "you're much more likely to learn about Jewish terrorism before the founding of Israel [in the textbooks] than about terrorism against Israel since that time." Among the claims made about Israel in some of the textbooks are that Arab countries never initiated wars against Israel, Arab nations desire peace while Israel does not and that it was Israel that placed Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments. No mention whatsoever was found relating to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were forced out after the establishment of Israel. In their treatment of Judaism, too, the textbooks showed a negative bias, according to the study. They often expressed a view that "Jews and Judaism are legalistic," and that "Jews care only about the letter of the law and ignore its spirit," the study found. The Jewish God is presented as "stern and warlike," and not compassionate, as is highlighted in other religions. In some instances, Jews are charged with deicide in the killing of Jesus. The study also found that 18 textbooks used "unscholarly and disparaging 'Old Testament' terminology for the Jewish scriptures when discussing the origins of Judaism." The study compared language used in describing Jewish and Christian belief with that describing Muslim belief. "The textbooks tend to be critical of Jews and Israel, disrespectful about Christianity, and rather than represent Islam in an objective way, tend to glorify it," says Ybarra. "Textbook publishers often defer completely to Muslim groups for their content [on Islam] because they want to be sensitive to Muslim concerns," he explained. "So they write that Mohammed is a prophet of God, without the qualifier you should have in a public school that shows you're teaching about religion, rather than teaching religion." One example among the many cited in the study is in World History: Continuity and Change, in which a glossary entry on the Ten Commandments describes them as "Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew God Yahweh on Mount Sinai." The same glossary describes the Koran as a "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God" — without a conditional qualifier. "Islam is treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be," the study finds. "Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as 'Muslims believe... .' "No religion should be presented in history textbooks as absolute truth, either on its own or compared to any other, or they all should be." "All in all, there are repeated misrepresentations that cross the line into bigotry," the authors write. The textbooks examined in the study are published by some of the largest publishers in America, including Pearson, an $8 billion dollar company which is one of America's largest textbook publishers, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, a global corporation with revenues totaling some $2.5 billion. The publishers, however, are not bigots, Tobin emphasizes. "I learned in graduate school that you should never try to explain something with conspiracy when you can account for it with incompetence," he says. "That's what you've got here. The fact that publishers don't use scholars to write the textbooks, but amateurs," is a major source of the bias in the texts. "If the person writing about the founding of Israel isn't an expert in the field — and he's not — he'll go to whatever sources he can find, such as Google. Any misinformation he finds can get into the textbooks." The lack of expertise among the writers is only one of the many "systemic ills" the study found in the textbook publishing process. "Developing a textbook and getting it adopted in the major states of Texas and California is so expensive that only those competitors with the deepest pockets stand a chance of succeeding. Only three mega-publishers (down from nine in less than twenty years) control the K-12 textbook market, meaning that more and more titles are concentrated in fewer hands. Errors in one book now stand a greater chance of replicating themselves across other books because they may originate from the same source." These structural weaknesses leave the textbook industry susceptible to pressure from certain groups. "We do not believe that textbook publishers are 'out to get' anybody or any group," the authors note in the study. Rather, "they are subject to all kinds of external pressures so that the higher pursuit of truth and accuracy can be sacrificed to narrow interests." "Arab and Muslim interest groups... promote a pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian agenda in textbooks' lessons on the Middle East," the study finds. "For example, the Council on Islamic Education has weighed in during adoption processes to oppose the direct and unconditional use of the term 'Israel' for the Israelite monarchy in textbooks, lest anyone make the connection between modern Jews' claims to Israel and the kingdom that existed in the same location 3,000 years ago." Says Tobin: "If the president of Iran wants to blast Israel at the UN, he can use American textbooks to do so." Among the teachings that were found in American textbooks are the following distortions: Jesus was a “Palestinian”, not a Jew. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website — http://am-yisrael-blog.blogspot.com/ |
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WISHING YOU A SWEET NEW YEAR
Posted by Asher Eder, September 25, 2008. |
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Contact Asher Eder at avrason@netvision.net.il |
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SARAH PALIN MYTHOLOGY DEBUNKED
Posted by NewsMax, September 25, 2008. |
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This was written by Ronald Kessler and it appeared in Newsmax.
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With George Bush soon leaving office, what will Bush bashers do with themselves? If Sarah Palin is elected vice president, it appears they will target her. Already, with the help of the media, they have managed to obfuscate the record of John McCain's vice presidential nominee and create a string of myths about her. To set the record straight, here are the chief myths, along with the facts. Myth: As governor of Alaska, Palin put the governor's plane up for sale on eBay but did not really sell it. Fact: After she did not find a buyer on eBay, she sold the plane eight months later through a broker for $2.2 million. Myth: Palin did not really stop the "Bridge to Nowhere." Fact: During her gubernatorial race in 2006, she endorsed the bridge but as governor rejected it, allocating the federal earmark money elsewhere. Meanwhile, in 2005, Barack Obama voted against a Senate amendment to stop funding for the project. Myth: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin banned nearly 100 books, including "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," and "Death of a Salesman." Fact: Palin never banned any books. An emailed list of books she supposedly banned included Harry Potter books that had not yet been published when she was in office. Myth: Palin fired her public safety commissioner because he would not terminate a trooper who was her former brother-in-law after he had been suspended for five days for misconduct. Fact: Palin did want Walt Monegan to fire her former brother-in-law. But extensive emails from Palin and her aides show she was upset with him because he repeatedly defied her instructions on a string of budget requests. He was offered another job but declined to take it. Myth: Palin cut funding for special needs education by 62 percent. Fact: Funding for the program in question was actually tripled thanks to legislation signed by Palin. Myth: Palin wanted Alaska to secede from the U.S. Fact: A member of the Alaskan Independence Party incorrectly told the New York Times that Palin at one time had been a member. She later recanted this claim and issued a public apology to the governor. Myth: Palin left Wasilla residents disenchanted with her. Fact: In subsequent elections, Wasilla residents voted for Palin by 70 percent or more. Myth: Palin has no experience. Fact: As noted in the Newsmax article, "McCain Shows He Is the Genuine Article," Palin has a string of accomplishments to show for her herself. As mayor, she cut property taxes by 75 percent and reduced her own salary by 10 percent. After joining the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003, she led an ethics probe of the commission's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, who also was the state GOP chairman. Facing conflict-of-interest-allegations, Ruedrich admitted ethics violations and resigned. Besides opposing the $400 million "Bridge to Nowhere," Palin as governor used her veto power to cut nearly $2 billion from the state budget. She was successful in enacting ethics reform legislation. While pushing to develop more energy resources, she reformed the system for paying Alaskans royalties from oil production. That will enable her to deliver a rebate of $1,200 — in addition to $2,069 in dividends — to each resident of the state. |
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UPDATE ON THE VICTIMS OF THE JERUSALEM CAR ATTACK. PLEASE PRAY
Posted by One Family Fund, September 25, 2008. |
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Please include the following people in your prayers. These are the eight victims of this week's Jerusalem Car attack remaining in hospital: Hagar bat Dana — Hagar suffered serious injuries to both her legs. One entire leg was crushed in the attack, and the other was injured from the knee down. She had surgery on both legs. She also suffered a broken jaw, and has stitches across half her face. She is on pain killers, but will recover fully. She is 18 years old, and is in the midst of a year of volunteer National Service with the army. She is in the Orthopedics ward at Ein Kerem. Or-El ben Anat — Or-El is a 19-year-old IDF soldier. He suffered injuries to three vertebrae of his spine, and underwent complex surgery to stabilize his back. He lives in Rosh HaAyin. He was moved from Hadassah to Beilinson hospital in Petach Tikva for rehabilitation closer to home. Matan ben Yael — Matan is an IDF soldier, who suffered a head injury. He is stable, and in the recovery room at Hadassah's ICU. Oleg ben Sara — Oleg is 28 years old, and serves in the permanent army. He was injured in the leg, and is recovering at the Hadassah orthopedics ward, but should be released soon. Mor Chaya bat Rivka — Mor is 27 years old, and suffered serious injuries to her spine, and had several of her vertebrae loosened in the crash. She underwent surgery on both knees and her back, and had her vertebrae stabilized. She is in the recovery room at Hadassah, and should be moved to the orthopedics ward over the weekend. Chana bat Faina — Chana is 18 years old and is in her voluntary National Service year with the army. She is of Russian descent. She was injured in the pelvis, and underwent surgery. She also suffered a broken jaw and injuries to her hands. She was moved to HaEmek hospital in Afula to be closer to home. She is recovering in the orthopedics ward there. Mor bat Nurit — Mor is a 19-year-old soldier. She suffered injuries to her pelvis, knees and hands. She is stable and recovering. in the Orthopedics ward at Shaare Tzedek hospital. They are planning to send her to Tel Hashomer hospital for rehab after Rosh Hashana. Yair ben Sima — Yair is a soldier who suffered injuries to his back. He had surgery, and spent some time in ICU, and was then transferred to Beilinson hospital in Petach Tikva for rehab. Also on September 22, an IDF soldier was attacked by a Palestinian woman who threw acid in his face. Stas ben Aliza — Stas is currently in Beilinson hospital in Petach Tikva, where he will be undergoing surgery to try and save his eyesight. info@onefamilyfund.org. contact them to help the Victims of Terrorism in Israel. |
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CATCH THE REAL CRIMINALS
Posted by Emanuel A Winston, September 25, 2008. |
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A pipe bomb lightly injured a prominent member of Shalom Achshav (Peace Now). Nearby were found flyers offering a bounty of one-million shekels to those who would kill members of Shalom Achshav. This has that old familiar smell of the Left employing Shabak to cast blame on the political Right as the prospect for elections draw near. The question is: Where to look? Of course, the first choice for the current Israeli Leftist Government and the radical Left NGOs is to blame the Right-wing settlers. The Left and Center have had a field day condemning these pioneering settlers — without a scintilla of proof. When the Left wishes to drum up hysteria against the Right before elections, the Leftist Media are happy to go along. The (what was termed) "lightly" injured victim has gotten calls and support from all the top politicians. Actually, this event generated much more support for this Professor Sternhall who has made statements which appear to legitimize Muslim Arab Terrorism than support for those who have been seriously injured in Muslim Arab Terrorist attacks in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. After years of serious bloody Terrorism against civilians and settlers, the police have put together a special team to catch "whoever" did this terrible thing. We don't recall any special teams put together for other Terrorist attacks. The Kadima mob want the Police to have a hunting license to subvert the rights of settlers with the Leftist Courts to back the attacks on those who disagree with Government policy. The main problem is that accused (with no proof) settlers would have to be pretty good with making a pipe bomb that was so well-designed that it was not supposed to kill but rather act more like a noise-making firecracker. Who do you suppose has that skill? What seems to be a rather deliberately incompetent job in preparing an incompetent pipe bomb does not fit the accused settler profile. It does, however, fit prior Shabak collusion at the behest of Leftist Government leaders to set up false actions so the Media and Courts can jail protesting Rightists. In case the Leftist Media missed the point, the supposed culprits left some flyers around offering a million shekel bounty, is a similarly lame trick. So, how did the culprit manage to put together a low yield pipe bomb that seems to be more like a propaganda bomb just before elections? Remember the infamous Shabak-Rabin "Champagne" affair — using Avishai Raviv as their provocateur? In light of that, we would wonder why the police will not consider that this crime was committed by a member of Shalom Achshav themselves — for their political reasons? Perhaps even with the cooperation of the person who was "lightly" injured? Sternhell has called for use of IDF tanks against Jews living in Judea and Samaria, and justified Arab attacks on the Jews living outside Israel's pre-1967 borders. Sternhell wrote in the Davar newspaper in 1988: "In the end we will have to use force against the settlers in Ofra or Elon Moreh. Only he who is willing to storm Ofra with tanks will be able to block the fascist danger threatening to drown Israeli democracy." In the Haaretz newspaper, in 2001, Sternhell said: "There is no doubt about the legitimacy of [Palestinian] armed resistance in the territories themselves. If the Palestinians had a little sense, they would concentrate their struggle against the settlements... and refrain from planting bombs west of the Green Line." — from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/zeev_Sternhell The article below is called "Police to Protect Peace Now Head" and was written by Hana Levi Julian — Arutz-7 www.israelnationalnews.com |
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The controversial professor, who was awarded the Israel Prize, was lightly injured when a pipe bomb exploded outside his front door in Jerusalem as he was locking the gate to his home at 1:00 a.m. Sternhall, who suffered light injuries to his legs, was taken to Sha'are Tzedek Medical Center. The 73-year-old Hebrew University academic has received "ideological" phone threats in recent weeks, according to police. Nationalists had appealed to the courts in an effort to prevent Sternhell from being awarded the Israel Prize because of statements he has made, which they said appear to legitimize terrorism. Flyers proclaiming, "The time has come for a halachic state in Judea and Samaria ! The time has come for the Kingdom of Judea!" were found in the streets near Sternhell's home, according to Ynet. A NIS 1.1 million award was promised on the flyers to anyone who kills a member of the Peace Now organization. "The extremist Right poses an existential danger to Israeli democracy," said Oppenheimer on Thursday, who blamed the attack on rights activists in Judea and Samaria. "Law enforcement authorities must abandon their lenient policy when it comes to law-breakers from within the settler community and their supporters before we see another politically-motivated murder in Israel," he said. "He who doesn't enforce the law on violent settlers in the territories will find himself with a Jewish terror organization in the heart of Israel." Politicians Call for Increased Security, Left Blames Right Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed not to let any harm come to Sternhell or any other person who chooses to express an opinion that might prove unpopular. "We won't let any elements, from any dark corner of Israeli society, harass people who let their clear, lucid unique voices like that of Ze'ev Sternhell be heard," he said in a statement. Kadima Knesset Member Otniel Schneller called for increased security, saying those who had bombed Sternhell's house were dangerous criminals who should face a judge for the attack. However, warned Schneller, the attempt by the Left to "take advantage of difficult events to polarize the public is extremely dangerous. Those who automatically blame the extreme Right are stirring up discord," he said. Meretz Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On slammed security agencies in the wake of the attack, charging them with favoring rights activists, who she also blamed for the attack. "The attempt to hurt Professor Sternhell is the result of the lenient attitude and weakness of the law enforcement agencies towards the extremist Right," she said in a statement following the bombing. "They better not talk to us about a few bad weeds," added Meretz party chairman Chaim Oron menacingly, who added that the "thuggish and dangerous act" came as the result of law enforcement officials not cracking down on anyone "who doesn't agree with the brutish section of the extreme right wing." Oron contended that "these phenomena spring up on the right wing." The National Jewish Front organization denied responsibility for the attack, saying, "We're not connected to the incident and do not operate that way." However, the group also stopped short of criticizing the bombing, adding, "We will not condemn it. Sternhell legitimized attacks against settlers." 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 winston@winstonglobal.org |
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PALESTINIAN EFFLUENT ENDANGERS UNDERGROUND WATER RESERVOIRS
Posted by Daily Alert, September 25, 2008. |
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Report by Environmental Protection Ministry, Civil Administration,
Israeli National Parks Service finds most West Bank streams
contaminated by wastewater. Lack of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation
may lead to severe pollution of underground reservoirs, it warns
written by Assaf Shmueli and appeared yesterday in Ynet
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The underground water reservoirs in the West Bank are in severe risk of contamination due to wastewater, a report published by the Environmental Protection Ministry, the Civil Administration and the Israeli Nature and National Parks Service (NPS), revealed earlier this week. According to the report, 58 million cubic-meters of untreated effluent are being pumped into the streams in the West Bank. The report sampled all of the streams in the West Bank for the very first time, as well as probed the efficiency of the sewage treatment centers in the area, in order to assess the damage caused to the environment and suggest possible solutions. The main problem, as indicated by the report, is the lack of proper treatment infrastructure: Raw wastewater from the West Bank cities of Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and their adjacent villages are pumped either to sewage pits or local treatment facilities, where they undergo little to no treatment before being pumped out to the streams. The West Bank cities have several treatment infrastructure plans in the works, but most are still only on paper and the existing facilities seem unable to handle the load. The Israeli Nature and National Parks Service's environmental protection unit also found that in many cases, the effluent diverted to sewage pits is handled by unlicensed containers and dumped in the streams. The majority of the West Bank streams are seasonal ones, but their beds are lined with lime rock and dolomite, which is a sedimentary carbonate rock — both of which unfortunately allow for quick absorption of the wastewater into the ground. Cooperation virtually nonexistent The fault, however, is not all the Palestinians, as only 70% of the Jewish communities east of the Green Line are connected to treatment facilities. Moreover, illegal outposts and unauthorized settlement expansions are not connected to any wastewater treatment centers and are pumping effluent into sewage pits. The Israeli-Palestinian cooperation on wastewater management is virtually nonexistent, with only the West Bank city of Qalqilya, the west part of Bethlehem and about half of Tulkarem connected to Israeli treatment facilities. According to the Civil Administration and the NPS, the cooperation with the Palestinians on the matter is limited to fixing small, local problems, such as burst pipes; but as far as the fundamentals issues, such as developing infrastructures go, they are not willing partners. Surprisingly, finding the budgets necessary to handle matters does not seem to be the problem: Creating an infrastructure which could both remedy the existing situation and avert future pollution is expected to cost nearly $200 million, but State, various international environmental groups and even the World Bank are willing to foot the bill. The problem, said sources in the NPS and the Civil Administration, is that politics seem to be overshadowing both sides' environmental needs, as the Palestinians see any such cooperation as a collaboration with their occupiers. So much so, in fact, that even the relatively simple solution of connecting Palestinians cities to auxiliary, rear-guard Israeli treatment pipelines, was deemed unacceptable. The only solution implemented so far has been impounding the wastewater in treatment facilities west of the Green Line. 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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MUSLIM GROWTH RATE DOWN
Posted by Hillel Fendel, September 25, 2008. |
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In honor of the new Jewish year of 5769, which begins Monday night, the Central Bureau of Statistics has released the latest population statistics. The bottom line: Jewish growth is up, Moslem growth is down. Israel's population at the end of 2007 stood at over 7.24 million, including 5.48 million Jews (75.6%) and 1.45 million Arabs (20%). The Jewish population grew by 1.6%. By contrast, the United States population grows annually by 0.9%. The Muslim population grew by 2.8% in 2007 — compared with 3% just two years earlier, and 3.8% in 2000. The Jewish population in Judea and Samaria [not including Jerusalem neighborhoods in areas liberated in 1967] stood at 282,000 at the end of 2007, according to the Interior Ministry. This is an increase of 5.2% over the year before — three times higher than the population jump in all of Israel. The population figures do not include citizens living in communities deemed illegal by the government. At the beginning of 2007, the total world Jewish population was 13,155,000, the 2007 Annual Report of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) reported. This represents an overall growth rate of 0.5% over the previous year's figures. The Diaspora experienced a net decrease in population of 20,000 Jews, while Israel's Jewish population increased by 80,000 souls. Number of Children per Jewish Woman — Up The number of children per Jewish woman rose slightly in 2007, while dropping in other ethnic/religious groupings. It rose among Jews to 2.8 children per woman from 2.75 the year before. Among Muslim women, this figure dropped from 3.97 in 2006 to 3.9 in 2007, and from 2.64 to 2.49 among Bedouin. In total, Israel's population grew by 1.8% in 2007 — equivalent to the growth rates in the 1980s, when immigration was down. In the early 90s, when immigration from the Soviet Union was at its peak, the population grew by approximately 3% a year. Single Women — Up Nearly 2% a Year On the other hand, Jewish bachelorhood also continues to rise. In 2006, 76% of the males aged 20-29 were single, compared with 73% six years earlier. Among the women in that age group, a full 60% were single, compared with 54% in 2000. Another worrisome factor is that while 33,880 Jewish couples married in 2006, 13,439 divorced — 85% of the total divorces in Israel. Among the Moslems, 9,273 weddings were held, and 1,134 couples divorced — only 8% of the total divorces. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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DEMOS SNUBBED ANTI-IRAN RALLY
Posted by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, September 25, 2008. |
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This appeared today in Arutz Sheva. |
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The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the National Jewish Democratic Convention and the left-wing lobby for pressuring anti-Iran organizers to disinvite Republican vice presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin while not calling on Democrats to attend. The Democratic party claimed that it did not want Gov. Palin to attend because the rally should not be politically oriented. However, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton previously announced she would not attend because she did not want to share the stage with Gov. Palin. Morton A. Klein, president of ZOA, said, "The rally was not a partisan political rally. It was an anti-Ahmadinejad rally. It did not become 'partisan' when Democratic Senators Clinton, Biden and Congressman Wexler were invited. And it did not become 'partisan' when Republican Governor Palin was also invited. Quite the contrary, it became bipartisan, as it should have been. No, it became a 'partisan' event when Governor Palin was disinvited." The rally was not a partisan political rally. It became a 'partisan' event when Governor Palin was disinvited. Klein added that the Jewish Democratic committee and "were clearly less than thrilled about Gov. Palin attending because their concern for was clearly subordinate to their domestic American political interests. Rather than welcome a call from Gov. Palin for tough measures to induce to stop its nuclear program, these groups were terrified that her address might win over part of the Jewish vote in November." He continued, "It should be noted that organizations like are not representative of the majority views of American Jewry or the Israeli electorate regarding and the Arab war on Israel. supports major territorial concessions, including dividing, to Mahmoud Abbas' unreconstructed Palestinian Authority, the creation of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel's existence and negotiations with Hamas, The ZOA, the National Council of Young Israel, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs complained that they were not consulted by the Conference of Major Jewish Organizations, which disinvited Gov. Palin. "There was no emergency call set up to discuss the decision to disinvite Palin," said Klein. Malcolm Hoenlein, president of the Conference, has not commented on the complaints, and he has been attacked in the past for decisions that critics said did not represent the common Jewish voice. The Conference sent its members an "urgent notice" about a conference call disinviting the Republican vice presidential candidate. CAMERA executive director Andrea Levine told the New York-based Jewish Forward that Hoenlein told her the governor was disinvited under the threat of other organizers that they would pull out of the anti-Iran rally. The newspaper quoted "insiders" in reporting that the liberal "JCPA and the New York-based organizers had clashed with Hoenlein over his decision to reach out to the McCain campaign without telling Clinton, who had been invited weeks ago, or the Obama campaign. Hoenlein countered that he did so only after Republicans rebuffed his efforts to have a senator attend." Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu writes for Arutz-7 (www/IsraelNN.com). |
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HUNGER-STRIKING JEWISH PRISONER — IN SOLITARY — ABRUPTLY TRANSFERRED
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 25, 2008. |
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The Government of Israel releases Muslim Arab Terrorists who were caught, tried, convicted and jailed at great risk to the Police, IDF and civilians of Israel. Terrorists who have blood on their hands are released. But, the Government of Israel considers Jews sentenced to prison as their personal enemies. Sometimes they reverse decisions made by the Supreme Court to further penalize Jewish prisoners. They are much more harsh on the conditions of Jewish prisoners — without blood on their hands — than on Muslim Arab prisoners — with blood on their hands. Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzippi Livni, Avi Dichter appear as an ugly bunch dedicated to the elimination of a Jewish nation and the people in it...unless you are a Jew-hating Leftist. Thousands of Muslim Arab killers are released to kill more — and it is proven that more than 50% of released Muslim Arab prisoners are recidivists (repeat criminals) who go on to kill again. They learn and improve on their Terrorist skills while in Israeli prisons being fed 3 meals a day, praying 5 times a day if they so wish and not working. But, Shimon Peres will not issue clemency for Jews. How this current bunch of so-called "Government Leaders" savors vengeance against their fellow Jews — especially those who appreciate and live their Jewishness — those who are pioneering settlers and religious in their daily lives. These Jews are viewed as enemies by those who want to rid themselves of their own Jewishness. They view the settlers and religious Jews as their personal enemies — not as real people, fathers of many children who need them and wives who hold up their whole family alone. The Courts are not much different than during many past eras when Jews were prejudiced against. Never forget and never forgive their cruelty. This was written by Hillel Fendel and
it appeared today in Arutz Sheva
Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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(IsraelNN.com) The Israel Prison Service has responded to Jewish security prisoner Ofer Gamliel's hunger-strike by abruptly transferring him to another prison. The General Security Service's Jewish department has been very heavily involved in the case, and is likely behind this latest move as well. Gamliel, father of seven, has served nearly 6.5 years of a 15-year-sentence with no vacations. He was convicted of his role in an aborted bombing of an Arab school in Jerusalem in 2002. He and his two co-defendants from Bat Ayin claimed the bomb was never meant to go off, but rather to instill fear in the Arab community. Gamliel began hunger-striking nine days ago in protest of the refusal to grant him any vacation days, while Arab and other prisoners receive them regularly, and in protest of the fact that his release is not being entertained, while Arab terrorists are released periodically as goodwill gestures to the Palestinian Authority. Gamliel's wife met with Public Security Minister Avi Dichter several months ago, and reported afterwards that he told her, "The truth is that we don't have as much of an interest in releasing your husband and the Jewish security prisoners as we do in releasing the Arabs." Shmuel Medad, head of the Honenu civil rights organization, said, "If people want their voice to be heard, they should fax Dichter at +972-2-530-8039, as well as the one man who can order their release — President Shimon Peres, at +972-2-5611033." Gamliel: To Solitary, and Now to Be'er Sheva A few days after beginning the strike, Gamliel was transferred to solitary confinement — where he continued to refuse to eat. The authorities have now added another punitive measure, transferring him to a prison in Be'er Sheva. Gamliel has filed an appeal in the Tel Aviv District Court against the transfer. The move to Be'er Sheva has separated him from religious prisoners and from the synagogue in Ayalon Prison in Ramle. Protest Tent Continues Supporters of Gamliel and other Jewish security prisoners are manning a protest tent outside Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem. They wish to draw attention to the plight of Gamliel and other Jewish prisoners who are not allowed vacations — while Arab prisoners are permitted to visit their homes for Ramadan and the like, and sometimes even released en-masse. The Shabak (GSS) claims they are hiding information on other Jewish conspiracies, and invariably tell judges that "every minute they are out of jail represents a danger to the State of Israel." Supreme Court Refuses to Veto GSS About a year ago, Tel Aviv Judge David Rosen ruled that the danger presented by Gamliel is not different than those presented by prisoners who are allowed vacations, and that he must therefore be allowed a short vacation outside prison. The GSS protested the ruling to the Supreme Court, which accepted the appeal. Gamliel protested and appealed the overturning of the decision, but Supreme Court Judge Uzi Fogelman rejected his appeal and upheld the no-vacations policy. Gamliel then applied to the Supreme Court for a re-hearing, but Justice Eliezer Rivlin turned him down. Realizing that as far as the authorities are concerned, he is destined to spend the next 8.5 years in prison without ever leaving, Gamliel decided to begin his hunger strike. At the same time, the public struggle on his behalf and on behalf of the other Jewish security prisoners continues. The Council of Prisoners' Families stated, "Transferring Gamliel is part of the attempt to break the spirit of the Jewish prisoners, in addition to not releasing them or allowing them vacations. This decision stems from petty one-upmanship of small-minded individuals who prefer to see Jews rot in jail while terrorists go free." 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 winston@winstonglobal.org |
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LAND OF ISRAEL ACTIVIST WINS APPEAL
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 25, 2008. |
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This is a news item from Arutz Sheva
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(IsraelNN.com) Nationalist activist Yekutiel Ben-Ya'akov of Kfar Tapuach won an appeal on Thursday against a conviction for incitement to racism. Ben-Ya'akov had been convicted in the Jerusalem Magistrates Court for writing and allegedly passing out pamphlets in 2004 that called for a referendum to decide whether or not all Arabs should be expelled from Israel. Ben-Ya'akov admitted to writing the text printed on the pamphlets. However, prosecutors were unable to provide evidence indicating that he had been responsible for distributing the pamphlets. The Jerusalem District Court ruled in Ben-Ya'akov's favor due to the lack of evidence and overturned the Magistrates Court's conviction. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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NO SECOND JEWISH HOLOCAUST
Posted by Rock Peters, September 25, 2008. |
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Three generations ago Nazism was defeated but those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, At the end of 1945 6,000,000 Jews lie dead Ike predicted one day they'll be Holocaust denial and now by the Iranian leader. this very lie is constantly said The Nazi death camp was liberated by General Eisenhower today another Nazi named Ahmadinejad wants to attain nuclear power, And why? Well to attain the same goal as the Nazis the mass murder of Jews this should not come as shocking news, For Ahmadinejad has said time and time again " must be destroyed" and at this prospect the Muslim world is overjoyed, Ahmadinejad like the Nazis thinks Jews are inferior and he has actually referred to as a "filthy bacteria," In the 1930's the Western democracies faced with Nazi tyranny appeased, sat and waited today we too are idle When Ahamdinejad says, " will soon be annihilated" (May, 11 2006 in ) I don't get it what don't we Westerners understand? the Iranian leader has said plain and simple "Wipe Israel off the map!" this is his demand, Ahmadinejad has also said cannot survive even if she gives land for a Palestinian state Jews and Christians, my fellow Americans, for what do we wait? Western powers arise. Strike hard and strike fast unless we want to relive the past, When people say they mean to kill you take them at their word A nuclear must be, by any means deterred. You can't talk to tyrants because after long length with fascists there is only road to peace and that is through strength! We must stop his nuclear program by any power at our disposal, any force that is necessary! Never again! No Second Jewish Holocaust Liberalism + [Pacifism and Appeasement] — Bloodshed, Death and Destruction "The Stars and Stripes" and the "Star of David" are united,
inseparable and indivisible. We are Americans and we stand by Israel
Today, Tomorrow, Forever! General Eisenhower understood that many people would be unable to
comprehend the full scope of this horror. He also understood that any
human deeds that were so utterly evil might eventually be challenged
or even denied as being literally unbelievable. For these reasons he
ordered that all the civilian news media and military combat camera
units be required to visit the camps and record their observations in
print, pictures and film. As he explained to General Marshall, "I made
the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give
first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there
develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to
'propaganda.'
Contact Rock Peter at rockpeters@aol.com |
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AGAIN ANTISEMITISM, WELCOMED AND CHEERED
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 25, 2008. |
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This was written by Anne Bayefsky , is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and at Touro College. She is also editor of www.EyeontheUN. |
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008 will go down in history as the day the United Nations General Assembly provided a platform for a head of state to spew unadulterated, vile antisemitism — and the assembled nations of the world clapped. The United Nations has become the largest global purveyor of antisemitism in the world today. In the full knowledge that the president of Iran denies the Holocaust and advocates the destruction of the U.N. member state of Israel, the U.N. invited him to mount the dais and gave him a megaphone. Dictators have pontificated at the General Assembly before. Terrorists like Yasser Arafat have come and gone. But in the halls of an organization founded on the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's effort to promote another Holocaust from center stage stands alone. While the United States and Israel left their ambassadorial seats empty, here is the Jew-hatred greeted by enthusiasm at today's U.N.: The dignity, integrity and rights of the European and American people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support... This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against they will... Today, the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters. Antisemitism often masquerades as anti-Zionism — a denial of the right to self-determination only for Jews. At least Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did us the service of making the undeniable connection between the two. Disputing the legitimacy of the state of Israel, he said: In Palestine, 60 years of carnage and invasion is still ongoing at the hands of some criminal and occupying Zionists. They have forged a regime through collecting people from various parts of the world and bringing them to other people's land by displacing, detaining and killing the true owners of that land...The Security Council cannot do anything and sometimes, under pressure from few bullying powers, even paves the way for supporting these Zionist murderers... In its entire history, the United Nations General Assembly has never adopted a resolution dedicated to denouncing and combating the scourge of antisemitism in all its forms. Now we know why. Less than half of U.N. members are fully free democracies and among them there is no consensus that discrimination and demonization of Jews and the Jewish state is wrong. On the contrary, at the U.N. vicious antisemitism is met by a round of applause. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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APPEASE IRAN?
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 25, 2008. |
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This was written by Daniel Pipes |
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After Hitler, the policy of appeasing dictators — ridiculed by Winston Churchill as feeding a crocodile, hoping it will eat one last — appeared to be permanently discredited. Yet the policy has enjoyed some successes and remains a live temptation today in dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Academics have long challenged the facile vilification of appeasement. Already in 1961, A.J.P. Taylor of Oxford justified Neville Chamberlain' Neville Chamberlain mistakenly declared "peace in our time" on September 30, 1938. In perhaps the most convincing treatment of the pro-appeasement thesis, Paul M. Kennedy, a British historian teaching at Yale University, established that appeasement has a long and credible history. In his 1976 article, "The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865-1939," Kennedy defined appeasement as a method of settling quarrels "by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise," thereby avoiding the horrors of warfare. It is, he noted, an optimistic approach, presuming humans to be reasonable and peaceful. From the prime ministry of William Gladstone until its discrediting in the late 1930s, appeasement was, in Kennedy's description, a "perfectly respectable" term and even "a particularly British form of diplomacy" well suited to the country's character and circumstances. Kennedy found the policy had four quasi-permanent bases, all of which apply especially well to the United States today: Moral: After the Evangelical movement swept England in the early nineteenth century, British foreign policy contained a strong urge to settle disputes fairly and non-violently. As a result, for over seven decades, London pursued, with rare exceptions, a foreign policy that was "pragmatic, conciliatory, and reasonable." Again and again, the authorities found that "the peaceful settlement of disputes was much more to Britain's advantage than recourse to war." In particular, appeasement steadily influenced British policy vis-à-vis the United States (in relation to, for example, the Panama Canal, Alaska's borders, Latin America as a U.S. sphere of influence) and Wilhelmine Germany (the "naval holiday" proposal, colonial concessions, restraint in relations with France). Kennedy judges the policy positively, as serviceably guiding the foreign relations of the world's most powerful state for decades and "encapsulating many of the finer aspects of the British political tradition." If not a brilliant success, appeasement permitted London to accommodate the expanding influence of its non-ideological rivals such as the United States and Imperial Germany, which generally could be counted on to accept concessions without becoming inflamed. It thus slowed the UK's gentle decline. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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DEAFENING SILENCE
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 25, 2008. |
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This is by Daniel Johnson and it appeared today in the
New York Sun |
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LONDON — THIS TIME HE WENT TOO FAR. If a Western head of state had echoed Adolf Hitler, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did this week, would Europeans have shrugged their shoulders and dragged their feet over sanctions? Yet it seems that the Iranian president is now licensed to blame "Zionists" for everything from the economic crisis to "the whole world order," to threaten Israel's existence and to use words like "cesspool" to describe its people. There was a deafening silence in Britain. Prime Minister Brown was too preoccupied with his own survival, making yet another "life-or-death speech" at his Labor party conference. The Conservative leader, David Cameron, also ignored the scandal. For the press, too, this was old news, and not even the intended victims raised much of a protest. The Times of London, determined to impress its readers with the gravity of the story, ran the story accompanied by a fetching photograph of Carla Bruni. Some have compared Mr. Ahmadinejad's language to that of the Nuremberg rallies. That is not entirely accurate. It actually reminded me of Heinrich Himmler's notorious speech at Posen in October 1943, in which he explained why the Nazis wanted to exterminate even Jewish children, to "make this people disappear off the face of the Earth," so that future generations of Jews could never avenge their parents. Like Himmler, Mr. Ahmadinejad claims that his own people — and Muslims more generally — are threatened by "Zionists," exploiting the paranoia of the Islamic world to justify turning Iran into a single gigantic nuclear suicide bomb. But if there is little difference between Mr. Ahmadinejad's murderous intentions and those of Hitler and Himmler, there is a considerable difference in the openness with which he talks about them. Himmler's speech — one of several occasions when the S.S. leader was frank about the aim of annihilating the entire Jewish people — was given to an invited audience of party bosses, including Joseph Goebbels and Albert Speer. Years later, Speer tried to claim — falsely — that he had not been present at this occasion, in order to persuade the world that he had known nothing about the Shoah. In other words, the Nazis were secretive about showing the world the full enormity of their crime. Not so Mr. Ahmadinejad, who speaks in the full glare of publicity at the United Nations in New York. True, he claims to be a friend of those Jews who are not "Zionists" and even praised Moses as a great prophet. But this rank hypocrisy is so transparent that nobody even pretends to take it seriously. As Shimon Peres dryly observed, if Jews are all to return to the lands of their origin, why not start with Moses, who came from Egypt? Mr. Ahmadinejad knows very well that the Israeli people is not going anywhere. If Israel is, as he threatens, to be wiped off the map, then his Iranian Revolutionary Guards — the S.S. of our day — and their terrorist auxiliaries, Hamas and Hezbollah, will have to kill 6 million Israelis. That is why Iran's Führer wants the bomb and why he must be stopped from building one. The downplaying of the scandalous nature of Iran's open threat to destroy Israel is itself a scandal. Only in America and in Israel itself is the threat taken seriously. Even there, some people miss the point. Barack Obama said that he was sorry that Mr. Ahmadinejad "had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views." The best that can be said about this is that the senator has a lot to learn. It's not the platform but the views that matter — and Mr. Obama has still not explicitly ruled out meeting the Iranian president, reversing his notorious offer to do so earlier this year. I shall be surprised if John McCain does not raise this issue with him in their first TV debate tomorrow. Mr. Obama had better have a good reply ready. Still, the primary responsibility for preventing a second Holocaust lies with the nations who carried out or permitted the first one: the Europeans. But Europe's leaders are heading in the wrong direction. It doesn't matter much whether President Sarkozy shakes hands with his Iranian counterpart, but it does matter that he is doing much more than shake hands with President Assad, the leader of Iran's closest ally, Syria, and with President Medvedev, the leader of Russia, which is blocking sanctions on the U.N. Security Council. Syria, as it happens, is reported to be massing troops on the Lebanese border, while Russia has sent nuclear-armed warships to the Caribbean. These rogue states are not only accomplices in Mr. Ahmadinejad's criminal enterprise, but threats to peace in their own right. Mr. Sarkozy, who holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, is making a big mistake if he thinks that Syria or Russia will detach themselves from Iran merely because he asks them nicely. The time has come for the democracies to unite against Iran and its allies. The Iranians need to understand that their president is now an outcast from humanity and a fugitive from justice — for to threaten genocide is a crime against humanity. Unless there is a change of leadership in Iran, an air strike against its nuclear facilities is imperative. The only question is who will be involved and when it will take place. If the democracies, led by Europe and America, showed their solidarity with Israel by signalling that they recognize Israel's right of self-defense, there would be little that Iran and its allies could do — and the allies would most likely desert. This newspaper has supported solidarity with Israel from the
start. The last thing the free world needs now is for such a voice to
fall silent.
Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com
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THE FLAG OF KAVEH OR KAWA
Posted by Jaff Sassani, September 25, 2008. |
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True or mythological, the story of the blacksmith Kaveh goes back to an era before The Medes and Sassanian Empires. Kaveh led a popular uprising against the foreign demon-like ruler Dahag (Modern Iranian: Zahhāk). Using the blacksmith's leather apron on a spear as a flag, Kaveh lead the Aryan people to destroy Zahhak, the Arab tyrant who unjustly ruled over the Aryan people's lands. The founder of the Sassanian Empire was the Great Spirit and tireless son of the Aryan people, Ardashir Sassani. Once more the flag of the blacksmith Kaveh was used. Sassani used this flag as his own, as a symbol to liberate and build an independent country for the Aryan nation. We hope that someday the Aryan people will once again come together to form a united front, similar to the Europeans union. Every Aryan nation should have the freedom to form the country and Government for themselves separately. Instead of trying to destroy each other, we should try to help each other to form a free country like those in Europe so that we can live with each other in peace. Racism will cause divisions, no matter whether it is Persian racism, Kurdish racism, Afghani racism or any other Aryan racism. Considering and accounting for each others interests, will bring the Aryan people together and get us united. The many languages used in Europe have not stood in the way as they form a solid European union. We, the Aryan people, have languages very similar to one another; it should be much easier for us to get united. We have a lot of powerful enemies, like families from the Islamic Sayed, with Arabic origins and Turks. They would not like to see us united. That is why they work to inject division among us. The Sassanian Empire was an independent Aryan country that followed the Zoroastrians religion. It was not solely a Persian country. Even Ferdawsi are questionable. Those who follow the racist Persian policy are enemies of the Aryan people without any doubt. It is possible that Shitte Islamic Sayeds or Turks injected this racist belief among the Aryan people to keep them from becoming united forever. But enemies of the Aryan peoples plans are useless because the Aryan people are much more knowledgeable and smarter than they are. The Aryan people's eyes were truly opened following the Islamic revolution of Iran. Sayed Allotola Komani's, along with his disciples, ruled as a tyrant and abused many. They are no longer accepting the propaganda and they are not getting fooled in the name of Shitte any more. There is hope for a better future and happier days for the Aryan people. Jaff Sassanian is the nom de plume of a spokesman for the Sassanians who live in Iran. Contact the group at jaff.skdc@googlemail.com |
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THE WARPED MIRROR: INDEBTED TO THE NAZIS
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 25, 2008. |
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This was posted by Petra Marquardt-Bigman
in the September 21, 2008 Jerusalem Post
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It's becoming rather fashionable in some circles to accuse Israel of behaving like the Nazis — and the Nazis probably wouldn't mind this kind of "legacy": they killed one third of world Jewry, but they didn't achieve the "Final Solution" they had planned for. The Jews survived as a people and even managed to build their own state among hostile neighbors, most of whom have never clearly distanced themselves from the hatred preached by one of their political leaders, Amin al-Husseini — and there is good reason why al-Husseini is sometimes referred to as "Hitler's Mufti." Yet, those whose views barely differ from the ones held by al-Husseini, have today the support of activists like Lauren Booth, who found it appropriate to lecture Israelis in a recent interview from Gaza: "You were in the concentration camps, and I can't believe that you are allowing the creation of such a camp yourselves." In another interview, conducted by a like-minded activist and British politician on Press TV, an Iranian English-language 24-hour news channel based in London, she was asked: "Why are they keeping you cooped up in the concentration camp called Gaza?" To which she responded enthusiastically: "I want to say thank you for using the word concentration camp because the word prison has been applied in the last few years and that's a lie." In the Jerusalem Post, the report about Lauren Booth's stay in the Gaza "concentration camp" was accompanied by two photos, one showing Ms. Booth cheerfully planting a tree, the other showing a large gathering of Islamic Jihad members in Gaza enjoying a rich Iftar meal to break the Ramadan fast (this was, of course, a men only event). For an even more drastic visual illustration, it is worthwhile to visit Harry's Place, where the blog entry on "Lauren Booth in Gaza" features photos of Ms. Booth doing some shopping in a well-stocked supermarket in Gaza, chatting on the cell phone in a lush, well-tended garden, meeting the rather well-fed Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh to receive a special Hamastan "diplomatic passport" — and then, a rather shocking contrast: a photo from Darfur, and a photo from a Nazi concentration camp. Since there is no reason to think that Ms. Booth is capable of feeling embarrassed, it's quite safe to assume that she didn't mind at all that she wasn't the only one who made headlines last week by comparing Israel to the Nazis — indeed, it is more likely that she was flattered when Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of "perpetrating a holocaust on the Palestinian people." Rather unsurprisingly, Ahmadinejad also told his listeners that the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis was a "fake." It is noteworthy that Ahmadinejad made these statements during a press conference ahead of his visit to New York where he will address the United Nations General Assembly and enjoy being treated by many as a respected leader of a UN member country. But there was yet another report last week that evoked memories of Nazi crimes in connection with Israel: quite coincidentally, on the same day as the Iranian president denied the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis while accusing Israel of perpetrating a holocaust against the Palestinians, the South African Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu claimed that because of the Holocaust, the West was too hesitant to criticize Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. Reportedly, Tutu said: "I think the West, quite rightly, is feeling contrite, penitent, for its awful connivance with the Holocaust. The penance is being paid by the Palestinians. I just hope again that ordinary citizens in the West will wake up and say 'we refuse to be part of this'." It is not the first time that Tutu has made remarks about Israel that are rather ambiguous. This statement can easily be read as drawing a parallel between the Holocaust and the situation of the Palestinians. It is not only because Tutu clearly suggests that in both cases, silence amounts to connivance, it is also because Tutu feels that there is not enough criticism of Israel. Does he never open a newspaper, and are we to believe that he did not get a copy of the recent best-seller authored by fellow Nobel Peace laureate Jimmy Carter? And when it comes to keeping silent and risking connivance, does Tutu worry about the many people who find excuses for Ahmadinejad's incitement against Israel? Does Tutu worry about people like Lauren Booth, who compares Israelis to the Nazis while being comfortably hosted by representatives of an organization that preaches the vilest anti-Semitism in its charter? Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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WILL OLMERT BE INDICTED? WHY NOT?; U.S. MAY SOON LOSE WAR IN IRAQ, AFTER ALL
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 24, 2008. |
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ISRAEL PROPOSES COMPENSATING SETTLERS WHO LEAVE Deputy PM Ramon proposes compensating Jews who leave certain areas of Judea-Samaria voluntarily and before the expulsions might begin. Those areas are said to be the ones isolated from larger population centers. Note that negotiations have not established any borders requiring Jewish exodus. The rationale: encourage a non-resisting exodus. Critics suppose that the bill is for: 1. Leftists, to show this to their foreign financial backers; 2. Pre-empting future Israeli negotiators; 3. Dividing Yesha Jewry and undermining resistance; 4. Preparing to argue that since those who remain could have left, they don't deserve government protection or consideration. The Cabinet deferred discussion of the topic. Jewish victims of the Gaza expulsion, most of whom do not have permanent homes or jobs years later, think it ridiculous for the government to plan more of the same, failed scheme (Dr. Lerner, IMRA, 9/7.) INDICT OLMERT OR NOT? The police have recommended indicting PM Olmert on two of the several cases against him. Olmert said he would resign if indicted. For one of those cases, the evidence suffices to begin prosecution. The Attorney-General should indict, and declare the government a transitional one. A transitional government is not supposed to engage in fateful negotiations. The Attorney-Gen., being a leftist, probably approves of those appeasement-mind negotiations. Will he wait until he has evidence in both cases, allowing Olmert time to give away more national security? (IMRA, 9/6.) IRAN'S ECONOMY FALTERING (& America's?) Pres. Ahmadinejad spends beyond the budget. Despite soaring oil prices and the promises of the President of Iran, his country is beset by 25% inflation and serious shortages. Privatization has failed to get going. The President refuses to accept responsibility. He sends troops to cow potential riots. Other politicians openly blame him (IMRA, 9/7). GAZA TRIES TO BUILD A TOURIST INDUSTRY (IMRA, 9/7). Why not? My friends, supposedly of conscience, who run to murderous or imperialist Russia, China, and Cuba, would take their chances on Gaza, too. Some of them, although Jewish, have not toured Israel, yet. CHANGE IN IRAQ OMINOUS Iraq feels that its mostly Shiite army can take care of itself in most respects. It has assumed from the US responsibility for security in provinces whose Sunni, former terrorists, turned against al-Qaeda and defeated it. The US used to pay the Sunni militias. Iraq won't. It is closing the militia offices and disarming the militias. Militiamen thought the government would hire them for its security posts, but find their applications rejected. They will be out of work and not have the arms with which to protect themselves if al-Qaida returns (IMRA, 9/7). Iraq's survival depends on the Shiite government integrating the Sunnis, not having them feel persecuted and re-joining al-Qaida. If the Shiite government resumes the old ethnic separation, we are liable to lose the Iraq war, after all. P.A. VS. HAMAS P.A. police have been taking over Hamas civilian institutions in Judea-Samaria, which gave Hamas popular support there. The police also have confiscated Hamas arms and arrested some Hamas military men, but soon released the men. It has not acted much against Hamas forces (IMRA, 9/7). POLL EXPOSES PALESTINIAN ARABS Only 14% of Palestinian Arabs would educate their children for peace even after final negotiations! 74% approve of kidnapping Israeli soldiers in order to get convicted Arab terrorists freed in exchange. This is not that picture of those people put forward by Sec. Rice (IMRA, 9/8). What does this show about the Palestinian Arabs? It shows that most of them approve of violence and war for intolerance. Willing to commit any crime to free people convicted of murdering innocent civilians, they reveal themselves as predominantly extremist. Their leaders are no better. FREER TRAVEL, TRADE, & INVESTMENT IN P.A. EFFECTIVE As checkpoints were removed or changed into biometric monitoring, and foreign aid and investment expanded, more P.A. Arabs took public transportation, the tourist industry grew in Bethlehem and Jericho, the P.A. stock market swelled, and the P.A. exported 25% more produce to Israel (IMRA, 9/8). They are not oppressed by Israel, as stated. It is up to them to make peace and find prosperity. My ancestors settled in Jericho, and belong to the Jews. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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OBAMA WORKED CLOSELY WITH TERRORIST BILL AYERS
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 24, 2008. |
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This was written by Aaron Klein and it appeared yesterday in
World Net Daily
Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, is known for his regular interviews with Mideast terror leaders and his popular segments on America's top radio programs. His newly released book is Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans — to a Jew! |
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Records show collaboration on funding leftists despite claim he's just 'a guy' in neighborhood 
JERUSALEM — In spite of Sen. Barack Obama's claims to the contrary, the Democratic presidential nominee had a close working relationship with former Weathermen terrorist leader William Ayers when the two served alongside each other on a hundred-million-dollar education foundation, according to the group's own archived records. The records also show Obama's and Ayers' foundation granted money to radical leftist activist causes. News reports, archived records, interviews and Ayers' own curriculum vitae document that Ayers was the founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or CAC, which bills itself as a school reform organization. Ayers also served as co-chairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one of the two operational arms of the CAC, from its formation in 1995 until 2000. In 1995, Obama was appointed as the CAC's first chairman. In response to a query by National Review Online writer Stanley Kurtz, the Obama campaign issued a statement claiming Ayers was not involved with Obama's "recruitment" to the CAC board. The statement said Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham, who served as presidents of other foundations, recruited Obama. Last April, Obama dismissed Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." But Kurtz reviewed the CAC archives at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which houses CAC board meeting minutes and other documentation from the education foundation. He found that along with Leff and Graham, Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board of the CAC, which hired Obama. "Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval," Kurtz writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece today. Indeed, several articles in 1994 and 1995 in the Chicago Tribune detail Ayers' extensive work to secure the original grant for the CAC from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg, as well as Ayers' molding of the CAC guidelines. It would have been unusual for Ayers not to have been involved in the selection of Obama. Kurtz reports the CAC archives demonstrate Obama and Ayers worked as a team to further the foundation's agenda. Obama was in charge of fiscal matters, while Ayers' position was more concerned with shaping educational policy. The documents show Ayers served as an ex-officio member of the board that Obama chaired through the CAC's first year. Ayers also served on the board's governance committee with Obama, and worked with him to craft CAC bylaws, according to the documents. Ayers made presentations to board meetings chaired by Obama. Ayers also spoke for the Chicago School Reform Collaborative before Obama's board, while Obama periodically spoke for the board at meetings of the collaborative, the CAC documents reviewed by Kurtz show. According to the documents, the CAC granted money to far-leftist causes, such as the radical Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which, WND reported, has done work on behalf of Obama's presidential campaign. ACORN is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families. It has held violent, disruptive protests, seeks to regulate banks, supports left-leaning education policies, is accused of working on urging partisan voter turnout for elections, and seems to promote driving businesses from cities. WND broke the story last week that while Obama chaired the board of the CAC, more than $600,000 was granted to an organization founded by Ayers and run by Mike Klonsky, a former top communist activist. Klonsky was leader of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, which was effectively recognized by China as the all-but-official U.S. Maoist party. Confirms Kurtz: "Instead of funding schools directly, [the CAC] required schools to affiliate with 'external partners,' which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as ACRON." In 1995, the year Ayers founded the CAC, he gave an interview for author Ron Chepesiuk's book "Sixties Radicals" in which Ayers stated, "I'm a radical, leftist, small 'c' communist." Kurtz notes that in his book, "Teaching Toward Freedom," Ayers states his goal is to "teach against oppression," which Kurtz says Ayers defines as "against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation." The timing of Obama's appointment in 1995 to lead Ayers' CAC project prompts unanswered questions about when Obama first met Ayers. It is unlikely Ayers appointed an unknown to chair his group. Also in 1995, the first organizing meeting for Obama's state senatorial campaign reportedly was held in Ayers' apartment. Obama's campaign did not immediately return a WND request for comment about the timing of the presidential candidate's relationship with Ayers. The CAC is not Obama's only working relationship with the unrepentant terrorist. In a widely circulated article, WND first reported Obama served on the board of the Wood's Fund, a liberal Chicago nonprofit, alongside Ayers from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000. The "Friends of Barack Obama" campaign fund lists a $200 campaign contribution from Ayers April 2, 2001. The two appeared together as speakers at several public events, including a 1997 University of Chicago panel entitled, "Should a child ever be called a 'super predator?'" and another panel for the University of Illinois in April 2002 entitled, "Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?" Ayers is currently a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a member of the Weathermen group, which sought to overthrow the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971. Ayers has admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. He told the New York Times in an interview released Sept. 11, 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." He posed for a photograph accompanying the piece that shows him stepping on an American flag. Earlier this month, Ayers wrote on his blog he still feels not enough was done to oppose the Vietnam War, although he clarified, "I don't think violent resistance is necessarily the answer, but I do think opposition and refusal is imperative." Ayers' wife, Dohrn, also has served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left four people dead. The charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance. Previous stories: Obama cited Ayers job as qualification to run
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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MUSLIM GROUP SEEKS PROBE OF 'RADICAL ISLAM' DVD, "THIRD JIHAD
Posted by Avodah, September 24, 2008. |
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This was written by Eric Gorski
and is archived at
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A U.S. Muslim advocacy group Tuesday asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether a nonprofit group that distributed a controversial DVD about Islam in newspapers nationwide is a "front" for an Israel-based group with a stealth goal of helping Republican presidential candidate John McCain. The promoters of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" denied trying to promote any presidential campaign. They said it's also incorrect to tie the DVD campaign to Jerusalem-based educational group Aish HaTorah International, although current and former employees are involved with the project. The Council for American-Islamic Relations asked the FEC to investigate the DVD distribution, which targeted about 28 million households mostly in battleground election states. The DVDs — which critics call anti-Muslim propaganda — were inserted this month into more than 70 newspapers and paid for by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit founded in 2006. The group's focus is "the most urgent threat of radical Islam." It has declined to identify board members or its funding. Never picked up for traditional distribution, "Obsession" features scenes of Muslim children being urged to become suicide bombers, 9/11 carnage and interviews with critics of Islam. Another organization, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, is a partner with the Clarion Fund in "The Obsession Project," which will also include research publications andissue forums. Ari Morgenstern, a spokesman for that group, said targeting swing states was designed to attract media attention, but is not meant to influence the election result. He said the film "makes a very clear and upfront distinction between the majority of peaceful followers of Islam and those people who subscribe to a radical Islamic ideology." In its complaint, CAIR cites New York Secretary of State records showing that three people who incorporated Clarion Fund also are employees or have been employees of Aish HaTorah International, a Jerusalem-based Jewish educational organization that has offices around the world. "American voters deserve to know whether they are the targets of a multimillion-dollar campaign funded and directed by a foreign group seeking to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria as a way to influence the outcome of our presidential election," Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, said in a statement. As evidence of a McCain bias, CAIR cites a story in the Patriot News of Harrisburg, Pa., which reported that a Clarion Fund Web site ran a pro-McCain article before it attracted notice and was taken down. "If you heighten the hysteria over national security or terrorism or do anything to make people more fearful, it's clear they would trend toward McCain because that's been his mantra throughout the campaign," said Ibrahim Hooper, a CAIR spokesman. Under federal election law and the tax code, nonprofit groups are restricted from getting involved in candidate races and foreign nationals may not contribute to American campaigns. The DVD's distributors say their efforts are issue-based and don't break election laws. The Canadian producer of the film, Raphael Shore, is a full-time employee of Aish HaTorah International, an educational group that avoids politics, said Ronn Torossian, a New York-based spokesman for the group. Shore's work on the DVD project was not done under the banner of Aish HaTorah, Torossian said. "These are independent activities of individuals," he said. Gregory Ross, spokesman for the New York-based Clarion Fund, declined to discuss the complaint's specifics. He pointed out that it's normal for nonprofits to keep donors' identities private. He said the group has "thousands of donors that span the political spectrum." "We are not telling people who to vote for," said Ross, a former employee of Aish HaTorah International. "We're just saying no matter who gets in office, the American people should know radical Islam is a real threat to America. We don't feel radical Islam is getting its fair share of press." The group is preparing to release another film, "Third Jihad," but has no plans for mass distribution, Ross said. On the Net:
EDITOR'S NOTE:
The Third Jihad Trailer is available at
Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com and visit his website — http://am-yisrael-blog.blogspot.com/ |
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THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 24, 2008. |
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I'm not taking sides, but if the sheople let the media apply its clever methods of trying to influence, I feel I'm doing my bit to fight them. Vote, but be informed. This a Commentary by Tony Blankley and it appeared
today in the Rasmussen Reports
Tony Blankley is executive vice president of Edelman public relations in Washington. |
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The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight-out propagandists for the Obama campaign. While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08, for the first time, the major media consciously are covering for one candidate for president and consciously are knifing the other. This is no longer journalism; it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.) And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who has not been thoroughly or even halfway honestly presented to the country by our watchdogs — the press. The image of Obama that the press has presented to the public is not a fair approximation of the real man. They consciously have ignored whole years of his life and have shown a lack of curiosity about such gaps, which bespeaks a lack of journalistic instinct. Thus, the public image of Obama is of a "man who never was." I take that phrase from a 1956 movie about a real-life World War II British intelligence operation to trick the Germans into thinking the Allies were going to invade Greece rather than Sicily in 1943. Operation Mincemeat involved the acquisition of a human corpse dressed as "Major William Martin, R.M.," which was put into the sea near Spain. Attached to the corpse was a briefcase containing fake letters suggesting that the Allied attack would be against Sardinia and Greece. To make the operation credible, British intelligence concocted a fictional life for the corpse, creating a letter from a lover and tickets to a London theater — all the details of a life, but not the actual life of the dead young man whose corpse was being used. So, too, the man the media have presented to the nation as Obama is not the real man. The mainstream media ruthlessly and endlessly repeat any McCain gaffes while ignoring Obama gaffes. You have to go to weird little Web sites to see all the stammering and stuttering that Obama needs before getting out a sentence fragment or two. But all you see on the networks is an eventually clear sentence from Obama. You don't see Obama's ludicrous gaffe that Iran is a tiny country and no threat to us. Nor his 57 American states gaffe. Nor his forgetting, if he ever knew, that Russia has a veto in the U.N. Nor his whining and puerile "come on" when he is being challenged. This is the kind of editing one would expect from Goebbels' disciples, not Cronkite's. More appalling, a skit on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" last weekend suggested that Gov. Palin's husband had sex with his own daughters. That show was written with the assistance of Al Franken, Democratic Party candidate in Minnesota for the U.S. Senate. Talk about incest. But worse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting are the shocking gaps in Obama's life that are not reported at all. The major media simply have not reported on Obama's two years at New York's Columbia University, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers. Later, they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Ayers. Should the media be curious? In only two weeks, the media have focused on all the colleges Gov. Palin has attended, her husband's driving habits 20 years ago, and the close criticism of the political opponents Gov. Palin had when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. But in two years, they haven't bothered to see how close Obama was with the terrorist Ayers. Nor have the media paid any serious attention to Obama's rise in Chicago politics. How did honest Obama rise in the famously sordid Chicago political machine with the full support of Boss Daley? Despite the great — and unflattering — details on Obama's Chicago years presented in David Freddoso's new book on Obama, the mainstream media continue to ignore both the facts and the book. It took a British publication, The Economist, to give Freddoso's book a review with fair comment. The public image of Obama as an idealistic, post-race, post-partisan, well-spoken and honest young man with the wisdom and courage befitting a great national leader is a confection spun by a willing conspiracy of Obama, his publicist (David Axelrod) and most of the senior editors, producers and reporters of the national media. Perhaps that is why the National Journal's respected correspondent Stuart Taylor wrote, "The media can no longer be trusted to provide accurate and fair campaign reporting and analysis." That conspiracy not only has Photoshopped out all of Obama's imperfections (and dirtied up his opponent McCain's image) but also has put most of his questionable history down the memory hole. The public will be voting based on the idealized image of the man who never was. If he wins, however, we will be governed by the sunken, cynical man Obama really is. One can only hope that the senior journalists will be judged as harshly for their professional misconduct as Wall Street's leaders currently are for their failings. Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at
freify@netvision.net.il. See this graphic and more of his artwork at
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THE PALIN-HILLARY FIASCO: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY & THE JEWISH COMMUNITY PALIN GAP
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 24, 2008. |
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The Left Liberal Jewish leadership of the Conference of Presidents, ministered by Malcolm Hoenlein, first accepted Senator Hillary Clinton as a speaker for the anti-Ahmadinejad rally of September 23rd without any objection from the political Democratic Left, but later, went ballistic when Governor Sarah Palin was invited to speak. As her front-page editorial and transcript of her speech in the New York Sun of 9/23 show, she would have been a superb asset. (1) Maybe The New York Times would even have put a photo of the thousands of people who did mobilize to rally against Ahmadinejad on their front page instead of a solitary protestor and the debris at the clean-up. The NYT showed their total disrespect for the Conference of Presidents by their trivial and misleading photo. (2) Using manipulated photo journalism is a common tactic of the New York Times — as it is with the trash tabloids. For years I have watched the Conference of Presidents bow and scrape to the Arabist State Department. How well we remember when 3 main Jewish organizations used the State Department's supposed threat to cut their tax-exempt status if they gave to charities over the "Green Line". Those 3 were the UJA-United Jewish Appeal, JNF-Jewish National Fund and MDA-Magen David Adom. When one courageous lady, Hadassah Marcus, sought the truth in the 1980s, her New York Senators, first Alphonse D'Amato — followed by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote that this IRS threat was bogus. The 3 big Jewish organizations were even then easily manipulated by Leftist leadership by scare tactics. (3) This week's manipulation is also shameful and outrageous. Haven't we had enough of weak-minded Jewish organizations that can be so easily manipulated? As Caroline Glick's 9/22 editorial in the Jerusalem Post (which we forwarded to you yesterday) reminded us, at least two of the Conference of Presidents' leaders have biased backgrounds. John Ruskay — UJA-NY was formerly an anti-Israel "peace" activist with the radical CONAME (Committee on New Alternatives in the Middle East) and Breira — opposing U.S. military aid to Israel during the Yom Kippur War and calling for recognition of the PLO after Arafat's Terror organization had massacred 26 children in Ma'alot in 1972. Steven Gutow, who leads the JCPA — Jewish Council for Public Affairs, was formerly the founding executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. That is, through Ruskay and Gutow, in their bid to prevent Palin from appearing at the rally, the Leftist Jewish Democrats threatened to bring down the organized Jewish community — supposed to be represented by the Conference of Presidents. (4) Must we be reminded of those cowardly Jews during the WW2 era who feared that protesting to President Roosevelt and his gang of anti-Semites in the U.S. State Department about the massacre of European Jewry? Those Jews of yesterday feared that the "powers that be" would get angry and ramp up local anti-Semitism. Are the Jews of today any different than those sniveling Left Liberal Jews who let other Jews be massacred in silence? The dis-invitation of Sarah Palin was merely one indicator that Left Liberal Jews are the same shameful creatures today, who are again — ready to run, hide and accept the reputation of "cowards". The first article below is from Rabbi Aryeh Spero, the second by Chaskel Bennett. ### 1. "Governor Palin'S Promise" NY Sun editorial & Sarah's speech 9/22/08
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"The Jewish Community'S Palin Gap."
Many Jews remain angry over the dis-inviting of Gov. Sarah Palin by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations from a rally they are sponsoring in front of the UN — a rally protesting the policies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his appearance as a speaker in front of the General Assembly. For many, this dis-invitation has become the final verification that Jewish organizations choose liberalism and what is best for the Democrat Party rather than what is in the best interest of America, the Jewish People, and Israel. For many weeks, Hillary Clinton was the [intended] featured speaker of the event. Sarah Palin had not yet been invited. Jewish leaders sponsoring the rally orchestrated a whole campaign surrounding and boasting about Hillary's planned appearance. That she is a political figure, one that is in the never-ending process of running for elective office, and a flagship for the Democrat Party, liberalism and political feminism, never seemed to arouse their purported concern for even-handedness or cause a peep out of their lawyers. When Hillary Clinton has been the only invited speaker at certain synagogues in the Hamptons, no liberal evoked alarm over tax exemptions for their organizations. When word got out that Sarah Palin had been invited, Hillary immediately bolted. No doubt, her thought of being in direct comparison on a stage with the charismatic Sarah Palin was too great a test for her. Hillary understood that the meaty and heartfelt words of Sarah Palin would have overshadowed her tedious platitudes. Having been just humiliated by six months of Obama, she wasn't ready once again to be humiliated by The Other Woman. Once Hillary pulled out, there was tremendous pressure from liberal organizations within the Conference, and the staffers of those organizations, to revoke Palin's invitation. They foresaw and feared an historic sea change taking place at the rally, before their eyes, when the world would see a crowd of Jewish people enthusiastically chanting "Sarah, Sarah!" This direct connection that Sarah Palin, a woman from and of the people, would have had with a Jewish audience was something the liberals had to stifle. It certainly could have made a difference in the election and perhaps have provided the impetus for the long awaited shift among many Jews from Democrat to Republican. Word is that some of the Jewish women's organizations went apoplectic when hearing of Palin's appearance because Sarah Palin has upended and unnerved a certain class of American women in a manner never before seen. It has far more to do with "stealing the historic moment rightfully belonging to Hillary." Their hysteria over Palin has to do with the values, qualities and heartland authenticity possessed by Palin that are simply too challenging to those women. What the liberal organizations did was threaten to remove their groups from sponsorship of the rally. True to form, the establishment Jewish community buckled to the demands of the Left, blithely ignoring how this would upset the substantial Jewish supporters of Palin. But, then again, the Jewish establishment rarely ponders how its decisions will disenfranchise those who are politically conservative. In truth, the departure of the few organizations would not have made much of a dent in the attendance at the rally. Those who come out for rallies in behalf of Israel are generally those who are more conservative, more traditional, i.e. those who admire Palin. Indeed, many of the attendees, Palin's admirers, would have been students bused in from the yeshivas, day schools and very traditional synagogues. The constituency of the liberal organizations who threatened to bolt the rally no longer come out, as did their fathers and mothers, for issues intrinsically Jewish; instead, they prefer rallies in behalf of abortion rights and gay rights, and, when it comes to Islam, attend rallies designed not to challenge the threat coming from it but advocate on behalf of more rights for those in Guantanamo Bay. The Conference's decision has not sat well with many of what Bill O'Reilly calls "the folks", many of whom will be passing up the Monday rally and instead attending an interfaith rally against Ahmadinejad on Thursday the 25th in front of the Grand Hyatt Hotel. A recent poll taken in New York and published by the New York Post cites a major trend toward McCain and away from Obama among Jews. But those that staff the establishment Jewish organizations, from top to bottom, are themselves much more liberal than their constituents. Many enter Jewish organizational life or the non-Orthodox clergy after attending Brandeis or Brown to put into motion their socialist utopian vision for the world. Some have redefined Judaism away from a centuries-old understanding into a left-wing utopianism, equating Judaism with liberalism. Many of the staffers of these organizations eventually find themselves staffing some of the very most liberal senators and congressmen on the Hill. Those within these Jewish organizations as well as those who reside in certain neighborhoods live a very insular life, despite their claims of being cosmopolitan. Nothing more reveals this insularity than deciding to publicly "dis" an elected official who may soon be the Vice President of the United States and is already the nominee of one of the major parties representing about half of America's population. Only such insularity can account for the total indifference of how such a rebuke appears to those across America who are used to basic respect and fair play. What bothers many in the Jewish community is the obvious conclusion among the Conference that the needs of liberalism take precedence over the needs of a secure Israel and goodwill between the Jewish community and our Christian neighbors. There is no doubt that Sarah Palin would have swelled the ranks of this rally to huge proportions, and nothing usually motivates and preoccupies the organizers of a rally more than the need to bring in large numbers. The organizations' willingness to discard this rally's greatest drawing card and attraction has made many wonder if we in the Jewish community can rely on them to do that which is in the interest of America, the Jewish community, and Israel. Unfortunately, it appears that they will always choose in the interest of liberalism and its home, the Democrat party. "The Palin-Hillary Fiasco: A Missed Opportunity"
I don't speak for any organization. I don't speak for a special interest group. I don't speak as one who supports a Republican or a Democrat. Because I choose to speak on behalf of the silent majority, I am not confined to weigh my words of outrage in fear of political repercussion. In the organizational press release society of today, it is often the cautious diplo-speak and non-positions that unnerves us most. What happened or didn't happen at the rally to stop Iran, should anger those who care deeply about leadership and activism. It is not in dispute that Senator Hillary Clinton accepted and then refused an invitation to attend the gathering. It is the motivation for her cancellation that demands explanation. This is New York and the NY Senator, despite her wishes to the contrary, is still our elected representative. We are therefore well within our right to know why this important rally was snubbed by her. Regardless of the obvious reasoning, it appears that VP candidate Governor Sarah Palin was dis-invited by the organizers because of the political hysteria created by the Clinton's and the Obama Democrats. What remains sketchy is the behind the scenes jousting among the various sponsors of the rally including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, JCRC, United Jewish Communities, UJA Federation of NY and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, resulting in the dis-invitation of Gov Palin, possibly the next Vice President of the United States. We have yet to hear from any of the sponsors a cogent defense of this damaging action, one that casts an unflattering light on our community's reputation and jeopardizes future support of Jewish causes by a McCain administration. What should have been a day united against the obvious menace, disintegrated into impotence and infighting. By rescinding Governor Palin's invitation, the opportunity to send a united clarion call to the gathering heads of state at the UN and the world at large, was at best muffled. The headlines leading up to and following the rally focused more on the Governor's absence than the important message and mobilization. The momentum was apparently hijacked by those powerful co-sponsors, to the distress and disagreement of the well respected Executive Vice-Chairman of the Conference of Presidents, Malcolm Hoenlein. It must be articulated that the purported actions of these partisan activists of the Democratic party, including the leadership of the Jewish Council for Public affairs, United Jewish communities and the UJA Federation do not represent the majority views of the Jewish community at large. Upon learning of the participation of the Senator and Governor, many among us were proud and honored to be hosting such auspicious bi-partisan company and welcomed their message and clout to the battle. Throngs of potential attendees and an over-zealous media could have made this one of the more important protests of our time. The urgent issue of a nuclear armed Iran could have catapulted to the top of the presidential foreign policy debate with our event as its backdrop. To have the carpet pulled out in the eleventh hour was self defeating and unfortunately indicative of a void of courageous leadership in our times. We are, as our leading Rabbis proclaim, in dangerous times. Personal agendas and political status should play no roll when the stakes are so high. Partisanship must cease for the good of the common cause. As children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, we the keepers of the sacred trust, unanimously agree that Iran and its genocidal designs must be stopped at all costs. Those who cower to the Clinton aura should be ashamed for not recognizing the potential and legitimacy that a Palin appearance could have garnered for this critical cause. 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 winston@winstonglobal.org |
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THE MYTH OF PALESTINIAN MODERATION — AGAIN
Posted by Shoula Romano Horing, September 24, 2008. |
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On Aug. 26, Israel released 199 Jailed Palestinian terrorists as a "goodwill gesture" to Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas. The list included several prisoners "with blood on their hands" who were involved in the murder of Israelis. In justifying their actions, the Israeli government released a statement saying, "Through this latest confidence-building measure, Israel seeks to intensify its continued dialogue with moderate Palestinian partners who are both committed to diplomacy and opposed to terrorism." But recent actions and words by President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority only reinforce the fact that Abbas is another Arafat, and the Palestinian Authority is another Hamas. True peace is not possible until a new generation of Palestinians arises that is not brainwashed with hatred and the glorification of terrorism against the Jewish state. On Aug. 28, just two days after the release of the Palestinian prisoners, Abbas, while on a visit to Beirut, requested and held a public meeting with Samir Kuntar. Kuntar is the notorious terrorist who was recently released by Israel to Hezbollah in return for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon. This is after Abbas personally called the Kuntar family to congratulate them on the release, and Abbas' Fatah party organized celebratory rallies to commemorate the event. Who can forget the tragic and grisly murders committed by Kuntar in April 1979, when he and other PLF terrorists seized Danny Haran, 28, and his 4-year-old daughter from their home in the city of Nahariya in northern Israel. The terrorists moved them to the beachfront, where Kuntar shot Danny in front of his daughter, then drowned him in the sea to ensure he was dead. He then proceeded to smash the 4-year-old's skull with a rock and crush it with the butt of his rifle. Tragically, Danny Haran's wife, who had managed to hide in a closet with her 2-year-old daughter, accidentally suffocated the infant in an effort not to betray their whereabouts. On Aug. 31, three days after the Abbas meeting with Kuntar, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert met Abbas in Jerusalem as if nothing horrific just happened, after only reprimanding Abbas for meeting a "killer." Much worse, during the photo opportunity during the meeting, Olmert publicly stressed to Abbas the urgent need to complete the peace agreement this year. Déjà vu all over again It is déjà vu all over again. Israel and the U.S. did not learn anything from their mistakes in negotiating with Arafat. As Prime Ministers Rabin, Peres and Barak — as well as President Clinton — did with Arafat, Israel and the U.S. still prefer to ignore the continued incitement against Israel by the Palestinian leadership and institutions in their obsessive, blind pursuit of a piece of paper they call peace. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There is something morally repulsive in a leader who wishes to honor such a terrorist, but it not surprising if we recall that Abbas was number two to Arafat during Arafat's 37-year-long campaign of terror against Israel. However, it is surprising when an Israeli and Jewish leader is so desperately willing to give away Israel's security to such an evil man by contemplating giving him an independent state. 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 change the psyche of the Palestinian people toward acceptance of the Jewish state, which the Palestinian leadership has failed to encourage. He pointed to the education and indoctrination to hatred and violence that Palestinian children receive at summer camps and in school textbooks, as well as the incitement against Israel by Palestinian institutions, media and leadership. Ross concluded "that no negotiation is likely to succeed if there is one environment at the negotiation table and another on the street." Incitement, indoctrination Abbas' meeting with Kuntar is the only latest in a series of actions and speeches made by Abbas and the PA in 2008 praising terrorists, hate, and violence. In January, Abbas ordered three days of mourning in the West Bank to commemorate the death of George Habash stating, "The death of this historic leader is great loss for the Palestinians cause and for the Palestinian people, for whom he fought for 60 years." Habash was the mastermind of the murder of 47 travelers in the bombing of a Swissair flight and the murder of 27 people at an Israeli airport. After the brutal murder of eight Israeli students March 6 at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem, the official daily newspaper of Abbas' PA, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, described the murderer as a "martyr" and "a groom" and his funeral as "a wedding celebration." On Feb.14, official PA television glorified Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in Syria, as "an extraordinary hero and a beacon of light." He was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine military barracks in Lebanon, killing 300 people, and the bombing of Israeli Embassy and Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, respectively, which killed more than 100 people. In February, Abbas told the Jordanian daily paper Al-Dustour about his pride in pioneering terrorism, saying, "I had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965 and being the one who taught resistance to many in the region and around the world. We, Fatah, had the honor of leading the resistance. We introduced everyone, including Hezbollah, as to what the resistance means. Hezbollah were trained in our camps." Moreover, the indoctrination of children to hate has been continuing by the PA. In school textbooks and maps used in 2008 by PA, the state of Palestine exits in a world without Israel or Israeli cites like Tel Aviv. The textbooks repeatedly reject Israel's right to exist and glorify jihad and martyrdom. As Hamas did last year, PA TV in September used the universally beloved characters of Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in an attempt to create a Disney-like studio. All the while, they taught children through a quiz to glorify terrorism, including the female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who participated in the murder of 12 Israeli children and 25 adults in a 1978 bus attack. In another children's quiz broadcast this month on PA television, children are shown identifying every Israeli city and landmark as part of the state of Palestine. Cut off ties Palestinian society is already lost to the civilized and Western world. Their hearts and minds have been taken for far too long by evil, terrorist indoctrination. Peace is not possible for Israel until they are "deprogrammed" to the point they can coexist with the Jewish state. Since they do not have the leadership to save them and force the change, it should be the obligation of Israel and U.S. to help save them from themselves. Israel and the U.S. should halt negotiations and cut ties with the PA and Abbas — including their financial support — until a new leadership is forced to arise to stop the anti-Israeli "infestation" that permeates every aspect of Palestinian life. Shoula Romano Horing was born and raised in Israel. She is an attorney, a public speaker and a radio host. Her e-mail address is: Shoula1@aol.com.
This appeared in the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle
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ISRAEL INDEED MUST GO IT ALONE!
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, September 24, 2008. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A clarion call to rescue worldwide financial markets is trumpeted by a fearful U.S. White House with good reason; the sky in fact could be falling. A $700 billion dollar plus bailout for Wall Street, mesmerized by its delusions of infallibility, brought down by the reality of its incompetence, we are told must be quickly ratified by a wary U.S. Congress lest the grim reaper of fiscal insolvency sever that umbilical cord to the good life as America, perhaps the rest of the planet, knows it. Indeed, what's the significance of perhaps another trillion or so promiscuous greenbacks blithely circulating in the global market, unshackled from a morally righteous gold standard in 1971, morphed to America's most essential export and the planet's primary reserve currency, manipulated into becoming the liquid energy addicted world's dominant oil trading currency selling America's soul to Saudi guarantors in the process? Plenty! Industrial nations now cringe, especially dollar denominated security holding emerging skeptics like China, Japan, and numerous other industrial sovereignties concerned their multi-billion dollar investments in the full faith and trust of the American economy are not looking so good these days. You can water down the value of currency just so much, no matter what consumer friendly superpower backs that currency thus its debt instruments, before the wafting odor of a banana republic begins to permeate the nostrils of the heretofore faithful. This is serious stuff! Below is a chart of current U.S. indebtedness to various less than sanguine creditor countries, perhaps some on the verge of their own bailouts likely panicking the rest to follow i.e. flooding the open markets with U.S. securities that could make the Hurricane Katrina caused flood of New Orleans look like a puddle!
Capitalist tycoon in the eye of this strengthening financial typhoon Warren Buffett and his Berkshire Hathaway posse now come to the rescue, anteing up $5 billion for preferred Goldman Sachs stock as well as another $5 billion for warrants to purchase its common stock, attempting to help bail out one of two surviving once high sailing U.S. investment firms, now treading water above an ocean of mortgage debt that has sunk the others, hoping to psychologically boost Wall Street, calm worldwide market fears, save Uncle Sam's drowning dollar, and of course in time accrue a tidy profit. Still, 2.6 TRILLION dollars of U.S. debt, ever growing, held by other nations, leaves the world's foremost superpower ever dependent on the kindness of foreigners, even foreigners holding no dollar debt such as 'axis of evil' Iran that supply substantial amounts of oil, a commodity primarily denominated in dollars, to the world. If Iran begins trading its oil for euros and other non-dollar currencies, not an unlikely prospect considering Iran has already established an international 'oil Bourse' or commodity exchange for that purpose, the debt-ridden dollar will likely be dealt a more than psychological blow not even a multitude of Warren Buffetts can counter. Presently, the Bourse only deals in oil derivatives, not crude, but someday, if Uncle Sam doesn't toe the line, the dollar could be toast! So, a nation such as Israel can no longer rely on support from its
once formidable ally America, threatened by the 'mother of all
monetary tsunamis' with fiscal levees in woeful disrepair, when
seismic oil pushers like Iran come to shove. Does that mean the Jewish
homeland must attack Iran's nuclear facilities alone? Is such an
attack even feasible under such circumstances? Could Israel absorb the
retaliatory wounds from Iran and Iran's terrorist proxies without
significantly threatening her own long term prosperity? Mutually
Assured Destruction (M.A.D.) is a concept that has worked between all
sane nations in the past. Do President Mahmoud AhMADinejad and Iran's
fundamentalist Mullahs, the true power brokers of this regime, pass
the sanity test? Let's face it; Israel is stuck between a rock and a
hard place while America and perhaps the world's economy hangs in the
balance. Furthermore, the Jewish homeland remains in a state of
political flux. When so much uncertainty prevails, it is best to take
no preemptive military action against Iran. It is essential, however,
to prepare militarily for any possible attack. If indeed Hizbullah
and/or Hamas or any other terrorist group attacks Israel, she must be
willing to strike back with disproportional force, using all
technologies available, and obliterate that enemy no matter where it
attempts to hide. If military intelligence suggests Iran or any other
regime is preparing to attack Israel, leaders of the Jewish state must
be willing to let that regime know it will be committing national
suicide before even one missile is launched. At this point in time,
nothing else makes sense.
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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WILL ISRAEL SAVE AMERICA?
Posted by Rich Carroll, September 24, 2008. |
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Jews saved our nation once at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania when Haym Salomon became the financial hero of the American Revolution and raised enough donations to feed, clothe and save George Washington's Continental Army in the brutal cold winter of 1775. Most Americans aren't aware of this historical fact, or the seal on our one dollar bill dedicated to Jews who helped save us against the British, but then, most Americans aren't taught American history these days. Today, the tiny country of Israel, surrounded on 3 sides by nations of Islam wanting them eradicated, and outmanned 69-1, is the only nation on Earth remaining steadfast to keep their independent sovereignty, unlike France, England, The Netherlands, Finland, Germany and the United States. Let's give diminutive Israel credit. Americans used to love a tough winner, especially a little guy who can wallop the big bully. Now we surrender our historic national holidays and traditions every time an 'offended Muslim' sneezes. We cater to the demands of illegal aliens and harbor some obscure notion that people who want us dead have "rights". The State of Illinois school district, for example, would rather give up any sign of Christmas in schools for 2 million American children than offend 3 Muslims. Anti-American Muslims will, of course, use the cowardly Illinois legal system as a springboard across America. A "case precedent" has been set. How sad is this surrender monkey mentality? The United States will soon be another Francistan or Englanistan under the nations of Islam rule all because of globalist cultural diversity. Most Americans are too stupid to see what Europe has become and ask themselves the penetrating question: Will this be us? This is a double shame when you consider our nation was built by children coming here from every nation on Earth, but we never felt the need to completely surrender our culture until Muslims stepped aboard. It must be the French yogurt and cheese consumption here in the U.S. We are on pace to surrender to the "sons of Allah" faster than France surrendered to Germany in WWII. Every young male and female in Israel must complete 18 months of compulsory military service upon graduation from high school. Israelis feel this is a small price to pay for their independence. Today's American populace doesn't feel their child "actually serving this nation" is worth the risk. Suggest conscripting today's spoiled brat and you would see rioting in the streets and a mass exodus of liberal males beating feet to Canada (the world's third largest campsite for terrorists). Jews remain steadfast in their resolve that tiny Israel remain a free, independent nation. Unlike The United States, Israel does not have a mystical "Department of Appeasement", and has vowed that if attacked, Iran, Syria and Lebanon would cease to exist. No idle words from a nation hardened by perpetual threat of extermination. Not only does Israel have arguably the best Air Force in the world, and best intelligence gathering apparatus, they have 400 nuclear weapons. Destruction of these terrorist breeding cesspools would cut the head from the snake, set global jihad back a few decades, and give sleepy Americans time to take stock in the clear intent Islam has for our grandchildren. We simply don't have the guts or inclination to save "these United States" anymore and could use the outside help. I know this scenario sounds "harsh", and Washington gadflies posing as our elected representatives must be grabbing their purses and gasping, but ask any citizen living in Israel the clear, unmistaken intent of Muslims and you will hear laughter. They live under this threat from sunup until sundown every day of the year. Better yet, ask one of those "peaceful Muslims" you are so eager to embrace walking down your street if their goal is to make Islam the ONLY religion in America? Americans are so excited to "throw out the old" they are eager to usher in a nation of Islam candidate into our White House who hasn't the slightest patriotic ties to The United States. The phrase "President Barack Hussein Obama" contains only one word with an English root. The other three are Arabic. Perhaps these same Americans can remember the most overused sentence in English literature: I told you so. And so we sit idle, seemingly eager to move-forward with an end to America as a sovereign nation and usher forth the global amalgamation of the Nations of Islam. The weak are of course hoping this can be done as effortlessly and painlessly as possible. Weak liberals think Islam will be "kind" for assisting in the transition of "One nation under God" to "one nation under Allah". Muslims prove daily they kill the weak first. Democrats despise war; even if it means keeping you FREE. Perhaps hidden in Hebrew code between the pages of the Talmud are instructions to "save those stupid Americans". I certainly hope so. Contat Rich Carroll by email at crossedrifles@hotmail.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: PATHETIC
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 24, 2008. |
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It feels as if the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Barak seems to have forgotten that he once said he wouldn't want to trust Livni "when a call comes in at 3 AM." Can't say what she has promised him, but he apparently has found it enticing. For he has now announced his readiness to join a coalition with Kadima. It's "a shame," he laments, that Netanyahu won't join in an emergency government. ~~~~~~~~~~ For his part, opposition leader and head of Likud Binyamin Netanyahu is having no part of this government. At a press conference yesterday he explained his position: "We are not joining the failure. We are the alternative to the failure. Amen to this. ~~~~~~~~~~ Right now, Livni is waiting on Shas to decide; that decision might make or break the chances for a solid, stable coalition. Reports have it that there is a split within Shas on whether to join the coalition, with Shas faction head Yeshai opposed and second in command, Ariel Atias, inclined to go along (or "give Livni a chance"). Once again: the Shas stipulations are an increase in child allowances (the first priority), and a promise that there will be no negotiations on Jerusalem — not just now but in the future, something Livni cannot really promise in good faith. All bets are off, as it's anyone's guess how much Livni can concede and how much Shas will compromise. Ideologically, Shas would be much more at home with Likud than with Kadima. Netanyahu has urged the party not to join with Kadima. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile, the aggrieved Shmuel Mofaz, who said he was taking a break from politics, has now announced that he's had enough vacation: He's returning to business as usual after Rosh Hashana, on October 2. I cannot say precisely what enticed him, but something did. ~~~~~~~~~~ And Livni? She has declared that even with coalition meetings she will take the time to continue as chief negotiator in meetings with Ahmed Qurei of the PA, and indeed met with him yesterday. There are several reasons why she shouldn't be doing this. The very first is that, now that Olmert has resigned, she represents a transitional government. Such a government, according to Attorney-General Mazuz, is supposed to serve caretaker functions only, not make major decisions that are not urgent. This government has no business continuing negotiations at this point. The question (and this has been posed by Aaron Lerner of IMRA) is when Mazuz will weigh in on this. ~~~~~~~~~~ But there is another reason why negotiations should be shut down forthwith: We are being threatened. Qurei waxed enthusiastic about Livni's presumed primary victory, and expressed confidence that she would continue working with him productively to advance negotiations. But just hours after meeting with her, he declared: "The Palestinians will continue to negotiate. But, if the talks reach a dead end, what do we do? Capitulate? Resistance in all its forms is a legitimate right." Please be very clear: "Resistance" is a code for terrorism, including suicide bombings. When asked very specifically if this is what he was referring to, he said, "All forms of resistance." This is the Palestinian style — it's what Dennis Ross referred to, years ago with regard to Arafat, as "the terrorist card." They always hold it close to their chests and bring it out when it suits them; it's their default position. But people who do this are not legitimate peace partners. There is no "right" to commit terrorist acts. Not ever. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to Israel Radio, Haim Ramon stated yesterday at a lecture in Tel Aviv that the Palestinians representing the PA at the last minute got "cold feet" and decided not to sign a declaration of principles that would have outlined progress made in the negotiations. They will always "get cold feet." Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, former head of the National Security Council, has just delivered a paper to a conference for the National Institute for Near East Policy, in which he says that the current formulation of the two-state solution is untenable: Simply put (and you've certainly heard it here), he says that the maximum that Israel is politically able to give is less than the Palestinians are politically able to accept. Right now the PA is gearing up to defend itself in the event that Hamas attacks Ramallah. Is Abbas about to go on record as having conceded anything? ~~~~~~~~~~ The Palestinian news agency Maan has reported that yesterday's terrorist, who ran down Israelis at Kikar Tzahal, is a member of Hamas. Our security people are indicating that there is an increase in Hamas influence in eastern Jerusalem and that this is, indeed, generating more terrorism. Areas of the city that are particularly problematic are the neighborhoods of Sur Bahir, Jebl Mukaber (where yesterday's terrorist came from), and Issawiya, and the Shuafat refugee camp — all historically associated with a high level of terrorism. The Shin Bet is calling for increased patrols by border police in these places, and for increased action against families of terrorists — not just demolition of their homes, but also canceling state insurance payments. According to the police, since the beginning of 2008, 250 Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem have been arrested for terror-related offenses, a very significant increase over last year. ~~~~~~~~~~ Just this afternoon, four Palestinians were arrested for trying to run over IDF soldiers in Ma'ale Levona, near Ramallah, using two cars and a bulldozer. They were stopped before they injured anyone, and arrested. ~~~~~~~~~~ Also today, it was announced that the Shin Bet and police have arrested seven members of a terror cell in eastern Jerusalem that is alleged to have been involved with two shootings in which police officers were killed and others wounded. Additionally, it is said that they were planning to assassinate a police officer in the Old City, initiatie a terror attack at a bus stop in French Hill, and carry out the kidnapping of security officials. ~~~~~~~~~~ After yesterday's terror attack, Olmert stated that the only way this can be avoided in the future is if the city is divided: "there is no...way to prevent this...unless at the end of the day you say to the Arabs in the Arab neighborhoods, you will live in your neighborhoods, and won't come into ours." What he's talking about is giving the Jerusalem neighborhoods that are Arab to the PA. Allow me to explain why it won't work: 1) Anyone who knows Jerusalem neighborhoods — and presumably Olmert, as former mayor of Jerusalem, does — knows that the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods are incredibly intertwined. It's not a question of drawing a straight line, with Arabs on one side and Jews on the other. What Olmert proposes is simply logistically impossible. 2) Having access to intelligence in these areas and being able to do patrols is important. Once the areas were in PA hands, we would lose the ability to do these things and Hamas influence would grow even greater, with more terrorism following. Even if there were a fence separating Jewish and Arab neighborhoods — a nightmare and a logistical impossibility — there would be porosity with terrorists getting across and having the ability, I should add, to shoot rockets over fences. This is exactly the wrong attitude and has gotten us in the trouble we find ourselves in today on our western flank, certainly. Having trouble with terrorists? Let's not cope with getting rid of them, let's withdraw to a smaller area and leave them to their devious devices. 3) The PA will never, ever consent to just taking problematic neighborhoods in Jerusalem. If there is to be a deal, they want ALL of eastern Jerusalem, which means Jewish neighborhoods such as French Hill, Ramat Eshkol and Gilo, and, most significantly, the Old City, including our holiest sites. ~~~~~~~~~~ I believe this is something worth a note of attention: Lt. Elad Amar, the young officer who shot the terrorist yesterday, is a product of dati leumi (religious nationalist) education and wears a knitted kippah (kippah srugah) — the mark of men associated with this viewpoint. This is of more than passing interest, because this is the third consecutive time that someone out of this world moved to take out a terrorist in Jerusalem. This world view, the combination of religious and Zionist conviction, seems to produce young people who are particularly committed. They are among the very finest of our soldiers and more likely to volunteer for elite units. ~~~~~~~~~~ As to Iran and what's going on in the US and the UN, I have very little to say here. The response of certain individuals is heartening, but the conduct of the left wing in the US and of the international community — of any one and any group that gives Ahmadinejad legitimacy — is shameful and vile beyond words. I am aghast, and enraged. As "Eye on the UN" — www.eyeontheun.org — put it: "Tuesday, September 23, 2008 will go down in history as the day the UN General Assembly provided a platform for a head of state to spew unadulterated, vile anti-Semitism to the applause of the assembled nations of the world. The United Nations has become the largest global purveyor of anti-Semitism in the world today. In the full knowledge that the President of Iran advocates the destruction of the UN member state of Israel, the UN invited him to mount the dais and gave him a megaphone." See a video of Ahmadinejad's talk (with subtitles) here:
This speech met with enthusiastic applause. How does one continue to hope, in the face of this, that humankind has learned significant and necessary lessons or that decency will prevail? Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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YOUR ABORTIONS OR YOUR LIVES!
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 23, 2008. |
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This was written by Caroline Glick for yesterday's Jerusalem Post
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American Jews have good reason to be ashamed and angry today. As Iran moves into the final stages of its nuclear weapons development program — nuclear weapons which it will use to destroy the State of Israel, endanger Jews around the world and cow the United States of America — Democratic American Jewish leaders decided that putting Sen. Barack Obama in the White House is more important than protecting the lives of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world. On Monday, the New York Sun published the speech that Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would have delivered at that day's rally outside UN headquarters in New York against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and against Iran's plan to destroy Israel. She would have delivered it, if she hadn't been dis-invited. The rally was co-sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, The Israel Project, United Jewish Communities, the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Its purpose was to present a united American Jewish front against Iran's genocidal leader and against its genocidal regime which is developing nuclear weapons with the stated intention of committing the second Holocaust in 80 years. Palin's speech is an extraordinary document. In its opening paragraph she made clear that Iran presents a danger not just to Israel, but to the US. And not just to some Americans, but to all Americans. Her speech was a warning to Iran — and anyone else who was listening — that Americans are not indifferent to its behavior, its genocidal ideology and the barbarity of its regime. Rather, they are outraged. After that opening, Palin's speech set out clearly how Iran is advancing its nuclear project, why it must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons and why and how the regime itself must be opposed by all right thinking people — not just Israelis and Americans — but by all people who value human freedom.
PALIN'S SPEECH was a message of national — rather than simply Republican — resolve against Iran's nuclear weapons program and its active involvement in global and regional terrorism. She made this point by quoting statements that Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton has made against the Iranian regime. The speech detailed Iran's past and current attacks against the US, beginning with its bombing of US servicemen in Lebanon in 1983 and continuing with Iran's proxy war against US forces in Iraq and against Iraqis who oppose its intention of taking control of their country. By discussing Iran's role in Iraq she not only made a convincing case for why an American victory there is essential for defeating Iran. She also made clear that Iran is actively making war against the US, not just Israel. From Iran's war against Israel, the US, and freedom loving peoples worldwide, Palin's speech turned to the regime's war against its own people. She attacked the regime for its systematic repression of Iranian women. She applauded the extraordinary bravery of women like Delaram Ali who risked their lives and their families to demand basic rights for Iranian women. Ali, she noted, was sentenced to 10 lashes and three years in prison for having the courage to speak out. An international outcry has temporarily suspended her sentence. Then Palin returned to Iran's nuclear weapons program and its support for terrorist groups pledged to Israel's destruction and to the destruction of the US. She returned to Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel's annihilation. She reiterated Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's solemn
promise to work with Israel to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and she joined her name to his promise to stand side by side with Israel to prevent another Holocaust.
IF PALIN had been allowed to deliver this speech at Monday's rally, she would done just what the organizers of the rally, and what the Jewish people in Israel, America and worldwide need to have done. She would have elevated the imperative of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the implicit moral and strategic imperative of overthrowing the regime in Teheran to the top of America's national security agenda. Given the massive media attention she garners at all of her public appearances, Palin's participation in the rally would have done more to steel Americans — across the political spectrum — to the cause of opposing Iran than 10 UN Security Council sanctions resolutions could do. It was a remarkable speech, prepared by a remarkable woman. But it was not heard. It was not heard because the Democratic Party and Jewish Democrats believe that their partisan interest in demonizing Palin and making Americans generally and American Jews in particular hate and fear her to secure their votes for Obama and his running-mate Sen. Joseph Biden in the November election is more important than allowing Palin to elevate the necessity of preventing a second Holocaust to the top of the US's national security agenda. The rally's organizers invited both Clinton and Palin to speak. It was a wise move. In light of Iran's monstrous oppression of Iranian women, had the two most powerful women in American politics joined forces in opposing the regime and its war against human freedom, their appearance would have sent a message of American unity and resolve that would have reverberated not just throughout the US and in the US presidential race, but throughout the world and into Iran itself. But it was not to be. The moment that Clinton found out that she was to share a stage with Palin, she cancelled her appearance. By cancelling, she signaled to Jewish Democrats — and Democrats in general — that opposing Palin and the Republican Party is more important than opposing Ahmadinejad and the
genocidal regime he represents.
THE JEWISH Democrats on the rally's organizing committee got the message loud and clear. Two of the rally's co-sponsors — the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the UJA Federation of New York demanded that the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations dis-invite Palin. The JCPA is led by Steven Gutow. Before joining the JCPA, he served as the founding executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, which is the Jewish support arm of the Democratic Party. The UJA Federation of New York is led by John Ruskay, who began his Jewish communal career as an anti-Israel "peace" activist in the radical CONAME and Breira organizations.Among their other endeavors, CONAME and Breira opposed US military assistance to Israel during the Yom Kippur War and called for US recognition of the PLO after the group massacred 26 children in Ma'alot in 1974. Gutow and Ruskay were supported in their demand to dis-invite Palin by the National Jewish Democratic Council and by the new Jewish pro-Palestinian lobbying group J-Street. In an attempt to assuage Gutow and Ruskay, the rally organizers invited Biden to speak. But he had a scheduling conflict. So the organizers contacted the Obama campaign and asked it to send a representative. The campaign offered Congressman Robert Wexler. But the Democrats knew that Wexler would be no match for Palin. So they continued on the warpath, absurdly claiming that by inviting Palin (and Clinton, Biden and Wexler), the organizers were endangering the sponsoring organizations' tax-exempt status. That is, through Ruskay and Gutow, in their bid to prevent Palin from appearing at the rally, the Democrats threatened to bring down the organized Jewish community. Never mind that the threat is absurd. The likelihood that the Internal Revenue Service would open an investigation against every major American Jewish organization for daring to invite Palin to a rally opposing Ahmadinejad's appearance at the UN and Iran's stated intention of annihilating Israel is just slightly smaller than the prospect of Ahmadinejad wrapping himself in an Israeli flag and singing "Hatikva" on the UN rostrum. But no matter. The fear that these Democratic Jews would openly split the Jewish community on the need to confront Iran frightened the organizers. The notion that the Democratic Party, and its Jewish supporters would openly turn their backs on the need to confront Iran to advance the political fortunes of their party and their party's presidential slate was too much to take. Palin was dis-invited.
LIBERAL AMERICAN Jews, like liberal Americans in general, and indeed like their fellow leftists in Israel and throughout the West, uphold themselves as champions of human rights. They claim that they care about the underdog, the wretched of the earth. They care about the environment. They care about securing American women's unfettered access to abortions. They care about keeping Christianity and God out of the public sphere. They care about offering peace to those who are actively seeking their destruction so that they can applaud themselves for their open-mindedness and tell themselves how much better they are than savage conservatives. Those horrible, war-mongering, Bambi killing, unborn baby defending, God-believing conservatives, who think that there are things worth going to war to protect, must be defeated at all costs. They must intimidate, attack, demonize and defeat those conservatives who think that the free women of the West should be standing shoulder to shoulder not with Planned Parenthood, but with the women of the Islamic world who are enslaved by a misogynist Shari'a legal code that treats them as slaves and deprives them of control not simply of their wombs, but of their faces, their hair, their arms, their legs, their minds and their hearts. The lives of 6 million Jews in Israel are today tied to the fortunes of those women, to the fortunes of American forces in Iraq, to the willingness of Americans across the political and ideological spectrum to recognize that there is more that unifies them than divides them and to act on that knowledge to defeat the forces of genocide, oppression, hatred and destruction that are led today by the Iranian regime and personified in the brutal personality of Ahmadinejad. But Jewish Democrats chose to ignore this basic truth in order to silence Palin. They should be ashamed. The Democratic Party should be ashamed. And Jewish American voters should consider carefully whether opposing a woman who opposes the abortion of fetuses is really more important than standing up for the right of already born Jews to continue to live and for the Jewish state to continue to exist. Because this week it came to that. 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 winston@winstonglobal.org |
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WHO SHALL LIVE...
Posted by Daisy Stern, September 23, 2008. |
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Thanks to Jack Golbert (golbertlaw@gmail.com) for this! |
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Shana Tova (first good wishes, before many). Leshana Tova Tikatevu Vetikhatemu. May you all have a good year full of blessings, and may all the troubles of the world pass us over like clouds..., whoever gets this message...you, your friends, and your families too. This is a powerful and moving movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdkDk8xIEXw Contact Daisy Stern by email at daisystern1@gmail.com |
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MY, MY, HOW THEY DO FLY BY...
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 23, 2008. |
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To family and friends the world over....!! |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at
freify@netvision.net.il. See this graphic and more of his artwork at
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OBAMA AND AYERS PUSHED RADICALISM ON SCHOOLS
Posted by Liba, September 23, 2008. |
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This was written by Stanley Kurtz and it appeared today in the Wall
Street Journal
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Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists. [Obama and Ayers] AP 
The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers's home. The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I've recently spent days looking through them. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago's public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation's other key body, the "Collaborative," which shaped education policy. The CAC's basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda. One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's "recruitment" to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval. The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto. In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC. CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn). Mr. Obama once conducted "leadership training" seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement. CAC also funded programs designed to promote "leadership" among parents. Ostensibly this was to enable parents to advocate on behalf of their children's education. In practice, it meant funding Mr. Obama's alma mater, the Developing Communities Project, to recruit parents to its overall political agenda. CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents "organized" by community groups might be viewed by school principals "as a political threat." Mr. Obama arranged meetings with the Collaborative to smooth out Mr. Weber's objections. The Daley documents show that Mr. Ayers sat as an ex-officio member of the board Mr. Obama chaired through CAC's first year. He also served on the board's governance committee with Mr. Obama, and worked with him to craft CAC bylaws. Mr. Ayers made presentations to board meetings chaired by Mr. Obama. Mr. Ayers spoke for the Collaborative before the board. Likewise, Mr. Obama periodically spoke for the board at meetings of the Collaborative. The Obama campaign notes that Mr. Ayers attended only six board meetings, and stresses that the Collaborative lost its "operational role" at CAC after the first year. Yet the Collaborative was demoted to a strictly advisory role largely because of ethical concerns, since the projects of Collaborative members were receiving grants. CAC's own evaluators noted that project accountability was hampered by the board's reluctance to break away from grant decisions made in 1995. So even after Mr. Ayers's formal sway declined, the board largely adhered to the grant program he had put in place. Mr. Ayers's defenders claim that he has redeemed himself with public-spirited education work. That claim is hard to swallow if you understand that he views his education work as an effort to stoke resistance to an oppressive American system. He likes to stress that he learned of his first teaching job while in jail for a draft-board sit-in. For Mr. Ayers, teaching and his 1960s radicalism are two sides of the same coin. Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation. The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago. |
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AH, YES, THE "SETTLEMENTS" ARE THE OBSTACLE TO PEACE
Posted by Lori Lowenthal Marcus, September 23, 2008. | ||
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These two authors were asked to respond to a request sent out to North American Jews by Meretz, a leftist Israeli political party, asking that letters be sent to the Israeli Interior Ministry protesting the proposed expansion of three towns adjacent to Jerusalem, in the disputed territories.** We were asked to respond to the following: Meretz is circulating an email inviting American Jews to send a prepared letter to Israeli Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim urging him to cancel plans to build more housing in three settlements beyond the Green Line: Ramat Shlomo, Har Homa and Pisgat Zeev. The text of the proposed letter reads: | ||
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ROSH HASHANA: 8355 DAYS — AND WHERE IS JONATHAN?
Posted by Justice For Jonathan Pollard, September 23, 2008. |
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The article below was written by Achiya Yishraeli. It appeared in Makor Rishon and was translated into English by J4JP. Please reprint and distribute. See Also: Audio: (with Shofar blowing!) Akedat Yonatan — The Sacrifice of Jonathan
Audio: Achinu Yehonatan Hebrew and English versions:
Achinu Yehonatan (Hebrew):
Click here to listen.
Hebrew Text: 8355 days — and where is our brother Jonathan? Makor Rishon Ad: 8355 days — and where is our brother Jonathan? |
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All mankind passes before Him like a flock of sheep. All are scrutinized and a full account taken. One, then another, then Jonathan's turn. Arise Jonathan! Respond! What are you doing in prison? How do you account for this living-death sentence, more than 20 years? Jonathan rises. He rises and he remembers. He remembers how he discovered his brothers in mortal danger. How the "great ally" hid the truth and covered up so they would not know. How he transferred those same documents Whose return would, in the end, place him behind bars. He remembers seeking asylum at the Embassy and How he was expelled from there into the arms of the authorities. He remembers how his handlers had praised his service to the State, "You are our brother! Thanks to you the security of our nation is assured!" How, to this day, he and his wife Esther receive no support, no help. He remembers murderers of women and children freed as "gestures." How, as if he is worse than the assassin of a Prime Minister, He is not permitted to father children. He remembers how, even now, as the term of a President ends and a period of clemency begins, His brothers do nothing to ensure that his name will be on the list. He remembers endless years of affliction, humiliation, and degradation. He remembers and within his heart an agonized voice screams: "Go ahead, Jonathan! Speak! Tell the whole story!" It is excruciating to remain silent. But, to accuse Am Yisrael of deserting him? He yearns to pour his heart out on Rosh Hashanah to the Master of the World. But Jonathan does not open his mouth. He returns to his seated position, without ever speaking a word. He sits in silence and waits... And we? We want to do Tshuva, we say. Ha'shivanu, v'nashuva! Help us to return and we will return! We cry out to Hashem, While allowing our brother Jonathan's cries for help to go unanswered. When will we return him home to us? How shall we answer the One Who Remembers all that is forgotten, How our brother cried for help until his strength ran out, How he remained wounded and bleeding in the field, Abandoned to the sound of his own sighs? Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com |
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IT'S NOT HATRED, ANTISEMITISM, AT ALL, NOOOOO. IF YOU ARE FRUSTRATED, KILL A JEW
Posted by Sergio, September 23, 2008. |
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It's not hatred, antisemitism, at all, nooooo....!!! (not!)
You'll always find some ghetto "journalists" ready to "explain" your "reasons" and arouse "understanding" and a court that stops the punishment to you and those who "educated" you to treat Jews as pigs and dogs.
It's not war, the leftist lemmings say. We must not get rid of the
wolves roaming freely among us. It is a "political process" as they
call the slaughter of Jews; a "piss process" as their friend with the
Nobel used to say. The article below was written by Efrat Weiss and it was published today
in Ynet News |
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Lieutenant who shot dead east Jerusalem resident who plowed into crowd with BMW recounts incident. 'I was afraid terrorist would put vehicle in reverse and run over more soldiers and civilians, so I aimed for his head and shot him 11 times through the windshield,' he says "I realized that it was a terror attack, so I cocked my weapon and shot the perpetrator," recounted Lieutenant Elad, 23, the officer who killed the east Jerusalem resident who plowed a BMW into a crowd of pedestrians at a busy intersection in central Jerusalem near the Old City on Monday evening. At least 17 people were reportedly wounded in the attack, most of them soldiers belonging to the Artillery Corps. "I did what is expected of every soldier or officer," he said. A few hours after the incident Lieutenant Elad, who serves as deputy company commander in the Artillery Corps, said "We left for a 'Selichot Tour' in Jerusalem (Selichot are Jewish penitential prayers said during the High Holidays) on two armed buses carrying some 80 soldiers. We walked from Jaffa Street toward the Old City walls. "I was walking with a group of soldiers. We arrived at Tzahal Square, where a large group of soldiers was situated on a small traffic island. Then I saw a BMW speeding toward the soldiers, and then soldiers flying over the car, which eventually hit the wall of a building; I understood it was a terror attack and immediately cocked my rifle." The officer said that he feared the terrorist would recuperate and resume the attack. "I noticed that the terrorist was beginning to recover and I was afraid he would put the vehicle in reverse and run over more soldiers and civilians, so I aimed for his head and shot him 11 times through the windshield," he said. According to Lieutenant Elad, at this point a civilian and police officer approached the vehicle and fired one or two bullets each at the terrorist. "I continued to point my rifle at the terrorist and ordered the soldiers to seal off the area for fear the car was booby-trapped," recalled the officer, a married father of two from Givat Shmuel. Contact Sergio at nutella59@gmail.com |
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IRAN'S PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD IN HIS OWN WORDS, 2008
Posted by Dan Calic, September 23, 2008. |
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His rantings from 2006-2008 can be found at 
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September 23, 2008 "The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gathers, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support" "Today, the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse and there is no way for it to out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters....American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders. Today, the thought of hegemony quickly becomes a demerit."
September 18, 2008 "I have heard some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired....I say that the idea of lesser Israel has expired, too." "We have no problems with these people (Israelis) but they should leave the occupied territories, leave them to their genuine owners and get back to their countries and homes where they originally came from." "The Holocaust is a lie and the real Holocaust is happening to the Palestinians." "The Zionist regime (Israel) is going towards its final collapse after 60 years of aggression. The final solution would be a referendum on Palestine's future fate with the participation of all Palestinians, regardless of whether Muslims, Jews or Christians." "Our nation has no problem with other nations, but as far the Zionist regime is concerned, we do not believe in an Israeli government or an Israeli nation."
August 23, 2008 "About 2,000 organised Zionists and 7,000 to 8,000 agents of Zionism have dragged the world into turmoil. ... The powerful hand of the nations will clean these sources of corruption from the face of the earth." (Speech at a rally in Arak) "We will witness the dismantling of the corrupt regime (Israel) in the very near future."
May 13, 2008 "This terrorist and criminal state (Israel) is backed by foreign powers, but this regime would soon be swept away by the Palestinians."
May 8, 2008 "Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken." "Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation.... (Israel) has reached the end like a dead rat after being slapped by the Lebanese."
March 10, 2008 "Resistance is the only way to defeat the Zionists and their masters."
February 20, 2008 "The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast. ... "[Israel] won support [from the other nations] which created it as a scarecrow, so as to keep the people of this area under control." January 30, 2008 "I warn you to abandon the filthy Zionist entity, which has reached the end of the line. It has lost its reason to be and will sooner or later fall. The ones who still support the criminal Zionists should know that the occupiers' days are numbered. ... Accept that the life of Zionists will sooner or later come to an end." RELATED ARTICLES — Ahmadinejad's Speech To The U.N. Puts His Anti-Semitism On Full Display (9/24/08) Contact Dan Calic by email at calic@comcast.net |
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FROM ISRAEL: YET AGAIN
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 23, 2008. |
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There was a terrorist attack about 11 PM last night. An Arab, Kasem Mugrabi, 19, from the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Jebl Mukaber ran his BMW up onto the sidewalk into a crowd of people, at Kikar Tzahal, a square near the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. He injured at least 15 people, mostly soldiers, and was promptly shot dead by an off-duty IDF officer. Thank G-d, no one was killed, although three were injured seriously enough to require surgery and 13 are still in the hospital. Jebl Mukaber, which is not a poor neighborhood, is where the infamous Yeshivat HaRav terrorist came from. It is in south eastern Jerusalem near the Jewish neighborhood of Talpiot. This is the third attack in Jerusalem in three months involving Jerusalem Arabs who used vehicles as weapons. The last two times it was tractors/bulldozers, and there was talk about security checks before Arabs could use heavy construction equipment. But this time a car was used. Now, once again, there is talk about methods of deterrence, such as the speedy razing of the homes of terrorists from Jerusalem. Potential terrorists, it is said, must know their families will pay a serious price after the fact. ~~~~~~~~~~ It should come as no surprise to any of us how quickly matters appear to shift in the world of politics. I say "appear" because we're getting what the politicians say publicly and what the media report — not necessarily what's going on behind this. On Sunday I reported that Barak had met with Netanyahu and there was allegedly discussion of a national emergency government (which would have come together after an election), with Barak aides saying that Barak might prefer this to joining a Livni coalition. But this was before Livni saw the light, and, instead of simply saying the current coalition should continue as it has been (no need for change as long as Olmert is gone), she began to seriously court various members of the current coalition. She has offered Barak a "partnership," though I cannot tell you what this really means. ~~~~~~~~~~ Now begins the horse-trading, the political blackmail, at which Shas, in particular, excels: You want us in your coalition, this is what you must give us. Shas right now is saying that if Livni removes the current finance minister, Bar-On, who has blocked increased child allowances, the chances of their joining are greater. (Shas represents religious Sephardim with large families.) Do not ask me what happened with regard to Shas insistence that there be a promise of no future negotiations on Jerusalem — something Livni cannot honestly promise. This is coalition politics, in a situation in which no one party has enough seats to establish a government by itself. It has, sadly, very little to do with what is good for the nation, and a good deal to do with what is good for particular parties and persons. For anyone accustomed to the American system this is difficult. At this point, I am assuming that what is involved is not simply deals Livni will seek to strike with various parties, but unofficial promises Netanyahu will make to parties to entice them not to join the Livni coalition — based, of course, on the expectation that he would win the election that would ensue. All the cheap talk about doing what is good for the nation... Right now we desperately need genuine leaders who will work for the good of the nation. ~~~~~~~~~~ Livni's responsibility in forming that coalition is now official, by the way. President Peres met with a delegation from each faction, which had an opportunity to recommend who should try to form the government, and then appointed Livni. This, it should be noted, was not because she was resoundingly supported by various factions, but sort of by default. One of the first things she did was call for a unity government that would include Likud. Netanyahu isn't interested, because he's hoping for an election that he will win outright. Sharing power with Livni and Barak does not appeal to him particularly. Will she be able to form a coalition? It wouldn't be easy, but it's impossible at this juncture to say for certain that she won't. One of the serious questions being asked is how stable it would be — she might cobble together enough seats to govern, only to have one or more parties bolt not far down the road. She has a month. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile a petition has been filed with an internal Kadima court on behalf of Ze'ev Elkin, a strong Mofaz supporter, asking that alleged irregularities in the primary polling be investigated. Another group of Mofaz supporters filed a separate petition. Charging that there were irregularities in 80 polling places, out of 114, they are vowing to take this all the way to the High Court if the results are not overturned. Do I think they may have a very legitimate grievance. Yes. Do I expect the petition to succeed? No. I'll be happy to say I was wrong if it does. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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DEAR CHRISTIAN LEADERS
Posted by David Meir-Levi, September 23, 2008. |
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h to speak out against the obscenity of the American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches all rushing to obsequiously honor one of the world's greatest tyrannts? Incitement to genocide is a violation of international law, per the UN's 1951 international convention on genocide. So Akhmedinejad is in violation of international law for his incitement to 'wipe Israel off the face of the earth'....so is no one of you willing to speak out and voice the accusation? Incarceration, torture, and murder of homosexuals, political opponents, and members of minority religions is contrary to the UN's conventions on human rights....so is no one of you willing to speak out and condemn the Iranian despot for his inhuman despotism? The public execution of women by stoning, for putative violations of Muslim morality and Muslim male honor, is a grotesque caricature of a nation's system of justice, and a condemnation of Islamic Shari'a law as a deeply primitive legitimization of brutal male dominance and Islamic religio-racial supremacism.....So is no one of you willing to speak out and condemn Akhmedinejad for his mission to make Shari'a law the law of Iran, and to make Islam the dominant religion of the world. Akhmedinejad's excesses are not merely illegal and imoral. They are evil. Yet you remain silent. Silence in the face of evil is complicity. Complicity with evil is evil. This article below is called "Dining with the Devil" and is by
Faith McDonnell. It appeared today in Front Page Magazin
David Meir-Levi |
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Already well-established for killing Christians, Jews, Baha'I's, and Muslims of the wrong sort, the Islamic Republic of Iran is about to descend to a new level of repression and persecution. A proposed penal code nearing final passage in the Iranian Parliament would, for the first time, formally institute the death penalty for "apostasy." The Islamists in Iran would waste no time using this law against Christian converts from Islam, members of the Baha'I faith, and Muslim activists and dissidents. So what are Christian churches in the United States doing in response to this threat to their fellow believers? Holding prayer services? Not one group of mainline/pacifist churches. They are breaking the Ramadan fast (who knew they were fasting for Ramadan?) at an Iftar with Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Terming their dhimmitude as "an invitation to an international dialogue between religious leaders and political figures," the American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches — United Nations Liaison Office announced this by-invitation-only dinner with the Iranian leader who has denied the Holocaust took place, threatened the annihilation of Israel, and who, along with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has continued the tradition that began with the Iranian Revolution of violating the human rights of all Iranian citizens. Arranging the Iftar at Manhattan's Grand Hyatt Hotel, accompanied by obsequious verbiage about "the significance of religious contributions to peace," and "building mutual understanding between our peoples, nations, and religious traditions," the event's sponsoring committee is just the latest example of the pattern of Western behavior towards Islam that has been so well described and foretold in the work of Bat Ye'or and others. In some cases, these mainline Christian leaders are toadies, hoping to avert a jihad-level catastrophe by assuming the position as submissive "People of the Book." In other cases, mainline Christian leaders have reached the point where the doctrines of the Christian faith (for which many Iranian Christians have been willing to die) have no meaning anymore, and all religions are equivalent. Perhaps it would be worth it to hold your nose and dine with the devil if it meant an opportunity to speak out about Iran's repression and persecution, to be a voice for those who are suffering, and to demand that Islam offer reciprocity for the freedom of religion and decency of treatment that Muslims have received from Christians, Jews, and Baha'is. With Iran on the verge of a new level of repression, and religious minorities in Iran facing a new level of siege because of the proposed apostasy penal code, an American Christian leader is needed to speak with courage and forthrightness over a dinner plate. To use the phrase that mainline liberal church leaders are so fond of when it comes to attacking George Bush, a prophetic voice to speak truth to power. Ahmadinejad will hear such voices, but he will not hear them in the posh dining rooms of the U.S. mainline church leaders. He will hear them in the prison cells and court rooms of Iran. 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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PALIN ON AHMADINEJAD: 'HE MUST BE STOPPED'
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 23, 2008. |
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Each of the 5 former Secretaries of State: Henry Kissinger, Warren Christopher, Madelyn Albright, James Baker III and Colin Powell were shown to be anti-Israel in their mind-set, planning and programs during their various tenures. Their interests were primarily the oil and not the survival of Israel. This is an editorial of yesterday's New York Sun
This is an editorial of yesterday's New York Sun
Below is the speech Sarah Palin would have delivered.
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Governor Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, was scheduled to speak today at a rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza to protest the appearance here of President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Her appearance was canceled by rally organizers who sought a nonpolitical event. Following are the remarks Mrs. Palin would have given: I am honored to be with you and with leaders from across this great country — leaders from different faiths and political parties united in a single voice of outrage. Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York — to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan — and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for. Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world. We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator's intentions and to call for action to thwart him. He must be stopped. The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a "Final Solution" — the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a "stinking corpse" that is "on its way to annihilation." Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman — not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world. The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year. The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions. How has Ahmadinejad responded? With the declaration that the "Iranian nation would not retreat one iota" from its nuclear program. So, what should we do about this growing threat? First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq. If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons — they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe. But Iran is not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world. It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world's most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today. They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran's desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish. Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran's official ideology and murder is part of its official policy. Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government's threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments. It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens. By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under Ahmadinejad's rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens. If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed. If she walks down a public street in clothing that violates the state dress code, she could be arrested. But in the face of this harsh regime, the Iranian women have shown courage. Despite threats to their lives and their families, Iranian women have sought better treatment through the "One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws." The authorities have reacted with predictable barbarism. Last year, women's rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 20 lashes and 10 months in prison for committing the crime of "propaganda against the system." After international protests, the judiciary reduced her sentence to "only" 10 lashes and 36 months in prison and then temporarily suspended her sentence. She still faces the threat of imprisonment. Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that "Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that" effort. Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. John McCain and I could not agree more. Senator Clinton understands the nature of this threat and what we must do to confront it. This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Period. And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world to hear: Stop Iran! Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime's dangerous behavior. Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran's behavior. Tomorrow, Ahmadinejad will come to New York. On our soil, he will exercise the right of freedom of speech — a right he denies his own people. He will share his hateful agenda with the world. Our task is to focus the world on what can be done to stop him. We must rally the world to press for truly tough sanctions at the U.N. or with our allies if Iran's allies continue to block action in the U.N. We must start with restrictions on Iran's refined petroleum imports. We must reduce our dependency on foreign oil to weaken Iran's economic influence. We must target the regime's assets abroad; bank accounts, investments, and trading partners. President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law. We must sanction Iran's Central Bank and the Revolutionary Guard Corps — which no one should doubt is a terrorist organization. Together, we can stop Iran's nuclear program. Senator McCain has made a solemn commitment that I strongly endorse: Never again will we risk another Holocaust. And this is not a wish, a request, or a plea to Israel's enemies. This is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us. It is John McCain's promise and it is my promise. Thank you. 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 winston@winstonglobal.org |
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PA DEMANDS ALL EASTERN JERUSALEM; PEACE NOW'S DOUBLE FRAUD; TUNNEL VISION OF GAZA
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 22, 2008. |
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P.A. DEMANDING ALL OF EASTERN JERUSALEM P.A. negotiators are demanding all parts of Jerusalem that Israel acquired in the Yom Kippur War of 1967. This includes Jewish neighborhoods (IMRA, 9/5). Israel's Jewish nationalists have insufficient organization and access to the media to contest the notion that Israel's unofficial borders before the 1967 war must limit Israel, today. There is nothing sacrosanct about those borders, merely an armistice line in unallocated territory. The Arabs had no right to a state, then, just a General Assembly suggestion of on (which they rejected in favor of wars of extermination); the Security Council opposed a full Israeli withdrawal. The rest of the world is pretending that that suggestion has some kind of legal force, but it doesn't. As for justice, the Arabs are entitled to punishment, not reward. It is time for the world to stop punishing Jewish victims of Arab aggression. MUSLIM ARABS DESECRATE HOLY SITE IN HEBRON Hebron, one of four cities holy to Judaism, contains the Cave of the Patriarchs. Since Muslims claim descent from patriarch Abraham, the Cave is holy to both faiths. The government has worked out a shared visitation. The site was supposedly barred to Muslims on Fridays during Ramadan. [That month brings out Islamic violence — whereas Christian and Jewish preaching usually is to behave morally, mosque preaching rouses Muslim Arabs to violence.] On the first Friday night, thousands of Muslims gathered at the Cave and desecrated it, despite the supposedly high-tech surveillance there. When Jews arrived for prayers, the next morning they found that the Muslims had urinated by the Holy Ark and tossed Hamas posters by the tombs of patriarchs. This is not the first time. No arrests were made. [Why not?] The Hebron Jewish Community suggests that the government ban the Muslims on more days, as retribution (Jewish Community of Hebron, 9/6). The Muslim Arabs are as disgusting as violent in their intolerance, not a religion of peace. I wrote back that the underlying problems are that the government is anti Zionist, keeping it from dealing properly with Muslim mobs, and that US Jewry has little idea that the government of Israel and the State Dept. are anti-Zionist. JORDAN OBJECTS TO ARAB TROOPS FOR GAZA Jordan calls the proposal to send Egyptian troops to Gaza a step towards Egyptian annexation of Gaza and to Jordan assuming responsibility for Judea-Samaria. It does not want to be held responsible (IMRA, 9/6) and have to fight. PEACE NOW'S DOUBLE FRAUD Israel has found Peace Now in violation of the law by eliciting tax exemption as an educational organization whereas it is a political one. Peace Now also is fraudulent ethically and intellectually, in its thesis and campaign to divest Israel of all of the Territories on the theory that this would bring peace. Peace Now members, war weary and desperate for a simplistic solution, refused to understand that the Arabs don't want peace. The Security Council did not suggest full divestment, because it would impair security, and a less defensible Israel means it would be attacked, again. Israeli withdrawals but did not end Arab hostility. The Arabs say they reject Israel as a non-Muslim state, regardless of boundaries. Peace Now's fraud, here, is pretending that peace is up to Israel and would come from concessions to Arabs. Mordechai Bar-On's history of Peace Now alleged that the conflict's continuation is Israel's fault and did not recognize peace also as the responsibility of the Arabs [aggressors] nor that Israel must be alert. Israel undertook many efforts along the lines Peace Now advocated, such as adopting the Oslo Accords setting up a terrorist autonomy [and withdrawing from Gaza, letting it become a terrorist base, and withdrawing from the Sinai, letting it be used to smuggle arms into Gaza, giving Jordan enough water to create a shortage in Israel, and offering the Arabs almost all they seemed to demand.] Peace Now interpreted Arafat's promises at Oslo as evidence of desire for peace, but disregarded his disavowals of great territorial offers, of peace, and of recognition of Israel and his wars and terrorism still going on. Peace Now called opponents narrow-minded, but Peace Now was narrow-minded in making excuses for Arabs advocating war. Peace Now lied about Israel's early history, so as to accuse Israel of war crimes, and lied about its sources. "...example, not long ago Peace Now asserted that 86.4% of Maale Adumim, the largest of the settlement communities, was built on privately owned Arab land. When challenged with land ownership records, it conceded that perhaps about half of one percent of the community's land was privately owned by Arabs. Even this figure is highly questionable." It also interpreted Arab declarations, such as at the PLO Algiers conference, as making peace the goal, although PLO leaders explained that declarations were political ploys, whereas the covenants state their binding intent, which is to take over the entire area of Palestine, including Israel. It downplayed Arafat's endorsement of Saddam, who threatened to destroy Israel, as a "mistake." It extolled Faisal Husseini as a peacemaker, even though he said his Arabs were ready to "dissolve the Zionist entity," thanks to the Oslo Trojan Horse. It called skeptical Israelis uneducated. Some Peace Now leaders said Israel should not have self-defense or a state for Jews to return to (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/6). Then its real goal is to eliminate the Jewish state. That would let the Arabs murder the millions there. UNO VS. ISRAEL ON LEBANON WAR Secretary-General Ban is giving the Security Council a proposal to order Israel to pay Lebanon $1 billion in reparations for environmental damage there caused by Israeli bombs during the Lebanon War (IMRA, 9/6). Why not Lebanese, Syrian, and Iranian reparations to Israel for starting the war? Why not P.A. and Israeli Arabs for burning Israeli forests? Why not uncountable reparations for the other Arab wars of aggression? The UNO is biased. Certain types of Security Council resolutions have the force of international law. However, the Security Council is political and biased. It disregards justice, law, and truth. Its resolutions should not have the force of law. I think that the US should declare its formation a mistake, and its power void. TUNNELS TO GAZA — the latest Egypt recently destroyed three tunnels between Sinai and Gaza. That leaves 200! Hamas is satisfied with the existing number of tunnels, which bring in $20 million in excise taxes and employ 4,000. It wants to keep narcotics out of them. "...besides explosives and metals for fashioning rockets, the array of products smuggled through the tunnels is staggering: livestock, drugs, electrical appliances, fuel, cigarettes, clothing, toys and much more." "How can such a huge volume of traffic pass through a border area only a few kilometers long without being detected by Egyptian security forces?" Either Hamas is paying off Egyptian border guards, or the government of Egypt favors the smuggling (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 9/6) to harm Israel. I suppose it is both. The government condones terrorism, and the guards get their cut. IRAN & RUSSIA TO UPGRADE INTELLIGENCE TIES This is part of an Asian regional organization. The stated purpose of the intelligence is to thwart terrorism against member states (IMRA, 9/6). Russia helps terrorist sponsoring states Iran and Syria. They don't want terrorists to attack them, but probably use intelligence to thwart measures against the terrorism they sponsor. The Soviet Union used to sponsor Arafat's terrorism. U.S. TRIES BRIBING IRAN, WATERING SANCTIONS DOWN Congress authorized tough sanctions. To work, they must threaten the Iran regime's survival. For decades, Presidents implemented just a little (IMRA, 9/6). 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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15 WOUNDED IN TERROR ATTACK AT BUSY JERUSALEM INTERSECTION
Posted by Avodah, September 22, 2008. |
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This is entitled "Jerusalem terrorist was a Hamas member." It
was written by Etgar Lefkovits and Jerusalem Post Staff.
Abe Selig, Shelly Paz and Yaakov Katz contributed to this report
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The terrorist who rammed his BMW into a group of soldiers at a central Jerusalem thoroughfare late Monday was a member of Hamas, according to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency. Qassem Mughrabi, 19, from east Jerusalem's Jebl Mukaber, the same village that was home to the Mercaz Harav terrorist who killed eight students in March, wounded fifteen people before being shot dead by an off-duty IDF officer. The assailant had no previous security record, police said Tuesday. The 19-year-old had wanted to marry his cousin, and when she refused his offer, he decided to carry out a terror attack, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. The attack took place at the city's Kikar Tzahal near Jaffa Gate, and was the third such attack in the city in as many months. According to Army Radio, nine wounded from the attack were still being treated on Tuesday. Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco said Monday night that the attacker was shot dead "within seconds" by an off-duty IDF officer who was touring the city with his unit. He added that there was no intelligence information ahead of the attack, but noted that Jerusalem was under heavy security alert due to Ramadan. Half an hour after the attack, dozens of angry haredi residents chased two Arab locals who happened to be in the area. Many chanted racist slogans such as "Death to the Arabs" and tried to walk toward the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. Police on horseback dispersed the haredim, ensuring that the violence did not escalate. The attack came after two back-to-back bulldozer attacks in Jerusalem in July which left three Israelis dead and dozens wounded. Haim, an American yeshiva student, told The Jerusalem Post he came across the attack as it happened. Haim said he was walking near the Old City and heard gun shots, there was chaos and he saw wounded people on the ground who seemed to be "in pretty bad shape." The young man told the Post that as he was running away, he saw soldiers running toward the scene loading their rifles. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com |
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BARACK OBAMA IS 50% WHITE, 43.75% ARABIC AND 6.25% AFRICAN NEGRO
Posted by Avodah, September 22, 2008. |
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This is from
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The name Barack Hussein Obama is not is African Swahili as Obama claims but is Arabic and 'Baraka' (from which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama. Barack Hussein Obama is not half black. If elected, he would be the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side. While Barack Hussein Obama's father was from Kenya, his father's family was mainly Arabs.. Barack Hussein Obama's father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro). What does this mean? Maybe nothing. But, why is Obama trying to hide this? Why does he try to hide is middle name? Why does he try to hide the religious Muslim school he attented as a child in Indonesia? Why doesn't he set the record straight that he wouldn't be the first black President? Why so many cover-ups and hiding of the truth? Further, at only 6.25% African Negro, would he even be the first President who was part black? Not at all! Our 3rd President, Thomas Jefferson was our first part black President. And he's not alone, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge were also part black. President Andrew Jackson was the son of an Irish woman who married a black man. Andrew Jackson was such a high percentage black that his oldest brother was sold as a slave! President Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of an African man, he had very dark skin and coarse hair and his mother also allegedly came from an Ethiopian tribe. His heritage fueled so much controversy that Lincoln was nicknamed "Abraham Africanus the First" by his opponents. President Warren Harding never even denied claims that he was black, because he had black ancestors between both sets of parents and he attended Iberia College, a school founded to educate fugitive slaves. President Calvin Coolidge was proud of his heritage and claimed his mother was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry. Coolidge's mother's maiden name was "Moor" and in Europe the name "Moor" was given to all blacks just as "Negro" was used in America. Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com |
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THE GUT..
Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, September 22, 2008. |
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Israel's tragic — and dangerous — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is finally stepping down. Not the only leader, by far, to prove the Hebrew Prophet Samuel correct about the pitfalls of worldly leaders, he nonetheless excelled in putting his own interests above those of the long-awaited resurrected state of his people. Not that it was all his fault, mind you. When the most powerful nation on Earth — and Israel's best friend — tightens the screws, it's hard to say no. But keep in mind Lord Palmerston's advice regarding states, friends, and interests... Once upon a time, Israel did have leaders who knew how to draw the lines beyond which further arm-twisting would not be tolerated. Menachem Begin, for one — of blessed memory — comes to mind. That brings me to an AP article in my local paper on September 18th by Steven Gutkin. The article focused on Olmert's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, set to take over leadership of the Kadima Party. That one of Arafat's pathetic Jew stooges, Yossi Beilin, loves her should send out an important message to all who have their heads out of the sand. He thinks the latter day Arafatians in suits and ties are just swell too. Gutkin then compared Livni to her main rival, Iranian-born Shaul Mofaz: A victory by Mofaz would have raised serious questions about Israel's involvement in peace talks with both the Palestinians and Syrians. His approach is seen as far less conciliatory than hers... Two short sentences that say much indeed. Tsipi, you see, is good friends with Condi ... Now, to any who have eyes and see, who have ears and hear, who have brains with functioning neurons, etc. and so forth, that "friendship" spells trouble big time. Livni and Olmert simply caved repeatedly to virtually all that Secretary of State Rice and her Foggy Folks asked of them — be it supplying weapons to Abbas's latter-day Arafatian Fatah "good cops" (later used to massacre Jews), forsaking Israel's right, a la UNSC Resolution 242, to "secure and recognized" boundaries instead of the currently imposed '49 armistice lines which make it practically invisible on a map of the world, and so forth. Gutkin's article also contrasted Livni with Benjamin Netanyahu's "hardline" Likud Party. I'm always amazed by those who write in such terms regarding Israel. When Jews do it — like Gutkin, I assume — nauseated is the better word. A three-thousand mile wide America can fight wars, bomb targets, topple unfriendly governments, acquire territory, and so forth thousands of miles away, but Jews who want their sole state to have secure and defensible borders instead of a 9-mile wide rump state existence are "extremists." Such unreasonable Jewish hardliners ask what the lessons of Israel's retreat from Gaza years ago — with thousands of rockets and mortars fired at Israel proper from Gaza ever since — are regarding further retreat in Judea and Samaria, aka the "West Bank." Those "extremists" fear Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Knesset, Ben Gurion Airport, and so forth will get the same treatment Sderot has gotten non-stop. How paranoid of them! After all, those Arabs — who still show no Israel in school textbooks, maps, etc. — are such trustworthy peace (of the grave) partners. Gutkin mentioned the Syrian card as well. Nations who repeatedly attack neighbors over decades from territory often end up losing such territory. Wake up and smell history... Israel has already — long ago — offered to return to Syria far more than it deserves on the Golan Heights. As in Judea and Samaria with Abbas and his Fatah Arafatians, a real territorial compromise must be the answer with Damascus as well...not what an Arab petrodollar-greased American State Department dictates. Syria must never again be able to shell Israeli farms and such from the Heights, nor control Israel's key water sources. What would America do with such an enemy? Need I ask? Back home in the States, we're about to choose a new leader as well. That Arabs and jihadists all over the world love Barack Obama, and that the latter has too many key advisors and buddies who are anti-Semites and/or anti-Zionists (not that there's really a difference) says something loud and clear...and I'm a former Democrat myself, now an Independent. In November, I'll go with my gut instincts. I suggest that those in Israel who truly care about the long term future of the Jewish State do likewise when they have to choose between Bibi and Tsipi. 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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NEWS ANALYSIS: EXPERT SAYS ISRAEL IS UNDER 'MEDIA OCCUPATION'
Posted by Boris Celser, September 22, 2008. |
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This was written by Gil Ronen and it appeared in
Arutz-7
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(IsraelNN.com) Noted Middle East expert and commentator Dr. Guy Bechor accuses Israel's media of turning itself into an "occupying force" within Israel and behaving like an unelected, yet all-powerful, political machine. In an article entitled "Down with the Occupation" that appears on his Hebrew-language website, Dr. Bechor — one of Israel's top experts on Middle Eastern affairs and a popular lecturer and interviewee — identifies a process that he says began after 2000. "With the collapse of the Left in Israel's political system... and the tremendous disappointment from the 'peace process'," he says, "a strange process began gathering force in Israel's media, which was, to begin with, a closed club numbering about 20 movers and shakers. Strange as it may sound, this media, which is supposed to cover events and report them, took a step forward and took upon itself to represent the Left which had collapsed in the Israeli populace. It became a political party." Media crossed the lines "No one gave [the media] this mandate," writes Bechor — who was himself a journalist for Army Radio and other news organizations. "No "Divine order was given here, and in this act, it did not represent any" democratic process, because at its core, the media in Israel is not elected and does not change. It is made up of several 'gurus' who carry on for decades, without any real change in its personal makeup." The media in Israel, he emphasizes, "has turned into an active political force that serves as a substitute for the political parties of the past. The more the Left in Israel shrank in size, the greater its influence became in the media, although [this influence] was always hidden and camouflaged." "Thus the Israeli media crossed the lines, and moved away from its western counterparts. Thus it also betrayed the Israeli public, which expected, and expects to this day, that it will cover events." Anti-sephardic but Arab-idolizing Bechor claims that young journalists who do not toe the leftist line know that they will not be promoted. While they do not tout themselves as leftists, he says, "their entire essence is just that. The disparagement of patriotism and of the military, the dislike of the government... the self-praise as a 'peace' camp, the revulsion from Middle Eastern Judaism combined with an idolization of the Arabs, and the deep-seated grudge against the Right, against Netanyahu (the Waldemort of Israeli politics) and capitalism." Even the state-run media — Channel 1 TV, Voice of Israel Radio, IDF Radio and Educational TV — has come under the control of "the party," Bechor notes, as have Channel 10, Ha'aretz and recently Ma'ariv. "Israeli government is weakened and scorned, and talented people stay away from it, a vacuum is formed, into which this party media enters with great force," he says. The media crowned Livni The political media served as investigator and judge in the latest war in Lebanon, Bechor states, and now it has decided who will be Israel's prime minister, too, while cancelling democracy, in effect. The media, he says, strengthened Tzipi Livni, "hoisted her up with false polls, and cheered when she appeared to win. It is true that some feeble protests were heard here and there in view of the unbelievable scandals in the latest elections, but the caravan moved on, needless to say. It is easy to surmise how the same media party would have reacted if [Transport Minister Shaul] Mofaz had beat his rival by one percentage point. Indeed, the media is manipulating politicians instead of being manipulated by them." Politicians terrified The change in Israel's media over the last three decades is one that induces despair, Dr. Bechor says. "The politicians are terrified of this process, which they view with fear, because these same 'commentators' and 'journalists' are stronger and more stable then they are. The politicians depend on them and so they are afraid to talk." Bechor even adds that certain prominent female television reporters, whom he does not name, supplement their incomes by holding news panels on Sabbaths, which the politicians know they must participate in, or else. "Because we are not a healthy society, this process proceeds smoothly," Bechor sums up. "The more powerful it becomes, the more the undemocratic disease spreads. It is time to say 'no more.'" He recommends abstaining from Israel's Hebrew language mainstream press and says that alternative media channels hold the hope for a better future. Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net |
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OBAMA'S HARVARD YEARS: QUESTIONS SWIRL
Posted by Kenneth R. Timmerman, September 22, 2008. |
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How exactly did Barack Obama pay for his Harvard Law School education? The way the Obama campaign has answered the question was simply hard work and student loans. But new questions have been raised about Obama's student loans and Obama's ties to a radical Muslim activist who reportedly was raising money for Obama's Harvard studies during the years 1988 to 1991. The allegations first surfaced in late March, when former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton told a New York cable channel that a former business partner who was "raising money" for Obama had approached him in 1988 to help Obama get into Harvard Law School. In the interview, Sutton says he first heard of Obama about twenty years ago from Khalid Al-Mansour, a Black Muslim and Black Nationalist who was a "mentor" to the founders of the Black Panther party at the time the party was founded in the early 1960s. Sutton described al-Mansour as advisor to "one of the world's richest men," Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Prince Alwaleed catapulted to fame in the United States after the September 11 attacks, when New York mayor Rudy Guiliani refused his $10 million check to help rebuild Manhattan, because the Saudi prince hinted publicly that America's pro-Israel policies were to blame for the attacks. Sutton knew Al-Mansour well, since the two men had been business partners and served on several corporate boards together. As Sutton remembered, Al-Mansour was raising money for Obama's education and seeking recommendations for him to attend Harvard Law School. "I was introduced to (Obama) by a friend who was raising money for him," Sutton told NY1 city hall reporter Dominic Carter. "The friend's name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas." Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told Newsmax that Sutton's account was "bogus" and a "fabrication that has been retracted" by a spokesman for the Sutton family. He referred Newsmax to a pro-Obama blog published on Politico.com by reporter Ben Smith. In a September 3 blog entry, Smith wrote that "a spokesman for Sutton's family, Kevin Wardally" said that Sutton had been mistaken when he made those comments about Obama and Khalid Al-Mansour. Smith suggested the retraction "put the [Obama/Al-Mansour] story to rest for good." Wardally told Smith that the "information Mr. Percy Sutton imported [sic] on March 25 in a NY1 News interview regarding his connection to Barack Obama is inaccurate. As best as our family and the Chairman's closest friends can tell, Mr. Sutton, now 86 years of age, misspoke in describing certain details and events in that television interview." Asked which parts of Percy Sutton's statements were a "fabrication," LaBolt said "all of it. Al Mansour doesn't know Obama. And Sutton's spokesman retracted the story. The letter [to Harvard, which Percy Sutton says he wrote on behalf of Obama], the 'payments for loans' — all of it, not true," he added. Newsmax contacted the Sutton family and they categorically denied Wardally's claims to Smith and the Politico.com. So there was no retraction of Sutton's original interview, during which he revealed that Khalid Al-Mansour was "raising money" for Obama and had asked Sutton to write a letter of recommendation for Obama to help him get accepted at Harvard Law School. Sutton's personal assistant told Newsmax that neither Mr. Sutton or his family had ever heard of Kevin Wardally. "Who is this person?" asked Sutton's assistant, Karen Malone. When told that he portrayed himself as a "spokesman" for the family, Malone told Newsmax, "Well, he's not." According to a 2006 New York magazine profile, Wardally is part of a "New New Guard" in Harlem politics that has been challenging the "lions" of the old guard, Charles Rangel and Percy Sutton. That makes him an unlikely candidate to speak on behalf of Sutton. Sutton maintains an office at the Manhattan headquarters of the firm he founded, Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. ICBC owns New York radio stations WBLS and WLIB. Sutton's son Pierre ("Pepe") runs ICBC along with his daughter, Keisha Sutton-James. Malone told Newsmax that she had consulted with Sutton's family members at the station and confirmed that no one knew Kevin Wardally or had authorized him to speak on behalf of the family. For someone claiming to be a "spokesman" for the Sutton family, who was authorized to call Percy Sutton a liar, Wardally even got Percy Sutton's age wrong. Sutton is not 86, as Wardally said, but close to 88. He was born on Nov. 24, 1920. Wardally responded to a several Newsmax phone messages and emails with a terse one-line comment, maintaining his statement that Percy Sutton "misspoke" in the television interview. "I believe the statement speaks for itself and the Sutton Family and I have nothing further to say on the topic," he wrote in an email. Asked to explain why it was that no one at Inner City Broadcasting Corp. knew of him or accepted him as a family spokesman, Wardally responded later that he had been retained by a nephew of the elder Sutton, who "is in our office almost every week." Wardally works for Bill Lynch Associations, a Harlem political consulting firm. The nephew, Chuck Sutton, no longer works with the elder Sutton at Inner City Broadcasting, but for a high-tech start-up called Synematics. "Percy Sutton doesn't go out idly on television saying things he doesn't mean," a well-connected black entrepreneur who knows Sutton told Newsmax. Ben LaBolt's claim that "Al Mansour doesn't know Obama" was contradicted by Al Mansour himself in an extended interview with Newsmax. Comparing the revelation of his ties to Obama to the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Al Mansour said that he was determined to keep a low profile to avoid embarrassing Obama. "In respect to Mr. Obama, I have told him, because so many people are running after him... I was determined that I was never going to be in that situation," he told Newsmax. Al Mansour said he was deliberately avoiding any contact with the candidate. "I'm not involved in any way in celebrity sweepstakes," he said. "I wish him well, anything I can do if he lets me know, I'll let him know what I think I can do or can't. But I don't collect autographs. I wish him the best, and hope he can win the election." He repeatedly declined to comment on the Percy Sutton allegations, either to confirm or to deny them. "Any statement that I make would only further the activity which is not in the interest of Barack, not in the interest of Percy, not in the interest of anyone," Al Mansour said. Unanswered Questions Sen. Obama has refused to instruct Harvard Law School to release any information about his time there as a student, or about his student loans. Newsmax contacted the Dean of Students, the Director of Student Financial Services, the Registrar, and the Bursar of Harvard Law School. None would provide any specific information on Barack Obama's time at Harvard, except for his dates of attendance (1988-1991) or his year of graduation, 1991. A spokesman for the law school, Michael Armini, said it was Harvard policy not to divulge information on alumni without their approval. "There are lots of reporters nosing around the library," he acknowledged. So far, none had turned up any new information. Law professors Lawrence Tribe and Charles Ogletree have both said publicly that they were "impressed" by Obama when he was a student. Sources close to the Sutton family told Newsmax that Percy Sutton wrote a letter of recommendation for Obama to Ogletree at Khalid Al-Mansour's request, but Ogletree declined to answer Newsmax questions about this. Harvard Law School spokesman Michael Armini said that Harvard was "very generous" with financial aid, but only on the basis on need. The Obama campaign told Newsmax that Obama self-financed his three years at Harvard Law School with loans, and did not receive any scholarship from Harvard Law school. LaBolt denied that Obama received any financial assistance from Harvard or from outside parties. "No — he paid his way through by taking out loans," he said in an email to Newsmax. At the time, Harvard cost around $25,000 a year, or $75,000 for the three years that Obama attended. And as president of the Harvard Law Review, he received no stipend from the school, Harvard spokesman Mike Armini said. "That is considered a volunteer position," Armini said. "There is no salary or grant associated with it." So if the figures cited by the Obama campaign for the Senator's student loans are accurate, that means that Obama came up with more than $32,000 over three years from sources other than loans to pay for tuition, room and board. Where did he find the money? Did it come from friends of Khalid Al Mansour? And why would a radical Muslim activist with ties to the Saudi royal family be raising money for Barack Obama? That's the question the Obama campaign still won't answer. Michelle Obama Speaks Out Speaking at a campaign event in Haverford, Pa, in April of this year, Michelle Obama claimed that her husband had "just paid off his loan debt" for his Harvard Law School education. In an appearance in Zanesville, Ohio, in February she bemoaned the fact that many American families were strapped with student loan payments for years after graduation. "The only reason we're not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books," she said. The first of those best-sellers netted the couple $1.2 million in royalties in 2005. In response to Newsmax questions about the Obama's college loans, a campaign spokesman cited a report in The Chicago Sun claiming that Obama borrowed $42,753 to pay for Harvard Law School, and "tens of thousands" more to pay for undergraduate studies at Columbia. The same report said that Michelle Obama borrowed $40,762 to pay for her years at Harvard Law School. But a Newsmax review of Senator Obama's financial disclosures found no trace of any outstanding college loans, going back to 2000. As a United States Senate candidate, Barack Obama was required to file a financial disclosure form in 2004 detailing his assets, income, consulting contracts, and liabilities. Obama listed "zero" under liabilities in 2004 and in all subsequent U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms. Under the Senate ethics rules, he is required to disclose any loan, including credit card debt, of $10,000 or more. The only exception to the reporting requirement is mortgage debt on a principal residence. The Senate reports also directly contradict Michelle Obama's claim that the couple had "only just" paid off their student loans after receiving book royalties paid out in 2005 and 2006 — well after her husband had been ensconced in the Senate. Apparently, Michelle Obama misspoke, according to the version provided by the Obama campaign. Campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt now tells Newsmax that the loans Sen. Obama took out to pay for Harvard Law School "were repaid in full while he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate [in 2004], and under the rules, the modest outstanding balance he repaid was not reportable as a liability on his personal financial disclosure reports." The Senator repaid the loans on "the expectation of a significant increase in family income" as a result of the paperback edition of his 1995 book, Dreams of My Father, LaBolt said. Obama acknowledges that sales of the hard cover edition of the book were "underwhelming." But in the spring of 2004,when Obama won the Democrat U.S. Senate primary in Illinois, Rachel Klayman, an editor at Crown Publishers in New York, read an article about Obama and became interested in his memoir, only to discover that Crown now owned the rights. She asked Obama to write a new forward, and Crown then decided to re-issue Dreams as a paperback in July 2004, just as Obama made his historic speech to the Democrat National Convention. The paperback eventually sold over one million copies, which under the standard industry royalty for trade paperbacks of 7.5%, earned him $1.2 million. However, Obama didn't report income from the book until 2005, so it's unclear how he was able to repay his student loans in 2004. Responding to attacks from the Hillary Clinton campaign during the primaries, Obama released seven years of tax returns on March 25 of this year. The returns, dating back to 2000, indicate that the couple paid no interest on their student loans. The interest from such loans would have been deductible on their joint income tax returns. For 2000 through 2004, taxpayers declared student loan interest as a deduction on line 24 of federal form 1040. After 2004, the deduction can be taken on Line 33. But the Obamas never declared a dime of interest in student loans on their return, most likely because they simply earned too much money to be able to take the deduction under the IRS rules. Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt had no answer as to why the Obamas' failed to declare the loans, stating the obvious that "because interest on the loans was not deducted, it would not appear on the Obamas' personal return." Ken Timmerman is President, Middle East Data Project, Inc., and author of Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran. Contact him by email at timmerman.road@verizon.net and go to his website: www.KenTimmerman.com |
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RETURN WHILE IT'S STILL POSSIBLE
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 21, 2008. |
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Our personal and collective histories are defined by historical cusps. A cusp is a concept borrowed from mathematics. It is a point formed by two intersecting arcs. What that means is that two seemingly independent lines intersect at a certain point and an event that was traveling along one line is suddenly shifted to the other one and finds itself moving in an entirely, unexpected direction. This concept is used by psychologist and historians to refer to an event that fundamentally changes the direction a personal or national life-line takes. A person is sitting in his living room reading a newspaper when a section of a jet airliner comes cascading through his home changing his life forever. Another is suddenly left sprawled out on the sidewalk by a terrorist bomb. A great city is beginning its work day and is changed forever by airplanes crashing into its most famous towers. The list of actual events is nearly endless. We have all learned about such events in our history class and from our own lives or that of our relatives and friends. We all desire stability and certainty in our lives. We can not live mentally or emotionally stable lives expecting life changing disaster to strike us at any second. Nevertheless we incorporate the possibility into our collective and personal lives. We buy health and life insurance. We establish Armies and Police forces. We acknowledge the reality that we have learned from history that sudden changes occur and a normal person prepares himself for it. The history of the Jewish people in the Galut has been marked by a constant cycle of destruction, exile, reestablishment, stability and then once again destruction. Those who managed to escape the destruction of the latest "old country" build a life for themselves and their families in the better "new country" and some how delude themselves into believing that "here it will be different!" But it never is. Eventually the destruction comes. Sometime with forewarning, often without. World events are moving at a faster and faster rate. Events that might have taken decades to unfold a century ago happen today in months or even days. Technologies that would have been labeled as lunatic fantasies even fifty years ago are considered essentials to our day to day lives now. Most Jews take for granted that if they wish to go to Israel all they need do is log on and order a ticket that will be paid by credit card. Nothing to it, until the lights go out. This was written by Ernie Singer and comes from Arutz-7. |
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(IsraelNN.com) Rabbi Pinchas Winston of www.thirtysix.org says that now is a unique time in history for coming to live in Israel. Interviewed on Israel National Radio's The Aliyah Revolution, Rabbi Winston said there are two stages to the in bringing of the exiles. The rabbi stated that the first stage happens in advance of the Messiah's arrival, quoting Jewish sources that it is "totally a function of free will. It's totally a function of a person's willingness to give up some measure of materialism for the sake of... being closer to G-d and being in the Holy Land, and walking in those footsteps our great ancestors." According to those sources, Jews coming in the first stage have benefits during Messianic times that Jews in the Diaspora won't have until the resurrection of the dead. Rabbi Winston believes that in the 3,000 years of Jewish history, despite spiritual efforts in the Diaspora, "the exile... we have been living in usually has come to an abrupt end and not a peaceful one, in fact quite a painful one. Of course, we don't go too far back in history to see how painful that can actually be." The author of the book Geulah b'rachamim working to bring the redemption safely tied Israel to anticipation of redemption and said, "The litmus test of a person's yearning, and specifically for Eretz Yisrael, is that when the opportunity presents itself, and it will present itself for a person that yearns, they either take it or have a very, very good halachic [Jewish legal — ed.] reason to not fulfill it and if, for some reason, they're bound to stay in the Diaspora because of the halachic issue, it should pain them." According to Rabbi Winston, the Oral Law and its interpreters say this yearning is "the key thing at this stage of history that will make all the difference in the world, whether Moshiach comes riding in a cloud, peacefully, or riding on the back of donkey, which...our commentators symbolize the Arab nations." To listen or download the full interview, click here. www.IsraelNationalNews.com Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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THINKING CLEARLY ABOUT IRAN
Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, September 21, 2008. |
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Justifiable angst grows within Israel, America, France, and other
prescient nations, not to mention Sunni Muslim states, concerning
Iran's evolving nuclear capabilities. The Islamic fundamentalist
Shiite autocracy's centrifuges keep spinning while its leaders know
industrial nations will continue spinning their wheels, unwilling to
substantially sanction or attack the 'wipe Israel off the map' regime
as long as such action will surely disrupt the flow of Middle East
oil. It's nice to hold the fossil fuel addicted world hostage while
you manufacture a nuclear arsenal! Yet, what if Iran's nuclear plants
were shut down? Would AhMADinejad and the maniacal mullahs not be able
to purchase nukes and launchers from say Pakistan, Russia, or some
rogue dealer? Isn't that the modus operandi of a capitalist global
economy, profits uber alas? The Dr. Strangelove horse has already left
the barn searching for riders with plenty of cash. Shouldn't focusing
efforts on critically reducing Iran's purchasing power by say further
reducing the per barrel price of oil be a more worthy task, or better
yet reducing the demand for that climate altering substance? Iran's
economy thus its ability to manufacture and/or purchase fissile
material and nuclear infrastructure would take a huge hit without
abundant oil revenues. Indeed, that is the nature of a raw material
dependent economy.
Still, it is interesting to note the recent protest against nuclear emerging Iran prompted by the regime's anti-Semitic president's appearance at the United Nations, organized by Jewish groups, was bereft of major U.S. politicians. Never mind the excuses of tax exempt status concerns, democrat Hillary Clinton's cancellation of her scheduled appearance at the rally, the rescinded invitation of U. S. republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, might there be another reason below the radar for the absence of U.S. political leaders at this important demonstration? Iranian manufactured and or acquired nukes and threats to Israel are surely essential issues, but might Uncle Sam's less than obvious but most essential concern relate to his ever-threatened petrodollar? A little publicized fact that Iran has created an international bourse or commodity exchange, perhaps soon to be fully launched trading oil for euros, could indeed have motivated the petrodollar dependent debt-ridden Uncle to say Uncle, thus not allow political leaders of either major party to visibly address that anti-Iran rally lest they infuriate Iranian leaders so they effectuate that petro-dollar pummeling launch? Was all the back and forth accusatory political rhetoric from both campaigns feigning regrets window-dressing? Should Israel be expending so much time and effort concerning Iran's ever-evolving nuclear infrastructure, knowing her formidable American ally would likely not be so formidable in supporting Israeli initiatives when the oil pusher comes to shove, knowing if you can't make nukes you can buy nukes, knowing aggressive posturing raises the prospect of a disruption of Middle East oil flow thus raises the per barrel price of oil, knowing more expensive oil bolsters Iran's economy thus ability to manufacture and or purchase fissile material and nuclear infrastructure? Might Israel's new Prime Minister Tzipi Livni and other Israeli leaders think clearly about these issues?
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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NON VIOLENCE AND NAZISM
Posted by Seth J. Frantzman, September 21, 2008. |
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On September 25, five American religious organizations plan to host a Ramadan dinner for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his upcoming visit to the United States. These include the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quakers, the World Council of Churches, and Religions for Peace. How is it that these Christian "peace" organizations are willing to break bread with a declared warmonger and Holocaust denier? An answer lies in the troubling history of these organizations — a history that includes a shameful alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II. The pacifist-Nazi axis dates to the 1930s. None other than the worldwide spokesman for non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, wrote letters to Adolph Hitler that were deferential in their tone and abhorrent in their implications. A 1939 letter was apologetically described by Gandhi as a "mere impertinence" and included the following signoff: "I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you. I remain, Your sincere friend, Sd. M. MK Gandhi." In a letter dated December 24, 1940, Gandhi assured Hitler that he had no doubt of "your bravery or devotion to your fatherland." Zionist appeals for Gandhi to support a national home for the Jewish people, meanwhile, fell on deaf ears, as he insisted that "Palestine belongs to the Arabs." Not only did Gandhi reject the cause of a Jewish state but he effectively echoed Nazi propaganda, as with his warning that "this cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews." Even more supportive of Hitler were the Mennonites. In a letter dated September 10, 1933, the Conference of East and West Prussian Mennonites from the German city-state of Danzig wrote to the Fuhrer to express its "deep gratitude for the powerful revival that God has given our nation through your energy" and wished Hitler a "joyful cooperation in the up building of our Fatherland through the power of the Gospel." If its enthusiasm for hosting Ahmadinejad is any guide, the Mennonite Church has learned little from this dark chapter in its past. On the contrary, the church's alliance with the Iranian leader is an extension of its hard-line anti-Israel politics, which find expression in its funding of books advocating the so-called "right-of-return" for Palestinian Arabs — a policy that, if implemented, would mean the destruction of Israel. One finds a similar antagonism for the Jewish State in the activism of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the "peace" arm of the Quakers. As an example of what it calls "Quaker values in action," the AFSC includes its campaigns to "challenge" American support for Israel. A supporter of the PLO, the AFSC not only backs radical anti-Israel groups like Zochrot but opposes Israel's attempts to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism. That the Quakers are now willing to sit down to dinner with the man who has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the global map should not be entirely surprising. By any reasonable standard, self-styled peace activists might be expected to condemn leaders who support terrorism and who unashamedly seek the destruction of other nations. But just as advocates of non-violence found a way to accommodate the genocidal designs of Adolph Hitler, so they have been willing to make peace with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And just as Gandhi never expressed remorse for his "dear friend" letters to Hitler, its unlikely that these supposed believers in non-violence will break a dinner date with his Iranian heir. [EDITOR'S NOTE: There's a certain consistency to Quaker behavior. In the 1700's, they were often indifferent "to the calamities visited upon the white settlers" (George E. Ellis, The Red Man And The White Man In North America, 1882. Google for other references.) They were often sympathetic to the Indian scalper and indifferent to the white scalpee.] Contact Seth J. Frantzman at sfrantzman@hotmail.com and visit his website: http://journalterraincognita.blogspot.com This article appeared on his website. |
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FROM ISRAEL: NARRATIVE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 21, 2008. |
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In the Torah reading for this past Shabbat — Ki Tavo — Moses speaks to the children of Israel shortly before they cross the Jordan River "into the Land that G-d is giving you..." The people are instructed to make an alter and to bring offerings of thanksgiving and to "be glad" (samachta) before G-d. How powerful is this message in its many parts, and — sadly — how much of this has been lost: The ability of (some) Jews to know that this is our Land, and to rejoice in this. To embrace our heritage and value it. I write a good deal about narratives. Here we have a small but extremely significant piece of the Jewish narrative. Those of us who understand this narrative — whether Jewish or Christian (and some Christians understand better than some Jews) — have a solemn responsibility to keep telling it, so that it not be lost. For this would be a tragedy of immeasurable dimensions. ~~~~~~~~~~ Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA, wrote an op-ed the other day in the Wall Street Journal. As he often does, he inverted the truth of our narrative. And he did it in tones so reasonable that without a doubt many a Jew (as well as many non-Jews) read what he wrote and embraced it as positive — not even understanding that he was stealing from and destroying our narrative. That he spoke lies and distortions, and not truth. This cannot go unanswered. Hopefully I will have the opportunity for a more extensive response elsewhere. Here I will address a couple of major points: 1) He speaks about an agreement based on the 1967 "borders." But these were armistice lines, not borders. Not sacrosanct and not anything we are obligated to return to. No, no and no! The Mandate for Palestine promised the land of Palestine between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean to the Jews as a homeland; this is an article of international law since 1922. It is our governments of the past 15 years that have made a sacrifice (ill-advised, in my opinion) in offering to share this. There is more, but this will suffice here. My friends, stay vigilant and do not be fooled by misleading words, please. ~~~~~~~~~~ Olmert informed the cabinet this morning that he would be officially submitting his resignation to President Peres this evening. This should be taking place as I write. Once Olmert submits his resignation, his government becomes transitional, staying in power only until a new government can be established. Officially, Peres must now select the faction head to be given the opportunity to establish a coalition. This is a formality, as it is clearly understood that this will be Livni. Peres is expected to meet with her later this evening. ~~~~~~~~~~ But it looks as if Tzipi Livni, as new head of the Kadima party, is on shaky ground with regard to being able to establish a solid coalition. The departure of Mofaz, and the anger of his supporters, is a step towards the disintegration of Kadima, which means she is not negotiating from strength. Mofaz has refused to join Kadima meetings meant to strengthen party cohesion. His absence leaves a considerable hole in the party. It hasn't helped that key Mofaz supporter MK Ronit Tirosh went on Israel Radio last night with the claim that the primary was riddled with irregularities. While MK Ze'ev Elkins, of Kadima, has said he will petition the Kadima court for a recount because of those irregularities. ~~~~~~~~~~ Seems, in addition, that Livni is not handling the current coalition partners well. Her message: We were supposed to get rid of Olmert, and this we've done, so there's no need to make any other changes — stay where you are and we'll keep going. But her coalition partners are not so sure. Shas is still holding out, at least as of this writing. (Actually, many of the statements by Eli Yishai, head of the Shas faction, are so convoluted they are making no sense.) And Labor is cool. Last night Barak met with Netanyahu. Though there is nothing official at this point, the rumor is that they were talking of a national emergency government — one that excludes Kadima. Speaking to the Labor faction today, Barak said: "In light of the political, security and economic challenges, the correct move for the people of Israel is [the formation of] a very broad national emergency government. What interests me is what is good for Israel." While it's hard not to choke on the suggestion that Barak works for the good of Israel, if it turns out that he has decided that what's good for his party and for himself is to separate from a Kadima-led government, this is a step in the right direction. Aides are suggesting that he may prefer that national emergency government to continuing in a Kadima government. Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon, of Labor, predicts that first there will be elections and then the national emergency government. "The coalition talks are nothing but a game, since everyone knows elections are near," he told Israel Radio. ~~~~~~~~~~ And Livni? She is saying that if a stable coalition cannot be established soon, she'll go to elections. She's not afraid of this, however, because she is confident that Kadima will win. Talk about bluster! Her first concern, she insists, is the good of the nation. All I can say is that if the people making these declarations really cared about the good of the nation yea these past few years we wouldn't be in the place we are now. ~~~~~~~~~~ And what's good for the nation? Elections, for certain. Not a Livni-run government. And a solid coalition that at least tilts right. We are facing difficult times and there must be a government with the strength to act decisively in the name of the people — decisively both in terms of having the courage to act in our defense and to refuse to be cowed into making dangerous concessions. We need a government led by people who will not defy the will of the nation, as Olmert and Livni have, and move unilaterally on existential issues when there is no national consensus. As Minister Eli Yeshai has just said: "There is not one person...who has the moral, political or practical authority to push issues that are subject to disagreement." Without doubt, he is referring primarily to willingness to negotiate the division of Jerusalem, although the majority of Israelis are against this. ~~~~~~~~~~ A Palestinian Authority security official, reports YNet, has registered concern that Hamas is planning a series of attacks to weaken the Authority at the time that Abbas's term as president comes to an end. Reportedly, these planned operations are being headed by Ahmed Jabri, who is understood to be deputy chief of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing. What is the way to weaken Hamas? Says the official: ..."the way...is to speed up the peace talks and dismantle Israeli outposts and even settlements in the West Bank, as well as remove IDF roadblocks, grant entry permits to Palestinian workers and cease the IDF's operations in the West Bank." I am not making this up. I couldn't. The unnamed PA official is mum on how speeding up the peace talks will weaken Hamas, when the Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida has declared that the PA's increased cooperation with Israel was one of the factors that has "pushed the moment of punishment forward." I hasten to point out, as well, that the PA does not do the sort of military operations against terrorists that the IDF does. They have neither the will nor the capacity. They take out common thugs and shut down Hamas charities. ~~~~~~~~~~ It's shameful on several counts and I cannot let this posting pass without mention of this, although, surely, many readers are already familiar with the situation: Ahmadinejad is coming to New York to address the UN General Assembly. In protest, the Conference of the Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations — a major umbrella organization for establishment American Jewish organizations, headed by Malcolm Hoenlein — organized a rally. Among the speakers they invited were Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. The intent, clearly, was a unified, non-partisan protest. There are times when politics are not appropriate: McCain and Obama, for example, came together at Ground Zero for 9/11. But Hillary Clinton, acting with consummate foolishness, politicized the situation. When she learned that Palin was also invited, and had decided to come, she withdrew her agreement to participate, expressing concern that this was becoming a "partisan political event." So far, her mistake and nothing more. As JINSA pointed out, her participation would have insured that the event wasn't partisan, and she blew it. ~~~~~~~~~~ Pressure was then brought to bear upon the Conference of Presidents to withdraw the invitation to Palin. This was reportedly done so that there should be no impression of partisanship, but what actually happened is that an opportunity to show the world that everyone in the US stood against the intentions of Iran had been lost and the major issue was obscured by trivializing politics. And the Conference conceded. JINSA reported that the pressure came from the National Jewish Democratic Council. I have since picked up information that JStreet, the leftist political group, is taking credit on its website for having accomplished this. It should be noted that there are links between the two groups. What is most disgraceful here is not the pressure brought to bear by Jewish leftist groups, but the fact that a mainstream Jewish group caved. I am aware of two organizations — JINSA and CAMERA — that have publicly protested the Conference's decision and the fact that they, as members of the Conference, were not consulted before that decision was made. There may well be others similarly incensed. ~~~~~~~~~~ Head of Military Intelligence, Brigadier-General Yossi Baidatz, today briefed the Cabinet. Among the matters he addressed was Iran: "Iran is focusing its efforts in enriching uranium and improving the operational capabilities of its centrifuges. It is mastering the necessary technology and now has one-third of what it needs to create a bomb. "In view of the UN Security Council's inability to enforce a fourth round of sanctions, Iran's confidence is increasing and they now believe there is nothing the international community can do to stop them. Time is on Iran's side." Baidatz additionally said that Teheran is strengthening its relations with Hezbollah, Syria and various Palestinian terror groups in an attempt to position itself as the lead radical force in the Middle East, while "The more moderate Arab states are not united in the wish to act against Iran." Put simply, he said the international community is not doing enough to stop Iran. G-d help us, that there are fools worried about partisan politics when this happening. If ever there were people fiddling while the world threatened to burn. ~~~~~~~~~~ Please, if you American, take a look at this from Jeff Jacoby, on a drilling bill that bans drilling. "According to the Interior Department, the offshore areas where drilling is restricted contain more than 19 billion barrels — that's equal to 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia. The bill would deny Americans access to as much as nine-tenths of that oil." But if America were to avail itself of oil reserves it would literally shift the dynamics of the Middle East and loosen the stranglehold of the oil-producing nations.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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IDF DEMOLISHES JEWISH COMMUNITY AGAINST COURT ORDER
Posted by HaDaR, September 21, 2008. |
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IDF demolishes Jewish Community AGAINST COURT ORDERS. They NEVER do the same with Arabs. ON THE CONTRARY: they do not apply court orders ordering demolitions of illegally built Arab houses on publicly or privately owned land (even in national parks!) which are over 180.000, and ignore court orders of evacuation of Arabs illegally squatting on Jewish owned land and homes IN SPITE OF COURT ORDERS (see the Yitzchak Hershkovits case) and even remove protective fences to promote Arab agriculture even at the risk of Jewish lives. Self-hate and lemming disease are old national pathologies. DEMOCKRACY is the appropriate term for this regime ruled with an iron fist by an "enlightened" minority controlling all the main centers of power: Judiciary, Army, Police, Media, Bureaucracy, Administrations, Executive and Legislation (when they don't control it they corrupt it and BUY the votes they need, just as they did in 1995 with the two CONDEMNED CRIMINALS Segev and Goldfarb to pass by one vote the Oslo scam that brought death and maiming on our people and built an army of terrorists, gave them bases and weapons, and led to the Hamastan of Gaza) This article below was written by
Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel and it appeared in Arutz-7
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(IsraelNN.com) The Israeli Defense Forces completed the destruction of the Jewish community of Yad Yair, in violation of an order from the State's High Court to stay the demolition until at least 4:00 pm Thursday. The destruction is the second attempt in two days to destroy the town, the first attempt having been thwarted early Wednesday morning by a large gathering of Jewish protestors. Despite the order being known for several hours, the IDF acknowledged receipt of the order only after having destroyed the last houses. High Court Justice Salim Joubran ordered the government to respond by 4:00 pm Thursday to a petition by the residents to stop the demolition, while the court was to review of the demolition order and the petition. Meanwhile, the IDF was ordered to halt the demolition. There has been no comment from the IDF regarding their violation of the court order. The order was already publicized by early Thursday afternoon, but only after the army had finished demolishing the last house did the IDF acknowledge that they had received the order. Only after the army had finished demolishing the last house did the IDF acknowledge that they had received the order. Many residents of Yad Yair are incensed by the army's continued destruction of their community against a clear order from the highest court in the nation. At least one resident said that the violation was an act of "childish revenge" for the community's thwarting of a previous attempt by the IDF to destroy Yad Yair. "Everything has a price and that price will be made evident across the West Bank within hours," said one of the protestors present at the scene of Thursday's destruction. Viki Ezra, another activist present at the scene, said during the demolition that "most of the buildings were already destroyed, and it appears that forces are continuing to destroy the remaining buildings, against an order from the High Court not to continue with the demolition until 4:00 pm." Undeterred by the IDF's apparently unlawful action, the Ezra said, "We will still return to the place and rebuild it." In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a group of some 300 protestors had prevented the IDF from carrying out One resident said that the violation was an act of "childish revenge" for the community's thwarting of a previous attempt by the IDF to destroy Yad Yair. the demolition of Yad Yair that day, when local area Jewish residents were alerted overnight that a large force of soldiers and demolition equipment were scheduled to arrive and destroy the community. The IDF claims that it decided to cancel the first demolition attempt when army officials learned of the size of the gathering of protestors. However, Yanir Aldubi, a spokesman from the nearby town of Dolev, added that one of the drivers of the two demolition cranes that were ordered to destroy the houses in Yad Yair broke orders and refused to carry out the demolition. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. |
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PSYCHOLOGISTS CITED FOR UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR
Posted by Hillel Fendel, September 21, 2008. |
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Was the IDF brainwashed into carrying out the Disengagement from Gush Katif and northern Shomron in 2005? A complaint has been filed with the Ethics Committee of the Israel Board of Psychologists against two psychologists for "using their psychological and hypnotic skills" to facilitate the Disengagement-expulsion. The complaint was filed by psychologist Dr. Amira Dor of Raanana, in light of a recently-published report entitled, "The Mental Preparation for the Disengagement and its Aftermath in the IDF." The 230-page report details the systematic manner in which the army, with the help of the two psychologists — Nachi Ayalon and Chaim Omer — allowed itself and its soldiers to be brainwashed into expelling thousands of Jews from their homes. Dr. Dor, one of the authors of the report, wrote in her complaint that the two psychologists had behaved "unethically and damagingly." How were tens of thousands of IDF soldiers brought to the point where they marched en-masse and robotically with glassy eyes to throw out family after family of their countrymen from their homes, 'with sensitivity and determination'? The report's point of departure, as stated in its introduction, is: How were tens of thousands of IDF soldiers brought to the point where they marched en-masse and robotically with glassy eyes to throw out family after family of their countrymen from their homes, 'with sensitivity and determination' [as the government boasted at the time]? Dr. Dor's letter to the Ethics Board stated that the two psychologists, who spoke publicly of their methodology after the Disengagement, "trained the officers and psychologists of the army and the police, and taught them various techniques of emotional manipulation, instilling ideas, and massive influence upon the soldiers' behavior, opinions and emotions. The purpose of the training was to nullify the soldiers' and policemen's instinctive opposition to the expulsion, and to bring them to the point of obedience to any command that would be given." "The behavior of these two psychologists stands in clear opposition to the principles of the psychologists' ethical code," Dr. Dor wrote. The report quotes a ruling by former Chief Justice Aharon Barak in which he vetoed the expulsion of terrorists from Shechem to Gaza. Barak wrote at the time, "The basic principle is that taking a person from his home and forcibly transferring him to another place is a great blow to his dignity, freedom, and property." The report continues, "Everyone who saw the parades of sodiers in Gush Katif wearing their black uniforms, with the country's emblem on their shirts and hats; whoever saw them chasing and persecuting, in close coordination with the police, the country's best youth as 'infiltrators'; and whoever heard the IDF's top generals calling the 'orange camp' more dangerous than Hizbullah — could not help but marvel: How did this wonder occur? How was the IDF turned into an army of expulsion?" "The astonishment increases after the Second Lebanon War. Just ten months after the most efficient operation in IDF history, the army suffered a dismal failure in Lebanon in the real thing — war against an external enemy. Was it just bad luck?... Clearly not. It was rather the necessary outcome — because the same mental preparation that worked so well for expulsion is exactly that which castrated the army's fighting abilities." The report states that a secret team of psychologists was convened by OC Southern Command Gen. Dan Harel, to prepare a large-scale strategy to mentally and ideologically sway the army in general, and the soldiers in particular. Their work was completed in July 2004 — seven full months before the Disengagement Law was passed in the Knesset. The same mental preparation that worked so well for expulsion is exactly that which castrated the army's fighting abilities in the 2nd Lebanon War. IDF kits entitled "Mental Preparations for the Disengagement Mission" were disseminated throughout the army, published by the IDF Behaviorial Sciences Wing, the Psychological Wing of the Ground Forces, the Israel Police, and the IDF Education and Youth Wing. The report's authors interviewed many soldiers who took part in the preparation process, and studied thousands of pages of the "mental preparation" kits and political briefings. They wrote that they found that a new ideology was being taught in the army: "Democracy is the most important ideal; the State is democratic more than it is Jewish; the Disengagement is democratic and legal; the IDF is the protector of the democratic regime and therefore may legally be used against civilians." In fact, one of the teachings in the kit stated, "Failure to carry out the mission of evacuation will be a failure of democracy. Guarding over the principles of democracy and the rule of law are what will guarantee the continued existence of the State of Israel. The sovereignty of the State of Israel is expressed by the ability of the IDF to carry out the decisions of the government. And this is what is being tested in this mission." The authors noted that this stands in stark opposition to the basic creed of the IDF, which demands adherence only to legal orders, emphasizes the importance of love of homeland and Jewish national values, and does not mention at all the need to protect the regime or democracy. Selected quotes in the report from testimony by those who planned and participated in the mental preparation of the IDF: "During pilot training, the red lines were a type of a 'pistol in the drawer.' There is no need to discuss them publicly. It was clear that any cadet who refused to participate would be expelled from the course, and even without any other punishment the possibility of being dropped from the course was a very serious threat which meant giving up all of one's dreams and personal challenges." The newspeak that was created was loaded with definitions stemming from a new world of concepts and terminology.
EDITOR'S NOTE: To read an English version of the preliminary report, click here. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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MODERN CHRISTIAN MARTYRS, JEWISH ANTISEMITES; MUSLIMS INCITE MASSES AGAINST ISRAEL
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 21, 2008. |
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MODERN CHRISTIAN MARTYRS Here is a verbatim report from an investigator whom I've found to be thorough and accurate and interested in justice. I culled from his many examples.
("Palestinian Crimes against Christian Arabs" by Justus Reid Weiner
"Under the Palestinian regime (i.e., the P.A., set up by Oslo Accords), Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims. There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion. Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are directly responsible for many of the human rights violations. Muslims who have converted to Christianity are in the greatest danger. They are often left defenseless against cruelty by Muslim fundamentalists. Some have been murdered." Now do you Western Christians really want to let large numbers of Muslims immigrate to your countries, joining those already there and who boast that they are going to take over? What do you think their taking over would mean to you? FRANCE WANTS TO MEDDLE IN P.A. France suggests the EU send forces to back up the P.A.. It did not define the problem or mission. Israel failed to be ready with a response (IMRA, 9/5). Why doesn't the EU do something about Georgia, and tell Israel to take care of its own problems! On the other hand, wherever the EU does intervene, it fouls things up. Think of the mess it made in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and UNIFIL! French civilization is slipping away from France, but the government of France is too busy peering abroad to notice. SARKOZY'S SYRIAN VENTURE The President of France visited the President of Syria. Assad showed Sarkozy his plan for peace with Israel. It included retaining Syria's alliance with Hizbullah, whose leader recently affirmed it is at war with Israel (Arutz-7, 9/5). How can Syria make peace with Israel while remaining the ally of a terrorist organization at war with Israel? The logic of that question apparently escaped Sarkozy. He acts more like a playboy pretending that France is great, than like a great leader solving world problems. ISRAEL SECRETLY ARMING THE ENEMY Defense Min. Barak secretly transferred ammunition and 1,000 rifles to the P.A.. PM Olmert had promised them to Abbas. Called upon to explain, the rationale given is that Israel can't expect the P.A. to keep order without weaponry. Previous gifts of arms ended up being used against Israel (Arutz-7, 9/5). Israeli regimes like to repeat their mistakes. Why? Either they can't learn or they don't consider it a mistake to undermine Israel, as all their policies towards the Arabs and the US do. No study was cited of what arms the P.A. needs. Israeli government policies are made without apparent study or thought. JEWISH ANTISEMITES A German Jewish commentator, prominent because her father was a well-known Jewish leader, specializes in defaming Israel. Another Jewish commentator called her antisemitic. She tried to have him censored. The court ruled that he showed she was engaged in an antisemitic campaign, for that is the level of her criticism of Israel. Her being of Jewish origin does not exempt her from this finding. If it did, it would be racist, claiming that parentage permits slander. HIZBULLAH USES "FACEBOOK" TO SPY Hizbullah gathers what information it can on Israeli soldiers and their units. Then it can plan attacks on the units and kidnapping of soldiers, especially by arranging trysts with Internet "companions," really the enemy. To counter that, the IDF is training soldiers how to be discreet. Hundreds of civilians are monitoring the web sites and reporting security breaches that terrorists might use (Arutz-7, 9/5) Might Israel successfully use Internet to get at terrorists? PARLIAMENTARY COALITION AGAINST JIHAD MK Aryeh Eldad announced at a press conference formation of a coalition of members of parliaments against jihad. Eldad said that European governments have been appeasing Islamists, but many Europeans disapprove. He thinks there still is time for Europe to stop jihadist Islam there. The group is preparing a series of bills to submit for that purpose (Arutz-7, 9/5). He did not say that since Islam conditions followers against non-believers, it makes Muslims suitable for recruitment into jihad. Therefore, the most effective method would be to stop Muslim immigration and reverse it. MUSLIMS INCITING MASSES AGAINST ISRAEL Muslim leaders have stepped up their decades old campaign pretending that the Jews seek to destroy their mosque on the Temple Mount. "The incitement has come from the P.A. — both Fatah and Hamas — as well as from the Arab League, from within Israel's Arab minority, from Muslim organizations abroad, and from the al-Qaeda terrorist group." "To accomplish this, the PA does not hesitate to use vicious terminology and libels, and recruit religious leaders to deliver inflammatory sermons." "An Israeli Muslim radical has even taken the show on the virtual road, for consumption among English-speaking Muslim masses." When the masses are roused, there usually is "significant, coordinated physical violence." (Arutz-7, 9/5.) The Muslims are lying, in their bigotry. Israel does no harm to Islam. To the contrary, it gives the Muslims priority on the Mount, undermining its own claim to sovereignty. Are the Muslims coordinating this with a general war on Israel? What folly to let the enemy have forces in the Territories and in Lebanon, to add to the other threats! Success means reducing the numbers and arms of one's enemies. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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THE HONLEIN AFFAIR — AND THE "DIS-INVITATION" OF GOVERNOR PALIN
Posted by Steve Carol, September 21, 2008. |
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This was written by Michael Anbar and sent to Matthew Hoenlein. |
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Malcolm Hoenlein,
Dear Mr. Hoenlein: In our last meeting in Buffalo I have been convinced that you understood very well the precarious position of the Jewish people in the current world. You stated at the time that we need to welcome the help of every possible friend we can find, and I fully agreed with you at the time. Now, your inexplicable disinvitation of Governor Sarah Palin and her possible substitution by Congressman Robert Wexler (according to the report in Ha'aretz of yesterday), you seem to have grossly violated the principles you have been advocating; principles that are in line with the mission of the Conference of Presidents. I do not care if you have yielded to Joel Rubin of J Street (as a rumor goes) or to Rabbi Eric Yoffee (as another rumor says), each with their own narrow political agenda, or to pressure form another Jewish or non-Jewish political group, you as Executive Director of the CPMJO might have inflicted great damage to the cause you are expected to defend. You have insulted a major US political figure who may become American VP. Even if you may not agree with her political stance in general, you must certainly agree that her well-known views on the Iranian threat to Israel and the US. If you invite now Robert Wexler, the staunch outspoken supporter of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the political rivals of Governor Palin, you are adding insult to injury. I do not care if you personally prefer the Democrat presidential candidates over their Republican rivals; this should not have biased your mission representing the Jewish community at large vis-à-vis the Iranian president, whose flagrant animosity to Israel and the Jewish people is so well known. Instead of showing the world that the opposition of the American public to the policies and ideology of Iran is bipartisan, your actions give the impression that you are using the rally against Ahmadinajad as a rally for Barack Obama et al. Your office is said to explain to callers that the disinvitation of Governor Palin was due to apprehension that the CPMJO might lose its 503C IRS status. This claim is incredible since the rally is a demonstration against a foreign enemy of this country. Moreover, your acceptance of Robert Wexler as speaker at the rally after disinviting Sarah Palin, is a flagrant single-sided political move in favor of the Democrat Party in obvious violation of your charter as I understand it. I hope you will come up with a plausible explanation to the public of your rationale. Such an explanation is badly now needed in view of the wide publicity of the disinvitation of Governor Palin has engendered. I will also be glad to hear from you personally and am ready to stand corrected if I misinterpreted any of your actions. With very best regards,
Contact Dr. Steve Carol by email at drhistory@cox.net |
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NEW RALLY PROTESTING AHMADINEJAD ON SEPTEMBER 25 (PALIN INVITED)
Posted by Beth Gilinsky, September 21, 2008. |
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On Thursday, Sept 25, at 6pm in Manhattan, The American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker UN Office, Religions for Peace, World Council of Churches-UN Liaison Office will be honoring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an Iftar (dinner to break the day's Ramadan fast). At the same time, The Jewish Action Alliance, Stand With Us, the Israel Project, Americans for a Safe Israel, The Center for Security Policy, the Catholic League, Rabbi Potasnik from NY Board of Rabbis, the Traditional Values Coalition, and the Alliance of Iranian Women will hold an interfaith counter-rally to protest Ahmadinejad's presence at the United Nations, and to oppose his nuclear weapons program and his outrageous threats against America's ally, Israel. Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been invited to speak along with other politicians, Democrats and Republicans. Please join us at the Hyatt Hotel, East 42nd St, near Lexington Ave and Grand Central Station, in Manhattan, at 5:30pm. Send a message to the Mullahs in Iran! For more information, or to bring your organization on board, call 212-726-1124 Beth Gilinsky is with Jewish Action Alliance. Contact them at actionalliance1@yahoo.com |
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JEWS FOR WITHDRAWAL (AKA J STREET): WE WON! PALIN NOT SPEAKING AT IRAN RALLY
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 21, 2008. |
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J Street, a relatively new pro-withdrawal * Jewish organization, revealed its priorities. And its priority is promoting their own political agenda — in this case the promotion of the election of whoever happens to be running on the Democratic ticket — over the interests and needs of the Jewish State. J Street could have used its insider standing in the Democratic Party to get the candidates to adjust their schedules and have even Obama show up at the rally or at least convince Clinton to show (with the spin that they convinced her that the Iran issue was bigger than American politics). But instead of building for the benefit of Israel — and turning the Iran rally into an event of magnitudes greater impact — they took the low destructive road and knocked out the headliners for the rally. But they didn't. And now that they have revealed that politics is more important than Israel to J Street, anything they advocate is subject to question. Do they support "X" because the genuinely believe it is in Israel's interests or are they pushing it to serve another agenda? Jstreet endorsing candidates such as KEITH ELLISON; THAT ... says it all Folks... First Muslim U.S. Congressman ... who wanted anti-Christ, anti-Israel book for ceremony.... remember;?! Some of Ellison's Islamic donors include Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, (Ahmad is on record stating that the Quran should be America's highest authority.), board members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Both men are reported to have ties to the Islamic Association of Palestine, an overseas Palestinian fanatical group. Congressman-elect Ellison mostly downplayed his religious affiliation during the General Election, but during his victory speech, Ellison yelled to his Islamic base, "God is good, y'all" and supporters yelled back, "Allahu Akbar" — Arabic for "God is great". Does "Allahu Akbar" sound familiar? It should. Keith Ellison's terror-loving friends..... << check them out !!! * Why "pro withdrawal" rather than "pro peace"? Because that's what they, JSTREET, support. And by the same token that "Peace Now" really means "Withdrawal Now" this group supports withdrawal without any serious concern for the consequences. J Street is to America as Peace Now is to Israel. Making use of their claimed Jewishness, they are anti-America. Among their donors are George Soros and several Saudi princes. They support Ahmadinejad's right to develop nuclear weapons free from any military attack. This is their statement below
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The Boast of the J Streeters: We collected over 20,000 signatures in 24 hours asking Iran Unity rally organizer Malcolm Hoenlein to take Sarah Palin off the schedule for Monday's rally, and he caved to our pressure on Thursday afternoon citing the fact that the rally had become too partisan. This is the right decision. A unity rally to express communal solidarity is no place for partisan politics. And to give such prominence to Sarah Palin alone would have spoken neither to, nor for, the American Jewish community. This is a victory not just for the 20,188 others who signed J Street's petition. It's a victory for the broader community. And we're pleased the rally's organizers came to their senses so quickly. Victories like these don't come easily — or often. But when they do, we should savor them, at least briefly. We'll be back at it tomorrow, because our next task is making sure that the messages at the rally reflect the view of a majority of Americans — Jewish and otherwise — that the best way to deal with Iran is through tough, smart diplomacy — not saber rattling and threats of force. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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THESE ARE NOT YOUR FATHER'S DEMOCRATS
Posted by Ted Belman, September 21, 2008. |
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This was written by Mario Goveia |
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As a non-Jewish American supporter of Israel's right to exist in peace and security, it has become increasingly apparent to me that some of the most virulent Bush-haters and far-left-wing Americans supporting Barack Obama, are Jews! Good heavens! Do they have any idea what the real and psychological pressure will be like on Israel if the US administration is put in the hands of Barack Obama, who would embolden Israel's mortal enemies by making inappropriate moral equivalencies, as he has already done, and recognizing Israel's enemies as "legitimate" seekers of peace by meeting with them without any pre-conditions? What compromise position do you imagine Obama is going to propose in such a meeting when Ahmadinejad, or Assad or — take your pick — re-iterate their ultimate goal regarding Israel, now further emboldened by Obama's obsequious presence at the table?? What would make Obama's election a Perfect Storm for Israel are far left wing Congressional Democrat leaders like Nancy "The surge is not working" Pelosi and Harry "We have lost in Iraq" Reid. Don't kid yourselves that these sentiments are restricted to Iraq. What kind of national political leadership openly cheers for its own country to fail, and declares defeat right in the middle of a war? What kind of national political leadership continues to fail to recognize what America has achieved in Iraq — an epic and now increasingly successful attempt to plant the seeds of freedom and democracy in places where these had never been experienced before — thus providing Israel with some relief, however small at the moment, from radical dictatorships that have decided in lockstep since 1947 that Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth? Only Israel's survival instincts and strength and American resolve has prevented a second Holocaust from happening. Only Joe Lieberman's lone vote has often stood between an American retreat, which is tantamount to a defeat, and the current victory that is at hand. Why Lieberman continues to caucus with the Democrats after they tried to destroy him and his political career is about as big a mystery to me as the majority of American Jews who blindly vote for Democrats at every level. When I came to this country as an immigrant 37 years ago I learned how to deal with it from Jews whom I used as role models, and their lessons and example served us well. They stood for higher education, working harder than anyone else, strong family and community values, rugged independence and self-reliance, standing up to discrimination, helping those in need, and protecting with their lives the only sliver of freedom and democracy in the middle-east over the last four decades. Can ANY of these traits be found in the heart and soul of the MODERN Democrat party? The Republican party's many faults are all such that they can be changed from within because their heart and soul is still in the right place, they still support the factors that made America great. But if the far left loons who control the Democrats of today — just read their websites and blogs — could rip Hillary and Bill Clinton to shreds, classify them as right-wingers and warmongers — and less than 10% of blacks would support her after calling him the first black US President, then the writing is on the wall. Sadly, the blind cannot see. In the meantime Osama Bin Laden is planning a radical Caliphate from which to promote Sharia law worldwide, by force if necessary, with only Israel standing in his way regionally, and the US globally — perhaps, sadly, only until this next election. Who can fail to see the subliminal moral equivalencies being made by the Democrat leaders between tyranny and those opposing tyranny, all couched in political spin in order to fool the gullible? When America is blamed for not using enough diplomacy before using force to subdue Saddam Hussein, when George Bush is being blamed for not bringing the feckless western Europeans on board, swept under the rug is the fact that France was trying to lift the UN sanctions and had said they would not allow the regime change in Iraq, "No matter what" in the infamous words of French Foreign Minister, Dominic de Villepain. The fact that the entire world had already tried to force Saddam to comply for 12 long years is also swept under the rug, as are the 17 UN resolutions that demanded to know what he had done with his WMDs as he had agreed to do in the cease-fire treaty he signed in 1991 after being ejected from Kuwait. If you still have an open mind, ask yourselves, would 9/11 have happened if Democrat icon, Bill Clinton had taken some action against the numerous attacks by Al Qaeda throughout the 90's starting in New York in 1993? How many even know that Clinton refused to take Osama Bin Laden from Sudan after THREE offers according to the go-between, Pakistani businessman and journalist, Mansoor Ijaz? He was concerned about not having legal "probable cause" even though Bin Laden had claimed responsibility for the attacks. Clinton and the Democrats refused to see Al Qaeda as terrorists, only as criminals. How many know that the CIA agent tasked with finding Bin Laden prior to 2001, Richard Scheuer, has documented and detailed the THIRTEEN times the CIA had Osama in their gun-sights after he left Sudan for Afghanistan, and waited in vain for the approval from the Clinton White House to pull the trigger, until the opportunity had passed, ostensibly for fear that there may be collateral damage? How many of you know that Osama was so emboldened by all this that he ostentatiously declared war on the US in 1998 and said that America was a "weak horse" that no longer had the will to withstand Al Qaeda, the "strong horse"? Does anyone out there really believe that Barack Obama would be any more resolute and decisive in these circumstances than Bill Clinton? Do you think John McCain or Sarah Palin would hesitate for even a second to pull the trigger with Osama in their sights? Bush only had 8 months after the delayed election results in 2000 before he had to scramble to dig us out from what Clinton did to gut our national defense and intelligence services with budget cuts and higher "walls" and bans on what the FBI and CIA could and could not do and his failure to respond to Al Qaeda's serial attacks. After 9/11/2001 the world had changed forever by the worst attack on the US mainland in history that targeted mostly hapless American citizens, and a SUICIDE attack at that. Add to that the growing communications between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Saddam menacing his own Kurd and Shia and Israel and other American allies while refusing to disclose his cache of WMDs, and France, China and Russia fighting to have the UN sanctions removed. Could any responsible US president wait any longer to change the regime that could easily provide Al Qaeda with chemical or biological or nuclear dirty bombs for another suicide attack on the US, this time with far greater casualties? That is the scenario that faced President Bush, and as Sarah Palin puts it with her amazing knack for pithy simplicity, a leader cannot blink. Thankfully, President Bush decided not to be a "weak horse" any longer but an angry giant, provoked once too often. Thank God America is still a country where young Americans VOLUNTEER to risk and give their lives to help others in need, while being sneered at by the liberal elites who populate the salons in mostly the east and west coasts and talk loftily of "bitter Americans, clinging to their guns and religion". Sarah Palin, pithy as usual, remarked that that sounded like it was people like her they are talking about, except that she is anything but bitter. Who would you choose to be in your foxhole in a firefight? Sarah Palin or Barack Obama? No doubt it would be her, right? If you valued your life, that is. Do you really think the raising the income tax rates, investment tax rates, withholding tax rates and estate tax rates of the most productive Americans is going to work just when the economy needs more taxes revenues that the Bush tax rates cuts have provided since 2001? Do you think nationalized health care is the answer? Our Canadian friends come south for urgent and critical treatment. Where are you going to go? Thankfully, if America decides to punish itself this year, an Obama presidency is likely to be as short as the feckless Jimmy Carter presidency that it is promising to replicate. But it took Reagan years to dig ourselves out of that one, and just in time to help the USSR to implode. With all this as prologue, I have never been able to figure out for the life of me what any American Jew has in common with the MODERN Democratic party. The old Democratic party prior to 2000, OK, except for the embarrassing Jimmy Carter era. But since Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Edwards, Pelosi, Reid, and now Obama, Biden, Soros, Moore, and the MoveOn.org and DailyKos.com which have taken control of the heart and soul of the party??? Self-serving hypocrite after self-promoting hypocrite who would make us weak and feckless like the western Europeans they admire, who are incapable of standing up to anyone anymore without our security guarantee, leave alone being able to defend liberty as in days gone by? Then we see Hillary Clinton pulling an appalling political stunt by withdrawing from a Jewish-sponsored protest of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York, a man who threatens to wipe Israel off the map on an almost weekly basis and thumbs his nose at the entire international community, just like Saddam did, just because they had also invited Sarah Palin as a guest. Wouldn't this have been a great opportunity to put aside political rancor and show some joint solidarity for Israel and against Iran? Are these the people who are going to bring us all together as they claim? These are NOT your father's Democrats — believe me. National and international security does not supercede their narrow political calculations, and the evidence is there for all to see. In domestic policy their prescriptions have all been tried and rejected in several countries around the world. Only Joe Lieberman remains like a relic of what Jewish Democrats used to be like and, after this speech at the Republican Convention, he is going to be crucified by the far left loons who run the party, headed by the manic Howard Dean. If the Democrats win one more seat in the Senate, Lieberman is toast. It's high time he jumped off his fence and put Harry Reid back where he belongs, under a rock someplace in Nevada. For Jewish Americans all I can say is THINK of all that is at stake before you pull that lever on November 4. Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW BIG SCANDALS
Posted by Avodah, September 21, 2008. |
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This was written by Michael P. Tremogli and it appeared
September 18, 2008 in
The Bulletin (Philadelphia)
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A community organization, with longstanding ties to Barack Obama, has, according to numerous reports, repeatedly run afoul of voter registration laws both locally and nationally. Mr. Obama worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now's Project Vote voter-registration campaign in 1992 after graduating from Harvard Law School. He directed a successful voter-registration campaign, credited with electing Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate. Primarily targeting African-Americans, Mr. Obama's efforts added an estimated 125,000 voters to the rolls. He also participated on a team of attorneys working on behalf of ACORN. They filed a 1995 lawsuit, which required the state of Illinois to implement the federal "motor-voter" bill. He still maintains a relationship with the organization. Mr. Obama's campaign had to file amended federal election reports in August. They paid more than $800,000 to Citizens Services Inc. (CSI), an ACORN subsidiary, to turn out for the campaign during the primaries. However, the campaign listed CSI's activities as polling, advance work and staging major events. ACORN has a checkered past — and present. It is a grassroots political organization founded by Wade Rathke and George Wiley, both of whom were community organizers for the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). That checkered past also has turned up locally. Philadelphia election officials recently accused ACORN, of filing multiple fraudulent voter registrations during the 2008 Pennsylvania primary. The case has been referred to the U.S. Attorney's office, according to Philadelphia Deputy Election Commissioner Fred Voight. Delaware County election officials have made similar allegations against the group, and criminal indictments are pending. This past July 24, Dauphin County detectives offered a $2,000 reward for information about the whereabouts of Luis R. Torres-Serrano, an ACORN worker, who was accused of submitting more than 100 fraudulent voter registrations. ACORN's legal problems with their voter registration efforts stretch beyond state boundaries. The Milwaukee district attorney is investigating 39 ACORN employees for criminal violations, including offering gifts to sign up voters and falsifying driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers or other information on voter registration cards. Five ACORN employees were convicted and imprisoned in Washington state, in 2007, for what was described by Washington's Secretary of State Sam Reed, as, "was the worst case of election fraud in our state's history. It was an outrage." "(ACORN) Workers ... said they were under pressure from the community-organizing group that hired them to sign up more voters," The Seattle Times reported. "Workers told investigators they went to the Seattle public library and filled out the voter registration forms, by using contrived names, addresses and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book." Numerous ACORN-related indictments and, or convictions, have been seeded across the country in recent years. Four part-time ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City, Mo., for voter registration fraud in November 2006. Two Colorado ACORN workers were sentenced to community service, in January 2005, for submitting false voter registrations. During the 2004 election, ACORN, and its sister group Project Vote, ran a nationwide voter mobilization drive that was rife with allegations of voter fraud. A worker for one ACORN affiliate in Ohio was allegedly given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and voters named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey. Four Ohio ACORN employees were indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms. Messrs. Rathke and Wiley formed ACORN in the early 1970s, expanding their involvement beyond welfare recipients to all issues touching low-income and working-class people. According to Discoverthenetworks.org, they enlisted civil rights workers and trained them in a program at Syracuse University patterned after the Saul Alinsky school of activist tactics in Chicago. Today, ACORN is the largest community organization of low- and moderate-income people in America, with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. ACORN founded the Working Families Party in New York in 1998. They endorsed Hillary Clinton for her Senate campaign that year. Canvassers from ACORN and its sister groups launched a statewide voter-mobilization drive that proved influential in Mrs. Clinton's victory. Yet, opponents say ACORN has violated its own mission not to mention numerous laws meant to protect poor and working class citizens and voters. The New York Times reported in July 2008 that a whistleblower forced the organization to publicly disclose an embezzlement of almost $1 million in 1999 and 2000, involving Dale Rathke, the brother of the organization's founder Wade Rathke. Some ACORN executives kept the information from board members and did not tell law enforcement. Meanwhile, Dale Rathke remained on the payroll until June 2008, when disclosure of his theft forced the organization to dismiss him. "We thought it best at the time to protect the organization, as well as to get the funds back into the organization, to deal with it in-house," said ACORN President Maude Hurd. "It was a judgment call at the time, and looking back, people can agree or disagree with it, but we did what we thought was right." The Consumers Rights League spokesman Jim Terry said, "ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain. Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama's political gain." ACORN did not respond to requests for a statement. However, they did refer to a statement by Ms. Hurd, in a Sept. 12 press release, saying, "ACORN has NEVER been indicted for voter fraud, violating elections laws or encouraging ineligible citizens to vote." Contact Avodah by email at Avodah15@aol.com |
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RELIGIOUS IMPRINTING AND JIHADISM
Posted by Amil Imani, September 21, 2008. |
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This article is archived at
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* Religious belief is emotional at its core. And emotions are not governed by logic or reason. Becoming religious is similar to imprinting, most dramatically seen in ducklings. During a critical period of time after hatching the ducklings become imprinted on any moving object — be it the mother duck, a mechanical duck, or a moving human. It doesn't matter. The ducklings simply follow the initially moving object. * Religion, for most part, is infused into the mind of children from the moment of birth. Early childhood is the time that children are most imprintable. The strength and permanence of this imprinting process depend on a variety of influences. Over time, some people retain the initial imprint and strengthen it, some adopt a middle course, and some might even discard it altogether. A significant number in any religious faith becomes extremely committed to the extent that they are willing to kill others and themselves in the service of their religion. * The human mind is a battleground of contending forces where the two most powerful are reason and emotion: where reason assesses life and produces measures that are adaptive, to the best of its ability; while emotion, by-and-large, operates on feelings. Ordinarily, an uneasy truce prevails between the two generally incompatible powers. * In many situations, the clash between dictates of reason and promptings of emotion result in intra-psychic conflicts. In any given case, the conflict may settle by one party getting its way, reaching a compromise, or a deadlock producing paralysis of inaction. * Beliefs, as is the case with all living and non-living complex systems, are targeted by forces that aim to break them down. In the case of beliefs, any threatening event, particularly when severe, produces great anxiety in the believer. * Anxiety produces aversive reaction. The mind deals with anxiety by a mix of chemical and psychological measures. On the psychological side there are defense mechanisms such as rationalization and denial. Both these measures reduce the debilitating impact of anxiety by the person literally misleading himself. Rationalization supplies faulty reasoning by telling the person that the bad thing, or the threat, is not all that bad; while denial completely refuses to admit it exists. Alcoholism, for instance, is known as the disease of denial since the alcoholic denies that he is an alcoholic even in the face of irrefutable objective evidence. * Religious beliefs' emotional underpinning spawns fanaticism in some of the adherents, since fanaticism is seen as a reflection of one's true loyalty and strong faith. * Beliefs, be they religious or otherwise, are tied to a central figure such as a prophet, a philosopher, or a social reformer. Particularly in religion, the central figure and his high disciples occupy a rarefied, nearly superhuman, sphere. * It is a human tendency to find a source or a person to whom he can attribute powers and qualities that he himself yearns for, yet he lacks — a father surrogate. People age, but the insecure child within remains at the core of many. It is the child within that attaches himself to an omnipotent father figure. * The founder of a religion presents to the child within the lost father he no longer has or he never had. It is for this reason that the founder of a religion is held at the highest esteem and his edicts are obeyed wholeheartedly by his followers. The believers' degree of devotion is in direct proportion to the hierarchy of the religious authorities. * In the case of the 12-Imamate Shi'a Islam, for instance, the Imams filled the void that was created by Muhammad's death. Hence, the Imams are revered with a degree of devotion only one notch below Muhammad himself. In time, the Imams also died. Yet the need for a tangible father-figure remained. The Shiites filled that void by transferring their attachments to a cadre of religious authorities ranging from the highest-ranking Grand Ayatollahs, followed by Ayatollahs, the Hujat-ul-Islams (Islamic adjudicators), and all the way down to the village mullah. * Attributing special powers and capabilities to the father surrogate not only compels the person to ward off anything that threatens to undermine his belief, but to do what he can to further solidify it. This process of protecting one's belief and shoring it up frequently results in strong emotional attachment to the leader. In a real sense, people see the person as an omnipotent father figure — their savior — who would guide them and minister to their needs not only in this world, but also in the afterlife. * As is the case in all attachments, a price must be paid. The price is often commensurate with the degree of attachment. A religious fanatic is a rigidly-attached believer who is captive of his own emotional excesses. This emotional excess, given the right context, will overrule the dictates of reason and compels the fanatic to carry out any abhorrent act demanded of him rather than sever his emotional fixation on the righteousness of his belief and the authority of his belief leaders. * Islam is an intensely emotional authoritarian system of belief. Hence, Islam induces powerful emotional imprinting in a large percentage of its adherents. It is from this segment of the Muslims that the fanatic jihadists arise and pose existential threat to the "other." The jihadists are rigidly-imprinted foot-soldier Islamic automatons that have little choice but to carry out the fatwa and dictates of their high-ranking religious leaders such as the Ayatollahs in the case of the Shi'a and Muftis for the Sunni. * For as long as Muslim high priests retain their stranglehold on the masses of Muslims, generation after generation of father-figure seeking jihadists will turn to them, revere them, and carry out their violent decrees obediently. Contact Amil Imani at Amil_imani@yahoo.com |
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ROSH HASHANAH
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 20, 2008. |
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...In the seventh month, on the first of the month, there shall be a sabbath for you, a remembrance with shofar blasts, a holy convocation. — Leviticus 16:24 
Wishing You ALL a New Year
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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PA KIDS TAUGHT ISRAEL IS THEIRS; OVERZEALOUS SECRET SERVICE; HALF THE LEFT WING IS CALLED RIGHT WING
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 20, 2008. |
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HIZBULLAH FANNING OUT Israel has traced Hizbullah operatives fanning out into Canada, Europe, and Africa. They plot to kidnap or kill Jewish businessmen or El Al employees. The government of Israel asked El Al to take certain precautions (IMRA, 9/4). Awful people, the terrorists, so barbaric! Note their religious targeting — Jews by religion rather than just Israelis by citizenship. Hizbullah is waging what it considers holy war. It is not nationalistic, as many people still imagine. 10 MORE ROADBLOCKS REMOVED "In the past few months, over 100 IDF road blocks have been removed in the Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley and several major crossings were opened for free passage, improving the free movement of the..."Arabs. "The removal of the road blocks was decided upon following security assess-ments by the IDF Central Command. It is a part of the package of goodwill measures which were authorized by the Minister of Defense and the IDF Chief of Staff, and which have been implemented over the past few months (IMRA, 9/4). There is no Muslim goodwill until all the Jews of Israel become subservient, humiliated, and dispossessed if not slaughtered. Then who needs their goodwill? Isn't it foolish to imagine that concessions can bring goodwill from bigoted fanatics? Europe made concessions to the Nazis, without gaining goodwill. Appeasement of the State Dept. doesn't bring goodwill from it, just more demands. The State Dept. is too anti-Zionist for that. It is demanding concessions that would allow the Arabs to conquer it. Not coincidentally. Usually, the security assessment finds that road blocks should be retained. The government overrules it. This is not done to earn goodwill from the Arabs, whose media, mosques, and schools preach Jew-hate. It is done partly to appease the pro-Arab State Dept. and partly because Israel's ruling class is anti-Zionist. P.A. KIDS TAUGHT ISRAEL BELONGS TO THEM NOW The supposedly moderate P.A. mobilizes its society to consider Israel part of its country, not independent. Palestinian Media Watch reports in convincing detail how this is drummed into children. On a quiz show, P.A. children identified every Israeli city and landmark as being part of Palestine. This cannot be excused by the usual Muslim Arab ploy of designating terms such as "Palestine" loosely, so they can say they don't mean the drastic interpretation. They defined "Palestine" as a country whose size and borders include Israel (IMRA, 9/4). HIZBULLAH WILL KEEP ARMS AFTER PACT The head of Hizbullah said that even if Israel evacuated from the territory that Hizbullah claims from it, his organization would retain its arms. Why? For defense from Israel, which, he claims, threatens it (IMRA, 9/4). Hitler invaded Poland, claiming that Poland attacked or threatened Germany. It was just a pretext. In this case, Israel has no interest in attacking any other country not about to attack it. Israel wants peace; terrorists don't. Give jihadists the immediate concessions they demand, and they find new ones to demand or make up threats to have to meet. Anything to continue their crusade. OVERZEALOUS SECRET SERVICE "At every demonstration, someone from the Shabak takes pictures of everyone. The agents don't hide. You recognize them." At a recent demonstration, a cop interrupted a group of men praying ma'ariv (evening prayer), and shot a picture of each and every individual's face close-up. "No respect even for prayer." "They fit name and picture for ID together, and then get the address. More than once I said that I was a tourist [who used to visit from the US, before moving to Israel]. The policeman said, 'I know who you are.' They were snapping pictures of people walking into the Bar Mitzvah party I attended, and by next morning knew all the faces, and later told me that I was at the Bar Mitzvah and knew about me. So you can see I am not being paranoid." "I was watching the [U.S.] election campaign on Fox news. People were legally demonstrating against the candidate. The police became violent when the people became violent. Here [in Israel] we have the police starting the violence, and opposition can't be heard without police attacks and beatings in interrogation rooms." "The craziness is unbelievable! During the Gush Katif [expulsion of Jews] days, the government one morning announced that "orange," the color we were using for Gush Katif [reminiscent of the color symbolizing Ukraine's fight for freedom] was illegal. Now the popular color in clothes being sold that year was orange. Women had bought earrings, blouse and hat in orange and all had orange ribbons hanging from their bags. The government couldn't implement that, because even people not involved with Gush Katif wore orange. I'm writing this for you to understand the extent to which the government will go, to stop opposition." (My associate in Israel, 9/5.) Sometimes the FBI treats Mafia gatherings that way. Israel treats all right-wing political opposition, however peaceable, that way. It does not treat violent leftist and Arab demonstrations that way. The government is fascistic and against patriotic Jews, not democratic and not civilized. HALF THE LEFT WING IS CALLED RIGHT WING Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu Party are called right wing. True? He proposes bringing Arab troops into the Territories alongside Israel. The Jordanian Army would govern Judea-Samaria, and the Egyptian Army would govern Gaza. Parts of Israel having large Arab majorities would be attached to Judea-Samaria, in return for parts of Judea-Samaria having concentrated Jewish populations. [That incorrectly assumes that the Arabs own Judea-Samaria.] Lieberman's proposals would leave Israel with borders worse than the infamous "Auschwitz borders." That is not right wing, not Zionist (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 9/4) and not sane. A sane proposal would keep Arab armies as far from Jewish populations as possible. A Zionist proposal would not give up more parts of the Jewish homeland, besides Jordan that Britain detached from the Palestine Mandate. Lieberman is not right-wing. The label is misapplied and misleading. The same goes for Netanyahu. False labeling is part of the ruling class' way of giving Jews the impression that they have a big choice. Former Prime Ministers Begin and Shamir failed to end leftist dominance of the broadcast media and failed to establish a democratic and Zionist movement beyond the Party. Ariel Sharon subverted their Herut Party into a leftish Likud. The Likud kept the "right wing" label. ISRAEL NOT READY FOR NEXT WAR Major Gen. Sukenik resigned from the IDF in protest against its continued lack of preparedness. Supposedly having learned from the Lebanon War, the government still toys with cutting the military budget. Mostly training is reduced. The troops are not prepared and officers don't follow proper practice. In addition, they still train largely for minor actions in the Territories, instead of for major war (IMRA, 9/5). Israel should have cleared away Hamas and Fatah from the Territories, and annexed areas which had few Arabs in it. That would have left it freer to concentrate on major wars, instead of expending itself, as Egypt probably is maneuvering it, on minor wars. Likewise, it should have cleared out Hizbullah, leaving it free from missile attacks by it. Also, it should have not been diverted by the leftist ruling class to expel Jews and to leave Arab mobs out of jail. 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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TAKING A LESSON FROM EUROPE
Posted by GWY, September 20, 2008. |
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This was written by Baron Bodissey and comes from his
Gates of Vienna website. It is archived at
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As I have often said, Europe and the United States are on the same road to Sharia, but Europe is a few steps ahead of the USA. What happens is Europe will eventually happen here. Europe is the canary in our coal mine. The big question is how we will respond to the cautionary example provided by the Europeans. Those who belong to what Conservative Swede calls the "pass the popcorn" school of Europhobia may indulge their schadenfreude when Europe descends into chaos, but they ignore at their peril the systemic conditions right here in the USA that are propelling us into a similar crisis. In Europe — even in Sweden! — there are officially recognized mainstream political parties that oppose Islamization. The Lega Nord, Partij Voor De Vrijheid, Vlaams Belang, the BNP, the Front National, Sverigedemokraterna, the FPÖ, Dansk Folkeparti — most European countries provide a recognizable alternative for voters who support their countries' traditional identity and values and oppose mass immigration. But not in my country. In America we have no such alternative. Both major political parties support open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Small parties that oppose mass immigration are at best marginal and will take decades to have any significant electoral success. Every election sees the Democrats and the Republicans put the more or less the same multicultural plank into their platforms, even as opinion polls show that voters overwhelmingly oppose our current immigration policies. If I were in Denmark, I could vote Dansk Folkeparti to register my opposition to mass immigration, and a substantial number of members of my chosen party would take seats in Parliament and become cabinet ministers. But in the USA I have no such option. I can vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledee for president, but I can't vote for someone who will make any changes in the right direction and who has a even a slight chance of being elected. There are exceptions, of course, at the local and Congressional level. I'm fortunate to be in the 5th District of Virginia, so I am represented in Congress by the Hon. Virgil Goode, who is a staunch opponent of open borders. One of his anti-illegal-immigration colleagues in the House of Representatives is the Hon. Tom Tancredo of Colorado. Mr. Tancredo has not let the lessons of Europe pass unnoticed. In the wake of the recent codification of Sharia as an officially recognized part of British law, he has gone so far as to propose legislation to prevent the imposition of Sharia in this country. According to Rep. Tancredo's website: Tancredo Proposes Anti-Sharia Measure in Wake of U.K. Certification of Islamic Courts According to some of the CAIR-sponsored legislation now being proposed in Congress, Tom Tancredo's words would constitute a defamation of Islam and be a form of hate speech. We'll just have to hope that he has Congressional immunity. Contact GWY at GWY123@aol.com |
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HOW TO MANAGE SAVAGERY
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 20, 2008. |
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I just came across this September 2008 Commentary article by Bret Stephens. Its pretty long, but I think worth reading, tying up historical events, the current conditions, and a realistic strategy. Bret Stephens is a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and the author of the paper's "Global View," a weekly column. |
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"Islam has bloody borders." So wrote Samuel Huntington in "The Clash of Civilizations?," his 1993 Foreign Affairs article later expanded (minus the question mark) into a best-selling book. Huntington argued that, eclipsing past eras of national and ideological conflict, "the battle lines of the future" would be drawn along the "fault lines between civilizations." Here, according to Huntington, was where current and coming generations would define the all-important "us" versus "them." At the time of its writing, "The Clash of Civilizations?" had, beyond the virtues of pithiness and historical sweep, something to recommend it on purely empirical grounds. It seemed especially plausible as applied to the "crescent-shaped Islamic bloc" from the Maghreb to the East Indies. In the Balkans, for example, Orthodox Serbs were at the throats of Bosnian and later Kosovar Muslims. In Africa, Muslims were either skirmishing or at war with Christians in Nigeria, Sudan, and Ethiopia. In the Caucasus, there was all-out war between Orthodox Russia and Muslim Chechnya, all-out war between Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan, and violent skirmishes between Orthodox Ossetia and Muslim Ingushetia. In the Middle East, some 500,000 U.S. troops had intervened to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Israel had just endured several years of the first Palestinian intifada, soon to be followed by a fraudulent peace process leading, in turn, to a second and far bloodier intifada. Further to the east, Pakistan and India were at perpetual daggers drawn over Kashmir. There were tensions — sometimes violent — between the Hindu majority and the large Muslim minority in India, just as there were between the Christian minority and the Muslim majority in Indonesia. For Huntington, all this was of a piece with a pattern dating at least as far back as the battle of Poitiers in 732, when Charles Martel turned back the advancing Umayyads and saved Europe for Christianity. Nor was the pattern likely to end any time soon. "The centuries-old military interaction between the West and Islam is unlikely to decline," he wrote. To the contrary: "It could become more virulent." As predictions go, Huntington's landmark thesis seemed in many ways to have been borne out by subsequent events. Long before 9/11, and long before George W. Bush came to office, anti-American hostility within the Muslim — and, particularly, the Arab — world was plainly on the rise. So was terrorist activity directed at U.S. targets. Meanwhile, the advent of satellite TV brought channels like al-Jazeera and Hizballah's al-Manar to millions of Muslim homes and public places, offering their audience a robust diet of anti-American, anti-Israel, and often anti-Semitic "news," propaganda, and Islamist indoctrination. It should have come as no surprise, then, that Muslim reaction to the attacks of September 11, 2001 tended toward the euphoric — in striking confirmation, it would seem, of Huntington's bold thesis. And that thesis would seem to be no less firmly established today, when opinion polls show America's "favorability ratings" plummeting even in Muslim countries once relatively well-disposed toward us: in Turkey, for example, descending from 52 percent in 1999 to 12 percent in 2008, and in Indonesia from 75 percent to 37 percent in the same period (according to the Pew Global Survey). These findings are all the more depressing in light of the massive humanitarian assistance provided to Indonesia by the U.S. after the 2004 tsunami. The same might be said of Pakistan where, despite similarly critical U.S. assistance after the 2005 earthquake, already low opinions of the U.S. have sunk still further. Nor is the phenomenon of "Muslim rage" directed against America alone. In Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France and Germany — countries with widely varying foreign policies toward, and colonial histories in, the Muslim world — terrorist plots, terrorist attacks, spectacular murders, and mass rioting have made vivid the gulf that separates embittered and often radicalized Muslim minorities from the societies around them. Even in tiny, inoffensive Belgium, whose government was among the most vocal in opposing the war in Iraq and has bent over backward to respect the sensitivities of the Muslim community, the entire Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, according to the Flemish newspaper Het Volk, has been turned into a "breeding ground for thousands of jihad candidates." _____________ And yet even as these trends unfolded, and continue to unfold, a second and almost opposite set of trends can be perceived today. Contrary to Huntington's forecast, much of world conflict is now overwhelmingly characterized by fighting and competition not between or among civilizations but within them. And nowhere is this truer than in the Muslim world. Look again at the peripheries of the Islamic crescent where Huntington perceived a collision course between Islam and the West. In the Balkans, NATO intervention in Bosnia and later in Kosovo secured Muslim populations and ultimately ended the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic. In Africa, U.S. diplomatic mediation helped to bring an end to the 22-year second Sudanese civil war and to initiate de-facto autonomy — with the ultimate goal of independence — for that country's largely Christian south. In Israel, the second intifada with its wave of suicide bombings was all but stopped cold by a combination of aggressive counterinsurgency operations and the building of a separation fence. In the Caucasus, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended with a ceasefire that has held to this day, while Chechnya was brought to heel by a brutal military campaign directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Kashmir, there has been no direct fighting between India and Pakistan; the head of the main jihadist group lamented this past July that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had "murdered the Kashmir cause." Even as far afield as Mindanao in the Philippines, the radical Islamist Abu Sayyaf movement has been crippled by a combination of Filipino and American arms. True, not all the wars of the Islamic periphery have ended: Hamas's Kassam rockets continue to fly from Gaza into Israel, and Hizballah, itself an Iranian proxy, has fully re-armed following the summer 2006 Lebanese war. In January 2007, Ethiopia invaded neighboring Somalia to depose a Taliban-like regime. Bombay was hit with a Madrid-style bombing attack on its commuter rails in 2006. Thailand's Muslim minority has been restive and violent. Remarkably, however, the wars that chiefly roil the Islamic world today are no longer at its periphery. They are at the center, and they pit Muslims against other Muslims. The genocide in Darfur is being perpetrated by a regime that is every bit as Muslim — and black — as its victims. The Palestinians went from intifada to civil war: in 2006 and 2007, nearly as many Palestinians died violently at the hands of other Palestinians as at the hands of Israelis. In Lebanon, there have been bloody clashes this year among Shiites, Sunnis, and Druze. Last year, the Lebanese government had to send troops into Palestinian refugee camps to suppress an insurrectionary attempt by a Syrian-sponsored terrorist group. It does not end there. Saudi Arabia has been under attack by al Qaeda since 2003. In November 2005, Jordan suffered devastating suicide bombings at three Amman hotels in which nearly all the victims were, like their murderers, Sunni Muslims. In Afghanistan, a Muslim government led by Hamid Karzai — a Pashtun — fights an Islamist rebellion by Taliban remnants and their allies, also mostly Pashtun. In Pakistan, the axis of conflict has shifted from the east to the west, where sizable areas are under the control of Islamist militants; in 2007 alone, some 1,500 Pakistanis were killed in terrorist attacks, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto notably among them. Then there is Iraq. Though Americans naturally focus on the more than 4,000 U.S. servicemen killed so far since the country was liberated in April 2003, that figure pales in comparison with the number of Iraqis killed in inter- and intra-sectarian violence: Sunnis against Shiites and Kurds, Sunnis against Sunnis, Shiites against Sunnis, Shiites against Shiites. Cumulatively, the number of civilian deaths since early 2006, when sectarian fighting got under way in earnest, now stands at just over 100,000 (according to the Brookings Institution). All this serves as a useful reminder of another significant fact. In the years immediately prior to 9/11, non-Muslims tended to be the likeliest targets of terrorism. In recent years, Muslims themselves have overwhelmingly been their co-religionists' primary victims. In 2007, of the nearly 8,000 deaths due to terrorism in the Middle East, only a handful were Israeli. Similarly, of the roughly 270 suicide bombings in 2007, some 240 took place in predominantly Muslim countries. Nearly 100 mosques were also the targets of terrorist attack, many at the hands of Muslims. _____________ Taking the long view, one might note that intra-Islamic feuding is as old as the religion itself. Of Muhammad's immediate successors — the "righteous caliphs," according to Sunni tradition — the first, Abu Bakr, may have been poisoned; the next three are all known to have been assassinated, with the murder of the third caliph (Othman) resulting in the schism from which the Shiite branch of Islam emerged. The Abassid revolt destroyed the Umayyad caliphate in the 8th century; the early 9th century was marked by civil war between the sons of the fifth Abassid caliph, Haroun al-Rashid. Al Qaeda itself has ancient Islamic antecedents: the 8th-century Kharajites, for instance, were notorious for their extreme puritanism, frequent recourse to violence, and the belief that they could declare their Muslim opponents to be infidels and treat them accordingly. To be sure, endless feuding is hardly unique to Islamic civilization: the history of the West is also one of intense competition, bitter conflict, and outbursts of religious fanaticism. On the whole, though, these conflicts have dissipated and evanesced as the West has almost universally adopted democratic forms of governance. By contrast, Islam's foundational patterns not only persist into the present day but in many ways have intensified. There have been devastating civil wars in Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, and an even more terrible war between Iran and Iraq. Even a partial list of prominent political assassinations in the Muslim world since World War II runs to over 100 names. It includes two prime ministers and a president of Egypt; two presidents and a prime minister of Bangladesh; three prime ministers and a president of Iran; a king and two prime ministers of Jordan; two presidents, a president-elect, a prime minister, and a former prime minister of Lebanon; a president of Syria; a king and two prime ministers of Jordan; a king and a former prime minister of Iraq; a president, a prime minister, and former prime minister of Pakistan; a king of Saudi Arabia. And these are just the successful attempts. The list of coups in the Muslim world is about as long. In Syria alone there have been no fewer than nine since 1949. Several explanations have been offered for this history of violence. There is the absence of democracy, which forecloses opportunities for non-violent political change and pushes most forms of dissent into the mosque. There is the oil curse, which allows states like Saddam Hussein's Iraq to finance expensive wars, buy political support, sustain huge sclerotic bureaucracies, and prevent the diversification and modernization of their economies. There is the endemic tribalism of Muslim, and particularly Arab, societies, and the values that go with it: the claims of kinship, the premium on familial honor, the submission to established hierarchies, suspicion of those outside the clan. There is the moral abdication of the Muslim intellectual class, which, with some notable exceptions, fell prey to nearly every bad idea that came its way, from fascism to socialism to third-worldism. And there is the history of Islam itself, which has made a virtue of military conquest, dealt sharply with heretics, and, until the abolition of the caliphate in 1924 by Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, typically combined political with religious authority. There is also the fact that European colonial regimes overstayed their welcome in their Middle Eastern possessions, with the effect that more or less liberal movements like the Egyptian Wafd came to be seen as stooges of the West, incapable of achieving national goals through nonviolent means. Partly as a result of this failure, the Muslim world soured on liberalism before it ever really tasted it, and traditional liberal parties and policies were discredited in favor of more radical alternatives: the Muslim Brotherhood, the violent Arab nationalisms of the Baath parties in Syria and Iraq, Gamal Abdel Nasser and the "Free Officers" in Egypt, Algeria's National Liberation Front, and so on. Despite the manifest failings of these movements, and the triumph of liberal politics from Mexico City to Warsaw to Seoul, liberalism has never really recaptured its good name in the Muslim world beyond a handful of courageous individuals. Exactly how to weigh the relative importance of these factors is hard to say; plainly they are mutually reinforcing. And while Muslim and especially Arab societies are not alone in suffering from them, they have come together in a unique way in those societies to produce a culture of perpetual failure and worsening crisis. _____________ Should this have been more apparent to Huntington when he wrote "The Clash of Civilizations?" Perhaps. It may have been obscured, in part, by what later turned out to be the Muslim world's own version of a holiday from history. The Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988, and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in the following year seemed to cool Iran' s revolutionary ardor. Civil wars in Lebanon and Yemen were brought to an end, leaving most existing Arab regimes as entrenched as ever. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the Middle East was no longer a cold-war battleground. Socialism lost favor, and some Middle Eastern regimes began expressing an interest in reforming their economies. From the outside, at least, one could almost begin imagining a "New Middle East," as Israel's Shimon Peres did with consummate naiveté in a 1993 book. But the Soviet (and Yugoslav) collapse had another important consequence: it reshaped the map of the Muslim world by bringing newly independent post-Soviet states into its fold. Some independence movements, notably in Chechnya and Bosnia, took on an Islamic coloration. Elsewhere, a pan-Islamic consciousness, which had already gained considerable momentum with the 1979 Iranian revolution and the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, was spreading rapidly. It was aided immeasurably by advances in mass communication and by the worldwide establishment of thousands of Saudi-funded madrassas preaching an inflexible version of desert Islam. If, previously, the very idea of an "Islamic civilization" would have seemed at most a remote abstraction to most Muslims living within it, in the 90's it became at least possible to imagine this as an expression not only of common religious identity but also of shared political aspirations. Most deeply invested in the concept were the Islamist radicals for whom the abolition of the caliphate represented not the passing of an outdated institution but a historical calamity. To them, the 90's presented its own set of opportunities. Unable to dislodge the "apostate regimes" of the Middle East through terrorist campaigns, they decided to focus on dislodging their patron — the United States — from the region. The idea of killing large numbers of Westerners, particularly Americans, had the additional advantage of being both plausible and popular. Plausible, because the Reagan administration's precipitous withdrawal from Beirut after the 1983 bombings of our Marine barracks and embassy, followed a decade later by the Clinton administration's equally precipitous withdrawal from Somalia, suggested a superpower easily frightened. And popular because the U.S. really was broadly detested throughout the Muslim world, not least on account of its support for the selfsame apostate regimes that were detested by the radicals. The strategy of an "escalating sequence" of terrorist attacks on American targets was explicitly laid out by the jihadist theoretician Abu Bakr Naji (the name is almost certainly a pseudonym) in a document, The Management of Savagery, published on the Internet in 2004. Predicated on the idea that everyone loves a winner, it was not, in its own terms, a bad strategy. In the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration and other governments had been quick to brand Osama bin Laden as an outcast among Muslims. But the overwhelming weight of evidence suggested differently. There were large public demonstrations of support for bin Laden in the Philippines and Indonesia. In the Muslim areas of Thailand, the name "Osama" became suddenly popular among newborn boys and girls, according to an October 2001 report in the Hindustan Times. Portraits of bin Laden were hot-selling items from Bangladesh to Nigeria. A poll found that fully 42 percent of Kuwaitis, whose country the U.S. had liberated only a decade earlier, considered bin Laden a "freedom fighter." Among Palestinians, 9/11 made bin Laden "the most popular figure in the West Bank and Gaza, second only to Arafat," according to a Fatah leader in Nablus. Al Qaeda's popularity would not soon fade. In 2004, the Pew Global Survey found 55 percent of Jordanians and 65 percent of Pakistanis holding a favorable view of bin Laden. Nor was al Qaeda slow to capitalize on its stardom. By 2002, European intelligence agencies were reporting a sharp uptick in the organization's recruitment efforts. More worrisomely, al Qaeda was able to transform itself from a group into a movement. Some jihadist outfits, like Abu Musab al Zarqawi's Tawhid wal-Jihad and the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, swore loyalty oaths directly to bin Laden. Others, including Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah, began imitating al Qaeda's methods by attacking prominent Western targets. Cells sprang up in Gaza. Al-Qaeda "wannabes" murdered 52 people in the London bombings of July 2005 and plotted to murder the prime minister of Canada. But it was the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that, as Naji wrote in The Management of Savagery, had the most galvanizing effect on would-be jihadists. Even before the U.S. toppled the Taliban, the radical televangelist Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi had decreed: "Islamic law says that if a Muslim country is attacked, the other Muslim countries must help it, with their souls and their money, until it is liberated." His call was widely heeded. By late 2006, al Qaeda could count on as many as 5,000 to 10,000 active members in Iraq, many of whom (including nearly all the senior leadership) had come from abroad. And while they were never the major part of the Sunni insurgency that gripped the country until last year, they accounted for an estimated 90 percent of all suicide bombings. Late 2006 was also the moment when it became at least conceivable that Naji's strategy, which foresaw the creation of "liberated zones" under the dominion of al-Qaeda-like groups, might actually succeed on the ground. Al Qaeda in Iraq had largely "liberated" Anbar province through an unbridled campaign of terror against other Sunnis. It had also pursued a policy of deliberate carnage against Iraq's Shiites, with the intent, and effect, of creating all-but ungovernable chaos in the country. In the United States, the report of the Iraq Study Group, headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, recommended that no more U.S. troops be committed to Iraq, while the Democratic party, which had largely supported the initial decision to invade Iraq, began issuing increasingly hectic calls for immediate withdrawal. Had those calls become U.S. policy, Naji's strategy might have been vindicated. The "fall of prestige of America" that he prognosticated would have accelerated dramatically throughout the Muslim world. Precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would have been seen by jihadists and their fellow travelers in a similar light to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988 — as proof that it was possible to defeat a superpower, and as a harbinger of their enemies' complete rout. Al Qaeda would have had every incentive to apply the Iraq model — the "management of savagery" — to other Muslim states, particularly weaker secular states like Jordan, deemed guilty of "apostasy." And al Qaeda's own prestige would have been hugely boosted, offering a large pool of new recruits to replenish those who had been lost. _____________ That, however, is not how matters have turned out, at least so far. President Bush pushed ahead with his "surge" strategy, under a new commanding officer using tried and true counterinsurgency tactics. Its effects were soon felt. Al Qaeda's ranks were decimated, and the flow of foreign fighters dried up. In late 2007, the U.S. military captured letters from two of al Qaeda's "emirs" in Iraq. One of them appraised his situation thus: There were almost 600 fighters in our sector before the [Sunni] tribes changed course 360 [sic] degrees. ... Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters. ... As a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less. We were mistreated, cheated, and betrayed by some of our brothers who used to be part of the jihadi movement, therefore we must not have mercy on those traitors until they come back to the right side or get eliminated completely. The second emir offered similar testimony: The Islamic State of Iraq [al Qaeda] is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar province. Al Qaeda's expulsion from Anbar created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear, and the unwillingness to fight. Nor was it only in Iraq that al Qaeda found itself on the run. In summer 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate warned that the terrorist group was once again in a position to strike the U.S. Yet less than a year later, CIA Director Michael Hayden offered a strikingly different assessment to the Washington Post. "On balance, we're doing pretty well," he said. "Near-strategic defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq. Near-strategic defeat for al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al Qaeda globally . . . as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on [its] form of Islam." Polls found declining levels of support for al Qaeda and other Islamist groups in several places in the Muslim world; in Pakistan, Islamist parties were trounced in February's parliamentary elections. Key al-Qaeda leaders were also killed in Predator strikes in the Pakistani hinterland bordering Afghanistan. In short, al Qaeda's star has dimmed considerably, and it is important to consider the reasons why. Though there can be little question that the surge accounts for a large part of the explanation, it is equally true that the surge would not have succeeded without the support of the very Sunnis who, until 2007, had provided sanctuary and support to men like Zarqawi and his minions. This switch is in turn explained by al Qaeda's barbaric treatment of ordinary Sunnis and their tribal leaders during the period of the "Anbar caliphate." And that raises a question: why did al Qaeda put itself "in a state of war with the masses in the region" (in Naji's words) rather than using those masses as allies or pawns in their war against America and the so-called apostate governments? The answer, it turns out, is inscribed in the very nature of the jihadist movement. _____________ "All existing so-called Muslim societies are also Jahili societies," wrote Sayyid Qutb, al Qaeda's intellectual godfather, in his 1964 book Milestones. By "Jahili societies," Qutb was referring to the pre-Islamic, pagan world of Arabia that lived in "ignorance of divine guidance." Put simply, Qutb, his fellow travelers, and his spiritual heirs were, and are, not merely at war with the modern world, as defined by liberal democratic government and Western social mores. They are also murderously inclined toward "heretical Muslims," particularly Shiites. They object violently to Muslim attempts to fashion a kind of compromise modernity between Western and Islamic norms. They seek to overthrow secular Muslim regimes like Indonesia and Jordan, and religious Muslim regimes like Saudi Arabia that maintain relations with the West. They are also — crucially — at war with the pre-modern world: traditional tribal societies in which authority is handed down from father to son and in which Islam is a religion and not a binding legal code or political ideology. Typically, Muslim regimes have been careful to accommodate their tribes, plying them with money, government jobs, small arms, and other tokens of honor, and above all by allowing them to govern their internal affairs. This was (generally) true even in Saddam's Iraq. To the jihadists, however, tribal structures represent a twofold political challenge: first, they instill a powerful sense of local identity as opposed to a strictly pan-Islamic one; second, their systems of patronage and charity get in the way of the jihadists' agenda of radical social change. It was this anti-tribalist attitude, combined with the utter savagery with which the jihadists put it into practice, that proved to be al Qaeda's undoing in Iraq. And that was not the only manner of its undoing. Precisely because of the post-9/11 transformation from a group to a movement, al Qaeda's leadership lost control of what in the West would be called message discipline. "I repeat the warning against separating from the masses, whatever the danger," wrote Ayman al-Zawahiri to Zarqawi in an intercepted 2005 letter, stressing the need to avoid killing other Muslims, including Shiites. Zarqawi ignored the advice. The mass killings of fellow Muslims reversed the popular support previously garnered through attacks on Western targets. Worse, al Qaeda picked fights with countries that might have otherwise looked the other way at its activities. As late as early 2002, for example, Saudi Arabia's interior minister, Prince Nayef, was flatly denying that al Qaeda even existed in his country. Four years later, after spectacular al-Qaeda attacks on the kingdom, the same prince was threatening to "cut off the tongues" of bin Laden and Zawahiri. Most significantly, al Qaeda's failures and reversals began to sow deeper doubts about its basic purposes. The breakthrough came with the publication of The Document of Right Guidance for Jihad Activity in Egypt and the World, a systematic refutation of al Qaeda's theology and methods by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, a/k/a "Dr. Fadl." The importance of this work derived from the standing of its author. Dr. Fadl was the first "emir" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the author of the 1988 Foundations for the Preparation of Holy War, a bible among jihadists. There are various theories as to why Dr. Fadl — now imprisoned in Egypt — wrote the book; these range from a long and bitter personal feud with Zawahiri to coercion by the Egyptian government to a genuine ideological volte face. Whatever the case, its chief significance lies in its insistence that jihadist activities must be subordinate to ordinary moral considerations. The jihadi, Dr. Fadl writes, cannot steal for the sake of jihad, or murder Muslim civilians, religious minorities, or foreign tourists, or seek the overthrow of existing Muslim governments, or cavalierly decree the apostasy of others, or disobey his parents. ("We find parents," Dr. Fadl states severely, "who only learn that their son has gone to fight jihad after his picture is published in the newspaper as a fatality or a prisoner.") Even now, after his "conversion," Dr. Fadl is no one's idea of a modern secular thinker. Rather, his manifesto rejects the inherent radicalism of jihadism in favor of more orthodox conservative values, a return to a kind of Islamic mean. More than that, it is a frank recognition of reality — namely, that the jihadist fervor of men like Zawahiri can only lead Muslims down one dead-end street after another. _____________ How widespread is this recognition? That remains to be seen, as do its consequences. As Max Boot has noted in Commentary,[1] it takes neither a large organization nor particularly deep pockets to perpetrate devastating terrorist attacks, and terrorist groups have shown considerable resilience even in the face of the most devastating setbacks. Furthermore, although al Qaeda may have been gravely wounded in the past year, Hizballah has grown considerably stronger and more confident. The Bush administration kept its nerve in Iraq, and may finally have won the war. But it seems to have lost its nerve vis-à-vis Iran's quest to become a nuclear power. Israel defeated Yasir Arafat's second intifada, but it may soon be beset by a third one, this time planned and instigated by Hamas. Still, al Qaeda's decline offers a kind of portrait-in-miniature of a civilization that seems perpetually to be collapsing in on itself. Here is a movement in which suicide — that is, self-destruction — is treated as the ultimate act of self-assertion. A movement that sees itself as an Islamic vanguard, leading the way toward a genuine Muslim umma, but is permanently at war with the Muslim communities it inhabits. A movement whose attacks beyond the Islamic world have mainly had the effect of accelerating the very forces by which it is sealing its own fate. To use an inexact astronomical analogy, this is a movement with the quality of a supernova: even as an envelope of superheated gas rapidly expands outward, its core is compressing and ultimately implodes. A similar pattern played out with the pan-Arabist regimes of the 1950's and 60's. And the same forces are at work today in Iran, where the regime's outward-directed, "revolutionary" activities — from supporting Hamas to engineering Hizballah's de-facto takeover of Lebanon to developing nuclear weapons — seem almost purposely designed to counterbalance the weight of the regime's manifold domestic discontents. As for how the United States and its allies should attempt to deal with this new reality, one temptation is simply to stay away, on the theory that no good can come from putting our hands in such a mess. This is roughly the view of the libertarian and paleoconservative Right, and perhaps a majority of the Left. But the view hardly bears discussion: all mention of Israel aside, access to Middle Eastern energy resources is a vital American interest and will almost certainly remain so for decades. The Muslim world is also inextricably a part of the Western one, particularly in Europe. Nor is the global terrorist threat likely to go away even if al Qaeda does. The possibility that a regime that sponsors or supports terrorists might be in a position to supply them with weapons of mass destruction is a direct threat to us. A second option, associated with the so-called realist school, contends that with rare exceptions, the U.S. should deal with the Muslim world more or less as it is, without seeking to change it.[2] This is a view that has much to recommend it — at least in the hands of a master diplomatic practitioner. But Metternichs are hard to come by, and in the hands of lesser statesmen, realism easily slides into passive acquiescence in an intolerable status quo — or into intolerable changes to it. Witness the readiness of Colin Powell, as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff during the first Bush administration, to accept Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 as a fait accompli. A third view, shared to varying degrees by neoconservatives and liberal internationalists, is that the U.S. and the West have no choice but actively to seek domestic reforms in Muslim countries. Needless to say, such a course is fraught with risks and often prone to mishandling, overreaching, and failure. But some version of it is the only approach that can, if not heal the pathologies of the Muslim world, then at least ameliorate and contain them so that they do not end up arriving unbidden on our doorstep, as they did one morning in September 2001. This is not the place to lay out precisely how the U.S. might go about pursuing such a course with greater success than it has achieved thus far. But a few points are worth noting in light of the experience detailed above:
Now the government of neighboring Iran has invested some $20 billion of scarce national treasure, and the weight of the regime's prestige, in its nuclear programs. Aside from the inherent case for getting rid of these programs for the threat they pose to core U.S. interests, it ought at least to be considered that their swift destruction might, far from rallying Iranians to their leaders' side, produce precisely the opposite effect. These suggestions are only a sketch of a policy. But effective policy depends above all on a correct understanding of the people, places, and things toward which it is being applied. To speak of an Islamic civilization is to speak in error. Rather, there is a Muslim world. It is fractured, and fractious. At times, Muslim causes or conflicts spill over into the non-Islamic world, as they did in the 1990's. Today, thanks in no small part to our actions, they remain internal — expression not, or not merely, of a clash of civilizations, but of the convulsion of one. In this internal disunity lie our strength and our opportunity — and ultimately, perhaps, the reform of the Muslim world itself. Footnotes 1 "Are We Winning the War on Terror?," July-August 2008. 2 I dealt at length with this school of thought in "Realists to the Rescue?," Commentary, February 2007. 3 In Morocco, for example, the king, not parliament, appoints and oversees the minister of religious affairs. He, in turn, is solely responsible for approving religious rulings, weighing their compatibility with sharia in much the same way the Congressional Budget Office assesses the fiscal impact of a tax cut. The result is a religious environment that is at once more tightly controlled and more progressive in its attitudes toward family law, women's rights, and so on. Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at
freify@netvision.net.il. See this graphic and more of his artwork at
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SARAH PALIN AND CHARACTER
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, September 20, 2008. |
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This was written by Professor Paul Eidelberg and it appeared September 12, 2008 in the Jewish Press. Professor Paul Eidelberg is the founder and president of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy, a Jerusalem think tank for improving Israel's system of governance. |
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Sarah Palm displays what is most lacking in many people in high office: character. Character is far more fundamental and important than "experience" because without good character, even an experienced officeholder will not he able to deal with the tough issues confronting our country. A person of character has moral integrity and courage; personal dignity and humility; a strong sense of justice and devotion to the common good; above all, respect for human life and a love of God. All this I discern in Governor Sarah Palm's character — a strong, dynamic, yet humble person. The Jewish sages regard humility as the highest virtue. Indeed, the Torah says Moses was the humblest person on the face of the earth. Humility is the only adjective the Torah uses to describe Moses. Why? Because humility is a pre-condition for achieving the highest wisdom. No wonder gentile as well as Jewish philosophers and states men esteem Moses as the greatest lawgiver of mankind. I'm not suggesting that Governor Palm or any living person possesses the wisdom of Moses. I am simply saying that her fine character conduces to wisdom — a readiness to listen to diverse opinions while drawing rational and independent conclusions, as opposed to succumbing to emotion and popularity She's a doer, not an image-maker. Unlike too many political novelists and aspirants, she does not avoid taking controversial stands on serious national issues. Allow me here to mention the first Sarah, Abraham's beautiful wife. Did God not tell Abraham to defer to Sarah when she expelled Ishmael from her household because of lshmael's defective character? However, make no mistake. Even a person of the highest character is not flawless; the Bible does not conceal the flaws of its greatest heroes and heroines. That's what makes them human, so real, and so worthy of emulation. I will not dignify those who are casting aspersions on the Palin family, certainly not the vulgar "mediacrats" or neo-Democrats who have degraded the Democratic party that harks back to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman — presidents who would never have advocated same-sex marriages, partial-birth abortions, non-judgmentalism or morally free sentimentalism in foreign affairs. They were men of character — in the no-nonsense tradition of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Read Talleyrand of France, Gladstone of Great Britain and you will see that America has a reputation of having an unequalled tradition of great statesmen, of men who, candidly and fearlessly, addressed national issues, not family matters. They were not image-makers but history-makers. Of course, it's too early to assess Governor Sarah Palin as a national leader. Still, excuse my ruminations; I like her name, which in Hebrew means princess. I like the Israeli flag in her office, which signifies an appreciation of Israel's importance to America. I like her dealing with issues and avoiding negative campaigning. She knows that American voters must focus on, not private matters, but public issues: above all, a nuclear Iran, because Iran is the epicenter of Islamic terrorism and imperialism. Indeed, a nuclear Iran will control the Middle East as well as Europe and thereby pauperize America. Moreover, this is not all. Unlike neo-Democrats, Governor Palm does not pooh pooh the significance of the Russian invasion of America's ally, Georgia, and the resurgence of Russian imperialism. She is aware of the dependence of the United States on Saudi oil, which has enabled the Saudis to penetrate the American government. She knows that multinational corporations have established "economic colonies" in the American government, which can only harm America's job market, harm the working class, and even undermine America's national sovereignty and democracy. This is why we want a president and vice-president of character, possessing solid records of public service and unselfish devotion to America and American values, values which are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition — the fondest hope of mankind. So let us have serious debates about serious pubic issues. Let us scorn the titillations of the media, the detractors of Sarah Plain and her family. America is better than that. Let us set an example to American youth and to nations abroad by raising the level of public debate. Let us listen to what an independent and intelligent vice-presidential candidate has to say about the basic issues confronting our country. And, let us pray, as America's Founding Fathers prayed~ that our future president and vice-president will be graced by wisdom and wholehearted dedication to the common good. 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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YEMENI 10-YEAR-OLD DIVORCEE NUJOOD ALI GOES BACK TO SCHOOL
Posted by Marc Samberg, September 20, 2008. |
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This comes from the Los Angeles Times
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Like children across the world, 10-year-old Nujood Ali went back to school this month after a lengthy break. But Nujood hadn't been lazing about or playing hide-and-seek with her friends during the summer. Instead, after she was pulled out of the second grade by her father earlier this year, she was married off to a man three times her age, who beat her and sexually abused her. For many girls in this traditional society, where tribal custom and conservative interpretations of Islam dominate, that would have been the end of the story. But Nujood was outraged. She gathered up her courage and on the advice of an aunt went to court in April. She got the help of a lawyer and filed for divorce. A judge quickly granted it. And on Tuesday morning, the divorcee, possibly the world's youngest, once again became a schoolgirl. "I'm very happy to be going back to school," she said, waiting in her ramshackle home for her younger sister Haifa to get ready. "I'm going to study Arabic, the Koran, mathematics and drawing. I will do that with my classmates and I will definitely make friends there." Nujood's unusual story of rebellion made her an international celebrity. Since The Times wrote of her in June, CNN, Elle magazine and other international media have come to this mountaintop capital to chronicle her tale. Hordes of nonprofit organizations offered to help her get back to school, some even willing to foot the bill to send her abroad or to a fancy private academy, though they ignored Haifa, Nujood's little sister and best friend. In the end, Nujood opted for a small, government-run public school relatively close to her home. She would begin where she left off, starting the second grade again. Even then, it wasn't easy. One teacher said she worried that Nujood might disturb other students by talking about her sexual experiences. The night before she went to school, Nujood said she dreamed of notebooks, drawings and new friends. "When I left school, I learned how to count from one to 100," she said. "Now, I am going to learn how to count until a million." Nujood said she wanted to study hard, to be able to attend university and become a lawyer like Shada Nasser, the well-known Yemeni human rights advocate who helped her get her divorce. The girl's experience, and her ambition, have even served as an inspiration to her parents, uneducated rural people who moved to the capital's outskirts a few years ago and say they married her off to protect her from the dangers of the city. "We were never asked if we wanted to go to school when we were children," said her father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, who has two wives and 16 children. "If we had a choice, we would have loved to study like Nujood." On Tuesday morning, Nujood and Haifa climbed into a yellow taxi paid for by an Italian aid group and drove through the capital's smog-choked streets, passing vendors of the mildly narcotic khat leaves and the occasional shepherd. Outside the schoolhouse, Nasser stood waiting, eager to share a day she had anticipated. "I can't believe we finally made it," said the attorney, who agreed to drop the rest of her caseload to take up Nujood's cause after the girl showed up alone in a Sana courthouse in April. Nujood and Nasser were welcomed by Njala Matri, the principal of the school in Rawdha, a lower-middle-class neighborhood along the road to the city's international airport. "You are welcome here. You can feel at home," she said, smiling at Nujood. 
Only about half of Yemeni girls attend primary school. Last year, one of the school's 1,200 girls, a 13-year-old, dropped out to marry, though the legal age of consent is 15. "Now, she's a mother," Matri said in dismay. Women's rights activists say child marriage is part of a vicious circle. Girls drop out of school and bear too many children, contributing to Yemen's high female illiteracy and exploding birth rate. But on Tuesday, Nujood stepped through the school's gates into a vast courtyard, disappearing into a swarm of noisy classmates. Some paid her no mind, while others approached the girl who had become a local and international media star. "I am so excited," she said, playing nervously with her hands. A bell sounded and the students quieted down, forming lines for roll call before shuffling into classrooms of about 50 students each. Nujood took a seat in the third row, neither at the front nor the back of the classroom. The teacher, dressed in an all-covering black abaya, hushed the students and began the day's lesson by asking them to recite the national anthem as well as passages from the Koran. Small hands shot into the air. "Who can recite the Surat al-Hamd?" the teacher asked, referring to the first chapter of the Koran. She saw Nujood's hand, and called her name. "Nujood?" she said. Nujood stood up and began, ending with: "Show us the straight path. The path of those whom You have favored. Not the path of those who earn Your anger nor of those who go astray." "May God bless you," said the teacher. "Let's give her a round of applause." The others clapped as Nujood sat down, a little girl once again.
Contact Marc Samberg at marcsamberg@yahoo.com
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WHO DO THEY LIKE, WHO DO THEY HATE
Posted by Barry Rubin, September 20, 2008. |
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These two polls are very interesting especially when compared to each other, and are not so bad. Contrary to what we think there are basically two models: 1. Strong support for Israel as against the PA: US
We are not seeing results of high support for Palestinians versus Israel, even in a country like France, even after years of anti-Israel propaganda. Note that there are no countries where support for the Palestinians is higher than that for Israel. In Germany there is greater support for Israel; in France and the UK more evenhanded. But even this understates the case. The Palestinians are represented in this poll by the PA, which is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as moderate, nonviolence, and ready to make peace with Israel. Comparing Israel and the PA is going to end up being more even in result than comparing Israel to Fatah, the PLO, Hamas or talking about Israelis versus Palestinians. After all, the argument would be that the PA are those Palestinians who want to live in peace with Israel so liking both means wanting the two sides to make peace and have a two-state solution. Presumably, most of those who liked the parties do not perceive a positive statement about the PA as anti-Israel. Note also that in France, Germany and-to a lesser extent-the UK, support for Israel is not that far behind positive views of the US. After all, if the US can only get 47 percent in France is it so surprising Israel gets 41? And the same applies to Germany (51, 47); though the gap in the UK is a bit wider it is not that extreme. The situation in Turkey is very bad since in recent years the support for the PA is based on the idea of Muslim solidarity. The high results for the US and USSR are also surprising. Clearly, the Islamic-oriented regime has had a big effect on popular thinking or, to put it differently, its election reflects shifts in public opinion. So if the result isn't great it isn't terrible either, better than we would expect. POLL 1 "Transatlantic Trends 2008, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and the Compagnia di San Paolo (Italy), asked respondents in various countries in June to rate their feelings toward countries, with 100 meaning very warm and favorable and 0 unfavorable. U.S. respondents: US-83, Russia-48, Israel-62, PA-36, Iran-25
Now look at Poll 2 (below). I have reorganized it for better understanding: Negative views Australia: Jews 11
Some points: * Australia, the US, and the UK are by far the most tolerant. Despite European "sweetness and light" and "multiculturalism", they are far more bigoted. Note that Americans are ridiculed as narrow-minded and intolerant by Europeans. The shoe is on the other foot. What is amazing in these findings is that anti-Semitism has risen in virtually all countries since 2005. Yet the level of violence has been much lower than during the previous five years, not to mention the Hamas takeover and growing radical Islamist anti-Semitism (a negative or a positive example?), improved Western diplomatic stances toward Israel, and Israel's tireless efforts to prove it wants peace, massive Jewish philanthropy to prove they are good citizens, and so on. Theodor Herzl was right on everything-including the eternal nature of anti-Semitism and the inability of Jewish action to end it-except that Israel's existence would reduce it. POLL 2 "Growing numbers of people in several major European countries say they have an unfavorable opinion of Jews and Muslims. A spring 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center's Pew Global Attitudes Project finds 46% of the Spanish rating Jews unfavorably, with 34% of Russians and 36% of Poles echoing this view. Significant numbers of Germans (25%) and French (20%) also express negative opinions of Jews. Other figures reported include Great Britain (9%), Australia (11%), and the U.S. (7%). Fully half of Spanish (52%) and German respondents (50%) rate Muslims unfavorably. Negative opinions about Muslims are found in Poland (46%), France (38%), Britain (23%) and the U.S. (23%)." (Pew) Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle-East (Wiley). |
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HOW HIGH AM I?
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 20, 2008. |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at
freify@netvision.net.il. See this graphic and more of his artwork at
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HAMAS USES CEMENT SUPPLIED TO GAZA FOR BUNKERS
Posted by Bryna Berch, September 20, 2008. |
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Remember a few months back when the Gazan Arabs overran the barrier between Gaza and Egypt and hundreds of these Po' Palestinians went on a shopping spree? We'd been told that they were starving — Israel's fault of course — so it was kinda surprising when one of the big items they bought was cement! Not exactly an appetizing food. Now read this. Looks like the Hamas leadership continue to need cement more than they needed to feed their people. This come from IMRA and was issued by Dr. Aaron Lerner. Dr. Lerner is Director of IMRA, Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Its website address is http://www.imra.org.il Write him at imra@netvision.net.il |
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Maariv correspondent Amir Rapaport reveals in today's edition that Israeli security assessments are concerned over reports that Hamas has taken control of all the cement being supplied to the Gaza Strip from Israel as part of the "calm agreement" so that it is used for Hamas bunker building instead of civilian construction. At the same time, Hamas is building a network of tunnels linking the bunkers, with the idea of using them much in the same way that the Vietcong used such a system in fighting American forces. The security establishment is considering halting the supply of cement or at least reducing the supply of cement — but keeping supplies high enough that the "calm agreement" won't break down. |
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THE PLAIN TRUTH ABOUT IMAM KHATTAB
Posted by David Ben-Ariel, September 20, 2008. |
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Blade religion editor David Yonke's article Book of sermons is a labor of love (about the book Islam: The Sermons of Imam A.M. Khattab by Dr. Nilofer Yusafzai) caught my attention. Especially since the only sermon I heard the Egyptian imam give at the mosque in Perrysburg, Ohio (occupied American farm land) was during a dinner-lecture tour the Worldwide Church of God singles attended as paying guests, followed by a question and answer session. Dr. Yusafzai praises Imam Khattab and believes his lasting legacy will be "the wisdom he offered on Islam and his insights into the Qu'ran," yet when I asked Imam Khattab about some haddith (sayings attributed to Mohammad) that mentions Arabs fighting Jews in these last days and how Jews would hide behind trees and the tree wouldn't shelter the Jew but betrayed them (except for one tree), Imam Khattab played stupid and launched into a tirade against Jews, hatefully carrying on about how Jews create such spurious saying to discredit Islam and Arabs. I then questioned Imam Khattab that if that wasn't a saying of Mohammad but a spurious saying created by Jews to discredit Islam and Arabs, why would he — the leader of the Islamic Community of Greater Toledo — then permit it to be published in their newsletter the previous month? (My friendly Arab student neighbors in Perrysburg township purposely brought it to my attention). He was speechless. Busted. I have no respect for a man who presented one face to the public, pretending to promote peace and understanding between faiths, and in private among his Muslim community actually promote the death of Jews as "God's will" and then lie about it like a coward when it was exposed. The Islamic Center of Greater Toledo continues to cover up for Imam Khattab, feigning ignorance about the newsletter I saw with my own eyes or completely denying it dishonestly, "unable" to find the incriminating newsletter even though I informed them specifically it was the October or November 1985 issue. Will Dr. Nilofer Yusafzai find the long "lost" document, having researched Imam Khattab extensively, or make sure to suppress it and perpetuate the fraud? It's in her hands and before God's eyes. David Ben-Ariel is author of "Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and
Fall." Contact him at davidbenariel@earthlink.net
This article is archived at
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IT IS TIME TO ACT
Posted by David Nathan, September 19, 2008. |
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This was written by Caroline Glick. It appeared
yesterday in the Jerusalem Post
Caroline Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Contact her at caroline@carolineglick.com |
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Iran is just a heartbeat away from the A-bomb. Last Friday the Daily Telegraph reported Iran has surreptitiously removed a sufficient amount of uranium from its nuclear production facility in Isfahan to produce six nuclear bombs. Given Iran's already acknowledged uranium enrichment capabilities, the Telegraph's report indicates that Iran is now in the late stages of assembling nuclear bombs. It would be a simple matter for Iran to assemble those bombs without anyone noticing. US spy satellites recently discovered what the US believes are covert nuclear facilities in Iran. The mullocracy has not disclosed these sites to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is charged with inspecting Iran's nuclear sites. As to the IAEA, this week it presented its latest report on Iran's nuclear program to its board members in Vienna. The IAEA's report claimed that Iran has taken steps to enable its Shihab-3 ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads. With their range of 1,300 kilometers, Shihab-3 missiles are capable of reaching Israel and other countries throughout the region. In support of its swiftly progressing nuclear program, Iran has escalated both its conventional military and terroristic adventurism. It has also ratcheted up its diplomatic assault on the US. This week, Iran conducted a countrywide air defense exercise. Gen. Khatim al Anbiaa, the commander of Iran's Air Defense Corps explained that the exercise was aimed at defending against both electronic jamming systems and against actual bombing strikes. Also this week, Yahya Rahim Safavi, the former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps and current senior advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for security affairs announced that Iran has shifted responsibility for naval warfare on the Persian Gulf from its regular naval forces to its more fanatical Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian navy will now be deployed only in the Gulf of Oman and along the Caspian Sea. The deployment of the IRGC along the Persian Gulf means that the force will be responsible for naval operations in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which forty percent of global oil shipments travel daily. Issuing Iran's most explicit threat to US naval forces in the area and global oil shipments to date Safavi declared, "The entire Strait of Hormuz is under the tight control of the Iranian security forces, which are ready to defend Iran against any threat." As for terror, al Qaida boss Ayman Zawahiri's recent tirade against Iran notwithstanding, Iran has apparently intensified its cooperation with al Qaida. Over the past two weeks, Israeli counter-terror officials have issued explicit warnings to Israeli vacationers to immediately depart the Sinai. They have stated that terror cells from al Qaida and Hamas are working with Iran's Hizbullah to abduct groups of Israeli vacationers to Gaza. Moreover, as Hamas and Teheran have openly acknowledged their "brotherly" ties, more and more reports have been published about al Qaida's escalating presence in Gaza. Beyond all this, both regionally and globally Iran is escalating its diplomatic and strategic offensive against the US. It has widened its diplomatic operations in the Western Hemisphere from Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua to the Caribbean by opening diplomatic relations with Grenada and St. Vincent and it is pursuing diplomatic ties with Jamaica. Iran has initiated its own pro-Russian diplomatic initiative to "stabilize" the Caucasus. This week Iran's Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki caught the US State Department by surprise when he arrived in Tblisi to meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. That meeting was part of a regional tour that took Mouttaki to Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as Germany. Finally, of course, there is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's annual trip to New York for the UN's General Assembly opening session next week. Aside from being honored by leaders of the supposedly pacifist and clearly anti-Semitic Quaker and Mennonite churches, Ahmadinejad will be feted by newly elected General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann from Nicaragua.
COUNTERING IRAN'S SPRINT to the nuclear finish line and its intensifying threats against Israel and the West are three Western initiatives to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. First, the US, France and Britain have stepped up their rhetoric calling for additional economic sanctions against Iran. During the General Assembly meeting in New York, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to meet her counterparts from the other permanent members of the Security Council and Germany to try to agree on such sanctions. But this will be an exercise in futility. Russia has made clear that it will reject any further sanctions against Iran. Indeed it is intensifying its military and financial ties to Teheran. Moscow has pledged to have the Bushehr nuclear plant up and running by the end of the year. And Iran is already suspected of diverting plutonium from the plant to develop still more nuclear weapons. Germany too, has evinced no interest in curtailing its financial ties to Iran. To the contrary, German trade with Iran expanded 12 percent in the last year from $2.7 billion to $3 billion. So the US will fail to pass additional sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. And this is a shame. But even if a miracle occurred and Russia, China and Germany agreed to adopt and enforce stiff sanctions against Iran, those sanctions would come too late to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That uranium that the Iranians took from their Isfahan plant will be weapons grade and attached to Shihab-3 missiles or transferred to Hizbullah, al Qaida or Hamas terrorists for use long before such hypothetical sanctions would even be noticed in Iran. The second way that the West — and particularly the US and Israel — have sought to stymie Iran's nuclear ambitions is through sabotage. As Yediot Ahronot reporter Ronen Bergman documented in his book, The Secret War with Iran, over the past few years the Mossad and US intelligence agencies have had some success killing some personnel involved in Iran's nuclear weapons program. They have also managed to sell faulty nuclear components to Iran that have slowed down and sabotaged its operations. As the assassination of Iran's terror master Imad Mughniyah in Damascus in February demonstrated, Israel has the capacity to carry out sensitive covert operations deep inside enemy territory. And more successful covert operations could no doubt cause still more damage to Iran's nuclear program. But it is all but impossible to see how any such operations can prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons in the short term. With that uranium from Isfahan hidden away in one of its covert facilities, with terror operatives deployed all over the globe and in charge of Lebanon and Gaza, and with the Shihab-3 missiles happily accepting nuclear warheads, it is apparent that no matter how bold, limited covert operations have not and will not prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. Finally, there are the private initiatives to use international law, capital markets and political pressure to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to persuade states not to cultivate ties with Iran. A year ago, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs began a push to indict Ahmadinejad as a war criminal for his breach of the Genocide Convention. His calls for Israel's annihilation make him guilty of the explicit crime of inciting genocide. The JCPA's initiative has fomented similar calls by groups in Canada and Australia and most recently, by tens of thousands of evangelical Christians. The Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC are waging public campaigns against European oil and gas companies that are involved in developing Iran's oil and gas fields. The Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC spearheaded the initiative to divest US public employee pension funds from companies that do business with Iran and other state sponsors of terror. Several major American Jewish organizations are organizing a massive protest outside UN headquarters that will take place during Ahmadinejad's address to the body next Tuesday. Other groups, like the Israel Project conduct intensive briefings for the media in the US and Europe to educate reporters and editors about the Iranian nuclear program. All of these private initiatives are vital for raising public awareness in the West about the lethality of the Iranian threat to Israel and to global security in general. They are also important for embarrassing governments — particularly Germany, Austria and other European governments with histories of anti-Semitic violence — that refuse to end their bilateral trade with Iran. Beyond that, they serve the important goal of weakening the Iranian economy. But again, none of these programs can do a thing against that uranium for six bombs that Iran removed from its plant in Isfahan. They can't stop those centrifuges in Natanz and in covert facilities throughout Iran from buzzing along. They can't destroy those Shihab-3 missiles. They can't kill the scientists assembling the bombs. In light of Iran's unrelenting and rapid progress towards the nuclear bomb finish line, it is clear today that while positive in their own rights, none of the actions the West is taking to block Iran's path to the atomic bomb will succeed in blocking its path to the atomic bomb. For that matter, the one option short of war that might have put an end to the mullahs' race to the bomb three years ago — namely supporting the Iranian people in their wish to overthrow their regime — cannot be adopted fast enough to prevent the likes of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad from pushing the button now. Today, there is only one way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Israel must bomb Iran's nuclear installations. Such an Israeli strike will not end Iran's nuclear program. It will not overthrow the regime. It will not cripple Iran's economy. It will not end Iran's active support for international terrorist groups. All an Israeli air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities will do is set Iran's nuclear program back for a couple of years. Such a strike will buy Israel and the rest of the world time. And during that time, Iran will no doubt expand its diplomatic, terror and political offensives against Israel and the US. But if Israel and the US are wise, they can use the time as well. If Israel and the US are wise, they will use the extra time to ratchet up international economic sanctions on Iran. They will use the time to conduct covert operations against nuclear and regime targets. They will use the time to increase international pressure on countries that do business with Iran and sell it arms. And they will use the time that an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities will buy to support Iranian democracy movements and so weaken the regime and perhaps eventually topple it. It is clear today that the Bush administration will not take action against Iran. This week five former secretaries of state said that the US should pursue diplomatic ties with Iran regardless of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. There will be no will in Washington to act against Iran until after Iran has attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. So it is up to Israel. Too bad we don't have a government in Jerusalem. Contact David Nathan at DAVENATHAN@aol.com |
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PREVENTIVE DETENTION POLICE ABUSE;ARABS DEMAND CIVIL RIGHTS IN PA; JEWS BETRAYED BY JEWS, IN ISRAEL
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 19, 2008. |
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PREVENTIVE DETENTION POLICE ABUSE Background: As urged by prosecutors, a court treated three Jews to internal exile. That was a Czarist and Soviet practice. The court ruled that they are a threat to security in Judea-Samaria, where they live, and must stay out of it for a few months, while the government proceeds on its plan to cede the area to the Arabs. The government produced no evidence against the three — the defense attorney therefore had no way of disputing the regime. The judges usually take the word of the [political] police. News: A few dozen Jews set out to protest against the exile. Police apprehended them en route. It arrested them for planning an illegal demonstration. It beat up some at the police station. [Why?] The demonstration was held anyway, by others, some of whom police removed violently. Police beat them without letting them disperse or submit to arrest. The protestors feel that they are upholding Jewish values, whereas the government is opposing them by recourse to laws meant to defend the country against its enemies. They note that the government does not disturb the Arabs and Jewish leftists who protest violently every week, about a kilometer away, throwing things at police (Arutz-7, 9/4). With Arabs, too much restraint! The government is anti-Jewish. It abuses control over police to prevent political opposition to its policies. It treats demonstrations fascistically, for it is brutal and arrests people even when the demonstration is legal. Demonstrations are legal if fewer than 50 people participate. If more than 50, they may need a permit. Notice the other fascist acts besides beating and political arrest: arrest without evidence; judicial, police, and prosecutors' subservience to politicians policy rather than to law; preventive detention; false excuses, such as stopping a bus because its tire may not have had enough air and protecting the Arab olive harvest from no known threat and protection starting after the harvest. All one hears about Israel in the major media is that it is a democracy with a vibrant media. Alas, its major media serve the regime's ideology. The media try to keep the people uninformed and misinformed. Oddly, the regime has the label, "centrist." I find its tactics and its pro-Arab stance deadly and extremist. The US media is not much better. The NY Times, for all its false implications that Israel abuses the Arabs, ignores Israeli abuse of Jews and, being anti-Zionist, ignores most Arab abuse of Jews. I love my Jewish people and Zionist cause, but detest the Israeli ruling class and their and US conspiracies against Israel. NETANYAHU TRYING TO STACK PARTY Netanyahu wants to make his Likud Party more popular by bringing in popular names. He is offering politically inexperienced people Knesset seats without primaries. Naturally, politicians who spent years grooming for the Knesset seat are antagonized by this plan for them to step aside for newcomers. The proposal is not democratic, either. Ironically, Netanyahu had established party primaries. Several of the name-recognized candidates happen to have left-wing views. They would turn Likud further leftward. Netanyahu has not addressed that concern (Arutz-7, 9/4). Why should he. He is leftist, too, regarding the Arabs. He conceded control over most of Hebron, without getting anything in return. He hardly criticizes the leftist ideology, rationing his famous eloquence. P.A. STATEMENT ABOUT NEGOTIATIONS The P.A. Foreign Minister claimed that nothing, however minor, has been agreed to. He said that Jerusalem, important to both sides, could be shared (IMRA, 9/4). He is lying about sharing the holy city, since the P.A. doesn't share the Temple Mount now nor another holy city, Schechm. It tries to destroy other Jewish holy sites, including the Jewish artifacts in the Temple Mount. He may be lying about not having reached any agreements, too. If they haven't reached agreement, after Israel has offered the P.A. almost everything, the P.A. proved it won't compromise at all. ARABS DEMAND CIVIL RIGHTS IN P.A. The P.A. civil rights group, al-Haq, urges foreign donors to make their contributions contingent upon both parts of the P.A. ending their fascist police powers. The organization cited the need for an independent judiciary and the practice of military courts trying civilians (Arutz-7, 9/4). Foreign countries do contribute irresponsibly, propping up terrorist, fascist, bigoted, and incompetent regimes. They don't care, I believe, because those regimes are anti-Israel, as are the foreign donors. The donors who help the Islamist regimes are liable to find those regimes pursuing them, some day. Foreign Jewish donors of Israel should demand the same of Israel. Make their contributions to Israel contingent upon Israel ending its fascist police powers and upon a democratically appointed and politically restrained judiciary. Some contributors, such as New Israel Fund and EU, finance the undermining of Israel. NOMINATING CONVENTIONS My friends take conventions seriously. Political conventions are shows orchestrated to support pre-determined candidates and give good impressions. They feature sound bytes, disguise actual policy if the candidate has any. Obama's radical tendency and inexperience produce foolish remarks that almost immediately draws criticism and then retraction. What is his real policy? I report little about the campaigns, either. They discuss petty or not-federal issues. Candidates' private lives, unless criminal, are not relevant. IRAN'S NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT I get it, Iran wants to build a peaceful nuclear bomb. One argument against Iran's development of nuclear energy is specious. This argument is that, having much oil, it doesn't need nuclear energy. However, if Iran met its own needs by nuclear fission, it would have more oil to sell abroad. That would be positive, as a transition until the world develops renewable energy. Solar power for Iran would be more positive than nuclear. JEWS BETRAYED BY JEWS, IN ISRAEL "Yeichel Leiter [whom Netanyahu wants to bring into the Knesset] is part of Yesha Council, which was working with the government during Gush Katif evacuation [from Gaza]. I couldn't believe it [that the Council, supposedly of right-wing settlers, would betray the settlers], but I saw for myself at the end. The last night before the expulsion, I wanted to get into Gush Katif [to protest]. I was going in and out during the time that I was able to do so. I was told by Yesha to drive with them through the fields, to sneak into Gush Katif. We left Ma'ale Adumim at 7 in the evening and came back 10am. The person from Yesha who was led us, did a good job of make-believe. We drove through fields without lights. Couldn't see. We hit holes, drove up and down hills, which frightened me, and he took us around and around, then said he lost the way. Now, I'm not stupid. A responsible person plans this route beforehand, especially when leading 50 cars. Every time there was a different excuse. We hit water, no passageway, and he took us straight to the army, guarding the end of that field. We had to turn around or get arrested. He told the young girls in our car, not to make a run for it on foot, and we will try again. Those who didn't listen made it through. There was much more. People sleeping in fields, and YESHA not allowing them to continue walking even though they outnumbered the Army. They waited until you couldn't go. So, now people split from them and formed their own right-wing group." (my associate in Israel, 9/4.) Barry Chamish has similar reports. How deep is secret service penetration into political movements! 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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GANDHI'S LOVE LETTERS TO HITLER
Posted by Marcia Leal, September 19, 2008. |
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This was written by Seth Frantman and it appeared
today in Front Page Magazine |
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On September 25, five American religious organizations plan to host a Ramadan dinner for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his upcoming visit to the United States. These include the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quakers, the World Council of Churches, and Religions for Peace. How is it that these Christian "peace" organizations are willing to break bread with a declared warmonger and Holocaust denier? An answer lies in the troubling history of these organizations — a history that includes a shameful alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II. The pacifist-Nazi axis dates to the 1930s. None other than the worldwide spokesman for non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, wrote letters to Adolph Hitler that were deferential in their tone and abhorrent in their implications. A 1939 letter was apologetically described by Gandhi as a "mere impertinence" and included the following signoff: "I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you. I remain, Your sincere friend, Sd. M. MK Gandhi." In a letter dated December 24, 1940, Gandhi assured Hitler that he had no doubt of "your bravery or devotion to your fatherland." Zionist appeals for Gandhi to support a national home for the Jewish people, meanwhile, fell on deaf ears, as he insisted that "Palestine belongs to the Arabs." Not only did Gandhi reject the cause of a Jewish state but he effectively echoed Nazi propaganda, as with his warning that "this cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews." Even more supportive of Hitler were the Mennonites. In a letter dated September 10, 1933, the Conference of East and West Prussian Mennonites from the German city-state of Danzig wrote to the Fuhrer to express its "deep gratitude for the powerful revival that God has given our nation through your energy" and wished Hitler a "joyful cooperation in the up building of our Fatherland through the power of the Gospel." If its enthusiasm for hosting Ahmadinejad is any guide, the Mennonite Church has learned little from this dark chapter in its past. On the contrary, the church's alliance with the Iranian leader is an extension of its hard-line anti-Israel politics, which find expression in its funding of books advocating the so-called "right-of-return" for Palestinian Arabs — a policy that, if implemented, would mean the destruction of Israel. One finds a similar antagonism for the Jewish State in the activism of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the "peace" arm of the Quakers. As an example of what it calls "Quaker values in action," the AFSC includes its campaigns to "challenge" American support for Israel. A supporter of the PLO, the AFSC not only backs radical anti-Israel groups like Zochrot but opposes Israel's attempts to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism. That the Quakers are now willing to sit down to dinner with the man who has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the global map should not be entirely surprising. By any reasonable standard, self-styled peace activists might be expected to condemn leaders who support terrorism and who unashamedly seek the destruction of other nations. But just as advocates of non-violence found a way to accommodate the genocidal designs of Adolph Hitler, so they have been willing to make peace with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And just as Gandhi never expressed remorse for his "dear friend" letters to Hitler, its unlikely that these supposed believers in non-violence will break a dinner date with his Iranian heir. Contact Marcia Leal by email at marcia.leal.eejh@gmail.com |
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OBAMA: AN ELOQUENTLY TAILORED EMPTY SUIT
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 19, 2008. |
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This was on the Sean Hannity Forum
Do a Google search on Jack Wheeler and you will find some very interesting reading. |
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The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance. He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya. Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively. What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it. Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah. It's something Hillary doesn't understand — how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason. It is a true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white. Thus Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White. There is no reason or logic behind it, no faults or flaws of his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make of any kind can be effective against it. The absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed In Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believe it because it is absurd. Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior. His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any thinking American. Pass this on to every thinking American you know! Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il.
See more of his artwork at
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THE HALLMARK OF ANTI-SEMITISM
Posted by Sasha Stawski, September 19, 2008. |
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This was written by Benjamin Weinthal, an independent
journalist working in Berlin.
It appeared in Haaretz
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BERLIN — Antony Lerman protested the formulation "anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism" on this page, arguing that because many anti-Zionists are Jewish, such an approach only "widens the pool of our enemies" and causes us to "lose our way." But the failure to recognize the effect that Jewish anti-Zionism has on discourse among non-Jews creates a massive blind spot in the fight against Judeophobia. Lerman complains that equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism diverts attention from more "traditional" manifestations of Jew-hatred, and also interferes with legitimate discussion of Israel's policies. What he fails to understand is that in the post-Holocaust age of political correctness, anti-Zionism is the favored, even socially acceptable, channel by which anti-Semitism expresses itself. The intense, disproportionate attacks masked under the phrase "Israel criticism," or the very questioning of the Jewish state's right to exist, cannot simply be excused as legitimate critique. The practical implications of much of the anti-Zionist rhetoric, after all, would mean the dissolution of Israel. Hence, it is the anti-Zionist Jews themselves who are widening the pool of enemies. Contemporary Germany provides a good example of this. The major media here have largely outsourced their Israel discussion to anti-Israeli Jews. One of the latter, a self-styled journalist named Evelyn Hecht-Galinski, has equated Israel's policies with those of Nazi Germany, and argued that a "Jewish-Israel lobby with an active network extends around the world, and thanks to America, its power has become great." In response, German-Jewish journalist Henryk M. Broder wrote that "anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist statements are her specialty." While Hecht-Galinski did not object to the anti-Zionist label, she was granted a temporary restraining order to prevent Broder from invoking the adjective "anti-Semitic." In raging against the Jewish state, critics like Hecht-Galinski serve to symbolically inoculate non-Jewish Germans against the charge of anti-Semitism and bias against Israel. The rejoinder, "but Jews themselves say this," has become a standard defense, a type of kashrut seal that justifies comparing Israel with Nazi Germany, or blaming Jews for rising global anti-Semitism. Even better than a Diaspora Jew criticizing Israel is an Israeli who does so, via criticism that can easily be misunderstood and even distorted. The culture editor of the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Patrick Bahners, for example, in a recent exoneration of Hecht-Galinski of anti-Israel prejudices, noted that even some Israeli peace activists compared the security fence to the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. Bahners, like a majority of Germans (according to a 2004 study), feels comfortable with the "Israelis are to Palestinians as Nazis are to Jews" analogy. And, most of the country's other major dailies have also aligned themselves with Hecht-Galinski.
GERMAN EXPERTS ON ANTI-SEMITISM VIEW THE "ISRAELIS AS NAZIS" REFLEX AS A FORM OF "SECONDARY ANTI-SEMITISM." Already two decades ago, Israeli psychoanalyst Zvi Rex identified a core element of post-Shoah "secondary anti-Semitism" with his ironic observation that, "The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." In this view, Israel, by serving as a permanent reminder of the Holocaust, evokes guilt and resentment. Some relief is provided by giving a platform to a small and unrepresentative group of anti-Israel Jews. But secondary anti-Semitism is not limited to Germany, and it's astonishing that Lerman neglected to note the connection between it and the disproportionately high levels of anti-Israel sentiment in Europe today. Considering the obvious link between secondary anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments, it seems especially counterproductive to summarily dismiss — as Lerman did — the European Union's "working definition" of anti-Semitism, which describes such manifestations of the phenomenon as "applying double standards [to Israel] by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation" and "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis." Publicizing the "working definition" would advance the understanding of contemporary anti-Semitism. And after giving governments a set of criteria, grounded in the most current research on anti-Semitism, if the "working definition" were to be legally adopted by police and local authorities, human rights violations could be monitored. The nebulous subject of what "really" constitutes anti-Semitism could be discussed in more detached, objective terms. Most Germans remain mired in an obsolete conception of anti-Semitism that encompasses the Nazis' view of Jews as money-grubbing or as scheming and sub-human. Sensitivity to, and awareness of, more contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism are sorely lacking. One example is the case of Prof. Arnd Kruger, a sports historian at the University of Gottingen, who has argued that the 11 Israelis who were killed at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich essentially committed suicide "for the cause of Israel." According to Kruger, the athletes allowed themselves to be murdered by the Black September Palestinian terrorists, so as to prolong financial restitution from Germany, and to preserve Holocaust guilt among Germans. Kruger based his martyr theory on "a different perception of the human body" in Israel, supposedly reflected in a high rate of abortion there, adding that "Israel tries to prevent living with disabilities at all costs." Kruger's statements meet the standard of anti-Semitism as defined by the EU "working definition," yet two weeks ago a University of Gottingen commission rejected charges of academic misconduct against Kruger and absolved him of anti-Semitism. Other than that, there's been almost no public outcry at his outrageous suggestions. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of Kruger-style cases in Germany, and the juncture of anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic views is the hallmark of contemporary anti-Semitism. And whether it is non-Jews or a fringe group of anti-Zionist Jews who meet the criteria of the EU "working definition" of anti-Semitism, we should energetically raise our voices to counter the nonsense parading as criticism of Israel. Contact Sacha Stawski at sstawski@honestly-concerned.org |
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HOW ISRAEL CAUSED THE OSLO ACCORDS TO FAIL
Posted by UCI, September 19, 2008. |
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This was written by Israel Harel and it appeared today in
Haaretz
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Politicians like to glorify events in which they starred. And even more so the extroverted people who cooked up the Oslo Accords exactly 15 years ago. But Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin and their partners from the academic world and media have chosen to remain silent in recent days, or to make vague statements that even they themselves don't seem to believe about the Oslo Accords remaining the only outline for peace. Even they, the wizards of propaganda, cannot explain, beyond the spin of the "only outline," how an initiative that ignited a war of terror that killed thousands of Jews and Arabs, turned Hamas into the main force in the Palestinian community and brought nationalistic fervor in the Israeli Palestinian community to new heights, is the "only outline for peace." After all, the truth is just the opposite: The "outline" gave rise to despair among both Jews and Arabs of the possibility of ever living in peace in this country, even within the Green Line. The Oslo Accords were doomed from the start, for one because the enthusiastic Israeli negotiators accepted the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize — and today, as it says in their "vision papers," even Israeli Arabs refuse to recognize — the State of Israel as a Jewish state and the national homeland of the Jewish people. But the impatient improvisers, who made light of the national ambitions of the Arabs and deluded themselves and us that this recognition, as Peres said, is not important, ignored the depth of the Arabs' nationalistic feelings while allowing them to waive their commitment to end the violence. These concessions, in effect, caused the failure of the process already at the start. The Palestinians concluded that if Israel did not insist on the main principle — recognition of the state and an end to the violence — there was almost no limit to the concessions they could achieve. And when Rabin and Peres declared that "we will continue with the negotiations as though there were no terror," Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat was convinced once and for all that permission was granted because the Jews had no red lines. Rabin and Peres were not the initiators, but when they adopted the outline — and the Nobel Peace Prize — they should have behaved like statesmen: They should have examined the incidents of Palestinian erosion of the agreement with a magnifying glass and refused to concede an inch to them. But they were both blinded by the wealth of compliments, honors, publications and prizes and gave in to Arafat on the "petty issues," including his personal responsibility for the terror. (When the intelligence people brought incontrovertible proof of his direct involvement in terror, they were reprimanded by the decision makers, especially Peres.) By making this concession, in other words by agreeing to negotiate while suicide bombers were blowing themselves up in buses and wedding halls, the decision makers caused the failure of the outline that they themselves had led. But it was not only the minuscule chance for peace that they sabotaged. At the same time they brought about processes of division and atomization in Israeli society whose results are hard to exaggerate. A statesman, as opposed to a politician who is eager for immediate achievements, understands that decisions that are far-reaching in their historic consequences must be made with broad national consensus. The Oslo outline included giving up parts of the homeland for which the Jewish people have longed for generations, as well as settlement sites that were established with blood. The majority of public opinion rejected these concessions, and the architects of Oslo did not have a majority in the Knesset. And then a bribe was offered to Shas and to two deserters from the Tzomet party, Gonen Segev and Alex Goldfarb. And the decision regarding the historic concessions passed with a majority of a single vote — a bought vote. There is no question about it: It was a tragic mistake that caused tragic results. The communities that felt deceived and betrayed have yet to recover from it. Moreover, the decision to implement an additional withdrawal, from Gush Katif, was also made deceptively. Then-prime minister Ariel Sharon promised to honor the referendum of the registered Likud voters, and when he lost he denied his promise and led the uprooting from Gush Katif that, exactly like the Oslo Accords concessions, strengthened the Palestinians' motivation to continue the terror even more forcefully, and at the same time reinforced the internal split in Israel. As long as the architects of the Oslo Accords and their successors are in power, or in positions of influence in the media and other centers of influence, there is no chance that a genuine peace process will take place. Following are the conclusions of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) from the many discussions that he conducts with these officials: "Both Jerusalem and the right of return," said the moderate partner to the president of the State of Israel, "are Palestinian rights." Here, after 15 years of concessions, withdrawals and restraint, this is the outcome. 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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FIND REMAINS OF ANCIENT JERUSALEM WALL; JERUSALEM ON THE BLOCK; OLMERT MOVING AGAINST JUDEA-SAMARIA
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 18, 2008. |
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EFFECT OF RELEASING TERRORISTS The Muslim Arabs celebrate and lionize released terrorists. They conclude that Israel must be weak, for why else would it release such enemies? They consider the releases precedents for releasing all the convicted terrorists. Terrorists are encouraged to believe that if captured, they will be released. The source quotes many statements in the P.A. media to buttress that summary (IMRA, 9/2). Far from building goodwill, as PM Olmert asserts when he issues releases, he is building P.A. war spirit. Olmert boosts terrorist morale. FIND REMAINS OF ANCIENT JERUSALEM WALL Most of the Old City was destroyed in 70 C.E.. A section of the southern wall of ancient Jerusalem was found preserved and as described by Josephus. The Byzantines unwittingly built their own wall over the southern wall. The findings indicate Jewish and Christian pilgrimages to the Old City (IMRA, 9/3). Earlier news briefs reminded us that years ago, the Muslim Waqf in Jerusalem acknowledged that there was a Jewish Temple on the Mount in ancient times. Now, as part of an attempt to usurp the legitimate Jewish claim to the country, the Muslim Arabs deny that there was a Jewish Temple on the Mount or that there was a Jewish country there. Evidence of that country keeps getting found, despite the present Waqf's destruction of ancient Jewish artifacts that it finds on the Mount during its illegal excavation. ILLEGAL EU AID TO P.A. Hamas is listed by the EU as a terrorist organization. Hamas runs Gaza. Therefore, subsidy from the EU to the P.A. assists terrorism, said an EU legislator. That is illegal. [Actually, Hamas runs only Gaza, but Abbas sends funds into Gaza, and that does help Hamas. Abbas and his Fatah are just as terrorist as Hamas, but the EU pretends otherwise, so it can work against Israel.] The EU tries to skirt the prohibition of aid to terrorists by routing the money via NGOs, but the effect is the same. The EU wants to send another $80 million, after having sent $500 million already, this year (Arutz-7, 9/3). The NGOs turn the money over for the same purposes. One of the purposes of the P.A. is to conquer Israel. The EU pretends not to notice that. The EU would be more useful if it spent funds protecting itself from Russia instead of on removing Israeli protection of it. IT'S NOT THAT I OVERLOOK SOME NEWS My sources report problems among the Arabs that I don't think relevant to the defense of civilization. I report them when they help to understand the Arabs or Islam. Otherwise, I don't want to clog your e-mail. Sometimes Dr. Aaron Lerner explains background that is not, itself, factual proof. I may agree with the explanation, but it is too much a matter of opinion. This is the case with the Attorney-General's decision not to declare the Olmert regime a "transitional one." Such a declaration might hasten an election, in which Olmert's regime is likely to lose. At the very least, it would render Olmert's regime a "caretaker," less legitimately engaged in fateful negotiations. Since the negotiations all involve Israel making territorial concessions to the Arab enemy, which the Attorney-General and his leftist cohorts favor, the Attorney-General stays his hand, especially from prosecuting Olmert. I believe that. Can't prove it. JERUSALEM ON THE BLOCK PM Olmert lacks the legitimacy and mandate [and loyalty or sense], to surrender the Temple Mount or other parts of Jerusalem, central to Zionism [and the legitimacy of a Jewish state]. It is unseemly for a Prime Minister subject to several different indictments, and who has offered to resign that office as soon as a party successor is chosen, to be negotiating to bind Israel permanently [truncate Israel for the benefit of its enemies]. He offers to let various hostile powers participate in the negotiations but keeps out independent sectors of Israel and the Jewish people at large. About his offer to divide Jerusalem, let us address here just the security implication, which he doesn't address. Thousands of Arabs from the part to be given to the P.A. would try to flee to the part Israel keeps. [What does that say about those who would set up an Arab state from which thousands of Arabs would flee?] Arabs in the other part would be within rifle-shot of the Israeli part. What would have been gained? Previously Livni had favored dividing Jerusalem, and her leftist colleagues knew about plans to divide it but kept silent. Now they claim they want to keep it united, but their arguments are weak and without conviction. (IMRA, 9/3). If they disagree with Olmert, they could bring down his government, but they would rather keep their seats than their capital. How corrupt the ruling elite. Olmert kept denying that he would divide Jerusalem. Can't trust his word or judgment. FRANCE & RUSSIA'S NEW ROLES Russia seeks to control Europe's source of energy. It cut off the independent route through Georgia. It is getting other Caucasus pipelines to run through Russia. Now it is buying oil rights in Africa. Fresh from his failure in Georgia-Russia diplomacy, France's Pres. Sarkozy is injecting himself into the Arab-Israel conflict. He is taking Syria out of international isolation. He is relieving pressure on Syria over its subversion of Lebanon. He proclaims that peace there depends on Syria and France. You see, he is posturing about France. For Syrian praise, he'll sacrifice Israel (IMRA, 9/4 and other times). Sarkozy is no better than his predecessors, just more flamboyant. OLMERT REGIME ALREADY DIVIDING JERUSALEM Some Jews set up residency and planted trees on an agricultural tract in Jerusalem, owned by a Jew. [Don't know if this is with his permission.] It is in a sector that the government apparently would like to cede to the Arabs. Police came and expelled the Jews. They also uprooted the trees. However, they left untouched an Arab squatter (Arutz-7, 9/4). The news brief describes the government policy as making parts of Jerusalem "Judenrein." I put it that the regime already is dividing Jerusalem. You see, this is not an isolated incident. Government discrimination against Jewish land owners fits a pattern. This is arbitrary deprivation of property and national rights without justification. That is how a police state operates. Outside of Israel, the assumption in Congress is that the government of Israel is a government for Israel. My fellow Jews have no idea that Israel probably has the most antisemitic government other than Muslim governments. OLMERT TO MAKE SAME MISTAKE IN JUDEA-SAMARIA He is taking early steps to cede most of Judea-Samaria. First he is bringing it up in the Cabinet. He is using the same language in his announcement as in the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza. The same politicians as before are expressing outrage against it, though they are keeping the government, and their positions in it, intact, so that the juggernaut rolls on (Arutz-7, 9/4). One difference is that PM Sharon, who started the expulsion from Gaza, had won an election, but Olmert, who did not, is widely detested for incompetence and corruption, if not for treason. Another difference is that Gaza became terrorist! 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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MCCAIN CAMP RESPONDS TO PALIN "UN-INVITE"
Posted by Yid with Lid, September 18, 2008. |
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The word is that the organizers of the Rally faced some pretty hard pressure from the Obama Camp. The DNC made some crystal clear phone calls to the event organizers saying that they are taking names and will kick ass on this one. If Obama wins, there will be retribution for anyone (or organization) that does not tow the line and get Palin thrown off the invite list. The McCain/Palin is polling very well in the Jewish community, and the DNC is petrified of the imagery of Sarah Barracuda hurling fireballs at the Persian maniac. That image is absolute red meat for the lovers of America and Israel and attract new voters. Ladies and Gentlemen this is the real face of the Democratic Party. This is how they REALLY feel about bi-partisanship. If they truly gave a rats ass about Israel and the Iranian threats they would be happy to have as many big shots as possible beating up on the Iranian nutjob. Shame on the organizing groups for giving in. At the bottom of this post is their information. If you haven't done so yet, PLEASE call or email. McCain response to the "Un-invite" follows: The McCain camp has issued a statement in the candidate's name: Throughout my political career, I have sought to rise above partisanship on critical national issues. Nowhere is this more true than on important matters of national security. Earlier this year, Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and I issued a joint statement on the genocide in Darfur and pledged to support efforts to bring it to an end. Earlier this month, Senator Obama and I put the campaign aside to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our country and talk about the importance of national service. DON'T LET THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY INFRINGE ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH. IF THEY CARED ABOUT ISRAEL/IRAN HILLARY WOULD NOT HAVE BACKED OUT. Below are some of the contact info for some of the events sponsors, Please call, email etc. demand that they do not pull Governor Palin from the speakers list: Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
The Israel Project
United Jewish Communities info@ujc.org
UJA of NY Events
The website is at http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/ |
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PALIN DISINVITED FROM IRAN RALLY. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS
Posted by Ted Belman, September 18, 2008. |
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This is called "'Jewish' Democrats Seek to Sabotage Anti-Iran Rally to Help Obama" and was written by Bill Levinson. |
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We thought it was impossible for the National "Jewish" Democratic Council to sink any lower in terms of depravity and pure opportunism. Its effort to disrupt the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations' Rally to Stop Iran to embarrass Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin hardly surprises us, though. In addition, the National "Jewish" Democratic Council misrepresents Hillary Clinton's reasons for not attending the rally with Palin. We sent an E-mail to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and we called the organization as well, to make sure it knows the real nature of the organization with which it is dealing. NJDC Calls for Withdrawal of Palin Invitation to Iran Rally As with most pronouncements by the National "Jewish" Democratic Council, the above is misleading at best. Hillary Clinton did not withdraw because she thought the event was partisan, or because she did not want to appear with Palin. She was unhappy, and perhaps justifiably so, that the organizers did not tell her that Palin also was going to attend. Clinton backed out of a protest scheduled for Monday in New York against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attendance at the opening of the UN General Assembly after learning that organizers also invited the Republican vice presidential nominee without informing her. The NJDC has never let honor, decency, or the truth get in its way before, so its demand here is hardly surprising. In fact, the very wording of its own blog entry shows that its real problem is with Sarah Palin's presence: "we applaud Senator Hillary Clinton's decision to not attend the rally after the attendance of Palin was announced." In other words, NJDC would not have had a problem with Hillary Clinton's attendance because she is a prominent Democrat. It has a problem with Sarah Palin's presence because she is a Republican. Then, after demonstrating its own partisanship, NJDC has the chutzpah to proclaim, "Unfortunately, the campaign of Senator John McCain is much more interested in scoring political points than insuring there is bipartisan solidarity around the anti-Ahmadinejad efforts." We remind our readers that the National "Jewish" Democratic Council is without honor. Some time ago, Ira Forman allowed himself to make the following noises at NJDC's blog: It is time all of us — organizations and individuals — take the responsibility for outing and yes, even shaming, the purveyors of sinat chinam in our community — to protect our values and to protect our community's genuine political interests. We immediately stepped forward and identified ourselves as a leader of the efforts to expose Barack Obama for "cavorting with anti-Semites" (Forman's own words) and challenged NJDC to a point/counterpoint debate. Like a blowhard who proclaims he can lick any man in the bar, and then slinks out the back door when one actually stands up, NJDC made itself scarce when we invited it to put up or stand down. As stated by James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, Your tongue is loud in the village, but in battle it is still. None of my young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post — none of them so lightly on the Yengeese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they have never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called on you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. In any event, we are still waiting for the NJDC to "out and shame us" for educating our readers about Obama's open association with anti-Semites and racists of the worst kind. As stated by one of our favorite role models, Take a trumpet, herald; It is past time for NJDC to take its blatantly partisan opportunism and get off the Internet. For the record, we have sent the following E-mail to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and we signed our name and provided our phone number. Please ignore the National "Jewish" Democratic Council's request to disinvite Palin to your rally. The National "Jewish" Democratic Council demands that you revoke your invitation to Sarah Palin for your Rally Against Iran. This organization has a long track record of misusing its nominally Jewish identity to mislead Jewish voters, and to damage Jewish-Christian relations. Examples include: (1) Its whitewash of the anti-Semitic hate speech that MoveOn.org hosted on its now-disgraced Action Forum (2006) We do not, by the way, agree with the theology behind "Left
Behind: Eternal Forces" but this is not an excuse to smear the game
by proclaiming that it rewards players for killing people who won't
convert to Christianity. We downloaded the trial version ourselves,
and the idea is to use missionaries to convert neutral people (you
aren't allowed to kill them!) while using Christian music to turn
evildoers neutral. Violence may be used only against the Antichrist's
armed minions, with Christian music being preferred to violence. (See
The NJDC does not care how many people you alienate by revoking your invitation to Sarah Palin, and it does not care about your organization's reputation, success, or well-being. All it cares about is its own agenda. I have posted this E-mail to several blogs, along with an overview of the NJDC's unsavory history. Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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CHRISTIANS DEMAND UN INDICT AHMADINEJAD OVER THREATS TO ISRAEL
Posted by Marc Samberg, September 18, 2008. |
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This was written by Israel Today Staff. It is archived at
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A petition signed by 55,000 Christians from 128 nations demanding the arrest and indictment of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week, reported The Jerusalem Post. The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ) wrote and circulated the petition in response to the UN's ongoing failure to not only curb Iran's nuclear program, but to punish Ahmadinejad over his "hostile campaign of public incitement to genocide" against the Jewish state. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stated his desire to see Israel eliminated. ICEJ Executive Director Malcom Hedding likened the Iranian leader's views to those of Adolf Hitler, and suggested that the UN today is responding to that threat with the same impotence displayed by the international community prior to World War II. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly in New York City next week. Contact Marc Samberg at marcsamberg@yahoo.com |
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IRAN'S ROLE IN 9/11 EXPOSED
Posted by Kenneth Timmerman, September 18, 2008. |
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American investigative journalist Kenneth Timmerman this week exposed what the US government admitted four years ago, but has since tried to keep quiet: that Iran likely played a major role in the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States. Timmerman, one of the editors of the popular NewsMax website, told Israel National Radio's Tovia Singer that the 9/11 Commission Report issued in 2004 acknowledged that all the evidence points to Iran being "deeply, directly and materially involved" in the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. For instance, the commission determined that 8 to 10 of the terrorists who carried out the attacks "traveled in or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001." The movement of these operatives was seen as evidence of Iran facilitating the "transit of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11." Another astonishing revelation by the commission was that Hizballah's second in command, Imad Mughniyah, who has since been assassinated, accompanied the 9/11 hijackers as they moved around the Middle East. Hizballah is a Lebanese proxy force almost wholly controlled by Tehran. Despite the overwhelming evidence, the 9/11 Commission Report concluded without indicting Iran. Timmerman believes the American public has been largely kept in the
NewsMax journalist Kenneth Timmerman is turning over all the right rocks and asking all the right questions. Sooner or later, someone is going to find answers to questions which Obama appears to have been avoiding for years. |
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ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY: OBAMA'S RETREAD FOREIGN-POLICY TEAM
Posted by Family Security Matter, September 18, 2008. |
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This was written by Joel Himelfarb. Himelfarb is an editorial writer for The Washington Times. |
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It is difficult to look at the people advising Barack Obama on foreign policy and not be worried. Obama, who has served less than four years in the Senate, has been getting advice from an informal group of close to 300 people, a large number of whom are former Clinton Administration and Carter Administration officials and advisors to former Democratic senators like Edward Kennedy and Tom Daschle. In the wake of Obama's victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democrat primaries, some of Mrs. Clinton's top foreign policy advisers like former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher have joined Obama's team. But in trying to figure out who would be influential on foreign policy in the administration of a President Obama, you have to start with Vice President Joe Biden, who currently serves as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. To be sure, Biden has done some admirable things during his Senate tenure, which include pushing for a tougher American response to the gangsterism of Serbian ruler Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and he has fought to ensure that American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are better protected against roadside bombs. But for the most part, during his 35 years in the Senate, Biden has been on the wrong side of history. Biden, elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29, was part of the anti-war liberal cabal who joined Sen. George McGovern in working to cut off U.S. aid to South Vietnam, paving the way for a humanitarian disaster and geopolitical catastrophe for the United States. South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos falling to communist forces in 1975 marked the first time that the United States had ever lost a war. That defeat was followed by Cambodian genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge in which several million people died, and by the ascendancy of communist dictatorships in Vietnam and Cambodia. Later during the 1970s, Biden worked closely with President Carter in the unsuccessful political campaign to get the SALT II arms-control treaty with the Soviet Union through the Democrat Senate. During the 1980s, Biden fought against President Reagan's efforts to give aid to Nicaraguan resistance forces seeking to overthrow the Sandiinista dictatorship there, and the Delaware Democrat was a reliable against much of the Reagan defense buildup that helped bring about the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1991, Biden fought unsuccessfully against the Senate resolution authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army from Kuwait. Eleven years later, Biden voted in favor of using force to disarm Saddam's regime. But, ever since the Iraq war began five and a half years ago, Biden has been relentless in heaping scorn on the war effort. In recent years, he has opposed the very successful U.S. troop surge pushed by Sen. John McCain that is routing al Qaeda in Iraq. Obama backers like The New Republic's Marty Peretz point out that Biden has long been a strong rhetorical supporter of Israel and sometime critic of the Iranian government, but they are not so interested in discussing his record as an apologist for the mullahcracy in Iran: Biden opposes U.S. military action against the regime, and groups like the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran consider him hostile to their efforts to encourage Iranians to overthrow the clerical dictatorship and replace it with a democracy. Israeli journalist Caroline Glick points out that in 1998 Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, a bill punishing foreign companies and other entities that sent Iran sensitive missile technology or expertise. In February 2005, Biden said in a speech to the global Davos Conference that Iran's quest for nuclear capabilities is understandable and called on the United States to address Iran's "emotional needs" by signing a non-aggression pact with Tehran. On September 26, 2007, the Senate voted 76-22 in favor of an bipartisan amendment introduced by Sens. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, and Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Independent Democrat, to impose sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, an organization which is in the forefront of sponsoring terrorism and violence — including the maiming and killing of American troops in Iraq. Biden was on the losing side of that vote, while Oba m a, who was absent, denounced the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and attacked Mrs. Clinton for voting in favor. Aside from Biden, there are plenty of others on Team Obama who should be raising red flags. One is Gregory Craig, a senior foreign policy aide to Sen. Kennedy during the 1980s. Craig, a partner at the Washington-based Williams & Connolly law firm, served as State Department director of policy planning under Albright and President Clinton. Craig is a harsh critic of President Bush's Latin American policies, sometimes accusing Bush of "ignoring" Latin America, while at other times complaining that Bush has been "taking sides" in Latin American elections (usually against Leftists sympathetic to Fidel Castro or Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.) Gregory Craig played a critical role in returning young Elian Gonzalez to Fidel's gulag back in 2000; Craig was the lawyer representing Elian's father in his successful effort to force the child back to Cuba. Craig also served as President Clinton's lawyer during h is impeachment trial and represented UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan during the investigation of the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. Anthony Lake, another top aide to Obama, previously worked for Presidents Carter and Clinton. While serving as national security advisor under Clinton in 1995, Mr. Lake became somewhat paranoid about the possibility that the CIA might attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein. So, after Bob Baer, one of the CIA's top covert operatives returned from a mission to Iraq, Lake got the FBI to launch an investigation of whether Baer had violated the legal prohibition against assassinating foreign leaders based on intelligence that had come from the Iranian government. After investigating Baer for more than one year, the Justice Department announced it would not press charges. But the damage was done; Baer had to spend time defending himself against the possibility of prosecution under a federal murder-for-hire statute instead of helping Iraqis who were attempting to overthrow Saddam. Baer left the agency shortly afterward. Lake has acknowledged that the Clinton Administration was slow to respond to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and expressed regret for his own role on Rwanda. In recent years, Lake, along with Susan Rice, another top Obama foreign-policy aide, has taken to urging the United States to intervene in the Sudanese region of Darfur — with or without UN approval — even as both Obama advisors blast President Bush over every aspect of the war in Iraq. Rice is a Brookings Institution scholar who has been one of the most high-profile Obama television talking-head surrogates. It is testimony to the media's pro-Obama bias that Rice seems to be getting a free pass over her own record as assistant secretary of state overseeing African affairs during the Clinton Administration. In his book Losing bin Laden, journalist Richard Miniter made the case that the Clinton Administration, and Rice in particular, ignored overtures by the Sudanese government during the 1990s to betray bin Laden and help the United States. While I'm not completely certain about Miniter's thesis, I have no doubt that if anyone had made such a charge about an aide to a prominent Republican politician, the subject would never go away. Rice and Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism chief, have worked as a tag team during Obama campaign conference calls. Rice said last month that, by criticizing Obama's calls for withdrawal from Iraq, McCain was demonstrating "the height of hypocrisy" because "McCain has a long track record of supporting a reckless and extreme foreign policy." Clarke (who sounds like he stopped following the war in Iraq right after the 2006 elections in this country), said McCain advocated policies that "failed" in Iraq. What about the idea that Saddam Hussein's systematic violations of UN Security Council Resolutions and brutality toward his own people were primarily responsible for the second Iraq war? Clarke instead put the emphasis for the war on "extreme, neo-conservative advisors" to Bush who were spoiling for a fight with Saddam. Regarding Middle East policy, Obama's advisers are an odd mix of people. They include President Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who makes no secret of his disdain for Israel and his belief that the United States needs to engage the mullahs in Iran. Former Clinton NSC official Robert Malley (who argues that the United States and Israel, not Yasser Arafat, were primarily to blame for the failure of the Camp David negotiations in 2000) was forced out after meeting with a representative of the terrorist group Hamas in the spring. Malley's ouster occurred just weeks after a Hamas representative praised Obama in an interview with WABC radio in New York. Supporters of Israel also have reason to be wary of Albright, who blamed Israel for the erosion of the anti-Saddam alliance in 1998. But even the relatively pro-Israel members of Team Obama should give pause to clearheaded voters. Obama has been endorsed by Aaron David Miller and Daniel Kurtzer — part of the George H.W.Bush/ Bill Clinton State Department peace-process team. And Dennis Ross, who worked closely with Kurtzer and Miller during that period, is part of Obama's Mideast advisory team. All three of them are honorable people, but their most significant public-policy contributions were as members of Clinton's Oslo peace-process crew. But Oslo, despite the best intentions of its advocates ended in disaster in the fall of 2000 when Arafat made a strategic decision to go to war. In his memoir about Oslo, The Missing Piece, Ross writes with evident pride about how, working with Albright, he managed to pry Israeli territorial concessions to Arafat out of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during 1998-99. I pray that I a m wrong, but Ross's book may provide a preview of Obama's approach to the Mideast — pocketing concessions out of a democratic ally while giving short shrift to the looming Jihadist danger. Contact Family Security Matter (FSM) by email at info@familysecuritymatters.org. |
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EGYPTIAN GEOLOGIST-CLERIC: OLD, NEW TESTAMENTS ARE FORGERIES
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 18, 2008. |
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Al-Jazeera's double standards regarding religion are reprehensible; not to mention the quality of "experts" they foster. This is Special Dispatch Series — No. 2055
September 18, 2008 No. 2055
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Internationally Recognized Egyptian Geologist/Cleric Zaghloul Al-Naggar on Al-Jazeera: Old, New Testaments Are Forgeries In an interview with Al-Jazeera TV, prominent Egyptian geologist and cleric Dr. Zaghloul Ragheb Al-Naggar called Egypt's ruling party "illegal and unconstitutional," and said that the Old and New Testaments were "forgeries" and that "the things the Old Testament says about the creation of Man are completely wrong." Dr. Al-Naggar, who holds a Ph.D. in geology from Wales University, U.K., is a member of the Geological Society of London, the Geological Society of Egypt, and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has lectured at universities in the West, including the University of Wales, as well as at universities in Arab countries. In 1977-78, he was a visiting lecturer at the University of California. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Bridges Foundation, which states on its website, http://www.bridgesfoundation, that its vision is to "... train Muslims on becoming public speakers and presenters of how to present Islam as a culture and way of life to their fellow non-Muslims." He is also chairman of the Committee on Scientific Notions in the Glorious Koran and Purity Sunnah Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Cairo and a fellow of the Islamic Academy of Sciences. According to the English section of Dr. Al-Naggar's website (www.elnaggarzr.com ), the website's aim is, inter alia, to "invite non-Muslims to think of the Scientific Facts which came in The Glorious Koran and the Pure Prophetic Sunnah [one] thousand and four hundred years [ago that] science is still discovering," "to respond to the directed suspicions [of] Islam & Muslims," and "to [make] know[n] Dr. Zaghloul Al-Naggar [to] the West and informing them [of] his science & neutralism." Following are excerpts from the Al-Jazeera interview with Dr. Al-Naggar, which aired August 9, 2008, as well as a response to his statements which aired on Al-Hayat TV on August 28, 2008. To view this clip, go to http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1849.htm. Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "I absolutely believe that the ruling party in Egypt is illegal and unconstitutional. Sadat, may he rest in peace, imposed this regime on the nation by force, and [Mubarak] has inherited this regime from him. "In general, political parties grow from the bottom to the top, not vice versa. This party is unconstitutional and illegal, and it rules by force. The ministers, under-secretaries, governors, and all the state officials were made members of this party against their will. I know members of this party who are not loyal to it in any way. I know many such people, not just one. [...]" "I Say to the People of the Book [i.e. Christians and Jews]: The Books You Have Today Are Forgeries" "Allah, who sent down the writings of Abraham, the Torah, the Book of Psalms, the Gospel, and the Koran, did not send down a book called the Old Testament or the New Testament. These are man-made books about the old revelation, but they do not constitute the revelation itself. It has been historically proven that the Torah of Moses was completely lost. The first five books of the Old Testament, which people today refer to as the Torah, were written more than eight centuries after the time of Moses. [...] "I say to the People of the Book [i.e. Christians and Jews]: The books you have today are forgeries. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the original revelation. Seek the original revelation in order to be guided to the right path. This is the best advice I can give them, because faith is not a trivial thing in the life of a human being. This faith determines the life of eternity in the world to come — whether eternal life in Paradise or in Hell. This is not trivial." Interviewer: "It sounds as if you are accusing the other of heresy." Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "I'm not. All I'm saying is that these religions have turned into idolatry and heresy, as has been the case throughout human history. "If you examine human history from Adam through the Prophet Muhammad, to this day, and until Judgment Day, what you will always find is monotheism followed by polytheism, belief followed by heresy. This has been the case throughout human history. "In the epistles of the New Testament, one of the apostles wrote a letter to his friend: 'My friend Theopolis, I went to Jerusalem, I bought two kilos of oranges, I had lunch with so-and-so, I had dinner with so-and-so, I met so-and-so, who sends his regards. What's up? Give my best to your aunt, your niece, and your sister.' Can this be called divine revelation?! This is folklore, not divine revelation. Divine revelation consists of divine injunctions and prohibitions, and does not include such things. [...] "The things the Old Testament says about the creation of Man are completely wrong." Interviewer: "For example?" Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "It says there that Allah said: 'Let us create Man in our image.' This has corrupted people's concept of God. No creature can be in the image of its Creator." Response on Al-Hayat TV: Al-Jazeera "Has Double Standards... When Islam Was Criticized on a Live Show, [It] Apologized To Its Muslim Viewers" Presenter: "I call upon all Christians to join the protest against Al-Jazeera TV, which has double standards with regard to religions. When Islam was criticized on a live show, Al-Jazeera issued an apology to its Muslim viewers. This apology was public, even though the criticism was on a live show. At the same time, on a recorded program, they show — with full intent — a man maligning the Holy Book. Why? Because the Christians do not lift a finger." [...] "Sheikh Samuel": "Dr. Zaghloul, please tell us from where you quoted what we heard on Al-Jazeera. In all 66 parts of the Holy Book, there is not a single word of what you said. Please write or go back on Al-Jazeera, and tell us where in the Holy Book there is a letter that says that they went to Jerusalem, bought a kilo of oranges, and visited your aunts, and so on. What you said is shameful." [...] "If a Christian Said Similar Things [About Islam], The Next Day He Would Be Led to the Slaughterhouse" "Brother Wahid": "In Egypt, there is a law with regard to equality between people, so why isn't Dr. Zaghloul placed on trial[?]..." Interviewer: "There is the law that forbids maligning religions." "Brother Wahid": "It is part of the penal code, so why isn't he punished? If a Christian said similar things [about Islam], the next day he would be led to the slaughterhouse." Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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NEW HIKING TRAIL AND WADI IN HONOR OF JONATHAN POLLARD
Posted by Justice For Jonathan Pollard, September 18, 2008. | ||
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J4JP received the letter below from Kochav Yaakov announcing the clearing of a new hiking trail and naming of a wadi in honor of Jonathan Pollard. The hiking trail and wadi project was initiated and executed by the youth of Koach Yaakov, "as a means of letting [Esther and Jonathan Pollard] know how much they are appreciated by us and how he serves as an example of doing what is right regardless of the personal costs entailed." | ||
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Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com |
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GOOGLE EARTH RESPONDS TO FALSE DATA; SELECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT; ISRAEL: NO STRATEGY AGAINST HAMAS COLLABORATORS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 17, 2008. |
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P.A. RAIDS NEAR HEBRON P.A. police raided drug and other criminal facilities near Hebron. They found weapons and incriminating documents allegedly supporting Hamas (IMRA, 8/30). The P.A. police know how to catch criminals. All the more glaring then is their lack of action against terrorists. Why don't the State Dept. and Israel acknowledge that Abbas' P.A. is not anti-terrorist? They don't, because Abbas is dedicated to destroying Israel by any means, including diplomacy. The State Dept. backs him. In this era of a free media, most Americans have no inkling! CHILD WARFARE COMES TO P.A. Hamas is training 11-year-olds to kill Jewish children. They rationalize that Israel kills Arab children, and Israel trains for war, so why shouldn't Hamas train Arab children to defend themselves by making the parents of Israeli children pay for attacking Gaza (Arutz-7, 8/31)? In Africa, rebels recruit children, too. To hear Gazan's false rationalizations about it, is saddening. Their logic is poor. Israel doesn't attack children, but terrorists endanger children by fighting near them and by using them as lookouts to retrieve rocket launchers. Arab factional violence and accidental explosions kill more Arab children than does Israeli action. Anger at IDF troops and defense against their counter-attacks does not justify attacking their children. The problem is due to Arab aggression, but of course, Hamas doesn't tell them that. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ISRAELI PARTIES Former Israeli police chief Hefetz is joining Likud and hoping to run for Knesset. He said the differences between the major parties are minor (IMRA, 8/30). That just what Barry Chamish has found. The parties don't have strong ideological differences. If one is bad, so are the others. GOOGLE EARTH RESPONDS TO FALSITY OF DATA Google Earth [like Wikipedia, one of its sources], allows readers to post facts about geography and history onto its site. Some Arabs took unfair advantage of that, by posting false, anti-Zionist data as if factual. People complained. In response, Google Earth now routes reader-submitted data to its staff for evaluation (IMRA, 8/31). Let's see how they evaluate false submissions. SELECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT IN ISRAEL Israeli police refuse to follow a court order to evict Arab squatters from a Jerusalem building. Police claim they lack the troops to put down any resulting Arab riot. They made the same claim when they stopped some Jews from taking possession of a property in northern Jerusalem. MK Eldad noted that when the police want to dispossess Jews from property, they assemble a large enough force (Arutz-7, 8/30). HALF THE FOREIGN DOMESTICS WANT TO QUIT S. ARABIA 45% of foreign servants in S. Arabia want to return home. Inflation did it, not non-payment of wages, physical abuse, and extensive rape? (IMRA, 8/31). P.A. CENSUS The P.A. conducted another census of the P.A. population in Judea-Samaria. It claimed an increase from 1,873,000 in 1997 to 2,350,000 in 2007. It found the annual increase at 2.6%, a lower fertility rate, fewer people per household, and a lesser percentage of young people (IMRA, 9/1). The last P.A. census miscalculated or lied, boosting Arab claims to the land. In the past decade, tens or hundreds of thousands of Arabs left Judea-Samaria. SOMALI PIRACY GROWING They seized 30 ships, so far, this year (IMRA, 9/1). UNIFIL SNARE Ghajar straddles the border between Lebanon and Israel. Although the ceasefire Resolution requires Israeli withdrawal from the Lebanese half, Israel refused, because the village was a center of infiltration into Israel. UNIFIL offered to assume security patrolling there, if Israeli forces withdrew. In dispute is whether Israel accepted the offer. (IMRA, 9/1). I think that after a short while, UNIFIL would withdraw from Ghajar, too, in favor of the Lebanese Army. It would pretend that the Lebanese Army is neutral. The Lebanese Army, however, thwarts the purpose of the ceasefire, by collaborating with Hizbullah so UNIFIL doesn't find its border arms caches. Much diplomacy follows such pretense, as an excuse for doing the wrong thing. OLMERT CHIDES ABBAS FOR MEETING BABY-KILLER Abbas held a private meeting with released baby-killer Kuntar. PM Olmert chided Abbas for doing so. Abbas gave as an excuse that the meeting was not planned. Olmert said it didn't matter, a person ostensibly anti-terrorist does not meet with a despicable terrorist (IMRA, 9/2). Yes, it was a poor excuse. Olmert won't figure out that Abbas is a terrorist. If he did, he couldn't capitulate to him and he'd have nothing to offer the leftist prosecutors to stay their hand. IRAN INVESTS IN IRAQ Although Iran is anti-American, and it wants to control Iraq, it also sees Iraq as a big market for its products. About 500 Iranian companies do business in Iraq. Those companies' trade boosts Iraqi independence (IMRA, 9/2) of Iran. ANOTHER LESSON OF THE GEORGIA-RUSSIA WAR The war started with cyber attacks on Georgian web sites. The attacks seem to have been done by private individuals sympathetic to Russia or by militias. This worries the US, because it signifies vulnerability of advanced Western countries, dependent upon the Internet (IMRA, 9/2). Penalties for hacking should be high. I read an article that lamented the lack of cyber defense in US security planning. ISRAEL: NO STRATEGY AGAINST HAMAS COLLABORATORS Israel court-martials officers aggressively defending the country. It has let EU-financed radical groups become part of the P.A. information war against Israel and commit violence at it. It doesn't challenge their self-designation as humanitarian or pro-peace. It let Egypt control the border with Gaza, and Hamas remain in charge of Gaza, even after the border was used for smuggling arms sufficient to become a strategic threat. The latest weakness is to let a couple of ships run by Hamas collaborators break the blockade of Gaza with humanitarian aid, lest Israel be criticized as inhumane. Israel simply keeps threatening the Muslim Arabs. Israel does not carry through its threats. The Muslim Arabs laugh at Israeli threats. The threats do not deter them. The empty threats embolden them. The threats, however, seem to impress Israeli voters. Kadima leaders vying to take over from Olmert criticize his bluffs and territorial capitulations, though they supported them all along. Kadim is doing relatively well in the polls (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 9/2), despite acting as if it has a mandate to get Israel destroyed.
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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BYE BYE, BRITAIN
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 17, 2008. |
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This comes from the Joshua Pundit website
and is archived at
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It's time we said good bye to Britain. They're officially on the road to become part of the new Caliphate, and to leave both the West and their special relationship with America behind. According to The Sunday Times (UK) Britain has officially granted jurisdiction in Muslim civil cases to sharia courts: ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. One of the glories of British civilization was the rule of English common law and the fact that it was applied equally to all British subjects, at least most of the time. No more, Bubba. Now,Brits who happen to be Muslim — particularly uppity women — will be subjected to the tender mercies of a code originated by a bunch of 7th century brigands...like it or not. There are already Muslim 'no go' areas in many British cities, and those enclaves are now to be governed by sharia rule. Look for this trend towards Islamist autonomy to continue in Britain,until they finally take over the entire country...or provoke a civil war trying. I have to admit, I'm puzzled by this. It's one thing to be conquered forcibly, but it's quite another to cheerfully lay down for it and commit cultural suicide. I'll plead guilty to having some ambivalent feelings towards Britain. Call it a tribal thing based on history, kind of like the Irish. But I still remember that this was the country who built an empire that the sun never set on, who imported western civilization to half the world, who stood up to Hitler alone and produced Drake,Wellington, Churchill and Thatcher. Whatever happened to that Great Britain? Nowadays, it seems like what's left is a bunch of whinging cowards who've dismantled their fleets, can't be relied on as an ally when things get tough and apparently can't wait to be shut of that 'special relationship' with the US. It's not even like I've written them off so much as they've written themselves of, whimpering as they go. So long, cousins. I can see the end from here and unless things
change radically,it ain't pretty.
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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OLMERT APPROVES DESECRATION OF TEMPLE MOUNT
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 17, 2008. |
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This is called "Israel set to help Muslims carve Quranic verses on Temple Mount" and was written by Aaron Klein. It appeared yesterday in World Net Daily |
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JERUSALEM — After three years of waiting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quietly has granted permission to the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount to repair and enhance Quranic verses plastered around Judaism's holiest site, WND has learned. The approval came as result of the petitioning of the Israeli government by Jordan, which has been solidifying control over the Temple Mount in recent years. There are more than 4,000 Quranic quotations written in Arabic calligraphy and carved into various Islamic buildings throughout the Temple Mount, including inside and outside the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. Six hundred of the carved verses are in poor condition, according to the Waqf, the Mount's Muslim custodians. The Waqf has been asking Israel for permission to repair the Quranic quotation carvings for years now. It even transported to the Israeli port city of Ashdod boxes of European tools and machinery especially made to repair the Temple Mount Quranic verses. The tools have been sitting in Ashdod for three years, according to informed sources. Following Jordanian intervention, Olmert last week gave the Waqf approval to begin fixing the Quranic quotes, the informed sources told WND. Jordan controlled areas of eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, from 1948 until Israel recaptured the site in the 1967 Six Day War. During the period of Jordanian control, Jews were barred from the Western Wall and Temple Mount, and hundreds of synagogues in eastern Jerusalem were destroyed. Jordan constructed a road that stretched across the Mount of Olives, adjacent to the Temple Mount, bulldozing hundreds of Jewish gravestones in the process. Following the Six Day War, one of the first acts of Moshe Dayan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, was to ensure the Jordanian-allied Mufti of Jerusalem, Abd Al Hamid A Saih, the holy site would remain under Islamic custodianship. Dayan later also famously ordered an Israeli flag removed from the Dome of the Rock. Jordan continues to maintain a major influence over the Temple Mount. Sheik Azzam Khateeb, who was installed in February 2007 as the new manager of the Waqf, is known to be close to the Jordanian monarchy. The previous Waqf manager, Sheik Adnon Husseini, was loyal to Palestinian Authority although toward the end of his rein, he seemed to be warming to Jordan. In a gesture to Jordan, in January 2006, Israel granted Jordan permission to replace the main podium in the Al Aqsa Mosque from which Islamic preachers deliver their sermons. The podium, which was partially funded by Saudi Arabia, is considered one of the most important stands in the Muslim world. Muslims now believe it marks the "exact spot" Muhammad went up to heaven to receive revelations from Allah. The new stand bears the emblem of the Jordanian kingdom. It replaced a 1,000-year-old podium believed to have been shipped to Jerusalem by the Islamic conqueror Saladin. That stand was destroyed in 1969, when an Australian tourist set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque. In recent years, Jordan quietly has been purchasing real estate surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in hopes of gaining more control over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials speaking to WND. The officials disclosed the Jordanian kingdom in 2006 and 2007 used shell companies to purchase several apartments and shops located at key peripheral sections of the Temple Mount. The shell companies at times presented themselves as acting on behalf of the Waqf custodians of the Temple Mount, according to information obtained. The officials said Jordan also set up a commission to use the shell companies to petition mostly Arab landowners adjacent to eastern sections of the Temple Mount to sell their properties. They said profits from sales at any purchased shops would be reinvested to buy more real estate near the Mount and in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. The First Jewish Temple was built there by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries. The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's shechina or "presence" dwelt. All Jewish holidays centered on worship at the Temple. The Jewish Temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place for the Jewish people. According to the Talmud, the world was created from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount. The site is believed to be the Biblical Mount Moriah, the location where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. Jewish tradition holds Mashiach, or the Jewish Messiah, will return and rebuild the third and final Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem. The Kotel, or Western Wall, is the one part of the Temple Mount that survived the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans and stands today in Jerusalem. Throughout all notorious Jewish exiles, thorough documentation shows the Jews never gave up their hope of returning to Jerusalem and re-establishing their Temple. To this day Jews worldwide pray facing the Western Wall, while Muslims turn their backs away from the Temple Mount and pray toward Mecca. The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. About 100 years ago, Al Aqsa in Jerusalem became associated with the place Muslims came to believe Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jerusalem, however, is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" — believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia — to "the farthest mosque," and from a rock there ascended to heaven to receive revelations from Allah that became part of the Quran. Palestinians today claim exclusivity over the Temple Mount and Palestinian leaders routinely deny Jewish historic connection to the site, but historically, Muslims did not claim the Al Aqsa Mosque as their third holiest site and admitted the Jewish Temples existed. According to research by Israeli author Shmuel Berkovits, Islam previously disregarded Jerusalem. He points out in his book "How Dreadful Is this Place!" that Muhammad was said to loathe Jerusalem and what it stood for. Berkovits wrote that Muhammad made a point of eliminating pagan sites of worship, and sanctifying only one place — the Kaaba in Mecca — to signify the unity of God. As late as the 14th century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings influenced the Wahhabi movement in Arabia, ruled that sacred Islamic sites are to be found only in the Arabian Peninsula, and that "in Jerusalem, there is not a place one calls sacred, and the same holds true for the tombs of Hebron." It wasn't until the late 19th century — incidentally when Jews started immigrating to Palestine — that some Muslim scholars began claiming Muhammad tied his horse to the Western Wall and associated Muhammad's purported night journey with the Temple Mount. A guide to the Temple Mount by the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem published in 1925 listed the Mount as the site of Solomon's Temple. The Temple Institute acquired a copy of the official 1925 "Guide Book to Al-Haram Al-Sharif," which states on page 4, "Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which 'David built there an altar unto the Lord.'" Previous stories: 2 terror groups now broadcasting live from Temple Mount
Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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LAMENT FOR A LOST ISRAEL
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 17, 2008. |
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This appeared in the Jewish Press
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The day Israel released the baby-murdering Arab terrorist Samir Kuntar was without doubt the most disgraceful in modern Jewish history. Israel paid tribute to the Hizbullah terrorists for murdering Jewish soldiers by freeing Kuntar, much as it had done four years earlier when it let go hundreds of jailed terrorists to buy back the corpses of three murdered Israeli soldiers and one live businessman involved with drug smugglers. The deaths of the murdered soldiers — as well as the deaths that have resulted from the firing of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel — have never been avenged. This most recent exchange was an act of capitulation without precedent. The Arabs have not only always tried to make the point that killing Jewish children and civilians is a legitimate means of warfare, for decades they've attempted to coerce Israel into publicly and officially acquiescing in accepting this definition of Jewish inferiority. They do so by equating murderers of Jewish children with combat soldiers, and demanding that Israel agree to do the same. A terrorist who blows up a bus full of children is as legitimate a combatant as any soldier, the Arabs imply, because the terrorist's civilian victims were Jews and thus do not count as human. Therefore, a terrorist should not be regarded as any different from a soldier in a boat or a plane engaged in military combat. Israel had always refused to accept the anti-Semitic equating of murderers of Jewish children with combat soldiers, a formula strongly evocative of the claims of Jewish racial inferiority from a few decades earlier. No previous Israeli leader had accepted such a formula. Until Ehud Olmert. Desperate to divert national attention from his numerous legal problems, Olmert had no compunctions about sacrificing Jewish integrity. * * * * * We should not, however, make the mistake of blaming Olmert alone. The disgrace of purchasing corpses with the release of a baby-murderer was simply the ultimate manifestation of a national crisis of identity in Israel — a crisis that threatens Israel's existence at least as much as the enemies that surround it. It has been evident for some time now that a great many Israelis — and most of the country's political and intellectual elite — have lost their will to survive as a nation. Consider:
This is an Israel that seeks peace by pretending that war and anti-Semitism simply do not exist; an Israel that fights reality through passionate exercises in make-pretend. Starting with the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, Israeli leaders have insisted that peaceful relations with the Arabs can be achieved only by a long process of Jewish self-deprecation, self-denial and self-humiliation. Israel's political elites have claimed over the past two decades that peace will come about only through Israel's agreeing to turn over its heartland to terrorists — in other words, that security can be assured only by the abandonment of security. Israeli leaders insisted throughout the 1990s that if only Israel would jettison its traditional defense policies and instead trust in the goodwill generated by making concessions to the Palestinians, Jordanians, and Syrians, it would usher in an era of bliss. They convinced themselves that military force was passé, that it no longer played a useful role — and this in the most barbarous region on the planet! They convinced themselves that peace could only be achieved through appeasement of evil and accommodation with anti-Semitism. Future historians will find it a daunting challenge to explain how Jews, often stereotyped as the smartest people in the world, could have allowed themselves to be snookered into the Oslo accords or could have sincerely believed that Israel would be able to do business in good faith first with the bloody degenerate Yasir Arafat and now with the irrelevant and powerless Mahmoud Abbas. How could seemingly intelligent people wager with their lives and place their faith in such absurdities? Only an abnormal people would have voluntarily entrusted their national security to a group of Islamofascist terrorists out of a misguided belief that Internet services and consumerism had rendered armies and territory superfluous. No people other than the Jews would reward their enemies for routinely violating every accord they'd ever signed — and reward them with pledges of new territory, more arms and greater funding. No nation on earth would tolerate living permanently under threat of genocide while pretending that those who do the threatening are actually peace-seeking moderates. So why are the Israeli leadership and the Israeli elites, particularly the media and the professoriate, guilty of all this? The answer, in my opinion, is the aforementioned crisis of identity that has engulfed Israel. The crisis is largely a byproduct of the failure of secular Zionism in its deluded attempt to define an "Israeliness" devoid of Jewishness. This has resulted in a confused populace increasingly incapable of understanding the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict. An unprecedented number of Israelis do not know who they are and so do not understand why they need to survive. Only a rudderless Israel, an Israel blind to the lessons of Jewish history and removed from Jewish roots and national substance, could behave in such a manner. The Oslo years and what has occurred since have shown how shallow and empty is the whole enterprise known as secular Israeliness. In its bid to replace traditional Jewish identity with Hebrew-speaking consumerism and post-Jewish civil patriotism, secular Zionism in fact created a bizarre new entity riddled with uncertainty regarding its own identity and dominated by defeatism. Israeli secularism has bred masses of post-Zionists exhibiting virulent self-hatred and willing to blame Israel for all the problems created by Arab aggression and Islamofascism, and all too willing to sacrifice national interests upon pagan altars of political correctness. There was a time when it was widely presumed that secular Zionism and the establishment of Israel had achieved an irreversible victory over the plagues of Jewish assimilationism and self-hatred, not just among Jews living inside the Jewish state but also to a large extent among Diaspora Jewry. Secular Zionism represented a blending of modernity with Jewishness that involved neither the assimilationism of the radical anti-Orthodox reformers among Jews in the Diaspora or the traditional haredi rejectionism of modernity. It had achieved this via the invention of Israeliness. Israeliness meant an ever so modern state with high-tech industries cropping up everywhere like mushrooms, European standards of living and lifestyles, prestigious universities and scientific institutions, and a military of legendary prowess. And all this in a country whose raison d'être was, on the surface, to provide a national home for Jews. Certainly Israeliness had its problems from the start, not least of which was a dubious, if not outright hostile, attitude to Jewish tradition. Israel's intellectual, journalistic, academic and artistic elites long displayed a deep animosity toward matters of religion and religious people, an antipathy shared by parts of the broader secularist population. Their only interest in Jewish ethics was when those ethics could be misrepresented to advance a leftist political agenda. In the first decades of Israel's existence, the celebration of Israeliness took many forms, including those that downplayed the role of Jewishness in the state and in Israeli public life. The secular Israeli school curriculum was largely stripped of Jewish content. Jewish history in the typical Israel school ended at Masada or with Bar Kochba and then mysteriously rematerialized at the first Zionist Congress in Basel. Jewish religion, other than when the Bible was taught superficially, was eliminated almost altogether from the curriculum, except in the religious schools. And yet, until recently, few would have questioned the basic conclusion that secular Zionism was an unqualified Jewish national success. Israel's political leadership may have been self-deluded on many matters, but ordinary Israelis, unlike so many of their brethren in the Diaspora, were not assimilating into any alien ethnicity or nationality. Israelis would always remain Jews — even if only ignorant Jews knowing little about Judaism. Hebrew was their everyday language of communication. Jewish holidays were the bank holidays. Jewish symbols were the symbols of state. Moreover, the secular Zionist merging of Judaism with modernity appeared to be stable for the long run. It was not threatened by modernity even in its most extreme forms. But confidence in secular Zionism's ability to overcome the traditional threats to Jews — anti-Semitism, assimilationism, self-hatred — came crashing down to earth starting in the 1990s. While Jewish assimilation in the Diaspora has often been termed "self-hatred," the expression is misleading. Diaspora assimilationists are usually people who are simply indifferent to their Jewishness. They may not care to have anything to do with Judaism, but they generally do not actively wish Jews harm (though there are some exceptions). With the Oslo era, however, came the emergence of actual anti-Jewish bigotry among Israel's intellectual, media and political elites, with Israeli universities becoming petri dishes for Jewish anti-Zionists and anti-Semites. The Oslo era was accompanied by a massive assault on Israeli pride and self-confidence by the country's own leaders. Israeli intellectuals lectured the country about its sinfulness and insensitivity, claiming Israeli awfulness was behind the Arab refusal to make peace. Israeli campuses were flooded with "new historians" and "post-Zionists," pseudo-academics rewriting history texts and school curricula to promote the Arab version of history. Even worse, there has emerged in Israel a movement of Jewish anti-Semitism, as self-contradictory as that term might seem. Many Israeli leftists today are openly anti-Israel and not a few exhibit manifestations of outright anti-Semitism. And the left, thanks to its almost total hegemony over the country's chattering classes, exercises disproportionate control over Israeli national policy. Far left post-survivalist ideas, particularly the desire to seek peace through appeasement, capitulation and self-debasement, have not only taken control of the Labor Party, they dominate the thinking of the supposedly centrist Kadima and Likud parties as well. The Israeli anti-Zionist left increasingly collaborates with enemies of Israel and open anti-Semites. Many leading leftists hold cushy tenured positions at Israel's taxpayer-financed institutions of higher learning. Israel in recent years has produced hundreds of anti-Israel academic radicals, including people who justify and celebrate Arab terrorism, who lead the international campaigns to boycott and divest from Israel, and who endorse the demonization of their own country. These are the people who attempt to get Israeli military officers indicted as "war criminals" before courts outside Israel. Some of these academic extremists openly call for an end to Israel as a sovereign state, usually under the guise of the "one-state solution" under which Israel would in effect be enfolded inside a larger state with an Arab/Muslim government and majority. (Such a solution should in fact be referred to as the "Rwanda solution" to Jewish existence in the Middle East.) Many Israeli academics have cheered the launching of missiles at civilians in Sderot and other Negev towns, and some publicly endorsed Hizbullah's "resistance" as northern Israel was bathed in Katyusha rockets in 2006. Several Israeli academics even campaign on behalf of and promote Holocaust deniers. A Holocaust denial website has granted awards to dozens of Israeli leftist academics for their work against their own country, nominating them for an ironically named Righteous Jew award. Making matters worse, the assault by Israel's elites against national pride, indeed against national existence, has been accompanied by a set of diplomatic policies that express little more than self-loathing. For thirty years or so after Israel's creation, few would have challenged the idea that secular Zionism was an unqualified success in begetting a new type of Jew. Israeli Jews were at last normal citizens in a country all their own, patriotic to the point of being insufferable, proud to the point of hubris, confident in themselves and in their military, sure of their moral justifiability. And then, seemingly within a few years, these same Israelis were reduced to begging the likes of a Mahmoud Abbas to allow his terrorist squad leaders to meet with Israeli army officers in order to maintain the illusion that a "peace process" was still operational. Israeli politicians long ago abandoned any pretense of conditioning further concessions to the terrorists on an abstention from violence. The national policy of stripping Israeliness of Jewishness has produced self-abasement and defeatism. The nation that defeated the Arab hordes in 1948-9, the Suez Campaign, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War has morphed into a collection of whining defeatists who allow rockets to fall on Israeli cities day in and day out without so much as a token response, and who buy back the corpses of murdered soldiers by releasing a baby-killing monster. 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 SPRING AT EIN GEDI MAKES ITS WAY DOWN TO THE LOWEST POINT ON EARTH
Posted by Yehoshua HaLevi, September 16, 2008. |
A Spring At Ein Gedi Makes Its Way Down To The Lowest Point On Earth This is one of Yehoshua Halevi's Golden Light Images.
Yehoshua Halevi writes: "HOW I GOT THE SHOT:
The success of this photo rests entirely on the creation of the arcing foreground, which both frames the main subject and creates an additional rounded form — in negative space — which balances with the two giant, circular boulders. The foreground is actually flat, although it appears to rise almost vertically in the photo, a distortion in perspective caused by the camera's position above the rock and tilted down at a 45-degree angle. To create the silky effect in the small waterfall, I set my camera on a tripod, programmed the self-timer, lowered the ISO to 200, dialed the aperture to its smallest opening and slowed the shutter to 1/3-second.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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SHARIA COMING TO A COURT NEAR YOU?
Posted by Gary Bauer, September 16, 2008. |
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There is a disturbing report in the British media that the government of Great Britain has agreed to recognize Sharia law in certain civil cases. Muslims in Britain are exploiting a law that allows for certain arbitration tribunals to issue binding rulings if both parties agree to the out-of-court arbitration. The key difference, however, is that arbitration is not based on British law, but Sharia law. The report highlighted several cases where the Sharia arbitration favored men over women and issued outrageous decisions. In an inheritance case between five siblings, the Sharia council awarded two sons twice as much money as the three daughters in the dispute, in accordance with Sharia law. Under British law, all five children would have received an equal amount. In six domestic violence cases, the Sharia council ordered the husbands to take anger management classes. That's it. The article continued, "In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations." While Muslims defend the practice by noting that some British Jews go to Beth Din courts to resolve civil disputes, the argument misses the mark completely. Western civilization has a Judeo-Christian foundation, where certain liberties and freedoms are widely accepted. Islam is very different. In fact, one of the most promiment Saudi clerics, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, who is the head of the kingdom's sharia courts, recently threatened to execute the owners of television stations who are broadcasting Turkish soap operas during Ramadan. Sheikh Lohaidan said, "I want to advise the owners of these channels that broadcast programs with indecency and vulgarity and warn them of the consequences ... They can be put to death through the judicial process." I know many Muslims immigrate from Islamic nations to escape to the brutality of Sharia law. They flee to Western nations, like Great Britain and America, in search of liberty and genuine tolerance. The West needs to learn from these refugees — they are trying to warn us. Gary Bauer is the president of American Values. Contact him at gary.bauer@mail.amvalues.org. And visit the website: http://www.ouramericanvalues.org |
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COLUMBO STILL SCRATCHING HIS HEAD. AH ... SORRY TO BOTHER YOU MR. OBAMA, SIR
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 16, 2008. |
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This appeared without attribution and without picture on the Ablest
Image website
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Excuse me Mr. Obama, I mean Senator Obama, sir. Um . . Know you are busy and important and stuff. I mean running for president is very important and . . Ah . . . I hate to bother you. I will only take a minute ok, sir? See, I have these missing pieces that are holding me up, and I was wondering sir, if you could take time out of your busy schedule and help me out. You know, no big deal, just some loose ends and things. Hey, you have a nice place here! The wife sees houses like this on TV all the time and says boy she wishes she had digs like this you know? Is that painting real? Really? Wow. I saw something like that in a museum once! Oh, sorry sir. I didn't mean to get off the track. So if you could just help me out a minute and give me some details, I will get right out of your way. I want to close this case and maybe take the wife to Coney Island or something. Ever been to Coney Island? No, I didn't think so. Well, listen, anyways, I can't seem to get some information I need to wrap this up. These things seem to either be "locked" or "not available'. I'm sure it's just some oversight or glitch or something, so if you could you tell me where these things are . . . I . . . I . . . Have them written down here somewhere ... Oh wait. Sorry about the smears. It was raining out. I'll just read it to you. Could you help me please find these things, sir? 1. Occidental College records — Not released Oh hey. Listen! I know you are busy! Is this too much for you now? I
mean tell you what. I will come back tomorrow. Give you some time to get
these things together, you know? I mean, I know you are busy, so I will
just let myself out. I will be back tomorrow.
"Who wants to know these things?" asked Senator Obama.
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com
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BARACK OBAMA'S OLD FRIENDS AT ACORN HAVE BEEN BUSY THIS ELECTION CYCLE
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 16, 2008. |
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This comes from Michelle Malkin
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The McCain campaign had a golden opportunity to bring the left-wing, tax-subsidized con artists to light, but McCain's already blown it with his effusive praise for Obama's "outstanding" community organizer record last week at Columbia University. Anyway, we forge ahead. Hoping the truth will get out there. Hoping that people will change their minds about Obama and his radical Chicago-based racket of election saboteurs and anti-free market thugs. Hoping that someone else in the MSM will start asking pointed questions about the $800,000 Obama failed to report in hidden payments to ACORN under the name of a left-wing non-profit front group. Meanwhile, in Detroit: Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families. The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs. ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees. "There appears to be a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications," said Kelly Chesney, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State's Office. "And it appears to be widespread."Yeah, duh. And in Cleveland: A national organization that conducts voter registration drives for low-income people has curtailed its push in Cuyahoga County after the Board of Elections accused its workers of submitting fraudulent registration cards. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: INEXCUSABLE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 16, 2008. |
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In a word, Ehud Olmert is not even a poor excuse for a prime minister. For he has abandoned the Israeli narrative and lost the ability to speak on behalf of our nation. He made a statement to the Knesset Committee for Foreign Affairs and Defense yesterday. My first impulse was to respond to it, argument by argument, but I have decided not to because we are on the cusp of changes (please G-d!) and my energy is best spent doing other things. ~~~~~~~~~~ Just two days ago, a report — unconfirmed — came from Channel 2 saying that Olmert had agreed to give away over 98% of our land in Judea and Samaria. Olmert's statements to the committee, however, seemed to imply a 100% giveaway (I don't believe that Jerusalem was included in this). Whether he meant it — he certainly seems to mean it — or he was simply grandstanding is something I ponder. On the one hand, he caves ever more to PA demands. As if — and I've described this before — we and not the Palestinians are in greatest need of a settlement. This is how he presents his case. So that finally he comes to the point of totally acceding to PA demands, while the other side concedes nothing. I speak with certainty when I tell you that this is not the position sanctioned by the majority of Israelis. For those of us concerned with our heritage as well as with security issues — which he totally and disgracefully discounted — it is all fairly unbearable and enormously enraging. ~~~~~~~~~~ For the record: The '67 lines were only armistice lines. They were not borders and it was not expected that they would become Israel's borders. Jordan, in signing an armistice agreement, acknowledged that the lines weren't final. The UN, in resolution 242, also structured matters so that Israel was not expected to return to the '67 lines — issues of secure and defensible boundaries (which the '67 lines do NOT represent) were alluded to. There is nothing sacrosanct about those lines and no reason in the world we should be expected to return to them. That's from a legal perspective — in short, with much more that might be said. From the perspective of our heritage, there is solid claim to territory beyond the '67 lines as well. From the perspective of heritage it is our land. And yet, the Arabs have been so successful in their PR that they have convinced the world that they have a "right" to everything beyond the '67 lines. It simply is not so. ~~~~~~~~~~ The reason why I wonder if Olmert might be simply grandstanding — simply setting up a situation that shows how willing he was to sacrifice — is this: He also said that we cannot accept the "return" of "refugees." Indeed, we cannot, and survive. But Olmert knows that Abbas cannot accept any final deal that does not include refugees returning. And perhaps then Olmert knows that in the end there will not be a settlement on a two-state solution arrived at now, or in the next four months. ~~~~~~~~~~ On Sunday, the website of the armed branch of Hamas (carried by IMRA) delivered a message of severe criticism of Abbas for caving in negotiations with the "Zionists." (The term "Israel" is never used.) Said Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum, the negotiations with "the Zionist entity" are "very dangerous and will not be accepted by the Palestinian people who will resist and foil these agendas." Abbas, he said, is turning his back on "millions of displaced Palestinians" who had a right to "return to their homeland." This is why Abbas, even if he were inclined (which he is not) to compromise on refugees returning, is not able to do so. And why the negotiations ultimately cannot succeed. (Of course, much the same might be said about PA demands in Jerusalem, which is an issue still to be resolved.) ~~~~~~~~~~ There continues to be trepidation that Olmert, in his last, reckless days as PM, might commit us to something in principle that will come back to haunt us at a later date. ~~~~~~~~~~ As Olmert rambles on about what we must give in order to make a deal with the Palestinians immediately, MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) — former chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee — has come out with a statement that strongly opposes such negotiations: "For any foreseeable future I do not see a partner, or any possibility to leave Judea and Samaria or even part of it. Steinitz's concerns happen to be strictly based on security considerations. He is, I would suggest, worth attending to because he started as a supporter of Peace Now and moved right because of what he saw happening on the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~ Tomorrow, the Kadima primary. The two leading candidates, Livni and Mofaz, have both spoken about forming coalitions for new governments so that it will not be necessary to go to elections. There is the possibility, just a possibility, that Shas Chairman Eli Yishai has now diminished the odds of this happening. In a Sunday interview with Maariv, he made a declaration — for whatever such declarations are worth — that Shas will not be party to a government "that does not declare that Jerusalem is not on the diplomatic agenda and is not to be included in negotiations." (This means more than just postponing such talks — which is the game that has been played until now, it means not having them.) Livni, who is very much the front-runner, is for such negotiations. Mofaz has spoken out against them. There have been several speculations regarding Yishai's motives. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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MK STEINITZ: TWO-STATE SOLUTION SHOULD BE DEAD
Posted by Buddy Macy, September 16, 2008. |
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These are key excerpts from an article entitled "MK Steinitz:
two-state solution should be dead" written by Tovah Lazaroff.
It appeared yesterday in the Jerusalem Post
"The idea of a two-state solution should be dead, today, because unfortunately a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would bring about Israel's demise," he added. Such a Palestinian state, he warned, would "immediately become an outpost for Iran." |
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North American Jewish Leadership Must Act Swiftly On February 26, 2008, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) — www.jewishpublicaffairs.org — consisting of 14 member agencies (UJC, AJC, Hadassah, ADL, OU*, etc.) and more than 120 local Jewish community relations councils, passed a resolution calling for the American Jewish community to "affirm its support for two independent, democratic and economically viable states — the Jewish state of Israel and a state of Palestine — living side-by-side in peace and security [the so-called "two-state" solution]." The resolution also states: "As the Israeli government enters negotiations on permanent status issues (including settlements, borders, Jerusalem, and refugees) to reach a comprehensive and just peace agreement with the Palestinians, the organized Jewish community should support those efforts, consistent with our longstanding tradition of supporting the efforts of Israel's government to achieve peace and security." With forecasts for the demise of Israel made by MK Yuval Steinitz
and previously by MK Dr. Arieh Eldad
Buddy Macy [*] The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (Orthodox Union or OU) abstained in the voting for the resolution and later filed a formal, written dissent from those portions of the JCPA resolution with which it disagreed. The OU is strongly opposed to a two-state "solution" and the re-division of Jerusalem, but decided to remain a part of the JCPA, believing it could do more good from within, than from outside the umbrella organization. Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com |
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SECRET DEAL IN THE OFFING; ABIE NATHAN; ERASING TERRORISM, OLMERT-STYLE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 16, 2008. |
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HIZBULLAH WORKING WITH VENEZUELA Hizbullah is allowed to operate in Venezuela. It is getting airport personnel there to advise it of the movements of Jewish businessmen, probably the better to kidnap them. Hizbullah is planning terrorism there (Arutz-7, 8/28). SECRET DEAL IN THE OFFING Sec. Rice hinted at a secret deal between the P.A. and Israel, almost complete. Pres. Bush would claim to have accomplished something by it (Arutz-7, 8/28). PM Olmert said he would get the whole world to approve it, and let the Israeli people decide whether to approve it. He did not say by what means it would be up to his people. [Recent Israeli leaders have not let their people decide much.] In other words, he is trying to embarrass his people into letting him impose an unsatisfactory give-away. The Israeli territorial concessions guarantee war, because they remove most of Israel's defenses. They make Israeli defeat likely. That would be the Rice-Bush legacy. Nevertheless, the popular assumption is that Bush is pro-Israel. OBAMA SAID TO SUPPORT ISRAEL & P.A. SOVEREIGNTY A Democratic Convention Delegate said that Obama is pro-Israel as indicated by his wanting an Arab state in the territories, which he claims would bring Israel security. He said McCain is bad for Israel because Bush let Hizbullah and Hamas build up (Arutz-7, 8/29.) Sovereignty while still fostering hatred of Jews and terrorism to implement that hatred of Israel means that unlimited armies may be built and imported. Result: war and insecurity! Both candidates are foolish for favoring statehood for Abbas' and Hamas' Muslims. The delegate did not think the issue through. He assumes and asserts, without study. False assumption: the Arab-Israel conflict is territorial and not holy war (not that the Arabs have a good territorial claim). If so, giving Arabs another state would end the conflict and bring Israel security. How naïve! Arabs in established states keep raising territorial claims and making war. The delegate's claim does not account for Islamist aggression elsewhere. Nor does it account for Fatah's strategy of using land that Israel relinquishes as a base for attacking Israel's land. Note that the P.A. claims that the Jewish people are not entitled to any country. Is Obama ignorant about this? Each President acts on his own, though most follow the State Dept. into folly. McCain should not be blamed for what Bush did. Obama did not object to Bush's tolerance for the terrorists mentioned by the delegate. He'd give them a state! OBITUARIES Abie Nathan was the object of two obituaries that reviewed his work. He ran a radio station from a ship that called for peace. The NY Times made him seem like an advanced proponent of civilizing values. David Bedein reviewed one of his characteristic broadcasts made under unique circumstances. His ship was off the Sinai coast when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, 1973. He therefore knew of the war before other Israelis did. His message was for the troops to lay down their arms. Hug the Egyptian and Syrian soldiers, he urged them. Make peace. The excuse later was made for him that he asked both sides not to fight. Some excuse! He broadcast in English, which most Arabs did not know (IMRA, 8/29), and most Israelis did know. Barry Chamish observed that the Left tolerated Nathan's shipboard station but closed a nationalist shipboard station. When Nathan stopped broadcasting, he scuttled his ship in an Israeli shipping lane (9/8). In any case, the Arabs would have been pleased to slaughter Jews who listened to Nathan and put down their arms. They are bent on conquest and slaughter. It is their Islamic war cry. Mr. Nathan was a traitorous fool. It is not right to honor his criminal idealism, some of which has infected Israel's ruling class. By analogy, It was not up to the Jews to have made peace with the Nazis, intent on killing them. Indeed, the Jews were not at war with the Nazis. But the Nazis were at war with them. This is a lesson that Obama has not learned. He is praised for willingness to talk with fanatical enemies, and McCain is criticized for finding there is nothing to talk about. What is there to talk about with someone who thinks he is following God's way, and that that way is to murder you? Oh, said Gen. Sneh, an Israeli politician, the world should put a stiff embargo on what Iran needs to import. How naïve! China and Russia would veto any Security Council resolution for that, and they and others would sell Iran what it needs. Sneh is Jewish, but has not learned one of the main lessons of the Holocaust, namely that the rest of the world doesn't care about atrocities and isn't so civilized. INFLATION IN IRAN "A 10,000 rial note has the same purchasing power now as 25 rials 30 years ago." (IMRA, 8/29). Maybe it shouldn't waste money on aggression. IRAN'S REASON FOR BUILDING SUBMARINES Iran states that it is building [missile-bearing] submarines to defend oil pipelines in the Gulf (IMRA, 8/27). From whom is it defending the pipelines? The US wouldn't attack the pipelines. Neither would Israel. One country, however, has threatened to render the Gulf useless, if it is attacked. That country is ... Iran. HOW OLMERT ERASES TERRORISM With a pencil's eraser, he removes terrorists from the wanted list, granting them amnesty. But dozens of them return to terrorism (Arutz-7, 8/29). PRICE OF EXPOSING THE TRUTH What happens to prominent Israeli dissidents? They suffer sudden illness, violence, or expensive court assault. Barry Chamish found his car brakes cut and suffered a mysterious stroke. He fled from Israel. A journalist, who also exposed the Rabin assassination and investigation as rigged, swiftly and mysteriously got throat cancer and died. A doctor who explained the medical impossibility of the official story of the assassination found himself facing sedition and slander charges. The Israeli Establishment pulls together. When Yediot Aharonot accused the organizers of a conference on the assassination of dancing on Rabin's grave and of sucking his blood [actually Rabin's party exploited his assassination to cow the opposition], Mr. Chamish and others formed a committee to sue for libel. Their lawyer was Nitzana Darshan-Leitner [who initiates many lawsuits against the Arabs]. Ms. Darshan-Leitner was Chamish's attorney before. One day she brought Chamish to court, which ordered him to pay a large fee to continue the suit or a smaller fine to give up the suit. Later he learned that a plaintiff should not be fined. His lawyer should have objected. He concludes that she was "reached," no longer sincerely represented him, and had joined the effort to silence him. On the committee, ignoring Chamish's work, she devised a physically impossible, pro-government theory of the assassination that ignored Chamish's work, and broke up the committee. Then she admitted working for the secret service. Chamish has produced evidence and logic that the assassination and cover-up were committed by the secret service under Peres' direction. Chamish has found that insiders right everything in Israel against consumers and against Zionism, stooping to any means (9/1). Chamish has identified many other victims of dissidence, credible due to Israel's notorious, anti-Jewish, police brutality. 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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MRS. CLEAN IS DIRTY
Posted by Jack L., September 16, 2008. |
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This was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared
today in the Jerusalem Post
Caroline Glick is the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Contact her at caroline@carolineglick.com |
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Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni may not be a crook, but she is a fraud. And if polls are to be believed, Livni the fraud is just one fraudulent election away from becoming our next prime minister. Her basic dishonesty is expressed both in her political maneuverings and in her behavior as a policymaker. In both areas, she upholds herself as Mrs. Clean — the servant of all of us who are sickened, demoralized and revolted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his hordes of corrupt Kadima colleagues and staffers. But she is not our servant. Rather than serve us, like Olmert and her Kadima colleagues, she lies to us in a continuous bid to expand her power. Case in point is her participation in Wednesday's anti-democratic Kadima primary, which will elect the party's new leader to replace Olmert, who of course is both a fraud and a crook. Unlike all the other party primaries that have been held over the years, this one is designed not as a preparatory step ahead of general elections to the Knesset. Rather, it is intended to replace general elections. The expressed goal of Livni and her three opponents — Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit — is not to ready Kadima for elections, but to select a new prime minister who will form a governing coalition that will bar the public from electing its representatives until March 2010.
KADIMA'S MOVE to trample the people's right to choose our leaders is not the only reason that its primary is an affront to the public. The primary is not just anti-democratic, it is also a fraud. Only 15 percent of Kadima's members joined the party on their own initiative. According to analyses conducted over the past several months, these 15% are people who were swept up in the initial excitement when Kadima was formed by Ariel Sharon in 2005. According to pollsters, like most Israelis, these idealistic Kadima members became disenchanted with the party over the past three years. Accordingly, they are the least likely to vote in Wednesday's poll. The other 85% of Kadima's 70,000 members are people who were brought into the party by those nefarious standard-bearers of Israeli politics of recent years: the vote contractors. Vote contractors are political bosses and paid political operatives who peddle their influence in various communities, labor unions and population sectors to persuade citizens to join specific parties as bloc voters. In its brief political life span, Kadima's membership rolls have been subject to multiple criminal investigations. In one case now under investigation, up to 1,000 people were signed up for the party without their knowledge. Vote contractors forged their signatures on membership forms and paid their membership fees. Although the media — which are openly biased in Livni's favor — have placed most of the blame for this state of affairs on Mofaz, the truth is that Livni has not shied away from backroom deals with influence peddlers selling votes. For instance, she has used Deputy Foreign Minister Majallie Whbee to sign up blocs of Livni voters in the Arab and Druse sectors. Arabs and Druse comprise 20% of Kadima's members and it has been widely predicted that they will cast the decisive vote. Livni is expected to win some 70% of their votes. Then there is the Russian community. Here too Livni has hired vote contractors to sign up blocs of voters on her behalf. And like the Arabs and the Druse, there is no reason to believe that the Russian olim even support Kadima. They are just as likely to vote for another party in the general election. Livni knows this. She just doesn't care. Owing to the basic fraudulence of Kadima's voter rolls, the fact is that regardless of the identity of the victor, he or she will be beholden not to voters, but to a few dozen influence peddlers. That Livni upholds this anti-democratic and wholly corrupt electoral farce as a legitimate path to the premiership puts paid the notion that she is an honest politician dedicated to cleaning up politics and making politicians accountable to voters.
LIVNI'S EMBRACE of fraud is the thread that ties her political machinations to her policy maneuvers. Indeed, fraud — that is deceit — has been her chosen tactic for advancing her political fortunes since she first rose to prominence in 2004. The most blatant recent example of Livni's deceitfulness is her behavior on the issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem. For the past year, Livni has led the negotiating team with the Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority. In her position, she has been the architect of whatever agreements the government has concocted regarding the surrender of Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem to Fatah. Supported by the local media, Livni and Olmert have denied the public the right to know what they are discussing on our behalf and so prevented any public debate about their actions. This is crucial for them because opinion polls show that their presumptive plan to withdraw from some 98% of Judea and Samaria and partition Jerusalem is not supported by the public. The issue of Jerusalem is particularly sensitive. Olmert pledged to coalition partner Shas that he would not discuss the city with the Palestinians. Since Shas doesn't wish to leave the government, Shas leader Eli Yishai pretends he doesn't know that Olmert's pledge was a fraud. For their part, Livni and Olmert defraud the public by claiming that Jerusalem is not on their diplomatic chopping block. On Thursday, Olmert, Livni and Shas had their bluffs called when the US Consul in Jerusalem Jacob Walles told the Palestinian Al-Ayam newspaper that the government has agreed to give the Palestinians control over most of eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem. Livni and her representatives were outspoken in their angry denials of Walles's statement. Yet as Channel 10 reported on Sunday night, just a few weeks ago, Livni told her supporters that she is negotiating the partition of the city. Livni has told sympathetic reporters of her intention to form a far-left governing coalition with the non-Zionist Meretz party that will be supported from the outside by the anti-Zionist Arab parties. But she doesn't want the general public to realize how radical she is. So she lies.
LIVNI'S LIES about Jerusalem are of a piece with all the lies she has told and all the frauds she has advanced over the past three years. In 2004 as justice minister in Ariel Sharon's government, Livni concocted a detailed fraud to compel her Likud colleagues Binyamin Netanyahu, Limor Livnat and Silvan Shalom to vote in favor of Sharon's bid to withdraw from Gaza and northern Samaria and expel all Jews from the areas. Livni authored what she referred to as the "compromise agreement." Forming the basis of the government's decision in favor of the withdrawal, it stipulated that the Jews would be expelled in four stages over a period of several months. At each stage, the government would stop to reevaluate and each new stage would have to be separately approved. This decision was legally binding. Right after she convinced her colleagues that Sharon would respect the compromise deal and so secured their votes, Livni discarded her grand compromise. Arguably in violation of the legally binding decision she had herself crafted, Livni, together with Sharon, claimed that national security considerations overrode the stipulations of the decision and therefore Sharon was within his rights to order that the expulsions be carried out in one operation that lasted a less than a week. And defrauding her colleagues to advance her political fortunes wasn't the only way Livni exploited her undeserved reputation as an honest woman during her tenure as justice minister. In the months leading up to the expulsions, she presided over the country's law enforcement bodies as they systematically trampled the basic legal rights of law abiding citizens who sought to demonstrate their opposition to the expulsions. Thousands of protesters were illegally arrested and held in jails for weeks at a time without charges being brought against them. In many cases, groups of demonstrators were illegally charged as groups. Protesters were physically assaulted by police. Buses carrying protesters to legal demonstrations were illegally blocked on highways. A few months after the withdrawal and expulsions were completed, Chief Public Defender Inbal Rubinstein's office released a report documenting how laws were prejudicially enforced based on the demonstrators' political views. Livni's response was to threaten Rubinstein with firing. Rubinstein apologized for releasing the report and mumbled something about it not representing the views of her office. This, of course, is not how one would expect a politician dedicated to the sanctity of the rule of law and good governance to behave. But it is how one would expect a politician motivated only by her will to power to behave. In her belief that all ends justify the means, Livni is a loyal representative of Kadima. She has defrauded the public by lying about the fact that she is actively advancing the cause of Jerusalem's partition. She has defrauded her political colleagues by crafting "grand compromises" she knows will never be implemented. She is defrauding the public by using a fraudulent electorate to catapult her way into the prime minister's office. And she does all of this while deceiving us into believing that she is competent to lead. She tells us that the cease-fire with Hizbullah she crafted which paved the way for the Iranian proxy's takeover of Lebanon was a diplomatic success. She tells us that we have no option of victory over our enemies and the best we can do is beg others to defend us. And she tells us we should give her the reins of power because she tells us the truth. The public is powerless today to do anything in the face of Livni's and Kadima's trampling of our democratic system and open contempt for our national interests. It can only be hoped that whenever elections are eventually held, we will punish them for what they have done. Contact Jack L. at yakovdov1@yahoo.com |
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SCANDAL IN MOROCCO: LEGALISING PAEDOPHILIA THROUGH A FATWA
Posted by Daisy Stern, September 15, 2008. |
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Which country will be next? And can the "demand" for the religious "right" to pedophilia
be coming soon to the United States? Thanks To Mary W Of Golden Gate Act
Cheikh Mohamed ben Abderrahmane Al-Maghraoui recently published a religious decree on an internet site calling for girls as young as nine years of age to become wives. A lawyer as well as human rights activists have joined the ever swelling number of critics to denounce this call to legalise paedophilia. This was published today by Habibou Bangré; it was translated by Will Garthey Mould. It is called "A Muslim Leader Has Called For A Fatwa That Has Unleashed A Wave Of Criticisms." |
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Cheikh Mohamed ben Abderrahmane Al-Maghraoui recently published a religious decree on an internet site calling for girls as young as nine years of age to become wives. A lawyer as well as human rights activists have joined the ever-swelling number of critics to denounce this call to legalise paedophilia. Cheikh Mohamed ben Abderrahmane Al-Maghraoui has driven Moroccan human rights activists into a frenzy. According to a story published by Al Jarida Al Oula [a Moroccan journal] September 1st, the religious leader called for a fatwa on an Islamic site maghrawi.net calling for the marriage of 9 year old girls. "We have been told and we have seen that 9 year old girls are capable of wifely duties just like 20 year old women," Cheikh Mohamed ben Abderrahmane Al-Maghraoui told maghrawi.net. And to give more strength to his comments he implicated the Prophet as having married a 9 year old child. Risk of a boom in under-age marriages If a scandal is what he is has been aiming at, he has undoubtedly achieved his goal. Human rights activists are venting their spleen. They reject a backward religious act that soils the international convention for the rights of children which was ratified by Morocco, as well as the new family code which puts the minimum marriageable age at 18 years, whatever the sex. The Code is, however, wrought with inconsistencies on the question of premature marriage. "The legislator has authorised premature marriage under exceptional conditions and submitted it for authorisation from the judge without being precise about the minimum age nor contractual conditions. The result of this is the ongoing practice of premature marriage." Said Fatiha Mesbahi a member of the Moroccan human rights association (AMDH) There is a widespread fear that this fatwa is designed to encourage premature marriage. In his comments, Mourad Bekkouri, a lawyer from rabat, says that due to "Morocco's high number of illiterates, the effect of this action among the rural population remains unknown. Parents could marry off their small children should they think that the fatwa is officially binding, although it has not been approved by the Superior Council of ulemas." Faced with such uncertainties, Mourad Bekkouri filed a law suit against this fatwa in Rabat on September 4. She is still waiting for the court's decision. This fatwa is a crime against humanity According to the vociferous lawyer, this fight is to preserve the child's innocence. "I think that this fatwa is an infringement on the rights of the child and a call for rape and paedophilia." Several newspapers and associations have seconded the Bekkouri's views and even taken it a step further. "At this stage, it cannot be termed as a promotion of paedophilia, it is paedophilia, period! A nine year old girl is not mature enough to have sexual relations nor receive sperm for fertilisation purposes. It is simply killing a girl before she becomes a woman! This fatwa is a crime against humanity. Whoever started it needs to face justice" said Mohammed Graigaa, executive director of the Moroccan Planned Parenthood Association. While reading Al Jarida Al Oula's article, Saïda Drissi Amrani president of the Democratic Association of women in Rabat got so sick she "could not finish the article." It was the "beginning of the new school year which made the message even clearer; do not send your small children to school, but instead marry them... and how do you explain marriage to such a young child? How do you explain sex? Can she decide at her age? Let's not try to justify what cannot be justified. Children are under the responsibility of their parents and not a husband until they turn 18!" exclaimed Saïda Drissi Amrani, who thinks those calling for this law are sexually depraved paedophiles who want to use religon as a pretext to further their cause. Call for help A pretext because Cheikh Mohamed ben Abderrahmane Al-Maghraoui ommitted an important detail while describing the Prophet's union with Aïsha in order to further soil the image of Islam with his "extremist" ideologies. The Prophet did not consummate his marriage with Aïcha at her age when her father gave her into marriage. That came much later," confirms Mohammed Graigaa, who claims that the person who asked for the fatwa did so "to give himself some sort of importance." This is not far-fetched. According to several newspapers, he is a salafist* looking for popularity by virtue of controversial fatwas. To avoid another scandalous act, Miss Mourad Bekkouri hopes that the ministry of Habous and Religious affairs should work more on controlling this type of proclamation. Meanwhile, for the Moroccan Association of Human rights it is time to go back to its fundamental values. "we have always fought for a separation of state and religion, that international conventions be ratified and also that internal laws be in harmony with international legislations. If that had been the case, we would not be at the beck and call of fatwas thrown from left, right and centre by "cheikhs and ulemas#." End Notes * Salafi (Arabic: "predecessors" or "early generations"), is a Sunni Islamic school of thought that takes the pious ancestors (Salaf) of the patristic period of early Islam as exemplary models. Salafism is often used interchangeably with "Wahhabism." # Ulema, transliteration: 'Ulamā', singular. transliteration: 'Ālim, "scholar") refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari'a law. — AEM Contact Daisy Stern by email at daisystern1@gmail.com |
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BRITAIN ADOPTS ISLAMIC LAW, GIVES SHARIA COURTS FULL POWER TO RULE ON CIVIL CASES
Posted by Doc Milt Fried, September 15, 2008. |
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Do you feel like this is a movie and not real life? This is from the The Times (UK). |
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Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through county courts or the country's High Court, a part of its Supreme Court system. Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims. Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a "parallel legal system" based on sharia for some British Muslims. Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: "If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so." Contact Dr. Milt Fried by email at docmiltfried@mindspring.com |
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OLMERT'S TWISTED PRIORITIES: VOICES SORROW FOR PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, September 15, 2008. |
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It is important to set the historical record straight: The overwhelming majority of Palestinian refugees left what was then the newly-established State of Israel on their own accord due to structural weaknesses within Palestinian society and their leadership. The pressure of wartime conditions triggered the collapse of what was already a fragile Palestinian society, particularly when Palestinian leaders chose to oppose the Jewish state by a show of arms rather than by accepting a UN plan for their own state. Military necessity resulted after seven Arab armies invaded western Palestine with the goal of exterminating the newly born State of Israel. The human tragedy of being uprooted notwithstanding, Palestinian refugees were neither hapless targets nor innocent bystanders. The first stage of the 1948 war was a fierce interethnic or anti-Zionist civil war in which Palestinians were the aggressors and the initiators; the second half was an all-out war involving regular armies, whose participation the Arab Palestinians engineered. The violent path that Palestinians chose — and the ensuing fear, disorientation, and economic deprivation of war — led to their own collective undoing. Because Palestinian Arab society had been so dependent on the British civil administration and social services, Britain's departure left Arab civil servants jobless. As a result, most social services and civil administration ceased to function in the Arab sector, disrupting the flow of essential commodities such as food and fuel, which added to the hardships, the uncertainty, and the dangers. In contrast, Jewish society in Palestine, or the Yishuv as it was called in Hebrew, had established its own civil society over the span of three decades under the Mandate. The Yishuv created its own representative political bodies and social and economic institutions, including health and welfare services, a public transport network, and a thriving sophisticated marketing system for manufactured goods and food — in short, a state-in-the-making. During that same period, the Arabs of Palestine, however, had invested all of their energies into fighting any form of Jewish polity-in-the-making. So it was no surprise that when the British departed, the Palestinian Arabs remained unorganized and ill prepared not only for statehood (which they rejected in any case), but also for sustained conflict with their Jewish adversaries. To this day, in fact, Palestinians reject the notion of Jewish institutions and symbols of Jewish peoplehood, labeling them as apartheid and racist, with their only goal being the dissolution of the Jewish character of Israel. Palestinians were, and to a great extent remain, a society with fundamental weaknesses that have nothing to do with Zionist aspirations or actions. It is a society characterized by tribal rivalries and social cleavages, rife with distrust and plagued by poor leadership. In January 1948, Hussein Khalidi, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) — a coalition of six political factions established at the start of the Arab Revolt in 1936 and the Palestinians' only representative framework — complained to the Mufti: "Forty days after the declaration of a jihad, and I am shattered ... Everyone has left me. Six [AHC members] are in Cairo, two are in Damascus — I won't be able to hold on much longer... Everyone is leaving. Everyone who has a check or some money — off he goes to Egypt, to Lebanon, to Damascus." As the flight of the leadership spread, the stampede effect spread to the middle classes and the peasantry, as the last British High Commissioner for Palestine General Sir Alan Cunningham noted in his report to London as the Mandate era wound to a close: "The collapsing Arab morale in Palestine is in some measure due to the increasing tendency of those who should be leading them to leave the country... In all parts of the country the effendi class has been evacuating in large numbers over a considerable period and the tempo is increasing." The first five-and-a-half months of the war began with riots in so-called mixed cities where Jews and Arabs lived, escalated to attacks on Jewish transport until the violence grew into a bitter guerrilla warfare, as interethnic wars tend to be. There were 6,000 Israeli dead as a result of that war [between November 30, 1947 — July 20, 1949] in a population of 600,000. One percent of the Jewish population was gone, along with billion of dollars [at present value] in damages to the newly born State of Israel. The Palestinians were responsible for escalating the war — a move that cost the Jews thousands of lives and Palestinians their homes. By their own behavior, Palestinians assumed the role of belligerents in the conflict, invalidating any claim to be hapless victims and demand the 'right of return' a right not mentioned under international law or humanitarian law conventions. For the entire article please here. Eli E. Hertz is president of Myths and Facts, Inc. The organization's objective is to provide policymakers, national leadership, the media and the public-at-large with information and viewpoints that are founded on factual and reliable content. Contact him at today@mythsandfacts.org |
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ELUL
Posted by Herb and Miki Sunshine, September 15, 2008. |
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This was written by Rabbi Meir Kahane and is from Jews and Judaism. It was written September 2, 1977. Anyone reading this Rav Kahane article who is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles written by Rav Kahane and would like to be, please contact me at: barhow@netvision.net.il |
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The Jewish calendar is full of notations, red letter days that are meant to be both particular reminders as well as part of a uniform one: Time is passing; the sands of life have run out just a bit more; the beard is a little grayer and the limbs just a touch heavier. Time. The Jewish calendar is a watchman of time, a ram's horn that blows not once a year but every time that a new time cycle begins. Every week is marked by a Sabbath that notes not only the end of the week passed but the beginning of a new one. It is both a reminder of seven full days passed out of our life — so soon! — as well as the opportunity to make the next period fuller, more meaningful, a reason for being. Every month is marked by a Rosh Chodesh, the consecration of the new beginning of yet another lunar cycle. The wheel of heaven has revolved yet another thirty days — so soon! — and we are that much older. The L-rd now gives us another month to prove that we are also that much wiser. It is not only another month, it is a new month. Above all, it is called Rosh Chodesh, the "head" of the month. Is there perhaps here a hint to see how much wisdom has filled our heads during the mistakes and sins of the past one.? And every year has its Rosh Hashanah, that peculiarly Jewish day in which there are no parties and drinking and abandonment of restraint; in which there is no hilarious laughter and noise that is a frantic and frenetic attempt to convince all (and oneself) that he is happy; there is no frantic clutching at pleasure before it escapes and — worse — before I pass on; too soon, too soon. There is Rosh Hashanah, the time post. Another year gone by — already? So soon! — and it is a time to see what the gray hairs and the added wrinkles and the slower reflexes have taught us. Rosh Hashanah is one step closer to the gateway out of this world and into the next one. It is a time to rehearse the speech that we will make — all of us — some day, before the Supreme courts, as we attempt to explain the meaning of our lives below. Life is too short for fools. It is too long for those who know it was not given for happiness (if that comes, how wonderful, but how often does it appear, only in insignificant measures and at rare times, as drops of rain that fall on a parched desert leaving no impact, changing nothing so that the traveler never knows it fell). Life was given for holiness and sanctity, so that we might rise above ourselves; so that we might consecrate and hallow that animalism within us that threatens at every moment to escape and express itself in selfishness, ego and greed — sins that are themselves only the corridors to the crimes of cruelty and hurting others. Life is not a happy thing — it's a beautiful thing, and when one becomes the artist and artisan of that beauty that is called holiness, when one practices the supreme holiness that comes of loving and giving of oneself. Elul is the month of shove, return and introspection. It is the month of scraping away the ego that has settled and crusted on our hearts and souls. If Passover calls for searching out the leaven in the home, Elul decrees removing it — yeasty and bloated ego — from the soul. It is a time to note the calendar, the graying and aging, and to realize: Not for nonsense was I born and not with nonsense must they bury me. Be good. Love. Love selflessly; cease speaking evil, cease thinking evil; cease searching out evil in your fellow human beings. Cease seeking to grow at the expense of others. For one who climbs on top of the man he has just chopped down is not taller. He is the same dwarf standing on his victim's height. Be wary lest you hurt the one you love. Think before you act towards the other person. Be good as a person, as an individual, and your part of the world has become holy. Then, if others emulate you, the world will suddenly and automatically turn beautiful and hallowed. It is Elul. Think of your beloved — all the people of the earth — and think of your particular beloved. Give of yourself and you will receive that which no amount of grasping and scheming can bring you; self-respect. Love the other and you will learn to like yourself. Be holy, for the One who made you is Holy and for this He placed you on this earth. It is another Elul, yet another one. How many more are left? Herb Sunshine is a lawyer, qualified to practice in U.S.A. and Israel. He and his wife Miki live in Jerusalem. Contact them by email at sunshine.h@012.net.il |
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DOES ISRAEL HAVE A TRUE FRIEND IN THE U.S.A.?
Posted by Barbara Sommer, September 15, 2008. |
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This was written by Professor Paul Eidelberg Below is an edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, September 15, 2008. Professor Paul Eidelberg is President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy. He can be reached by mail at 244 Madison Avenue, Suite 427, New York, NY 10016, Tel: 212-372-3752, and by email at Constitution@usa.net |
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If Israel has a true friend, look not for him in Washington. Last week, it was reported that the Bush administration will not cooperate with Israel should it decide to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Taken at face value, this will hinder Israel in facing off alone against the much larger Islamic Republic which is equipped with some of the latest military technology from Russia. True, the U. S. has agreed to sell Israel 1,000 "bunker-buster" bombs and to bolster Israel's missile defense system. But this is hardly reassuring if Israel is not allowed to refuel its military planes in Iraq, or use Iraqi airspace for a flyover on the way to Iran. Even if Israeli jets were to reach Iran, they might not be able to carry enough bombs to do the job. >p>If the Bush administration has in effect vetoed an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, one may conclude that, from an objective point of view, it is not strategically concerned about Israel's survival. Consistent with this unpleasant conclusion, not only is George W. Bush the first president that openly advocated a Palestinian state, but he has offered the Palestinian authority a U.S. guarantee of statehood without conditions — for starters, demilitarization. Surely Mr. Bush knows that a militarized Arab state occupying the Judean and Samarian highlands would make Israel indefensible. Surely he knows, as MK Yuval Steinitz knows and has warned, a Palestinian state would "immediately become an outpost for Iran." (http://www. jpost. com/servlet/ Satellite? pagename= JPost%2FJPArticl e%2FShowFull&cid=1221142472433) Washington's professions of friendship toward Israel are strategically irrelevant. It is plain as day that Israel cannot survive a nuclear attack, and the Jewish state will evaporate if the Arabs control the West Bank. No Jew would immigrate to Israel, and many tens of thousands would leave if exposed to a nuclear-armed Iran on the one hand, and Arab missile attacks from the Judean-Samarian hills on the other. Despite all its blabbering about promoting democracy in the Middle East, the Bush administration is undermining the only reputed democracy in the region. Hence, Washington is less a friend than a half-hearted enemy. Do not be deceived by US military aid to Israel. This aid multiplies U. S. arms sales to Israel's enemies to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year. Joseph Sisco, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, once told Israeli author Shmuel Katz, "I want to assure you, Mr. Katz, that if we were not getting full value for our money, you would not get a cent from us. " The U. S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency wrote that Israel's strategic position was "vital to the United States ' interests throughout the Middle East. " Nevertheless, massive U.S. arms sales to Arab regimes render Israel's strategic position precarious — as does more than one billion dollars of U. S. aid to Israel's implacable enemy the PLO. Of course, the PLO would still be in Tunis had Israeli governments never negotiated with this terrorist organization and allowed it to enter Gaza in 1993. By so doing, Israeli governments have endowed the PLO with legitimacy and have thereby undermined the legitimacy of the State of Israel. I have often said that its own government is Israel's most insidious enemy. More of the same is to be expected from any likely successor to the Kadima government. The Likud is trapped in its own complicity in the Oslo policy of "territory for peace. " Binyamin Netanyahu's spin about "reciprocity" is merely a replay of Oslo or of his accommodationism with Arafat at the Wye Plantation. Where was reciprocity when he voted for unilateral disengagement from Gaza as a minister in the Sharon government. Can a cabinet minister be a true friend of Israel if he puts his own position above the welfare of his country? Israel needs a prime minister of extraordinary courage, wisdom, and virtue and none is in sight. It should nonetheless be understood that Israel's plight is America's plight because the two countries face a common enemy — Islam and Islamic imperialism whose epicenter is Iran. No American leader has had the courage to expose the true nature of this enemy, and no candidate competing in the American presidential election will do so — certainly not during the campaign. They will persist in saying Islam has been hijacked by extremists. Election campaigns are not occasions for political candor. But let me digress and elaborate on the forthcoming American election. If the Civil War following the presidential election of 1860 led to the ascendancy of democracy in America, an Obama victory in the 2008 election may lead to the demise of this democracy. An Obama victory would be tantamount to the victory of multiculturalism or postmodernism that dominates academia and now controls the Democratic Party. I dare say an Obama victory would lead, if not to a civil war, to America's demise as a nation-state and world power. A victory of the Democratic Party, now led by left-wing internationalists, would result in a futile UN approach to Iran's nuclear program. Armed with nuclear weapons, Iran would dominate the Middle East, accelerate Islamic pacification of Europe, and thereby collapse America's economy as well as its liberal democratic way of life. The demise of Western civilization would follow. Am I a prophet of doom and gloom? America is nothing if it is not a Christian nation. Not only has Obama denied that America is a Christian nation; he has also boasted of being a citizen of the world. What world? Would it be the world of his mentor for twenty years, the anti-American Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Obama has been nurtured by other anti-Americans figures, such as communist William Ayers, a founder of the terrorist Weathermen underground group. Obama's questionable dedication to America should be juxtaposed with Ahmadinejad's boast of a world without America — yes, and without Israel. The paramount issue confronting America and Israel is a nuclear Iran. Since the Bush administration apparently signed off attacking Iran by issuing the National Intelligence Estimate, falsely claiming that Iran had stopped its nuclear program in 2003, the American presidential and vice-presidential candidates should be queried about former U. S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton's position on this issue. Bolton wrote in the Wall Street Journal that if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, the U. S. should aid Israel before, during, and after such an attack. It has been reported that Bolton is serving as an adviser to Governor Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate. Although Bolton is man of great intellectual integrity and governmental experience, we should not expect him to advise Governor Palin to be very open about the Iranian issue — not in an election campaign. Neither she nor Senator McCain is going to answer hypothetical questions concerning what the US or Israel should do vis-à-vis Iran. Asked in an interview about her attitude toward a possible Israeli attack on Iran, Palin said we should not "second-guess" the measures Israel may take to defend itself — a position no different from that of Obama and Senator Biden. At no point has she or McCain expressed support for Bolton's position. Hence, a McCain-Palin victory in November may not change the futile negotiating approach of the Bush administration. Mark Steyn wrote a book, America Alone. This may be said of Israel, whose people cannot even depend on their own government. Not only does the ruling Kadima party persist in the madness of Oslo, but its probable successor, the Likud, voted overwhelmingly against a resolution to abrogate Oslo. This simple fact makes the Likud complicit in treason, and places in question the mental and moral caliber of those who champion this party. Do I exaggerate? MK Arieh Eldad recently accused the Olmert government of treason for proposing to withdraw from Judea and Samaria including eastern Jerusalem. For the Likud to make such a charge is the pot calling the kettle black. Israel cannot rely on the Likud. Nor can it rely on a McCain-Palin administration. Israel will have to take its future in its own hands. This Israel will not do unless it has a radically new government, one which understands that Israel 'salvation depends on her turning to God, not to Washington. Foolish Jews: Don't you understand that God is your only true friend? Desperately needed is a force that restores God's role in the domain of statecraft. I mean the God of Israel, of the Torah, for the deadly alternative is the god of Islam, of the Quran.
Contact Barbara Sommer at sommer_1_98@yahoo.com |
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MCCARTNEY WARNED AGAINST ISRAEL SHOW
Posted by Simon McIlwaine, September 15, 2008. |
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This was written by Jerusalem Post Staff and it
appeared yesterday in the Jerusalem Post
Former Beatle Paul McCartney's decision to perform in Tel Aviv has turned him into the target of a terror attack following a threat made against the singer by extremist Islamic leader Omar Bakri. The article below is called "Sir Paul: Terror Target" and was
written by Dennis Rice and it appeared yesterday in the Express
(UK): |
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SIR Paul McCartney has been threatened that he will be the target of suicide bombers unless he abandons plans to play his first concert in Israel. Self-styled preacher of hate Omar Bakri claimed the former Beatle's decision to take part in the Jewish state's 60th anniversary celebrations had made him an enemy of all Muslims. Sources said Sir Paul was shocked but refused to be intimidated. In an interview with Israeli media yesterday he said: "I was approached by different groups and political bodies who asked me not to come here. I refused. I do what I think and I have many friends who support Israel." Sir Paul, 65, should have gone to Israel with the Beatles in 1965 but they were barred by the Jewish nation's government over fears they would corrupt young people. Yesterday a number of websites described him as an infidel and suggested he was going to Israel only because of the reported €2.3m fee for the one-off concert. A message posted on one website said: "Shame on you Paul McCartney for day trippin' to apartheid Israel" and vowed never to buy his music again. Bakri, who made his weekly internet broadcast to fellow extremists from his home in Lebanon, where he has lived in exile since being banned from returning to Britain, said Sir Paul was "making more enemies than friends". Syrian-born Bakri, 48, went on: "I heard today that the pop star Paul McCartney is playing as a part of the celebrations. "If you speak about the holocaust and its authenticity never being proved historically in the way the Jewish community portray it, people will arrest you. People will you say you should not speak like this. Yet they go and celebrate the anniversary of 60 years of what? "Instead of supporting the people of Palestine in their suffering, McCartney is celebrating the atrocities of the occupiers. The one who is under occupation is supposed to be getting the help. "And so I believe for Paul McCartney, what he is doing really is creating more enemies than friends." Explaining his comments, Bakri told the Sunday Express: "Our enemy's friend is our enemy. "Thus Paul McCartney is the enemy of every Muslim. We have what we call 'sacrifice' operatives who will not stand by while he joins in a celebration of their oppression. "If he values his life Mr McCartney must not come to Israel. He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him." Lawyer Anjem Choudary, who last week chaired a meeting in London at which extremists claimed the next 9/11-style atrocity would be in Britain, said Sir Paul had allowed himself to become a propaganda tool for Israel. He added: "Muslims have every right to be angry at Paul McCartney. How would the world react if he wanted to have a concert in occupied Kashmir? "They would not allow it to happen but because it is Israel he can play. A country which, as the celebration indicates did not exist 60 years ago, only exists thanks to stealing and occupying another country's lands." Yesterday the comments drew condemnation from Palestinian sources and outsiders. Omar Barghouti, of The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, described the threat as "deplorable". Patrick Mercer, the Conservative MP for Newark and a former Shadow Security Minister, said: "One could dismiss Bakri as a ranting extremist but history has shown that he has an ability to twist minds, so his comments should not be underestimated. "If Sir Paul McCartney wants to play at the 60th anniversary then it is the worst form of illiberalism for Omar Bakri to restrict the artist's freedom in this way." A spokesman for Sir Paul declined to comment on the threat, saying: "Paul's Friendship First concert is about his music. Paul's is a message of peace." Tickets for the concert range from €70 to €230. Last night Sir Paul performed his first concert in the Ukraine, playing to tens of thousands in the capital Kiev. Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk |
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THE NEED FOR RACISM
Posted by Seth Frantzman, September 15, 2008. |
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Roger Cohen's latest piece in the New York Times is entitled 'Out of Africa' and begins with his journey to Elmina in Ghana to see a former headquarters of the slave trade in West Africa. Cohen tells the readers that more American kids "should be wrested from their computer screens" to see this other side of American history. Then, Cohen tells us, they might ask about this election year "is America really ready to elect a black man?" This, Cohen tells us, is the 'historic' nature of the Obama candidacy. Cohen reminds us that Obama's 'color' "remains problematic" for "blue collar America." Cohen answers his own question at the end of his editorial. America is ready to elect a black man. Is Cohen kidding himself? He has indulged in the usual decision to play the race scientist with Mr. Obama. Ghana may very well have some meaning for many blacks in the U.S, those descendants of slaves. But Obama isn't one of these blacks. Obama is a descendant of a very free African Kenyan man who very freely met and produced off-spring with a very free American woman. Obama's black ancestors never even came to America. The only ancestors Obama has in the United States are whites. Is America ready to elect a black man? Cohen thinks that he is asking this about Obama. Cohen even thinks he can trick us into believing that Obama's 'color' is too much for middle America and thus any failure of Obama at the polls represents America's racism and the inability of America to 'elect a black man.' Its part of the classic charade that the Obama candidacy is built on. This charade is primarily one created by blacks and leftists. Leftist whites like Mr. Cohen feel good about themselves for supporting Obama. They claim they are 'breaking the glass ceiling' and that they are 'ready to elect a black man' as if this is some sort of badge of honour. But they have deluded themselves, to the extent that they are going to Ghana to see the slave pens and telling themselves that they are finally doing justice to those slaves by voting for Obama. Obama has no connection to slavery. Voting for him isn't redeeming America from her 'original sin' as Cohen terms it. The ridiculous assertion that Obama is black is one of the greatest charades ever foisted upon America. It is based on the false racism of liberalism that claims even the most minute amount of 'African-American ancestry' makes a person black. This racial science is not so far removed from the old racism of the 'three-fifths compromise' where three-fifths of the blacks of the South were counted as being full humans for the purposes of the U.S census. This old idea that the race of someone is determined based partly on skin color and partly on the fact that if a person has some percentage of non-white ancestry that they are immediately categorized as being 'non-white' is based on racial pseudo-science, only slightly removed from the 'Grandfather Laws' of Nazism. It is people like Mr. Cohen who may be ready to 'elect a black man' but can't seem to see past race to elect anyone, which in itself is as much a sin than not voting for someone based on their skin color. Some of the Native tribes have decided to do the opposite of the liberal. They have classified as Native-American only those who are one quarter or one half or more Native. Thus their racial logic is that some miniscule amount of Navajo or Apache blood isn't enough for tribal membership. But the real question that should be posed to those like Mr. Cohen is: "If Obama were running for the presidency of Botswana would you ask 'is Botswana ready to elect a white man?" After all, when the situation is reversed, is Mr. Obama considered a white man in his home nation of Kenya? Its an interesting question. The current leader of Barbados, a bonifide populist and man of the people from the Barbados Democratic Party, is about as white as one can get and yet he has condemned his much darker skinned opponent of being a member of the 'party of the white man', the Barbados Labour Party. Maybe they've figured it out in Barbados. Its not the color of your skin, brother, it's the content of your character.
BUT IN GENERAL THE PROBLEM IS THAT AMERICANS NEED RACISM. They need it because without it they cannot survive. The media and intellectuals need it. The poor need it. Blacks need it for without it they cannot make excuses about themselves and the 'obstacles' they supposedly are always 'overcoming'. Godfrey Mwakikagile of the NAACP is an expert on this need for racism. He cites the fact that "According to the National Opinion Research Center, a majority of white Americans still believe that blacks and Hispanics are less intelligent." (Asians think that white people are stupid, but for some reason that isn't keeping the white man down, or is it? Europeans think overweight white American tourists are dumb but I doubt anyone would describe this as a form of 'racism'). Mwakikagile claims "Although racism still is a serious problem in the United States today, it is not an insurmountable obstacle in all cases." This implies that generally speaking it is an 'insurmountable' obstacle. Roger Wilkins of the NAACP notes that "This is a racist society, and it will be for a long time to come." According to the United Church of Christ: "Racism permeates most of our institutions....(I don't suppose they meant this to imply that their church's institutions are racist, but rather that most institutions are racist)" According to renowned sociologist Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, "the United States will never rid itself of racism." Professor Harold Cruse, of the University of Michigan, shares the same view: "The United States cannot and never will solve the race problem unless Americans change the economic, political, cultural, and administrative social organization of this country in various sectors...." The United States seems to have achieved exactly what the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders "ominously warned about following the sixties' riots: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, and one white — separate and unequal....Race prejudice has shaped our history." In addition Mwakikagile notes "This relationship has been profoundly affected by what many blacks consider to be indifference towards their plight and wellbeing in a white-dominated society which still remains racist; and sometimes outright hostility towards them by a [Republican] party that is seen as a bastion of white supremacy." In addition he asks " Is racism no longer a serious problem in the American society? Are race relations really that good, so good that racism no longer plays a major role in the lives of black people as many black conservatives contend?" This litany of claims describing the unending racism and insurmountable odds facing Blacks in America might make one wonder 'why do they stay in American when they could just go somewhere else where this obstacle would disappear?' But the truth is that Blacks have never wanted to leave America, especially the practitioners of the NAACP 'racism is everywhere' bogeyman because if leftist liberal blacks who thrive on racism left to a place like Africa they would no longer have the excuse of racism to describe the failures in their community and the support from whites like Mr. Cohen to indulge their fantasies of 'overcoming obstacles.' The narrative that blacks and leftist liberal whites have created of a society where everything is racist and the black cannot ever escape his skin color is one that sets up most blacks to fail and sets up a small minority to make modest achievements and then claim they have 'succeeded' because they have 'overcome racism'. Without this ever-present racism the accomplishments of most blacks would pall in comparison to their percentage in society. But the 'society is racist' narrative allows for modest successes to be seen as 'great' achievements. The success of one black at some profession where blacks traditionally do not succeed, such as landing on the moon or becoming a college professor or a famous lawyer, is seen as some great achievement. Think of the success of Tiger Woods, Colon Powell or Barak Obama and consider the disproportionate cheering one hears about how they 'broke the glass ceiling'. Not that they have not achieved, they have, but the belief that they 'overcame great odds' to get there makes their success all the more profound. If we were to recall that all of them did not have the traditional 'African-American' upbringing and that all of them are children of mixed race ancestry we might pause and wonder 'is someone using half black people's achievements to tarnish an entire race?' Actually if we were to survey their achievements we would find that these were not the blacks who sat up late at night listening to the 'you can't get ahead' mantras of the NAACP. Their mixed upbringing certainly helped free them from the ghetto of 'America is a racist society with insurmountable obstacles.' But there is something else to consider here. If people were to find that America was not racist then suddenly we wouldn't need organizations like the NAACP. Just as 'peace' organizations frequently support violence and hatred because they need it to create violence so as to justify their existence the race-complainers need racism in order to survive. Take away 'racism' and the wind comes out of their sails. There is no greater beneficiary of the 'America is a racist society and always will be' thesis than the NAACP and those that make a living describing how racist everything is. Mr. Mwakikagile would have a hard time of it in Africa because he wouldn't have anything to write about. Of course we know what he would write. He would claim that African countries can't succeed because of the evils of a 'racist' world and the 'legacy of colonialism'. WE NEED RACISM. IT IS THE THING THAT KEEPS OUR SOCIETY TOGETHER. Without racism we wouldn't have all the clichés. We wouldn't have much to talk about in the media. We wouldn't have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. How could we survive without the Rainbow Coalition? How could we survive without the census having to revise its definition to turn Hispanics into 'Black Hispanics' and 'White Hispanics' in order to preserve the old racial order of 'white' and 'black' so that a state like Arizona could still be comfortably white, rather than Hispanic. Thus we wouldn't be able to keep repeating the myth to ourselves that 'minorities can't get ahead, just look at the blacks'. Because if we admitted that Hispanics are a separate group than we might have to admit that they succeed at a faster rate than blacks (in all fields from college graduation to teen pregnancy rates to small business ownership) and we would have to conclude either that black failure is due to a culture of failure or that Hispanics have conspired with whites to keep blacks down (not a completely far fetched idea since most Hispanics are more racist than whites and Hispanics don't have 'white guilt', yet). Without racism we couldn't blame the complete breakdown in society and civilization that took place in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina on 'racism', we might have to face the fact that it had more to do with the drunken Cajun swamp culture than it did with a racist hurricane. Society needs racism and it needs blacks. It needs blacks to such an extent that it creates black 'African-Americans' where they don't exist. Thus Barak Obama's story gets traced back to Ghana's slave coast, even though he's from Kenya. Obama's half white mocha skin becomes 'colorful' and we are asked if we are 'ready to elect a black man'. We aren't ready to elect a black man because Obama isn't black. We aren't ready to elect a black man because America is a deeply racist country where no black person can succeed and America will always be a racist country, after all, without racism who would we blame for all our problems? Who would want to believe that blacks are incarcerated at a massively high rate because they are disproportionately criminals due to living in cities (by contrast southern rural blacks are not incarcerated to such an extent) and that welfare has destroyed the black nation so that it lives off handouts, and that 70% of black children are born out of wedlock for reasons that have nothing to do with slavery. We need that racism. It is like a drug. Its an addiction. We need it because we couldn't live without it. Its not the actual racism we need. No one needs lynchings and hate crimes. It's the idea of racism we need. We need the idea. We need it lurking behind every door and every corner. We need it seeping through the walls of every institution and every business. We can't live without it. Contact Seth J. Frantzman at sfrantzman@hotmail.com and visit his website: http://journalterraincognita.blogspot.com This article appeared August 27, 2008 on his website. |
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HOW LEFT-WING GROUPS ARE KEEPING EVERYONE'S MINDS OFF TERRORISTS
Posted by Herb and Miki Sunshine, September 15, 2008. |
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This comes from the Mattot Arim website
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Many left-wing groups are working to perpetuate a modern blood libel according to which Israel does not enforce the law on SETTLERS. It is important to keep the record straight: in fact Israel does enforce the law against settlers, and does NOT enforce the law against TERRORISTS. This came up this past weekend. Settlers were accused by left-wing Knesset members and others of being extreme because they spray-painted and shot in the air. But this was responsive to a serious terror attack in Yitzhar which was not dealt with by Israeli security authorities. In this attack, a young family's house was burned down (fortunately, the family, which has several small children, was at Grandma's house in Rehovot for the weekend). Also, a 10 year old was thrown off a porch 5 meters high after first being stabbed. Miraculously the child landed in a bush — the only bush in the area — and he is now recovering in hospital. (http://yeshanews.com/?id=61077) 
HERE ARE THE FACTS ABOUT LAW ENFORCEMENT IN ISRAEL: a. Settlers are constantly indicted for the most minute trivia, such as holding placards outside of an official's home (among the dozens arrested for this very offense, a couple of weeks ago, were an 85 year old man and a baby in a stroller). b. In contrast, Israeli Parliament Member Effie Eitam found out last year that the Israel Defence Forces have NO DATA about how many perpetrators of fatal terror attacks have actually been caught over the past decade, as opposed to how many still walk the streets. The Ministry of Defense does not want to find out: their official letter to Eitam asked this Knesset Member, himself a retired army officer, to withdraw the parliamentary inquiry so they would not need to bother to find out the answer. c. Parliament Member Benny Alon found out last year that about 20 thousand separate terror attacks have been perpetrated against Israelis by Palestinians in a period of 5 years. Again, the Israel Defense Forces had not the faintest idea of how many of these perpetrators had been brought to justice and did not make any commitments to even try and find out. d. The same Parliament Member, Benny Alon, filed a parliamentary inquiry asking when would the Israeli government finally get around to dealing with Palestinian "president" Abbas's pronouncement, last year, according to which "all our guns, all our guns, all our guns" would be trained against Israel. The rules of Israel's parliament were summarily broken in order to deal with this challenging question: no governmental response was received by Mr. Alon. e. Just a few weeks ago, an official speaking for "moderate" Salaam Fayad's office threatened the lives of settlers. His threat was reported in the Jerusalem Post, but no law enforcement officer took any action at all. f. A few years ago, columnist Sara Hoenig of the Jerusalem Post found out that the Hamas terror group held a public, festive gathering in ...the yard of an Israeli maximum security prison, of all places. Since that time, Knesset Member Eli Gabai has been trying to get a response on what was the name of the prison warden who allowed this to happen. No answers are forthcoming so far. g. Please help the Israeli people protect themselves in this absurd
situation by supporting private efforts. For example, Mattot Arim
hopes to soon distribute information to the inhabitants of Israel's
big cities explaining to them exactly what will happen to them if a
Palestinian state ever comes into existence (answer: constant rockets
everywhere — like in Sderot). To do this we urgently need volunteer,
Hebrew speaking GRAPHIC ARTISTS (please contact mattot.arim@gmail.com
and mark your email URGENT). We also need FINANCIAL GIFTS. As little
as 200 NIS allows us to warn one thousand Israeli families. Ideally,
we would like to warn whole citiesful of Israelis, and that translates
into huge printing and distribution costs. If you can help, write out
your check to the Matteh leMaan Eretz Yisrael and send to: POB 1588,
Rehovot Israel (please notify us of your generosity by email to
sddym@bezeqint.net if possible).
Herb Sunshine is a lawyer, qualified to practice in U.S.A. and Israel.
He and his wife Miki live in Jerusalem. Contact them by email at sunshine.h@012.net.il
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METHOD IN THEIR MADNESS
Posted by Barry Rubin, September 15, 2008. |
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One evening you're walking down a street. A robber jumps on you to steal your wallet. You fight back and after a protracted battle you injure him enough so that he flees the scene. The next day newspapers report that you assaulted a poor innocent man to mug him. From pulpits, religious leaders denounce you as a bad moral example that should be punished. Politicians urge that the forces of the law be deployed against you. Your attempts to defend yourself are ignored and dismissed as lies and excuses. Most people never even hear your version. And then after all that, someone explains: "You know the reason why people don't like you? It's the way you behave; after all you assaulted that poor man." That, my friends, is another way for saying that your policy is the cause of your problems. Of course, the parallel outlined above is too simple-deeds have been done, mistakes made, conflicts occurred — and yet it does convey something essential about the Middle East and the September 11 attacks, as well as being part of a much broader pattern of how much of the area deals with the United States, Israel, and the West in general. For example, the most outrageous lies and exaggerations are told in the Arabic-language world about Israel. This material then serves as a basis for explaining that Israel is hated, under constant terrorist attack, and targeted for genocide because of what it does. But the question remains: does according to whom? Or consider this question: What's the main lesson the Middle East has drawn from September 11? That terrorism is bad? Don't mess with America? Radical Islamism is dangerous and irrational? Surely, some have done so. Yet probably the dominant idea is that the United States is responsible for the attack on itself. The less "sophisticated" idea, though common among the well-educated, is that the event was a direct conspiracy; the more "educated" notion is as a response to U.S. actions. And this latter concept itself comes in two versions: the more radical (you had it coming to you) and the more moderate (regrettable but necessary). Just because the Middle East refuses to learn from the experience, however, doesn't mean we shouldn't. First, we should understand that a sphere of dictatorship requires a surrounding universe of lies to protect it. Of course, (being a Western thinker requires I engage in self-criticism) that doesn't mean Western democracies are perfect by any means. But they do try hard, and their systems seek to correct themselves when they make mistakes because democracies have numerous independent people and institutions protected by freedom of speech who can challenge and correct each other, presenting different viewpoints. In Arabic-speaking states, diversity means a choice between agreeing with the dictatorship or being even more extreme in misrepresenting reality. Second, this situation is not just a matter of repression or regime misinformation to be corrected by either regime change from outside or massive apologies and concessions. There is a popular base of support for the system based on culture, history, and interpretation of religion which makes such ideas appeal to the masses. As Tarek Heggy, the most incisive contemporary Arab intellectual, wrote in 1998, "Even the most outlandish statement, if repeated often enough, can...be accepted as true...in a society in which half the population is illiterate and the other half displays only a very modest standard of education..." This situation provides, "A fertile breeding ground for the most untenable, demagogical and unfounded assertions to take root and flourish." The only solution is to set different goals and interpretations of the world through rethinking, reform, and education. Western glorifications of the Middle East's status quo — these are customs which must be preserved, how dare you criticize people's beliefs and offend their sensibilities? — will merely ensure another century of bloodshed, dictatorship, and poverty. Third, just because you're nice and tolerant doesn't mean you're wrong. Otherwise, you'll never understand that just because it is the "other" doesn't mean it's wise. No amount of apology or concession will change those who hate you on the basis of ideology and need to hate you to preserve their political, ideological, and cultural system. Or as former Syrian information minister (note the significance of his past job) Mahdi Daklallah explained recently regarding his regime's philosophy, "But who cares about the truth?" His words, claiming the United States planned the September 11 attacks, apply much better to the worldview in which he exists: "What is important, always, is the use of the events in order to carry out a strategy planned in advance...." Fourth, politics happens. The Islamist upsurge is no more a mere reaction to what foreigners have done in the Middle East than was the French revolution (Austria did attack France), Russian Revolution (World War One undermined the Czarist regime), Nazi revolution (the Versailles treaty and indemnities punished Germany and angered its people), and so on. The point in discussing the distortion of September 11 in the Arabic-speaking world is that the vast majority of issue discussions there are dominated by lies and nonsense. What is needed is to understand the intellectual preconceptions and social-political structures that create this situation. Reform-minded Arab intellectuals have repeatedly made these points and been ignored, or vilified, for doing so. Shortly after the first anniversary of September 11, the Egyptian writer Abd al-Moneim Said explained the response "was to deny that the perpetrators were Arab and that the event had any connection with Arab society and culture." Wild conspiracy theories were spread precisely because to confront the tragedy's implications would require examining real problems "which Arab societies have been so assiduously avoiding." The more Middle Eastern terrorism spread globally, "the greater was the rush to look the other way." Five years later, that statement is all the more true. We hear endlessly that the problem is the West doesn't understand the Middle East. The truth is the exact opposite: the Middle East doesn't understand the West and, by the same token, doesn't understand what it needs to do to get out of the hole it has dug for itself. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle-East (Wiley). |
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RICE PRESSING END TO ZIONISM; UNIFIL CONTRADICTED IN UNO; EYE-WITNESS IN ISRAEL
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 14, 2008. |
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DISAFFECTION IN EGYPT? An Egyptian think tank found many Egyptian youth so alienated that they wouldn't defend Egypt, try to leave it, and would be willing to work in Israel (IMRA, 8/26). The report is too sketchy. It was anecdotal, not scientific. What proportion of youth? Only from Cairo? Just semi-secularist youth or also Islamist youth? The usual assumption is that emigrants or their children adopt their new countries' values. That used to be true of the US. Now the multi-culturalist US has no official values to inculcate. Muslim emigrant children fall back on their exclusivist religion and become radicalized. This is happening swiftest in Britain. THE THEORY OF HAVING EGYPT POLICE GAZA Letting hostile Egyptian troops into Gaza means putting them close by and on the traditional Egyptian invasion route into the Land of Israel. As hostile as the current Egyptian regime is, the next one might be more militantly Islamist. Its troops would be in place. If Egypt let Hamas attack Israel, Israel could not respond without killing Egyptian troops, which might then ignite a regional war. [Russia would be likely to interfere.] Expecting Egypt to police Gaza well, when it customarily turns Palestinian Arab hostility against Israel, is the second mistake in the theory of relying upon Egypt. Egypt is complicit in arms smuggling into Gaza. [One doesn't appoint a leader of a criminal gang to police the neighborhood.] The theory of using some Arabs against others failed before. PM Rabin thought Arafat would liquidate Hamas. That led to Israel's problems with both Hamas and the PLO. Defense Min. Sharon had the Lebanese Christian militia police Palestinian Arab refugee camps. The Christians managed to massacre enemies there land leave Israel's reputation muddied. There are no cheap shortcuts to national security (IMRA, 8/27 from Michael Widlanski). RICE SAYS PACT IS NEAR She is pressing Israel to give up almost all of Judea-Samaria and most of the Old City, divide Jerusalem, and divide Israel by a corridor linking the two parts of the P.A.. She is exhorting Israel to sign an agreement, soon. She is ignoring the disastrous results of Israel's other withdrawals, from Gaza and northern Samaria (Michael Widlanski in IMRA, 8/27) and Lebanon and Egypt. She would leave Israel almost defenseless and the terrorists unreformed. Nobody else asks why. Barry Chamish says why — it is part of the West's anti-Zionism. ISRAEL REMOVES JEWISH OPPONENTS Israeli prosecutors got a court to order three Jews away from their home area in the Territories for three months. They are said to present a danger to Arabs harvesting olives. They don't have criminal records or a record of interference with olive harvests. One remarked that his sentence starts at the end of the olive harvest, so some more sinister motive must be behind the order. The Jews have in common a talent at organizing province-wide opposition to government moves to expel Jews from Judea-Samaria (Arutz-7, 8/27). This sort of repression of political dissent is unheard of in America. The government of Israel does not debate opponents nor answer their challenges. It never has explained its policies, which keep failing. Instead, It exiles or frames opponents, but the US media calls Israeli democracy "vibrant." A number of religious leaders have been murdered, too, ostensibly by Arabs acting more expertly than regular terrorist attacks on Jews. Hence, Barry Chamish suspects the secret service of either doing the dirty work or advising the Arabs where and when to do it. UNIFIL CONTRADICTED IN UNO UNIFIL claimed success in keeping Hizbullah from rearming. A UNO investigation team independent of UNIFIL checked. It found the Lebanon-Syria border open to arms smuggling (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 6/28, p.6). To the consternation of UNIFIL, Israeli planes fly over Lebanon to check for themselves. Israel reports that Hizbullah has rearmed, has more rockets than before the last war, and has built bunkers in about 150 villages in southern Lebanon. How would UNIFIL know that Hizbullah is in compliance with the ceasefire Resolution? UNIFIL does not check the border. UNIFIL does not enter villages without an escort from the Lebanese Army. The Lebanese Army is an ally of Hizbullah. Israel states that the Lebanese Army tips off Hizbullah in advance of UNIFIL entry, which the Lebanese Army keeps to a minimum. It should be obvious that UNIFIL is willingly deceived; its procedure is farcical. ISRAEL AIR FORCE DISCOVERS HOW TO SAVE ISRAEL The IDF learned from the last war that its enemies may fire thousands of missiles. Chief target: airport runways. Accordingly, the Israel Air Force is stocking a chemical that can repair bombed runways within minutes (IMRA, 8/27). That is half the battle. The other half is to maintain communications. ODD NEGOTIATIONS The government of Israel, whose incompetence, corruption, and appeasement has discredited it, is negotiating with the government of P.A.-Judea-Samaria, repudiated by its people. PM Olmert asks the U.N., U.S., EU, Russia) Jordan, Egypt, the Vatican, and perhaps Morocco to help negotiations. All of them favor the Arabs. They would help the P.A. negotiate. He knows that, but the ruling class of Israel represents personal business interests and not Israel's welfare. To quiet down the internecine warfare in Gaza, Egypt has proposed sending its own troops into Gaza. The Egyptian Foreign Minister suggests that this could end the Arab-Israel conflict, by enabling negotiations between Israel and the P.A. to conclude. Alas, Muslim Arab negotiations are not for peace. The other possibility is that those troops could succeed where Egypt's other four wars on Israel failed. That valid concern is not mentioned by the government. EYEWITNESS IN ISRAEL "French Hill, which once was an expensive area, is now turning, with about 20 percent Arabs in the [formerly] Jewish homes. Can't sell a house or apartment to a Jew. They won't buy [probably because the government indicated that it was giving the area either to the Arabs or to Russia. Living in a country does not give you sovereignty over it. I can't turn parts of America into a Jewish state. Once Arabs arrive, it becomes unsafe for Jews in a country that does not protect them from the Arabs]. People have to sell to Arabs. Daily problems in that area and Psgat Ze'ev which also has many Arabs: fights, car destruction, stoning. So, you understand the situation and realize the danger." "In many parts of the Territories people were screaming for police protection. Now there is protection, but for the Arabs [from Jewish self-defense]. It doesn't make sense and is very aggravating. I am surrounded by Arabs. No more Jewish building is allowed. There is a fight for E1 which I'm involved in, and now for the road between Psgat Ze'ev and Maale Adumim, which the government wants to give to the Arabs. They can easlily attack Maale Adumim, especially if there were a war and not enough protection." "They shop in Jewish Malls, and I believe a couple of [Arab[ families are already in Maale Adumim and shop in the Mall. The Center of Jerusalem has Arabs walking freely. The Mall near Gilo, the largest one in Jerusalem, is filled with Arabs. They shop where I can't afford the prices. So, there goes the story of the poor Arab. But, can I go into an Arab town? Of course, not! I'd get stoned or killed. Going through eastern Jerusalem with a bus is a problem, because Arabs throw rocks. A Jewish man drove there, and was hit in the head with a rock." (from an associate who lives on site 9/4.) Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: RUMORS AND GAMES
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 14, 2008. |
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Changes are rapidly approaching: There is the Kadima primary, scheduled for this Wednesday, and then, three months hence, the end of Bush's administration — by which time parameters of a "peace" agreement were supposed to have been nailed down. Reporting on objective "facts" with regard to what's happening in the run-up to these events is sometimes close to impossible, as the rumors are flying fast. ~~~~~~~~~~ Last week, US Consul Jacob Walles, in an interview in the Palestinian paper Al-Ayyam, stated that Israel had started negotiations with the PA on Jerusalem — something Olmert promised not to do until all other issues were resolved. The response from the Olmert government was two-fold: First, official fury at Walles for talking when it had been agreed that the content of negotiations was not supposed to be discussed publicly. And then, a denial by Olmert that Jerusalem was on the table, as this caused something of an uproar inside of Kadima. But it seems that a bit of mental dissonance has been generated. Says Olmert: We are angry that Walles spoke about something he was pledged not to talk about, but we're not doing what he says we are. Tzipi Livni, Kadima frontrunner and chief negotiator, also issued a denial. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile, Al Shariq, a newspaper in Qatar, has described on agreement that is allegedly taking shape between Israel and the PA; it was carried by YNet yesterday. Reportedly there are 12 clauses, due to be released by the end of this year. Two are of particular note. First, the Palestinian capital will include "several neighborhoods of Jerusalem." And then, 20,000 refugees will be permitted into Israel within ten years — refugees, aged 60-80, who had been uprooted in 1948, not their families, who would be permitted to live out their lives in Israel. As to the first: One would have to be an incredibly trusting person to believe Olmert's and Livni's denials that Jerusalem has not been discussed. Of course it has! But is the PA going to accept "several neighborhoods" rather than all of eastern Jerusalem (which includes the Jewish holy sites and substantial Jewish neighborhoods)? And the second: In spite of the cry about "right of return," are we to believe that the Palestinians will settle for a small number of elderly people, without family support, coming to live in Israel? As the Arabs are claiming 4.6 million refugees, this is a token .043%. ~~~~~~~~~~ And here we are: On Friday, Abbas gave an interview with Haaretz in which he said that "We presented our ideas and demands regarding the six issues, but have not received any answer from the Israeli side." Abbas, in this interview as elsewhere, is adamant about Israel accepting responsibility for the refugee problem and a "practical" right of return — which he would base on the Arab initiative of 2002. That Arab — read Saudi — initiative was a horror for Israel. With regard to the refugees, it called for a "just" solution based on UN Resolution 194. (For over 60 years, the Arabs have been basing their claims to "right of return" on this document, which in point of fact guarantees nothing with regard to return.) What is more, which is a tip-off, it "Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries." This means that Syria and Lebanon, and other Arab states that currently host "Palestinian refugees" in an on-going limbo status are being reassured that they are under no obligation to absorb them permanently. ~~~~~~~~~~ This morning, an aide to Abbas said that reaching a peace deal this year was becoming more difficult, but that the Palestinians were interested in continuing talks after Olmert left office. What's clear is that they are counting on Livni replacing Olmert. See following... ~~~~~~~~~~ A Kuwaiti paper, Al-Jarida, also cited by YNet, says that Ahmed Qurei, the chief PA negotiator, supports Livni for head of Kadima because she is "willing to give them what others have not." Understand, Qurei and Livni have established a solid working relationship already in the course of negotiations. Qurei, according to this report, is structuring things so that she appears tough, in order to win votes. A bit of unintended humor: What was actually said was that he is helping her establish a "radical right-wing aura." Livni cannot convey a radical right-wing aura any more than I can project an aura of being an avid supporter of Peace Now. This is a window on PA thinking: Concern about protecting Israeli security — which is what Livni is expressing — is in their eyes the mark of a radical right-winger. In spite of this, Qurei said he would not sign the current agreement that was taking shape on Jerusalem (uh huh...) because it would allow the city to be "an Israeli military camp," which is his version of Israel retaining some areas with security measures. In fact, he said that the negotiations, in his expectation, would amount to nothing. My expectation as well, but I ponder why it matters to him whether Livni wins the primary if nothing will come of it anyway. ~~~~~~~~~~ Possible scenarios to watch for, coming down the road when the negotiations run their course: Another Intifada — greatly increased violence (terrorism) against Israel. This is hinted at in some quarters, but others suggest that either there is not the resolve for this within the populace or that politically this is not the way to go. Push for a "one state" solution. In this scenario PA leaders declare that they've given up on a two-state solution and want Israel to incorporate all Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and Gaza so that there is one bi-national state. A dangerous concept. ~~~~~~~~~~ But perhaps the negotiations will be dragged out for longer than expected (and perhaps this is what Qurei is thinking about): According to PA Basic Law — you may read reports to the contrary, but there is no PA constitution — the presidential term is four years, which means Mahmoud Abbas's term as president runs out in January 2009. Reports are circulating about unease here that after Abbas leaves chaos in the PA will follow. In fact, the Post has indicated that the IDF has held special exercises in preparation for a potential increase in violence. The Basic Law says that until new elections are held (and this would require 60 days), the Speaker of the Legislative Council takes over once the president has left office. Hamas is pushing hard for this, for the speaker is Hamas-affiliated Abdel Aziz Duwaik. Abdel Aziz Duwaik, it happens, is sitting in an Israeli prison right now. (Acting speaker is Sheikh Ahmed Bahar, who in a Friday sermon a year ago called upon Jews and Americans to be killed "to the very last one.") Undoubtedly, it is the prospect of Duwaik receiving the title of PA president while in prison here that is unsettling the IDF, with good reason. Of course, Abbas could still schedule those elections. But he has made no mention of this to date, no move to set things in motion. Abbas, it seems, has a different interpretation of Basic Law. The election for president, he says, is supposed to coincide with elections for the Legislative Council, which are scheduled for January 2010 — four years after the Hamas electoral victory of 2006. (My assumption is that Abbas is claiming the presidential elections are out of synch because of Arafat's death in November 2004, and the need to elect his successor in early 2005, one year before presidential elections would otherwise have been held.) Anything can happen, and the political in-fighting is likely to be substantial, but there is solid betting that Abbas is about to extend his presidential term to January 2010. ~~~~~~~~~~ Israel is suffering from drought. But this is apparently nothing compared to the drought being endured right now in Iran. From the Jordan Times, carried by IMRA, comes a report of extreme suffering in the southern Iranian province of Fars, where rainfall is down 68% and 10 of its 11 rivers have dried up. Not only are people without drinking water, but this agricultural region, where 85% of the population relies on farming, is in dire straits. This is of significance with regard to Iran's strength. The Iranian government has allocated $5 billion to fight the drought, and will have to import 5 million tons of wheat for domestic consumption. Hard times, it would surely seem, make Iran more vulnerable to the impact of serious economic sanctions. What is more, it's a good guess that the population must have grievous dissatisfaction with the focus of its government in this time of hardship. ~~~~~~~~~~ This is good news: Just days ago news reports were saying that the US has been declining in recent months to respond favorably to Israeli requests for military equipment that would make an Israeli attack on Iran more effective. But now in the wake of this comes a different sort of report from Haaretz. The U.S. Department of Defense announced on Friday that it will sell the Israel Air Force 1,000 new "bunker buster" smart bombs. What we're talking about is the Guided Bomb Unit-39 (GBU-39), which was developed for penetration of deep fortified facilities. This Boeing-developed bomb is able to successfully penetrate more than 1.8 meters of thick reinforced concrete, and has a 50% probability of hitting its target within 5-8 meters. Because of its small size — 113 kilograms, four can replace a single conventional one-ton bomb on an aircraft. This, needless to say, will considerably enhance our ability to mount a successful strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, should such a strike be decided upon. It also gives some credence to the theories I've encountered maintaining that public US disapproval of our intention to hit Iran, if necessary, is at least in part smoke screen. ~~~~~~~~~~ You might want to take a look at Charles Krauthammer's perceptive piece, "Obama's Altitude Sickness," in which he takes a clear-eyed look at the reason why Obama is now losing steam in the campaign. "...Obama was the ultimate celebrity candidate. For no presidential nominee in living memory had the gap between adulation and achievement been so great. "...The unease at the Denver convention, the feeling of buyer's remorse, was the Democrats' realization that the arc of Obama's celebrity had peaked — and had now entered a period of its steepest decline. That Palin could so instantly steal the celebrity spotlight is a reflection of that decline. "It was inevitable. Obama had managed to stay aloft for four full years. But no one can levitate forever. "...With every primary and every repetition of the high-flown, self-referential rhetoric, the campaign's insubstantiality became clear. By the time...of the last primary [it was] tired and flat. To top himself, Obama had to reach. Hence his triumphal declaration that history would note that night, his victory, his ascension, as 'the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.' The moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal?? "Clang....That grandiloquent proclamation of universalist puffery popped the bubble. The grandiosity had become bizarre. "...One star fades, another is born. The very next morning McCain picks Sarah Palin and a new celebrity is launched. "...her job is easier. She only has to remain airborne for seven more weeks. Obama maintained altitude for an astonishing four years. In politics, as in all games, however, it's the finish that counts."
~~~~~~~~~~ Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe, has another take
on the current Obama slide: People, he says, are beginning to see through
the Obama economic proposals.
Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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OBAMA AND THE WOODS FUND
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 14, 2008. |
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This was written by Jennifer Rubin and it appeared
yesterday at
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The mainstream media is not much interested in probing Barack Obama' s record before he arrived in the U.S. Senate in 2004. For example, they have studiously ignored the eminently well-researched book by David Freddoso, [1] The Case Against Barack Obama. There is no shortage of material or information which might be relevant to voters. One aspect of Obama's past in particular provides insight into Obama' s modus operandi in the world of Chicago politics: his service on the board of the Woods Fund. The Woods Fund is a non-profit foundation which declares its goal to "increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities by giving money primarily to not-for-profit groups involved in housing, the arts and other areas." Obama joined the board of the [2] Woods Fund in 1993 and remained [3] until 2002. But Obama didn't merely use the Woods Fund to help his fellow man — he used it to further his career. According to a November 29, 2007 report from the [4] Chicago Sun-Times, "Sen. Barack Obama was on the board of a Chicago charity when his former boss, Allison S. Davis, came looking for money. At the time, Davis was a developer represented by the law firm where Obama worked, as well as a small contributor to Obama's political campaign funds. He wanted the charity to help fund his plans to build housing for low-income Chicagoans." When Davis approached the Woods Fund, he was building another apartment building with now convicted felon and Obama friend/fundraiser Tony Rezko. The Chicago Sun-Times recounts: "Obama agreed. He voted with other directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners L.P., a $17-million partnership that Davis still operates." To date the Obama campaign has refused to comment on whether Obama disclosed his ties to Davis when he voted on the project. Another Woods Board Fund member with ties to Davis did abstain on the vote. Perhaps the most notorious of the Woods Fund recipients was the [5] Arab American Action Network (AAAN). AAAN was established in 1995 as non-profit group supposedly dedicated to improving the conditions of Arab immigrants in the Chicago area. But its activities were hardly benign. For example, AAAN sponsored a [6] Palestinian art exhibit on the "Nakba" — that is, the "catastrophe" of Israel's establishment in 1948. AAAN's officials routinely have made statements vilifying Israel. AAAN Board member [7] Ali Abunimah in 2002 declared: "'By deliberately denying food, water and medical aid, and wantonly destroying public and private property, and deliberately destroying the economy in the occupied territories, Israel is in flagrant breach of this [Geneva] Convention. ... Unfortunately, we are seeing the world turn a blind eye to atrocities being committed under its nose." (Abunimah co-founded and operates the [8] Electronic Intifada, a website replete with anti-Israel slurs and which declares Israel to be an apartheid state.) On the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, [9] Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of AAAN, announced: "Arafat was a great man. Yes, Arafat was an icon. ... We're saddened by his death, but we don't ignore the fact that this is not an issue of individuals, it's an issue of a people who have been oppressed and occupied for 55 years." Also serving on the Woods Fund at the time was Palestinian activist and now professor at Columbia University [10] Rashid Khalidi, whose wife headed AAAN. The Woods Fund granted AAAN $40,000 in 2001 and $70,000 in 2002. As Salon magazine wrote, this was "nepotism, Chicago style." Khalidi, a former spokesman for Yasser Arafat, held a fundraiser for Obama in 2000 during his unsuccessful bid for Congress. In 2003, during a dinner honoring Khalidi for becoming the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia, Obama warmly praised his friend, reminiscing about the many meals cooked for him by Khalidi's wife Mona and of the discussions he and Khalidi held that were "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. ... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world." The pattern of funneling money to political allies and their allies is evident throughout Obama's tenure at the Woods Fund. Tens and tens of thousands of dollars were granted to organizations including the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPPPI), the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Centers for New Horizons, the Chicago Jobs Council, the Chicago Education Fund, the Chicago Institute on Urban Poverty, the Chicago Urban League, The Gamaliel Foundation. Dozens of the board members and officials from these organizations in turn would donate money, in many instances up to the legal limit, for Obama's Senate and Presidential races between 2004 and 2008. For example the Woods Fund between 1999 and 2002 granted $60,000 to BPPPI. Board member and executives donated at least $16,950 to Obama' s political campaigns. The Woods Fund granted the Center of Neighborhood Technology $150,000 between 1999 and 2002. Obama received over $24,000 in campaign donations from its officials. And in turn Obama made sure to seek [11] earmarks on their behalf once he reached the U.S. Senate. A similar pattern of mutual financial help existed with regard to many of these organizations. While there is no evidence of an explicit quid pro quo, what is apparent is that the seeds of long term relationships and a network of financial support were sewn while Obama was a Woods board member. Obama's tenure with the Woods Fund is perhaps most noteworthy for his association with former terrorist [12] Bill Ayers. Ayers served on the Woods board for three years of Obama's tenure and remained on the board after Obama departed. Hillary Clinton raised this issue earlier this year at the Philadelphia debate when Obama, as he has done throughout the campaign, tried to minimize his relationship with Ayers. That exchange was set off with a question asking Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers: OBAMA: This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. Clinton was right, of course. Ayers also headed the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational foundation dedicated to school reform that was funded by an initial $49 million grant from the Annenberg family foundation. (Annenberg recently was in the news when the University of Chicago first [13] sealed the records and then [14] agreed to open them to National Review's Stanley Kurtz and other reporters seeking to explore that organization's records.) The Woods Fund in 1999 granted $50,000 to the Annenberg Challenge — that is one organization on which Obama and Ayers served giving funds to another headed by Ayers and on which [15] Obama also served as chairman for three years beginning in 1995 and then as a board member until 2001. The Annenberg Challenge has since come under scrutiny — and Obama' s involvement therewith as well — because of criticism that the Annenberg Challenge failed to improve student achievement. The [16] Los Angeles Times termed it a "bust." A USA Today column in 1998 noted, "Expectations, in fact, may prove to be the biggest stumbling block to the legacy of the Annenberg gift. In some circles, conservatives see snail's pace-progress among schools benefiting from Annenberg's largesse and use it as a public school parable: Give big money to public schools and it will be absorbed into the bureaucracy with little benefit." As [17] Education Week put it, "It was ultimately unsuccessful in raising student achievement, according to evaluations of the project." Another recipient of the Woods Fund largesse was the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an organization infamous for its left wing agenda. [18] Stanley Kurtz who has researched ACORN's far-left agenda described its "in your face tactics": Just think of Code Pink's well-known operations (threatening to occupy congressional offices, interrupting the testimony of General David Petraeus) and you'll get the idea. Acorn protesters have disrupted Federal Reserve hearings, but mostly deploy their aggressive tactics locally. Chicago is home to one of its strongest chapters, and Acorn has burst into a closed city council meeting there. Acorn protestors in Baltimore disrupted a bankers' dinner and sent four busloads of profanity-screaming protestors against the mayor's home, terrifying his wife and kids. Even a Baltimore city council member who generally supports Acorn said their intimidation tactics had crossed the line. During Obama's time on the Woods Funds ACORN received grants of $45,000 (2000), $30,000 (2001), $45,000 (2001), $30,000 (2002), and $40,000 (2002) from the Woods Fund. (Obama in the early 1990's [19] helped train ACORN organizers and later served as counsel in 1995 for ACORN in a "motor voter" registration lawsuit.) And ACORN certainly appreciated whatever assistance Obama afforded the radical organization over the years. Founder Toni Foulkes [20] enthusiastically backed Obama's U.S. Senate run in 2004, declaring: "ACORN is active in experimenting with methods of increasing voter participation in our low and moderate income communities to virtually every election. But in some elections we get to have our cake and eat it too: work on nonpartisan voter registration and GOTV, which also turns out to benefit the candidate we hold dear [Obama]." In short, no less than six years ago Obama served along side Ayers as a board member on an organization happy to pass out funds to radical left wing and anti-Israel groups. Moreover, the monies doled out through the Woods Fund to these groups, including Ayers own Annenberg Challenge, helped cement Obama's political relationships and bond with key players in Chicago. None of this matches his current self-portrait of a politically moderate reformer. But like so much of Obama, that was then and this is now. Footnotes [1] The Case Against Barack Obama:
[2] Woods Fund:
[3]until 2002:
[4] Chicago Sun-Times:
[5] Arab American Action Network:
[6] Palestinian art: http://www.jewishpress.com/ content.cfm?contentid=30283 [7] Ali Abunimah:
[8] Electronic Intifada:
[9] Hatem Abudayyeh:
[10] Rashid Khalidi:
[11] earmarks:
[12] Bill Ayers:
[13] sealed:
[14] agreed:
[15] Obama also served:
[16] Los Angeles Times:
[17] Education Week:
[1
8] Stanley Kurtz:
[19] helped train:
[20] Founder Toni Foulkes:
Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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U.S. TO 'GUARANTEE' PALESTINIAN STATE
Posted by HaDaR, September 14, 2008. |
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Just to demonstrate once again which has been the worst US administration for Israel and her long term interests since the Eisenhower days. This is the price of trusting the grandson of a nazi, business partner and tea buddy buddy of the oil producing camel eaters from Saudi Arabia. He started by being the FIRST SITTING US PRESIDENT EVER to mention the words "Palestinian State" and to CONSTANTLY ACT to promote (see Road Map) the end of Israel. This is by Aaron Klein of World Net Daily. It is archived at
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U.S. to 'guarantee' Palestinian state. Letter meant to bind Israel, PA, next administration in Washington JERUSALEM — The U.S. is planning to issue a letter guaranteeing the country will back agreements reached during current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state before President Bush leaves office in January, WND has learned. The move is intended to ensure any agreements reached by the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority, and spelled out in a joint document, will be recognized by the next U.S. administration and binding for Israel and the PA. The information comes as Jacob Walles, the U.S. consul-general, stated in an interview with a major Palestinian newspaper yesterday that Israel and the PA agreed to negotiate Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley area leading to the Dead Sea. In response to the report, the State Department issued a statement claiming the U.S. government has not taken a position on the borders of a future Palestinian state and denying Jerusalem is being discussed. But Israeli and Palestinian sources intimately familiar with the current talks tell WND Jerusalem is being negotiated, with Palestinian officials claiming the talks are in advance stages. The sources also said the U.S. recently floated a plan to divide Jerusalem. According to informed Israeli and Palestinian sources, officials from the State Department this year presented both negotiating sides with several proposals for consideration regarding the future status of Jerusalem. It was unclear whether the U.S. proposals were accepted. One U.S. plan for Jerusalem obtained by WND was divided into timed phases and, among other things, called for Israel eventually to consider forfeiting parts of the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site. According to the first stage of the U.S. proposal, Israel initially would give the PA some municipal and security sovereignty over key Arab neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem. The PA would be allowed to open some official institutions in Jerusalem, could elect a mayor for the Palestinian side of the city and would deploy some kind of so-called basic security force to maintain law and order. The specifics of the force were not detailed in the plan. The initial stage also calls for the PA to operate Jerusalem municipal institutions, such as offices to oversee trash collection and maintenance of roads. After five years, if both sides keep specific commitments called for in a larger principal agreement, according to the U.S. plan, the PA would be given full sovereignty over agreed-upon eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods and discussions would be held regarding an arrangement for the Temple Mount. The plan doesn't specify which parts of the Temple Mount could be forfeited to the Palestinians or whether an international force may be involved. The PA also could deploy official security forces in Jerusalem separate from a non-defined basic force after the five-year period and also could open major governmental institutions, such as a president's office, and offices for the finance and foreign ministries. The U.S. plan leaves Israel and the PA to negotiate which Jerusalem neighborhoods would become Palestinian. According to top diplomatic sources, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited the region last month, pressed Israel to sign a document by the end of the year that would include Jerusalem by offering the Palestinians a state in Israel's capital city as well as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli team rather would conclude an agreement on paper by the end of the year that would give the Palestinians a state in the West Bank, Gaza and some Israeli territory, leaving conclusions on Jerusalem for a later date, the informed diplomatic sources told WND. The sources said the Palestinian team has been pushing to conclude a deal by January on all core issues, including Jerusalem, and has been petitioning the U.S. to pressure Israel into signing an agreement on paper that offers the Palestinians eastern Jerusalem. Rice, the sources said, has asked Israeli leaders to bend to what the U.S. refers to as a "compromise position," concluding an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of the year that guarantees sections of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. But Israel would not be required to withdraw from Jerusalem for a period of one to five years. EDITOR'S NOTE: The U.S. State Department ignores that any splitting of Jerusalem and/or giving any of the land of Mandated Palestine to the local Arabs is illegal — Mandated Palestine is held as an irrevocable trust for the Jewish People (see, e.g., here and here.) As Ted Belman of IsraPundit has pointed out: It is beyond dispute that all of Judea and Samaria including Jerusalem was awarded in the Jews in the San Remo Resolution of 1920, confirmed by the Palestine Mandate in 1922, approved by both houses of the US government in 1923 and accepted by the US and Britain in the Anglo-American Treaty on Palestine in 1924. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. |
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YITZHAR RESIDENTS RETALIATE AGAINST TERRORIST
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 14, 2008. |
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This has been inevitable. I would strongly advise restraint on the part of the Government in their response to this. The wrong sort of action on the part of the Government will ignite the country. This below is a news item from Arutz-7 it is archived at
Stop complaining and fight back!
Have a nice day |
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(IsraelNN.com) Residents of the Jewish community of Yitzhar retaliated against the nearby Palestinian Authority Arab village of Asira al-Kabaliya in Samaria after an Arab entered the Jewish town and stabbed a nine-year-old boy on the Sabbath. [The child was stabbed repeatedly in his back and arms and, before he could reach his neighbor's door, he was thrown over the balcony.] Dozens of Jews poured into the Arab village, where it was believed the suspected terrorist resides. According to the villagers, the Jews damaged houses, overturned vehicles and shot rubber bullets as well as live ammunition at Arab residents. Villagers hurled rocks at the Jews until IDF soldiers arrived to break up the riot. At least two Arabs sustained gunshot wounds. EDITOR'S NOTE: Further information suggests this wasn't an isolated incident where someone came down with "Sudden Jihad Syndrome." The Ahrar Al-Jalil Brigade has claimed responsibility for the knife attack of the young settler. This summer, Ahrar Al-Jalil (Freedom for the Galilee) said they were responsible for the two bulldozer attacks in Jerusalem, as well as the 12 July shooting where an Israeli was injured near Lion's gate in the Old City. In December the group claimed a drive by shooting of an Israeli in the Golan Heights. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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RICE BACKS PA: DEMANDS: NO IDF IN JORDAN VALLEY, RAMAT ESHKOL AND FRENCH HILL PART "OCCUPIED TERRITORIES"
Posted by HaDaR, September 14, 2008. |
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More creeping and creepy anti-Israel actions and comments from the "friends of the Jews". Major natural and other disasters to be expected in the US, just as they have increased since early in 2001, when Bush first mentioned "Palestinian State". This is called "Border Control/Next stop, Ramallah." It is by Akiva
Eldar and it appeared September 9, 2008 in Ha'aretz
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"...In normal times, when the prime minister is not spending his Fridays in the company of police investigators, the reports published last Friday in the London-based Asharq Al Awsat and in the Jerusalem-based Al Quds would have caused a storm. According to the protocols of the last meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which were published in both papers, the U.S. adopted most of the Palestinians' positions regarding an Israeli-Palestinian final-status arrangement. In the meeting, which took place in Ramallah two weeks ago, Rice backed Abbas' positions on most of the core issues. According to the protocols, the Palestinian state would be established, "if not on all the territories occupied in 1967, then on most of them"; any territorial changes would be subject to territorial exchanges; discussions on East Jerusalem would be conducted based on the assumption that it is part of the occupied territories, "while leaving the door open to an understanding in the matter of the holy sites"; the Palestinian state would be demilitarized and the Israelis would have no Israeli military presence in it. Not even in the Jordan Valley." Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. |
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HIZBULLAH WIDENS ROLE; WHAT MUSLIMS THINK OF OBAMA; PEACE NOW'S FALSE ALARM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 12, 2008. |
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HOW ISRAEL DECIDES TO RELEASE PRISONERS Israel allegedly predicates release of terrorists to show that Abbas' engaging in dialogue produces results. How does the Cabinet determine whether to release prisoners, how many to release, and whom? Answer: three minutes, no in-depth discussion, and without advice of security forces. The ..."Shabbak and IDF confirm that they were not even approached on the matter and instead were advised of the matter as a finalized fact." (IMRA, 8/26). What results has dialogue produced for Israel? How has not relying on dialogue kept Hamas from consolidating its hold over Gaza, from becoming more popular in Judea-Samaria, from getting Israeli funds, and from building up for war? The decision is a political one. The politics involves pleasing the US, appeasement of Muslims, lack of self-respect and self-interest, a defeatist ideology, and failure to review the results of past releases. The results are counter-productive. SCAM ALERT Someone set a letter to all the Shulmans he knew of, alleging that a multi-millionaire having our last name died without a will or heirs, and the sender is in charge of the estate. Each recipient is invited to come forward as a relative, and the sender would release the funds to him. Initial instructions are to set up a fax number and a bank account. Later instructions probably would demand that the recipient put some thousands of dollars into that bank account. The recipient gets robbed if so greedy that he would be willing ostensibly to cheat the government out of the alleged estate. Probably not just Shulmans get this. HIZBULLAH'S WIDER ROLE Hizbullah has set up units of activists in other countries. It is not just a nationalist force, as originally purported. By extensive evidence from intelligence agencies and by Hizbullah's own admission, the terrorist organization has actively been opposing Coalition forces in Iraq. It trains, arms, and fights there. It is an arm of Iran's Shiite revolution (IMRA, 8/25). The PLO fabricated a nationality to take over Israel with. Terrible blunder, by Israel for not eradicating Hizbullah, and by the US, for letting the Security Council call a ceasefire in Lebanon before Israel got its second wind! LEFTIST CONSPIRACY AGAINST ISRAELI SELF-DEFENSE Caroline Glick reports that Israeli defense officials leaked news that the new anti-missile defense against Iran that the US would provide Israel came at the price of agreement not to raid Iran. This is disputed, but she sees this as another instance in which leftist Israeli officials, unquestioned by the leftist Israeli media, fail to defend Israel and pretend that Israel can't defend itself. The government wants Israel to hide behind walls or a single US installation, and depend on others to defend them. The US will not defend it by raiding Iran. This time, the potential danger, nuclear bombing, would destroy the country. The government tries to claim it has no choice. It did the same when PM Barak withdrew forces from Lebanon, that were containing Hizbullah. It did the same in letting Hamas take over Gaza. It did the same recently in Lebanon. Defense Min. Barak argues that the new technology is a great defense. Caroline Glick argues that such a defense eventually gets overcome (IMRA, 8/25). It is wiser to eradicate the menace than to depend forever on shields against it. Barry Chamish identified some suspicious actions by Barak and other leftists in the first Lebanon war. Leftist generals thwarted Defense Min. Sharon's plan to decimate the Syrian forces by moving too slowly. Barak sent his religious unit into a Syrian ambush. Shimon Peres, leader of the opposition party, railed against the war publicly and explained privately that if PM Begin succeeded in the war, his party would keep Peres' Labor Party out of power for years. BARAK AS DEFENSE MINISTER NOW He "thanked President Mubarak for his country's efforts in reinforcing the calm in the Gaza Strip and stressed that any violation of the calm, even sporadic, isolated violations, will not be tolerated by Israel." Security officials, however, said that Egypt basically operates the border as before, while Hamas has speeded up arms smuggling across it (IMRA, 8/26). Israel has tolerated dozens of violations of the ceasefire. How ignominious of Barak to thank Egypt while Hamas smuggling has greatly built up its forces! WHAT MUSLIMS THINK OF OBAMA All over the world, many Muslims, including religious leaders, are puzzled about Sen. Obama. Some consider him a Muslim, because his father was a Muslim, he was raised for some years as one, and his middle name is Islamic. Others consider him an apostate, because although a Muslim, he switched to Christianity. Confusion ahead (Daniel Pipes #870, 8/25). BIDEN DEEPENS OBAMA FOREIGN POLICY DEFICIT Sen. Biden should understand foreign policy problems. Unfortunately, he is too partisan to do what is best for his country. Hence he opposed harsh sanctions against leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. He claimed he didn't trust Pres. Bush's intelligence that Iran was assisting the enemy in Iraq. He trusted Iran? He also spent a decade of effort on dealing with Iran only by non-military means. He was deceived by former Pres. Khatani's posture as a reformer. No reforms instituted. While Iran drove for nuclear weapons, Biden drove for "engagement." When he realized that wouldn't work, he blamed Pres. Bush for deceiving him. The Senator has poor judgment on this critical issue. Biden's solution for Iraq was to partition it. Iran favors him (MEFNews, 8/26). Partition would not have stopped the insurgency. It might have advantages, if Iran were nice. More likely, Iran would seize a divided Iraq in parts. OBAMA CALLS FOR TIGHTER SANCTIONS ON IRAN Obama still claims that the Bush administration made threats instead of using diplomacy (IMRA, 8/26). He is lying. The Administration tried diplomacy for years. So did the UNO. No progress, as there cannot be with fanatical totalitarian imperialists. Evil is evil, not amenable to charm. The US has tried to get tougher sanctions, but other countries prefer doing business with Iran or prefer Iran to the US. Obama's call is fatuous. That makes him dangerous to US national security. PEACE NOW'S ALARM OVER ISRAELI BUILDING Peace Now reported that Israelis have been building extensively in Judea-Samaria, including on the other side of the security fence, areas that the Left expects to give to the Arabs. The report calls this an expansion of settlements. A right-wing leader thanked Peace Now for giving Israel this good news. Unfortunately, although the building is significant, it isn't enough, he said. The report mistakenly claims the construction was government-sponsored. It is private. It is less extensive than reported, and is not an expansion but within municipal boundaries. Most of it is within areas of Jerusalem, liberated in 1967. He said that the Far Left ignores the great demand for land in the Territories, where Israel's future [growth] is, and where the Jewish nation originated. 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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DEAR JOHN LETTER FROM THE U.S. TO ISRAEL
Posted by Marcel Cousineau, September 12, 2008. |
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Dear Israel, Things have rapidly deteriorated out of control for the grand imperial empire as our economy is collapsing and only the spin and lies of the media keep our holy dollar from collapsing and sinking us like the Titanic. Iran and Russia and the rest of the world can see our precarious situation but we must keep the illusion alive for the other slow brained ones. Some of our non pagan advisors think that the God of Israel is judging us for pushing our false peace Road Map down your throat and our perverse wickedness,arrogance and greed which we export across the globe? We just had another storm today hit Texas which will drain at least $100 billion possible even more from our empty coffer's and we can't keep the prinitng presses runing fast enough as the housing collapse is spreading to all our major Banks and we now face a major commercial collpase. If Amadinejad's close friend Hugo cuts off our oil so soon after
Ike hit our refineries in Texas we would be in a difficult situation
with large scale riots acorss the nation and so in our post empire
phase we must walk carefully and learn the art of surrender and
appeasmant because we just can't afford another war, we're just all
warred out and it's much easiier for an amoral nation to just throw
Israel to the hungry wolves ready to pounce.
WE'RE SO BUSY BAILING OUT OURSELVES that you,Israel have fallen at the bottom of a growing list of concern. If we anger our major inverstors China and your enemies who supply so much of our Oil who are keeping this mess afloat the situation here will be untenable I'm so sorry to have to tell you that for us to survive we will have to throw you overboard. Hope the waters not too cold and that you can float. I hope you understand that we have spent billions on Pakistan and Egypt and this policy has been a failure. The problems to our south continue to grow more precarious as Honduras has joined in with Bolivia and Venezuela,Brazil,Cuba and Equador to oppose our influence in Latin America. The handwriting is on the wall and our enemies know this and so we are limited in what we can do for you Israel. We don't want to panic the native population here, but we're in worse shape than our corrupt government, media is letting on and this is why we are working so hard to carve you into little pieces which will not be able to survive. We have to sell you out to survive and hope you will understand our treacherous betrayal. What are friends for? We sure hope you enjoyed out latest window dressing, false hope Palin on the McCain ticket along with his close advisor,Mr. James Baker, F*%# the Jews. We are so happy to konw that when others see thru our treachery, you continue to belive in and trust us without question. Our dear adorable naive fools who surrender their land because we tell you to. I guess you should have know the folly of putting all your eggs in one basket and placing so much faith in us.Ciao baby, Love ya much,good luck ! Put not your trust in princes, (presidents,vice presidents, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.Psalm 146:3 Marcel Cousineau can be reached by email at up2zionsg8@yahoo.com; and visit his website — http://averyheavystone.blogspot.com/ |
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PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIAN MINORITY. WHY ISN'T THIS MORE WIDELY KNOWN?
Posted by Shainsha, September 12, 2008. |
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This was written by Gil Ronen. It is called
"'O, Islamic Town Of Bethlehem' — Muslims Continue To Push Christians
Out."
It appeared September 12, 2008 on the Pat Dollard website
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The Muslim Fatah-controlled authority in Judea and Samaria is encouraging a "sharp demographic shift" in Bethlehem, where the Christian population went from a 60 percent majority in 1990 to a 40 percent minority in 2000, to about 15 percent of the city's total population today. It is estimated that, for the past seven years, more than one thousand Christians have been emigrating from the Bethlehem area annually and that only 10,000 to 13,000 Christians remain in the city. International human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, who teaches at Hebrew University, told the Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs that, under the PA-Fatah regime, Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims. "There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion," he said. PA officials are directly responsible for many of the attacks, and some Muslims who have converted to Christianity have been murdered. Pastor booted As people with "dhimmi" status, Christians living in Palestinian-controlled territories are not treated as the equals of Muslims. He says: "They are subjected to debilitating legal, political, cultural, and religious Restrictions. PA officials are directly responsible for many of the attacks, and some Muslims who have converted to Christianity have been murdered. This has become a critical problem for the Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and Gaza. Muslim groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad have built a culture of hatred upon the age-old foundations of Islamic society. Moreover, the PA has adopted Islamic law into its draft constitution." In 2006, Hassan El-Masalmeh, a member of the Bethlehem City Council and local Hamas leader, publicly advocated implementing a discriminatory tax on non-Muslim residents. In late 2007 an evangelical pastor was forced to leave Ramallah under threats from Fatah gunmen, and soon after, his congregation dispersed. "Tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians have left their ancestral homes and emigrated to North America, Central America, South America, Europe, and Australia. They flee to almost any country that will issue them a visa," Weiner said. "Neither the Palestinian Christian leaders nor the PA want to reveal accurate statistics. That would mean the extent of the emigration would become publicly known. They would then have to face questions about the reasons for this decline." Kidnapping of Christian Women
Converts targeted The PA was involved in the torture of two Muslim brothers from Samaria who adopted the Christian faith. The first brother was arrested by the PA secret police and accused of collaborating with Israeli and American intelligence. After the interrogation the police placed a cardboard sign on his back upon which was written, 'Najib the Christian.' Then he was told to 'curse Jesus.'" He eventually made contact with Israelis who arranged for him to hide in a bomb shelter in a Jewish community and was finally granted asylum in Norway. His brother spent 21 months in a PA prison after being arrested on fabricated charges. He was held for seven months in underground solitary confinement. Weiner quotes his testimony before him thus: "I was beaten with sticks; they stripped me naked and made me sit on bottles, and on the legs of chairs that they turned upside down, and many, many other sadistic things that I am even ashamed to say. Many times they allowed lynch mobs like the Al-Aksa Brigades to come in and pull prisoners out of the cells. They were taken out and shot on the spot, their bodies then dragged through the streets for all to see." Medieval torture The young man was sentenced to be executed but was liberated from prison by the Israel Defense Forces. He lives in Israel but his wife and eight children remained behind and are under constant threat of harassment. He hopes to find asylum in Norway. Another Christian convert, El-Achwal, was initially arrested on fabricated charges of stealing gold. "Ahmed had suffered extensive and serious burns on his back, buttocks, and legs." He was kept in a tiny cell and regularly left without food or water for days on end. The torture he sustained during the interrogation required lengthy hospitalization. Weiner, who interviewed El-Achwal, said Ahmed "had suffered extensive and serious burns on his back, buttocks, and legs. The heated torture implement that was applied to his skin reminded me of similar medieval instruments." He was eventually freed but refused to renounce his Christian faith. One day he was beaten by a group of masked men affiliated with the PA security services, who also torched his car. His residence was firebombed and on January 21 2004, he was shot dead by masked gunmen who have never been arrested. Despite all of this, Weiner says, American Episcopalians and Presbyterians frequently blame Israel for the Middle East conflict. Leaders of other North American churches including the Methodists, the United Church of Christ, and the Lutherans "have also gone to great lengths to offer up one-sided condemnations of Israeli policies." Contact Shainsha at shainsha@aol.com |
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FORMER MUSLIM, WALID SHOEBAT, SAYS OBAMA INDEED IS A MUSLIM
Posted by Boker Tov, Boulder, September 12, 2008. |
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"No one is called Hussein unless he is Muslim."
Part of the article below is archived at
The left-wing "Media Matters" |
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Media Matters summerizes G. Gordon Liddy's interview of Walid Shoebat During the interview, Liddy asked Shoebat: "Obama was in a — in Indonesia, in a public school and in a Catholic school. And in the Catholic school, he was listed as a Muslim. And he was over in Indonesia, which is a Muslim country, until the age of 10. How much of that Muslim indoctrination would carry over?" Shoebat speculated that Obama was subject to extreme teachings at the "government school" he attended in Indonesia and later claimed: "You can see — even speeches of Barack Hussein Obama saying that Arab-American families that's rounded up, he would help them. He's talking about the same kind of issues that CAIR, Council on American-Islamic Relations, would want to fight for, and that is fighting for the terrorist cause." He also said: "No one is called Hussein unless he is Muslim. So it is very clear that Barack Hussein Obama is definitely a Muslim." Shoebat also said: "In Islam, in the law of Sharia of Islam, the Prophet of Islam said ... whoever leaves the Islamic faith is to be killed. So what part of killing people don't understand? He is not called to be killed by the Muslims. Why do they support him? I haven't heard a really serious testimony of his Christian conversion. A Muslim who converts to Christianity, the first thing he does is denounces Islam. Has Barack Hussein Obama denounced Islam as a false religion?" Liddy responded: "No." Shoebat also claimed, without challenge from Liddy: "So, you can see from Al Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas, every single Muslim terrorist organization supports Barack Hussein Obama. So why would Americans want to have a president that is connected to Islam and that is proud to be Muslim?" Shoebat cited no evidence that Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood support Obama. Regarding Hamas, as Media Matters for America has noted, while Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the prime minister of Hamas, reportedly said in an April 13 interview with conservative radio host John Batchelor and WorldNetDaily.com Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein that he liked Obama and hoped he would win the election, a Hamas official responded to Obama's June 4 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee by saying, according to Reuters, "Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and [Sen. John] McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win." Later, Liddy asked Shoebat: "Would you consider Barack Hussein Obama dangerous if he were commander in chief of the — all the power and might of the armed forces of the United States?" Shoebat replied: "He would be extremely dangerous. He would — he's already calling for dismantlement of nuclear weapons. He's already calling for negotiations with Islamists. He's already calling to help Arabs who are arrested in America. He's already professed to hold hands with the Muslims, and wanting to hold hands with the Muslims in his book. In his book, it's very clear." According to his website, Shoebat has appeared several times on
radio and television, including on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes and The
O'Reilly Factor and CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck.
From The September 10 Broadcast Of Radio America's The G. Gordon Liddy Show: LIDDY: Walid, will you take a moment to tell us your life story, in a nutshell? SHOEBAT: In a nutshell, my life story is similar to Barack Hussein Obama, because I have an American mother, married a Palestinian father. Went to the Middle East, she wasn't allowed to leave for 35 years. And from my father's perspective, you know, his father was friends with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who collaborated with Hitler to destroy the Jews. And my mother's side, her grandfather was friends with Winston Churchill, who wanted to destroy Nazism. So, I lived both worlds of the Christian and Muslim as well. I went to Christian schools in the Middle East, I went to similar schools that Barack Hussein Obama went to, I understand the Muslim mindset, and I grew up pro-Islamic. Came to the States, was inculcated in the system of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Was underground in Chicago, same even city as Barack Hussein Obama. And you can see on my website, www.Shoebat.com, S-H-O-E-B-A-T.com. At the bottom of the website, you can see the kind of activities we were doing in Chicago. Islamic activities, pro-Hamas — even before Hamas. You know, you can see the violence and the attempted change in America to make it pro-Islamic and pro-Sharia. LIDDY: Shoebat, Obama was in a — in Indonesia, in a public school and in a Catholic school. And in the Catholic school, he was listed as a Muslim. SHOEBAT: That's right. LIDDY: And he was over in Indonesia, which is a Muslim country, until the age of 10. How much of that Muslim indoctrination would carry over? SHOEBAT: Well, when I went to a government school — you know, it wasn't a madrassa. He was not in a madrassa school, but it was a government school. And in those schools, from fifth grade, we learned what is called Islamic eschatology, that the day of judgment will not come to pass until the tribes of Islam destroy the tribes of Israel, the Jewish people. And then the trees and the stones will cry out: There is a Jew hiding behind me. We would learn Islamic eschatology. We would learn that it's an honor for a Muslim to die as a martyr, to shed his blood for the cause of Allah. We would learn that the establishment of Sharia law is a mandate. We would learn that fighting jihad is a mandate against Israel, against the West, and those kinds of things. This is even in a government school, not even in a madrassa, as most Westerners — LIDDY: Well, would he have achieved — been exposed to those things at the age of 10, in a government school over there in Indonesia? SHOEBAT: Yes. It would be the same thing, it would be exactly the same kind of an education system. Barack Hussein Obama's connection is very clear. He rallied for his cousin Odinga in Kenya, in which Odinga wanted to establish Islamic-compliant Sharia law in Kenya. So, you know, even his Christian connection with Pastor Wright, who collaborated with Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam in 1993 to visit Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Odinga called for change, similar to the change of Barack Hussein Obama. You can see — even speeches of Barack Hussein Obama saying that Arab-American families that's rounded up, he would help them. He's talking about the same kind of issues that CAIR, Council on American-Islamic Relations, would want to fight for, and that is fighting for the terrorist cause. Every single terror organization in the world — Islamic terror organization in the world supports Barack Hussein Obama. His name is Barack Hussein Obama. Hussein is one of the prophet's names. Muhammad the prophet — some of his names are Mustafa, Muhammad, Ahmad, Hassan, Hussein — all of these are Islamic names portraying Muhammad, to be proud Muslims. His grandchildren are Hassan and Hussein. This is all Islamic names. No one is called Hussein unless he is Muslim. So it is very clear that Barack Hussein Obama is definitely a Muslim. His Christian convert — I converted to Christianity. Where is the Christianity of Barack Hussein Obama? This is what he adheres to in his Christian theology is the same Christian theology that the Christian terrorists in the Palestinian areas adhere to. You have the PFLP, Popular Front to Liberate Palestine, led by George Habash, a Christian, supposedly. And they adhere to what is called the liberation theology, as Pastor Wright adheres to. That kind of theology is very close to Islamic theology, in which it calls for jihad and the same kind of thing. So, you could see from his Christian claim that, you know, being connected to Pastor Wright, that it's not Christianity whatsoever. In Islam, in the law of Sharia of Islam, the Prophet of Islam said [speaking Arabic] whoever leaves the Islamic faith is to be killed. So what part of killing people don't understand? He is not called to be killed by the Muslims. Why do they support him? I haven't heard a really serious testimony of his Christian conversion. A Muslim who converts to Christianity, the first thing he does is denounces Islam. Has Barack Hussein Obama denounced Islam as a false religion? LIDDY: No. SHOEBAT: Because that's what every single convert to Christianity from Islam must and does do. Why am I being called to be killed by the Muslims and Barack Hussein Obama to survive? So, you can see from Al Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas, every single Muslim terrorist organization supports Barack Hussein Obama. So why would Americans want to have a president that is connected to Islam and that is proud to be Muslim? If he had converted to Christianity, he would change his name Hussein to something else. He would change his name Barack to something else. And maybe he would bury his old name that he used, you know, when he was a kid. LIDDY: Yeah. Let me ask you, Mr. Shoebat. Would you consider Barack Hussein Obama dangerous if he were commander in chief of the — all the power and might of the armed forces of the United States? SHOEBAT: He would be extremely dangerous. He would — he's already calling for dismantlement of nuclear weapons. He's already calling for negotiations with Islamists. He's already calling to help Arabs who are arrested in America. He's already professed to hold hands with the Muslims, and wanting to hold hands with the Muslims in his book. In his book, it's very clear. He mentioned that. He'd rather hold hands with the Muslims. So it is clear from his activities and his name and his connections to Rezko and Arafi with financial connections and all kinds of friendships with his cousin Odinga in Kenya, who is pro-Islamic Sharia, who wants to establish Sharia law — let's not forget, also, over a thousand Christians were killed in Kenya. Burned. So where is Mr. Obama's denunciations of those things? LIDDY: Mr. Shoebat, we need to take a quick pause for the benefit of our advertisers. Anne Lieberman hosts Boker Tov, Boulder! Contact her at http:/annelieberman@yahoo.com |
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MADAM SECRETARY — A SECURE ISRAEL IS A CONDITION FOR PEACE
Posted by Eli E. Hertz, September 12, 2008. |
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A strong Israel is a vital asset to the free world and America. To be a strong and dependable friend in a 'rough neighborhood', Israel must have defensible borders and military prowess capable of addressing multiple challenges which can materialize suddenly in this unstable region. The conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis is not the only adversary Israel faces. Historically, anti-Zionism has been the glue behind Arab nationalism. It has provided a convenient scapegoat for deflecting Arab states' frustration over unsolved domestic problems, but it also stems from a deep innate intolerance that exists throughout the Muslim world to any non-Muslim presence. Israel has no alternative but to remain strong enough to fend off the combined capabilities of all Arab states — a reality that leaves little room for risk-taking or margin for error. While indeed peace with the Palestinians is a core issue for both Israel and the Arab states, the scope of the conflict cannot be artificially minimized by ignoring that the Arab world as a whole continues to view Israel as a foreign irritant, an artificial, illegitimate and ultimately transitory entity which by hook or by crook, must ultimately be destroyed or disappear. Israel's security concerns are further exacerbated by its objectively small size, both geographically and demographically. Its tiny size makes Israel more vulnerable than a large country like the United States. This situation is further complicated by Israel's geopolitical proximity to the crucible of Arab terrorism. One must keep in mind that Israel is located in a region of the world where the strong prey on the weak. Even weak Arab states such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait are victimized by their Arab neighbors. The Middle East, with its patterns of despots, coups, assassinations, civil wars, revolutions and lack of respect for human life, resembles Europe during its own bloody centuries of nation building. Realistically, for the foreseeable future, little positive substantial change can be expected in this regard. The late Anwar Sadat, keenly aware of just how capricious the Middle East can be, laughed during an October 1980 interview with The New York Times remarking dryly: "Poor Menachem [Begin] ... I got back ... the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper." Political upheaval in Arab lands will continue to threaten Israel's security. The magnitude and multiplicity of strategic threats it faces mean Israel must make its security assessments realistically based on a host of possibilities — to hope for the best but be prepared for worse case scenarios as well, and tie a secure future to far more than 'pieces of paper' sitting on a 'shelf.' Objectively, how vulnerable is Israel? In fact, it is almost impossible for non-Israelis to fathom Israel's size. To say that Israel is a tiny nation does not begin to describe the state's predicament. Slightly larger than the Canary Islands, more or less the size of the state of New Jersey, Israel fits into Lake Michigan with room to spare. Israel's pre-1967 borders — the borders Secretary Rice and the Palestinians want Israel to pull back to (in the 'first phase') — lacked rhyme or reason and reflect the deployment of Israeli and Arab forces when the 1948 armistice agreement for a ceasefire was signed. At one of the narrowest points in central Israel, the entire width of the state from the Mediterranean coastal town of Netanya to the Green Line is a mere nine miles — just about three times the length of John F. Kennedy Airport's runway (14,570 feet or 4,441 meters). If Israel would relinquish the foothills on the east side of the Green Line to Palestinian control, Ben-Gurion International Airport would be within range of shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles, Katyusha rockets and mortars. The heart of Tel Aviv, Israel's New York City, is merely 11 miles from the West Bank 'as the crow flies.' In an interview with the German news paper Der Spiegel in November 1969, the late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, a lifelong dove, described Israel's pre-Six-Day War borders as "Auschwitz' lines" that threaten Israel's survivability. IDF Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror puts Eban's 'Auschwitz' metaphor in operational terms in regard to the West Bank. In a 2005 analysis of what 'defensible borders for a lasting peace' entail, Amidror explained that even from a technical standpoint, the Green Line lacks minimum 'defensive depth' — an overarching principle of military doctrine for all armies: There is insufficient battle space for a defensive force to redeploy after being attacked; there is no room for reserves to enter or counterattack; and there is no minimal distance between the battle front and the strategic interior necessary for any army to function. American military experts have recognized the importance of shoring up Israel's borders to provide some territorial depth. In a study published immediately after the 1967 Six Day War, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earl Wheeler said that "the minimum required for Israel's defense includes most of the West Bank and the whole of Gaza and the Golan Heights." The study content was considered so explosive and contrary to State Department policy, it was classified "Top Secret" until the Wall Street Journal revealed its conclusions in 1983. The need for territorial depth has not decreased over time. U.S. Lt. General (ret.) Tom Kelly, who served as Chief of Operations during the 1991 Gulf War, said in the wake of the Gulf War: "I cannot defend this land (Israel) without that terrain (West Bank) ... The West Bank Mountains, and especially their five approaches, are the critical terrain. If an enemy secures those passes, Jerusalem and Israel become uncovered. Without the West Bank, Israel is only eight miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible." This sentiment was echoed in the assessment of the late U.S. Admiral James Wilson "Bud" Nance, who told Congress in 1991 that there was: "... no logical reason for Israel to give up one inch of the disputed areas. Quite to the contrary, I believe if Israel were to move out of the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it would increase instability and the possibility of war, increase the necessity for Israel to pre-empt in war and the possibility that nuclear weapons would be used to prevent an Israel loss, and increase the possibility that the U.S. would have to become involved in a war." The prospects of a new Arab state, a Palestinian state, on Israel's border have raised concern by U.S. policy makers, as well. Writing in Commentary in 1997, Douglas Feith, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, said such a state would give the Arab world "a much greater capacity than they now have to facilitate terrorism against Israel, conduct anti-Israel diplomacy, assist or join enemy armed forces in the event of war, and destabilize local states (such as Jordan) that cooperate with Israel." U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was even more candid, remarking in a talk with Pentagon employees in August 2002: "If you have a country that's a sliver and you can see three sides of it from a high hotel building, you've got to be careful what you give away and to whom you give it." For the complete article, go to the Myths and Facts website:
Eli E. Hertz is president of Myths and Facts, Inc. The organization's objective is to provide policymakers, national leadership, the media and the public-at-large with information and viewpoints that are founded on factual and reliable content. Contact him at today@mythsandfacts.org |
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<>bSTARVING GAZANS DEPRIVED OF ESSENTIALS — YEAH, RIGHT
Posted by Mike Anon, September 12, 2008. |
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Golly, if this don't look like Darfur, what does? Those Po' Starvin' Palestinians.
Contact Mike Anon at msgme99@yahoo.com
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FOOD STAMPS FOR AL-QAIDA
Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, September 12, 2008. |
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Dear friends, 9/11 is a recurring nightmare and a horror in the minds of all Americans. A few among us have the audacity (as in CHUTZPA) to blame what happened on the fact that the perpetrators were "impoverished" and acted out of "desparation." Clearly that is a lie, since the perpetrators are among the richest people on earth. Senator Obama is one of those who believed 9/11 was perpetrated by impoverished and desparate people. He actually wrote about it following the attack. Read below. Yet another example of empty words versus ACTIONS. While Obama talked, President Bush delivered democracy to Iraq. Is this the real reason the left hates him so much? Your Truth Provider,
This below is called "Obama and 9/11" and it comes from Wednesday's
Investor's Business Daily
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The Anniversary: Eight days after terrorism declared war on America, a young state senator blamed it on "a failure of empathy" — yet another reason why Barack Obama should never be commander in chief. The July 20 issue of the New Yorker magazine got a lot of attention for its cover, which carried a "satirical" cartoon depicting Michelle and Barack Obama that Obama supporters found tasteless and offensive. Buried inside that issue's feature story, however, was a reaction by Obama to 9/11 that all voters should find even more tasteless and offensive. The article reprised a piece published in Chicago's Hyde Park Herald on Sept. 19, 2001, and written by a then-unknown and otherwise undistinguished state senator from Illinois. The senator, a former community organizer, wrote that after tightening security at our airports and repairing our intelligence networks, we "must also engage ... in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness." According to Barack Obama, the madness that drove terrorists to turn passenger jets into manned cruise missiles aimed at our centers of finance, government and military power "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair." As if the answer to the attacks should have been food stamps for al-Qaida. Sen. Obama advised caution and warned of overreacting. "We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad," he wrote. "We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent." We should also be just as concerned, he felt, with American anger and bigotry as we were about al-Qaida. In an opinion piece in Commentary magazine, writer Abe Greenwald commented on Obama's belief that the 9/11 attacks were rooted in poverty and despair. "Strange," he called it, "considering our attackers were wealthy and educated, connected and ecstatic." As Greenwald put it, Obama "could have asked (terrorist and colleague) Bill Ayers, 'Bill, did your 'failure of empathy' stem from your impoverished upbringing as the son of the CEO of Commonwealth Edison?" Did poverty and despair also cause the Weather Underground member and host of Obama's first fundraiser to bomb government buildings? Fact is, the roster of terrorists and their handlers reads like a list of of Ivy Leaguers: Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi billionaire, studied engineering. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, architect of 9/11 and other major attacks, has a degree in mechanical engineering. Mohammed Atta, who flew a jet into the World Trade Center, is the son of a lawyer and earned a master's degree in urban planning at Hamburg University. Ayman al-Zawahri is an eye surgeon. Seven doctors were involved in the London-Glasgow bomb plots. You get the idea, even if Barack Obama doesn't. In a speech before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 20, 2001, President Bush pointed out the real reasons Islamofascists hate us: "They hate what they see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." Bush aptly called the 9/11 terrorists and their ilk "the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century." "By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism," he said. Knowing the nature of your enemy is the key to victory. On the seventh anniversary of 9/11, we should all thank President Bush for keeping America safe. Along the way, he brought freedom and democracy to the Middle East, draining the terrorist swamp. Bush gets it. So does John McCain. This is one thing we shouldn't want to change. Yuval Zaliouk writes the Truth Provider columns. To subscribe, send an email to ynz@netvision.net.il |
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KEEP U.S. TROOPS OUT OF ISRAEL!; TERRORIST PRISONERS' COMPLAINT; POOR REPORTING, POOR DIPLOMACY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 11, 2008. |
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KEEP U.S. TROOPS OUT OF ISRAEL! US troops will staff a missile interception station in Israel. The station would get information about incoming missiles earlier than Israel can. But it would be up to the discretion of the Defense Dept. whether and how soon to relay the data. The data probably could be hard-wired to Israeli facilities, but that isn't planned. Israel would be dependent upon the US. (Pollard proved the US withholds data.) Pres. Bush implies that this is a gift to Israel. Actually, it gives him a pretext for opposing an Israeli strike at Iran. It also gives him a veto over Israeli measures that might invoke a Muslim attack on the station and its US staff (IMRA, 8/24). Israel needs to make its own decisions about counter-attacking, not depend on the hostile Defense and State Departments (that bungle US national security). ASSESSING CURRENT NEGOTIATIONS Likud MK Sa'ar said that Israeli negotiatiors made insanely generous offers. This raises enemy expectations. If a future government wanted to negotiate rationally, it would be difficult to do so. A prerequisite for worthwhile negotiatins is a weakening of Iran and a unity government including either the Labor or the Kadima parties. MK Sa'ar considers it absurd to expect an Israeli sacrifice to Syria of the Golan Heights to wean Syria from Iran. Years of diplomacy failed to do so. Evidence: Syria's President just flew to Russia to endorse its aggression against Georgia and flew to Tehran to strengthen ties. Iran has become a major regional power against the US and making trouble for Israel via proxies [that Israel lets build up]. Uzi Dayan thinks, "The current indirect talks between Israel and Syria are highly unlikely to result in a peace agreement. The talks...are being conducted by an irresponsible government with no public mandate, and are already causing real harm." The negotiations freed Syria from isolation, for nothing in return, leaving Syria still supplying terrorists. They are conducted via Turkish intermediaries, so Syrians don't have to sit with Israelis. [Shows unrelenting hate.] The Golan Heights were taken in justifiable self-defense. They should stay with Israel for its security [and for being part of the Jewish homeland]. The Golan had arbitrarily been given to Syria, which held it for only 21 years (IMRA, 8/24, 25). Labor and Kadima are too unpatriotic or partisan for a true unity government. Why bring into a nationalist regime the very parties making what Sa'ar calls insane offers? Even if Iran's mullahs were overthrown, why expect its proxies might make a genuine peace with Israel? They are too fanatical for that. GAZA TEACHER'S DILEMMA If the teachers of Gaza do not join the strike set by the Abbas regime in protest against arrests of teachers and beating of janitors, it will withhold their salaries. If they do strike against the Gaza regime, Hamas will arrest them (IMRA, 8/25). There is no constructive purpose in granting such rulers sovereignty. The motive for it either is misinformation about the "poor Palestinians" or anti-Zionist. NON-RECIPROCAL RELATIONS Referring to the latest release of terrorists by the ostensibly anti-terrorist Olmert regime, "Rice said more such confidence building measures needed to be taken "On both sides ..." (IMRA, 8/25). Israel undertook many such measures, unrequited; she hasn't identified any such measures taken by the Abbas regime. There is no reciprocity. The more Israel concedes, the more Muslims assume that their aggression is justified and their victory is near. That is how they think. Why aren't we flexible enough to grasp that? Because we don't study them, and our media don't inform us enough. As for confidence-building, the Arabs remain as suspicious of Israel as ever, not that they ever had reason for it. Suspicion is their nature, defamation their method, and conquest their goal. TERRORIST PRISONERS' COMPLAINT They made several complaints. One was that being bound by handcuffs and leg irons while being transported insulted their human dignity (Arutz-7, 8/25). What dignity, terrorists, whose bigotry prompts them to murder innocent people, preferably after having tortured them gruesomely? Violent felons in the US often are transported bound. Can't risk the lives of more innocent people in possible escape attempts. Israel's terrorist prisoners have attacked guards when they could. The precaution is reasonable; the complaint is not. After reading such a ridiculous complaint, I ignore their other complaints. I think that a worse problem is that terrorists have too much latitude in Israeli prisons. They can direct terrorist operations via frequent visits from lawyers, who readily act as conduits. They are allowed to mingle with other prisoners, affording an opportunity to cross-train each other in terrorism. Many are released, to try again. Those "without blood on their hands" get another opportunity for blood. POOR REPORTING The Jerusalem Post means to be objective. It was not, when it related news about another of many Israeli releases of prisoners as "a goodwill gesture" to Abbas. The claim that it is a "goodwill gesture" is the government's rationalization or excuse. An objective description would be "alleged goodwill gesture" or "in what the Olmert regime labels a goodwill gesture." In fact it produces ill will, because it does not satisfy the Muslim Arabs, bent on victory over Israel. All the evidence is that it fosters terrorism, and that terrorism is approved by Abbas. Neither the government of Israel nor the major media examine this evidence and evaluate the tactic. The government persists in this tactic, even though knowing that many freed terrorists return to terrorism and murder more Israelis. That strengthens the enemy against Israel. The problem is that the government of Israel does not know who some of Israel's enemies are (including the government of Israel). How many people know that the NY Times and Pres. Bush are enemies of Israel and how this world works? SEC. RICE'S OMISSION & COMMISSION She came east to "push' negotiations, to complain about Israel's house-building in areas that the Arabs want from Israel and the P.A.'s not eradicating terrorism not being helpful, and to praise Egypt for maintaining "calm" in Gaza by what she calls a ceasefire and the P.A.'s being almost ready for statehood. What are the negotiations with jihadist terrorists for? Why is she pushing those negotiations rather than pushing for an end to terrorism and the jihadist outlook? Why is legal Israel construction where the Arab aggressors want territory as part of its phased conquest of Israel "not helpful," but Arabs building illegally all over Israel and the Territories for stated purposes of aggrandizement not said to be unhelpful? Does Rice seek only what the Arabs want? In all these years, the P.A. has done much to promote terrorism and nothing to eradicate it. The US and Israel are complicit. How is that chaotic P.A. almost ready for statehood? Violent, Islamist, exclusivist rule and graft are Hamas' and Abbas' main objectives. What kind of a state does she anticipate? She would call statehood for those terrorists her great accomplishment, but statehood merely would foster war on the West and deny the Jewish people their rights. The Muslims violate the ceasefire. It merely provides cover for war preparation. Poor America, beset with secretaries of state who don't understand the issues and are unable to foresee the ill consequences of their policy! Or do they? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com |
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THE US CONSULATE IN JERUSALEM'S WAR AGAINST ISRAEL
Posted by Marc Samberg, September 11, 2008. |
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1.7 BILLION US Dollars for Palestinians. What do we have to show for it? This comes from the Sultan Knish website:
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Anyone who wants to see an unambiguous demonstration of the State Department's bias against Israel need look no further than the US Consulate General in Jerusalem's activities, as laid out on their website. Despite being located in Israel's capital, anyone visiting the website would remain all but ignorant that Israel even exists, because the US General Consulate's activities are wholly directed toward Palestinian Arabs. The US Consulate General funds camps, conducts cultural arts programs and other activities all of which are directed at Palestinian Arabs and take place in Palestinian Arab areas. To quote the Consulate website, "Since 1993, the American people have spent more than $1.7 billion in the West Bank and Gaza to combat poverty, create jobs, improve education, build roads and water systems, construct and equip medical clinics, and promote good governance." Long before any negotiations have occurred, the US Consulate General has already declared itself as Palestinian territory. In piece after piece Israel isn't even mentioned, as if it had been wiped off the planet as thoroughly as Saudi Arabia and the US State Department wished it had been. The US Consul General Jacob Walles is listed as sending Eid al-adha greetings to the Palestinians and Bush's Eid al-Fitr greetings are listed. no similar greetings are listed for any Jewish holidays. The website has an Arabic language section. It does not have a Hebrew section, despite being in a Hebrew speaking country. Walles commemorated Independence Day by inviting Salam Fayyad, so-called Prime Minister of PLO's PA. No mention is made of any Israeli officials. There is a word for the US Consulate General in Jerusalem. A German word that the Arabs and now the US State Department have enthusiastically embraced, Judenrein. Judenrein though isn't just a state of being, it's a practice. The elimination of any Jewish presence. To that end Jacob Walles, under Condoleeza Rice, have broken new ground in promoting the Arab presence in Jerusalem and subverting and browbeating Israel into going along with their plan for an Arab Jerusalem. When an Israeli court issued an eviction notice for Arabs in Jerusalem who had refused to pay rent, the US State Department via the Consulate intervened and demanded that the eviction be recinded. When the daughter of Hannan Ashrawi, a leading PLO figure, and friend of Condoleeza Rice, returned to Israel after years of being away, having lost residency under Israeli law, she promptly contacted Rice and minutes later Israel received a call from the Deputy Secretary of State commanding that Israel override the law on her behalf. Similar intervention occured for the "Fullbright students" when the Consulate itself passed on the story to the New York Times. By contrast Jewish Americans in Israel who appeal to the US Consulate for help find it less than useless. Many such incidents occur regularly occur involving the US Consulate in Jerusalem, which seems to exist purely to undermine Israel and promote the division of Jerusalem. When people talk about the people of the Israel Lobby, they forget that the most powerful Arab lobby in the United States is the State Department. The US Consulate's own website has purged Jewish and Israeli references as thoroughly as any Saudi website has. Meanwhile it spends billions on promoting and aiding Arabs and working against Israel to dismember the country. It's hard to miss the reality that in the great tradition of WW2 era US diplomats who worked to prevent Jewish refugees from even reaching the Western Hemisphere, Consul General Jacob Walles like much of the State Department is conducting a war against Israel. Contact Marc Samberg at marcsamberg@yahoo.com |
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WHERE WERE YOU ON 9/11/01 AT 9 AM?
Posted by Shaul Ceder, September 11, 2008. | |||||
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"Where were you on 9/22/01" was asked on the Manhattan Board,
which is designed "for discussions of Manhattan Nostalgia."
Contact Shaul Ceder at ceder@netvision.net.il |
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US WON'T HELP ISRAEL ATTACK IRAN
Posted by Arutz-7, September 11, 2008. |
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"Israel may soon be left with no realistic option to
strike Iran's nuclear facilities and no time to find another
solution."
This was written by Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel and it appeared today in Arutz-7 |
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The United States has turned down Israeli requests for military assistance in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. This will hamper the tiny Jewish state in facing off alone against the much larger Islamic Republic which is equipped with some of the latest military technology from Russia. As compensation, the U.S. has agreed to bolster Israel's missile defense system. Israel would not be allowed to refuel its military planes in Iraq, or even use Iraqi airspace for a flyover on the way to Iran. Even if Israeli jets were to reach Iran, they might not be able to carry powerful enough bombs to do the job. The U.S. has refused to supply Israel with equipment such as bunker-buster bombs critical in destroying heavily fortified nuclear installations. Israeli officials have been in talks with their American counterparts for several months over specific requests for military assistance, and U.S.reticence over an Israeli strike has led American military and diplomatic officials to decide against supporting what they see as Israel's growing commitment to an attack on Iran. Among the requests most critical for a successful Israeli solo strike on Iran is the ability to use Iraqi air fields as a refueling point for Israel's fighter-bomber fleet that would be used in the attack. The dropping of guided bombs on targets as small and sensitive as a nuclear reactor requires the precision and agility that could be likely achieved only by a very low-altitude release. The distance between Israel and Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr is over 800 miles. A large bomber aircraft would have the fuel range for such a non-stop round-trip flight from Israel. However, the necessity of a low-altitude approach to the target, combined with the heavier aircraft's low speed and maneuverability and lack of sufficient armaments such as rockets or cannon, would render it extremely vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire or attacking Iranian jets. Last December, Russia installed one of its latest anti-aircraft missile networks in the hostile Islamic Republic. Such operations are therefore usually performed with supersonic fighter-bomber aircraft, such as the F-15s and F-16s used in the 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor and last year's bombing of the nascent Syrian reactors. However, these aircraft do not have the fuel range to safely make a trip to Iran and back without refueling. Unless the Israeli planes would be able to refuel somewhere along the way — American-occupied Iraq being the only viable choice — a bombing run on Iran would likely become a suicide mission. Even if Israeli pilots volunteered for a kamikaze mission, the expense of the aircraft, in addition to the risk of Iran obtaining the Israeli-modified jets — some of the most advanced in the world — even in partially destroyed condition, would make it unlikely that Israel's Defense Ministry would approve of such an attack. Israeli aircraft would not need to actually land in Iraq to refuel, as it is common practice to refuel in the air using long-range air tankers. However, the tankers that the Israeli Air Force currently has are outdated, making it difficult to coordinate refueling for such a long-distance mission. To address this concern, Israel reportedly requested the more modern Boeing 767-based refueling tankers, but the U.S. has also rejected this request, as reported several weeks ago by Israel's Channel 10 television. Even if the Israeli jets were able to be refueled in the air by long-range air tankers, a mission to Iran would require an overflight of Iraq, the only country that would possibly be willing to allow Israeli aircraft in its airspace. A glance at El-Al passenger flight routes from an in-flight magazine illustrates this clearly: Flights en route to Asia and the Far East, normally represented by graceful curves for non-Israeli airlines, suddenly become sharp turns northward or southward in order avoid flying over Middle Eastern countries. However, the United States has apparently refused to authorize Israel to fly over Iraq as well, and according to one report, American officials told their Israeli counterparts to ask permission from the Iraqi prime minister themselves. It is very unlikely that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would volunteer to allow Israel to use his country's airspace without pressure from the U.S., since such a move would antagonize many Arab countries in the region. In an apparent attempt to compensate for its unwillingness to assist Israel's needs for an Iran strike, the U.S. has offered to deliver an advanced radar warning system, to be installed in the Negev and manned by a permanent U.S. staff working alongside Israeli military personnel. The Pentagon has apparently placed the order already. Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Russian state-owned company building Iran's Bushehr reactor announced last week that the construction of the reactor will reach a state of "no return" by early 2009. While a better radar system promises to greatly enhance Israel's ability to detect a long-range aerial attack from Iran, Israel may soon be left with no realistic option to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and no time to find another solution. |
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IRAQI MP MAKES OPENING REMARKS AT ANTI-TERROR CONFERENCE IN HERZLIYA
Posted by Daily Alert, September 11, 2008. |
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This was written by Yoav Stern, Haaretz correspondent and it appeared in today's Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019955.html |
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Iraqi parliament member Mithal al-Alousi delivered the opening statements at the Herzliyah Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) Conference Wednesday, in which he called for stronger relations between Iraq and Israel. Al-Alousi also called for stronger cooperation between Iraq and Israel in fighting terror, and issued a harsh condemnation of Iran, which he accused of meddling in Iraqi affairs. The Iraqi parliamentarian has spoken at the ICT conference two previous times. His visit in 2004 elicited harsh criticism in Iraq and several attacks were launched against them, including one that left his two sons dead. Al-Alousi attained German citizenship after he lived there for several years, where he was an activist in the movement of Iraqi dissidents seeking the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. After Hussein's regime fell as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Al-Alousi returned to his country, and was elected to the parliament in 2005
UPDATE: From Israel Today, September 14, 2008
Alusi first visited Israel in 2004 to attend a similar counter-terrorism conference. His two sons were murdered by members of Iraq's Baath Party for what was termed an act of treachery. Word of Alusi's latest reported trip to the Jewish state met with similar outrage. His colleagues in the Iraqi parliament said that Alusi had betrayed Iraq, provoked Arab sensibilities and possibly sabotaged efforts to forge stronger ties with Iran. As punishment, Alusi's parliamentary immunity was revoked, he is no longer permitted to travel outside Iraq, and he cannot participate in sessions of parliament. The reaction provides further evidence of just how far the Middle East remains from the peaceful coexistence Western power brokers hope to produce by extracting Israeli concessions. 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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YESHA COUNCIL CASTIGATES B'TSELEM
Posted by Hillel Fendel, September 11, 2008. |
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The Yesha Council attacks the latest report by Israel's radical left-wing B'Tselem organization, which calls for the eviction of all Jews from Yesha. The report, released this morning, states that "settlers" took over tens of thousands of dunams (one dunam — 1/4 acre) from "Palestinian areas." The report also accuses Israel of blocking Arab access to lands around Jewish towns. The Yesha Council of Jewish Communities of Judea and Samaria responded sharply: "B'Tselem's objective is solely to expel the 300,000 Jews of Judea and Samaria, and to this end it is willing to lie, deceive and incite." "This report, even more than its predecessors, reveals B'Tselem to be a nationalistic Palestinian group camouflaged as a civil rights organization," the Yesha Council stated. "This time, they go so far as to demand an end to the security measures decided upon by the IDF around the Jewish towns — even though B'Tselem knows that this will make it easier to murder Jews." B'Tselem says the settlers use violence to take over Arab lands, sometimes with the protection of army forces. Cases like the recent house arrest and expulsion of three residents of Asael, which appear to belie these claims, were not mentioned in the report. B'Tselem does note the Israelis' security concerns, mentioning that 31 Jews were murdered, and many more were wounded, in the settlements between 2002 and 2004. It then proceeds to say that the entire Yesha settlement enterprise must be destroyed: "Since it is illegal, Israel must empty out all the settlements... All security actions must be taken in the framework of a process to evict all the settlers and return them to Israel." Orit Strook, who heads the Hevron-based Yesha Civil Rights Organization, said, "This report, like others by B'Tselem, calls for ethnic cleansing. A group making this call cannot call itself a civil rights organization." "The report ignores the Jews' most basic right," Strook said, "namely, the right to live." Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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FROM ISRAEL: NINE-ELEVEN
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 11, 2008. |
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It's been seven years since the horror of the World Trade Center destruction and the attack on the Pentagon. As with the Holocaust, the by-word must be: Never Again. But words are cheap and vigilance is required. The people of the US — now, especially, with an election close at hand — must ask what is being done, and what must be done, to insure that there is never another Nine-Eleven. ~~~~~~~~~~ One of the lessons of that horror has never been adequately learned and assimilated: The perpetrators of 9/11 were not poor, not lower class, not uneducated, not hopeless. They acted out of a radical ideology. Throwing money at terrorists does not moderate them. ~~~~~~~~~~ Al-Qaeda certainly is not what it was seven years ago: It has been substantially weakened. But while it's down, it is not yet out. We are being told that the message of Jihad still retains currency. While counter-terrorism efforts have yielded successes, US intelligence officials say Al-Qaeda "remains the most serious terrorist threat to the United States." According to some reports, Al-Qaeda is seeking to attack inside US borders, but is finding it difficult because of the increase in vigilance. Thus it looks, instead, to hit in Europe. There is concern in security circles about evolving techniques — such as increased use of the Internet, which spans local groups. The situation is actually far more complex now than it was seven years ago, because of these localized Al-Qaeda groups. Between January 2005 and April 2007, 40 organizations — located in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Europe, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt — announced formation and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Additionally, an enclave in tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan has been carved out as a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda leaders and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan (the guessing is that Bin Laden is there somewhere). This "safe haven" has permitted Al-Qaeda to "regain its equilibrium." Says a senior British anti-terrorism official: "We don't want to let complacency sink in. That is exactly when something can happen,. The threat hasn't manifested itself in the West recently, but the picture looks a lot different if you are in Algiers or Islamabad." ~~~~~~~~~~ Another lesson not yet assimilated adequately: The presence of Israel and the fact that a Palestinian state has not been established have less than nothing to do with the larger Jihadist picture. All those who imagine that if only Israel would shrink back to the '49 lines and give the Palestinians half of Jerusalem all would be well are very much mistaken. Most Muslims care not a whit about the establishment of a Palestinian state; in fact the Palestinians are broadly disliked. The historical roots of Islamic extremism, and Jihadism, are deep, going back centuries, and the goal of a widespread caliphate to rule according Sharia'a (Islamic law) is hardly new. The much analyzed tensions between Sunnis and Shias derive from a conflict over which group would form the legitimate caliphate. ~~~~~~~~~~ From The Jordan Times yesterday — cited by IMRA — is a piece discussing how furious with the Palestinians the Arab League is. Furious because the Palestinians are so busy fighting among themselves that they can't get their act together. Arab League secretary general Amr Musa told a press conference Tuesday: "We are studying the measures to be taken in the face of the current Palestinian chaos." ~~~~~~~~~~ You know the saying that a good deed never goes unpunished? For Ramadan, Israel is attempting to ease the passage of Palestinians through checkpoints. At the checkpoint at Hawara, outside of Nablus, where numerous terrorists have been nabbed, a humanitarian lane has been established for emergencies. An Arab woman ran through that lane and threw acid in the face of the soldier manning the post. ~~~~~~~~~~ Each year it is traditional for the president of Israel to host leaders of the Arab-Israeli community during Ramadan. Present this year at President Shimon Peres's dinner was Sheikh Abdallah Nimr Darwish, founder of the Islamic Movement. With regard to the "peace" negotiations, Darwish explained that, "The Palestinians can't give up any more." This was fascinating for me, as I'm not aware of anything they have given up. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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DENIAL
Posted by Evelyn Hayes, September 11, 2008. |
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There is no denial of the pain,
There is no denial of the goodness,
The is no denial that America is a melting pot
To deny the victory of civilization
Those who deny the greatness of America, the haven and a heavenly model,
Those who deny the Holocaust, blame the Jews, dhimmify the
Those professing denial cry for the props and pranks of peace now which
fails to cry
Those in denial are not crying with me, them, those survivors left to
As they parade the names of loved ones victimized by suicidal madmen, hate,
There is such beauty in the world, in loving, having, having had,
Bless HaShem, such diversity, all that worships right.
Evelyn Hayes is author of "The Eleventh Plague, Twins, because their hearts were softened to accept the unacceptable" and "The Twelfth Plague, Generations, because the lion wears stripes." Contact her at haze@rcn.com. |
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CAIR ATTEMPTS TO SABOTAGE LAW ENFORCEMENT TERRORISM TRAINING
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 10, 2008. |
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This was written by Jim Kouri and is based on material
obtained by the National association of Chiefs of Police.
It appeared in The Conservative Voice
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he's the new editor for the House Conservatives Fund's weblog. Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty. He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com and PHXnews.com. He's also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He's appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri's own website is located at http://jimkouri.us |
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The Council for American Islamic Relations has been trying in vain to stop a counter-terrorism program in Sarasota Florida, aimed at providing first responders with information on subjects such as building safety, suicide terrorism, technologies against terrorism and more. This is part of CAIR's program to stop Security Solutions International (SSI) — an organization that has trained more than 500 Federal, State and Local agencies since 2004. SSI officials, CAIR attempted to stop a training program for cops and security personnel in Seattle last Memorial Day. Fortunately, they failed. "As Americans, we can not allow the civil liberties of our great country to be exploited by groups that are intent on creating a fundamentalist Islamic regime here in the USA", says Sol Bradman, CEO of Security Solutions International, the organizers of the Sarasota Sheriffs 3rd Annual Gulf Coast Terrorism conference being held in Sarasota from the 15th to the 19th of September for the benefit of Homeland Security professionals — coming from as far as Australia to attend what is being called the most innovative terrorism prevention conference in the USA. "This is not about incitement against Muslims, as CAIR wants us to believe. Our mission is to protect all Americans against terrorism but also against the abuse of our laws." This is Lawfare against US First Responders and therefore against the USA by the pseudo legal wing of the Global Jihad in America," says Bradman. "The modus operandi is simple; use the freedoms and loopholes of the most liberal nation on earth to help finance and direct the world's most violent international terrorism cells," he added. Daniel Pipes, the Harvard Professor, publisher and head of the Middle East Forum, has consistently pointed out that CAIR is riddled with extremists and has been closely linked to organizations that have been convicted or individuals convicted of terrorism. The group, that claims to represent US Muslims but is cited by many US Muslims as being a thinly veiled cover group for extremists, is losing membership. Nonetheless, they mount campaigns to get training and other valuable help to US First Responders stopped, canceled, delegitimized and several jurisdictions have folded attempts to hold counter terror training. On September 3rd, a Sarasota blog published an article claiming that sources have produced solid information that Morris Days, the Manager for Civil Rights at the CAIR MD/VA chapter, who was widely publicized by CAIR as one of its civil rights attorneys, was in fact not an attorney, and failed to provide services for Muslim American clients who came to CAIR for assistance and who paid for Days' services. Not only has CAIR not revealed the facts about Days and his fraudulent, criminal behavior, but as of yesterday, September 2, 2008, the CAIR National office in Washington, D.C. continued to post articles at its website naming Days as an attorney. The Florida representative of CAIR has been sending everyone in Sarasota pleas to stop the program under the argument that it represents an attempt to stereotype all Muslims as Terrorists. SSI is well known for fair and balanced training at a highly professional level and actively discourages racial and ethnic profiling because this bad counter terrorism practice. Not only was CAIR Florida actively touting the innocence of convicted Terrorist, Sami Al-Arian but CAIR Florida also claimed that two students at South Florida University in Tampa were carrying 4th of July firecrackers in the trunk of their car but later the two admitted to carrying explosives for the purposes of committing terrorist acts. Tampa has often suffered from the effects of Radical Islam. To counter this, SSI is offering a special day: "Allah in America". Speakers such as Andrew Whitehead, the founder of Anti-Cair will attend and speak as a result of his ceaseless dedication in fighting radical extremism in the US,channeled through the Anti-CAIR organization including frequent posts based on investigative reporting that exemplify the very essence of Islamic radicalism, including repeated attempts to threaten our constitutional freedoms. SSI's program, the Threat of Radical Jihadist to the World, prepared by a Muslim counter terror law enforcement officer from California will also be presented with an emphasis on CAIR and other extremist groups that operate under the guise of civil rights. So-called anti-terrorist organizations, aligned with Islamic extremism, blatantly abuse the laws, freedoms and loopholes of the most liberal nation on earth to help finance and direct the world's most violent international terrorism cells. The "Protecting the Homeland" organization charter embodies two main objectives: ceaseless dedication in counter-acting Islamic radicals who repeatedly attempt to threaten our constitutional freedoms, and channeling funds to educate US First Responders through sponsorship of training programs in the USA and Israel. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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WHO IS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AND WHY WON'T THE PRESS ASK?
Posted by Chuck Brooks, September 10, 2008. |
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This was written by W.B. Williams and it was published in the New Media Journal.us Contact Williams at JB_Williams@comcast.net, and send comments to comments@newmediajournal.us |
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A bright young student recently asked me this question in defense of her Messiah, Barack Hussein Obama..."Mr. Williams, my family name is Irish. Does that make me a terrorist member of the IRA?" After pointing out that she had made no effort to hide her ancestry, I answered, "No, but it does make you Irish." Just because most Americans have never seen his name printed in native Arabic characters does not mean that he is not Arab. In fact, his Arab name is at the very least, a strong indication that he may be of Arab descent. Though Obama has built his campaign upon being the first "black" candidate (entirely ignoring the white half of his family tree as if it doesn't even exist), the questions over whether or not he is African or Arab, Christian or Muslim, seems to have a very simple answer...Yes — all the above! Those who have not spent much time with a world globe lately might have forgotten that Africa is made up largely of Arab nations and Arab Muslim people. Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Morocco, Algeria and Niger are all Arab nations on the African continent. Across the Red Sea from Africa are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen and Oman. Arabic is the most common language on the African continent. Why it comes as a shock to many Americans that a man with an Arabic birth name from a largely Arab continent might be Arab is strange, at a minimum... However, f or political purposes, it seems to be a bone of contention that the Obama campaign prefers not to discuss. Any relative questions will be shut down, met with accusations of racism or religious smears. As my student friend correctly pointed out, Obama's Arab name alone does not make Obama "a terrorist". It only makes him Arab and begs the question, — why does he not publicly claim his apparent ancestry? Why has he chosen to fashion himself a "black" man rather than an Arab, as is clearly evidenced by his birth name? It also makes one wonder why the press is carrying water for the Obama campaign? The silly notion that Barak Hussein Obama is neither Arab nor Muslim defies all evidence. Obama's supporters will quickly point to his twenty year membership in the Rev. Wright's Chicago church of "Christian" racism and anti-Americanism as solid proof that he is a Christian. This is a church he has now left and a reverend he has since denounced. It might also be the only Christian church in America that welcomes Muslim's into the congregation without asking them to convert to Christianity. But I digress... The Real Point What do all of these facts mean in the real world where such an individual is seeking the most powerful political office in the world? Based upon the belief that 90 percent of the world's billion-plus Muslim population is peaceful, does it matter whether or not Barack Obama is Muslim? That depends upon whether he is one of the 90 percent or one of the 10=2 0percent. In a multicultural nation like America, does it really matter if Obama is Arab or African or both? Does it matter what religion he is? Not really...But it does matter that he seeks to hide from the truth. America is full of Arab's and Africans, most of them wonderful Americans. There is no reason to hide from either heritage, is there? If he is an Arab and a Muslim, does that automatically mean that he is a terrorist or even a terrorist sympathizer? No, it doesn't... But combined, what all of it does mean is this, — there are some very reasonable questions that should be asked and answered before the American people actually consider such an individual for the job of Commander-in-Chief, especially while the nation is at war with radical elements of the Arab-Muslim world. It means that if the press avoids asking those questions, they are derelict in their primary purpose of keeping the public informed. Their only task during an election cycle is to help the American people know as much as possible about those who seek to run their nation. If they won't ask the questions, then they aren't doing their job. Other "Coincidences" of Interest Obama's Arab name and Muslim heritage by itself, only raises the need for further query. It leads us to no automatic conclusions. Instead, it leads only to a list of reasonable questions that anyone seeking the power of the Oval Office must be willing to answer. Any candidate, except Obama, with the same background should and would be asked the exact same questions. But, it's apparently an act of racism to ask America's first "black" candidate the most glaringly obvious questions.
These are just a few of the questions candidate Obama should be happy to lay to rest with open and direct answers. Though nobody in the lamestream press is asking yet, a few in the New Media are asking the right questions.... An innocent March '08 TV interview with "community organizer" become millionaire political powerhouse, Percy Sutton, caught the attention of more than a few investigative journalists by late August. 0A NewsMax journalist Kenneth Timmerman is turning over all the right rocks and asking all the right questions. Sooner or later, someone is going to find answers to questions which Obama appears to have been avoiding for years. On September 3rd, Timmerman wrote 'Obama Had Close Ties to Top Saudi Adviser at Early Age' followed by a September 4th piece titled 'Who is Khalid al-Mansour?' It seems that Timmerman is on the right trail. The fact that related Internet files are being sanitized or removed altogether as fast as they can be found, only proves that somebody with lots of power somewhere recognizes that Timmerman is getting too close for comfort... Even Wikipedia information on "community organizing" has been sanitized in the last few days, changing it from Saul Alinsky and William Ayers type socialist anti-American rabble rousing to something sounding much kinder and gentler. That should keep 400 paid Obama bloggers busy for a while... Then There Are Those Working To Keep Timmerman At Bay... ...like Politico blogger Ben Smith, who as he points out in his bio, "grew up on New York's Upper West Side when President Reagan was regularly depicted as Satan in that section of the city," is tracking the movements of investigative journalists like Timmerman and shadow countering their every move, which is then used by other journalist as "fact" and reason enough to stop broader coverage of the story that must be told. When the Sutton tape became public (save a copy fast before it disappears from the web) and Timmerman started making the right connections between puppet Obama and apparent puppet master al-Mansour, Smith quickly sought and got a retraction to the eye-popping Sutton revelation. He first countered Timmerman's Sept. 3rd piece with 'Obama camp denies Sutton story'. Then he countered Timmerman's Sept. 4th piece with Dr. Khalid al-Mansour's "non-denial-denial" in 'Sutton family retracts Obama story.' The man who issued the Sutton retraction was not Sutton himself, or even a Sutton family member, like Sutton's son Pepe, who currently controls the Sutton family empire in NYC. Instead, Hillary Clinton's former Harlem campaign office head issued the Sutton retraction. Kevin Wardally issued the retraction on behalf of the Sutton family. So, who is Wardally and when did he become the Sutton family spokesperson? Why did he give no reason for the retraction? Was the senior Sutton out of his mind when he made the original statement? Was he under duress? You watch the film and decide... Wardally ran Hillary Clinton's campaign office on Malcolm X Blvd in Harlem. How did Wardally go from Clinton campaign crony to Obama surrogate and Sutton family spokesperson so fast? But most interesting in the online exchange is the obvious contradictory statements from the players involved. In his March '08 interview, Percy Sutton said he was a long time friend of Dr. Khalid al-Mansour (aka Don Warden) which appears true. In fact, it appears that their friendship goes all the way back to Mansour's California Black Panther "community organizing" days. Sutton said that he first became aware of Obama long before he became a public figure, when Dr. al-Mansour was "raising money" for Obama and asked Percy to write a letter to Harvard on Obama's behalf, which may also be true. When Timmerman interviewed Sutton friend Khalid al-Mansour, he dodged Timmerman questions with this answer: "In respect to Mr. Obama, I have told him, because so many people are running after him, and when stories get printed they usually get distorted and then he has to spend a lot of time trying to unravel them — and then after the experience of Rev. (Jeremiah) Wright whom I've never met, but I've followed the media coverage — I was determined that I was never going to be in that situation. I never discuss Barack Obama." "I wish him [Obama] the best, and hope he can win the election, and if he wins the election, that he adopts this campaign for education," al-Mansour said. "Education" has been the front issue for "community organizing" since the Panther days in the 60's. History has recorded that the Panther's and other "community organizers" like Alinsky and Ayers were promoting a specific "educational" curriculum, namely communism and/or radical racial activism. Days later, al-Mansour gave Ben Smith a very different answer concerning his association with Obama... "After I wrote it, al-Mansour also called me back, and said he'd never met Obama, and had no idea where the story came from; his only hesitance in denying it, he said, had been in contradicting Sutton, "a dear friend, his health is not good." Smith reports. Yet, when speaking with Timmerman, "Al-Mansour said he is aware of Percy Sutton's revelations that identified him as raising money for Obama's law school education when the presidential candidate was 25." "But I've never confirmed it," he said. "Any statement that I make would only further the activity which is not in the interest of Barack, not in the interest of Percy, not in the interest of anyone. — There's no need. There's no benefit. So why do it?" Timmerman notes: "Asked specifically whether he had "spotted" Barack Obama while he was an undergraduate at Columbia as a promising student he wanted to help get into Harvard Law School, al-Mansour pleaded a faulty memory. Why Is Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour So Important To Understanding Obama? It's very simple...aside from the fact that we are currently at war with "radical Islam." Following September2011, 2001, a Saudi Prince by the name of Alwaleed bin Talal, reported to be the world's 19-whealthiest person, blamed America for the events of 9/11 when offering a $10 million donation to then NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who somewhat fervently declined to accept. Dr. Khalid al-Mansour is the international business partner of the Saudi Royal Family and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. If it is true that Don Warden (aka Dr. Khalid al-Mansour), the former Black Panther and international front man for the Saudi Royal Family is some kind of puppet master behind what many allege to be a puppet presidential candidate, complete with blank résumé, a lot of Arab friends and an Arab name, that would be a history making story that even Tom Clancy couldn't have imagined... To summarize, if Dr. Khalid al-Mansour (aka Don Warden) works for Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and the Saudi Royal Family, and Obama really is a "Mansourian candidate," well, then we have a very serious problem on our hands, don't we. Nobody seems to know the real answer to this question. But one thing is very clear... The mere fact that Timmerman and others are asking the right questions is making someone in very high places very nervous... And as Obama says..."The people have a right to know!" Will the people get answers to some very vital questions before the man in question is sworn in as the new Commander-in-Chief? If nobody asks, they won't! He's already received his first presidential security briefing...Who all knows what he now knows? Is there a better time then now to ask these questions? Contact Chuck Brooks at chetz18@aol.com |
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APPEASEMENT PUTS THE 'MAD' IN 'RAMADAN'
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 10, 2008. |
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This was written by David J. Rusin and it appeared on Islamist watch
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Muslims are not the only ones who follow special practices for Ramadan, which coincides with September this year. While adherents of the Islamic faith fast from dawn till dusk, adherents of the multicultural faith spend the month bending over backwards to accommodate Muslim needs, both real and imagined. Three fresh examples come to us courtesy of European officialdom. In France, a court has postponed a trial after a lawyer argued that starting it in the middle of Ramadan would leave the defendant at a disadvantage: His client, a Muslim, would have been fasting for two weeks and thus, he said, be in no position to defend himself properly. Government minister Fadela Amara slammed the ruling, calling it a "knife wound" in France's renowned secularism. And she is a Muslim. Across the channel, Her Majesty's Prison Service has spent £25,000 — almost $50,000 — on metal lunchboxes so Muslims incarcerated at Belmarsh Prison can keep their meals warm as they wait for the sundown feast. Some have questioned the wisdom of granting this privilege to convicts, many of whom are Muslim extremists, including hook-handed preacher Abu Hamza: Prison officers at Belmarsh have criticized the move, fearing the 18-inch-long containers, which resemble a tool box, could be used as a weapon. A Prison Service spokesman argued that the role of incarceration is not to restrict religious practice. True enough. However, one imagines that feeding all convicts cold sandwiches might have been a cheaper solution. Finally, an East London town council has asked its members to adhere to Islamic mores during meetings this month, so as not to offend Muslims. That means no food or drink before sunset and a long recess for the traditional fast-breaking. Columnist Stephen Pollard sums it up best: As far as I am aware, the United Kingdom has not yet been absorbed into the Caliphate. The last time I checked, we allow citizens to practice all religions and none. If I wish to stuff my face with chocolate during the fasting hours of Ramadan, I will. And if you wish to go out for a slap-up lunch on Yom Kippur, you can feel free. Enjoy that chocolate while you can, Stephen. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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CLOAK AND SWAGGER
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 10, 2008. |
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Richard Carroll is an op-ed writer and the author of the books, Terrorists' Crossing and Orphaned Heroes. |
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During our nation's history of Presidential campaigns, no candidate has ever been shrouded behind a cloak of secrecy more than Barack Hussein Obama. Speaking or writing his middle name is verboten in the hopes that this act alone will make his Muslim faith go away. During a recent interview with NBC George Stephanapolis, Mr. Obama said, "John McCain hasn't talked about my Muslim faith." Gaffe or Freudian slip? American voters are not "privy" to the fact one of the first
bills this candidate wrote for the Illinois General Assembly was a
declaration that November 1, 1997 would be Islamic Day, the
same young Senator who sponsored Illinois Senate Bill 750 creating the
Halal Food Act, requiring food preparation according to Islamic law.
What will American voters think when they realize every Islamofascist organization sworn to the destruction of America actively campaign for Obama? What will these same voters think when they learn Obama has Nations of Islam employees on his staff, that his outreach advisor was a member of the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood, and that his Harvard entrance was backed by Saudi Muslim Khalid al-Mansour? His handlers, and the socialist party are depending on stupid American voters to forget Barack, comes from "al-baraq," which is the name of the horse that Muslims believe Muhammad rode on his way to paradise. Obama's registration card at Indonesia's Fransiskus Assisi school lists Barry Soetoro as an Indonesian citizen born in Honolulu, Hawaii Aug. 4, 1961. His religion is listed as Muslim. In his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," Obama mentions studying the Koran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school." Of course it was, Indonesia has the highest Muslim population in the world. What did Obama mean when he described the Muslim call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset"? "If Obama will enter the White House, then Islam will conquer the heart of the American nation." Socialists, put your "Islamophobia" word away. The above quote was said on Persian language radio hosted by Menashe Amir, and came from the mouth of an Iranian Muslim cleric. The Iranian leadership likes Obama "mainly because he is a Muslim," according to Amir. This Jihad Candidate has said on television "America is no longer a Christian nation." Does the swaggering presumptive first American Muslim President consider "change" as removing In God We Trust from our...change? He has bashed the Bible and our Christian heritage, the same person who said "I don't think my church is particularly controversial." Huh? The sum of your vocal parts are catching-up with you, Mr. Obama, including your two books filled with anti-American, anti-white racist hatred Most Americans do not cast themselves as society's losers; those who have been left behind, hurt, homeless, downtrodden by the gales of (as you point out) the cruel free market. The grievance mongers, drug addicts and ex-cons you "organized" at ACORN may believe Americans eat tree bark, but the rest of us know better. The rest of us, those you look down upon with disdain, are those who cling to guns and God, and we do not feel our military is "exploited and manipulated" but are heroes in pursuit of victory, not dupes in search of a handout. The rest of us, Mr. Obama, do not stir the ugly emotions of less fortunate people by reciting the "Rules of Radicalism" written by communist "organizer" Saul Alinsky (as your wife did during her convention speech). What are Americans to think when they see a photograph of Barack Hussein Obama with Arafat advisor Edward Said at an anti-Israel fundraiser, or those chummy pictures with Nations of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan? Never in the history of American politics has there been a candidate so removed from our heritage and tradition; a candidate filled with bitterness and hatred for the same "system" that made us the envy of the world. Never in the history of American politics has there been a Muslim candidate from a culture and background that cannot live within the free governing boundaries of a Constitution and Declaration of Independence set-forth by Christian men with steadfast resolve to remain sovereign. Never in the history of American politics has there been a candidate with a meager record of accomplishment, the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate and long-standing relationships with a former terrorist, a racist minister, and the corrupt operators of communist Chicago politic and Islamic donations run for President of the United States with a one word slogan: Change. Given the rapid surrender of Europe to Islam, are American voters really prepared for a candidate who said "If the political winds shift in an ugly direction I will side with the Muslims?" Is mainstream really ready and able to accept the label of "Bible thumpin', shot gun pumpin', outhouse dumpin'" from a candidate totally disenfranchised from The United States of America? Tens of millions of us are offended by the swagger of this charlatan Muslim who has the "audacity" to think we swallow his lying pabulum as if he thinks we are all young inexperienced college students under the influence of a liberal communist faculty. Tens of millions of us are offended that he thinks we are "typical white people." Tens of millions of us are connecting the dots that he is getting far too much applause from the Islamic machine that is intent on dominating planet Earth. Please view the attached short video:
Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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ABBAS'S ANTISEMITIC INCITEMENT; GAZA MENACE EXPANDS; PSYCHOLOGY & DIPLOMACY
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 10, 2008. |
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BREAK IN SECULARIST WAR ON THE JEWS The Israeli Cabinet agreed to let in 7,200 Indian Jews descended from the tribe of Menashe. Their community is considered Jewish, but each one must undergo a formal conversion to Judaism. The former immigration minister, from the extreme secularist party, Shinui, had barred them. So has the current minister, Shitreet, by the subterfuge of turning authority for immigration over to the whole Cabinet, which, he knew, would not get around to it for a long time. The Shinui minister explained his opposition. He said they convert in the Orthodox manner and move to Judea-Samaria. Michael Freund organizes searches for such long lost Jewish groups, merged or amidst other nationalities and races, and who wish to live as Jews. Mr. Freund explains that the Menashe Jews prefer Judea-Samaria because of the warm welcome there. He calls the government's usual obstruction "post-Zionist." It also is bureaucratic, keeping too much power in governmental hands (Arutz-7, 8/20). The government's usual stance, overcome this time, also is antisemitic. My friends think that the problem with Israel is from Orthodoxy, just as they think that America is imperiled by the religious Right. Both groups do pose some problems, as does any group. But the real problem in both countries is from the Left, which is prejudiced and authoritarian. BANK OF CHINA SUED OVER HELP FOR TERRORISM US law forbids banks in the US from transferring funds to terrorist organizations. The Bank of China transferred millions of dollars to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli agents asked the Bank to desist, but it persisted. In this, it had the approval of China. Israeli relatives of victims of those terrorist organizations are suing the Bank for compensatory and punitive damages (IMRA, 8/21). Let's see whether they collect or the State Dept. intrudes, I think, unwisely. Banks should be accountable for assisting terrorism for profit. ABBAS' ANTISEMITIC INCITEMENT Abbas told a large audience that 'the sons of Israel are mentioned in the Koran as those who are corrupting humanity on Earth." He signed a bill providing a stipend for families of suicide bombers. The whole P.A. defames Israel and the Jewish people. The media studiously overlook this (Arutz-7, 8/21). ABBAS' ANTISEMITIC INCITEMENT Abbas told a large audience that 'the sons of Israel are mentioned in the Koran as those who are corrupting humanity on Earth." He signed a bill providing a stipend for families of suicide bombers. The whole P.A. defames Israel and the Jewish people. The media studiously overlook this (Arutz-7, 8/21). POLICE DEFY COURT, COURT ACQUIESCES We've reported about the Jewish property owner in Jerusalem trying to evict Arab squatters for more than 15 years. The Arabs don't pay rent. The courts have ruled in the owner's favor more than once, although they were unduly lenient in letting the obviously fraudulent Arabs change their story and begin the case from the beginning. As before, the police refuse to enforce the court's eviction notice, claiming this time that they lack the staff to enforce it, anticipating an Arab riot. The police say they need several more months to get ready. What the police assert, the courts usually accept (Arutz-7, 8/21). I have noticed that the prosecutors and police make blatantly false statements, and prosecutors demand punishment of people before their trials. The judges usually go along with the pretense. Always taking the Arab side, or the side of the anti-Jewish police when the Arabs have no interest in the case, the government is oppressing religious and nationalist Jews in Israel. GAZA MENACE EXPANDS PM Rabin scoffed at concerns that Oslo would lead to the Arabs bombarding Ashkelon. Now the Arabs are bombarding Ashdod, further away from Gaza than Ashkelon. He was wrong. Using the ceasefire to advantage, Gaza terrorists expanded the range of their rockets. Now they can reach a total population of half a million. In response to a rocket attack on Israel, the government of Israel closed Gaza access to Israel. However, it sent $20 million in cash to Gaza. Its excuse is that the money would go to Fatah enemies of Hamas. If so, it could have sent the money to Abbas, so he could get credit for relaying the funds. However, Hamas taps into those funds! Indeed, the $20 million was to replenish bank funds that's Hamas drew out. [What is to stop Hamas from drawing out the $20 million, too?] Other excuses: sending cash keeps Hamas from establishing an independent currency or replaces worn bills (IMRA, 8/23, Rachel Ehrenfeld, 8/22). Appeasement-minded Israeli leaders lack common foresight and decent concern. One can imagine them suggesting that they should evacuate Israelis from the north, to avoid rockets from Hizbullah, from the south, to avoid rockets from Hamas, from the West, to avoid rockets from Judea-Samaria if evacuated, and from the center, to avoid rockets from Syria and Iran. PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTORTION Certain far-leftist Jews deride Israel and praise their Muslim opponents in such terms as: "apartheid state" and Arabs seeking a "secular democratic state," "racist Zionists," "rights" of the Arabs to the whole area and of Jews to refuse the draft, "crimes against the Palestinian people," "right of Palestinian refugees to return," "ethnic cleansing," "Zionist ideology is calling for a state of Jewish people only," Israel wants to steal the land and water of Lebanon so it must be removed from Lebanon, it was wrong of Israel to have slain the Hamas leader responsible for the murders of 300 Israelis. These accusations all are distortions, due to a psychological inability to understand the truth and to see Muslim Arab evil (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/24). The P.A. enjoys autonomy but does not have a secular democratic government now. Zionism does not call for expelling non-Jews — that is unfortunate in the case of the Muslims. Israel has evacuated from Lebanon except for a border-straddling town. Note the complainant didn't object to murdering the 300! DIPLOMACY & PSYCHOLOGY OF PRISONER RELEASE "'Those to be released are members of factions that support the leadership of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.' — including two murderers and mostly people who tried to kill Israelis but did not succeed — yet — and thus do not — yet — have 'blood on their hands'". The government states, "The release further underscores Israel's willingness to make painful concessions for the sake of advancing peace negotiations." "More likely that 'the release further underscores Israel's willingness to make painful unilateral concessions without requiring the Palestinians to do anything in return that might advance peace negotiations.'" "And, by the way, if the Olmert-Livni-Barak team thinks that the release of these terrorists and the decision to allow the two boats to reach Gaza will in any way cause Ms. Rice to ease up on the Jewish State during her upcoming visit, the odds are that the opposite is the case. Concessions and weakness invite more demands — not fewer demands." (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 8/24.) The governments of Israel and of the US make the same mistake repeatedly, in pursuit of failed policies. The media fail at their own job, that of watchdog. Due to their own intellectual dishonesty and ideology, they rarely question government policies no matter how many corpses pile up over them. My friends have no idea what is going on and how bad are Pres. Bush and his rivals on this. 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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BUT WHAT ABOUT ISRAEL?
Posted by Herb and Miki Sunshine, September 10, 2008. |
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This was written by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the Spring 5744 — 1984 issue of the Magazine of the Authentic Jewish Idea |
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On the 79th anniversary of the death of the founder of political Zionism, the leaders of the State of Israel went up to the grave to pay homage to Binyamin Zev (Theodore) Herzl. And among the speakers was the President of the State of Israel, Chaim Herzog, who called for the saving of the Jews of the exile — the raison d'etre for Herzl's state — but then added: "We must also save the Jews of the west where the threat of assimilation and mixture has grown recently." And the President then suggested deepening the Jewish education in the exile to strengthen Jewish identity. I am always impressed by the special pain felt by Israeli leaders for the threat to Jewishness in the EXILE. There was hardly a speech by former President Navon which did not bemoan assimilation in the EXILE. Golda Meir made a moving plea to combat it when she addressed the ZOA convention in Jerusalem a decade ago. Every large and small functionary of the Jewish agency and the Israeli government raises his voice of warning over the threat to Jewishness in the EXILE. And so, as is my wont, I must muddy the placid waters a bit. I must ask the politicians and now President Herzog. "But what about Israel?" What about a state that never remotely succeeded in becoming a Jewish one but rather a state of Jews which increasingly looks like a Hebrew-speaking Greece-Portugal-Italy-France? If one moans over the mixture and assimilation of Jews and non-Jews in the exile, is it not time also to speak up concerning the problem of the thousands upon thousands of Jewish girls who, every night, date and bed Arabs throughout the State of Israel? Is it not long overdue to speak out against the thousands of Jewish women who have married Arab men and live in Arab villages, their children being raised as Moslems? Shall we hear the voice of the government raised against the cancer of Jewish women eagerly bedding (and hopefully wedding) United Nations soldiers, Multinational force solders, Portuguese and other foreign laborers in the Negev, and German, Swedish and every other kind of gentile volunteer on the kibbutzim? Is assimilation worse when it is in the Dees Moines than in Tiberias? Are intermarriage and sexual relations with gentiles hallowed in the holy land when they are to be condemned in Chicago, Paris and London? And so, on the day that I am freed from army reserve duty, I intend to lead a group to the Presidential Mansion to see President Herzog, son of the late, sainted Chief Rabbi of Israel, and ask him to condemn intermarriage and assimilation between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. Let us see whether the condemnation on Mount Herzl will once more sound its powerful voice. Herb Sunshine is a lawyer, qualified to practice in U.S.A. and Israel. He and his wife Miki live in Jerusalem. Contact them by email at sunshine.h@012.net.il |
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A MAN WALKS THROUGH THE WESTERN WALL PLAZA IN JERUSALEM
Posted by Yehoshua HaLevi, September 9, 2008. |
Early Morning Solitude In Jerusalem's Yemin Moshe Park This is a Yehoshua Halevi Golden Light Image.
Yehoshua Halevi writes: "HOW I GOT THE SHOT:
Time after time I find the most dramatic photos emerge when I point the camera directly into the sun or another bright light source. The clincher in this image is the shadow fragment in the upper left corner. Without it, the silhouette would have to stand on its own, alone and moving aimlessly through the photo's empty spaces. The shadow gives definition to the space while providing a nice complement to the silhouetted figure's shadow because the two fit together to form
an asymmetrical but balanced composition.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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WHO VETTED OBAMA — INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU OR MAXWELL SMART??
Posted by Don Feder, September 9, 2008. |
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Ever since John McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, the left has been in irony overdrive. Among other raps, McCain is charged with tokenism for choosing a woman as his running mate — unlike the Democrats, whose choice for president had nothing to do with race, which is why they remind us at least hourly that Barack Obama is the first major-party African-American presidential candidate. Regarding Palin, the left and its lapdog media are fixated on the following: 1. Her alleged lack of experience (2 years in the governorship versus Obama's 3 1/2 years in the Senate) 2. Her unmarried, 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy, with the implication that this calls into question her parenting skills (never mind that the left created the culture in which it's all too common for teens to get pregnant) and 3. The allegation that, as governor, one of her firings was politically motivated. (Appoint a special prosecutor, posthaste!) The foregoing caused knee-jerk commentators to question whether the McCain campaign had properly and thoroughly vetted Palin. Who vetted her? How long did the process last? Did they interview everyone in the Alaska state government, and anyone who had contact with Palin from the moment of her conception? Here, "vetting" refers to the process of scrutiny and evaluation that a potential vice-presidential candidate is supposed to undergo — including an examination of his or her finances, associations and political history. The McCain camp is charged with gross negligence in vetting Palin. Is she really, truly qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? they rhetorically inquire. I'd like to know who vetted Barack Obama? Certainly not the millions who voted for him in the Democratic primaries, the party regulars who lined up solidly behind him, the mainstream media who catapulted a one-term, celebrity Senator into the presidential race, or the 50% of the electorate who currently say they'll vote for him. There are enough skeletons in Obama's closet to decorate Halloween Town. Other than his charisma and teleprompter talent, everything about him screams Red Alert. Start with the four years he spent in Indonesia with his mother and Muslim stepfather. (His sperm donor dad was also an adherent of the Religion of Peace.) The Obama campaign maintains the candidate never practiced Islam, never prayed in a mosque and was never instructed in Islam. That would be false, false — and false. For the last two years he lived in Jakarta, Obama attended a public school where instruction in Islam was mandatory. According to the school's principal, when the future messiah was enrolled at the Sekolah Dasar Negeri Besuki School, Barack Hussein Obama was registered as a Muslim and participated in Islamic lessons, including Mengaji — the recitation of sutras from the Koran. Friends from his Jakarta school days recall the young Obama visiting an Islamic prayer room in the predominately Muslim neighborhood where the family resided for a time. Emirsyah Satar, now CEO of the Indonesian national airlines, says Obama was "quite religious in Islam, but after marrying Michelle, he changed his religion." The candidate's half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, confirms that Barack was a Muslim in Indonesia, telling The New York Times, "My whole family was Muslim." This is not to suggest that Obama is a sleeper agent — the Indonesian Candidate. His conversion to the bizarre form of Christianity practiced at the Trinity United Church of Christ seems to be sincere. But why does his campaign feel it's necessary to lie about Obama's past? Okay, that was almost 40 years ago. Of more recent vintage is the Senator's foray into Kenyan politics. In 2006, Obama visited the ancestral homeland. It wasn't quite the stroll down memory lane portrayed by a supine media. While there, Barack endorsed a far-left Kenyan politician, Raila Odinga, then running for president against incumbent Mwai Kibaki. The Democratic nominee even made campaign appearances with Odinga (like Obama's father, a Luo tribesman). After Odinga lost, he did an African version of Al Gore and claimed the election was stolen. His supporters rioted and more than 1,000 Kenyans were killed and 350,000 displaced. The mayhem included attacks against Kikuyu Christians (members of Kibaki's tribe) by Luo Muslims. Over 300 churches were destroyed or severely damaged. In one particularly appalling incident, 50 Christians, including women and children, were herded into a Pentecostal church which was set on fire. Those trying to escape were hacked to death with machetes. To stop the bloodshed, Kibaki made Odinga — who had signed a "memo of understanding" with radical Muslims — his prime minister. It's hard to gainsay the claim of Obama supporters that their candidate does have foreign policy experience. Closer to home, in July, Chicago lawyer Mazen Ashabi was forced to resign as Obama's director of Muslim outreach when the Wall Street Journal linked Ashabi to Jamal Said, a man the Justice Department believes was involved in racketeering and fundraising for Hamas. Was Ashabi properly vetted — was he thoroughly vetted by the Obama campaign? In light of the candidate's other questionable associations, did he even care? Since he first ran for the Illinois Senate, Obama has been chummy with William ("kill the pigs") Ayers and his charming wife Bernardine Dohrn (who once chortled over the Manson murders) — one-time leaders of the Weathermen Underground, who were implicated in terrorist bombings 30 years before Al Qaeda. Obama and Ayers served together two years as directors of the Woods Fund, a $72 million kitty for radical causes. Back in his community organizer days, the Woods Fund paid Obama's salary. When Obama and Ayers made the calls, the Fund gave $75,000 to the Arab-American Action Network, whose co-founder, Rashid Khalidi, reportedly worked on behalf of the PLO when it was still designated a terrorist organization by the State Department. Like his memory loss over Jeremiah Wright's sermons, Obama probably doesn't recall that in Ayers' 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days," the ex-Weatherman gloated that the 1970s Pentagon bombing was payback for "the bastards." But then, Senator Hope-and-Change spent 20 years sitting in a pew at the Trinity United Church of Christ listening to a man who made Ayers and Dohrn look like Sergeant York and Audie Murphy, wrapped in American flags. In his years at Trinity, Wright became the Ayatollah of Anti-Americanism — "G-d damn America," the "U.S. of KKK," "white folks greed runs a world in need," Israel is an apartheid state that practices "terrorism," "America is the No. 1 Killer in the world," the U.S. government invented the AIDS virus, 9/11 was our comeuppance for the way we treat people of color the world over, America runs on racism, etc. First the conductor of the doubletalk express claimed he'd never heard Wright make any of these incendiary remarks. Then he allowed that he'd heard Wright say things he disagreed with (without specifying what they were), but asked which of us had not disagreed with views expressed by our minister, priest or rabbi. The most controversial thing I ever heard my rabbi say was "You have to remain standing for the entire Neilah service at the close of Yom Kippur." Next, Obama declared that he could no more reject Wright than he could "disown" the black community. Finally he was "shocked and surprised" by Wright's ravings. Assuredly, this "was not the man I met 20 years ago." Apparently it also wasn't the man who married Barack and his wife or baptized his two daughters, or ran the church the Obamas gave $26,000 to in one year. Nor was he the man who prayed with Obama in a hotel room just before the Senator announced he was running for president. Was Obama also shocked and saddened to learn that Father Michael Pfleger — his longtime friend and Wright's Catholic counterpart — was another mental patient in a clerical collar? Shepard of a South Chicago church, Pfleger believes "America is the greatest sin against God" and "America has been raping people of color" for as long as anyone can recall. Obama and Pfleger have been friends since the late 1980s. The priest contributed $1,500 to various Obama campaigns. As a United States Senator, Obama directed $225,000 in federal grants to Pfleger's St Sabina Church. (Obama never shied away from the back-scratching politics for which the Windy City is justly famous.) If Obama was properly vetted, surely someone would have asked about his relationship with the biggest whack-job of them all, fellow Chicagoan Louis Farrakhan. The two clergymen whose names are most closely associated with Obama think the Nation of Islam leader is the greatest thing since jackboots and armbands. Pfleger, who had Farrakhan preach in his church, called the man who once called Judaism a "gutter religion" — "a prophetic voice" and a "mentor." Wright becomes visibly aroused just thinking about Minister Louie — "one of the giants of the African American religious experience," one who "truly epitomized greatness" and a shining example of "integrity and honesty" renowned for his "depth of analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this country." Guilt by association once removed? Hardly. Like the man who brought him to Christianity (so-called), Obama participated in Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March — which the Anti-Defamation League called "the largest event led by an anti-Semite in recent American history." Not just attended, but gushed over the happening: "What I saw was a powerful demonstration of an impulse and need for African-American men to come together to recognize each other and affirm our rightful place in society." "But what was lacking among march organizers," Obama confessed, "was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change. Without this agenda a lot of this energy is going to dissipate." What was really missing in the Nuremberg rallies was a coherent agenda for change — other than conquering the world and annihilating Jews and Slavs. Farrakhan returned the favor. Addressing 20,000 at this year's "Saviors' Day Convention," the man who believes Caucasians are only "potential humans" said of Obama, "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better." Obama immediately issued the ritualistic rejection of the leader responsible for the "powerful demonstration of an impulse and need for African-American men to come together" to affirm whatever. Did those who vetted Obama ask what other connections America's first African-American major-party presidential candidate has to the man who said God would give Muslims the honor of destroying America? On the other hand, Tony Rezko — Obama's master fundraiser — is just an old-fashioned crook. On June 4, a federal grand jury found Rezko guilty on 16 counts of influence peddling. The Syrian-born Rezko built low-income housing in Chicago (one step below selling junk bonds in the '80s). He was also a longtime friend and fundraiser for Obama. In "Obama Nation," author Jerome Crosi described Rezko as a "Chicago slumlord," who "helped to bankroll Obama's five election runs — In Obama's successful 1996, 1998 and 2002 campaigns for the Illinois state senate, in 2000 in his unsuccessful run for the U.S. House, and in 2004 for his successful U.S. Senate campaign." Obama told the Chicago Sun Times that their association went back to his Harvard days, when the slippery Syrian offered the future harbinger of hope a job in his business. The relationship was far from one-sided. As a state senator, Obama wrote letters to state and municipal officials helping Rezko to secure $14 million to build apartments for senior citizens. The arrangement included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partners — among them Allison Davis, Obama's former boss at a Chicago law firm, who left for more gainful employment with Rezko. While authors like Corsi and David Freddoso ("The Case Against Barack Obama"), have examined the Obama/Rezko connection, the candidate's media pimps could care less. So, who vetted Barack Obama? The choices are: A. Inspector Clouseau B. Forest Gump C. Maxwell Smart or D. Mrs. Emily Litella, Gilda Radner's clueless character on "Saturday Night Live." With enough dirt in Obama's background to choke several landfills, the Democrats and their media auxiliary wonder if McCain's campaign knew about the DWI arrest of Palin's husband, 22 years ago. Let's hear it for selective vetting — a microscope for one candidate and a blindfold for the other. Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. He also maintains his own website, DonFeder.com. |
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FROM ISRAEL: WARMING THAT MOLASSES
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 9, 2008. |
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Yesterday I wrote that the process of removing Olmert from the government is as "slow as molasses." But what I'm seeing now might — just might, no guarantees — push things ahead more quickly. There is heat being generated: Quite simply, there are people in the government who are weary of the thought of having him at the helm, and people in his own Kadima party who are getting worried about the liability he represents. A prime minister, making major decisions, who is about to be indicted? Not a great scene. ~~~~~~~~~~ Members of the opposition in the Knesset called a special session today to address what they called the "illegitimate conduct of government regarding political affairs." MK Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP) has always been outspoken and direct, and today was no exception. What he said was: "How do we know what is behind this man's decisions? Maybe tomorrow, Olmert will want to give away land to the Arab enemy...Maybe someone paid him to change his mind and give away land that belongs to my people, to my heritage. A man suspected of receiving bribes cannot be Israel's prime minister since we don't know what motivates him." And I salute him for this honesty. He is not saying that Olmert has been bribed already to negotiate with the PA, but that Olmert cannot be trusted. When one considers the notion of "bribes" broadly, it becomes even more disconcerting. For there can be financial gain via investments that motivates decisions as well — even though this has nothing to do with what is good for the nation. ~~~~~~~~~~ Within Kadima there are individuals decidedly not happy with the very convoluted scenario I described yesterday in which Olmert would head a transitional government even if he had been indicted. In some quarters there is a push to have him really step down so that the new head of Kadima — who will be elected next week — can head that transitional government. Others are declaring with confidence that the winner of the primary (most likely Livni) will be able to form a new coalition so quickly that this would not be an issue. So... for now we'll keep waiting and seeing. ~~~~~~~~~~ Olmert had been scheduled to visit Russian next week, where he was going to be lobbying against arms for Syria, but that trip has been cancelled because of his tenuous position. Similarly, there is speculation that there will not be any more indirect negotiations with Syria, either. Which, in my book, would be the best thing that could happen. The next round was due to take place on the 18th. ~~~~~~~~~~ There are Israeli officials lamenting that Assad may feel he already got what he wanted — an end to international isolation — and that he didn't "need" Israel any longer. When French president Nicholas Sarkozy came to Syria last week, and then was joined by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, some high level Israelis were lamenting that these people were giving Assad too much recognition. I found this highly ironic, because it was the fools in Israel who broke Syria's isolation and started the process. Who were they to criticize? Assad had been making a bid for US involvement in direct talks with Israel — he had said that the talks would only work with US participation. But the US is none too keen to be involved here. One guess is that this is because it would tie Olmert's successor into this prematurely. But the fact is that the American administration has shown no desire to promote this in any event. ~~~~~~~~~~ Gen. James Jones, the US security advisor on the Israeli-Palestinian talks, is due here tomorrow in an attempt to define Israel's vital security needs that would have to be addressed in any Israeli-PA agreement. As a last ditch effort, it seems, the Americans are hoping to draft a "security document" — a document defining Israel's security needs that would be acceptable to Israel and the US — even if a diplomatic agreement isn't reached. Israel, however, isn't keen on putting anything in writing in this regard without that diplomatic progress. What infuriates me considerably is the audacity of suggesting that the US has to pass on — or voice acceptance of — our defined security needs. No one, but no one, should sign off on this except Israeli security and military experts. We tell them what we insist upon. And if the rest of the world doesn't like it, tough. The US thinks it has a say in whether we need certain areas of Judea and Samaria to be secure? Or whether it's safe for our citizens if we allow PA security personnel carrying guns to locate in such and such a region? It was Secretary of State Rice who coerced Israel into leaving the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, when we were supposed to have stayed there. She did this in spite of Israeli security objections (and were those objections correct!) because her priority was moving a process, not protecting Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~ Interesting: Like clockwork, every so often there is a bid to release Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti. Sometimes this is from the Palestinians, but sometimes it comes from our side. There are Israelis convinced that if Barghouti were released he would have such charisma, such impact on the street, that he could move forward a peace agreement and help cool the tensions with Hamas. Foolish, foolish thinking in any event, I believe. For if the "best" we can find as PA leader is a convicted terrorist, these are not really people we want to deal with. Never mind that because of the Israeli lives he has taken, he should never be free again. Now the Israel Radio Arab affairs correspondent has reported on a study by our security forces that indicates that Barghouti's popularity in the street has been severely over-rated. In fact, the last time there were Legislative Council elections, no one who had connections with Barghouti won. Good. Can we stop talking about letting him go now? ~~~~~~~~~ The taskforce, headed by Haim Ramon, charged with coming up with the names of 450 Hamas prisoners we would be willing to exchange for Shalit, has completed its work. This is a list — with new guidelines on who can be released — that Israel decided to submit to Hamas, with initiative coming from our side. This is not in response to specific Hamas demands. But Hamas is now asking for 1,500 prisoners, so this is not going to play. And there's more that is deeply disturbing: Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been acting as go-between on negotiations, has been unable to get those negotiations started again. Hamas is playing hardball. And so, according to Haaretz, Suleiman told Yossi Beilin in meetings in Cairo on Sunday that he's working on a new approach. This would include extending the "ceasefire" and securing guarantees from Israel that we would not harm Hamas leaders. This is what follows from what has been our foolish acquiescence to terrorist demands We have been acting too hungry and too eager. I much prefer the suggestion of some defense officials — including Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin — that we increase pressure on Hamas instead, even if it means limited military action against Hamas that threatens the "ceasefire." Our message then changes from "Oh, please, tell us what else we have to do for you to make you happy?" to "Let us tell you what we've going to do to you if you don't act as we want you to." ~~~~~~~~~~ Gabriela Shalev, Israel's first female ambassador to the UN, submitted her credentials Monday to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. She was at one time a professor of law at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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INCONSISTENCY BY OLMERT AND LEFTISTS; A MODERN ISLAMIC STATE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 9, 2008. |
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P.A. ARAB WATER THEFT Arabs in Judea have been stealing large quantities of water flowing towards Jewish communities. The estimate is three million cubic meters a year. Finally starting a crackdown, the government of Israel confiscated a sixth of the water pipes used by the Arabs, about 50,000 kilometers worth (Arutz-7, 8/19). ITALY'S DIRTY DEAL Italy made a deal with the PLO. It would allow PLO terrorists to enter and leave Italy freely, maintain bases, and have diplomatic immunity, in return for their promise not to commit terrorism against Italy (Arutz-7, 8/19). A former Israeli ambassador said other European states did likewise. That is how Europe became a staging ground for terrorism (Arutz-7, 8/20). OLMERT'S INCONSISTENCY Hizbullah is part of the government of Lebanon, which approves Hizbullah retaining its weaponry. PM Olmert remarked that if Lebanon turns into a Hizbullah state (what does he mean, "if,"), Israel would use all its might in a renewed war. He said it restrained itself in the last war, because it was at war with the organization but not with the country. Olmert's vow is inconsistent. Gaza has turned into a Hamas state, but Israel greatly restrains itself against Hamas (IMRA, 8/19), and Israelis die. The government of Lebanon is flouting the Security Council Resolution that requires Hizbullah to be disarmed. Many propagandists, Arabs and members of so-called human rights organizations, falsely accuse Israel of violating international law and human rights. I haven't heard of their objecting to Lebanon's violation of the Security Council Resolution, nor of that violation being in behalf of terrorism, the antithesis of human rights. ACADEMIC FREEDOM NOT IN P.A. The antisemitic, Jewish followers of Noam Chomsky at Israeli universities blame Israel for the lack of academic freedom in the P.A.. They blame Israel for everything, without scruple. The current spectacle of Hamas and Fatah members fighting each other at a Gaza college demonstrates that Islamic authoritarianism is responsible for the lack of academic freedom there, as is the lack of other freedoms (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/19). When people are blinded by ideology resulting from psychosis, rather than enlightened by ideology, they cannot see their inconsistency and their malevolence. These leftists are so blinded, that they support bigoted murderers, oppressors, and haters of women and gays. ACADEMIC FREEDOM NOT IN P.A. The antisemitic, Jewish followers of Noam Chomsky at Israeli universities blame Israel for the lack of academic freedom in the P.A.. They blame Israel for everything, without scruple. The current spectacle of Hamas and Fatah members fighting each other at a Gaza college demonstrates that Islamic authoritarianism is responsible for the lack of academic freedom there, as is the lack of other freedoms (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/19). When people are blinded by ideology resulting from psychosis, rather than enlightened by ideology, they cannot see their inconsistency and their malevolence. These leftists are so blinded, that they support bigoted murderers, oppressors, and haters of women and gays. DEAF TO REVERBERATION? Foreign policy blindness leads to trouble, and one event leads to another. After Israel released many prisoners to Hamas, it dord the same for Abbas, so he won't look bad. Jordan released some, whom it won't treat worse than Israel. Since Israel didn't destroy Hamas, Jordan is reconciling with it, though Jordan knows that Hamas is its mortal enemy. The US placed all its hopes on President Musharraf of Pakistan, instead of insisting that he purge his military and intelligence services of jihadists. Those elements then harbored al-Qaeda, which re-opened the war in Afghanistan. The State Dept. pressed Musharraf to democratize. Surprise: his popular rivals were anti-American, and also do not want to fight al-Qaeda. Terrorists are trying to infiltrate Pakistan's nuclear facilities. Musharraf refused to account to the US for the money it paid to secure those facilities. The US has no allies in Pakistan. The US ignored Iran's control of Hizbullah and Hizbullah's control of Lebanon. The US thought the Lebanese government an ally, and wouldn't let Israel destroy the Hizbullah-serving infrastructure there. Israel didn't defeat Hizbullah, which then fastened its control over Lebanon. The US also deluded itself that Sunnis and Shiites never would make common cause. Actually, they often do. Iran proved that, catching the US unawares. (They used to say that Islamic areas were immune to Communist influence, until the Communists proved themselves influential in some Islamic areas.) Finding the West weak, the two sects collaborate openly now. Finding the US response to its aggression against Georgia weak, Russia openly sides with Iran and Syria. The US and Israel "...must acknowledge that when they are strong and victorious, their allies are strengthened throughout the world. And when they are weak and dissolute, their allies also pay the price of their irresponsibility." (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 8/23). Trouble is, the Left in both countries is defeatist and unpatriotic. A MODERATE ISLAMIC STATE Tunisia is tolerating other religions and women, educating, modernizing, stabilizing, and prospering without oil. However, they hate Israel. Antisemitism comes in from Europe. "Europe cannot fight anti-Semitism if it appeases terrorists or blackens Israel's name. We need to insist that a linkage exists between blind Palestinophilia, being soft on terror and jihad, defaming Israel, and the current wave of anti-Semitic violence." Tunisia must spread its ways or lose them (MEFNews, 8/19.) 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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ARRESTS DECIMATE PIONEER COMMUNITY
Posted by Lee Caplan, September 9, 2008. |
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This was written by Hillel Fendel, Senior News Editor, Arutz-7 |
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(IsraelNN.com) Three young fathers are under house arrest and forbidden to return to their homes, leaving only one adult male in their pioneer startup community in southern Judea. They are accused of kidnapping an assaulting an Arab arsonist — against whom all charges have been dropped. The three say they merely made a citizen's arrest, and then transferred the Arab to an army force, after he set fire to their fields. The three, each with several children, are recent returnees to observant Judaism, and barely support their families with flocks of sheep and odd jobs. One of the three is a veteran of the IDF's most elite Matkal commando unit. The story began on a Sabbath day two months ago, when a group of Arabs and Israelis arrived in the Jewish-owned fields of Mitzpeh Asael, in the South Mt. Hevron district. "This was clearly a group of provocateurs," said Shmuel Medad, who heads the Honenu civil rights organization, which is spearheading the legal campaign on behalf of the three Jews. The "visitors" set one of the fields on fire, the arrestees said, and the blaze began spreading rapidly. "G-d had mercy," Medad said, "and the fire stopped only a few meters away from one of the caravans." "One of the arsonists then ran towards the Jews with a hoe in hand," Medad continued. "The Jewish residents caught him, and transferred him to an army force that arrived there a few minutes later. The soldiers also caught another arsonist." The provocateurs claimed that the first Arab was tied to a pole, but the Jewish farmers deny this. "At that point," Medad continued, "the Arab who was caught with the hoe said he required medical help, and at his request, was evacuated via Arab ambulance. He later surfaced with medical documents showing that he had been injured, but these turned out to be forged... When the police arrived, they arrested Eyal Rachamim, who serves as the security officer of the area, and then released from IDF custody the other Arab." Police Tear Up Complaint "That night, Eyal's neighbor Lior went to the police station to file a complaint against the arson. The investigator actually tore up the complaint — and then arrested him on charges of assault! Two days later, the police arrested a third Jewish resident, Mordechai." The District Prosecution, headed by Attorney Yiska Liebowitz, decided to drop all charges against the Arab — even though, Medad says, "he changed his story! First he admitted setting the fire, saying he did it by mistake, and then he said he ran towards the Jews because he thought they set the fire. One of the judges in one of the courts noted that he changed his story, and wanted to release the Jews, but his decision was not implemented — and they ended up in jail for six weeks." Complex Legal Process Ends With House Arrest and Electronic Ankle Bracelets At one point, Be'er Sheva District Court Judge Ariel Vago agreed to a form of house arrest, and implied he would be willing to release them after a customary court-ordered review of their situation. The Prosecution appealed to the Supreme Court, where Justice Asher Gronis said they must remain in jail until after the report. The report in fact turned out to be positive, but then another Be'er Sheva District Court judge, Varda Meroz, overturned the previous ruling and ordered them to jail — not just house arrest — until the end of the legal proceedings. The lawyer for the three then appealed to the Supreme Court, which "compromised" and sent them to house arrest at relatives, complete with electronic ankle bracelets, and forbidden to set foot outside except for Sabbath prayers. "Three out of the four families in this budding community are now left without their husbands, fathers and providers," Medad says. "They are all but alone, and in addition to everything else, face an expensive and drawn-out legal process." Living With Brother-in-Law Lior, for instance, is living in his brother-in-law's small apartment in the Morasha (Musrara) neighborhood of Jerusalem. Yaakov, the brother-in-law — their wives are sisters — says the situation is very difficult: "He is used to being outside, and now he is cooped up in this small apartment, without his family. One time we left for the Sabbath, so that his family could stay with him here, but that is clearly not a long-term solution. His parents and other relatives are not religious and don't keep Kosher, so basically he has no other place to go other than here." "My sister-in-law and the other wives are pretty strong," Yaakov says, "and they're not thinking of leaving, because that would basically mean the end of [the small community of] Asael. But who knows how long they can go on?" Medad says that this is clearly the goal of some in the judicial establishment: "They are goaded by hatred and their desire to break our backs — otherwise there is no explanation for their one-sided decisions and rulings." Funds Established Families in the Mt. Hevron area have established a fund to help the families, and Honenu has set up another one for their legal costs. To contribute, call Honenu at 02-960-5558, or in the U.S., 718-441-7300, or the Religious Council of the Mt. Hevron Regional Council at 02-996-9144. Background of Asael Asael began in 2001 as an official "forester's house" overlooking Israel's largest forest, the Yatir Forest, and later absorbed several families. It is located on state-owned lands, just southeast of the Jewish community of Shim'a (400 residents), and north of the Yatir army base. An order to evict the families has been frozen by the Defense Minister. Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com |
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AMERICAN JEWISH STUDENTS TO PROTEST OLMERT PLAN, JEWISH SILENCE
Posted by Buddy Macy, September 9, 2008. |
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This was written by Hana Levi Julian and it appeared
in Arutz-7
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(IsraelNN.com) A group of North American Jewish students are planning a coast-to-coast demonstration to protest the Olmert plan and the silence of American Jewish leaders, specifically over the looming threat of a second Disengagement as well as the possibility that Israel may hand sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the Palestinian Authority. Jewish students from the sixth grade through high school were urged in an e-mail flyer sent out Tuesday to "Stand Up to Prevent..." with a graphic photo of a lone Jewish pioneer attempting to ward off an onslaught of Yassam special police forces. According to organizer Yosef Rabin, director of the United Jewish Student Council (UJSC) the protest is set for Thursday September 18 and is scheduled to take place 10 minutes before the first class, thus comprising the first lesson of the day. The group also sent format suggestions for the student protestors, including a list of psalms for the protestors to say (chapters 121, 130, 142), shofar blowing, singing and dancing. The attachment also includes the order of the special prayers for the nation and land of Israel compiled by former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu. The demonstration is expected to last approximately the length of one class period, or 45 minutes. "We are striking in response to the silence of the Jewish leadership on the planned expulsion of 300,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria, division of Jerusalem and the abandonment of the holy Temple Mount," Rabin said in an internet chat interview with Israel National News. "Jewish students across North America are saying No! No expelling Jews. No dividing land. No abandoning Har HaBayit (Hebrew for Temple Mount)," he said. Blessings and Warnings from Israeli Sanhedrin According to Rabin, Rabbi Yeshayahu Hollander, a leading rabbinical judge in the nascent Sanhedrin that formed in Jerusalem several years ago and continues to struggle for mainstream recognition, has given his blessing to the project. "Rabbi Hollander wrote, 'Shalom friends, Your plans are excellent, may HaShem bless you — and Am Yisrael — with your success... 'Considering the behavior of the majority of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel, we have no Zchuss [right] to remain in the Land. The reasoning of Rabbi Kook [that the non-observant are doing the great mitzvah of building Eretz Israel] no longer applies: in his time they were building with the purpose of creating a Jewish State. Today the "elite" are building the for purpose of lining their pockets, and others with the purpose of destroying the Jewish identity of the State of the Jews. 'If Israel is not defended properly, there will surely be a catastrophe. The present "elite" are not capable of creating a deterrent which would stop the Iranians to try to A-bomb Israel. A reasonable estimate is that the people comprising the political leadership in Israel today will not use Israel's capabilities even in retaliation.... '...People — Jews — who do not want to stand up and support a political fight for our Jewish Birthright in the complete Holy Land of Israel right now should begin to work on the most likely result of their attitude: Millions of Jews looking for refuge. 'First of all — political activity to ensure a place for the survivors. Secondly — funds for their physical deployment outside the Middle East, building homes, healthcare — physical and mental healthcare, retraining facilities for adults, schooling for children — all these necessities should begin to be taken care of NOW by those who do not support a fight NOW. 'In the hopefull [sic] case when these funds are not needed, that should be used to ensure schooling in a Jewish Day School for all Jewish children. This would be the best way to prevent marrying non-Jews. Fear Stalks the Students — 'This is Not the 60's' Although the idea of a coast-to-coast strike itself is popular, and many students expressed interest, Rabin also noted that "many of them are very scared." Many of the students, he said, are afraid of suspension or even being expelled from their schools, and have sent letters saying they "really want to do this but are a little nervous." Rabin added that almost every letter ended with the writer promising to try and organize something anyway, despite the fear. "You have to remember that children in America have not known activism, unlike Israeli children, especially those living in Yesha [Gaza, Judea and Samaria — ed.]," he said. "They have never been exposed to this type of activism so the first time it is a daunting task." In a twist completely opposite from that of the 60's, the group is counting on the older generation to get involved. "We are going to be working hard to bring parents and grandparents to strike with the students," he said, noting that this was the generation of the activism and protests of the 1960's and 1970's. "This will soften the attitude of the schools toward the kids and help calm the fears of the students. "This is not the 60s or 70s. Boy, have times changed," he commented ruefully. One school director wanted to commit his entire student body to the cause, he noted — but the Rosh Yeshiva nixed the plan, saying, "If the Torah U'Mesorah were to come out with the recommendation that all of these Jewish school children should take certain action, then we would certainly be involved." Without the endorsement of the national umbrella, however, the Rosh Yeshiva was unwilling to take a stand on his own. Nationalists Form Pact to Fight Expulsion II in Israel Residents of Judea and Samaria have formed the Samaria Pact to fight Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Vice Prime Minister Chaim Ramon's attempt to offer people money to leave their houses. Leaders of the movement met on Monday to form a new agreement against what they called the "continuation of disgrace that took place in Gush Katif, which only brought more tragedy upon us." Gush Emunim co-founder Benny Katzover said the group is preparing to fight against evacuations and will not wait until the last minute to fight expulsions. Yossi Dagan of Homesh First explained, "We are going from defense to offense. We will continue to build and expand." Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com |
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HAMAS TELEVISION BROADCASTING FROM TEMPLE MOUNT
Posted by Marc Samberg, September 9, 2008. |
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This is from IsraelToday
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The Hamas terrorist organization's television station has for the past several days been broadcasting exclusive coverage of nightly Ramadan prayers from atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount. As a terrorist organization, it is illegal for Hamas or its Al Aqsa television network to operate in Jerusalem or any other Israeli town. WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein reported that Israeli police officials refused to comment when asked if Al Aqsa TV was operating on the Temple Mount in coordination with Israeli authorities. Klein was the first to report last December when Hamas' radio station began broadcasting from the Temple Mount and Israeli authorities threatened to shut down the operation. The broadcasts continued for at least several weeks after the police were made aware of the situation. In recent years Israel has refused to act against Muslim violations on the Temple Mount out of fear of the expected violent reaction. The government has been accused by many Israelis of having already surrendered Judaism's holiest site. Contact Marc Samberg at marcsamberg@yahoo.com |
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Posted by Shaul Ceder, September 9, 2008. |
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This was written by Jack Kelly and it appeared today in Jewish World Review (Jewish World Review). |
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"We need to throw every last molecule of s**t we've got at McCain and Palin," said a poster at the Democratic Underground. "Demonize them. Dehumanize them." Panic brings out the ugliness in ugly people. And ugliness of this sort is not restricted to moonbat bloggers. "In the press galleries at the convention, journalists wrinkled their noses in disgust when Piper, Ms. Palin's youngest daughter, was filmed kitty-licking her baby brother's hair in place," wrote David Carr in the New York Times Sunday. How black must your soul be for you to be "disgusted" by a six-year-old girl who is behaving lovingly toward her baby brother? News organizations have flooded Alaska with investigative reporters, hoping to dig up something — anything — bad to say about Sarah Palin. As mayor of Wasilla in 1996, did she try to ban from the public library books that weren't published until 1998? The sewer that is the left-wing blogosphere pumps its bilge directly into the "mainstream" media. "People say yes, she looks good in a bikini clutching an AK-47, but is she equipped to run the country?" asked CNN reporter Lola Ogunnaike, referring, as if it were true, to a crude photoshop on left wing blogs that imposed Ms. Palin's face on someone else's body. Sarah Palin's approval rating in Alaska last month was 81.6 percent. That means for every person who doesn't like Ms. Palin, there are four who do. But reporters seem only to quote her political enemies, without identifying them as such. Media honchos say they're just doing due diligence. "Intense, independent scrutiny by the Times and the rest of the news media of Palin's background, character and record was inevitable and right," declared Clark Hoyt, the "public editor" of the New York Times. But their hypocrisy is so pronounced the hicks from the sticks have noticed. Among other things, the media moguls expect us to believe: That inexperience in foreign policy is a fatal defect in the Republican candidate for vice president, but unimportant in the Democratic candidate for president. That a DUI 22 years ago by the husband of the Republican candidate for vice president is scandalous, but the Democratic candidate for president's admission that he was snorting cocaine at about the same time is too insignificant to mention. That the pregnancy of the teenage daughter of the Republican candidate for vice president is fair game, but the fact that a Democratic candidate for president (John Edwards) was conducting an extramarital affair while his wife was suffering from incurable cancer should not be reported out of respect for their privacy. That it is scandalous that Sarah Palin, as mayor of Wasilla, sought earmarks for her town, but unworthy of mention that Barack Obama has steered earmarks to the hospital where his wife works, and to his major contributors. That the pastors of the churches Sarah Palin attends in Wasilla and Juneau are worthy subjects of investigation, but that the pastor of the racist church Barack Obama attended in Chicago for more than 20 years should be off limits. A news media which is probing every aspect of Sarah Palin's life has been remarkably incurious about Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayres. The reason for the news media's panic is clear. The Sarah Palin phenomenon has turned this race around. John McCain is now leading or tied in all major polls. But the news media's flagrant bias may cost journalists more than a loss for the candidate they're stacking the deck for. Last week the gossip magazine Us Weekly, owned by Obama supporter Jann Wenner, featured on its cover an unflattering photo of Ms. Palin (which, I imagine, took some effort to find), and the headline: "Babies, Lies, and Scandals." The lies were what others were saying about Gov. Palin, Us senior editor admitted to Megyn Kelly (alas, no relation) of Fox News. So a bottom feeding tabloid has smeared a Republican. What's news about that? The consequences. "Us Weekly...is said to have lost thousands of subscribers in just the first 24 hours following the printing of the issue," reported MSNBC entertainment writer Courtney Hazlett Friday. These are tough times for journalists. Layoffs are the rule at newspapers throughout the land. Flagrant bias is likely to be bad for business for more than just Us Weekly. Contact Shaul Ceder at ceder@netvision.net.il |
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THE LISBON TREATY PERMITS PAEDOPHILIA — THE END OF THE EU?
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 9, 2008. |
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Read the article below and then ask: what comes after? — Muslim/Non-Muslim, men/women segregation at municipal pools, hospitals, schools., etc This was written by Mr Niels Erik Sondergard and it appeared
on the SIOE — Stop Islamisation of Europe — website
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The EU Lisbon Treaty of 2007, to all intents and purposes, is identical to the EU Treaty of 2004 (The EU Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters), but with paragraphs being relocated and consequently renumbered. Page 412 Article 21 of the Charter of the Lisbon Treaty is identical to Article 2-81 in the EU Treaty of 2004 and states, "Any discrimination on the basis of... sexual orientation or any other factor is prohibited". In all previous treaties, such as the Nice Treaty, there is a protocol which excludes paedophilia from the prohibition of discrimination (NJS 16 AUG). Staggeringly, in the Lisbon Treaty, and also according to the view of the EU Information Office, there is no protocol on paedophilia! The EU culture radicals have been there! Without such a protocol, the Lisbon Treaty Article 21 legalises paedophilia in line with other sexual orientations. Some might argue that other articles in the Lisbon Treaty might be interpreted so as to contradict Article 21, but the fact is those writing the EU Charter Article 21 in the Lisbon Treaty were well aware of the exclusion of paedophilia from previous treaties. So was this just an oversight? Hardly! Those national parliaments which have ratified the Lisbon Treaty have been asleep. Many, if not most, members of these parliaments have admitted they have not even read the Lisbon Treaty, preferring to entrust its construction to professional lawyers. However, the authors of the Treaty have undoubtedly studied the earlier treaties carefully, to ascertain that all that they desired was carried over in the new treaty, while everything we the people want, was omitted. Government officials, therefore, have quietly but deliberately, chosen to preserve the nasty crime, paedophilia, so that it is now in our culture. Why? The explanation is simple: they want to placate the Arab muslims. The supposedly holy prophet was happy with little girls, and even his deputy, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeinei wrote in his book Tahrirolvasyleh in 1990: "A man can have sexual pleasure of a child as young as a baby. But he should not penetrate her vagina." However, he declared the second form of child sex abuse is acceptable ..." This sounds ridiculous to a sane person's ears, but actually, Europe, with France in the lead, has worked hard for a cultural, political and economic alliance / entente ("Eurabia") with the Arab countries, particularly since the oil crisis in 1973. Of course, this "cooperation" includes the acceptance of Muslim culture including child pornography and even abuse — on European soil. How can our politicians and our most senior lawyers have allowed this disgusting practice become a part of our way of life? Can they REALLY have DELIBERATELY made paedophilia legal? WHAT ELSE IS IN THIS DAMNED LISBON TREATY? WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THESE POLITICANS AND LAWYERS WHO HAVE GRANTED CHILD ABUSE RESPECTABILITY? Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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ARABS COOPT MICKEY MOUSE AGAIN
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, September 9, 2008. |
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Disney images adorn studio while mass murderer glorified |
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Palestinian Authority (Fatah) TV is using the universally beloved characters of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in an attempt to create a Disney-like studio — while teaching children to glorify a mass murderer whose victims included 12 children. In a new official PA TV studio built for a Ramadan children's program, the smiling images of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Pooh and Piglet are the backdrop for a TV quiz that this week venerated a notorious terrorist. The female terrorist, Dalal Mughrabi, participated in the murders of 12 children and 25 adults in a 1978 bus attack in Israel. In this quiz, Mughrabi is idolized as the "beloved bride, daughter of Jaffa, jasmine flower," while figures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse are prominent in the background — as if it were a Disney program. 
In May 2007, PMW reported that the Hamas TV network was using a Mickey Mouse character to teach children to seek world Islamic domination. The widespread international outrage prompted Al Aqsa TV to get rid of the character (they showed him being beaten to death by an Israeli officer) and replace him with another animal host. PoohNow Fatah TV, controlled by the office of PA head Mahmoud Abbas, is airing a children's show that glorifies a mass murderer of children while trying to create a Mickey Mouse Club atmosphere. Last week the program taught children to deny the existence of Israel. The world did not put up with Hamas's use of the iconic Mickey Mouse to brainwash children. Will the same international pressure be brought upon Mahmud Abbas and the official Palestinian Authority to stop using these beloved characters to sell terror?
Itamar Marcus is director of PMW –– Palestinian Media Watch ––
(http://www.pmw.org.il). PMW is based in Jerusalem. Barbara Crook, a
writer and university lecturer based in Ottawa, Canada, is PMW's
North American representative.
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U.S. PLANS $7 BILLION MISSILE-DEFENSE SALE TO UAE
Posted by Barbara Sommer, September 9, 2008. |
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This is from today's Reuters. It was edited by Mohammad Zargham.It is archived at
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The Bush administration is planning to sell the United Arab Emirates an advanced U.S. missile defense system valued at up to $7 billion that could be used to defend against Iran, people who have attended briefings on the matter said on Monday. The Pentagon is set to notify the U.S. Congress of the proposed sale, which would be the first of the so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, several people familiar with the matter said. THAAD is built by Lockheed Martin Corp. Raytheon Co supplies the system's radar. Once notified of such a proposed arms sale by the administration, Congress has 30 days to review it but almost never blocks. In any case, deployment of the THAAD system is "at least months away" and could take more than a year, said a congressional staff member familiar with the matter. A production contract for the first two THAAD "fire units" was awarded to Lockheed Martin in late 2006. Delivery of the first such unit to the U.S. military is scheduled during the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, the company said. Kenneth Katzman, an expert on the Gulf at the Congressional Research Service, said the UAE has been eager for a "sophisticated antidote" to Iran's missile capabilities. "The UAE has been concerned for many years about possible retaliation against it for any U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities," he said. For Iran, Katzman added, the UAE could be an attractive target because of its billions of dollars of infrastructure investments. The THAAD system is designed to defend population centers and critical infrastructure among other things. DEFENSE PLANS Craig Vanbebber, a Lockheed Martin spokesman, said several countries had shown interest in buying the THAAD system, "with its significant coverage area and tremendous success in recent testing." "Lockheed Martin anticipates a strong future for THAAD in the international marketplace," he said. THAAD is the first system designed to defend against short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles both inside and outside the Earth's atmosphere. It complements the lower-aimed Patriot missile defense system, "resulting in a layered defense that ensure a very high probability that ballistic missile threats will be destroyed," according to Lockheed Martin. Several such systems on land, at sea and potentially aloft are being woven into an expanding U.S. shield against missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads. The proposed $7 billion sale to UAE would include anti-missile interceptors, launchers, fire control and communications systems, the radar and training, among other things, a congressional staff member said. It was not immediately clear whether the UAE was also seeking the Patriot missile defense system. The sale has been the subject of extensive discussions among U.S. decisionmakers, including over how it would fit into the U.S. Central Command's integrated air-defense plans for the Gulf and the security of the technology, the congressional staff member said. Contact Barbara Sommer at sommer_1_98@yahoo.com |
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FUROR ERUPTS AT UNITED NATIONS AT SEMINAR ON TERROR VICTIMS
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 9, 2008. | |
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This was written by Benny Avni, staff reporter at the
New York Sun. It appeared today in the Sun
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UNITED NATIONS — A one-day seminar organized by the United Nations to highlight the plight of victims of terrorism is coming under heavy criticism from Arab diplomats and reporters who say the process of selecting the participants is flawed. The inclusion of the father of an Israeli girl who was killed in a 2001 suicide bombing in Jerusalem among the 18 victims of terrorism in today's seminar set off a volley of questions yesterday from U.N. reporters, who accused a top aide to Secretary-General Ban, Robert Orr, of bias against Muslims and of ignoring the victims of "state terrorism." In one of the most pointed criticisms of the seminar, Arab diplomats wondered aloud how the organizers could have chosen a list of terror victims when the United Nations has not yet managed to settle on a definition of terrorism. The failure of the U.N. General Assembly to decide on a comprehensive definition, however, is widely seen as a result of Arab countries' insistence that Israeli civilians who die in attacks be defined as casualties of a just war against a "foreign occupation," not as victims of terrorism. "The holding of a symposium for victims of terrorism and not for other victims, such as those of foreign occupation, raised numerous questions," the Egyptian ambassador to the United Nations, Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz, told the General Assembly last week. "Moreover, the criteria for selecting victims, in the absence of an agreed legal definition of terrorism, could lead to the politicization of the event." The list of seminar participants includes Arab victims of the 2003 bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and terror attacks in Jordan and Algeria, as well as Muslim victims of a bombing in Bali, Indonesia, and victims from Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, and the Americas. Mr. Orr said that in composing the list, the organizers relied on definitions of terrorism found in 16 international "legal instruments." The definitions include acts of violence directed at civilians, aimed at promoting political goals, and perpetrated by non-state actors. State acts of violence are covered by a number of international treaties and pacts, including the Geneva Conventions. Even without a comprehensive definitions of terrorism, its victims should not be ignored, Mr. Orr said. "These people do not have a voice," he said. As the seminar has neared, the criticism of the organizers has grown louder, and now includes accusations that the four countries that underwrote the cost of the $300,000 event — Italy, Spain, Britain, and Colombia — got a say in its content. Some also complained of an "imbalance" to the seminar after the head of the Palestinian Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, was reported not to have been invited initially to contribute. Mr. Orr said yesterday that the organizers had sent an invitation to the Palestinian Mission to contribute to the seminar at the same time the other U.N. missions received their invitations; the organizers apologized for not including Mr. Mansour's name on the letter, he said. According to several diplomats, the sensitivity of the Israeli-Arab dispute led the United Nations to add a Gaza-based activist on the psychological effects of the conflict, Marwan Diab, to a list of "presenting experts" who will talk about terrorism at today's seminar. "There was tremendous pressure to create 'balance' between Israeli terror victims and so-called Palestinian terror victims," an Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Carmon, said. "The fact is that the United Nations could not find even one Palestinian terror victim because there is no such thing. While there are Palestinian victims of the dispute, the only victims of terrorism on that side are those hurt by Arab-on-Arab terrorism." EDITOR'S NOTE: This was a follow-up story in Haaretz
Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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BEWARE OF JORDAN; RICE'S AUDACITY; PRISONER RELEASE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 8, 2008. |
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BEWARE JORDAN Jordan and Russia are negotiating "military cooperation." This cooperation so far seems to consist of Jordan buying and manufacturing advanced Russian weaponry, which Jordan will sell to other Mideastern countries (IMRA, 8/23). You can expect Jordan to sell the arms to Israel's enemies and not to Israel. Israel is deluded into thinking that the treaties it signed with certain Arab states brought it peace. Those Arabs remain enemies of Israel, plying mischief along the way to the next war. WARNING ABOUT SHIPS TO GAZA The government of Israel does not plan. It merely reacts to each day's events. To avoid a couple of days of unfavorable headlines, it let two provocative ships into Gaza, ships whose declared intent was to break the sea blockade. Gazans try to smuggle arms and terrorists by sea, hence the blockade. All Israel said was that this permission to land is an exception and does not signify an end to the blockade. But Israel took no steps to demonstrate that. It did not explain the situation and condemn the ships' sponsors as auxiliaries of terrorism. It has no plan for inspecting the ships on the way out or for keeping new attempts at bay. Dr. Aaron Lerner warns of trouble ahead (IMRA, 8/23). ISRAELI CABINET SPEAKS NO EVIL PM Olmert and Defense Min. Barak asked Cabinet members not to mention the failure of the Security Council Resolution on Lebanon. The resulting near silence reduces chances of revising the resolution so that it might accomplish something [or getting the UNIFIL troops out of the way, when Israel has to go back in]. Barak pretends that his withdrawal of troops from Lebanon, which permitted the Lebanon War, also was not a failure. Olmert considers the Resolution a success, because Hizbullah didn't much attack Israel since then (IMRA, 8/18). "Quite?" Hizbullah was building up its forces and taking over Lebanon, in preparation. If the Cabinet ignores evil, will it go away or flourish? ARABS AT HEBREW U. GRADUATION At the graduation, most of the audience, including some Arabs, rose for the Israeli national anthem. A group of young Arabs, however, sat with folded arms. Their disrespect aside, why does Israel educate Muslim enemies, enabling them to become more formidable than ordinary terrorists? (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/18). RICE'S AUDACITY Sec. Rice keeps asking Israel to release convicted terrorists, as if that would form a desirable strength on which the alleged peacenik Abbas rests his rule. Her request contradicts her contention that he is anti-terrorist. Many of those released attempted murder. Jonathan Pollard didn't attempt murder. Rather, he prevented the murder of thousands of Israelis, by giving Israel advance notice that Saddam had chemical weapons. Since Israel was prepared, Saddam didn't bother filling with poison the Scuds he fired against Israel. The US, by the way, demanded that Israel not fight back. How does that decision appear, in retrospect, after the US fought a war to depose Saddam? Pollard was denied due process and given a life sentence for a crime that usually gets 2-4 years. Why doesn't she ask Pres. Bush to release Pollard, before she asks Israel to release what legally are "common enemies of mankind?" Why doesn't Israel ask her, publicly? RUSSIA COPIES U.S. DECEIT Russia is arming Syria, Jordan, and Iran. Like the US Defense Dept., it claims that its arms for the Arabs do not change the region's strategic balance, though of course all those arms for the Muslims make another Muslim war possible. Russia's excuse is that the arms are defensive. Amazing that that phony excuse has not been exposed! How long false notions circulate, allowing them to be used for nefarious purpose! Don't our media see through such deceits? Consider: Israel's best defense is offense, i.e., taking the offensive and taking the battle to the enemy source of the conflict. Therefore, bolstering Islamic defense against Israeli counter-attack reinforces the strength of Islamic aggression. A DEAL THE PUBLIC CANNOT REFUSE? PM Olmert was said to be urging Abbas to accept a deal that the whole world would accept, so the Israeli people would feel inhibited to reject it. I believe it. Point is, a bad deal should be rejected regardless. The People of Israel stand alone, just as the Bible said they do. They must have the courage to do what is right ethically and what is right for themselves. They must develop the savvy to explain their actions so as to keep any reaction from harming them much. They should not let themselves be manipulated by psychological tricks such as Olmert's alleged tactic. Ironically, when they defy the world and do act in their own interests, much of the world admires them. Jews: that's how to get admired! PRISONER RELEASE At last someone else has questioned the utility of releasing terrorists as a "goodwill gesture" and A boost for Abbas. [The ethics and consequences have been criticized in Israel, but not much in my newspapers.] The Jerusalem Post declares it hard to find any evidence of "goodwill" or of a boost. Release doesn't impress the Arabs. The real way to strengthen moderation [I don't say "moderates," for I don't believe there are any of significance there] is to require reform. The releases did not enable Abbas to defeat Hamas in the elections nor in the subsequent Hamas coup in Gaza. The Arabs don't give Abbas credit for releases. They think Israel does it for public relations, to get concessions from Abbas, to divide Hamas and Fatah, and to make room in its prisons for recently captured terrorists. [What concessions? Israel does it out of defeatist psychosis and in appeasement of the US.] The Arabs think that the Oslo Accords was the signal for Israel to release all its prisoners. [They don't realize that terrorism is criminal, not ordinary warfare, and terrorists were not POWs. Nor do the Arabs check what is in the contracts their leaders sign. They imagine the contracts contain everything they want, when they want it.] The P.A. people are angry at both Israel and Abbas for not getting all the Arab prisoners released. The released terrorists present a problem for Abbas. Many of them turn to civilian crime. Others joined Hamas and other opponents of Abbas, and actively continue the terrorist war on Israel. They cost the regime a lot, for they are put on the payroll without having to work. [That means they can conduct terrorism without worry about earning a living. Foreign donors to the P.A. are suckers.] EGYPT OFFERED TROOPS TO GAZA Egypt offered to send 3,000 troops to Gaza, "to keep order." The offer included a plan for re-forming the government. Hamas rejected the plan. Israel did not comment. It probably did not think about the problematic consequences. It probably does not think over anything beyond immediate public relations (IMRA, 9/10). Abbas seemed ready to accept it. There is order in Gaza, Hamas' order. Now and then it cracks down on adversaries, but there aren't many of them left or with any power. The real problem is that Hamas is gearing up for war with Israel. Israel should have kept control over the Gaza-Sinai border and kept arms out of Gaza. The Egyptian troops would serve either as human shields for Hamas or as a precedent for more troops, wreak much damage upon Israel before it can mobilize for the war. 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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MUSLIMS DEFILE PATRIARCHS' CAVE
Posted by UCI, September 8, 2008. |
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This was written by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu and it appeared yesterday in Arutz-7 (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). |
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Muslims converged on the Cave of Patriarchs in Hevron Friday for Ramadan prayers, urinated next to Torah scrolls and left behind Hamas flags. The Cave of the Patriarchs is the tomb of the biblical founders of the Jewish faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their wives, Sarah, Rivka, and Leah. The desecration occurred on one of the 10 days during the year that the holy site is open only to Muslims and is closed to Jews. The same arrangement also is accorded to Jews on 10 holy Jewish days. Uri Karzen, a Hevron resident, reported that a Kohen, who recites the priestly blessings during the Sabbath morning service, told him he smelled urine next to the Holy Ark containing Torah scrolls. Karzen and other worshippers moved the table, where the Torah scrolls are placed during the reciting of the portion of the week, in order to avoid the foul smell. The Hamas flags were discovered in the windows that mark the burial sites of Abraham and Isaac and the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. Hevron resident Asher Horowitz explained that he and others spotted the flags when they were returning holy books, which had been taken into safe storage before the prohibition from Jews entering the Cave of the Patriarchs went into effect. He used a stick to pull one of the flags from the marker of the burial site of Avraham and friends told him they found flags at other markers. Ever since Muslims destroyed Torah scrolls in the Cave of the Patriarchs in the 1980s, Jews always remove holy books and lock the Holy Ark when they are prohibited from entering. Noam Arnon, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hevron, said there is always some sort of damage discovered upon their return every time Jews are prohibited from entering the holy site. "It is not all the Muslims," he said. "But there always are a few who in the past have ripped mezuzot off the entrances to the rooms of worship or simply leave behind vandalism. Complaints have been filed with the police in the past, but no one ever has been arrested." He added that two policemen are always on guard when Jews pray, especially when Arabs are prohibited from entering, but there are no policemen present when Jews are excluded. Surveillance cameras are mounted, but Karzen said the place where urine was smelled may have been out of range of the cameras. The cameras should have caught on film the placement of Hamas flags, according to Horowitz. Hevron police said they know nothing about the incidents and that an official complaint may not have been filed yet out of respect for the Sabbath. 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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FLEEING INTO ISRAEL
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 8, 2008. |
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This is by Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch. It is archived at
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The latest "Palestinian" complaint is about Israel not allowing out every single "Palestinian" who wants — for god's sake, practically demands — first-class treatment in....Israeli hospitals. That is, they want to be treated, they demand to be treated, in the hospitals of the very people against whom are lobbed thousands of rockets, and who would, if the Gazan Arabs have their way, be destroyed, and unavailable to treat those same Arabs. They have no sense of irony, those Gazan Arabs. Here's a recent sob story designed to tug at your NGO or EU or UN heartstrings: Ahmed Hisham Abu Shawish is forty-six, but he looks older. His skin is tinged with grey and he sits slumped forward in his chair. He used to work full time at the Islamic University doing logistical support, but these days is confined to his home in the Al Daraj district of northern Gaza city. He has an aggressive carcinogenic tumour, and suffers from serious hematuria, or blood in his urine. He has to attend hospital every two or three days in order to receive regular blood transfusions. 'I go to the European Hospital in Khan Yunis for my treatment' he says. This involves a painful journey by shared public taxi several times a week, as the hospital is 30 kilometres away, and the family cannot afford to pay for a private taxi to and from their home. That's the tale which, I trust, has left not a wet eye in your house. Of course what this points up is also Israel's idiocy. Why did it ever allow such people to think they had any right to be treated in Israeli hospitals in the first place? And I'm sure the treatment is delivered for free, by the way. Those who are making war on you, who are trying to wipe you out, should not be offered the courtesy of a place in your hospitals, and access to advanced Western medicine. They have their own hospitals. They have their hundreds of millions of dollars that they receive annually from the Infidels. They have access to Egyptian hospitals if need be. Or are they all like Edward Said's parents, who even in the 1930s went to Jerusalem in order to take advantage of the superior hygiene and treatment that the Jewish hospitals could offer? Recently also, the "Palestinian" Authority asked Israel, which gave refuge to nearly 200, and gave free medical care to two dozen wounded, members or supporters of Fatah who had fled Gaza, not to keep them, nor to transfer them to the Arab-occupied "West Bank," but to send them back to Gaza. The reason, as given by a "Palestinian" member of the Slow Jihad (Fatah) quoted in a Jerusalem Post article, is this: "Everyone knows that if we allow people to leave the Gaza Strip, almost all the residents living there would try to cross the border into Israel. We don't want to leave the Gaza Strip to Hamas." They would — "almost all" of them, "try to cross the border into Israel." You know — into Israel, to which every Arab flees when he can, whenever faced with Arab enemies. The members of Black September did this when Jordanian King Hussein's men pursued them. They waded crossed the Jordan, their hands raised, knowing that the Israelis would not harm them but would take them in.) They fled into the country routinely denounced as "Nazi-like" or even "worse than the Nazis." We all remember how the Nazis offered free medical care to Jews and other benefits, so that they would always flee to Nazi-held territory whenever they could. Don't forget this kind of telling display, and the even more telling comment by a Fatah official. Don't forget it, and don't forget to remind others, when they go into their Guardian-or-BBC or World-Council-of-Churches or Amnesty-International or Human-Rights-Watch or United-Nations slander-and-rant against Israel. Remember not to forget. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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FROM ISRAEL: SLOW LIKE MOLASSES
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 8, 2008. |
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Getting rid of Olmert is that slow. At long last, after months of investigation, the police on Sunday evening recommended that Olmert be indicted on charges of bribery, breach of public trust, violation of anti-money laundering laws and fraudulent receipt of goods. The two cases involved — that will generate these charges — are the Talansky affair, in which he is alleged to have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally in exchange for promises to promote Talansky's business interests, and the Rishon Tours affair, in which he allegedly double billed non-profit organizations for trips, thereby amassing for himself considerable excess funds. And this is not the end of what he may yet be charged with. ~~~~~~~~~~ But the process is hardly complete. Material collected in the two cases mentioned will be turned over to the Jerusalem District Attorney's office, where Eli Abarnel, district attorney for criminal affairs will assume the investigation. He will submit his recommendations on indictment to State Attorney Moshe Lador, who will present his recommendation to State Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who will render a final decision on indicting. ~~~~~~~~~~ The indictment is now not expected before December. And there's more: Olmert's associates are saying that he will stay in office even after indictment, and until a new government is formed. My assumption, based on standard form and expectations, was that a head of government under indictment would step down. Just a few months ago, in early May, Olmert himself had declared that he would step down if there were an indictment against him. A deputy premier would then take over. But following this, in July, he declared that he would resign after a new head of Kadima was elected in the primary due to take place this month. And in that instance he would stay in place until the new government was formed. Now what is being said is that if he is indicted in December, and a new government is not in place by that point, then Olmert — who would already have resigned in principle — would remain at the head of the transitional government until such time as the new permanent government was in place, rather than allowing a deputy premier to become prime minister until the new government was established. Do not be disturbed if this is confusing to you. It's possible that there would be something wrong with you if you were not just a bit confused, actually. For this is a convoluted scenario filled with "if's" and "maybe's." Part of what remains to be seen is whether the new head of Kadima is able to put together a coalition, which might happen before December. Or if an election is called, which would mean everything would not be finalized by December. Livni, who is riding high in the polls these days, was said to be thinking of calling for a national election if elected head of Kadima, but is now talking about establishing an emergency government. Mofaz, who is running second in the polls, is also talking about forming a new coalition quickly. All I can promise is to do my level best to keep you informed as this unfolds. ~~~~~~~~~~ Mahmoud Abbas, who was in Cairo on Saturday, told Egyptian president Mubarak that he doubted an agreement could be reached with the Israelis by the end of this year. He reiterated his desire for a total agreement: "The solution that we Palestinians want must include all matters, and not defer on any. Both Jerusalem and the right of return are Palestinian rights." Now, it actually is not the case — there is no "right of return" in international law. Yet certainly the Arabs have been claiming it for over 60 years, drawing on UN Resolution 194 (which was only a vague recommendation without legal teeth). But it would be interesting to see how Abbas and company would demonstrate — legally, historically — the claim to Jerusalem as a "Palestinian right." They've got a good part of the world believing this, without a basis for it at all. ~~~~~~~~~~ Top Israeli defense officials, cited by The Jerusalem Post, are now saying that Iran is consolidating its hold on Hezbollah, so that Nasrallah is no longer in exclusive control. Reportedly a delegation of high level Iranian Revolutionary Guards visited Beirut last week to coordinate the incorporation of Hezbollah into its forces. According to a Syrian opposition newspaper, this was being done in case Syria were to establish relations with Israel and back off on its involvement with Hezbollah (something that seems extremely unlikely from this vantage point). What seems to make more sense is the speculation that Iran is seeking to control Hezbollah sufficiently so that it would be able to order it to attack Israel, were Israel to attack Iran. ~~~~~~~~~~ Iran continues to head the list of major international concerns: A Russian state-run company that — in return for $1 billion — has been helping Iran build its first light-water nuclear reactor in Bushehr says that it should be launched by the end of the year. In theory, this plant is in line with international agreements. The US withdrew objections when Iran agreed to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia so it could not be used for weaponry. ~~~~~~~~~~ David Kay, who headed the UN inspection program that uncovered the Iraqi nuclear program, writing in The Washington Post, estimated that Iran is two to four years away from developing some five nuclear weapons (a more modest estimate than what Israeli intelligence predicts). He had this to say: "My humble best guess is that Iran is pushing toward a nuclear-weapons capability as rapidly as it can. But if Tehran were to believe that American — not Israeli — military action is imminent, it might slow work on the elements of its program that it thinks the world can observe." ~~~~~~~~~~ Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, one of the very best friends we have in Congress, offered this in a piece she wrote for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: "The best way to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities is to impose a cost so high that it threatens the Iranian regime's survival unless that regime changes course. U.S. sanctions have hindered Iran's ability to attract capital, materials, and technical support, and have created extensive and growing financial difficulties for the regime. Yet although Congress has repeatedly passed sanctions legislation which has been signed into law, its implementation has been watered down or ignored by successive administrations. "The latest U.S. response has been to join the European Union's efforts to bribe the mullahs into suspending uranium enrichment, while failing to apply U.S. sanctions... "We must impose immediate, comprehensive, tough economic sanctions, along with every other source of pressure that we can muster, in coordination with as many countries as we can persuade to do so... "The United States should make a moral statement that we will not deal with pariah states and will not help such states to fortify themselves and thereby endanger our own national interests and the interests of our allies, such as Israel. "The Iranian regime's expanding political and military involvement across the Middle East and South Asia is a force to be reckoned with. We need to wake up and understand the implications of this matter...History has taught us that failing to act when threatened by a deadly foe like Iran usually ends in an avoidable tragedy. We ignore Iran's growing hegemony at our own peril." Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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THOUGHTS ON THE WAR ON ISLAM
Posted by Seth J. Frantzman, September 8, 2008. |
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If the U.S had fought the Nazis under the same circumstances that it fights Islam would it have won? If the highest intellectuals in the West had claimed that the rise of Nazism was 'blowback' and our Universities had forced our students to learn about Nazism and its 'culture' and 'traditions' and our students had been taught German and made to memorize sieg heil the way our students learn Arabic and are taught the Fatiha or conversion statement in Islam as a prerequisite would we have triumphed? Would we have triumphed if we had not dared that the war against Germany was a war against Nazism and instead declared simply that 'Hitler gives Nazism a bad name' and 'the terrorist is not representative of Nazism' and 'Nazism is a religion of peace'. Would we have won the war on Germany if we had not bombed them during Christmas for fear of 'offending' them the way we don't bomb Muslims on Ramadan, lest they be offended, while they themselves step up their attacks during Ramadan? Would we have won if our women had been enamored of Nazism and believed it a romantic-exotic other? Would we have won the war on Nazism if we had complied with the wishes of Nazis living in our own countries and made sure that our food products, our laws and our schools all didn't 'offend' them. Would we have won the war on Nazism if our religious leaders had said that 'Nazi law (i.e. the Nuremburg Laws)' should be enacted in our own society to regulate the civil family law of Germans, the way the Archbishop of Canterbury expects that Shariah law should be erected in our own society? There is no doubt we would not have won. People claim that technology can win the war and mass production of weapons and a large army on terror the way it triumphed against Nazism but they neglect to realize that during the war on Nazism the public at home and the intellectuals supported the war. Today's wealthy intellectuals and academics in our own society do not support our country, neither does our media. When you see a scantily dressed Russian or Pilipino woman dating a Muslim Arab it makes one wonder why it is that in our own secular society the women who are the most 'open minded' always choose the most conservative men in the society of the other. Why is it that the secular western woman will never object to dating the man in the society of the 'other' whose sister is not allowed out of the house after 6pm and whose expects women in his own society to cover their hair lest they be described as 'immoral'? It points to the true fate of secularism. Secularism provides women with freedom, especially sexual freedom. Those women who are the most sexually 'free' are the ones who always choose to date men outside their western-secular society and they usually choose men from conservative societies. Thus the freedom of the west inevitably leads to the absorption of western women into other societies. Thus the western woman who has an abortion and works at a strip club and wears a thong at the beach and doesn't want children is the same women who puts on the headscarf and the veil for her Muslim boyfriend and then has eight children. The same women in the West who refuses to cook or clean the house or do any of those 'traditional' female chores is the same women that happily does them in the name of the culture of the 'other'. This is why secularism is doomed to failure. It is a religion that encourages people to hate themselves, encourages women, especially, to hate their own society and encourages people to enslave themselves to the culture of the 'other'. Contact Seth J. Frantzman at sfrantzman@hotmail.com and visit his website: http://journalterraincognita.blogspot.com |
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THE TRUTH ABOUT JONATHAN POLLARD
Posted by KAE, September 7, 2008. |
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The Jonathan Pollard affair, per John Loftus of The Intelligence Summit. Note the excerpt: "The reason America suffered so little harm is simple: Pollard was stealing Soviet secrets for Israel, not American secrets for the Soviets.The article below is by John Loftus and it appeared in Moment Magazine, June 2003. |
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When American intelligence broke the Soviet wartime code, we learned that the Soviets had infiltrated the American government. The American intelligence community's penchant for secrecy and its refusal to admit that it had been infiltrated was so great that it failed to disclose this to President Harry S. Truman. This is how Daniel Patrick Moynihan described it: "The Soviets knew we knew they knew we knew. The only one who didn't know was the President of the United States. Our politics was injured for 30 years by this." There is a good reason why neither Congress nor the American Jewish leadership supports the release of Jonathan Pollard from prison: They all were told a lie — a humongous Washington whopper of a lie. The lie was first whispered in the "bubble," the secret intelligence briefing room on Capitol Hill, but it quickly spread. Just before Pollard's sentencing, Senator Chic Hecht of Nevada, a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, telephoned the leaders of every major Jewish organization to warn them not to support Pollard in any way. Pollard had done something so horrible that it could never be made public. Several senior intelligence sources confirmed the message: No matter how harsh the sentence, Jewish leaders had to keep their mouths shut; don't make a martyr out of Jonathan Pollard. Washington insiders thought they knew the big, dark secret. David Luchins, an aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, announced to reporters that he had seen "secret documents confirming that Pollard's spying had resulted in the loss of lives of U.S. intelligence agents." Luchins later recanted his statement, but not until the damage had already been done. Pollard had supposedly given Israel a list of every American spy inside the Soviet Union. On several occasions Soviet agents in New York had posed as Israelis. The CIA reasoned that that was also true in Israel: The Mossad had been infiltrated by one or more Soviet spies. In the trade this is called a "false flag" operation: Your enemy poses as your ally and steals your secrets. In this case, the CIA reasoned in attempting to explain its horrendous losses, Pollard had passed the information to Israel he had stolen, which in turn fell victim to the "false flag" operation. Soviet agents in Israel, posing as Israeli intelligence agents, passed the information to Moscow, which then wiped out American human assets in the Soviet Union. Pollard hadn't meant for this to happen, but the result of the "false flag" mistake was mass murder. In a matter of months, every spy we had in Russia — more than 40 agents — had been captured or killed. At least that was the accusation, but the basis for it had been kept secret from Pollard and his defense counsel. The public could not be told the horrifying truth: American intelligence had gone blind behind the Iron Curtain — we had lost all our networks, as the intelligence community publicly admitted more than a decade later. The Soviets could have attacked the United States without warning. Everyone who knew at the time (including me) blamed Pollard. On March 5, 1987, at 2:22 p.m., the sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., began in Criminal Case No. 86-207, United States of America v. Jonathan Jay Pollard. The prosecutors produced a secret letter and memo from Secretary of Defense Caspar "Cap" Weinberger referring to the "enormous" harm that Pollard had done to our national security. In his memo, Weinberger directly accused Pollard of betraying America's "sources and methods," which is to say, he had betrayed our spies in foreign countries. Weinberger publicly stated that Pollard was the worst spy in American history: "It is difficult for me, even in the so-called year of the spy, to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant." Despite his plea agreement to the contrary with the government, Pollard was given the maximum sentence, life in prison. Weinberger later said that he wished Pollard had been shot. A week after the sentencing, the Washington Times reported that the United States had identified Shabtai Kalmanovich as the Soviet spy in Israel who supposedly worked for the Mossad but was actually working for the KGB; he had betrayed American secrets to Moscow. Kalmanovich had been flying under a false flag. Washington insiders winked knowingly at one another: Pollard's contact in Israel had been caught. Just to make sure that Pollard was blamed, U.S. intelligence sources, several months later, leaked word to the press of the Kalmanovich connection. "A Russian mole has infiltrated the Mossad and is transmitting highly sensitive American intelligence information to the Russians," was the report flashed around the world by United Press International on Dec. 14, 1987. Citing "American intelligence sources," the UPI announced that the "sensitive intelligence material relayed to Israel by Jonathan Pollard had reached the KGB." But it was all untrue. Every bit of it. Pollard wasn't the serial killer. The Jew didn't do it. It was one of their own WASPs — Aldrich Ames, a drunken senior CIA official who sold the names of America's agents to the Russians for cash. Pollard was framed for Ames's crime, while Ames kept on drinking and spying for the Soviets for several more years. In fact, Israeli intelligence later suspected that Ames played a direct role in framing Pollard. But no one in America then knew the truth. Ames was arrested in February 1994, and confessed to selling out American agents in the Soviet Union, but not all of them. It was only logical to assume that Pollard had betrayed the rest of them, as one former CIA official admitted shortly after Ames's arrest. Even one life lost was too many. So Pollard continued to rot in jail. No one dreamed that yet another high-level Washington insider had sold us out to Soviet intelligence. Years passed, and eventually a Russian defector told the truth. A senior FBI official — Special Agent Robert — Hanssen had betrayed the rest of our agents. Hanssen was arrested in February 2001, and soon confessed in order to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Would the Americans now admit that they had been conned into blaming Pollard? Beltway bureaucrats do not readily admit to mistakes of this magnitude. Instead, they convinced themselves that Pollard might still be at least partly to blame for the worst debacle in U.S. intelligence history. One desperate analyst from the National Security Council, looking for something to pin on Pollard, had his own theory. Maybe the Russians didn't initially believe that their own spies (Ames and Hanssen) had procured all the names of U.S. agents in the Soviet Union. Maybe Pollard's list tipped the scales. Such things had happened before. Once again, Washington insiders circled their alphabet agencies to fire back at the critics who dared to suggest that Pollard might have been innocent of the major charge against him. Meanwhile, deep inside the Navy's intelligence service, a low-level decision was made to re-examine the Pollard case in view of the convictions of Ames and Hanssen. With sickening chagrin, the Navy discovered that the evidence needed to clear Pollard had been under its nose all along. As my source in Naval intelligence explained, the list of our secret agents inside Russia had been kept in a special safe in a special room with a special "blue stripe" clearance needed for access. When I was a lawyer in the Justice Department and would be sent over to the CIA to do research, I was permitted to use only a blue-striped, CIA-issue legal pad for note-taking. Nothing with a blue stripe could leave the building without being scrutinized by CIA security. But Jonathan Pollard didn't have "blue stripe" clearance, according to intelligence sources I spoke with. That was the bombshell that would clear him of any possible connection to the deaths of our Russian agents. Just to make sure, I checked it out, even visiting Pollard in prison to confirm it. Sure enough, there is no way on earth Jonathan Pollard could have entered the file room, let alone the safe where the list was kept. But the intelligence community's failure to catch this and thereby discredit a critical piece of prosecutorial evidence was, to put it mildly, a bit of an oversight. Some would say it was an obscene blunder. I regard it as an understandable mistake that was overlooked in the avalanche of phony evidence the KGB was planting that pointed to Pollard and away from Ames and Hanssen, whom the Soviets wanted to protect. Both of them had "blue stripe" clearance, as was well documented in several books that have been written on each man and his exploits. The lack of "blue stripe" clearance was the final proof that Pollard could not possibly have betrayed our Russian agents. It should certainly have gotten him a new hearing. As a former federal prosecutor, I can state that it would be hard to rebut this kind of evidence. The Justice Department, in one of its briefs, had specifically mentioned the "false flag" theory as grounds to support Pollard's heavy sentence, arguing in part, that spying even for friendly countries can be damaging if information ultimately falls into the wrong hands. In this, the Justice Department had unwittingly misled the judge. Weinberger also raised the "false flag" issue in his top-secret memorandum to the judge. The only possible way to uphold the sentence might be the "harmless error" doctrine. The government could admit that Pollard had never stolen the Russian agent list, but so what? Maybe he had passed other information that was equally damaging, so he would still deserve to remain in prison for the rest of his life. The problem with the "harmless error" strategy is that the rest of the material that Pollard gave the Israelis was itself pretty harmless. In fact, the original damage assessment from the intelligence community confirmed that the impact on our national security — of the release of information other than the agent names — was not serious. This assessment came after Pollard's initial grand jury appearance, but before the Soviets began to frame Pollard with the phony Kalmanovich connection. No less a figure than Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Leeper had characterized damage caused by the release of the information that Pollard actually gave Israel as "minimal." The reason America suffered so little harm is simple: Pollard was stealing Soviet secrets for Israel, not American secrets for the Soviets. Before the fall of communism, the Soviets were shipping guns to nearly every terrorist group in the Middle East. Pollard knew that U.S. intelligence had been ordered to share this information with Israel — under an executive order signed by President Reagan — but had not done so. In fact, as Pollard himself admitted in one of my three prison interviews, many, if not most, of the documents he handed over were cover sheets showing the titles of files that the U.S. was supposed to share with Israel, but were holding back. (The U.S government, according to Israeli intelligence sources, mistakenly counted the cover sheets as if they were full files and came up with the mythical "room full of stolen documents," instead of the small boxfulls or so that Pollard actually passed.) In the long run, though, the issue is not how many boxes Pollard passed, but whether anything he gave Israel did harm to America. After the government's "false flag" theory was blown up by the "blue stripe" discovery, the anti-Pollard members of the intelligence community had to come up with a new PR campaign for damage control. In order to justify Pollard's life sentence, they had to show that he did do some potentially catastrophic damage to America. What they came up with was a bit of a stretch. Pollard had given Israel a set of radio frequency guidebooks, a worldwide listing of short-wave radio bands. It takes a lot of time and money to compile one of these guides, but essentially they are just publicly available information, openly deduced by listening to who is talking to whom on which radio bands. Seymour Hersh is a famous [but notoriously unreliable] reporter and long-time friend. (I was his secret source in his 1983 book The Price of Power — Kissinger in Nixon's White House (Summit Books). But Sy had his leg pulled on Pollard by his CIA sources, as a result of which Sy published a story in the New Yorker in January 1999 claiming that these radio guides were just about the crown jewels of U.S. intelligence. The truth is that certain portions of the guide had already been sold to the Soviets by the Walker spy ring, according to courtroom testimony, which also revealed that the Soviets thought so little of the guides' value that they did not even bother to ask their top spies, Ames and Hanssen, to steal the remainder of the set. Moreover, as previously noted, the government's own damage assessment report originally concluded that the loss of the guides was a minor matter. So much for the crown jewels. If that is the best spin the intelligence community can come up with, Pollard is probably entitled to immediate release for time served. The truth is that without the "false flag" theory, and the accompanying "worst spy in history" hysteria, Pollard would probably have been served no more than five years in prison. He has already served 18 years. After 9/11, though, I began to realize that Pollard's tale was only the beginning of a much bigger story about a major America intelligence scandal, which is the subject of a book I am now working on. Although Jonathan Pollard did not realize it, he had stumbled across the darkest secret in the Reagan administration's closet. It is one of the reasons that I am serving as the intelligence advisor on a trillion-dollar federal lawsuit filed in August 2002 against the Saudis on behalf of the victims of 9/11. Pollard in fact did steal something that the U.S. government never wishes to talk about. Several friends inside military intelligence have told me that Pollard gave the Israelis a roster that listed the identities of all the Saudi and other Arab intelligence agents we knew about as of 1984. (This has been corroborated by Israeli sources, as well.) At that time, this list, known in intelligence circles as the "blue book," would have been relatively unimportant to the United States — but not to Israel. Since 9/11, however, Pollard's "blue book" is of profound interest to everyone, including the U.S. These particular agents are now a major embarrassment to the Saudis and to the handful of American spy chiefs who had employed these Saudi intelligence agents on the sly. Some of the names on this list — such as Osama Bin Laden — turned out to be leaders of terrorist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and what we now call Al Qaeda. In hindsight, we now know that Pollard stole the one book — that, incidentally, was alluded to in Weinberger's secret memorandum — that unquestionably proves that the Americans knew as early as 1984 about the connection between the Saudis and terrorist groups. How does this all fit together? During the Reagan-Bush administrations, the National Security Council wanted to throw the Soviets out of Afghanistan using Arab soldiers instead of American. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but no one thought about the long-term consequences. In imitation of the Soviet strategy of hiring terrorists, we asked the Saudis to recruit a proxy army of Islamic terrorists whom we would supply with guns and pay indirectly, according to intelligence sources. By having the Saudis hire the "freedom fighters," we could avoid embarrassing questions in Congress about giving the taxpayers money to known Arab terrorists. In 1982, I went on "60 Minutes" to expose Nazi war criminals I had been assigned to prosecute who were then working for the CIA. It was one of those Cold War blunders. The CIA didn't have a clue it was dealing with Nazi war criminals. It thought they were "freedom fighters." In 1985, I ended up testifying before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee about Nazis on the intelligence payroll. Sadly, the only lesson the intelligence bosses learned was to put the bad guys on someone else's payroll (the Saudis for one), and then reimburse them under the table. Because of my whistle-blowing during the early 1980s, the CIA was still pretty sensitive about hiring Nazi "freedom fighters" without background checks, so they were mostly kept out of the loop about the Arab terrorists hired clandestinely by the Saudis to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989. The naive Americans walked away from the Frankenstein monster they had created, but the cynical Saudis kept the terrorists on the payroll. >From the Saudi perspective, it was safer to keep paying the terrorists groups to attack Israel, Bosnia or Chechnya rather than letting them all back into Saudi Arabia. As one U.S. intelligence bureaucrat cynically confided to me, "Sure we knew that the Saudis were giving money to terrorist groups, but they were only killing Jews, they weren't killing Americans." In this "Keystone Cops" affair, one wing of U.S. intelligence was hunting terrorists while another winked at the Saudis' recruitment of them. I have spoken to numerous FBI and CIA counter-terrorist agents, all of whom tell a similar story. Whenever the FBI or CIA came close to uncovering the Saudi terrorist connection, their investigations were mysteriously terminated. In hindsight, I can only conclude that some of our own Washington bureaucrats have been protecting the Al Qaeda leadership and their oil-rich Saudi backers from investigation for more than a decade. I am not the only one to reach this conclusion. In his autobiography, Oliver North confirmed that every time he wanted to do something about terrorism, Weinberger stopped him because it might upset the Saudis and jeopardize the flow of oil to the U.S. John O'Neill, a former FBI agent and our nation's top Al Qaeda expert, stated in a 2001 book written by Jean-Charles Brisard, a noted French intelligence analyst, that everything we wanted to know about terrorism could be found in Saudi Arabia. O'Neill warned the Beltway bosses repeatedly that if the Saudis were to continue funding Al Qaeda, it would end up costing American lives, according to several intelligence sources. As long as the oil kept flowing, they just shrugged. Outraged by the Saudi cover-up, O'Neill quit the FBI and became the new chief of security at the World Trade Center. In a bitter irony, the man who could have exposed his bosses' continuous cover-up of the Saudi-Al Qaeda link was himself killed by Al Qaeda on 9/11. Congress has been told repeatedly that American intelligence never knew the identities of the Arabs who threw the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Inadvertently, Pollard stole the ultimate smoking gun that shows exactly what the leaders of our intelligence community knew and when they knew it. The "blue book" Pollard stole flatly establishes that all the dots were connected many years before 9/11, and the only thing the intelligence chiefs did competently was cover up the fact that we had long known about the Saudi-terrorist link. In the ultimate irony, Pollard may have to be let out of prison to testify before Congress about the negligence of his own superiors. Like O'Neill, Pollard had tried to warn his superiors that a wave of terrorism was coming out of the Middle East, but no one would listen. Pollard himself told me this. Pollard has admitted — to me and in writing to President Clinton — that he was wrong and stupid in passing the information to Israel on his own, but in the long run he may have committed the most unpardonable sin of all: He was right and the bureaucrats were wrong. Pollard never thought he was betraying his country. And he never did, although he clearly violated its laws. He just wanted to help protect Israelis and Americans from terrorists. Now in prison for nearly two decades, Pollard, who is in his late 40s, grows more ill year by year. If, as seems likely, American bureaucrats choose to fight a prolonged delaying action over a new hearing, Pollard will probably die in prison. There are people in power inside the Beltway who have been playing for time. Time for them ran out on 9/11. Sooner or later, they are going to be held accountable. I hope that Pollard lives to see it. Contact Kae at kew1@dbmail.com |
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PUTIN'S SECRET LAND GRAB IN DOWNTOWN JERUSALEM
Posted by Likud-Herut, September 7, 2008. |
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Tzipi Livni's office is in the final stages of quietly transferring 9 acres of prime Jerusalem property to Vladimir Putin. It is neither Livni's or her government's to give — nor Putin's or his government's to claim. Read about this shady deal, and how it could be stopped, here: The article below is called
"Putin's Unholy Land Grab: Red Square In Jerusalem" and was written by
Zalmi Unsdorfer. It appeared September 3, 2008 in the Jewish Press
Zalmi Unsdorfer is chairman of Likud-Herut in the UK. He blogs at www.zalmi.net. |
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Last month it took two tank divisions and a diversion of Olympian proportions for Vladimir Putin to subdue Georgia's fledgling democracy and seize two of its territorial regions. This month we may see Russia's new emperor claiming a prime slice of downtown Jerusalem for the KGB without even firing a shot. I refer to a shady transfer to Putin of what is known as the Russian Compound — a 17-acre site between Jaffa and Hanevi'im roads, close to the Old City walls. According to a Foreign Ministry letter that has come into this writer's possession, the deal was agreed on between the two governments on December 12, 2007. The transaction could not be completed, however, until the land was transferred from Israel's Custodian General of land and property to the government itself. According to the same Ministry letter, this final clearance was ratified by a Jerusalem court on August 27. Like so many other concessions on outposts and the security fence, this is yet another surrender concocted between the executive and the judiciary, without any parliamentary involvement or oversight. According to the Israel Policy Forum, the Jewish state's judiciary is the most activist in the democratic world and dominates the elected branches of government, the legislative and the executive. The ultimate check on the judicial branch of government is the power of appointing judges, which is retained by the elected branches of government in the overwhelming majority of democracies. This enables the people's representatives to ensure that no judges with extreme views (including extreme views of their own political prerogatives) are appointed. In Israel, such a check is nonexistent. Judges in Israel are appointed by a small committee controlled by the judges of the Supreme Court and their close allies in the Israeli bar. The process is secretive and subject to manipulation and abuse. It has led to the domination of the court by judges with strongly liberal views who have succeeded in alienating large segments of Israel's population. Given Russia's close association with Iran and Syria, the prospect of its establishing an enclave in the heart of the Jewish capital is daunting indeed. It conjures up images of Arab terrorists fleeing into the compound and Israeli security personnel unable to pursue them without precipitating an international crisis. In many respects it would be tantamount to inviting a Russian spy ship to permanently dock right in the middle of an Israeli naval base. The Russian Compound's commanding position made it the perfect staging ground for numerous conquests of Jerusalem from the Assyrians to Titus's Roman legions. From a Turkish cavalry parade ground in the Ottoman period it was developed in 1860 by the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society to cater for large numbers of Russian pilgrims to the holy city. Dubbed "New Jerusalem" by the Turks, the compound's early buildings included a church, hostel, hospice and a consulate. In 1890, half of the site was redeveloped by Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich as a palatial guesthouse for visiting Russian aristocrats. Later requisitioned by the British forces during the period of the Mandate, the compound was nicknamed "Bevingrad" by the Jewish underground, after the hated British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, and was seen as a symbol of British oppression in Palestine. In 1947, two brave fighters, Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, blew themselves up in the compound's jail on the night before their execution, using a hand grenade that had been smuggled into the cell. Israel purchased the compound in 1964 (excluding only some church buildings) from the Russian Orthodox Patriarch for $3.5 million. Due to lack of hard currency, the price was paid in an equal value of citrus exports. Since the date of this so-called Orange Deal, the site has been used to accommodate various government offices and the Sergei Building has been home to the Jerusalem Magistrates Court. During his state visit to Israel in 2005, Vladimir Putin paid a private visit to the compound and the magnificent Sergei Building is said to have "captured his heart." He declared his intention to get it back for Russia. Much has changed in the three years since that backslapping state visit. While Putin has not stopped pushing the legal process for the return of the site, he has said lots of kind words about his concern for Israel, which he insists is a good friend of the Russian people. Sadly, his actions over these past three years have exposed him as an enemy of Israel and, more recently, a threat to the free world. Not content with supplying Iran's mullahs with all they need to accomplish Ahmadinejad's wish to "wipe Israel off the map," Putin is supplying them with his most advanced Iskander missiles, which will make it even more difficult for Israel to neutralize this existential nuclear threat. Closer to hand, Putin has been arming the Syrian dictator with advanced missiles and looks to be creating a base for his nuclear warships in Syrian ports not far north of Haifa. In many ways, Putin's actions are little different from those of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. They both make public claims to be friends of Israel while doing everything possible to weaken and destroy the Jewish state. But Olmert deals with both these men the way he deals with all members of the axis of evil. "Give them some land" is his strategy — without asking for anything in return. This is the prime minister who boldly told fraud investigators that American whistleblower Morris Talansky gave him all that cash without expecting anything in return. The police were incredulous. But to anyone who has seen Olmert handing Israel's enemies land, prisoners, rifles, bullets and jeeps for nothing in return, why should this come as a surprise? It's his tried and trusted business model. Probably the most galling aspect of Olmert's discredited leadership is how he and his colleagues presume to carve up and surrender parts of Eretz Yisrael as if it were theirs to give. To keep Shas in the coalition they continue to deny what every Israeli knows for a fact: that half of Jerusalem has already been offered to Abbas. In Turkey, Olmert's lawyers have put the entire Golan Heights on the table. And then there is the backdrop discussion of 1967 borders and returning refugees, both of which topics seem lately to have changed from red lines to amber lights. The '67 borders issue becomes more significant the more one delves into this new Russian interest in the Holy Land. In a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, Ksenia Svetlova reported that the Russian Accounts Chamber (government audit office) published the following announcement on its website in June: "The PNA [Palestinian National Authority] has passed to Russian authorities three land lots in Jericho during a special ceremony which took place at the premises of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation in Moscow. The head of the Imperator Pravoslav Palestinian Society, Sergei Stepashin, assured that the restored property included three lots: a 12,000 sq.m. one and another two located in the area called al-Moskobiya [Moscow lands] in the city." Svetlova further quoted an earlier Russian news agency report in April 2008 announcing that during Abbas's visit to Moscow, he agreed to transfer to the Russian government land in Bethlehem in addition to 35,000 sq.m. worth of property on the Mount of Olives and in Jericho. It's clear that whatever agreements Olmert and his foreign minister are hiding from their own coalition partners and the citizens of Israel, they are already taken for granted by Abbas, to the extent that he is gifting the Russians territory he has not yet received. One of the few Knesset members wise to what is afoot is Likud's Yuli Edelstein, who has pressed for a meeting of the Defense and Foreign Relations Committee in the coming week on the subject of the compound sale. Born in the Ukraine, Edelstein was a prisoner of conscience and jailed by the Soviets for applying to emigrate to Israel. Together with Natan Sharansky, he formed the Yisrael B'Aliyah party which took seven seats in the 1996 Knesset elections and later merged with Likud. "This deal was first mentioned to me quite casually by a lawyer working in the Knesset," Edelstein said over coffee in Jerusalem last Friday. "It was so absurd that I really didn't take it seriously. But I agreed to submit a sha-ilta (member's question) and was astonished to receive confirmation of the intended transfer." He said the Ministry said nothing about what was expected from the Russian government in return for the property. "We could have asked for a thousand different things," says Edelstein. "We could have said: 'You want a presence in this place? Make it official put up your flag and move your embassy here.' We could have asked for the restoration of pension payments to one million émigrés from Russia." There are countless options, but by the government's silence it seems to Edelstein that Israel is getting absolutely nothing in return. Beyond the loss of this strategic site to the Russian government, he worries about the precedent that would be set. "Next thing we will have the Greeks reclaiming the land on which the Knesset itself and the president's residence are standing. Where will it all end?" In justifying the government's actions, the Foreign Ministry argues that the compound never was Israeli property in the first place and that the Custodian General was, at all times, holding the property in trust for its original Russian owners. But this seems to ignore two important facts: First, the $3.5 million paid out by Israel in the sixties, whether in cash or oranges. Second, that the "original Russian owners" are neither Putin nor the Russian government. The prevailing Ottoman law prevented such property being owned by a foreign state. As Sergei Alexandrovich commissioned the project with private funds, the only relevant beneficiary of the Custodian's trust has to be the duke's family. It can only be hoped that exposure of this disturbing story will cause Jews, both inside and outside Israel, to use whatever communal or logistical influence they can to bring pressure on the government in Jerusalem to cancel this private agreement, or at the very least to submit the proposals to a full vote in the Knesset. Israel is small enough for individuals to make a real difference. In that spirit, this writer decided to write to one of the few living heirs of the Romanov dynasty. He happens to be Prince Phillip, duke of Edinburgh, husband of the Queen of England. The letter appears below: Your Royal Highness, Contact Likud-Herut at info@likud-herut.org.uk |
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WAITING FOR SOMETHING
Posted by Barry Rubin, September 7, 2008. |
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f I had to nominate the funniest cartoon I've ever seen, it was a very simple one showing a driver in a car at a "T" junction. He was staring desperately at three signs that read: No Left Turn; No Right Turn; No U-Turn. The Middle East isn't quite like that, but the current moment — though surely temporarily — seems somewhat akin to that drawing. It isn't as if there weren't lots of action, but that the action is merely like the above-mentioned driver revving his engine and honking his horn. I wouldn't go so far as to invoke William Shakespeare's line from "Macbeth": "Full of sound, and fury, signifying nothing." But the current moment's antics surely don't signify progress. The Israel-Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel-Syria peace negotiations are going nowhere; the French plan to charm Syria into moderation is going nowhere; the Western attempt to lightly press (not push) Iran into abandoning its nuclear campaign is...well, you get the picture. And then we await upcoming changes in Israeli politics (who will be prime minister and when will be elections), in American politics (who will be the next president in January), in Palestinian politics (how long will PA head Mahmoud Abbas's term last, a year or less?), in Egyptian politics (when will Egyptian President Husni Mubarak name a successor or die), and in Iranian politics (who will be elected president next June). Contrary to conventional wisdom, it's important to understand that the impasses within the Middle East are not determined by those events, which have their own deeper, internal causes. One would think from many sources that if only President George Bush tried harder or Israel had a more stable government that there would be an Israel-Palestinian peace treaty next week. Comforting and hopeful, perhaps, but stupid. Come to think of it, the most interesting aspect of Middle East politics today is not so much what actually happens but whether leaders will understand what is going on and devise policies that have some relationship to reality. What's really important? While terrorist attacks make the headlines, the real historical news is being made by the quiet, daily battles for hearts, minds, and institutions between Arab regimes and Islamist oppositions. The future is being written in the internal maneuverings in which the hard-hardliners in Hamas have kicked out the relatively less-hard hardliners in the Gaza Strip. It is being assembled by the PA's total immobility regarding economic or social development and reducing corruption. The trend is being set as the West convinces Iran and Syria that they can get away with anything, specifically continuing radical policies not only without cost but even with apparent diplomatic gains. It won't be much longer, they are saying in Tehran and Damascus, until the West gives way entirely. Syria gets Lebanon and no investigation of its terrorist assassinations there; Iran gets nuclear weapons; while Europe and America accept this new status quo. In search of having a list of great achievements for U.S. policy under the Bush Administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi, who is being good this week. Nothing has changed substantially except Qadhafi was intimidated by a moment of perceived U.S. power, which has now passed. Given Qadhafi's proverbial restlessness, imaginative brain, and likely view that America is not so strong, this era of good feelings might not last very long. In Iraq, every turnover of a province or statistical downturn of terrorist attacks is a signal of relative success for recent U.S. policy there. Yet this development, as good as it is, surely isn't a one-way street. Sunni tribes may not stay bought; tremendous factionalism within the Shia majority could blow up the situation. Trying to handle the repeatedly postponed issue of who controls the city of Kirkuk could lead to Arab-Kurdish conflict. Again, though, the story is being written in the details. A new Iraq could be emerging whose main allies are the United States and Iran, a result of the Sunni Arab world's terrible mishandling of the Iraq issue, treating the Iraqi regime as a virtual pariah state. The misunderstanding of all of this relates to what a high-ranking State Department official used to privately call "the sword in the stone" thesis. (It's such a powerful concept that even this person nowadays has fallen under its spell). Only the true king, went some variants on the legend of King Arthur, could pull the sword Excalibur from the rock. The Arab-Israeli conflict, or more generally the unstable Middle East, becomes the diplomatic equivalent. Solve it, and your name will live for all time. Oh, and you get a Nobel Peace Prize for your mantelpiece. And so many believe that if only there was some brilliant ruler with the right ideas, everything in the Middle East could be solved. Unfortunately, this idea is usually embraced by naïve politicians with the wrong ideas. Senator Barrack Obama is currently on that list, and French President Francois Sarkozy has apparently nominated himself. In the Middle East, the same thing takes the form of a great resistance fighter, with Salah al-Din the role model. At this point, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Asad raise their hands and shout, "Me! Me!" Note well that in the West this idea is associated with being nice to the extremists through concessions and confidence-building, while in the Middle East it is associated with being tough and violent, smiting the infidels hip and thigh. That contrast alone should tell you something. What is needed is not some super new plan, a surfeit of charm, or the great leader but rather a great change in Middle East ideologies and societies. Not only is that process a difficult one, but it isn't even starting. To cite one example, in 2008, Palestinian moderation and realism is no greater than it was in 1988 and arguably worse than it was in 1998. To note another, there are more radical Islamists than ever. If anything, things are headed in the wrong direction and a lot of the mainstream ideas about in the West would make things worse. Sort of makes nothing happening sound better. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle-East (Wiley). |
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BARACK OBAMA'S VERSION OF HIS LIFE UNRAVELS
Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman, September 7, 2008. |
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along with his shocking cast of known mentors and advisors This article was written by Jack Cashill, an independent
writer and producer. It appeared today on the Israel-Commentary
website
Jack Cashill has written for Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard and WorldNetDaily. Within the last five years Jack has written five books of non-fiction — First Strike, Ron Brown's Body, Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture, Sucker Punch: The Left Hook that Dazed Ali and Killed King's Dream and his latest, What's the Matter with California. Three of them have cracked Amazon's top ten list. |
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Having written a book on intellectual fraud, "Hoodwinked," and being something of a literary detective, I had no doubt on reading Barack Obama's 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," that Obama did not really write it. The style is "above his pay grade, way above." As Obama tells the story of the book's genesis, "a few publishers called" after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990. In the real world, publishers don't call unknowns unless someone influential prompts them. Obama does not tell us who. Nor does Obama tell the reader how he got elected president of the Review in the first place. Historically, the position had gone to students whose writings in the Review had shown real skill. Prior to his election, however, Obama had written only one unsigned note and that one heavily edited. Once elected, Obama contributed not a word. As Matthew Franck has pointed out in National Review Online, "A search of the HeinOnline database of law journals turns up exactly nothing credited to Obama in any law review anywhere at any time." Beyond his ethnic appeal, however, Obama had something else going for him. As I previously reported, this information came to light last week courtesy of a newly surfaced DVD that features an interview with Percy Sutton on the New York-based "Inside City Hall." A Manhattan borough president for 12 years and the most powerful black politician in New York State, Sutton spoke knowingly with host Dominic Carter about the Obama candidacy. "I was introduced to [Obama] by a friend," Sutton told the interviewer. Sutton named the friend as "Dr. Khalid al-Mansour." Sutton described al-Mansour as "the principle adviser to one of the world's richest men." The billionaire in question is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Knowing that Sutton had friends at Harvard, al-Mansour asked Sutton to "please write a letter in support of [Obama] ... a young man that has applied to Harvard." Sutton gladly did so. Unclear in the interview is whether Sutton intervened to get Obama in to Harvard, to get him elected president of the Law Review, or both. Khalid al-Mansour is a piece of work. Although impressively well connected, the Texas-born attorney and black separatist has not met the paranoid racial fantasy unworthy of his energy. His many books include titles like "The Destruction of Western Civilization as Seen Through Islam" and "Will the West Rule Forever?" Several of his speeches can be seen on YouTube. In one named, "A Little On the History of Jews," he shares his distinctive insights into the creation of Israel. " God gave you nothing," al-Mansour says to the world's Ashkenazi Jews in a typical rant. "The children from Poland and Russia were promised nothing. But they are stealing the land the same as the Christians stole the lands from the Indians in America." No matter how many books he has written, al-Mansour himself lacks the talent to have written, "Dreams from My Father." He was, however, one of many people in Obama's network with enough money and influence to get the book written and published. That network includes the inevitable Tony Rezko. The Syrian-born scalawag owed his bank account and his clout in Chicago politics to Jabir Herbert Muhammad, son of Nation of Islam founder Elija Muhammad. The younger Muhammad knew something about bogus memoirs. In the mid-1970s, he recruited the now celebrated writer Toni Morrison to "edit" Muhammad Ali's fictionalized account of his life, "The Greatest." Muhammad reviewed every page to make sure it hewed to the Nation's racist worldview. Muhammad made Rezko general manager of his company, Crucial Concessions, in 1983. Muhammad later created the Muhammad Ali Foundation to spread Islam and appointed his confidante Rezko executive director. Just last week, Muhammad died in Chicago. "Jabir did much for the cause of Islam," said the keynote speaker at the memorial, none other than Louis Farrakhan. Much has been made of Rezko's Catholic background. The question has to be asked how he could possibly head a foundation whose express purpose was to promote Islam around the world, let alone the racist Islamic cult, the Nation of Islam. 
Khalid al-Mansour had other friends of influence in the literary and publishing world, foremost among them the late, literary leftist superstar and terrorist suck-up, Edward Said. Said and Obama knew each other. A photo floating around the blogosphere shows the pair engaged in intimate discussion at an Arab-American community dinner in Chicago 1998. Bloggers ask how a then obscure state senator managed to wangle a seat next to the evening's keynote speaker, a man the Nation would describe as "probably the best-known intellectual in the world." The answer can be traced back to Obama's two-year stint at Columbia University in the early 1980s, where Said taught as a distinguished professor of comparative literature. The Los Angeles Times reports that Obama took at least one course from Said. The intimacy of their 1998 conversation suggests a deeper relationship. Obama, however, will not talk at all about Said, his New York years or his trip to Pakistan during those years despite numerous requests from the New York Times. Like Obama, Said made his de-racinated childhood the central, compelling metaphor for his significant life work. His identity as a Palestinian and a refugee, driven from his homeland by Israeli violence, would inform everything he wrote. Said did not shy from using his grief and his influence to advance his cause. For 14 years, he served on the Palestine National Conference, a kind of parliament-in-exile alongside the likes of the PLO's Yassir Arafat and still harder core radicals from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the terrorist group that hijacked the Achille Lauro. Unfortunately, for Said, an Israeli scholar named Justus Reid Weiner did two years of hard-nosed, boots-on-the-ground background research on Said's life and published his findings in Commentary. Weiner had proved beyond all doubt that America's most celebrated Palestinian refugee was not a Palestinian or a refugee, let alone a Muslim. In reality, Said was a Christian and an American citizen from birth, who grew up not in Palestine but in Cairo, where he attended the best British schools before leaving for a pricey American prep school as a teenager. Although the New York Times reluctantly confirmed Weiner's findings, the major media had no more interest in exposing the fraud of Said's life any more than they do Muhammad Ali's or Obama's. Among Said's friends and allies on the American-hating, Arafat-loving left were none other than Khalid al-Mansour and drum roll, please, William Ayers! Radical turned actor Peter Coyote suggests as much in his diary written for the 1996 Democratic National Convention. "After that," Coyote writes, "I inform Martha that I'm dragging her to the apartment of old friends, ex-Weathermen, Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, hosting a party for Senator Leahy. Perhaps Edward Said will be there." When Ayers published his memoir, "Fugitive Days," in 2001, the book that made "unrepentant" part of our everyday vocabulary, Said was happy to provide a blurb. " For anyone who cares about the sorry mess we are in," Said wrote, "this book is essential, indeed necessary reading." America is thus poised to elect a man to the presidency whose known mentors and sponsors Khalid al-Mansour, Tony Rezko, Edward Said, William Ayers, and his life long pastor, Jeremiah ("G-d damn America") Wright, put a lie to just about everything Obama has said on the campaign trail. A sorry mess indeed!
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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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE NEW ISRAEL FUND
Posted by Paul Lademain, September 6, 2008. | |
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We are the NON-evangelical Christians for Zion. We sent the following letter to this NY org dba as the "New Israel Fund." We betcha these people will ignore the issues we raised and then by way of reply, send us a hundred emails for lottery winnings and similar caca stuff. Here is our letter to the New Israel Fund:
Contact Paul Lademain by email at lademain@verizon.net |
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MUSLIMS CONDEMN CENSORSHIP OF HADITHS ON KILLING JEWS
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 6, 2008. |
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University calls website statements 'truly despicable' This was a news item on World Net Dail
Another article on this subject is at:
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Muslim students on the campus of the University of Southern California have condemned a school decision to take down certain hadiths — or sayings of Muhammad — that called for dead Jews and had been posted on a student group's website. "We are outraged at the censorship of a complete religious and classic text without consulting us or any religious authority first," the Muslim Student Union said in a prepared statement. "The 'compendium' is now incomplete. There are verses in many religious texts (be it the Torah or the New Testament) that when taken out of context can be taken as offensive." The decision to order the hadiths taken down from a site run by the Muslim Student Association, a separate organization, was made by Provost C.L. Max Nikias, according to a report today in the student newspaper, the Daily Trojan. He approved the deletion of the statements because they urged Muslims to kill Jews. The statements were in a collection of hadiths, or historical sayings attributed to Muhammad although not included in the Quran. The call for the deaths of unbelievers has become an issue even for some Muslims. In the new book, "Why We Left Islam," authors Susan Crimp and Joel Richardson profiled those who now would be under their old religion's sentence of death for abandoning Muhammad's teachings. One of those whose testimony is included in the book, Ali, wrote, "The Quran is full of verses that teach killing of unbelievers and how Allah would torture them after they die." The offending student group hadith had been posted on a USC server as part of the MSA website, which now is defunct, the report said. Concerns had been raised by Rabbi Aron Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who approached university trustee Alan Casden, the Daily Trojan said. After a review by Nikias, he found the "passage cited is truly despicable ... We did some investigations and have ordered the passage to be removed," the newspaper said. The Muslim Student Union is the larger Muslim student group but is not associated with the MSA. Leaders declined Daily Trojan requests for an interview but issued a statement that Nikias' actions were unconscionable. "USC, as a place of higher education, has prided itself on academic freedom and freedom of speech ... The administration's actions have gone behind the backs of their students and we have been left in the dark," the student group stated. The head of the David Horowitz Freedom Center told the newspaper similar statements permeate Muslim Student Association websites around the nation. David Horowitz told the newspaper the MSA is "an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood." The call to kill Jews, he said, "may be part of the religious canon, but that doesn't make them less hateful." WND recently reported on a study that revealed one in three Muslims students in the United Kingdom approve killing for Islam. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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DESECRATION OF MA'ARAT HAMACHPELA IN HEBRON
Posted by The Jewish Community of Hebron, September 6, 2008. |
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Due to the Moslem month of Ramadan, Ma'arat HaMachpela is to be closed to Jews and open only to Arabs every Friday for the next month. Yesterday, the first Friday of Ramadan this year, thousands of Arabs gathered at this holy site, and desecrated it. This morning, when Jewish worshipers arrived for morning prayers, they were shocked at what they discovered. Arabs had urinated next to the Holy Ark, containing Torah scrolls in the "Yeshenei Avot" hall and also tossed Hamas flags into the memorials for the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. This is a continuation of past desecrations at this holy site, despite the fact that it is supposed to be fully guarded with use of high-tech security cameras. Of course, no Arabs were arrested. The Hebron Jewish community demands a proper reaction by the authorities to this desecration, including forbidding Arabs to enter this holy site on other days allocated to them, included the coming Fridays during the month of Ramadan. Please helop by writing to government officials, and, if you live abroad, contact Israeli embassies. . You can contribute directly to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB10, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, hebron@hebron.org.il, 972-2-9965333 or write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, hebronfund@aol.com |
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TOP IDF OFFICER: ISRAEL NOT PREPARED FOR NEXT WAR
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 6, 2008. |
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This is called "Former Ground Forces Chief Says More Training &
Funding Are Needed" and was written by Amos Harel. It appeared
yesterday in Haaretz
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Major General (res.) Moshe Ivri-Sukenik, who resigned as Commander of the Israel Defense Forces' Northern Corps earlier this year, has sharply criticized the way the army is training. In his first public comments on the matter, Sukenik says the army's training program is flawed and troops are not being prepared for future challenges. "We are not training enough," Sukenik, who led an IDF in-house probe after the Second Lebanon War, said Thursday. Sukenik served as commander of the IDF's ground forces several years ago. After the Lebanon war he led the investigation into battles by Division 162. Sukenik was asked to return to the ranks and command the Northern Corps, but he resigned in January, in part to protest what he calls the insufficient allocation of funds for training the land forces. Sukenik spoke Thursday in Ramat Efal at a conference on the land war in Lebanon. "After a year at the Corps, I told a forum of the most senior ranks in the army [the General Staff] that it is not taking things seriously. We are not training sufficiently. We are not giving people the minimum means to succeed." Although since the war a major effort has been taken to restore the ground forces' readiness, this is not enough, he said. "I did what I could to restore knowledge. It will take time for the IDF to recover from the wounds of the war .... Now they are once more talking about cuts in the defense budget. The easiest thing to do is to cut training budgets, because that is where there is big money. The result is that next year, after the cut, the readiness level will once more be low," Sukenik said. Describing the army before the war as having "rusted," he said about one division: "Would you believe they did not have maps of the Golan Heights? They had no operational plans on a critical front. Their plans were for an entirely different front. This is the sort of vertigo the IDF found itself in." Sukenik blames the war's failures on the conduct of the senior officers, and the confusion in the orders given. "The soldiers in the field heard in the media and in the Knesset that there would not be a ground offensive. 'We can end this with the air force,' they said. In the end it trickles down and has an effect. I say with authority: 70 to 80 percent of responsibility for the results [of the war] lie with the command and the General Staff. The gaps in readiness are not a pleasant thing, but in the end these led to only 10 to 15 percent of the final results." Sukenik described the results of the war as "embarrassing" and said he accepted the invitation to lead an in-house probe of the performance of a division because he wanted to understand "what had happened to the most skilled group. Why did they behave this way? These are the best people we have." He also criticized the decline in the ground forces' preparedness in the years before the war, and he himself accepted blame because he was a member of the General Staff. "People did not understand what a mountainous passage means. An armored battalion goes into a mountainous passage [during the war] without an engineers APC [armored personnel carrier], without bulldozers — and they think that's okay. Things that used to be maxims evaporated. In the air force there is a someone leading a flight of aircraft. If he does not practice twice a month, he is not ready," Sukenik said. "Everything is written in orders. In the ground forces the company commander is always ready, even if he has not trained all his life. This is not something you learn on the Web ... A battalion goes on a three-week training session in a year — and they trained for deployment in the Gaza Strip or Nablus, not for a major war. Unfortunately this is still not sufficiently understood. A battalion commander needs to know how to defend and attack on the Golan Heights." Sukenik said one of the biggest lessons of the war is that the IDF must deal with short-range rockets. "Since the war we made this part of our orders: The mission of every force is to end the indirect fire from its area of operations. This is a problem the commander must deal with, no one else." 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 winston@winstonglobal.org |
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FATAL FLAWS IN THE RELIANCE UPON INTERNATIONAL GUARANTEES
Posted by Victor Sharpe, September 6, 2008. |
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Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, again arrived in Jerusalem to pressure the weak and embattled government of Ehud Olmert into continuing the dreary and one sided exercise of further concessions to the Palestinian Arabs. The futile peace process, which has now existed through successive US and Israeli administrations dating back to 1993, has always been predicated on the belief that it takes two to tango. The problem has always been that Israel has never found that its Palestinian partner in peace ever truly wanted to embrace it except in a dance macabre. Ms. Rice is just one of a long list of American Secretaries of State who have sought the elusive "holy grail" of a lasting peace between Israel and the Arab world, and especially with those Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. But in attempting to achieve such a goal and lasting legacy for themselves they have all found the conflicting pressures existing in the Arab and Islamic world to be a fatal distraction. The United States has sought the honorable course of peace in the Middle East by using various methods that it believed would achieve success. The method, now repeated yet again by Ms. Rice, is to coerce Israel (sometimes gently, sometimes less gently) into giving away a piece of land followed by another piece of land to assuage the relentless appetite of the Palestinians. This is probably the real meaning of the phrase, "peace process." In return for nibbling away at another piece of Israel — a tiny nation no larger than New Jersey — the United States offers guarantees to defend and support the Jewish state. But the story of previous US guarantees not only to Israel but to South Vietnam, Taiwan, and perhaps now to Georgia, is not a glowing one. The late Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson wrote, as far back as December 18, 1973, about the delusion of US forces defending Israel against Arab aggression: "I can't imagine a more misdirected policy than to ask Israel, which has been the model of a self-reliant ally, to transform itself into an American dependency ... Much of the history of international guarantees is the history of countries who have lost their territory, their freedom and even their sons and daughters ... It is a history that the Israelis, for their reasons, and we, for ours, ought to do everything possible to avoid." Israel is a vibrant democracy and enjoys the inherent strengths from being so. But democratic societies, due to their internal party political considerations and multiple viewpoints, are often unable to employ firm and unwavering policies or withstand the withering aggression against them that autocratic and dictatorial societies can so easily employ. Brooking no resistance or opposition by the masses, dictators demand immense sacrifices from their people — sacrifices that a democracy could never impose. Thus Israel, surrounded by tyrannical Arab and Islamist regimes, is understandably weary of the endless and remorseless Arab violence it is forced to endure. But to appease that violence, to offer concession after concession to the initiators of that violence, and to do so with the belief that an outside super power will always be there to guarantee protection, is equally a delusion. To repeatedly try to seek peace with an implacable and deceitful enemy, whether it is the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas or the Hamas regime in Gaza, is rather like the description of a second marriage given by the 18th century English literary giant, Samuel Johnson, who wrote that it is "... the triumph of hope over experience." But the hope within the Arab-Israel conflict is sadly an illusion for the Jewish state and can never be fulfilled so long as the enemy is imbued with Islamic injunctions to never make a lasting peace with a non-Muslim state. So the Rabin government, which entered the Oslo Peace Accords in good faith with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under the late Yasser Arafat, produced nothing but a precipitous erosion of Israel's security. Arafat is dead but his evil legacy lives on. Arafat told his Arab critics of the Peace Accords that they need not worry. He knew that all that has transpired was merely the realization of the PLO's 'Two Step Policy' of destroying the Jewish state in stages. He said; "This is the phased plan we adopted in 1974. Why should you oppose it now?" In this transparent and pernicious plan, which Israeli leaders from the Left seem ever willing to ignore, the Palestinian Arabs will accept any territory given away by the naive Israelis, and then use that territory to mount terror attacks and a 'final solution' against a reduced Israel to finish it off. As Arafat stated, "... the Palestinian state is within our grasp. Soon the Palestinian flag will fly on the walls, the minarets and the cathedrals of Jerusalem." Mahmoud Abbas does not shout out the same slogans publicly, but he undeniably harbors in his heart the very same desire. And Hamas, his rival in anti-Israel terror, echoes Arafat by proclaiming in even more vicious and pan-Islamic terms: "We are announcing a war against the sons of apes and pigs, which will not end until the flag of Islam is raised in Jerusalem." Meanwhile, with all the experience of previous failed marriages, the present Kadima-led Israeli government, meets with the Secretary of State to continue the nonsense of the "peace process" in which Israel does the giving and the Arab thugdom does the taking. At the same time, the carrot of US guarantees is dangled in front of the Israeli donkey. In response to an earlier carrot dangled by President Richard Nixon, the Israeli Prime Minister of the time, Golda Meier, said: "By the time you get here, we won't be here." In my book: Politicide — The attempted murder of the Jewish state — I recounted the many disappointing experiences Israel gained from previous US guarantees. After the 1956 "100 hours war," when Israel drove out the Arab terrorists from Gaza and pushed back their Egyptian defenders towards the Suez Canal, the Eisenhower-Dulles administration forced Israel to withdraw completely from Sinai in return for written guarantees. In the June, 1967 "Six-Day War" those guarantees were conveniently mislaid. In the following War of Attrition, the US arranged a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt, which included US assurances that Egypt would not be allowed to violate the agreement. Within a few days following the cease-fire, the Egyptians blatantly broke the agreement and moved their missiles into the Sinai. Despite Israeli protests, the US did nothing and when Egypt and Syria launched their assault upon Israel in the 1973 "Yom Kippur War," these same Egyptian missile batteries inflicted extensive Israeli casualties. United Nations guarantees to Israel have also proven to be examples of cynical double speak and egregious anti-Israel behavior on the ground. The UN's record of duplicity towards Israel can be summed up in the highly discredited UN "peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL. Here again, Israel fell for the falsehoods of international guarantees against Arab and Islamist aggression. It never worked then and it won't work now. Condoleezza Rice will attempt to hoodwink the worst Israeli government in history into appeasing the Palestinian thugdom (aka the Palestinian Authority) and ease the pressure on the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip. Such concessions have proven to be an Israeli self-inflicted national wound. Fresh from the disaster in Georgia, Ms. Rice will want to score a "political victory" in the Middle East and, as usual, it will be at Israel's expense. Years ago, President Clinton said that: "The United States relies on its defense forces to defend America, and Israel should do likewise." He went on to say that, "... the first duty of any government is to try to keep its citizens safe." Hopefully, Israel will not rely any more on outside guarantees to defend itself. But sadly it may be beyond the current government of Israel to grasp the perils such reliance creates; even though past experiences should sound alarm bells in the Prime Minister's office and the Knesset. Such guarantees are always a delusion and Israel should not trade what is left of its defensible borders and sovereignty for further unreliable promises. With the world repeating the errors of 1938 by not militarily confronting the genocidal aggression against the Jewish state from a soon to be nuclear armed Iran, the supreme irony may yet be that Israel will be pushed so much by friend and foe alike that it will find its back against the wall. The world may yet come to regret how relentlessly it has forced Israel alone to take enormous risks for such an illusory peace and, by so doing, pressured it into a catastrophic war in order to survive — international guarantees notwithstanding. Contact Victor Sharpe at janvic@verizon.net This article was published by Israel Hasbara Committee
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REPORT: UN TO DEMAND ISRAEL PAY LEBANON $1 BILLION
Posted by Dan Calic, September 6, 2008. |
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This was written by Roee Nahmias and
it appeared as a news item today in Ynet News
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Lebanese media say Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to instruct Israel to take responsibility for environmental damages caused by 2006 war, including oil spill following bombing of Beirut power plant 
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will demand that Israel pay Lebanon $1 billion in compensation over damages caused during the Jewish state's 2006 war against Hizbullah, Lebanese media reported Saturday. According to the report, the sum, based on World Bank appraisals, is aimed at covering the environmental and material damages caused by the Second Lebanon War, to neighboring countries as well. The fundamental part of the compensation demanded is for the damage caused to the Lebanese coast due to an oil spill following an Israeli bombing of a southern Beirut power plant, which the Lebanese said had caused "an ecological disaster." According to the report, Ban plans to submit a report to the United Nations General Assembly at the end of the month, stating that damage Israel caused to the oil reservoir polluted Lebanon's coast, and that the pollution spread to neighboring countries, especially Syria. Ban further notes that the UN rehabilitation plan managed to clean some of the oil spill in several areas in northern Lebanon seashores. The oil spill, which was defined the greatest natural disaster in Lebanon's history, took place after Israel Air Force planes hit a power plant and caused some 110,000 oil barrels to leak into the Mediterranean Sea. The report said that the UN wants Israel to compensate the countries harmed by the oil spill and restore the environmental situation along the Lebanon coast. The Jewish state has yet to respond to the demand, despite messages conveyed in August 2007. About half a year ago, new agencies reported that the German government granted Lebanon 4.5 million euros (about $6.4 million) to help finance environmental projects and damage restoration activities following the war.
Contact Dan Calic by email at calic@comcast.net
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HAMASISTAN WELCOMES THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF NEW JERSEY TO THE UMMAH
Posted by Michael Travis, September 5, 2008. |
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The ruling by a Newark court in favour of a known Hamas operative is being viewed as a great victory for those who would flood the United States with Islamic terrorists and their supporters. 
The article below is called "Terror claims against NJ Muslim leader
rejected" and was written by Samantha Henry. It appeared in
google news |
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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — An influential New Jersey Muslim leader accused by some federal officials of having terrorist ties but praised by others as being an important ally won his fight to gain permanent U.S. residency Thursday. A federal immigration judge in Newark ruled that Mohammad Qatanani, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, can remain in the U.S. The ruling brought cheers, tears and applause from about a dozen Qatanani supporters who gathered in the courtroom. "I would like to thank the judge for working hard in this case," Qatanani said. "This is a beautiful thing. The justice system in this country is great." U.S. immigration authorities had sought to deport Qatanani on grounds that he failed to disclose on his green card application a prior arrest and conviction in Israel for being a member of Hamas — a group classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Qatanani has denied being a Hamas member and said he was detained, not arrested, by the Israelis while traveling to his native West Bank in 1993. He said he was not notified of the charges against him or his conviction and that he was mentally and physically abused while in detention. In ruling for Qatanani, immigration Judge Alberto J. Riefkohl questioned the reliability of the records submitted by the Department of Homeland Security purporting to show Qatanani's arrest and conviction in Israel. The judge called the U.S. government's case against Qatanani "patently incomplete," and found its two key witnesses — both federal agents — to not be credible. Riefkohl also noted that Qatanani has received support from U.S. law enforcement officials. One supporter, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, was among several high-ranking law enforcement officials who attended a Ramadan fast-breaking celebration at the Paterson mosque. "My view is he's always had a very good relationship with us, and he's a man of great goodwill," Christie said Wednesday before exchanging traditional cheek-kiss greetings with Qatanani and wishing him well. Qatanani's lawyer, Claudia Slovinsky, said she hoped the ruling would send a message to government officials that they should not wield terrorism accusations lightly. "The government does not believe we can have a Muslim imam who truly is what he says and appears to be," she said. "In addition to being a well-deserved victory, it goes beyond Dr. Qatanani, because it tells the government our judicial system doesn't rely on prejudice and discrimination, as they have urged." Harold Ort, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said after the hearing that the government has not yet decided whether to appeal. The 44-year-old Palestinian has served as the imam, or Muslim religious leader, since 1996 at the mosque in Paterson, a city that is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the region. Thursday's decision means that Qatanani, his wife and their three foreign-born children are granted legal permanent U.S. residency and will eventually be eligible for American citizenship. His immigration fight garnered national attention for the unusual spectacle of high-ranking law enforcement officials taking the stand on his behalf. Christie, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., the special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office, county prosecutors, sheriffs and the director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security praised Qatanani and mosque members for helping to build bridges with law enforcement in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. During Qatanani's immigration hearing, Jewish, Catholic and Episcopalian leaders testified that they viewed him as a moderate Muslim leader dedicated to interfaith outreach. Hundreds of his supporters kept a vigil outside the courthouse during his trial, which began in early May. Qatanani emigrated from Jordan in 1996 on a religious worker visa to lead the New Jersey mosque. He applied for permanent U.S. residency in 1999 for himself, his wife and the three of their six children who were not born in America. In 2005, he initiated a meeting with immigration officials to inquire about the delay in his green card application, during which he told them about his detention in Israel. U.S. officials later received documents from Israel that claimed he had been arrested and convicted. Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sought to portray Qatanani as a terrorist-affiliated Muslim activist, quoting a sermon he gave at the Paterson mosque in which he called Israelis "transgressors" and questioning his ties to his brother-in-law, a convicted Hamas terrorist who was killed by the Israelis. Government lawyers also said Qatanani had been an outspoken university leader during his student days in Jordan. The judge found no credible evidence linking him to terrorism and wrote that family ties to a convicted terrorist do not make someone a terrorist. Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com |
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ENERGETIC INTERVENTION
Posted by Daily Alert, September 5, 2008. |
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This was written by Emanuele Ottolenghi
and it appeared today in Haaretz
Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi is executive director of the Transatlantic Institute, in Brussels. |
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The story broke in late July that the German company SPG (Steiner-Prematechnik-Gastec) had signed a 100-million euro deal with Iran to build three plants for compressed natural gas (CNG) production. There are three lessons to be learned from this tale: First, European technology remains indispensable for Iran, if it is to be able to exploit its energy reserves and become a regional superpower. Second, if economic sanctions against Iran were to include exports, investments and joint ventures in the energy field, it could have severe repercussions for Tehran. Finally, tougher sanctions against Iran are the only non-military way to pressure Tehran to renounce its nuclear ambitions. Today, Iran is feeling some heat due to a squeeze on its banking sector, a politically generated credit crunch and other restrictions against key regime officials. Political uncertainty and the unhealthy business environment have further discouraged foreign investment — with some oil giants having second thoughts about their Iran ventures. But UN-backed sanctions have crucially failed to target Iran's lucrative energy sector, and with Europe keen to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas, big energy interests may ignore the political side effects of their involvement in Iran. It is almost a cliche that Europe needs Iran's energy supplies. Among the top 10 countries importing Iranian oil are Italy, France and Greece. And its largely untapped natural gas reserves are a potential bonanza for European energy companies. But Iran needs Europe, too, being almost completely dependent on its technology and skills for the development of those same gas and oil riches. In the field of gas extraction, and export in particular, Iran would forever sit on an inaccessible treasure, were it not for European know-how — an expertise that Russia and China cannot currently match or replace. Hence, it is in the energy field, particularly natural gas, where European sanctions can make a difference, and squeeze Iran's regime where it hurts most. The SPG deal illustrates this very clearly. Iran possesses the second-largest known reserves of natural gas in the world (after Russia) — 26.4 trillion cubic meters, according to 2006 official estimates. Lack of suitably advanced extraction technology and the challenges posed by natural gas exports to faraway countries have so far meant that 62 percent of its reserves are not being exploited. Plans to develop three liquefaction plants are way behind schedule. Of those fields that are being exploited, 65 percent produce gas that goes mostly to domestic consumption, while 18 percent is re-injected into oil fields to maximize extraction and the remaining 17 percent is lost. Given the above, the potential for development and profit is immense. At the same time, Iran, an emerging economy whose population has nearly doubled in three decades, is still importing refined petroleum. Currently, it produces about 10.5 million gallons of gasoline a day but consumes 18.5 million — a whopping 43 percent of its consumption is imported. Iran rightly fears sanctions in this sector — and Western powers are seriously pondering the option — so to shield itself from pressure, it has adopted a three-part strategy: to expand refining capacity by building new refineries and upgrading existing ones; to guarantee imports of refined fuels from friendly countries like Venezuela and Indonesia, even by subsidizing new refineries there; and to introduce measures aimed at reducing consumption — including gasoline rationing, price controls and conversion of all of the country's cars from gasoline and diesel to CNG — the kind of fuel SPG is going to help produce. According to a study by Gal Luft, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, car conversion involves four phases: Convert existing cars to CNG within five years — 1.2 million cars per year, starting with 600,000 government vehicles; withdraw older cars (approximately 1.2 million) by 2010; produce new CNG-run cars (Iran is the leading car manufacturer in the Middle East); and make the country's 10,000 existing gas stations CNG-enabled within five years. By 2015, the plan is for most cars in Iran to run on natural gas — clean, environmentally friendly and locally produced. This would offer incredible long-term benefits. Iran's dependency on imported fuel would be a thing of the past, a top political and economic priority for the regime. Additionally, such a move would free almost half a million barrels of oil a day for export — at current prices, that would mean more than $17 billion a year of additional revenue. And it could not happen without SPG's planned plants. Iran's energy sector is like a dog biting its tail. Lack of modernization makes increase of production impossible; delays in both the construction of new refineries and the upgrading of existing ones, as well as the lack of development and exploitation of gas fields, all keep Iran dependent on imports. As long as Iran has to do it alone and lacks the technology, it will be vulnerable to external pressure — and as long as the best technology for these ventures comes from European companies like SPG, Europe is in a position to squeeze Tehran by denying it access to those lucrative deals that will ultimately make Iran achieve its goals and become the regional superpower it aspires to be. What are we waiting for?
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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FRANCE 1939; ISRAEL 2008
Posted by Hands Fiasco, September 5, 2008. |
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This was written by Professor Paul Eidelbert |
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On December 22, 1939, the French newspaper l'Epoque reported that Germany's agents of influence in France were engaged in a plot to convince Marshal Petain to accept the leadership of a government of national unity that included the most notorious French defeatists and quislings. The plotters wanted the aged Marshall to play unwittingly the role analogous to that of General Sivory in Czechoslovakia, opening the door to a Hitler in a moment of despondency. (Czechoslovakia, recall, was the victim of Chamberlain's policy of "territory for peace.") It so happens that Georges Mandel, French Minister of Interior and director of counter-espionage, was fully cognizant of Hitler's ambitions and of how his accomplices in France were plotting the country's downfall. On the eve of the French Government's enforced evacuation from Paris, and just prior to its conquest by the Germans on June 14, 1940, Mandel leveled a blistering indictment against France's political and military leadership as well as its intelligence services: "Worst of all, you didn't understand the one phenomenon you had to understand in order to save your country. You didn't understand Hitler. You didn't understand that he was planning total war. You never stopped to consider that total war is — total. That it really includes everything. You didn't see what was coming closer and closer. And we who did see were called hysterical." The parallel with Israel may appear striking. Recall how, in September 1993, the government led by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres opened the door to Hitler's successor, Yasser Arafat via the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement. Notice that Israel's military leaders and intelligence services passively adopted Oslo and the defeatist attitude of Israel's political Establishment. In the case of Israel, however, no intelligence services were necessary to see that Arafat was committed to this country's total destruction. He made this palpably clear, again, and again, and again. The same may be said his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the PLO-Palestinian Authority — who can hardly be called the "soft cop" vis-à-vis Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah. But Israel's ruling elites stubbornly refuse to see what any normal person could see in Arafat's and now Abbas's villainy. What blinded these elites — these nominal Jews? I will tell you via Max Nordau's 1896 book Degeneration. Nordau, a practicing psychiatrist as well as a social critic, regarded Europe as steeped in degeneration. This degeneration, he saw, was rooted in egoism on the one hand, and a lack of firm moral principles on the other. He noticed that degenerates tend to be moral relativists. They deny any objective standards of good and evil. Hence their egoism. It is egoism that prevents Israel's ruling elites from destroying the evil personified by the PLO-Palestinian Authority (or of Hamas). By definition, such egoists-cum-degenerates cannot wholeheartedly confront evil. Tainted by moral relativism, they are psychologically incapable of accepting moral responsibility for their failed policy of "territory for peace," which has resulted in the murder of some 1,600 Jews and the wounding of many thousands more. When asked by CNN how he feels about having supplied the Arabs with the guns being used to kill Jews, Shimon Peres replied with this idiocy: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." And why do Arabs kill Jews, Mr. Peres? Can it be because they are Jews? If the author of Oslo, now Israel's President — thanks to the votes of a degenerate Knesset — had a stitch of honor, he would have left the political arena long ago. Instead, he struts on the world stage as Israel's "elder statesman." The egoism of this guru is extraordinary. He repeatedly boasts we can learn nothing from history. Turning to Ehud Olmert, Israel's current Prime Minister, such is the height of his egoism (or shamelessness) that even if indicted for various criminal charges, the odds are he will remain in office and continue to disgrace himself as well as Israel. He once boasted he was tired of being courageous. Unfortunately, he is not tired of being Israel's Prime Minister. Another exemplar of egoism is Israel bungling Defense Minister General Ehud Barak, who once declared that had he been born an Arab, he too would be an Arab terrorist! What a role model for members of the Israel Defense Forces! How can this mindless relativist inspire Israel with patriotism and confidence in the justice of her cause? Let me say only this of Ariel Sharon. While Jews were being reduced to body parts, the former Prime Minister uttered this senseless piece of moral relativism: "my son Omni taught me not to think in terms of black and white." To those who study the history of ideas and of nations, it is clear that moral relativism undermined France. This doctrine flourishes in post-Christian Europe, now succumbing to Islam. It flourishes in Israeli as well as in American universities. It heralds the end of Western civilization. And yet, if any country can overcome this subversive doctrine it is Israel, thanks to the Torah education of an increasing percentage of Israel's Jewish population. Therein is the reason for Israel's rebirth. Once again, it is Israel's task to save mankind from barbarism. Contact Hands Fiasco at handsfiasco@webtv.net |
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WHO WAS HARRY BINGHAM, AND WHY IS HE GETTING A STAMP?
Posted by GWY, September 5, 2008. |
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Just an interesting piece of evidence of the curious behavior of the Roosevelt administration toward the Jews during WWII — A few months ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a posthumous award for 'constructive dissent' to Hiram (or Harry) Bingham, IV. For over fifty years, the State Department resisted any attempt to honor Bingham. For them he was an insubordinate member of the US diplomatic service, a dangerous maverick who was eventually demoted. Now, after his death, he has been officially recognized as a hero. Bingham came from an illustrious family. His father (on whom the fictional character Indiana Jones was based) was the archeologist who unearthed the Inca City of Machu Picchu, Peru, in 1911. Harry entered the US diplomatic service and, in 1939, was posted to Marseilles, France, as American Vice-Consul. The USA was then neutral and, not wishing to annoy Marshal Petain's puppet Vichy regime, President Roosevelt's government ordered its representatives in Marseilles not to grant visas to any Jews. Bingham found this policy immoral and, risking his career, did all in his power to undermine it. In defiance of his bosses in Washington, he granted over 2,500 USA visas to Jewish and other refugees, including the artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst and the family of the writer Thomas Mann. He also sheltered Jews in his Marseilles home, and obtained forged identity papers to help Jews in their dangerous journeys across Europe. He worked with the French underground to smuggle Jews out of France into Franco's Spain or a cross the Mediterranean and even contributed to their expenses out of his own pocket. In 1941, Washington lost patience with him. He was sent to Argentina, where later he continued to annoy his superiors by reporting on the movements of Nazi war criminals. Eventually, he was forced out of the American diplomatic service completely. Bingham died almost penniless in 1988. Little was known of his extraordinary activities until his son found some letters in his belongings after his death. He has now been honored by many groups and organizations including the United Nations and the State of Israel ... PLEASE honor his memory & resend this. Contact GWY at GWY123@aol.com |
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PALIN MAY BE ISRAEL'S BEST FRIEND EVER
Posted by Chuck Brooks, September 5, 2008. |
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This comes from the Iris Organization
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I'm going to go out on a limb here an hour before Sarah Palin's convention speech with a speculative contrarian prediction. Sarah Palin will be Israel's best friend since the founding of the state. But what about the aspersions so far by Jewish leaders? That she knows not a single prominent Jew outside of Alaska? That she is allegedly a Pat Buchanan supporter? That she has never been to Israel? That she has never spoken out about Israel? That she has demonstrated no interest in world affairs at all? The Buchanan smear is false. The rest is largely irrelevant. Sarah Palin has not engaged in the typical politician's "I love Israel" pretense because she isn't a phoney. Both Obama and Biden have done that (as well as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) despite ample evidence that they are supportive of the Palestinian dagger aimed at Israel's heart. There are two major American ideological groups who take the seemingly illogical Israeli side against a billion anti-Semitic Muslims: political conservatives and evangelicals. Take Mike Huckabee, for example. He proposed a Palestinian state — in Saudi Arabia. Tom Delay spoke in favor of transferring hostile Arabs out of Israel. Palin is committed to both camps. Jewish Zionists often miss this obvious strategic point because of their liberal ideological blinders. Palin's support can be seen in the Israeli flag spotted in her office during an unrelated video interview. Yesterday, she met privately with AIPAC to talk about her beliefs regarding Israel and AIPAC confirmed that she is unquestionably supportive. On the topic of speculative predictions, here are some others, based on studying her record as the most popular governor in the country and watching videos of her. Prediction: Sarah Palin's speech tonight will be wildly successful. Prediction: The conservative movement will respond to her more enthusiastically than any politician since Reagan. Prediction: Because of this, the biased mainstream media will attempt to 'Bork' her and may indeed succeed. Prediction: Palin will defeat Biden in the Vice President debates in terms of popular opinion, but the mainstream media will declare Biden the winner. Prediction: If the media is not successful in derailing her through underhanded smears, Palin will be the next Republican president and will turn out to be a great one. Prediction: Because of her highly pro-Israel ideology, her once-in-a-lifetime talent and her track record for putting her beliefs ahead of her personal popularity, she will turn out to be Israel's best friend since the founding of the state. Update: First prediction confirmed. Palin's speech tonight was one of the best ever delivered at a convention. The second prediction is well on its way to fruition — that she is the conservative heir to Reagan. For anyone interested in tracking these predictions, note that today's betting line on "Intrade" is 59.9 Obama vs. 39.8 McCain. It was also revealed that at the time this prediction was written, many reporters were asking Republican delegates if they favored the "Eagelton option," i.e. rescinding the Palin nomination. Contact Chuck Brooks at chetz18@aol.com |
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AP AND REUTERS: WHAT THEY DON'T TELL US
Posted by Barry Rubin, September 5, 2008. |
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In the olden days, when night watchmen patrolled the streets of towns, they had a standard chant: "Ten o'clock and all is well!" Sleep soundly; nothing's wrong. Each week, when I start to write this column I hope to be able to do the equivalent. I could just write one sentence: "This week, the stories are fairly and accurately reported so there's nothing to write about." Unfortunately, for your reading time, my workload, and the state of the world, each week there is indeed something to write about. Alas, such is true this week. Increasingly, print media coverage comes from Associated Press and Reuters as newspapers close down costly foreign bureaus. This should be good news since these two wire services are supposed to be fair, objective, and balanced — even bland — in their presentation of events. At times in the past they have been biased against Israel, though not all the time by any means and also aware that it was not right to slant their coverage slow. Like Adam and Eve, driven from the Garden of Eden, they knew their nakedness and were ashamed. Nowadays, however, both shame and restraint are gone. Many articles — again not all — are extraordinarily biased. For this to happen requires several things: * The reporters know they will not be punished for doing so, either by verbal criticism, a slowing of their career rise, or firing. Of course, they will say that this is all nonsense and they do a very good job, thank you very much. The problem, however, is that it is so ridiculously easy to show this isn't true that it is hard to believe that the evidence will not persuade at least those outside these organizations that the case is proven. One of the most common patterns, presented repeatedly in my columns on AP, is the presentation of the Palestinian but not the Israeli side. A second is to give Israelis who oppose their country's policy and support Palestinian positions more space than the Israeli government and mainstream view. A third is to blame Israel for problems but not the Palestinians, or at least not the Palestinian Authority or Fatah. It is permissible to criticize Hamas. Among the most frequent abuses is to say what the Palestinians want but not what Israel needs; to stress alleged Israeli failures to meet commitments but not even to mention — even as issues raised — Palestinian failures. Consider Mark Lavie, "Palestinians reject Israel's offer on interim peace plan," September 1, 2008. It is true that the lead attributes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's rejection of Israel's idea for an interim peace agreement as "insisting on an all-or-nothing approach that virtually ruled out an accord by a January target date." Yet this is more than made up for by the space given for Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat to explain his side's position: "We want an agreement to end the [Israeli] occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital." What does Israel want? We don't know. We could be told: a permanent end to the conflict, incitement, and terrorism along with security guarantees for a starter. One might add border modifications or other things. But I literally cannot remember ever seeing such a passage. We are told: "Officials in Olmert's office said Israel has proposed giving the Palestinians all of Gaza, 93 percent of the West Bank along with Israeli land equivalent to 5.5 percent of the West Bank, as well as a land corridor through Israel to link the two territories. The Palestinians have said that offer is unacceptable."But we are not told what the Palestinians offered Israel. There is, however, room for two paragraphs of Palestinian complaints: "....The Palestinians complain bitterly about continued Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, despite an Israeli pledge to halt the building as part of a 2003 peace plan that still serves as the framework for negotiations. Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo called settlement construction "the most critical issue that threatens the whole peace process now." The Palestinians accuse Israel of swallowing up West Bank land that they claim for their state. Israel counters that it is not expanding settlements; rather, it is building inside settlement blocs it plans to keep in a final peace accord. Does Israel have complaints? Do Israelis accuse the Palestinians of doing anything? The rest is silence. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle-East (Wiley). |
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UNESCO, PLO RECOGNIZE JERUSALEM AS AN ARAB CAPITAL
Posted by David Bedein, September 5, 2008. |
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Jerusalem — Contrary to a common assumption that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its administrative arm, the Palestinian Authority (PA), demand "East Jerusalem" as a future capital for a nation state of Palestine, they actually want all of Jerusalem. This year, what some are seeing as a symbolic step toward this aim was decidedly taken. In tandem with United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the PA and PLO have decided to recognize Jerusalem as "the capital of Arab culture" for 2009. UNESCO is working with Palestinian Authority officials and key Israeli Arab figures in Israel to organize celebrations and turn them into a huge event against what they describe as the Israeli occupation of "Holy Jerusalem." As with everything in the Holy Land, their reasons have history behind them. The Palestinians demand stems from the fact that 16 neighborhoods in West Jerusalem are constructed in place of pre-1948 Arab neighborhoods from which the Arabs fled during the 1948 war. The consistent term used today in the Arabic language for the Jerusalem aspirations of the Palestinians is "al-Quds A Sharif" — holy Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem — not only East Jerusalem Since 1996, the title "capital of Arab culture" has been accorded by the Arab bloc in UNESCO to one of the capitals in the Arab world. This year, for example, Damascus, capital of Syria, was given the coveted title, and last year Algiers, capital of Algeria, received it. Other cities that received the title over the years were Cairo, Tunis, Amman, Beirut and Khartoum. Jerusalem is the latest chosen to bear the prestigious title and now PA officials and prominent leaders the Arab population in Israel are preparing to turn the title into a symbol of the battle against Israeli control of Jerusalem. The basis for cooperation between the PA and members of the Arab population in Israel was laid over the weekend in Shfaram, where a meeting took place between PA representatives and the Arab population, to discussion preparations for the events associated with the title to be granted to Jerusalem. One of the participants at the meeting with the PA representatives was Amir Mahoul, the chairman of Ittijah-the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, the umbrella organization of the Arab NPOs in Israel and the chairman of a "committee for the defense of freedoms." Mr. Mahoul, said that he believed that Israel would try to create difficulties for the events that will take place in the framework of the declaration that "the capital of Arab culture" is Jerusalem. "We expect Israel will make things difficult for us and this is a fact that we will take into account, and over which we will battle the Israeli occupation authorities," said Mr. Mahoul. Mr. Mahoul stressed that he and the PA plan to turn the events associated with the title into a campaign against the occupation of Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. "This will be an event symbolizing the battle against the occupation, beyond the historical and cultural value of Jerusalem," he explained. "We will stress that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestinian-Arab culture, which is under occupation, and Israel should realize that every time there is a battle over Jerusalem, it loses." In contrast to Mr. Mahoul, the secretary general of Mada, the Arab Democratic Party Mahmoud Mawasi, said that the purpose of the events was to raise awareness of the Arabic and Islamic past of Jerusalem and not necessarily to create friction with the Israeli establishment. "We don't want to clash with the establishment," he said, "rather our intention is to celebrate the fact that Jerusalem was for many years the center of Arab and Islamic culture." Although it is widely assumed that the Western nations recognize Israel's sovereignty in Western Jerusalem, that assumption is not correct. No member state of the United Nations maintains an embassy in Jerusalem. Every nation in the world, except for Israel, list birth certificates of their nationals who were born in Jerusalem as having been born in Jerusalem, with no listing of the country of birth. That includes the United States. David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency.
(http://Israelbehindthenews.com). He is president of
Center for Near East Policy Research.
Contact him by email at media@actcom.co.il
This appeared yesterday in The Bulletin (Philadelphia)
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ISRAEL DEMORALIZES SECURITY FORCES; HALKIN'S NOTIONS ON PRISONER
EXCHANGE LOPSIDED; PROXY WARFAR
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 5, 2008. |
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WATCHING THE WATCHERS A leftist organization of female checkpoint watchers claims to safeguard Arab rights. Actually, they harass border guards attempting to safeguard Israelis. They got one officer to order his troops not to search an Arabs wearing a jacket on a hot day, perhaps covering a bomb. Now some right-wingers have organized to encourage checkpoint guards to fulfill their duties without fear of harassment. They will photograph and publicize the checkpoint watchers' harassment of troops (Arutz-7, 8/18). The Israeli troops have learned to act professionally and courteously. The government would have it no other way. The government tries to make comfortable and speed along the Arabs wishing to pass through. There is no legitimate need for the leftist checkpoint watchers. I find that the rights in jeopardy are Jewish rights, jeopardized by leftist tolerance for anti-Zionist Arabs. ISRAEL DEMORALIZES SECURITY FORCES. Special security forces work long and hard to protect Israelis. Terrorists who place bombs get sentences of 10 years, but may be released by the government after 3. This demoralizes the security forces. Where is the deterrent against terrorism, they ask? What was the point of apprehending terrorists who get early release? They may return to terrorism and recruit new terrorists (IMRA, 8/18). FOUNDATIONS HONOR THE UNDESERVING Here's another example. The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity is awarding its annual prize to France's Pres. Sarkozy. It cites his "efforts to support war-torn countries," to improve American-French relations, and his support of Israel. Past recipients include Oprah Winfrey, Laura Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and King Juan Carlos of Spain (NY Sun, 8/20, p.3). Would the Foundation have chosen someone else this year, if Sarkozy had sold Georgia down the river before rather than after the announcement of the award? Probably not. Sarkozy helped make Assad of Syria seem respectable. Sarkozy's policy towards Israel: Let Israel make dangerous concessions to the jihadist enemy. Right after Arafat's wife defamed Israel, Hillary Clinton hugged her. Oprah Winfrey says ignorant things against Israel and in behalf of the vicious Palestinian Arabs. King Juan Carlos leads secret diplomacy for the Vatican against Jerusalem. I think that foundations name such prominent people in order to seem important. The foundations don't understand the issues. EVEN A CHILD WOULD KNOW BETTER THAN HALKIN Hillel Halkin pointed out the counter-productivity of lopsided prisoner exchanges between Israel and the Arabs. He did not mention that releases restore the ranks of terrorists, confirm terrorist ideology, and demoralize security forces. He said that after the next trade, expected to be for the remaining Israeli held by the Muslims, Israel should declare an end to lopsided deals. Instead, it should say that for every week that the enemy holds an Israeli prisoner, Israel would capture another terrorist. After a couple of tests of Israeli resolve, assuming that Israel has resolve, the Arabs would find that capturing Israelis doesn't pay (NY Sun, 8/19, Op.-Ed.). He means that they would not concentrate on it as the major way to rebuild their forces. As children, we learned that when told not to do something, and we violated the rule, we would get another chance. If Mr. Halkin wants to prevent kidnapping of Israelis, his inviting another Arab test would not do it. The way to stop it is to refuse a lopsided trade for the Israeli now held. Capturing a terrorist each week that the Muslims hold an Israeli captive would not daunt the terrorists. Israel now captures some every day, so what is one more a week? Executing a few a week would daunt the terrorists, though it would excite the phony humanitarians, unconcerned about justice and, indeed, always willing to condemn Israel for self-defense and not the Arabs for aggression. It wouldn't be enough for Israel to demonstrate resolve over prisoners. Israeli diplomacy lacks resolve for everything else. PM Olmert is tossing around concessions and offers of territory and sovereignty to its genocidal enemies, while for years vowing falsely, almost daily, to invade Gaza. The Arabs won't believe any new threat. That is why Israel should refuse to make a lopsided trade for the current captive. Nor is refusal, alone, enough. It would have to start the executions, to show it is serious. Nor is that enough. It would have to show what is wrong with the enemy, what is right about its policies, and what is legal about its policies. LABELS SET THE TONE "Peace Activists To Land Boats In Gaza." (NY Sun, 8/19, p.5, headline.) The NY Times referred to "rights" activists four times in a short piece (8/24, p.16). What do they mean, "peace activists?" The ships are being used in support of the aggressor in a war of religious genocide. Eradicating terrorists and reforming Islam would bring peace. That the so-called humanitarians don't suggest. Mislabeling supports aggression. What does that do to innocents' human rights? IMPERIALISM BACK Russia is displaying deceitful imperialism in Georgia. It shouldn't have been surprising. Russia has been shutting off oil deliveries to European customers for political purposes, and has made clear its return to Soviet ways. The West did not want to believe it, so it didn't oppose it. It can't be denied, now. One would expect, after decades of false accusations of American imperialism, some of the indignation to spill over onto Russia for actual imperialism. I don't see that happening. Was the indignation over imperialism ever sincere, or just a phony excuse for blaming America? Remember which country led the accusations? USSR, the most imperialist power, after the Arabs. For those super-patriots unaware of US history, the US did have a brief imperialist period, more or less culminating in the Spanish-American War. The US still holds some booty from that war, Puerto Rico. UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES OF FREEING TERRORISTS New estimates of the percent of released terrorists have risen from 20% to 50%. The number of subsequent murders committed by released terrorists outweighs by far the number of Israelis released in exchange. The hundreds of Israelis subsequently murdered and the thousands wounded are a significant victory for terrorism. The notion that releasing terrorists produces goodwill should be questioned along the lines of, "What goodwill is it that leads to thousands of additional casualties?" Lopsided exchanges have another unforeseen consequence. At first, Israel released minor participants in terrorism. That leaves a higher proportion of terrorist experts and leaders. Now these more hardened ones are being released, despite mendacious Israeli talk about not releasing those "with blood on their hands." The proportion of released terrorists returning to terrorism will rise, because terrorism is their profession. The casualties they inflict also will rise, because they are more adept. PROXY WARFARE AGAINST ISRAEL Iran and Syria build up proxy armies against Israel via Hizbullah and Hamas and even Fatah. The proxies consume Israeli resources, leaving Iran and Syria unharmed. Israel blundered in letting the proxies build up, rather than attacking their supplies and suppliers. Evil must be met with courage, an age-old story. 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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NATURE GUIDE
Posted by Fred Reifenberg, September 5, 2008. |
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Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il.
See more of his artwork at
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A ZIONIST EARTHQUAKE
Posted by Michael Freund, September 4, 2008. |
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This week, a historic development took place when the Jewish Agency, the quasi-governmental body that has been in charge of immigration to Israel for nearly eight decades, ceded control over North American aliyah to Nefesh B'Nefesh, a privately-run non-profit group. As I suggest in the column below from the Jerusalem Post, this move was a victory for private initiative, and a refreshing shift in the balance between overbearing bureaucracy and energetic entrepreneurship. It was a Zionist earthquake, and it could prove to be a test case for other areas of government responsibility, many of which can and should be devolved to the private sector. Comments and feedback may be sent to: letters@jpost.com or to me directly. thanks, Michael Freund |
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If you listened carefully on Sunday, you could hear the ground shake under the corner of King George Avenue and Rehov Keren Kayemet in Jerusalem. It was there, at the headquarters of the Jewish Agency, that a revolution took place, one that could prove to be a milestone in the history of aliya and absorption. After years of dispute, the Agency finally agreed to cede control over the promotion of aliya from the United States and Canada to the wildly-successful private organization Nefesh B'Nefesh. The group, headed by a dynamic young rabbi named Yehoshua Fass, has single-handedly transformed the aliya experience for thousands of North Americans in recent years, making it more accessible, user friendly and comprehensible. Harnessing the Internet, advanced marketing techniques and some good, old fashioned Zionist enthusiasm, Nefesh B'Nefesh long ago outstripped the aliya bureaucracy, making much of it painfully obsolete. As a result, after nearly 80 years in which the Jewish Agency has essentially been the one and only address for Jewish immigration, the monopoly has now been broken. If there were a Richter scale to measure earthquakes in the Jewish world, this one would surely have sent the needle flying off the seismograph. Under the new arrangement, the Jewish Agency will still retain control over determining the eligibility of prospective new immigrants and the opening of files with the relevant government ministries. But nearly all other aspects of the process will be handled by Nefesh B'Nefesh, making it the main interface for American and Canadian Jews interested in moving to the Jewish state. This constitutes a remarkable blow to the Jewish Agency and signifies that the body is fast undergoing a historic makeover, one that will forever change the face of the "national institutions" of the Jewish people.
INTERESTINGLY, THE deal was publicized precisely one year to the day since the cabinet approved a precedent-setting decision granting funds to private, independently-run organizations that promote aliya. In retrospect, that decision, which benefited groups such as Nefesh B'Nefesh and its French equivalent, AMI, signified the beginning of the end for the traditional role of the Jewish Agency, a process that gained further steam with the latest announcement. But it would be wrong to think that we are necessarily witnessing the demise of the Agency or its degeneration into irrelevance. It is simply undergoing major changes as priorities shift and funds become tighter, and it will have to reinvent itself to endure. No doubt there are those who cringe at the thought that the Agency will lose its exclusivity in the realm of aliya, and in the days to come we are likely to see much hand-wringing over this development. But times have changed, and bureaucracies are notoriously bad at keeping up. And that is what has enabled Nefesh B'Nefesh to be so successful at what it does, because it is an ideologically-motivated entrepreneur rather than a staid branch of the establishment. Like any private sector initiative, its newness and freshness is its strength, as it is not burdened by mounds of red tape, political infighting or any of the other elements so common at long-standing institutions. This latest earthquake may have shaken the Jewish Agency building, but it didn't knock it down. Out of adversity comes opportunity, and this tremor is no different. With its brand name and decades of experience, the Jewish Agency is perfectly positioned to serve as the umbrella body uniting all aliya-oriented groups while continuing to provide a range of critical services. If the Agency seizes upon this niche and embraces it, forging additional arrangements and working hand-in-hand with private Jewish groups across a range of fields, it could emerge as a leaner, more focused and more effective force.
INDEED, WHAT makes this development so exciting is that it could prove to be a test case for other key fields of government responsibility. Just consider the possibilities. Areas from hasbara abroad to promoting road safety at home would benefit immensely if they too were semi- or fully-privatized while continuing to operate under official direction and guidance. This would bring new savings, and new energy, to a range of moribund efforts and boost their effectiveness beyond recognition. As Ronald Reagan once pointed out, "Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector." That is true of trade and industry, and it is no less true for aliya or Jewish education. So let's hope that the Zionist earthquake now under way will continue to shake things up, and that in its wake will come a new, more exciting order. Michael Freund served as an adviser to former Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu.
This article appeared today in the Jerusalem Post and is archived at
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FROM ISRAEL: HOPE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 4, 2008. |
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Yes, hope. I didn't realize how hungry for it I was, how bereft of it I felt, until today... I sit here, along with many others, and I watch how the world has been turning, and how the bad guys are gaining traction, and there is a small wedge of terror in my heart. I go about my business as if it weren't there. But the flicker of hope that rose up in me today reminded me of its presence, and of how serious are the issues we all face. Many Americans are also hungry for hope. That's why they've latched on to Barack Obama with such passion. He promises hope. But his promises are cheap and without substance. Many facts have been presented in these postings — carefully documented facts — that demonstrate his weaknesses and the problems inherent in his candidacy. But now it must be said outright: The hope Obama promises is no more than vacuous, elitist egotism. There's no substance, no constancy to the man, and certainly no ability to stand strong before our enemies. ("Our" enemies: the enemies of Israel and the US are one and the same.) Barack Obama terrifies me. ~~~~~~~~~~ So, why do I feel a flicker of hope now? Because I listened to Gov. Sarah Palin's speech accepting the Republican nomination as vice president — found on the Internet at http://www.gopconvention2008.com/videos/. And I was blown away. Because she's genuine and gusty, and she has values. And she talks about putting the country first. So, I say to myself, maybe a McCain-Palin win is a possibility. Maybe the US won't implode into a shivering mass of appeasement after all. Maybe there will be a US administration that will stop pressuring us to give away half our land to a bunch of terrorists, and will mean what it says to Iran. Maybe... There is my hope. ~~~~~~~~~~ Let us move for a moment from the usual topics discussed here to abortion — since many people seem to think that McCain-Palin are unacceptable because of their pro-life stand. Liberals — who are Obama supporters — are pro-choice. But a solid case can be made for the position that "choice" is not a valid option — a women cannot blithely dispose of the growing life inside her just because it doesn't suit her to have a baby. Jewish law (halachha) certainly does not acknowledge a woman's right in this respect. There are situations in which abortions are appropriate — cases of rape, incest, emotional or physical inability of the mother to cope (and indeed the rabbis find ways to address these instances). What is being said is that the McCain-Palin stand permits no abortions at all. But that beats Obama's position by a great deal. It was Michael Gerson, writing in The Washington Post a few months ago who called Obama's abortion stand "extreme." Obama opposed the legal ban on partial-birth abortions. Imagine: partially delivering a fetus — a fetus close to being or perhaps already viable — and then inserting something sharp into its brain to destroy it. This is OK so that a woman can have a choice? Forgive me, this is a moral obscenity. Saying it's very rarely done excuses nothing. "And in the Illinois State Senate, [Obama] opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion." How close to infanticide does it get? It moved me today, to see Sarah Palin's husband cradling their baby son, while Sarah spoke about the unique joys and challenges of their special needs (Downs) child, the child she refused to abort. This speaks to me of character. Just as it speaks to me of character that John and Cindy McCain adopted a Bengali baby with a severe cleft palate from Mother Theresa's orphanage. Maybe that's another source of my hope. There's been such a paucity of character in our leaders. Please, see Jeff Jacoby's piece, "A stark choice on abortion":
~~~~~~~~~~ More about Obama. Journalist Kenneth Timmerman has just written that as a young man Obama was assisted by Khalid al-Mansour, who is "well known within the black community as a lawyer, an orthodox Muslim, a black nationalist, an author, an international deal-maker, an educator, and an outspoken enemy of Israel." At the time that al-Mansour sought to give a boost to Obama, he was serving as an advisor to Saudi billionaires Abdul Aziz and Khalid al-Ibrahim, as well as to Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the nephew of King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia.
Why would al-Mansour have been interested promoting Barack Hussein Obama? I suggest that most Americans haven't a clue who Obama really is or what he stands for. ~~~~~~~~~~ It's another flicker of hope I felt on reading news about Olmert today. This is a negative hope (is there such a thing?): The hope that we may soon be done with him, at long last. Things have dragged on so long that the end, when it comes, will be almost anti-climactic. The evidence on Olmert with regard to at least three different cases — it's not just the Talansky case — are being consolidated by the police in the National Fraud Unit, who met today to discuss it. Within a week the decision as to whether to indict will be sent to the State Prosecutor, though it seems an indictment wouldn't actually be filed until late October, after the Holidays It is my impression that if he were indicted he would be expected to step down — even if a new government had not yet been formulated. ~~~~~~~~~~ Syria's President Assad has announced that talks with Israel have been postponed because Olmert's aide, Yoram Turbowitz, who was heading up the indirect negotiations with Syria has resigned. A strange story here: he resigned but has offered to continue to do the negotiations on a volunteer basis. No, says Attorney General Mazuz, he has to be paid. Why does it matter? A volunteer has less accountability. Need more be said? ~~~~~~~~~~ According to Assad, the up-coming fifth round of indirect talks, with Turkey as go-between, is supposed to lead to direct talks. He says he has now submitted proposals for peace to Israel. There's a trap here, though. Assad is eager for international involvement in and support on these talks because then the international community would "make sure" that Olmert's successor followed down the same negotiating path. Allegedly, Olmert has agreed to give up the Golan Heights for peace. This man cannot be gone fast enough. ~~~~~~~~~~ When MKs questioned him yesterday about Olmert's legitimate use of power — since he has already committed to resigning — Attorney General Mazuz replied that the government has characteristic in common with a transitional government. The government is not formally transitional, as a new government is not being formed nor are we in the period before [announced] elections. However, decisions from the High Court regarding transitional governments elections should serve as guidelines here: "...one the one hand, the government must provide stability and continuity so that there is no government vacuum. On the other hand, it must show restraint in applying its powers...[and] the government and its ministers must show restraint in applying their prerogatives regarding matters where there is no special, urgent need for taking action during the transitional period." At this time, Olmert certainly has no business making promises to Syria that might have the effect of pushing his successor in a particular direction. ~~~~~~~~~~ Olmert is allowing himself to be used by Assad, who is seeking a way out of his isolation. Mere hours after making statements about peace with Israel, Assad was interviewed on Al Manar TV in Lebanon. He said: "Syria has no interest in relinquishing its ties with Hezbollah. The Syrian stance towards Hezbollah remains unchanged.... Our attitude towards the resistance is clear wherever it may be; against the occupation in Iraq, Lebanon or Palestine." As to negotiations with Israel, well, that was being done "in order to serve our own interests and not in order to give away any gifts." If the present government moves to do any further negotiating with Syria, with Turbowitz or anyone else, it's even more obtuse and destructive than it has currently shown itself to be. ~~~~~~~~~~ In a press conference yesterday, Riad al-Malki, PA Foreign Minister, declared that there has been no agreement between Israel and the PA on the smaller issues, never mind the core issues. He says not a word has been committed to paper. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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IF I FORGET THEE, OH EAST JERUSALEM...
Posted by Moshe Phillips, September 4, 2008. |
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"My Heart is in the East" — Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (1075 — 1141) Reading the term "East Jerusalem" in two different publications by two different authors on the same day caused this writer to pause. After all, "East Jerusalem" does not actually exist. At least not yet. After all, "East Jerusalem" is what the Bible means when it refers to Jerusalem. Writing in The Bulletin, a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, David Bedein surprisingly used the term "East Jerusalem" while reporting on U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's negative remarks regarding housing starts in Jewish neighborhoods ("Jewish Settlements") in an August 28, 2008 news article. More alarming was Gershom Gorenberg's article in the August/September 2008 issue of Hadassah Magazine where he used the term "East Jerusalem" five times. Once he even used the unabashed propaganda term "Arab East Jerusalem". It is worth noting that Hadassah Hospital's Mount Scopus facility and the adjoining Hebrew University are in what is claimed by the Arabs as "East Jerusalem". Gorenberg is a monthly columnist for Hadassah Magazine and he has no place in the house publication of the largest Zionist membership organization in the world. Words, and especially names, have meaning. Especially in the Middle East. Now, Bedein probably made a careless error. Gorenberg obviously chose to use the words of Israel's enemies. So, just what is "East Jerusalem" and why is adding the word "East" to describe part of Judaism's holiest city and Israel's capital of any serious magnitude? East and West in Israel are not simple geographic terms as they are in the U.S. Northeast Philadelphia, the Upper East Side in Manhattan and East L.A. are used to denote neighborhoods and sections of a city. In Israel, where Judea and Samaria have been labeled as the West Bank, things are different. The term West Bank was created by Arab propagandists to de-emphasize the area's inherent Jewishness and to disassociate the land from the State of Israel. East Jerusalem was similarly invented. What is "East Jerusalem"? According to Wikipedia: "East Jerusalem refers to the part of Jerusalem captured by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and subsequently by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. It includes Jerusalem's Old City and some of the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, such as the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher." So, "East Jerusalem" is Jerusalem's Old City and its surrounding neighborhoods. The original and oldest parts of Jerusalem are in this "East Jerusalem". There has never been in history an independent municipal entity known as "East Jerusalem". And, for the record, there has never been an independent national entity known as Palestine... When anti-Israel extremists created the term "East Jerusalem" it was for one reason. They wanted to rip Israel's capital apart in order to defeat Israel. This effort tragically gained full force with the Oslo Accords. This was fully explained in the B'tzedek Online Journal on December 30, 1996 in the editorial titled "The War Has Just Begun": "The Oslo Accords are indeed the fulfillment of the PLO "salami" strategy. That is to say, Israel shall be destroyed not through overt military action of Arab nations, but through the whittling away of Israeli resolve and slow but determined territorial expansion of a Palestinian state. Slice by slice Israel will be carved away by the knife of terrorism and world opinion, both deftly handled by the Israeli created Palestinian entity." The very name Jerusalem means city of peace, city of completeness and city of perfection. This was something that Bible believing Americans of all faiths in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were taught. See Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's) and Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) for more on the fascinating derivation of Jerusalem. A Jerusalem that is not complete is just not Jerusalem. American policy on Jerusalem has veered horribly off course. The late Senator Jesse Helms wrote in 1996 that "Israel is the only nation in the world denied the right to choose its own capital. This second class citizenship among nations must end". Recent news reports have indicated that this process of dismembering Jerusalem is now being encouraged and directed by Condoleezza Rice. "Aaron Klein, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for WorldNetDaily.com, reveals that multiple reports on Thursday in official Palestinian Authority media outlets insist that ... Rice pressed Israel in her visit here earlier this week to sign a document that would divide Jerusalem by the end of the year." (Arutz Sheva, Sept. 2, 2008) When the Jewish People begin the Hebrew month of Elul (this year on September 1) and usher in the High Holiday season the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem is decidedly prominent. Every weekday during morning prayer services the ram's horn is sounded and Psalm 27 with its many references to Jerusalem's Holy Temple is recited. The main focus of the liturgy of Yom Kippur is the recitation of the description the sacrificial offerings that were made on Yom Kippur when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem. The most dramatic part of the Yom Kippur prayer services occurs at the close of the day, just as the final service comes to an end. The conclusion of this most sacred day on the Jewish calendar is announced by a single, long clear note is sounded on the shofar. The congregation then responds: "Next year in Jerusalem!" After Yom Kippur the shofar will not be sounded in synagogues again until next Elul. Until the shofar is sounded next year all friends of Israel must work to make certain that Jerusalem will remain Israel's undivided capital forever. Hopefully one day soon the dangerous fiction of "East Jerusalem" will be something that only extremists give voice to. Moshe Phillips is a member of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel — AFSI. The chapter's website is at: www.phillyafsi.com and Moshe's blog can be found at http://phillyafsi.blogtownhall.com |
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JUDENREIN IN JERUSALEM
Posted by Hillel Fendel, September 4, 2008. |
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Wednesday night: Police arrested seven Jews, evicted 30 others, and uprooted 30 fruit trees from Jewish property in eastern Jerusalem — while allowing an Arab squatter to remain there. The property is located just outside Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, towards Maaleh Adumim. Aryeh King, an activist working to ensure that Jewish lands in the capital remain Jewish, said he spent the night there together with several dozen friends. The would-be residents have named the area Shaar HaMizrach, Gate of the East. "The property is registered in the land registry (tabu) as belonging to a Jew," King said afterwards, "just like any other Jewish property in any other part of Jerusalem. It is defined as agricultural property, on which it is permitted to live. Yet this morning, Border Guard police and regular police arrived and threw us off the property, and also uprooted the fruit trees that we planted — while at the same time, they allow an Arab squatter to remain on the property." This was the second attempt to settle the area in the past month, and King says a third attempt will be made in the coming days. "We will not rest nor remain silent until we are allowed to live here," King promises. "The police in this case are simply a tool in the hands of a small politician named Avi Dichter [the Minister for Public Security, who oversees the police — ed.], who has simply decided to close off a part of Jerusalem to Jews. There must be a public outcry, by the mayor, and the mayoral candidates, and everyone to whom Jerusalem is precious." "If we don't stop this now, then it can happen to any other part of eastern Jerusalem very soon," King warns. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor for Arutz-Sheva (www.Israel National News.com). |
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ISRAEL TRYING TO SELF-DESTRUCT?; RELEASED TERRORIST RECAPTURED; OLMERT PROPOSES TO DIVIDE JERUSALEM
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 4, 2008. |
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ISRAEL TRYING EVERYTHING TO SELF-DESTRUCT? Finance Min. Bar-On said that the government should reduce its military budget in order to boost welfare payments. Meretz MK Beilin depicted increased social spending a matter of internal national security; Vice-PM Ramon depicted the defense budget reduction a matter of fewer unnecessary tanks and planes. Referring to poor IDF performance in Lebanon, a committee on the defense budget "cited the deterioration in equipment stocks, a decrease in regular forces' training, and the decrease in the fighting ability of elite combat units, all of which 'were a direct result of the cut in defense budgets during those same years.'" Defense Min. Barak said Israel needs the funds to ward off Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, and Hamas (IMRA, 8/16). Not just tanks and planes nor unnecessary. Former Finance Min. Netanyahu, under PM Sharon, made the previous, major reductions in defense spending. It boosted his economy the way Pres. Clinton's defense cuts boosted the US economy, but left us unequal to military challenges. UNIFIL'S SELF-ASSESSMENT "Successful" and stabilizing, crowed Gen. Graziani, citing compliments from Lebanon and Israel. [Just flattery.] UNIFIL, helped by the Lebanese Army, he claimed, maintained the ceasefire and kept the area almost entirely free of weapons, despite attempts at smuggling. He never saw any evidence of Hizbullah arms south of the Litani River. He contended that since Hizbullah had agreed to the UNO ceasefire, its interest lay in compliance. [Not logical.] He commended the Army of Lebanon as a worthy successor to UNIFIL. He accused Israel of occupying part of a village in Lebanon and of other violations, and denied Hizbullah violated the UNO Resolution. [If I recall, that village straddles the border. Israel can't let Hizbullah enter the village's Lebanon end and emerge on the Israeli side. Israel should demolish the zone that is within Israel, and compensate but expel the villagers from there. It doesn't have the nerve. It might be better for Israel if Putin ran Israel and Olmert ran Russia]. The next day, Graziani "...conceded that his soldiers were not trying to prevent weapons smuggling from Syria as demanded by the UNSC because the Lebanese government had not requested such action." He sees no evil. [Earlier news reports tracked Hizbullah's arms smuggling from Syria and a great military buildup south and north of the Litani River for years.] Foreign Min. Livni's failure to follow up against the lack of implementation of the UNO ceasefire, shows what kind of a Prime Minister she would make (IMRA, 8/15). UNIFIL is anti-Israel, perhaps as a way of avoiding Arab attack. VICTIMS LOSE CASE AGAINST S. ARABIA Families of 9/11 victims sued S. Arabia, because Saudi donations helped finance al-Qaeda. A US appeals court ruled that the government of S. Arabia is not responsible for what the donors and terrorists wrought (IMRA, 8/16). Did plaintiffs show that the government of S. Arabia is run by a family whose members were government officials, and made major donations knowingly? What safeguards against terrorism did that government have? Did plaintiffs show that the government's schools and propaganda promote terrorism? MA'AN NEWS AGENCY This Palestinian Arab news agency is subsidized by Europe. [Aren't most anti-Zionistgroups? Ma'an tries to appear objective, but its bias is clear.] Its English language website stated about the Al Aqsa Mosque fire, "An Australian Christian extremist hoping to hurry the coming of the messiah was actually responsible for the arson in the mosque in 1969, but widespread fears that Israel would destroy the area after taking over East Jerusalem in 1967 trumped the truth." This puts the lie to Arab claims that a Jew set fire to the mosque. Ma'an's Arabic website omits that admission (IMRA, 8/16). RELEASED TERRORIST RECAPTURED He was released after promising not to renew terrorism [or warfare]. He then fired upon Israeli troops. Israeli forces recaptured him. Released terrorists are known to have murdered at least 180 Israelis, so far (Arutz-7, 8/17). The government of Israel shares the moral burden of the 180 murders. It got nothing in return. Its claim of releasing terrorists for goodwill is farcical. However, none of the major media has the intelligence or courage to question the rationale for the release. The media repeats the rationale, as if rational. HOW THE P.A. DEMANDS PRISONER RELEASES The P.A. Prime Minister demanded that Israel release unconditionally all its P.A. Arab prisoners. "Unconditionally all" includes convicted murderers. If a Muslim terrorist shoots a crowd of shoppers in an Israeli mall, and then is captured and convicted, the P.A. would demand his release. In other words, the P.A. does not consider the murder of Israeli civilians a crime to be punished. Releasing hard-bitten murderers to the extremists ruling the P.A. does not earn goodwill (IMRA, 8/17). If they are POWs, why release them during the war? LET HIM GET CAUGHT! The former Fatah head of Abbas' Preventive Security service, and former Fatah strongman in Gaza, Muhammad Dahlan, planned much terrorism against Israel. Hamas has preferred charges against them for corruption and for torturing Hamas members. They are hiding, probably in Egypt (IMRA, 8/17). I thought the USt was disgraceful for relying upon Dahlan to defend Gaza from Hamas, ignoring his extensive terrorism in order to support him. He proved useless in real combat, apparently competent only against unwary civilians. OTHER ARABS WANT TO MEDIATE P.A. CIVIL STRIFE Qatar hopes to mediate the conflict between Fatah and Hamas. Its goal is their reconciliation (IMRA, 8/17). As Jordan renews ties with Hamas, broken over Hamas plans to commit terrorism in Jordan, a Jordanian Islamist leader expressed hope that Jordan could mediate in the P.A.. Egypt had tried it. Uniting the two terrorist groups would strengthen jihad against Israel. Thus Qatar and some Jordanians, like Egypt, have no ethical problem with terrorism, so long as it is directed at another country. The basis for Jordan's reconciliation with Hamas probably is a Hamas promise to commit terrorism only against Israel and not against Jordan. Jordan should take Hamas at its word. U.S. DOUBLING SUBSIDY OF JORDAN The increase would bring the annual total to $500 million (IMRA, 8/17). The US cannot spare such funds for countries turning Islamist. OLMERT PROPOSES DIVISION OF JERUSALEM He proposes letting the P.A. rule Arab areas of Jerusalem and having joint rule indefinitely at the Temple Mount and other disputed areas. This means that local Israeli security forces would fall under joint supervision and therefore could be tied up by the Muslims. The Arabs could exaggerate minor differences of opinion in municipal matters, and fire from Arab areas into Jewish areas. Thus, by seeming to postpone key decisions, Olmert perpetuates key conflicts (IMRA, 8/17). In some areas called "Arab," Jews are a majority. His plan is wrongful as well as foolish. I don't like to call for someone's assassination, for it doesn't seem respectable. But how else can the Jewish people rid itself of what may be its most dangerous traitor ever? 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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FOUND: ANCIENT CAPITAL OF 'JEWISH' KHAZAR KINGDOM
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 4, 2008. |
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The article below was written by Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel
and it appeared today in Arutz-7 Stop complaining and fight back!
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(IsraelNN.com) A team of archaeologists claims to have discovered remnants of the legendary Khazar kingdom in southern Russia, according to a recent report. If the findings by the Russian team, reported by the French agency AFP, prove to be indeed the long-lost capital of the reputed Jewish state, they would represent one of the largest breakthroughs in Jewish archaeology. "This is a hugely important discovery," said the leader of the expedition, Dmitry Vasilyev. Vasilyev, from Astrakhan State University, made the comments after returning from the excavation site, located near the Russian village of Samosdelka, just north of the Caspian Sea. The location of the site corresponds roughly to the area in which historians believe the empire may have existed.%ad% "We can now shed light on one of the most intriguing mysteries of that period — how the Khazars actually lived," he added. "We know very little about the Khazars — about their traditions, their funerary rites, their culture." The Jewish University in Moscow and the Russian Jewish Congress helped finance the excavations, which took place during the summer in various locations throughout the region in which the discovery was made. The digs were overseen by a number of university professors, and roughly 50 students took part as well. The Khazars were known to be a semi-nomadic Turkic people who dominated the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus regions from the 7th to the 10th century CE. The origin of the Khazars and their apparent conversion to Judaism is the subject of major dispute among modern historians. In the 7th century CE, the Khazars founded an independent khaganate, or kingdom, in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea. It is believed that during the 8th or 9th century, around the height of their kingdom, the state religion became Judaism at the order of the king. At this point, the Khazar khaganate and its tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the Caucasus (including Circassia, Dagestan, Chechnya, and parts of Georgia), and the Crimea. The first Jewish Khazar king was named Bulan, which means "elk", though some sources give him the Hebrew name Sabriel. A later king, Obadiah, strengthened Judaism, inviting rabbis into the kingdom and building synagogues. References to a Jewish kingdom of Khazars are numerous in rabbinic literature from the Middle Ages and later. Among them is the famous tale by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevy, related in his 12th-century work The Kuzari, which recounted the conversion of the Khazar king to Judaism resulting from a lengthy conversation with an unnamed Jewish "wise man." Among other Jewish sources supporting the Jewish identity of the Khazars is a letter written by Avraham ibn Daud, a renowned writer, who reported meeting rabbinical students from Khazar in Toledo, Spain in the mid-12th century. The well-renowned Schechter Letter recounts a different version of the conversion of the Khazar king, and mentions Benjamin ben Menachem as a Khazar king. Saadia Gaon, considered by many to be the greatest rabbi of his generation in the 10th century, also spoke favorably of Khazars in his writings. The belief in a Jewish Khazar kingdom enjoyed wide belief in non-Jewish literature as well, including classical Muslim sources cited in modern times to demonstrate that the homeland of the Jews is in Khazar and not Israel. The city Vasileyev claims to have found was referred to as Itil in Arab chronicles, which the archeologist said may actually be an Arabic reference to the Volga River, on which the city was founded, or to the river's delta region. Historical sources describe Itil as a city of unusual ethnic and religious tolerance and diversity. Travelers to the city described houses of worship and judges for Christians, Jews, Muslims and pagans. Until now, however, remains of the city had never been identified, and many believed that in the intervening millennium since the demise of the Khazar empire in the 10th century, all signs of the city were washed away into the Caspian Sea. Although archaeologists have been excavating in the area of Samosdelka for the past nine years, only now has Vasileyev's team been able to claim findings conclusive enough to identify the site of the capital. Among the discoveries his team has unearthed are the remains of an ancient brick fortress. "Within the fortress, we have found huts similar to yurts, which are characteristics of Khazar cities," said the researcher. "The fortress had a triangular shape and was made with bricks. It's another argument that this was no ordinary city." Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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U.S. INTEL: IRAN PLANS NUCLEAR STRIKE ON U.S.
Posted by David Nathan, September 4, 2008. |
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This was written by Kenneth R. Timmerman July 30, 2008 and it appeared on Doc's Talk blog. |
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Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned. In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community "doesn't have a story" to explain the recent Iranian tests. class="fullpost">One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea. "They've got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches," Dr. Graham said. "Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us." Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude," Graham said. "Why would they do that?" Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001. The commission examined the Iranian tests "and without too much effort connected the dots," even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said. "The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it," he said. "And that's exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States." The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation's critical infrastructure. "If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned. While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city. "The first indication [of such an attack] would be that the power would go out, and some, but not all, the telecommunications would go out. We would not physically feel anything in our bodies," Graham said. As electric power, water and gas delivery systems failed, there would be "truly massive traffic jams," Graham added, since modern automobiles and signaling systems all depend on sophisticated electronics that would be disabled by the EMP wave. "So you would be walking. You wouldn't be driving at that point," Graham said. "And it wouldn't do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn't be able to get there, even if you could get through to them." The food distribution system also would grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline. Even warehouses equipped with backup diesel generators would fail, because "we wouldn't be able to pump the fuel into the trucks and get the trucks to the warehouses," Graham said. The United States "would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country." except that we would have 10 times as many people with ten times fewer resources, he said. "Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would iterally be depending on our own assets and those we could reach by walking to them," Graham said. America would begin to resemble the 2002 TV series, "Jeremiah," which depicts a world bereft of law, infrastructure, and memory. In the TV series, an unspecified virus wipes out the entire adult population of the planet. In an EMP attack, the casualties would be caused by our almost total dependence on technology for everything from food and water, to hospital care. Within a week or two of the attack, people would start dying, Graham says. "People in hospitals would be dying faster than that, because they depend on power to stay alive. But then it would go to water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving the event." Asked just how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply. "You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population" that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication. "I'd have to say that 70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack," he said. America would be reduced to a core of around 30 million people — about the number that existed in the decades after America's independence from Great Britain. The modern electronic economy would shut down, and America would most likely revert to "an earlier economy based on barter," the EMP commission's report on Critical National Infrastructure concluded earlier this year. In his recent congressional testimony, Graham revealed that Iranian military journals, translated by the CIA at his commission's request, "explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States." Furthermore, if Iran launched its attack from a cargo ship plying the commercial sea lanes off the East coast — a scenario that appears to have been tested during the Caspian Sea tests — U.S. investigators might never determine who was behind the attack. Because of the limits of nuclear forensic technology, it could take months. And to disguise their traces, the Iranians could simply decide to sink the ship that had been used to launch it, Graham said. Several participants in last weekend's conference in Dearborn, Mich., hosted by the conservative Claremont Institute argued that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was thinking about an EMP attack when he opined that "a world without America is conceivable." In May 2007, then Undersecretary of State John Rood told Congress that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that Iran could develop an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States by 2015. But Iran could put a Scud missile on board a cargo ship and launch from the commercial sea lanes off America's coasts well before then. The only thing Iran is lacking for an effective EMP attack is a nuclear warhead, and no one knows with any certainty when that will occur. The latest U.S. intelligence estimate states that Iran could acquire the fissile material for a nuclear weapon as early as 2009, or as late as 2015, or possibly later. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first detailed the "Scud-in-a-bucket" threat during a briefing in Huntsville, Ala., on Aug. 18, 2004. While not explicitly naming Iran, Rumsfeld revealed that "one of the nations in the Middle East had launched a ballistic missile from a cargo vessel. They had taken a short-range, probably Scud missile, put it on a transporter-erector launcher, lowered it in, taken the vessel out into the water, peeled back the top, erected it, fired it, lowered it, and covered it up. And the ship that they used was using a radar and electronic equipment that was no different than 50, 60, 100 other ships operating in the immediate area." Iran's first test of a ship-launched Scud missile occurred in spring 1998, and was mentioned several months later in veiled terms by the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a blue-ribbon panel also known as the Rumsfeld Commission. I was the first reporter to mention the Iran sea-launched missile test in an article appearing in the Washington Times in May 1999. Intelligence reports on the launch were "well known to the White House but have not been disseminated to the appropriate congressional committees," I wrote. Such a missile "could be used in a devastating stealth attack against the United States or Israel for which the United States has no known or planned defense." Few experts believe that Iran can be deterred from launching such an attack by the threat of massive retaliation against Iran. They point to a December 2001 statement by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who mulled the possibility of Israeli retaliation after an Iranian nuclear strike. "The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely, while [the same] against the Islamic only would cause damages. Such a scenario is not inconceivable," Rafsanjani said at the time. Rep. Trent Franks, R, Ariz., plans to introduce legislation next week that would require the Pentagon to lay the groundwork for an eventual military strike against Iran, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and EMP capability. "An EMP attack on America would send us back to the horse and buggy era — without the horse and buggy," he told the Claremont Institute conference on Saturday. "If you're a terrorist, this is your ultimate goal, your ultimate asymmetric weapon." Noting Iran's recent sea-launched and mid-flight warhead detonation tests, Rep. Franks concluded, "They could do it — either directly or anonymously by putting some freighter out there on the ocean." The only possible deterrent against Iran is the prospect of failure, Dr. Graham and other experts agreed. And the only way the United States could credibly threaten an Iranian missile strike would be to deploy effective national missile defenses. "It's well known that people don't go on a diet until they've had a heart attack," said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. "And we as a nation are having a heart attack" when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran. "As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack," he told Newsmax. Rep. Franks said he remains surprised at how partisan the subject of space-based missile defenses remain. "Nuclear missiles don't discriminate on party lines when they land," he said. Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a long-standing champion of missile defense, told the Claremont conference on Friday that Sen. Obama has opposed missile defense tooth and nail and as president would cut funding for these programs dramatically. "Senator Obama has been quoted as saying, 'I don't agree with a missile defense system,' and that we can cut $10 billion of the research out — never mind, as I say, that the entire budget is $9.6 billion, or $9.3 billion," Kyl said. Like Franks, Kyl believes that the only way to eventually deter Iran from launching an EMP attack on the United States is to deploy robust missile defense systems, including space-based interceptors. The United States "needs a missile defense that is so strong, in all the different phases we need to defend against ... that countries will decide it's not worth coming up against us," Kyl said. "That's one of the things that defeated the Soviet Union. That's one of the ways we can deal with these rogue states ... and also the way that we can keep countries that are not enemies today, but are potential enemies, from developing capabilities to challenge us." Contact David Nathan at DAVENATHAN@aol.com |
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ISRAEL'S POLITICIZED JUDICIARY
Posted by Moshe Dann, September 3, 2008. |
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Last week, several young men with families were ordered expelled for four months from their homes in the Jewish communities of Yitzhar in northern Samaria and Adei-Ad, near Shiloh; they were also forbidden to enter the entire area of Yehuda and Shomron ("the West Bank"). The Israeli Security Services (ISS) laconically announced: "The order was based on information obtained by the ISS according to which the individuals mentioned were involved in the planning and carrying out of illegal and violent activities against Palestinians and security forces. The order was given in the interest of preserving public safety." The government source refused to offer any further information, or explanation. In such cases, there is virtually no appeal, since there is no way of knowing what the charges are, nor can Israeli courts intervene. The security services are the sole authority. Many questions, however, remain unanswered, reflecting the tenuous nature of Israel's judicial system: If these young men are "violent" and "dangerous," why aren't they charged, brought before a court and, if guilty, put in jail? Why is the order limited to only 4 months? What will happen when they return to their homes? Won't the threat they pose remain? Why are they expelled only from the West Bank, not restricted in other areas throughout Israel? Why are only these people being expelled, when Israeli Leftists, Arabs, and foreigners (like ISM) engage Israeli security forces in violent pitched battles? And what about Israeli Arabs who throw rocks at Israeli motorists, incite violence and attack policemen and civilians and yet remain free? The government source refused to answer. Ignored by all major media, as they have in similar cases, this violation of civil and humanitarian rights reflects the politicization of judicial institutions and touches a raw nerve: to whom does Judea and Samaria belong? Admittedly, the issue is complicated because Israel has not extended full sovereignty over Yehuda and Shomron, which remains under military rule since 1967. Nevertheless, violations of law and procedures by Israeli citizens are brought to Israeli civilian courts. Denying Israeli citizens due process — the right to a fair and impartial hearing in court — violates the spirit and letter of the law and undermines the entire democratic system. No democratic society can tolerate secret, extra-judicial authorities which have virtually unlimited and unrestricted power. Israeli courts working closely with the State Prosecutor's Office challenges the notion of equality before the law. But the operations of a secret police that often have a political agenda compromise Israel's entire judicial system, which is the basis of Israeli democracy. It undermines the very raison d'etre of the state itself. Moshe Dann is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem. He can be reached at moshedan@netvision.net.il This article appeared today in Front Page Magazine
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POLICE ROUND UP DOZENS OF WOULD-BE PROTESTORS, USE VIOLENCE
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 3, 2008. |
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Israel's Police Commanders have adopted the technique of beating protesters or anyone who happens to be an observer or photographer of the beatings. This violence by the Police against the People is the product of Olmert, Rice, Livni and Barak who are on a fast track to acceptable dictatorship and violence against the People to push through their plan to divide Jerusalem and appease the Muslim Arabs. The Israeli Police have been given freedom to attack citizens are growing into their roles as monsters. That happened under the Nazis, the East German Stasi Police, the KGB, even borrowing from the practices of their Arab Muslim neighboring Terrorist Police. Is this the Legacy of President George W. Bush and his Jew-hating Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — the crushing of the only Democracy in the Middle East? ^The article below is by Hillel Fendel, Senior News Editor,
Arutz-7. It appeared in Arutz-7
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(IsraelNN.com) Dozens of concerned citizens who wished to protest against the banning of three young men from their homes in Yesha for 3-4 months were detained — and some were beaten — before they could start protesting. In addition to accusing them of "planning to take part in an illegal demonstration," the police used violence on several occasions against youths and adults before and after the protest rally. Complaints have been filed with the police against some of the officers involved in the arrests and violence (see below). The story began last week when the IDF issued orders to three young fathers living in Jewish towns in Samaria (Shomron), banning them from their homes, or from anywhere in Judea and Samaria, for the next 3-4 months. This, despite the harm caused to their family situations, jobs, and agricultural plans for the coming months. The orders state that they are perceived as a "security threat." One of the three, Akiva HaCohen, said he thought he was being targeted because of his involvement in an initiative to organize public protests when police or soldiers attempt to evict Jews from hilltops. "Police Do Our Work for Us" Incensed activists of Women in Green, the Givatayim Settlers, Homesh First, Saving the Land and People, and other nationalist groups organized a protest vigil for Tuesday evening outside the home of IDF Central Commander Gen. Gad Shamni. As one organizer — Mati Barnea, of the Givatayim Settlers — later told Arutz-7, "We never dreamt that we would get such great publicity, but the police did the work for us. They turned it into a major event." 
What they did was to detain at least two busloads of would-be demonstrators and beat several detainees who were already in the police station. In addition, Barnea said, "they blocked the entrances to Reut [where Gen. Shamni lives], deployed detectives all around the town, and even had a large presence on Route 443 [a main Jerusalem-Modiin highway]." Click here for a Hebrew-language video of the events. Informed that the police later claimed that the protestors wished to block Route 443, Barnea — and other participants — said they knew of no one who had such plans. Elderly Broadcaster Detained One protestor, Moshe D. of Jerusalem, said, "We were about 15 people in a van from Jerusalem, and we arrived at the parking lot at Shilat Junction to wait for the others. Suddenly, some policemen came up to us, accused us of wanting to take part in an illegal demonstration, and rounded up some. One of those arrested was Walter Bingham, 85-year-old showhost on IsraelNationalRadio. They put him into a police van for about 15 minutes, ignoring his protests." 
Lamenting the police violence, Barnea said, "The police wanted to show what they could do — even though just about a kilometer from the same site, at Naalin [where anarchists, Arabs and leftists demonstrate against police and soldiers every week], the same police allow the demonstrators to throw things at them, spit at them, and the like — and do nothing in response." "In addition, protests take place outside the home of Education Minister Yuli Tamir, and the police don't take action, and just recently there was one — without a permit — outside the home of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The police allow the left-wingers to demonstrate, but not those who stand up for the true values that keep this country alive: The People of Israel and the Land of Israel." Matar's Story Nadia Matar, co-chair of Women in Green, was detained in the Modiin police station until close to 2 AM. She said, "When three policemen first surrounded my car, they asked me where I was going. I said I was going to see some friends. They asked me for their names and phone numbers, and I said, 'That is too much already. I'm not under arrest.' So they said, 'We are detaining you on suspicion of wanting to participate in an illegal protest.' I asked them if they were mind-readers..." "They had me follow them to the police station, where they actually had an investigator test my car like they do on the annual inspection. Within a few minutes, a whole bunch of people werer brought in, on the same charges; they had been in the bus in front of me, from the Kiryat Arba-Gush Etzion area. Later, we heard that the other bus, from Jerusalem, was also stopped, and the passengers taken to the police station in Ramle." The police detained at least one of the buses with the excuse that the tires were suspected of being low on air. Police Protect "Illegal" Protest Ironically, the purportedly illegal demonstration was actually held, with dozens of people who were not arrested holding signs outside Shamni's house. The signs read, 'Shamni expels Jewish pioneers,' 'Shamni is a political general,' and the like. Policemen stood guard nearby, but witnesses said they used violence to remove the last of the demonstrators. 
After the vigil was over, many of the protestors came to the police station to show solidarity with the detainees. Matar recounted: "The protestors stood outside the station, making noise, blowing whistles and the like, protesting against our detention merely for wanting to stand up for justice in this country — and suddenly a whole bunch of policemen swooped down on them very violently. One girl in particular was treated very brutally — she was dragged with her arms behind her back, her shirt was pulled down, and she cried out... We all started to surround the policeman who was doing this, yelling at him to stop — and suddenly the policemen started hitting us! Myself, Daniella Weiss, the photographer Miriam Tzachi — not young girls... 15 Remain Under Arrest "After a few minutes, calm was restored. Each of us was then put through a mini-interrogation, but we essentially said that we refused to answer because this was a political interrogation. Finally, towards 2AM, they left most of us go — but another 15 or so remained under arrest. We didn't want to leave until they were released, but finally around 4:30 they took them away to a prison cell." The 15 youths were in fact held until Wednesday afternoon, released after paying a bond of 250 shekels each and being ordered to stay out of the Modiin-Reut area for the next 30 days. Shmuel Medad, head of the Honenu legal rights organization which helps nationalist-camp members who are arrested during the course of their activities, told IsraelNationalNews.com at around 5 PM, "The last of the 15, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is having his hour in court right now. He is demanding to know why he was arrested in the first place." Ben-Gvir is a veteran of legal struggles in these matters, and is said to know his way around the court system better than many lawyers. Complaints Filed Against Violent Policemen Honenu's sister organization, Yesha Civil Rights, headed by Orit Strook of Hevron, has submitted complaints to the Department for Complaints Against Policemen of Israel Police. A complaint was filed against the officer who made the decision to detain and arrest citizens with no crime having been committed, "violating their freedom of movement based only on suspicions, as if the police were a 'thought police.'" Other complaints were filed against the officer commanding the Modiin Police Station on Tuesday night, under whose watch the citizens were beaten inside the station, and against the police officer who ordered the whistling demonstrators to disperse — but gave them no time to do so before ordering his men to swoop down on them and beat them with clubs. Not Only Shamni "The police hysteria shows that they want to keep this whole thing of the eviction orders quiet," Barnea said. "But it boomeranged on them. We will now redouble our efforts. I can just say that Shamni is not the only one whose home has to be 'visited' in this manner. Let his neighbors, and those of the others involved in this travesty, know exactly what they did." Let Them Live! Summing up the night, Barnea said, "It can't be that when we fight for the country's most important values, the authorities utilise clauses from the Turkish law, or from laws that were specifically enacted so that Israel could fight its enemies, to detain or arrest or banish them without trial or explanation. Olmert has not been banished from his home in Jerusalem even though he is suspected of many crimes, and the same has to be true for Land of Israel supporters as well. If they are suspected of a crime, let them be indicted — otherwise, let them live."
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
winston@winstonglobal.org
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JEWISH MUNICIPALITY DESTROYS MAGEN DAVID FARM
Posted by Sasha Fleigler, September 3, 2008. |
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This was written by Jochanan Shareth . |
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This morning at 6:45 came 20 persons of the regional council and national religious settler movement, "Amana" with many cars to the compound of the Magen David Farm. They entered by force even into my house. They destroyed all water lines and pipes, all electrical wire system and the waste water system, took my equipment away and beat me up, with some pick axe the beat me on the head and my back as well as in my stomach. They had no order or any official paper to do so, no judge or government office signed off on it. Just anarchism. All water and electricity is shut down, animals have no water and a lot of chickens died. I was beaten up several times. Now we have to bring water in from Talias farm, 3 km south, by tractor. The police let everybody go and did not arrest anyone. I reported a complaint to police. I request to publish the story and to help the farm in any way that is possible. Photos available upon request. Contact me by
email at magendavidfarm@gmail.com; by
Cell phone, Israel, 050-3054948; and
Outside of Israel +972-50-3054948.
MAGEN DAVID FARM is a project of OVDEI HA'ARETZ Settlement division of
MISHMERET YESHA Mobile Post HAR HEVRON 90401, ISRAEL
[Editor's Note: See also, "South Hebron Hills land
dispute turns violent" by Tovah Lazaroff And Yaakov Lappin in
September 5, 2008 Jerusalem Post
One reader, Shaul Eisenberg,(#30. Unworthy insinuations) notes:
Alternatively, another reader, El-Nakam — Israel) writes: Contact Sasha Fleigler at alex@fliegler.net |
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HIZBULLAH'S ROLE IN ATTACKS AGAINST U.S. AND BRITISH FORCES IN IRAQ
Posted by Middle East Strategic Information (MESI), September 3, 2008. |
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The abstract below summarizes an article written by Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan D. Halevi. The entire article can be read here. |
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Hizbullah's deep involvement in terror throughout Iraq demonstrates that the organization does not view itself purely as a Lebanese factor with national and local objectives, but as an arm of Iran in spreading the Shiite Islamic Revolution throughout the Middle East (the Shiite crescent) and in the long term throughout the entire world. Over the last few decades, Hizbullah branches have appeared in several Arab countries with substantial Shiite populations like Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The military arm of Hizbullah, as the British Home Office Secretary termed it, is a dexterous arm of terror that is spreading its tentacles to various countries in the West for the purpose of fundraising, recruitment and establishing a network of sleeper terror cells to be activated by Tehran at the appropriate time. The distinction between the military wing of Hizbullah and the political or social wing is an artificial distinction that is fundamentally flawed. Hizbullah views all wings of its organization as parts of a single body that are intended to achieve the identical strategic goal of spreading Islam and waging constant war against the apostates until their defeat. Decision-making on the military level is the purview of Hizbullah leaders headed by Hassan Nasrallah. The major objective of Hizbullah's social-educational network, as Nasrallah's deputy Naim Qassem has testified, is to create a new generation that will follow the path of the Imam Hussein, by "yearning for death in the love for Allah and craving for Jihad in the path of Islam."21 In other words, the educational network of Hizbullah serves as an assembly line for the brainwashing of the younger generation to make them fit for their role as fighters prepared to serve as live bombs and suicide terrorists in the struggle against the apostates. Western countries as well as international organizations have been collaborating with Hizbullah front groups and economic entities. Western aid funds help reinforce the Hizbullah infrastructure in Lebanon that is attempting to take over the country by exploiting the protection of democracy, in order to establish an extremist Islamic Shiite regime, similar to Iran, that will abolish democracy. Hizbullah's Jihad al-Bina (Jihad for development) construction company is in contact with European bodies and it receives funding, inter alia, from Lebanese municipalities that are supported by the West. This organization was apparently a partner in the establishment of Hizbullah's clandestine military communications infrastructure and other projects set up in the context of Hizbullah's attempts to establish the institutions of a "state within a state" prior to its final takeover of the Lebanese government. The MESI
MESI project provides a unique in-depth analysis of the Middle East
and its strategic issues as they relate to the outside world.
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SAUL ALINSKY'S SON: "OBAMA LEARNED HIS LESSON WELL"
Posted by LEL, September 3, 2008. |
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This was written by Judi McLeod and it appeared yesterday
in Canada Free Press
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In Artful Dodger style, Barack Obama, plays down his mentorship with Communist author Saul Alinsky. But Alinsky's son, L. David Alinsky, credits Obama for "learning his lesson well" from the Communist guru. Indeed, Alinsky Jr. who credits his late father for the success of last week's Democratic National Convention, may have done something that Obama's detractors couldn't: blown the cover on the presidential hopeful's communist leanings. No one can blame Alinsky for the pretentiousness of the Ancient Greek Temple from which Obama addressed plebes, or for the tacky neon colours on display at the Pepsi Centre, but it was Alinsky who wrote Rules for Radicals, the bible of the far left. Says Alinsky's son L. David Alinsky of his father's influence at the Dem Convention: "ALL the elements were present: the individual stories told by real people of their situation and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd's chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people." "The Democratic National Convention had all the elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style, the Communist guru's son wrote in a letter published yesterday in the Boston Globe. The Artful Dodger may be less than pleased that he has been pegged as a Saul Alinsky Poster Boy by the guru's own son. "Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness," Alinsky Jr. wrote to the Globe. "It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well. "I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday." Alinsky should be reminded that the West has stared down communism everywhere it has raised its hideous head. influencing a Democratic convention from the grave pales in comparison to the results that followed President Ronald Reagan's famous words, "Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall." The commonsense and freedom-loving Gipper would have chuckled at the audacity of Obama's Ancient Greek Temple stage setting and would have told Obama what he told the world: "All great change in America begins at the dinner table." Reagan also said: "I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for 50 years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey?" "Alinsky considered himself a realist above all, the ultimate pragmatist." (American Thinker, Aug. 30, 2008). "As a confirmed atheist, Alinsky believed that the here and now is all there is, and therefore had no qualms about assorted versions of morality in the pursuit of worldly power. He didn't coddle his radical acolytes or encourage their bourgeois distinctions between good and evil when it came to transferring power from the Haves to the Have Nots. Alinsky saw the already formed church communities as being the perfect springboards for agitation and creating bonds for demanding goods and services." Obama followed the same path. It is a fact that activist-cum senator Barack Hussein Obama started off his career as an activist with a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned, in Alinsky's own words, how to "rub raw the sores of discontent". Meanwhile L. David Alinsky, perhaps unwittingly put Obama into the
proper perspective by stating without reservation: "Obama learned his
lesson well."
Contact LEL at lel817@yahoo.com
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OBAMA HAD CLOSE TIES TO TOP SAUDI ADVISER AT EARLY AGE
Posted by Kenneth R. Timmerman, September 3, 2008. |
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New evidence has emerged that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was closely associated as early as age 25 to a key adviser to a Saudi billionaire who had mentored the founding members of the Black Panthers. In a videotaped interview this year on New York's all news cable
channel NY1, a prominent African-American businessman and political
figure made the curious disclosures about Obama. (See the Video where
Percy Sutton reveals association between Khalid al-Mansour and Obama
towards the bottom of
Percy Sutton, the former borough president of Manhattan, off-handedly revealed the unusual circumstances about his first encounter with the young Obama. "I was introduced to (Obama) by a friend who was raising money for him," Sutton told NY1 city hall reporter Dominic Carter. "The friend's name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas," Sutton said. "He is the principal adviser to one of the world's richest men. He told me about Obama." [Editor's Note: Read the Newsmax article "Who Is Khalid al-Mansour?" here]. Sutton, the founder of Inner City Broadcasting, said al-Mansour contacted him to ask a favor: Would Sutton write a letter in support of Obama's application to Harvard Law School? "He wrote to me about him," Sutton recalled. "And his introduction was there is a young man that has applied to Harvard. I know that you have a few friends up there because you used to go up there to speak. Would you please write a letter in support of him?" Sutton said he acted on his friend al-Mansour's advice. "I wrote a letter of support of him to my friends at Harvard, saying to them I thought there was a genius that was going to be available and I certainly hoped they would treat him kindly," Sutton told NY1. Sutton did not say why al-Mansour was helping Obama, how he discovered him, or from whom he was raising money on Obama's behalf. A Sutton aide told Newsmax that Sutton, 88, is ailing and is unlikely to do additional TV interviews in the near future. The aide could not provide additional comment for this story. As it turned out, Obama did attend Harvard Law School after graduating from Columbia University in New York and doing a stint as a community organizer in Chicago. The New York Times described how transformative his Harvard experience became for the young Obama: "He arrived there as an unknown, Afro-wearing community organizer who had spent years searching for his identity; by the time he left, he had his first national news media exposure, a book contract and a shot of confidence from running the most powerful legal journal in the country." The details of Obama's academic performance are well known: At Harvard, Obama rose to academic distinction becoming the editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduating magna cum laude. Less known are the reasons al-Mansour, an activist African-American Muslim, would be a key backer for a young man from Hawaii seeking to attend the most Ivy of the Ivy League law schools. Khalid al-Mansour a.k.a. Don Warden In an exclusive interview with Newsmax from his home in San Antonio, Texas, al-Mansour said he would not comment specifically on the statement by Percy Sutton because he was afraid anything he said would get "distorted." "I was determined I was never going to be in that situation," he said. "Bloggers are saying this is the new Rev. Wright — in drag! — and he is a nationalist, racist, and worse than Rev. Wright. So any statement that I made would only further this activity which is not in the interest of Barack." But in the lengthy interview, al-Mansour confirmed that he frequently spoke on university campuses, including Columbia, where Percy Sutton suggested he met Obama in the late 1980s, and confirmed his close relationship with Prince Alwaleed. "I am not surprised to learn about this," said Niger Innis, spokesman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). "It is clear that Barack Obama's ties to the left are familial, generational, and have lasted for several years." Innis is scheduled to address the Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minn at 7:43 PM Eastern time on Thursday. Although many Americans have never heard of Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour (his full name), he is well known within the black community as a lawyer, an orthodox Muslim, a black nationalist, an author, an international deal-maker, an educator, and an outspoken enemy of Israel. A graduate of Howard University with a law degree from the University of California, al-Mansour sits on numerous corporate boards, including the Saudi African Bank and Chicago-based LaGray Chemical Co. LaGray, which was formed to do business in Africa, counts former Nigerian President General Abdusalam Abubakar on its advisory board. He also sits on the board of the non-profit African Leadership Academy, along with top McCain for President adviser Carly Fiorina, and organized a tribute to the President of Ghana at the Clinton White House in 1995, along with pop star Michael Jackson. But his writings and books are packed with anti-American rhetoric reminiscent of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's disgraced former pastor. In a 1995 book, "The Lost Books of Africa Rediscovered," he alleged that the United States was plotting genocide against black Americans. The first "genocide against the black man began 300 years ago," he told an audience in Harlem at a book-signing, while a second "genocide" was on the way "to remove 15 million Black people, considered disposable, of no relevance, value or benefit to the American society." In the 1960s, when he founded the African American Association in the San Francisco Bay area, he was known as Donald Warden. According to the Social Activism Project at the University of California at Berkley, Warden, a.k.a. Khalid al-Mansour, was the mentor of Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and his cohort, Bobby Seale. Newton later had a falling out with Warden, who was described in a 1994 book as "the most articulate spokesperson for black nationalism" at the time. The falling out wasn't purely political, according to author Hugh Pearson. "Sometimes Newton and the other members of (Warden's) security detail got into fights with young whites who didn't like what Warden had to say about whites. Rather than 'throw down' along with the security detail, Warden refused to fight," Pearson wrote in "Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America." U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California entered an official statement of appreciation of Warden and his Black Panther colleagues in the African-American Association in the Congressional Record on April 23, 2007. "Among the founding members (of the Association) were community leaders such as Khalid Al-Mansour (known then as Don Warden); future Judges Henry Ramsey and Thelton Henderson; future Congressman and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, and future Black Panthers Huey Newton and Bobby Seale," the Democratic representative's statement said. Al-Mansour's more recent videotaped speeches focus on Muslim themes, and abound with anti-Semitic theories and anti-Israel vitriol. "Today, the Palestinians are being brutalized like savages," he told an audience in South Africa. "If you protest you will go to jail, and you may be killed. And they say they are the only democratic country in the Middle East. ... They are lying on God." He accused the Jews of "stealing the land the same way the Christians stole the land from the Indians in America." The Saudi Connection But al-Mansour's sponsorship of Obama as a prospective Harvard law student is important for another reason beyond his Islamic and anti-American rhetoric and early Black Panther ties. At the time Percy Sutton, a former lawyer for Malcolm X and a former business partner of al-Mansour, says he was raising money for Obama's graduate school education, al-Mansour was representing top members of the Saudi Royal family seeking to do business and exert influence in the United States. In 1989, for example — just one year after Obama entered Harvard Law School — The Los Angeles Times revealed that al-Mansour had been advising Saudi billionaires Abdul Aziz and Khalid al-Ibrahim in their secret effort to acquire a major stake in prime oceanfront property in Marina del Rey, Calif., through "an elaborate network of corporate shells in California, the Caribbean and Europe." At the same time, he was also advising Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in his U.S. investments, and sits on the board of his premier investment vehicle, Kingdom Holdings. Prince Alwaleed, 53, is the nephew if King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia. Forbes magazine ranked him this year as the 19th richest person on the planet, with a fortune in excess of $23 billion. He owns large chunks of Citigroup and News Corp., the holding company that controls Fox News. He is best known in the United States for his offer to donate $10 million to help rebuild downtown Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks. But after the prince made a public comment suggesting that U.S. policies had contributed to causing the attacks, Mayor Rudy Giuliani handed back his check. "I entirely reject that statement," Giuliani said. "There is no moral equivalent for this (terrorist) act. There is no justification for it. The people who did it lost any right to ask for justification for it when they slaughtered 4,000 or 5,000 innocent people." Since then, Prince Alwaleed's Kingdom Foundation has given millions of dollars to Muslim charities in the United States, including several whose leaders have been indicted on terrorism-related charges in federal courts. He also has given tens of millions of dollars to Harvard and other major U.S. universities, to establish programs in Islamic studies. The casual statement by Percy Sutton to NY1 is the first time anyone has hinted at a relationship between Obama and the Saudi royal family. Although al-Mansour glosses over his ties to the Saudi mega-billionaire in some of his public talks, he has represented the Saudi's interests in the United States, in Britain, and in Africa for more than a quarter century, according to public records. He told Newsmax that he has personally introduced Prince Alwaleed to "51 of the 53 leaders of Africa," traveling from country to country on the Saudi prince's private jet. He knows virtually every black leader in America, from the business community, to community activists, to the worlds of politics and entertainment. When Michael Jackson was on the ropes in the mid-1990s following a series of lawsuits by the parents of children accusing him of sexual abuse, al-Mansour introduced him to Prince Alwaleed, whose Kingdom Entertainment signed a joint venture with Jackson in 1996. "Jackson and Alwaleed became pals in 1994, when a mutual friend from Alwaleed's college days in California arranged a lunch meeting aboard the prince's yacht in Cannes," Time magazine reported about the new partnership in 1997. The mutual friend was al-Mansour. "As a black American, I am exceedingly proud at the American people's response to Barack Obama's candidacy," said CORE's Niger Innis. "But to deny that he has long-standing ties to left-wing elements in our polity is to deny reality. If you want to be president of the United States, it is not racism if you ask these kind of questions, and he has to come up with an answer, hopefully the truth." Sutton gives no clues as to why al-Mansour would be raising money to help Obama go to law school. Obama has said during his campaign that he paid his way through Harvard with student loans. For Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the Los Angeles-based Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), these latest revelations about Obama's ties to Saudi financiers were an important wake-up call. "To me, this opened up more questions about Barack Obama and his relationship to the Muslim world," Peterson told Newsmax. "A lot of people are caught up with the emotional aspect of Barack Obama, the movie star aspect, the false promises that he's going to take care of everyone and their Mama." But when the full story of Obama's ties to radical preachers such as Wright and to black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan comes out, Peterson believes that Obama's star power will fade. "I think there's more to this story and to Barack Obama than we realize," Peterson said. "As all the truth comes out before the election, I don't think he has a chance. I can't see American's taking that kind of risk." The Obama campaign did not respond to requests for comment. See the Video where Percy Sutton reveals association between Khalid
al-Mansour and Obama at
Ken Timmerman is President, Middle East Data Project, Inc., and
author of Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran.
Contact him by email at timmerman.road@verizon.net and go to his
website: www.KenTimmerman.com
This was published in Newsmax
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KING OF BAHRAIN LOVES JEWS; GERGIA INVASION SHOWS UP U.S.
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 3, 2008. |
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HUMAN RIGHTS FOR TERRORISTS? Eight Fatah gunmen in Gaza are hanging around the Israeli security fence, hoping that Hamas is reluctant to fire at them, lest the bullets draw return fire from the IDF, since the bullets would fly into Israel. Abbas refuses to let them take refuge in his part of the P.A., probably because that would admit to another Hamas victory there. Israel therefore was returning some gunmen to Gaza, until human rights organizations protested against Israel. Then Israel pressed Abbas to give them sanctuary (Arutz-7, 8/15). The human rights groups didn't want Hamas to apprehend, execute, or imprison the losers. Apparently they wish to reform the morals of the Muslims to spare some terrorists from other terrorists. Who will reform the morals of the human rights organizations, so they let terrorists liquidate each other, sparing future innocent victims? I'd return them to Gaza and thank Hamas. KING OF BAHRAIN LOVES JEWS That's what they say. He appointed one as his ambassador. He asked the Jews in Britain, whose families fled from Bahrain, to come to Bahrain, where four Jewish families that remain kept their businesses and are well treated. The King is of the Sunni minority. The Shiite majority had persecuted Jews, leading to their flight. The Shiites have not changed their minds. They do not love Jews (Arutz-7, 8/15). HAMAS EXPLOITS ISRAELI CEASEFIRE "Gaza terrorists are building a 25-kilometer (16.8 mile) range rocket...despite the temporary eight-week-old ceasefire with Israel, according to CNN. The maximum range of the Nasser rocket...includes Israel's 5th largest city, Ashdod, which is dotted by oil refineries. A rocket explosion at one of them would cause a mega-disaster and severely cripple Israel's economy." "Israel acknowledges that the production of more weapons violates the ceasefire, which already has been broken by 40 rocket and mortar attacks. PM E. Olmert's spokesman...said...'If the ceasefire is just a front for extremists in Gaza to rearm and regroup, of course we have the right to act. Any arms buildup is a direct violation of the calm that was achieved.'" (Arutz-7, 8/15.) Olmert doesn't act. He'll let terrorists severely cripple Israel's economy. Since the ceasefire is unwritten, disputes over its meaning arose from the start. The Muslims claim Israel violates it, but they violated its very premises, i.e., they have not ceased firing. GEORGIA INVASION SHOWS UP U.S. Georgia democratized, liberalized, and tried to be an ally of the US. It took the US five days to denounce Russian aggression against Georgia; that was when Georgia was told the US would not defend it. Russian has seized control of the only independent oil pipelines to Europe. [It's for the oil, stupid!] France's President suggested terms: let Russian troops stay in Georgia, let them deploy where they want, keep Georgian troops in their barracks, if any barracks are left, and disregard the territorial integrity of Georgia. Pres. Bush and Sec. Rice commended Pres. Sarkozy's mediation. Although they said Russia must respect Georgian territorial integrity, the terms they praised do not. Sen. Obama inadvertently made Russian intervention seem legitimate, by referring to S. Ossetia as "disputed territory." [Beware: some people refer to Jerusalem as "disputed territory," but the Arabs dispute everything someone else has] Russia attacked so such in Gori, Georgia, including convoys of journalists [who make good witnesses], that US claims not to know that Russian forces reached in that far must be false. It was an excuse to justify not acting against Russia. A country cannot depend on others to defend it. Israel must keep its Army strong and be willing to use it (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 8/15). Another lesson is not to antagonize superior powers. A third lesson is that the US is not a super-power; it should act according to its strength. We should neither over-commit nor under-commit. Fourth, think through our policies, before adopting them. Europe started a dangerous precedent in encouraging the break-up of Yugoslavia, and without first resolving ethnic boundaries. Then Pres. Clinton committed war crimes by bombing Serbian civilians. I would have let Serbia take over Serbian areas, if it stopped murdering the Muslim residents. In view of the Islamic threat to the West, setting up more Muslim states is unwise. [Hear that, O Israel!] And then, more germane, the West sided with the Muslim Kosovars wanting independence and religious expulsion of Serbs in the middle of Serbia. This antagonized Russia, whose pro-Serbian "Czar," Putin, applied the same principle to Georgia. By what logic does the West object to his attacking Georgia in behalf of separatists there, after having attacked Serbia in behalf of its separatists? The difference between Georgia and Iraq is that the US saved a country and kept oil available to all, whereas Russia seized a country to control European oil consumers. Why is there indignation against the US military and not Russia's? Pres. Bush humiliated the US for yet again betraying an ally by first giving it assurances and then letting it get taken over. Sarkozy sold Georgia down the river the way Britain and France once did to Czechoslovakia in behalf of Hitler. 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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TO EVADE PENALTY, KEY AIPAC WITNESS SEEKS TO QUASH SUBPOENA
Posted by Barbara Sommer, September 2, 2008. |
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This is from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, Volume 2008, Issue No. 85, September 2, 2008 The August 28 motion to quash is posted here:
Selected other case files from the controversial proceeding are
available here:
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In an unusual maneuver designed to evade a threat of government sanction, a key defense witness in the trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who are charged with mishandling classified information last week moved to quash a subpoena summoning him to testify at their upcoming trial. J. William Leonard, the former director of the Information Security Oversight Office, said he was prepared to testify that the classified information at issue did not meet the standards for national security classification. If so, the defendants could not have violated the law by receiving and transmitting the information without authorization. Not only would they not be guilty, there would have been no crime. But prosecutors objected to Mr. Leonard's testimony, arguing that he should not be permitted to appear since he briefly consulted with prosecutors about the case while he was still a government employee in 2006. In a March 31 motion, they even suggested that he could be liable to a year in jail if he testified for the defense. In the normal course of events, government officials are sometimes threatened with sanctions if they refuse to testify in a judicial or congressional proceeding. But in the topsy-turvy world of the AIPAC case, Mr. Leonard is threatened with sanctions if he does testify. To forestall that eventuality, Mr. Leonard was formally subpoenaed by the defense on July 25. His attorney, Mark S. Zaid, then moved to quash the subpoena on August 28, in the expectation that the court would issue an order compelling Mr. Leonard to testify. Such an order would serve to shield him against the threatened sanctions from the prosecution. "In filing this Motion to Quash, Mr. Leonard seeks either a ruling from the Court that there is no impediment to his testifying or, alternatively, a Court Order requiring that he testify," wrote Mr. Zaid, who frequently litigates national security and classification-related cases. "Without one or the other action, Mr. Leonard will be forced to reconsider whether he can testify for the Defendants."
Contact Barbara Sommer at sommer_1_98@yahoo.com |
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STOP! OR WE'LL SAY STOP AGAIN!
Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, September 2, 2008. |
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From today's Wall Street Journal Europe. |
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With apologies to comedian Robin Williams, that's the line that comes to mind when weighing the European Union's declaration yesterday on Russia's continued occupation of Georgia. At a special meeting in Brussels, EU national leaders told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to abide by the terms of a French-brokered cease-fire, including a pullback of Russian troops to their preconflict positions. If he doesn't do so, they warned, they will hold another meeting. That's all. It's been almost three weeks since Mr. Medvedev signed the cease-fire, and five days since Moscow broke with the rest of the world by recognizing the self-declared independence of Georgian provinces South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Yet Europe's leaders evidently need more time to ruminate over the situation in the Caucasus. Well, that's almost all. The European leaders did make one concrete "threat." The EU said it would freeze negotiations with Moscow on a new economic cooperation agreement if Russian forces haven't pulled back to their pre-August 7 positions by next Monday. But this is meaningless. It had taken the Europeans months to agree among themselves to begin the talks, and even before the Russian invasion of Georgia Eastern European leaders had signaled that their countries were unlikely to sign off on any deal anytime soon. Nor was Moscow pushing very hard for it. During a postsummit press conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating EU presidency, got the obvious question: Is the EU a "paper tiger"? Mr. Sarkozy, visibly angered by the suggestion, responded that "Demonstrations of force, verbal aggression, sanctions, countersanctions ... will not serve anyone." He didn't say how Brussels' latest tsk-tsk-ing serves anyone in Georgia. Mr. Sarkozy also insisted that his efforts to reach a cease-fire had borne fruit. Again, the Georgians might beg to disagree. Russia has used the agreement's vague language to justify a continued presence in Georgia far beyond the original conflict zone. The cease-fire called for international talks about security and stability for the separatist regions, but that didn't stop Mr. Medvedev from recognizing their independence. Europe's call yesterday to begin these talks rang hollow; that horse isn't going back into the barn. The most cynical comment of the day, though, was Mr. Sarkozy's attempt to use the conflict to bully the Irish over their rejection of the union's Lisbon Treaty in June. "This crisis has shown that Europe needs to have strong and stable institutions" like those it would have gotten under Lisbon, Mr. Sarkozy said. No, what Europe needs is political will — and a new treaty isn't going to solve that. Rather than scolding Irish voters for exercising their democratic rights, Mr. Sarkozy would do better to name and shame those member states whose desire to curry favor with Moscow kept the EU from taking a firmer stand yesterday. For now, the Continent is determined to talk things out with Moscow. When will it realize that Moscow doesn't to listen? Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com |
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PREPARING WAY FOR ANOTHER CAVE-IN?; US UPGRADES EGYPTIAN AIR
FORCE, WHY?; MACHSOM WATCH SUBVERSIVE
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 2, 2008. |
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ISRAEL VS. DISEASE "...medical and public health practitioners from Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Colombia, Uzbekistan, India and the United States — have been studying in Israel on the one-year International Master's Program in Public Heath at..." Hebrew U.. They developed in Kenya an anti-cholera program, adopted by the Red Cross. Cholera is preventable, but rages where water supplies get flooded. Fearing loss of tourism, local officials often hide the outbreak. Then they must take more desperate measures. Then they ignore preventive measures until the next epidemic (IMRA, 8/13). QUID PRO QUO FOR DEFENSE MIN. BARAK? An Israeli broadcaster tells this story. Journalist Shalom Kital arranged with Defense Min. Barak an interview that would not pose embarrassing questions. The broadcaster, however, did ask some difficult questions. Barak walked out. The journalist brought him back. Keeping the questions easy, he even let Barak edit the interview. Years later, Barak offered that journalist a post as public relations adviser if Barak becomes Prime Minister (IMRA, 8/13). PREPARING THE WAY FOR ANOTHER CAVE-IN? Like his predecessors, Defense Min. Barak declares that Israel must pay a "high price" to get Hamas' Israeli prisoner released (IMRA, 7/13). He is softening Israeli public opinion in anticipation of an inordinate price, forbidden by Judaism and common sense. If Israel had independent major media, it would ask why Israel offers hundreds to one, and never demands a high price of the Arabs. Ask the Arabs, "Is one Israeli worth hundreds of Arabs?" SEC. RICE LIED Israel bid to purchase US military equipment it would need for raiding Iran's nuclear facilities. The US rejected the request. Instead, it advised Israel not to raid, and demanded that Israel inform it of a raid, in advance. This demonstrates again that Israel must keep its arms industry independent and complete. The US may be thinking it can get Russia to make sanctions against Iran work (IMRA, 8/13). Sec. Rice had told us that the US is not hindering an Israeli raid. She lied to us, and the US betrays its allies. Russia is too anti-American and mercenary to cooperate. Sanctions are too late, for Iran has the needed technology, equipment, and goods. The US may need notice to avoid mistaking Israeli planes as enemy ones. AL-QAIDA INFILTRATION INTO U.S. GOVERNMENT Islamists are at war with the US. Several dozen Al-Qaida sympathizers are known to have infiltrated US governmental posts. Some did more than make pro-Islamist statements. They copied government files, and tried to export them. The US government, which hesitates to utter the word, "Islamist," must be vigilant against them, for intelligence has become a major weapon of warfare. Indispensable but not balancing the scale is Muslim federal employees, who assist our intelligence effort. "Westerners are indebted to Muslim agents like Fred Ghussin and 'Kamil Pasha' who have been critical to fighting terrorism. That said, I stand by my 2003 statement that 'There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism.'" (Daniel Pipes #869, 8/15.) Too much of a fifth column! UPGRADING EGYPTIAN AIR FORCE The US Navy has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to upgrade the Egyptian Air Force's early warning system (IMRA, 8/15). The contract downgrades Israel's Air Force. If Egypt commits acts of war, or is about to invade Israel, and if Israel counter-attacks in Egypt, the Northrop Grumman system may foil the counter-attack, in whole or in part. Is that a constructive use of your US tax revenues, to defend Islamic aggression? Egyptian aggression against Israel, involving hundreds of terrorist raids, blockade, mobilization with the declared intent to make war, and invasion, led to four wars. The US, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, is building Egypt up for a fourth attempt. The US government would deny it. It would cite the non-aggression pact between Egypt and Israel, which Egypt has been violating for many years. It would ignore Egyptians' expressed hatred of Israel and its anti-Israel diplomacy. Its excuse would be that Egypt would assist the US in any outside attack on S. Arabian oil fields. This excuse is an odd one, considering that Egypt, itself, sent an army towards those fields, by way of Yemen. The Yemenis resisted, and then Egypt had to pull its troops back when it needed them for a war on Israel. Thus Israel did more to protect S. Arabia than did Egypt. The US relied upon alliances with Arab and Pakistani forces before, alliances that failed. I once read an analysis indicating that Egypt's military doctrine posited an invasion of Israel, that its new tanks halved the time for racing through the Sinai to reach Israel before Israel could fully mobilize, and that it had built tunnels under the Suez Canal to facilitate their crossing. When I mentioned that to someone reviewing a book for Middle East Quarterly, who considered Egypt no threat to Israel, he denied the tank improvement and the need for tunnels. One of us is mistaken. I suppose the truth is in between, which means Egypt still is an enemy of Israel. ABBAS REGIME TURNING MORE INTO POLICE STATE The P.A. regime in Judea-Samaria is beating and torturing more, to stifle dissent. To avoid another Hamas coup, it is ramping up its totalitarianism. The less democratic it gets, the more unpopular, given its corruption. Ironically, it was Israel, not the Abbas regime, that offered protection to some defeated Fatah forces from Gaza. It is Israel, not US-trained P.A. forces, that protect Abbas from Hamas (Arutz-7, 8/13) and Israel from Fatah. SUBVERSIVE ISRAELI ORGANIZATION "Machsom Watch" is an Israeli organization largely subsidized by the New Israel fund. Its civilians, usually women, monitor checkpoints. No, they are not watching out for terrorism. No, they are not supporting the Israeli troops operating under trying conditions. They are making conditions trying. They claim to be defending the rights of Arabs there. They report IDF actions negatively, making officers afraid to back up troops who do take initiative. They hector the troops and distract them from guard duty. As one Israeli soldier lay wounded from an attack by an Arab, a Machsom Watch member said he deserved to die, because he shouldn't have been there. A Member of Knesset is asking the Defense Dept. to ban the group as a security risk (Arutz-7, 8/13). American Jews, stop donating to the New Israel Fund! If the IDF didn't have checkpoints, the Arab who stabbed that soldier would have been able to get into Israel and perhaps stab several civilians before being shot. If, however, the government disarms more civilians, there would be fewer people to shoot marauding terrorists. The government has disarmed many Jews in Judea-Samaria. Gun control on the frontier is foolhardy, if the intent is to protect one's own, innocent people. The safety of settlers, however, is low priority for the anti-Zionist government of Israel, judging by the disarming and by the collaboration with Arabs who pick fights with Jews in the Territories. JORDAN BARS JEWS HAVING RELIGIOUS ITEMS — More As Jordanian customs guards searched the suitcases of Jewish Israelis, and demanded that the Jews not enter the country with their religious items, Christian visitors entered with their religious items visible. The customs guards claimed their restriction was for the Jews' own protection against terrorists. The Jews suggested a compromise, that they use their items for private prayer. Offer refused (IMRA, 8/14). The refusal indicates that the restriction was just bigotry. 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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TOWER HAMLETS (LONDON): NON-MUSLIMS TO OBSERVE RAMADAN, COMPULSORY FASTING
Posted by Simon McIlwaine, September 2, 2008. |
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This was written by Stephen Pollard and appeared September 1, 2008 in the Times |
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Later this month it's Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It's one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar, so I'd be obliged, please, if you'd all stay at home, turn off the TV and refrain from your usual activities. Ten days after that it's Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews fast and spend the day in synagogue. So I've also asked my Times colleagues not to work then. And I will be mightily offended if I learn afterwards that any of them have been eating. You might not think I am being serious. But if I was Head of Democratic Services at Tower Hamlets Council in East London, I would be. Last week John Williams e-mailed each of the borough's 51 councillors with a similar instruction. For the duration of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, they are, he told them — every one of them, Muslim, Catholic, Jew or atheist — to behave during council meetings as strict Muslims. They are not to eat or drink; they are to break for Muslim prayers; they are to do as they are ordered by the Muslim religion. Strict Muslims do not eat or drink between sunrise or sunset during Ramadan. Because sunset will fall during the meetings, there will be 45-minute adjournments so that councillors can break their fast and pray. And to make things easier, there will only be seven council meetings during the month. This is, let me remind you, happening not on Karachi borough council but in Tower Hamlets in London. As far as I am aware, the United Kingdom has not yet been absorbed into the Caliphate. The last time I checked, we allow citizens to practise all religions and none. If I wish to stuff my face with chocolate during the fasting hours of Ramadan, I will. And if you wish to go out for a slap-up lunch on Yom Kippur, you can feel free. Yet Mr Williams — he's the man with the "democratic services" label, a title so Orwellian that his existence simply had to involve promoting the opposite of democracy and service — appears to have concluded that Islamic practices must take precedence over any other practices. Instead of individual councillors being allowed to decide for themselves how they wish to behave during Ramadan, he is deciding for them. It should come as no surprise that it is not the borough's Muslim councillors who are demanding that their non-Muslim colleagues obey Islam. As almost always, it is a caricature liberal-left non-Muslim idiot who thinks he is being racially aware who does the real harm to race relations. Respect for religious practice can only be given voluntarily. Mr Williams's prescription leads only to anger. Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk |
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EARLY MORNING SOLITUDE IN JERUSALEM'S YEMIN MOSHE PARK
Posted by Yehoshua HaLevi, September 2, 2008. |
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Early Morning Solitude In Jerusalem's Yemin Moshe Park Yehoshua Halevi writes: "HOW I GOT THE SHOT:
Here, it was an easy choice, as I knew letting the trees go dark by metering the sunlit area would add drama to the image. The Yemin Moshe quarter and adjacent park is one of Jerusalem's most beautiful neighborhoods, although from this angle it could be anywhere in the world. The feeling of peace and solitude — one of the area's main characteristics — is emphasized by the empty paths and vacant benches. Like other modern cities, Jerusalem has its share of traffic, noise and pollution, so it's comforting to know there is an oasis of quiet one can escape to, whether for real or via an image hanging on the wall.
Contact Yehoshua Halevi by email at smile@goldenlightimages.com
and visit his website:
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URGENT!! STOP SECRET AGREEMENT!
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 1, 2008. |
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Read this and believe it. Many of us have been trying to tell you for a long time. Getting rid of Israel has been on the U.S. State Department agenda since before 1948. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, colluding with the Olmert government, are well on their way to accomplishing their goals. We have been betrayed by so many there is no room to make a list. Presently, it is the Olmert government, with Shas making a Faustian bargain with the devil. It goes back farther as we find Henry Heinz Kissinger playing a role. Under President George W. Bush and Rice, it is America who is paying for a crime against the Jews of Israel. Pass all of this on to your Congressmen, the Media and the Christian Zionists. See below articles from the Women in Green via the Unity Coalition for Israel; Hillel Fendel of Arutz 7; and Professor Barry Rubin's "Conspiracy to Shrink Israel". |
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On Fri, 8/29/08, Women in Green Momentous negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are taking place virtually unnoticed while we are preoccupied with United States elections.
A lame duck United States administration, very low in popularity polls, and an Israeli Prime Minister leaving office under a cloud of suspicion for corruption should not be making far-reaching Middle East policy decisions that will bind the next heads of State. Almost unnoticed by the media, the map of Israel is being dramatically altered.
The State Department with steady pressure from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is overseeing the demise of Israel. Twenty-two Arab countries are pushing for yet another Arab state to be carved out of the one and only tiny State of Israel. This is a recipe for Israeli self-destruction. Under the cover of U.S. presidential convention hoopla, Israel's future is quietly and surreptitiously being determined.
Please take a few minutes to send this important Urgent Action Alert to Prime Minister Olmert and the Knesset Members. Copies will also be sent to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, and the White House Jewish desk.
BACKGROUND ARTICLE: "Rice Visit: PA State Closer than Ever" by Hillel Fendel, Arutz-7, August 26, 2008
(IsraelNN.com) Negotiations between Israel and PA continue at a
"crazy" pace, agreement on dividing Jerusalem is "closer than ever,"
and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is pushing for a
nearly-complete agreement on a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria
by January. So reports Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily (WND).
Secretary Rice, completing a visit to the region today (Tuesday), has been pressing Israel to sign a document by the end of the year that would divide Jerusalem. Rice says Israel must agree to a Palestinian state capital in Jerusalem — Israel's own capital — and a full Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Despite official Israeli government denials, Jerusalem is thus very much on the negotiating table. The Shas Party, which has said it would quit the government if Jerusalem were to be negotiated, remains firmly in the government coalition.
The Rice Compromise: Israel Remains in Jerusalem for 1-5 Years
Klein quotes top diplomatic sources involved in the talks as saying that Rice has been pushing for a "compromise" between Israel and the PA that would involve Israel's withdrawal from eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City, within one to five years.
The Israeli team, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, is willing to conclude an agreement on a Palestinian state by the end of the year, but wants to leave talks to decide the fate of Jerusalem for a later date. The PA team, however, wants a deal by January on all core issues, including the Holy City.
The Rice compromise, the sources told WND, asks Israeli leaders to bend and agree to promise sections of Jerusalem to the PA — but not to actually withdraw before one to five years have passed. U.S. President George W. Bush would then, just days before his term in office ends, issue an official letter guaranteeing U.S. support for the agreement.
High Intensity Talks
WND's Aaron Klein quoted an unnamed Palestinian Authority negotiator saying that the intensity and frequency of Israeli-Palestinian talks in recent weeks have been "crazy," and that the sides have been meeting on a daily basis, usually at the highest levels. The negotiator further said Jerusalem is being discussed by both sides, and that the two teams are "closer than ever" on coming to an agreement on the status of the city. "This claim wasverified to WND by other diplomatic sources involved in the negotiations," Klein wrote.
Reports of the past few months say that the Olmert-Livni negotiators are prepared to give up well over 90% of Judea and Samaria, as well as land for a "safe passage" between those areas and Gaza. This, despite the results of the withdrawal from Gaza three years ago, which include the takeover of the area by Hamas and incessant rocket attacks on nearby Israeli areas.
To Participate in the Action Alert, click on the link below to view
the letter. You may use the letter as is or change anyway you like.
Prof. Barry Rubin Wrote "Morality and Enlightenment or Fear and
Greed?"
European countries and much of the elites there and in the United States claim that they sympathize with the Palestinians-or at least are far more critical of Israel-due to a sympathy with the underdog and a higher knowledge about how peace can be made and extremism defused. In fact they are motivated far more by fear (of being attacked themselves) and greed (for trade to the Arabic-speaking world and Iran).
Often, implicitly or explicitly, it is suggested that, ironically, the experience of Jewish persecution had brought about this contemporary hypersensitivity to the suffering of the helpless underdog. In fact, though, the motive is the same now as it was then: hypersensitivity to the power and wealth of the persecutors.
In this regard, during the worst of the suicide bombings on the streets of Israel, I wrote that anytime the European countries wanted to stop the terror in Israel, they could do so by withdrawing diplomatic and financial support from Arafat. This they never did.
The USA was similarly affected by this mentality. Amir Oren reports CIA papers show Arafat ordered murder of U.S. diplomats in Sudan. These papers were recently released.
Henry Kissinger instructed the CIA to continue diplomatic contacts with Yassir Arafat's PLO representatives before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, even after Arafat ordered the kidnapping and murder of the American ambassador and his deputy in Khartoum, Sudan.
The newly-released material contains, among other things, information on the Egyptian effort in the spring of 1973 to plead with the U.S., through Iranian channels, to reach a peace arrangement with Israel "on the basis of the Rogers plan," a withdrawal from the occupied territories captured in 1967 and placing them under international supervision.
In a telegram Helms sent Kissinger — then Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor — on July 5, 1973, Helms reported that King Hussein of Jordan told him that Jordanian intelligence had learned of a Syrian attack to recapture the Golan Heights originally planned for June, that had been delayed but could take place at any time soon. One of the Jordanian intelligence sources was the commander of a Syrian armored brigade, and the Jordanians had obtained a copy of the battle plans, which had been coordinated with Egypt and Iraq.
The most sensational revelation in the documents was the contents of the diplomatic negotiations held between Robert Ames of the CIA and the head of the Fatah's security apparatus, Ali Hassan Salameh, who was also the commander of the Fatah's Black September organization.
Since the contacts between the CIA and the Fatah were revealed, their purpose has been described as obtaining intelligence information to warn of terrorist attacks against Americans; but the Helms' documents reveal that Arafat sent Salameh to the talks without hiding his responsibility for killing American diplomats in Khartoum in March 1973. Ames also agreed to Salameh's requests and asked Washington about various diplomatic issues, such as the Nixon administration's intentions relating to Palestinian interests.
Salameh told Ames the PLO was working to topple King Hussein and establish a Palestinian state in Jordan. The response from Washington was: If the Palestinians want to negotiate a settlement, the U.S. would be happy to hear their proposals, but toppling existing governments through the use of force did not seem to be the most promising way.
Arafat, for his part, was unmoved: He threatened, via Ames, that he would burn Beirut if the Lebanese government acted against the PLO.
You will recall in my article The Conspiracy to Shrink Israel, I reported that, on December 17, 1975, Henry Kissinger met with Sadun Hammadi, Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs. A transcript of this meeting has been published which discloses Kissinger's attempts to assuage the concerns of Hammadi.
"Kissinger: I think, when we look at history, that when Israel was created in 1948, I don't think anyone understood it. It originated in American domestic politics. It was far away and little understood. So it was not an American design to get a bastion of imperialism in the area. It was much less complicated: And I would say that until 1973 the Jewish community had enormous influence. It is only in the last two years, as a result of the policy we are pursuing, that it has changed,
We don't need Israel for influence in the Arab world. On the contrary, Israel does us more harm than good in the Arab world
We can't negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions.
You mentioned new weapons. But they will not be delivered in the foreseeable future. All we agreed to is to study it, and we agreed to no deliveries out of current stocks. So many of these things won't be produced until 1980, and we have not agreed to deliver them then.
If the issue is the existence of Israe1, we can't cooperate. But if the issue is more normal borders, we can cooperate.
Aide: Your Excellency, do you think a settlement would come through the Palestinians in the area? 'How do you read it? Is it in your power to create such a thing?
Kissinger: Not in 1976. I have to be perfectly frank. I think the Palestinian identity has to be recognized in some form. But we need thoughtful cooperation of the Arabs. It will take a year or a year and to do it, and will be a tremendous fight. An evolution is already taking place.
Aide: You think it will be part of a solution?
Kissinger: It has to be. No solution is possible without it. But the domestic situation is becoming favorable. More and more questions are being asked in Congress favorable to the Palestinians.
Capitulation to terror didn't save the US from 911, Britain from the subway bombing, Ames from being the victim of a terror attack and so on.
Today the West continues to capitulate by trying to be politically correct rather than correct. Surrendering its values like free speech and the rule of law to Islam is just plain surrendering.
The war on terror was a phony war from the get go. It was concocted in order to avoid the real war, namely, the war on Islam.
It little profits a country to avoid terror if it loses its soul in the process.
Islam represents a bigger danger to the West than the USSR ever did. The West never surrendered to Communism but everyday and in every way it is surrendering to Islam. Think of the West as a frog on a pot of water which is being heated to boiling. The frog doesn't realize that its goose is being cooked and remains in the water to the end. Just as certainly, the West is allowing its goose to be cooked.
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 winston@winstonglobal.org |
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FROM ISRAEL: AN AGREEMENT NOT TO BE
Posted by Arlene Kushner, September 1, 2008. |
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According to Wafa Amir, writing for Reuters, Abbas told Olmert yesterday that the PA would not be part of any interim agreement. What is more, we're not just talking about an agreement for a September 17 deadline (which is what rumor had it Olmert was seeking). Saeb Erekat told reporters in Ramallah that Abbas was not keen on a trying to reach a preliminary peace deal by the end of the year just to accommodate Bush's calendar. This is not unexpected. Abbas may say he is reluctant to work according to calendar, but my betting is that he's reluctant to sign at all. Negotiating is in his best interest, signing is not. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Washington Post is echoing a similar refrain: "President Bush's goal of forging an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal within five months is looking increasingly unattainable. These days it's hard to find anyone optimistic about the deal's January 2009 target date, announced with great fanfare at a U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference nine months ago." ~~~~~~~~~~ According to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging the Iranian weapons industry because an attack on Iran by the US is coming in a matter of weeks and will hit sites where Dutch saboteurs would have been located. According to this report, the hits would come via unmanned aircraft. Reportedly the Dutch intelligence shared information with the CIA on targets such as launching equipment and parts for missiles (which at least at first blush makes it sound as if this wouldn't be primarily an attack on nuclear development sites). Is this true? I wouldn't put money on this, but who knows? The Jerusalem Post, which reported this, could not confirm the story. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to Al-Quds al-Arabi in London, Iran is mobilizing Islamic Jihad in Gaza — which is very much dependant on Iran — to sabotage the ceasefire. According to Maj. Gen. (res) Yaakov Amidror (whom I cited yesterday), the ceasefire is in Hamas's interest, as it is giving the terrorist group time to strengthen and mobilize. Thus Hamas — which is not as dependant upon Iran as IJ — would not hesitate to put down Islamic Jihad and is quite capable of doing so. ~~~~~~~~~~ And it's not only Hamas that is benefiting from the ceasefire with opportunity to strength. Maan, a Palestinian news service, reports that Al Aksa Brigades, which is part of Fatah (the "moderate" party) has just graduated a group of fighters in Gaza. Graduates had been trained in storming buildings and kidnapping soldiers; they demonstrated the launching of rocket-propelled grenades for the graduation ceremony. "Al-Aksa Brigades asserted that the graduation of a class of fighters sends a clear message to Israel that resistance is still a valid choice for freeing Palestinian lands and the Al-Aksa mosque."
You think Condoleezza Rice has heard about this? ~~~~~~~~~~ Just a word about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whom McCain has picked as his VP candidate: What do I know about her? Not enough yet. That she has a very good relationship with the Jews of Alaska, including the Chabad (Lubavitch) rabbi there. That she is tough and principled and would not likely be an appeaser of terrorists or eager to dialogue with Iran. That she put out a very highly supportive (but not remarkable) gubernatorial declaration of support for Israel. But what I do know is that the more I am learning about Biden, the more uneasy he is making me. It started with his soft-pedaling the threat that Iran represents. The Post has just carried a report saying that Israeli security officials are troubled by statements on Iran he is alleged to have made. And I have since learned that he once threatened cuts in aid to Israel because of our settlements. This is not encouraging. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info |
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INCIDENT AT A ROADBLOCK
Posted by Barry Rubin, September 1, 2008. |
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Almost exactly 20 years ago I was getting into a taxi around 2am at the Algerian airport. I had agreed to share the cab with two Angolan radio journalists exhausted after their long, roundabout flight via Paris to head off to the Palestinian National Council (PNC) meeting I was covering as a reporter. The driver wanted over $100 and we were angry at what seemed a rip-off. But assured by Algerian officials that the hotel was far away — it was — we agreed and off we sped through the night. About 45 minutes later, suddenly, in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, we hit an army roadblock. A soldier pointed his automatic weapon straight at my head while a lieutenant asked who we were and where we were going. The driver said we were important journalists going to the PNC meeting. If so, asked the officer, where were our press credentials? The cabbie correctly answered that we would only get them when we arrived at the hotel. Uh-oh. No credentials; no go. We sat and sat while the officer checked for orders. Suddenly, one of the Angolans — discomfited by his weariness and uncomfortable metal leg brace — freaked out and began screaming at the soldiers. Important note: when a nervous, under-trained soldier of a dictatorship has a gun pointed at you, don't upset him unnecessarily. Fortunately, things calmed down and finally the lieutenant returned with permission to go on our way. He apologized to us passengers explaining, "We must be very careful, you know, because there are Zionist agents everywhere." I couldn't resist responding generously, "Thank you very much lieutenant. Those Zionist agents certainly are everywhere and we appreciate you protecting us from them." Compared to that experience, the PNC meeting was almost an anticlimax. But those it is forgotten today — even by the PLO, which says something in itself — the conference would end with the declaration of an independent Palestinian state. Today, two decades later, there is no such state. But there could have been. The reason why there isn't has very little to do with Israel and a lot to do with Palestinian and Arab politics. Briefly, the PNC was called on to pass a simple resolution — mere words — saying that it accepted Israel's existence and would stop using terrorism. In exchange, it was promised U.S. and international help to receive a state. A few weeks later, Yasir Arafat, with obvious resentment, mumbled a couple of sentences which the U.S. government and many others were able to leap upon as proof of his new-found moderation and willingness to make a compromise peace. But Arafat, and the PLO, didn't think that promise was worth keeping no matter what the proffered reward. There were too many who wanted to believe, however, and to discount all evidence to the contrary. The State Department explained away 23 terrorist attacks on the ludicrous grounds that they were launched by PLO member groups, not the PLO itself. The charade only ended with a major attack attempt — ironically, on a beach I was headed toward at that moment — that Arafat clearly knew about and refused to condemn. Thus, in 1990, Round One of the peace process ended. The story of Round Two, the Oslo process, in the 1993-2000 period is better known, though there are those who still don't comprehend how Arafat killed that one — and consequently a lot of Israelis and Palestinians — too. Today, with the U.S. government promising peace now despite the ridiculously inaccurate assessment of the situation might be called Round Three. People want to believe and they don't want to fight. They assume that moderation is inevitable, that the "oppression" and "grievances" of the Palestinians should lead them eagerly to grab at some way out of their dilemma, and so on. Anyone puncturing this dream is easily portrayed as mean and even evil. The problem is that they cannot be portrayed as wrong. There are many reasons why the Palestinian leadership is uninterested in compromise and the masses go along with them: misunderstanding of Israel, religious and nationalist ideology, systematic misinformation, and so on. One, however, deserves special attention because it is so neglected and yet so important. Western civilization has developed around "win-win" situations. The assumption is that people would rather have part of the cake than to starve; are ready to compromise to avoid suffering. Yet Western society was not always like this. In the past, it was mostly — and in more recent times, often — guided by a "zero-sum game" mentality. One side wins; one side loses. There is no middle ground. You must dominate and grind down others because, if you don't, they will do it to you. And it is good to have your enemy hate you because it means that he fears you. As the Greek historian Thucydides recounted, the Athenians — remembered mainly today as the creators of moderate democracy — explained to the Melians, just before killing their men and selling their women and children into slavery: "If we were on friendly terms with [a different] people who should be subject, our other subjects would regard it as a sign of weakness in us, whereas your hatred is evidence of our power." And this is how Middle East politics still works in the Arabic-speaking world and Iran: total victory is possible, right, and inevitable. Better to suffer for a hundred years than to give up one inch. Indeed, many in the Middle East are ready to fight and die on the basis of this principle. A U.S. official once told me the following story from his personal experience. The United States made available a special fund for environmental programs and offered it to Egypt and Israel, after they made peace, to clean up the Gulf of Eilat in cooperation with each other. Israel quickly accepted, but a high-ranking Egyptian official explained that his government must reject the plan. "But it will be good for you, too," explained the well-intentioned American. "That doesn't matter," the Egyptian answered. "We can't do anything that would benefit Israel." When win-win (WW) and zero-sum (ZS) come together the negotiating process is something like the following: * ZS: We demand 100 percent! This is the history of Israel-Palestinian negotiations, of talks about Iran's nuclear drive, attempts to deal with Hamas or Hizballah, and diplomatic exchanges with Syria. All fail for very real reasons. But refusing to understand the fundamental problem, these failures are interpreted differently: not enough was offered, cultural sensitivities were disregarded, the table was shaped wrong, the democratic side did not prove its good intentions sufficiently. And then of course the Western WW priesthood blames their own governments — be they American, European, or Israeli — for the failure, becoming all the more determined to make it work next time with the Palestinians, Syria, or Iran, or any and all Arab or Islamic states or groups that follow the ZS model. They ignore experience, evidence, and the fact that giving everything — in many cases to movements seeking total state power and the extinction of their adversaries — would make things far worse. Consciously, they cannot admit that an easy solution lies just out of reach, and they live in an era dominated by an ideology which only permits Westerners to blame the West for anything that goes wrong. Political correctness assumes that all people think alike (except when non-Westerners are better); that understanding the shortcomings of the others is just bigotry toward the "Other;" that classifies accurate perceptions as racist and imperialistic; that treating different cultures as innocent children rather than as entities having their own beliefs, structures, and goals is to do them honor. Such an approach is at worst suicidal, at best set for inevitable failures. Ironically, of course, it hurts Middle Eastern peoples as much or more than it injures Western ones. Just think, there could have been a Palestinian state celebrating its double-digit anniversary right about now. And a lot of people who are dead would be alive. I think about my experience at that Algerian road block now and then. At least that was a road block that everyone can see. There are many roadblocks that seem quite invisible to supposedly great minds. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and "Hating America: A History" (Oxford University Press). His latest book is The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. Contact him at profbarryrubin@yahoo.com |
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TERROR PAYS, CAPITULATION DOESN'T
Posted by Ted Belman, September 1, 2008. |
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The seventies were witness to the Munich Massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes, the Yom Kippur War, the oil embargo, the PLO terrorist attacks on international airlines and airports, and finally the appearance of gun-toting Yasser Arafat before the General Assembly of the United Nations. Bat Yeor studied this decade and set out her thesis of what was going on in Europe vis a vis the Arabs in her ground-breaking book Eurasia. Prof Paul Eidelberg summarized what it meant for Israel. 1) European policy would be independent from, and opposed to that of the United States; Essentially Europe sold out its independence to the Arabs to avoid terror and a cessation of oil supplies. It agreed to the Islamification of Europe and to adopting the Arab narrative regarding the Palestinian cause. Recently, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed that the government of Italy agreed to allow Arab terrorist groups freedom of movement in the country in exchange for immunity from attacks in Italy. Cossiga wrote that the government of the late Prime Minister Aldo Moro reached a "secret non-belligerence pact between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups," in the 1970s. Germany also capitulated to Arab demands at this time by releasing the Arab terrorists from jail that were captured in the aftermath of Munich Massacre. It only took a month. Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com |
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NEW CHELM IN JERUSALEM
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 1, 2008. |
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This was written by Sarah Honig. It appeared August 28, 2008 in
the Jerusalem Post
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The Jewish state has already had several trial runs. The most noteworthy was in mythical Chelm, which was governed by its own inimitable system of logic. So is New Chelm — aka Israel. The original Chelm's town fathers, for example, were intent on deploying a formidable security force to daunt evildoers like the pesky burglar who prowled the narrow alleys after dark. The burly constable they employed soon apprehended the miscreant and forced him to stand in the corner until all inspection rounds were completed. Needless to say, the thief took flight. However, upon returning to the scene of the crime the next night, he was again taken into custody. This time his ankle was tied to a lamppost. Yet as the relentless cop pounded the beat, he lost his man once more. On the third night the determined lawman simply took the recidivist along with him on patrol. But then the felon's cap fell and rolled away in the wind. He proposed to go after it. The savvy policeman, though, took no more chances and ran to retrieve the loss all by himself. Left on his own, the detainee made his getaway. Not to worry. The story had a happy ending. The grateful town council rewarded the officer's tenaciousness with a cash prize, a citation of merit and a promotion for catching an outlaw every night.
IN ISRAEL we do things true to the Chelm prototype, though on a far larger, existentially-threatening scale. We send out soldiers and members of the security forces on perilous missions to nab dangerous terrorists. Valiantly risking their lives, our men capture the villains, who are then duly brought to justice and given every break which our scrupulous due process offers. They are sentenced only following fair conviction by our uber-tolerant courts. Behind bars their conditions enable them to further their education, indulge in hobbies, wed, receive conjugal visits, procreate and commission more terror onslaughts. They can also derive solace from the realization that they won't end their days in durance vile, no matter how heinous their crimes. Our system deters sadistic slayers every bit as terrifyingly as the above fabled defender of Chelm's citizenry frightened the malefactor he routinely arrested. Bestial brutes know they'll be sprung sooner or later. It may be because their accomplices on the outside take hostages or because the Chelmites at Israel's helm volunteer to pay ransom a priori — before innocents are kidnapped. The unassailable Chelm rationale is that prophylactic measures obviate the enemy's need to abduct Israelis; they get what they want without having to bother with the mess of seizing captives. Chelmite policy-makers — like the flawlessly wise and always self-assured Tzipi Livni — refuse to so much as contemplate the uncharitable notion that shedding Jewish blood, cruelly torturing Israeli families and exploiting New Chelm's proclivity to tearjerker mawkishness are irresistibly tempting terrorist goals in themselves.
AND SO Livni and crew yammer to the utter satisfaction of all Chelm intellects that setting loose those who had murdered, or whose murderous schemes were temporarily frustrated, is nothing but "a goodwill gesture" because we're getting absolutely nothing in return. If one set of bandits (Hamas) holds an Israeli hostage, then neo-Chelmites pay off the rival gang (Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah) lest it be disadvantaged by the fact that the more effectively aggressive mob stands to gain by its malfeasance and enhance its prestige. Jerusalem makes sure that the extortionist abilities of the less-thriving thugs aren't outmatched. In Chelmite parlance this is called "encouraging moderation." Still, confoundingly, the recipients of Israeli beneficence don't exude gratitude or extol our sophisticated broadmindedness. They know us for the Chelm fools that we repeatedly and indisputably prove ourselves to be. After all, Israel keeps funding Hamastan and paying absconded treason-suspect Azmi Bishara's Knesset pension. Hence Abbas presses on with his aggrieved victim pose, claiming to have elicited only a negligible fraction of what's his by right and to deserve much more. His pseudo-moral indignation is way more persuasive than New Chelm's liberal largesse.
NOWHERE IN foreign media reports is it mentioned that 149 of the 198 terrorists released Monday were involved in attempts to slaughter Israelis. The fact that not all plots succeeded isn't for any lack of homicidal ambition on the conspirators' parts. Many haven't served even half (many not a quarter and others not a third) of their sentences. Some of those sent up for long stretches are getting out after less than a year. So far, bedeviling "goodwill" has sprung 1,000 terror convicts for Abbas's sake. Hundreds more are slated to be let out by the end of the year. Although bloodthirsty fanatics who haven't done their time are free to return heroically to their gory pastimes, the abiding impression abroad is that the hobnailed oppressors from New Chelm have only grudgingly and marginally diminished injustice by freeing too-few noble prisoners of conscience. So what if Ibrahim Mahmad (aka Muhammad Abu Ali) — who killed yeshiva student Yehoshua Saloma in Hebron and later callously slit the throat of a fellow inmate he accused of collaboration — doesn't quite fit the Amnesty profile of nonviolent idealists incarcerated for their beliefs? The world's news-purveyors choose to depict Abu Ali as a martyred saint and Livni's Chelm as the tyrannical baddie.
LIVNI AND fellow Chelmites should have known there would be no accolades for their imbecility. The persistent implied bottom line overseas is that terrorists in Israeli prisons aren't there justly but are held illegitimately. Not only is Israel censured for any feeble self-defense, but it mustn't even punish the most despicable of barbarians, whose records are never examined — as if they were nothing but propaganda sheets. Foreigners don't much care what atrocities were perpetrated here. Why should they, if Chelm's suckers pooh-pooh them as forgettable bygones and regard convicts as fungible currency with which to bankroll politically expedient deals? By Chelmite reckoning such "reasonableness" will unilaterally strengthen pragmatism among Israel's implacable enemies. It'll surely show, as Livni stated, that "Israel doesn't only free prisoners in response to force, thereby broadcasting weakness and capitulation to pressure. We want to signal to the other side that abductions aren't the only method to get results from Israel. We want to demonstrate that there are other ways to get results." In Livni's Chelmite lexicon "results" mean allowing genocidal killers to escape justice. Under one circumstance or another, Israel owes its assorted enemies "results" and must pay. In New Chelm, lulling respites come at a steep price, but the wise don't pinch pennies. It's prudent to try to preempt any future emergency. They used to do that in Old Chelm all the time. Like when the aforementioned thief made off with the new safety railings mounted on the town's rickety antiquated bridge. The constable no longer bothered pursuing him because he always escaped anyhow. Meanwhile, carts and buggies tumbled down into the ravine below. There were casualties. Nevertheless, Chelm's dependable leaders knew how to handle the crisis. They built a hospital directly beneath the crippled bridge.
Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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GAZA TERRORISTS THANKFUL: MORE ROOM TO PREP TO KILL JEWS
Posted by Barbara Taverna, September 1, 2008. |
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This was written by Aaron Klein, WND Jerusalem Bureau Chief,
and it appeared August 31, 2008 in World
Net Daily
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Boasting gunman: 'We never had this space, these possibilities while the Zionists were here' 11-year-old Muhammad declares: "I am learning how to fight the Jews and kill Jewish children." (Ynetnews) JERUSALEM — In what some may view as a complete turning of the tables, several major Palestinian terrorist organizations this past weekend staged what they called military training exercises on the grounds of Gush Katif, the former slate of Jewish communities inside the Gaza Strip that were uprooted by Israel three years ago. The exercises were aimed at preparing for attacks against Israel, said terrorist leaders. "The old (Jewish) settlements gave the Palestinian resistance enough space to have big trainings. We never had this space and these possibilities when the Zionists were in Gaza," Abu Muhammad, a senior Gaza-based leader of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, told WND in an interview. "The resistance is having a second benefit from chasing the Jews from Gaza. [This weekend's exercise] was proof of the big victory, using land they were occupying for training in preparing us for our next great victory," Abu Muhammad said. The terrorist said there were currently "serious bases, serious camps, storage for arms and tools" now located in Gush Katif. On Saturday, Islamic Jihad staged a military parade in Gush Katif that reportedly included training drills for group members. Abu Muhammad said those drills stressed Hezbollah-like guerilla operations, such as exercises in raiding Israel's border with Gaza and kidnapping of Israeli troops; shooting practice using automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs; and explosives testing. He said Islamic Jihad was using a cease-fire with Israel, forged last June, to stock up on weapons and increase the range of the group's rockets, which for three years have devastated Jewish towns located near Gaza. He claimed his group now possesses "hundreds" of improved rockets that place "all the Israelis south" within range. Also this weekend, the Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization showcased its own training in the evacuated Gaza Jewish town of Kfar Darom, which previously housed tree-lined Jewish streets replete with synagogues and Jewish seminaries. Notable about the Committees training was that it included dozens of boys between the ages of nine and twelve, according to Committees leaders. The Ynet News Israeli website featured an interview with one young Committees recruit, an 11-year-old boy named Muhammad pictured holding an assault rifle. "I am learning how to fight the Jews and kill Jewish children," Muhammad told Ynet News. "I would rather die fighting the occupation than die at home from a missile, which is what happened to hundreds of Palestinian children." Committees terror group spokesman Muhammad Abdel-Al, also known as Abu Abir, told WND yesterday his group was not brainwashing children. "We are not educating them on hatred. This is our strategy — to turn all the Palestinian people into weapons of resistance," Abdel-Al said when questioned about his group's use of boys. Israel evacuated Gush Katif's nearly 10,000 Jewish residents during the country's retreat under fire from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Following Israel's capture of Gaza in the 1967 Six Day War, during which Egypt used the territory to attack the Jewish state, successive Israeli governments over the years urged thousands of Israelis to move to Gaza and build communities there. Prior to Israel's 2005 retreat, many Palestinian terror groups announced they would use the territory to stage attacks against Israel. For the past three years, thousands of rockets have been fired by Palestinians in Gaza aimed at nearby Jewish communities. Contact Barbara Taverna at bltaverna@yahoo.com |
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OBAMA'S ALINSKY JUJITSU
Posted by Bryna Berch, September 1, 2008. |
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Now with Obama taking credit for being a community organizer, it would be good to read what he real was: a community agitator. His object was political, not the welfare of the patsies he enlisted. This article was written by Kyle-Anne Shiver and appeared in the January 8 2008 American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/obamas_alinsky_jujitsu.html Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. Shiver writes on politics and domestic issues. Visit her website at www.kyleanneshiver.com. |
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If I were the least bit prone to gratuitous sympathy, I would be tempted now to feel quite sorry for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Poor, poor woman. She was quite nearly brought to all-out tears yesterday in New Hampshire, as she soliloquized over the sad state of her drooping campaign and how completely personal this is for her. Barack Obama seems to have effortlessly achieved voter adoration, fresher, younger, more at ease within his own skin than she will ever be. He would appear to be as much a natural as her own Bill. It may appear to a great many observers that Barrack Obama is just one incredibly audacious, even lucky, albeit frighteningly charismatic dude. These personal qualities are not the sole reason he is where he is, and I suspect the wily Mrs. Clinton knows this full well. I suspect it must bother her that Obama also appears to have mastered the playbook used by her own political teacher, the legendary amoral guru of left wing activism, Saul Alinksy. Hillary has met not only her match in Alinsky tactics, she has met the master of bloodless socialist revolution, in my opinion. Obama's Alinsky Lessons Barack Obama had just graduated from Columbia and was looking for a job. Some white leftists were looking for someone who could recruit in a black neighborhood in the south side of Chicago. Obama answered a help-wanted ad for a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Obama was 24 years old, unmarried, very accustomed to a vagabond existence, and according to his memoir, searching for a genuine African-American community. Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to "rub raw the sores of discontent," in Alinsky's words. One of Obama's early mentors in the Alinsky method was Mike Kruglik, who had this to say to an Ryan Lizza of The New Republic, about Obama: "He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better." The agitator's job, according to Alinsky, is first to bring folks to the "realization" that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations will see imminent "self-interest" in granting whatever it is that will cause the harassment to cease. In these methods, euphemistically labeled "community organizing," Obama had a four-year education, which he often says was the best education he ever got anywhere. Is it any wonder, then, that Obama's Alinsky Jujitsu is making mincemeat of the woman who merely interviewed Alinsky, wrote about him, and spent the next 30 years in corporate law and in the lap of taxpayer-funded luxury in government mansions? Obama Not Starry-Eyed Like His Followers Alinsky considered himself a realist above all, the ultimate pragmatist. As a confirmed atheist, Alinsky believed that the here and now is all there is, and therefore had no qualms about assorted versions of morality in the pursuit of worldly power. He didn't coddle his radical acolytes or encourage their bourgeois distinctions between good and evil when it came to transferring power from the Haves to the Have Nots. Alinsky saw the already formed church communities as being the perfect springboards for agitation and creating bonds for demanding goods and services. When Obama first undertook his agitating work in Chicago's South Side poor neighborhoods, he was un-churched. Yet his office was in a Church and most of the folks he needed to agitate and organize were Church people — pastors and congregants — who took their churches and their church-going very seriously. So, this became a problem for the young agnostic, who had been exposed to very little religion in his life. Again and again, he was asked by pastors and church ladies, "Where do you go to Church, young man?" It was a question he dodged for a while, but finally he relented and joined a church. Not just any church, but a huge black nationalist church with a pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who unabashedly preaches a "black" gospel. Rolling Stone Magazine ran with a story on Obama and his church, entitled, "Destiny's Child," which included this excerpt from one of Rev. Wright's sermons: "Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he intones. This doesn't sound like any church in which I've ever worshipped, but perhaps I have led a sheltered life. Reverend Wright, whom Obama called his spiritual mentor and still claims is his sounding board, has taken trips abroad with none other than Louis Farrakhan. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan received the "Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright,Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer" Award at the 2007 Trumpet Gala at the the United Church of Christ. Wright was even reported to be a former Muslim. One might be led to wonder if this "church" isn't all it makes itself out to be. Among some of the black nationalist signs hanging in this church are a list of admonishments to black solidarity, called the "Black Value System," and a sort of moral code calling for the "Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness." I don't recall the Ten Commandments or anything at all in the Gospel about race, so this seems a bit strange. But Obama isn't starry-eyed when it comes to protecting himself from the possibility of bad press regarding his church affiliation. When he was preparing to announce his campaign for the Presidency in February, he called his minister, Reverend Wright, the night before and disinvited him to stand on the podium in front of all the cameras. Rather than face questions, he simply eliminated the target, a perfect Alinsky action meant to forestall an enemy reaction. Hillary should have known what she was up against when she read up on how Obama won his state senate seat in Illinois. Obama had returned to Chicago and practiced civil rights law for 3 years, when he spied an opportunity to run for the state senate. A longtime, widely-revered matron of the civil rights movement named Alice Palmer had held the seat for a number of years, but she announced that she wanted to run for Congress. So, Obama seized the opportunity and proclaimed his intention to run for Alice's open seat. Well, Alice lost the congressional race and decided that she wanted to hang onto that hard-won state senate seat. Most of the community leaders tried to persuade Obama to withdraw and wait his turn; he was a newcomer after all. Instead Obama performed his first real act of political jujitsu. He sent his aides to the courthouse to carefully examine all of Alice Palmer's signatures to see if enough could be disallowed to knock her off the ballot altogether. And indeed, some of Alice's signatures were fake. The aides also found enough other fake signatures on opponents' ballot initiatives to knock them off the ballot as well. By the time Barack Obama walked handily into his state senate seat, everyone there knew him as "the man who knocked off Alice Palmer." Quite a feat indeed for the newcomer, the young whippersnapper with the odd name. Perhaps Hillary will win some states and stay in the game a while longer, but I fear this knight with his adoring, fawning followers is just too slick for her and ole Bill, and he seems to know how to play Alinsky ends-and-means hardball without actually breaking the law. |
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INTERESTING VIDEOS FOR THE MONTH
Posted by Different Readers, September 2008. |
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From Marc Samberg, September 29, 2008 Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West There are 10 parts. The first is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMLJJEDDDGc From Boris Celser, September 27, 2008 VIDEO/Pat Condell on Islam's war on freedom. To quote him, "Free speech is not a bargaining chip. It's not something for lawyers to dissect to their advantage or for politicians to trade away for cheap votes." Unbelievable what they sing in a church ...in Portugal. Catholics singing "Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai Ehad"" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWDn4jDUYso From Ari Arbramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel
"Comedian Jackie Mason on Obama and Jews"
From David Ha'Ivri, Head of America Desk, The Shomron International Liaison Office This video is to open a window to Samaria http://yeshuv.blogspot.com/2008/09/open-window-to-shomron.html From Gabrielle Goldwater, September 7, 2008 Good Bye, Europe ... Islam has taken You Over! Prepare to wave good-bye to Britain and say hello to the Islamic-loving caliphate. Margaret Thatcher had so much balls in retrospect. I bet she is sad to see this crap indeed. .... September 2008 — The Prime Minister's message: This is no longer idiocy beyond despair. This is treason! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV13aziuzz4&eurl=http://pointdebasculecanada.ca/spip.php?article588 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSHcTCKymdE&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEAdxqq3ITU&feature=related And here are Pat Condell's comments about the universal message of peace ... (UN and Human Rights) Islam's war on freedom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIq7tsVvEoY&feature=related From UCI, September 3, 2008 This excellent video features Elyakim HaEtzni, eloquent lawyer, former Knesset member and prominent spokesman for the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria. The presentation concerns an immediate and vital issue: the pressure by Israeli and world leaders to promote the creation of a Palestinian state. View "SAVING THE WHOLE STATE OF ISRAEL" http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/video/Elyakim_Haetzni.htm" From Dan Cali, September 3, 2008 Newt Gingrich says wake up America! http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/08/gingrich/archives/oldindex.html#cnnSTCVideo |
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